Hresvelg
2007
This is probably one of the most charming and relaxing games I've played. The characters and dialogues are fantastic, the storyline is intriguing from beginning to end and delivered as a really good slow burn. The graphical presentation is also simply phenomenal. Hotel Dusk is a satisfying experience that I didn't want to end and just a damn good read.
Nintendo stays determined to ruin every Mario sports game.
2017
The visuals and art direction of this is really incredible. The game is less scary but more unsettling and grotesque at the same time, which I enjoyed immensely. Little Nightmares is an atmospheric puzzle-platformer done right. I'm glad it doesn't rely on random jumpscares or gore for shock value, because it doesn't need to. This game is just hideous and morbid from start to finish and it's wonderful. I wish it was a bit longer though.
While it's certainly not perfect, I had an absolute blast playing this. The action is intense, dramatic and totally ridiculous, which I absolutely loved. It's been a while since I played a game where I loved every second I played of it. The swordplay is just so satisfying and addicting. I mean, you can cut your enemies into a hundred pieces and then rip their electric heart form their chest, what's there not to love? This game proves once again that Platinum can make an over the top crazy action game, because this is one of the best Hack n 'slash I've played. Revengeance is an action game that indulges your greatest power fantasies and it really makes me wish there were more games like this.
2021
Maglam Lord combines a handful of genres into one package, but I honestly wish it didn't. When the game is sticking to its visual novel elements, it’s pretty enjoyable.
You can choose the gender of the Protagonist, choose your reactions and responses and build relationships with your party members. The game even offers you same-sex relationships, which boostered my enjoyment. The story is lighthearted and the characters are simple but still fun.
Unfortunately this is only half of the game. The other half is a laughably bad action-RPG. The dungeon designs are dull and the combat is lackluster and poorly realised. The visual novel elements together with the story and characters really carried the game.
You can choose the gender of the Protagonist, choose your reactions and responses and build relationships with your party members. The game even offers you same-sex relationships, which boostered my enjoyment. The story is lighthearted and the characters are simple but still fun.
Unfortunately this is only half of the game. The other half is a laughably bad action-RPG. The dungeon designs are dull and the combat is lackluster and poorly realised. The visual novel elements together with the story and characters really carried the game.
2021
Pretty disappointing game to be honest.
Let's start with the positives. Graphics are in line with current standards and it's full of voice acting. The combat doesn't start out great, but after unlocking new abilities through leveling and bonds, it gets kind of fun.
But all of the above is not nearly enough to get through the dull dialogue and cutscenes. The game starts out throwing way too many one-note boring characters at you that its hard to find the will to care, and by the time I do have them all sorted out, I find myself not caring about any of them and their mostly lifeless dialogue.
When I realised that I was skipping most of the cutscenes to just get the game over with I dropped it. I didn't care anymore and the dialogue was too painfully boring to slog through any further. The different zones were also all very linear and boring.
Scarlet Nexus is a game with a fun combat system that is dragged down by nearly every other aspect and thus failed to keep me interested in any way.
Let's start with the positives. Graphics are in line with current standards and it's full of voice acting. The combat doesn't start out great, but after unlocking new abilities through leveling and bonds, it gets kind of fun.
But all of the above is not nearly enough to get through the dull dialogue and cutscenes. The game starts out throwing way too many one-note boring characters at you that its hard to find the will to care, and by the time I do have them all sorted out, I find myself not caring about any of them and their mostly lifeless dialogue.
When I realised that I was skipping most of the cutscenes to just get the game over with I dropped it. I didn't care anymore and the dialogue was too painfully boring to slog through any further. The different zones were also all very linear and boring.
Scarlet Nexus is a game with a fun combat system that is dragged down by nearly every other aspect and thus failed to keep me interested in any way.
2023
Do you like Genshin? Do you like Vtubers? Do you like FEH? Here’s all of that!
So this is the supposedly latest "mainline" game in this franchise. I know Engage is allegedly a game celebrating
the 30th anniversary of FE, but that's even worse. Bold move celebrating the 30th anniversary of FE with a game that doesn't look like FE at all.
