even doing my best to put aside my feelings on real world law enforcement, the vibes in this game are fucking grody, dude

i don't even say shit like that, that's how off-putting it is

Note 1: Have significant qualms with the way this game is structured, and balanced. But it looks great and sounds even better. So I think I'm gonna stick it out.

Note 2: Probably not that far off from finishing it, but I can't. The writing needed a dedicated edit, it's gratingly ineffective, and there's so little about the gameplay that makes sense to me. Metroidvanias are hard, man, I get that. I just don't think the hands in charge of this one were capable enough.

A lot of great art, though. And the real reason I kept playing was the music. But I bought the soundtrack and that'll be what I bring with me.

Did it anyway! Hard mode didn't mess around. At least not if you're going for the challenges. S-ranked every level in the game.

Great fun.

They pulled it off. I can't imagine trying to put a bow on a trilogy like this. Admirable effort.

I am beyond perplexed by the cutscenes, though. Compressed to hell and back, it's baffling. The production is perfectly good aside from the encoding. Why would you spend time making a solid cutscene and then slather it with a thick coating of artifacts?

Ultimately a minor thing, no question. I'm just confused.

Short enough that I might as well. Very pretty.

Kinda hoping this gets a remaster on the Switch 2.

Not that interested in these characters or what they're doing. Doesn't intrigue me like Anodyne 2 did.

Really satisfying production. Never been especially into arcade racers, but I'm glad to have this in my library.

fun to see more examples of UE5. not much else was worthwhile

Lovely song.

Way too languid, and the storytelling doesn't compel me to continue.

Perfectly enjoyable. Gets undercut by its seams too often for me to be wowed, but I had fun.

The most I've enjoyed Call of Duty since the first MW, but the level design in these games is so structurally flawed that it's hard for me to sustain that enjoyment. I just don't find corridor shooters any fun.

Ahhhhh- this is good. It is. But it's missing something that keeps it from connecting fully for me. The gameplay is a little sparse. And there's technical cruft that just needed to be ironed out.

It's nearly there. Almost.

I am fundamentally incapable of understanding people who liked the epilogue. The notion that you'd need or want an explicit bridge to the first game is genuinely unfathomable to me. Even if the idea was sound, the execution outside of a couple moments was awful. The game should've ended when Arthur died.

I wish the writing was of the same caliber as the presentation. It's not bad, not at all, but it's the weak link in what is otherwise an incredible game.

There's a brief flourish of voice acting that I want to note. It's almost trivial in the full scope of the game, but when you first grab a pebble and it starts crawling up the wall, the protagonist lets out this spontaneous laugh of delight, and it struck me as one of the most authentic depictions of an emotional reaction I've ever seen in a video game.

My only other nitpick is the climbing gear. The rope physically interacts with the environment, but not the character's body. Same goes for the poncho and how it clips through their waist. It kinda betrays a lack of polish that most of the rest of the game definitely doesn't have. Minor quibble, and probably too costly a technical challenge.

Fully my surprise game of the year.

Really fun. I will always want Nintendo to take more risks, but I had a great time playing the new Mario game.

it's a mess. just about every part of it. but you install a mod that lets you skip cutscenes, and another that amps up your bullet time juice, it's considerably more palatable

and the shooting remains great. hell of a soundtrack, too

Not for me.