PART 1: OK, MAYBE I HATE COMPETITIVE TEAM GAMES

Before I start this review, I want to use this Part to yap for a bit, so if you are not interested in it, just skip to Part 2! Where I’ll actually start talking about my actual experience with the game.

Around 4 years ago, when I quit playing League of Legends I kept seeking another competitive team game that would tick the same boxes for me, but every game I would try one out I would either end up disliking them or not taking them seriously enough to actually consider them my “main game”. Which would result in me dropping them, and moving on to the next shiny thing, but what they all had in common is that I disliked playing with other people, League left this mental scar on me where now I think every random player I meet online is one mistake away, whether it's from me or them, from flaming the fuck out of me. This happened with Paladins, Apex, Overwatch, Dead by Daylight, Hell, it even happened to me in the Versus mode of Left 4 Dead 2, where stakes couldn't possibly be lower.

Eventually, I started gaslighting myself into thinking that all Multiplayer games fucking sucked now, and the constant tryhard mindset was to blame for it. Of course, there are clear exceptions, like Splatoon or competitive games where it's just 1vs1 where I can blame either myself for my mistakes or my opponent for doing something I didn’t know how to play around.

During the same time I stopped playing League, I was getting deep into Final Fantasy XIV, while I have plenty of things to say about it, I’ll save them for whenever I review it in the future. The point is that when I started participating in endgame content, which is for the most part, PVE Focused, I found myself having that same fun I was looking for in multiplayer games that I had been seeking for a long time. The joy of sharing a clear with your team and cheering and being way more patient with each other, went far beyond than just being relieved of having ended a stressful match that was barely won.

This is something I also noticed while playing Souls games, Left 4 Dead 2 co-op campaigns, Phasmophobia or Lethal Company with my friends, and when I recently got into Helldivers 2, I was completely aware of this epiphany by now. Multiplayer games don’t actually suck, competitive team ones do, and it's now a new age for me, where I will use this realization to get into games I’ve never thought were for me, hell, maybe I’ll actually try getting into Monster Hunter despite my initial reluctance towards those series.

Now, let’s have a nice cup of Liber-tea over Helldivers 2.

PART 2: DEMOCRACY MANIFEST

When Helldivers 2 gameplay was first revealed I remember two key things about it, one of my friends was excited about it because it was a wild glow up from its predecessor, and it had this footage where the people playing it had one of those cringey scripted voice chat interactions. But for some reason I cannot find it on YouTube, I swear it happened at The Game Awards, but I’m starting to think it's my own case of Mandela Effect.

However, things started changing once the game actually dropped, and it seemed like its growth in popularity happened overnight. The next thing I learn, the game is having so many people trying to play it that the servers cannot keep up. This is something unprecedented, and it actually prompted me to take a look, what was going on over there that had everyone so fired up? And so I started checking out some streams, it’s a 4 player co-op third-person shooter where you can fight either Bugs or Robots. On the surface, I thought it was nothing special, then I caught a glimpse of the players using the in game Stratagems and throwing them around, making things blow up and causing as much collateral damage as possible, my interest was starting to get piqued, who doesn't like to cause a big explosion? But the biggest thing to accompany all of it, was the Galactic War system with its Major Orders, where every couple of days every player in the game is tasked with working towards a common goal to be rewarded with currencies and sometimes new purchasable weapons. Apparently, this is led by a guy called Joel over at Arrowhead that acts like a real-time DM and sends out the orders depending on what the players were doing.

But what really, REALLY convinced me that I had to buy the game, was the Malevelon Creek arc, where the community tragically lost control of this particular planet to Automatons, it was a massacre, tons of brave Helldivers and Super Citizens were slaughtered in the process, but the playerbase wouldn't stand by it, and vengeance was sworn on that day. It wasn’t until the Major Order to take it back was given where the players valiantly fought in the name of DEMOCRACY to bring it back to our side, and it was done at a speed that neither devs nor players could have even predicted.