FE always looked like anime and followed the latest trends in artstyle etc, but all character designs still had a coherent theme. The medieval europe aesthetic was always a big influence. Even in a horny game like Fates (even the Hoshido desgins were coherent for the aesthetics of the nation). Ignoring the fanservice most designs looked decent (though there were some stinkers like Peri).
But Engage looks like it has no theme at all. It's just "fantasy" and goofy. The character designs are all over the place like they're all from different fantasy gacha games.
These designs seem like a perfect blend of every currrent day anime design trope and it just looks soulless as a result.
This artstyle is by far the worst the series has ever seen, and it makes me appreciate Three Houses, SoV, Path of Radiance etc. all the more. You know what actually bothers me the most, more than just disliking the aesthetics of the designs? All the women I see look like goddamn kids and suffer from same face syndrome. And my god, the 3D models in general look absolutely atrocious. Even the past lords look like shit in this game's style. Engage is certainly more colorful, but that's honestly it. The textures in Engage are another problem, they're mostly not there. The textures on everything are so flat. Everything looks so artificial because of it. FE3H was not a good looking game but I expected more from a game that released nearly 4 years later.
This game looks like a dollar store genshin that collabs with FE, but at least the Genshin characters look coherent for the themes and aesthetics of the nation they come from.
Colgate and friends look like a travelling circus. I remember when some pictures of this game leaked some time ago and people were 100% convinced that this was a chinese bootleg FE gacha, because of course they would.
Well, let's talk about the gameplay. It's FE so the gameplay was bound to be fun. People say that Engage is going back to its roots because the game "focuses more on the
tactical gameplay than the story, lore and characters". While it's true that Engage offers more variety in the tactical side of things, it still falls flat since the game is lacking some kind of balance. Thanks to the rings units are broken from the start. The problem is, to balance against this, you’d need to have absurdly difficult enemy units, who would invalidate all non-ring using characters and they didn't do that. Though, there are units/classes that are broken in general, so clearing maps wasn't really challenging. Engage offers average FE gameplay with some neat battle animation updates. There are some improvements, but also some step backs. But hey, at least we got weapon triangle back, right?
This is by far one of the easiest FE game I've played. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is fun but it's not "more challenging" than the past games in that regard. Also, Engage got new game modes and mechanics that are straight up from FEH and I'm not a fan.
The story...exists. Most FE stories aren't really all that unique but can still be enjoyed as political dramas on surface level for most of the time (I greatly enjoyed PoR, Thracia and 3H)
Engage's plot is the most vanilla, over the top anime story in this franchise and I mean this in a bad way. Yeah, it's even more "anime" than Fates. The story simply does not live up to previous installments in the series writing-wise.
Oh and Emblem heroes don't factor much into the plot at all, even Marth.
Also, I hate the "but FE was always anime!!!" argument. Yeah, no shit. Anime can have different genres, artstyle and a difference in tone and groundedness. Not every modern anime has to look like a generic moe harem isekai. Because you know, even "anime" can be serious. And it's not like the series cannot try to do that these days - see SoV and 3H. Now, I'm not against lighthearted plots in this franchise, but Engage's plot is just a joke that overstays its welcome way too long. It's been a while since I cringed so many times while playing a game.
The cast is also the most forgettable one. None of the characters felt unique or interesting in any way. Everyone here is meant to either be a laugh, a bland stereotype, or combination of the two. So, tiresome one-note gimmicks whose character profile never left the draft drawer but was put into the game anyway. Supports heavily focus on the character's gimmicks, which got annoying very fast. The supports are not engaging in any way. It's quantity over quality. All of them are very short, but I appreciate that they fully voiced all of them.
Honestly, the only reason I played this game is because I love Fire Emblem and wanted to give this game a chance. I enjoy FE gameplay, but even good gameplay can get tedious and boring if I don't care about the rest of the game. After finishing a map, I got rewarded with more over the top anime crap and meh characters. I was just not invested enough because of that and hated my time with it as a result. See, I love plenty of gameplay-focused games. The issue is that Engage isn't structured like a gameplay-focused game, it's structured like a game with a shit story featuring shitty characters. Does it give you a rough outline of a story to then let you play freely with no distraction? No. It's not a dungeon crawler, it's not XCOM, it's a very classic FE game with tons of character introductions and interactions that are wasting your time, they're just bad. I can't just admit the game's writing is so shit that it's better to skip every cutscene and call that "gameplay-focused", it's clearly a failure and not the intended experience. That was the worst experience I had with a FE game.
The only interesting thing about Engage are the past lords but if I want to see them I just play their games, where they look decent and not like...this. They're also not even able to
interact with each other or are all that relevant in the story, so whats the point of this "celebration"? That you'll point at your favorite lords and clap? That's what FEH is for. This game that shoves in generic anime designs, gags, lines, acting, same baby face women, and non fitting outfits and other elements is for me the worst FE game. I hope the next one will be better, because this was very disappointing after FE3H's big success. I understand that Engage is supposed to be a goofy and lighthearted "celebration" of this franchise, but why is it mainline? And why is it done so bad? There are many other and better ways to celebrate this franchise that I came to really love. But not like this. It's nothing more than a soulless cashgrab.
(The game leaked a few days ago, so I had the chance to play it early.)
So this is the supposedly latest "mainline" game in this franchise. I know Engage is allegedly a game celebrating
the 30th anniversary of FE, but that's even worse. Bold move celebrating the 30th anniversary of FE with a game that doesn't look like FE at all.
FE always looked like anime and followed the latest trends in artstyle etc, but all character designs still had a coherent theme. The medieval europe aesthetic was always a big influence. Even in a horny game like Fates (even the Hoshido desgins were coherent for the aesthetics of the nation). Ignoring the fanservice most designs looked decent (though there were some stinkers like Peri).
But Engage looks like it has no theme at all. It's just "fantasy" and goofy. The character designs are all over the place like they're all from different fantasy gacha games.
These designs seem like a perfect blend of every currrent day anime design trope and it just looks soulless as a result.
This artstyle is by far the worst the series has ever seen, and it makes me appreciate Three Houses, SoV, Path of Radiance etc. all the more. You know what actually bothers me the most, more than just disliking the aesthetics of the designs? All the women I see look like goddamn kids and suffer from same face syndrome. And my god, the 3D models in general look absolutely atrocious. Even the past lords look like shit in this game's style. Engage is certainly more colorful, but that's honestly it. The textures in Engage are another problem, they're mostly not there. The textures on everything are so flat. Everything looks so artificial because of it. FE3H was not a good looking game but I expected more from a game that released nearly 4 years later.
This game looks like a dollar store genshin that collabs with FE, but at least the Genshin characters look coherent for the themes and aesthetics of the nation they come from.
Colgate and friends look like a travelling circus. I remember when some pictures of this game leaked some time ago and people were 100% convinced that this was a chinese bootleg FE gacha, because of course they would.
Well, let's talk about the gameplay. It's FE so the gameplay was bound to be fun. People say that Engage is going back to its roots because the game "focuses more on the
tactical gameplay than the story, lore and characters". While it's true that Engage offers more variety in the tactical side of things, it still falls flat since the game is lacking some kind of balance. Thanks to the rings units are broken from the start. The problem is, to balance against this, you’d need to have absurdly difficult enemy units, who would invalidate all non-ring using characters and they didn't do that. Though, there are units/classes that are broken in general, so clearing maps wasn't really challenging. Engage offers average FE gameplay with some neat battle animation updates. There are some improvements, but also some step backs. But hey, at least we got weapon triangle back, right?
This is by far one of the easiest FE game I've played. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is fun but it's not "more challenging" than the past games in that regard. Also, Engage got new game modes and mechanics that are straight up from FEH and I'm not a fan.
The story...exists. Most FE stories aren't really all that unique but can still be enjoyed as political dramas on surface level for most of the time (I greatly enjoyed PoR, Thracia and 3H)
Engage's plot is the most vanilla, over the top anime story in this franchise and I mean this in a bad way. Yeah, it's even more "anime" than Fates. The story simply does not live up to previous installments in the series writing-wise.