This is something I had to take part of, there was one issue, however. At the time I was busy playing other games, so despite buying it, it wasn’t until recent weeks that I started playing it a lot more, it is one of my biggest regrets to not have been part of this when player counts still soared over 500k every day, but it still warms my heart to log in and see over 100k still playing actively. One of my most common fears with live service games is that at any moment where failure starts to be shown, it's only a matter of time when the publisher says it's time to turn the lights off, and all that time invested gets flushed down the toilet (RIP Knockout City and Rumbleverse, I still think about you two now and then), but Helldivers 2 seems like its here to stay, and I’m happy to be a part of it, to be spreading justice and freedom for as much as I can. To hopefully one day participate in a Major Order as iconic as The Battle for Malevelon Creek

If there's something I had to complain about the game is how some types of enemies are extremely obnoxious to fight against (I fucking despise Chargers and Hulks), and that Arrowhead has a weird philosophy when it comes to weapon balancing, I don't consider myself an expert in game design, but at the end of the day, this is still a PvE game, one that can become really fucking tough at times, if anything I think everything should be busted, so there’s no meta to be enforced by whatever toxic players might be out there and everyone can play their own way.

To wrap things up, on top of my brief rant about Competitive Team Games, there’s another type of game I dislike a lot nowadays and that’s not a controversial opinion, we are all tired of Live Services, games that don’t respect their customers and that think we all have unlimited time, games where just playing them isn’t enough. Gone are the 7th gen days when games would drop with a weirdly, yet charmingly designed Multiplayer mode whose servers barely worked in favor of rotating shops and time-limited Season Passes that unlock only fluff most of the time. Make no mistake, Helldivers 2 also has some of these tropes, but it appears that this time it remembered it still has a box price, so what would be the point of time gating battle passes and having absurdly expensive cosmetics? None, get all of that shit by playing, go out there, kill some bugs and bots, get that rising feeling of power when your Helldiver starts maniacally laughing because you kept firing for a full mag. Drink of the cup of Liber-tea.

CHAPTER 1: I LIKE RETURNAL BUT PLEASE PLAYSTATION STUDIOS YOU DON'T HAVE TO SLAP A ROGUELIKE/LITE INTO EVERY IP YOU HAVE

I hold the Norse God of War games in a very high regard, they are among my favorite games ever, and I still think they are some of the best of PlayStation Studios. To the point that for a while, I made it my mission to talk nonstop to my friends about why I found these games to be so good, specially after I first played through 2018 back in early 2019.
However, because my gaming plans are a mess, I took more than I expected to actually get into this DLC, but after watching the high praise it got, I went into it with huge expectations.

Now that I'm here after beating it, I feel in the awkward situation of having to complain about a game with mid gameplay with a wonderful story once again (specially after having done so recently with Alan Wake). But I just don't feel like these games were made to be Roguelites, in a way I have to complain about Returnal's success because it gave PS Studios the idea that they could slap Roguelikes into their some of their IPs as it also happened to The Last of Us Part II earlier this year.

By this, I mean that the idea of implementing the quirks of the genre into God of War meant that the best way they could do it was by removing all of Kratos' rune attacks and gearset perks you get throughout the main story and then offer them back as equipment for your runs, with pretty much no changes whatsoever. While at the same time, hitting the player with the realization that they are going to have to grind for stats by doing multiple runs because chances are (specially if you are playing on higher difficulties) that you will get statchecked by enemies that take too long to die and hit too hard because I guess they looked at their gear system and went "ah yeah, this is what people liked the most about these games".

By this, I don't mean that you can't get some cool perks nearing the final boss of a run, but more often than not, the effects won't just be as interesting as some you could get in other games of the genre, it's weird because here it just feels like they crafted the safest Roguelite known to man and that's saying a lot. But what do I know, at the end of the day, a lot of this could come from personal bias as well, since this isn't one of my favorite genres, aside from a couple of exceptions I can count with one hand.