Oh and Emblem heroes don't factor much into the plot at all, even Marth.
Also, I hate the "but FE was always anime!!!" argument. Yeah, no shit. Anime can have different genres, artstyle and a difference in tone and groundedness. Not every modern anime has to look like a generic moe harem isekai. Because you know, even "anime" can be serious. And it's not like the series cannot try to do that these days - see SoV and 3H. Now, I'm not against lighthearted plots in this franchise, but Engage's plot is just a joke that overstays its welcome way too long. It's been a while since I cringed so many times while playing a game.
The cast is also the most forgettable one. None of the characters felt unique or interesting in any way. Everyone here is meant to either be a laugh, a bland stereotype, or combination of the two. So, tiresome one-note gimmicks whose character profile never left the draft drawer but was put into the game anyway. Supports heavily focus on the character's gimmicks, which got annoying very fast. The supports are not engaging in any way. It's quantity over quality. All of them are very short, but I appreciate that they fully voiced all of them.
Honestly, the only reason I played this game is because I love Fire Emblem and wanted to give this game a chance. I enjoy FE gameplay, but even good gameplay can get tedious and boring if I don't care about the rest of the game. After finishing a map, I got rewarded with more over the top anime crap and meh characters. I was just not invested enough because of that and hated my time with it as a result. See, I love plenty of gameplay-focused games. The issue is that Engage isn't structured like a gameplay-focused game, it's structured like a game with a shit story featuring shitty characters. Does it give you a rough outline of a story to then let you play freely with no distraction? No. It's not a dungeon crawler, it's not XCOM, it's a very classic FE game with tons of character introductions and interactions that are wasting your time, they're just bad. I can't just admit the game's writing is so shit that it's better to skip every cutscene and call that "gameplay-focused", it's clearly a failure and not the intended experience. That was the worst experience I had with a FE game.
The only interesting thing about Engage are the past lords but if I want to see them I just play their games, where they look decent and not like...this. They're also not even able to
interact with each other or are all that relevant in the story, so whats the point of this "celebration"? That you'll point at your favorite lords and clap? That's what FEH is for. This game that shoves in generic anime designs, gags, lines, acting, same baby face women, and non fitting outfits and other elements is for me the worst FE game. I hope the next one will be better, because this was very disappointing after FE3H's big success. I understand that Engage is supposed to be a goofy and lighthearted "celebration" of this franchise, but why is it mainline? And why is it done so bad? There are many other and better ways to celebrate this franchise that I came to really love. But not like this. It's nothing more than a soulless cashgrab.
(The game leaked a few days ago, so I had the chance to play it early.)
2001
A story that deals with tragedy, along with self-loathing, mistakes and pain and how these characters deal with it. A gloomy and oppressive atmosphere that's on point. This is psychological horror at its finest.
To me this game was more psychological than scary. Some moments were tense, yes, but it was definitely more of a mind bender which I personally enjoy way more than mindless gore and jumpscares.
The voice acting wasn't the best but the game certainly made up for it with its narration, details, music and use of sounds.
To me this game was more psychological than scary. Some moments were tense, yes, but it was definitely more of a mind bender which I personally enjoy way more than mindless gore and jumpscares.
The voice acting wasn't the best but the game certainly made up for it with its narration, details, music and use of sounds.
2019
I'm normally not a fan of turn-based combat but I had an absolute blast with the stylized combat in P5. There wasn't a time I didn't enjoy an enemy encounter. Even years later the combat is the best this game has to offer. As for the plot and the whole social sim thing? Well, on my first playthrough (vanilla) I was hooked from start to finish and I actually enjoyed some of the plot twists. P5 was the most fun I had with a jrpg years ago. But now on my second playthrough (royal) everything was just dragging on way too much. It felt like a chore to play through. Knowing what came next and how long it would take to get to particular scenes took the fun out of the second playthrough for me and I had to struggle through it for most of the time.