Like I don't want to sound rude, specially after they put out this DLC for free in the most absolute gigachad move ever, God bless you Sony Santa Monica, but despite that, there is still something that you have to pay for while playing this DLC, which is time, and while you might have a better experience than I had with it, it still is as valuable as money itself.

CHAPTER 2: KRATOS FINALLY WENT TO THERAPY

With that out of the way, I can safely say that a big saving grace of the DLC was the storytelling, there will be some mild to heavy spoilers, as I'll try to keep it brief, so beware.
Once again I found myself immersed in the world and the emotional struggle of Kratos as he and Mimir have some of the most down to earth type of conversations I've seen in the duology, their dynamic is just stellar.

As Helios showed up on the first time, I started getting a bit worried as Kratos' behavior started showing some aspects of his old self from the Greek series, his first reaction was to almost draw the Blades of Chaos, and thinking just in the goal to be reached, he almost burnt Mimir into a crisp thinking that he had just swapped places with his former enemy. For a moment, I genuinely thought that just because he was dealing with an Olympian again, after all he had not changed at all, his old self was just dormant.

At this point the plot twist reveals itself, Tyr, the actual god this time, was the one who invited both to attend Valhalla, to what purpose? Therapy! I think I speak for many people who have gone through this franchise that Kratos is someone that genuinely needed it, specially with how the character was portrayed in this duology, with how clearly he had been repressing his feelings throughout the years, specially in front of Atreus. Tyr, serving as a fantastic therapist, understands that the best way of helping your patient, is by beating the shit out of them in a fantastic boss fight that carries so much of the DLC for me... wait no, scratch that, that doesn't sound good...
Tyr, serving as a fantastic therapist, understands that the best way of helping HIS patient is by helping him come to terms with who he was to accept just about what the rest of his life is going to be, after all, you can't blame Kratos for not feeling appropriate for the role, but at the same time, just like everyone around him, you know he is the right guy to be the new God of War of the Nine Realms.

In the end, what Kratos needed was not to forgive himself, but instead to realize that he was just not that monster anymore, even if Athena was right, and he will always be one, the point is that at this point, he has clearly learned to tame it, and will actually be willing to listen to those around him. And I support anyone who has that type of mental health realization.

A game that's focused on being the light in the darkness is one that has very bright moments of brilliance among a pile of flaws. Okay, I needed to let that weird and probably inaccurate metaphor out of my brain. Let's actually break this down.

I got into Alan Wake by recommendation of my brother and any fan of Remedy's games I could find on the internet. So I decided to finally give it a shot! After FFVII Rebirth I wanted to play some shorter games to wind down from such a massive RPG.

Now, after playing it, my usual reaction to anyone who told me to try it out is a mix of “Why? Why would you make me do this?” and “I genuinely understand the vision, and I share it as well".

And that is born from the fact that playing the actual videogame is not very fun. And while I found the idea of having to break enemies' guards with a flashlight first before being able to damage them (not counting flare gun shots and flashbangs) very cool at first, I feel like as the game goes by, the concept starts becoming very repetitive as most enemy encounters feel the same. It quickly starts to become very, very annoying. Specially when you have the entire army of darkness throwing homing axes and machetes at you that you usually have to avoid by using the most unreliable dodge button ever put in an action game.

However, every time I would get into a section of the game where I could just watch the story unravel, read a manuscript, listen to a radio show, or watch the characters interact, it was delightful. It's a bizarre story that's surprisingly funny (whether it's intentional or not) at times, with interesting ways of preparing its plot twists and making the player believe they are going just as insane as Alan himself is.

What I'm trying to say, is that 1. I don't think that Alan is as unlikeable as a lot of people led me to believe, while he gives an awful first impression. It takes having to interact with a friend that has a creative hobby, whether it is writing, animating, drawing, you name it, you quickly come to realize that being creatively blocked fucking sucks, and I can also speak from experience with that. And 2. Barry is absolutely GOATED, I wish I had half of his charisma.

At the end of the day, even if I had my complaints with the gameplay itself, I found myself in more situations where I would go, “Oh, this is why people love these games,” and I want to see more of it. Soon I'll go into the DLCs, and maybe later this year, both Control and the direct sequel because I HAVE to know more.

When I first put together this list of games I wanted to replay at some point, I thought of tossing in Portal 2 as well, I mean, it had been over 10 years (god I'm fucking old...) since I had last played through it. At this point, I must have forgotten how to solve at least a big part of it... right...? RIGHT...?

Well, in the first 2 hours or so I realized that, when it comes to hyperfixations I had in the past, my brain is better at preserving information about them better than I actually thought, because I found myself going from puzzle to puzzle with relative swiftness, with only a couple of them in the late game giving me trouble. So, why did I stay?

Because if there's something I didn't quite remember as well, was the humor being so phenomenal, it's great to see that after all these years, the comedy of this game still stands up to this day. Specially since this time around I caught on some jokes that as a kid pretty much flew over my head, like think about it for a moment, working for someone like Cave Johnson is like talking to a friend that always replies to you with the nerd emoji when you tell them something, the guy was a walking PR nightmare.

To anyone going for their first playthrough, you are in for a delightful experience, and I hope you enjoy solving these amazing puzzles while breathing in the amazing atmosphere of the game... unless you are breathing the asbestos of underground Aperture, in that case... I'm sorry about your lungs lol

Right after beating Echoes of the Fallen, I went straight for the follow up with The Rising Tide. At long last, the DLC featuring Leviathan the Lost is finally here, just like its predecessor it takes place before the finale of the base game and leads the party towards the hidden region of Mysidia, where its clear skies are a sight for sore eyes after having to deal with a gloomy purple filter for the later bits of the main story, specially when you first see how visually stunning the sights in this new zone are.

TRT takes its more self contained story as an advantage as it serves to do some very well received complementary worldbuilding through a story that is quite easy to follow and stays true to the themes of the base main quest and doesn't overstay its welcome. As usual, Sidequests can be very hit or miss but they are still as brief as ever.

But enough of that yapping, lets talk about what everyone was looking forward to about this particular DLC: Leviathan himself. It turns out you actually get his powers quite early into the new story, with his playstyle focusing on projectiles that pack way more of a punch than the standard ones, while giving Clive much more improved mobility when it comes to dodging.

Leviathan himself is a phenomenal fight with phenomenal music that reaches the same peaks of Hype that both Titan and Bahamut do, with the extra bonus that not only he hits hard, but he can fuck you up if you let your guard down for a moment, the hype really paid off with this one.

Oh and if you have already beat both the game and the dlc, pay the Arete Stone at the hideaway a visit. You won’t regret it

With this DLC, my time with FFXVI has officially come to an end, until I feel the need of revisiting it once again. However I am glad to have been part of this journey from the moment of its announcement to the point where I got to meet the amazing cast of characters and fall in love with the world, story and music, however flawed they might be.

By the way CBU3 you bastards you still owe Jill (my beloved) more screentime, like, give her a solo game at this point now 😤

With the recent release of “The Rising Tide” at the time of writing, I figured it would be a good moment to finally tackle both DLCs back to back, and naturally I went by order of launch.

Originally I wasn't expecting much from this particular dlc as the one I was looking forward the most was its follow up, however I still appreciate what this one did for giving the mysterious Fallen a bit more of context as to what happened to them. Along with the new and very busted accessories you can equip that have way more interesting effects to apply in combat.

However the true crowning glory of this DLC is the final boss which once again goes to show that arguably the best part of FFXVI is still its phenomenal bosses.
Also as someone who criticized this game before for its difficulty, I decided to try something out I saw in Twitter in order to spice things up a bit more, which was playing without defensive gear equipped. Which means I was essentially extremely squishy and I could actually be scared of getting hit. While I could consider it a bandaid fix for how the game does difficulty, it was also probably the most fun I’ve had playing it since my first playthrough, being able to lose can also be very good sometimes!