But what really bothered me this time around was the Protagonist and the illusion of choice the game offered us. Why bother giving us several choices if most of them are the same? I guess I didn't care all that much years ago but now it's just annoying. Same with the random fanservice scenes. They're just coming out of nowhere. Seriously, they're unnecessary and ruined scenes for me.
Annoying aspects aside, I have to admit that I really enjoyed the third semester. Maruki was an interesting addition to P5. I also enjoyed Akechi's role in this and liked his ruthless personality that could shine through.
P5 is still a good game and the expanded story content + quality of life improvements were great. But were they enough to warrant a second playthrough from me? Sadly not. But thanks to Royal, I now know that I have to patiently wait until the next Persona game will get its second release with expanded content until I'll play it. Because playing the same Persona game more than once is just not for me.
But what really bothered me this time around was the Protagonist and the illusion of choice the game offered us. Why bother giving us several choices if most of them are the same? I guess I didn't care all that much years ago but now it's just annoying. Same with the random fanservice scenes. They're just coming out of nowhere. Seriously, they're unnecessary and ruined scenes for me.
Annoying aspects aside, I have to admit that I really enjoyed the third semester. Maruki was an interesting addition to P5. I also enjoyed Akechi's role in this and liked his ruthless personality that could shine through.
P5 is still a good game and the expanded story content + quality of life improvements were great. But were they enough to warrant a second playthrough from me? Sadly not. But thanks to Royal, I now know that I have to patiently wait until the next Persona game will get its second release with expanded content until I'll play it. Because playing the same Persona game more than once is just not for me.
2022
Samurai Maiden is a low budget jrpg with a generic isekai story and very basic and grindy gameplay. The ending was also pretty disappointing. This game is definitely not worth 60€, but I have to give credit where credit is due. This is not bait. This game was advertised as yuri and it IS yuri. No subtext, no bait and no over the top fanservice.
This is an actual yuri game. It's definitely not a very good game, but I got what I expected and I could enjoy it for what it is. I hope we will get more games like this in the future and hopefully with more budget.
This is an actual yuri game. It's definitely not a very good game, but I got what I expected and I could enjoy it for what it is. I hope we will get more games like this in the future and hopefully with more budget.
You ever get so angry you kill the God of Death? We definitely need more hardcore and brutal protagonists like Kratos.
2012
An emotional rollercoaster of a game with one of the rawest protagonists I've ever seen in gaming. The gameplay is nothing special but good enough for an over the top action game like this one. It's quick, satisfying and on point, never slowing down the action. I also didn't expect the soundtrack to hit so hard, but it did.
Some flashback fights were kind of dragging the pacing down for me a bit though. Also, locking the true ending behind a DLC paywall is such a scummy move from Capcom.
Some flashback fights were kind of dragging the pacing down for me a bit though. Also, locking the true ending behind a DLC paywall is such a scummy move from Capcom.
What a beautiful experience. A short game with downright exemplary narratives. I was hooked from beginning to end. The second story was the most paintful and agonizing one for me for sure. It's such a well made game and it's even free!
2022
I'm a simple woman. I see a gacha with evil older women, I click install. If you're into red flags this is the game for you.
Playing this game after Sword/Shield and Arceus, I have to admit that this is the most beautiful and charming Pokemon game to date. And the nostalgia hit me quite hard.
But I feel like this being the "more approachable" version of Pokemon for newcomers ain't it. It's disappointing that new Pokemon games are so over simplified and constantly handholding you that even unborn children could play them. I realize it caters to newcomers and that it's "a game for children", but I guess that also means it’s catered to make a more boring experience.
Playing this for nostalgia sake was kinda fun and relaxing at times but it was overall a mediocre experience. Also, the pokeball toss gimmick is atrocious.
But I feel like this being the "more approachable" version of Pokemon for newcomers ain't it. It's disappointing that new Pokemon games are so over simplified and constantly handholding you that even unborn children could play them. I realize it caters to newcomers and that it's "a game for children", but I guess that also means it’s catered to make a more boring experience.
Playing this for nostalgia sake was kinda fun and relaxing at times but it was overall a mediocre experience. Also, the pokeball toss gimmick is atrocious.