Hylianhero777
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Bayonetta 3
2022
Of all the different realities in the multiverse, there's not one in which Bayonetta 3 turning out the way it has isn’t the best possible outcome, both for its identity as an individual game and for its series at large. Any number of its decisions are already controversial, but it’d have been disappointing if it wasn’t so substantially different from its predecessors after being on ice for so long. Not everybody’ll be onboard with the direction it goes in, but if you are, it’ll scratch an itch in a way that few other action games can.
Demon Slave especially is in the eye of the beholder, but I personally think it’s probably Platinum’s best crack at simultaneously controlling multiple characters thus far. The new wink attack finishers take after Astral Chain’s sync attacks quite heavily, down to being signalled by a lens flare, but they have some tweaks which make them a noticeable improvement upon that base. One key difference is that wink attacks universally have slight invincibility frames, lending them an element of defensive use if done with proper timing and avoiding previous frustrations of your Legion being just dandy while Howard gets smacked across the room – I might’ve died to the bombs at the end of this sequence if it weren’t for this addition. There’s also less ambiguity as to when Bayonetta’s able to do a wink attack, since she always transforms into her demon masquerade form beforehand, hearkening back to the clearer audiovisual language of Bayo 1 where specific grunts of hers always preceded certain attacks. The demons themselves are a great help in encounters with multiple enemies too; when you’re being ganged up on and need some room to breathe, their special directional attacks come in very handy for creating some space. It’s attack, defence, spacing, comboing, traversal and more all in one, and I think the layers it adds to these aspects of Bayo’s combat system is enough to mark it as a firm net positive despite the scoring system arguably overrelying on it to an extent come Infinite Climax.
On a more unambiguous note, the weapons in Bayo 3 are unreal. Not being able mix and match hand/feet equipment sounded suspect pre-release, but it’s a worthwhile exchange for everything else offered in return here. Each of them having a fully fleshed out moveset of both punches and kicks makes me constantly rotate between them all, whereas in the previous games I actively avoided options like 2’s Kafka which couldn’t help but feel relatively limited. Part of what helps them largely circumvent the homogeneity this could’ve introduced is their new Demon Masquerade forms and the movement options that coincide with them. Simoon’s flying ability controls like a dream to the point where I occasionally drop combos because I forget to switch out of it, and the spider form’s swinging/wall climbing or the train’s multidirectional choo choo charge are similarly versatile highlights, but the beauty of Bayo 3’s arsenal is that the rest are also so varied you could ask someone what their favourite is and get a different answer each time. Between the aforementioned, their starkly different charge functions and how equipping different demons can alter the effects of the same combo(s), it’s hard to decide between just two. By the way, press PPP with the yo-yos and don’t cancel the animation that plays afterwards. Thank me later.
I mentioned the spider form’s wall climbing specifically because, for all the talk of Bayo 3’s gimmick sections, it doesn’t seem like it’s getting enough credit for taking gimmicks from its predecessors and incorporating them into standard gameplay. Wall climbing is essentially Witch Walking whenever you want, wherever you want, and the extra manoeuvrability afforded by this (plus the other Demon Masquerade forms) allows the level design to be more creative in terms of hidden verses, collectibles, Umbran Tears, etc. with no real instances of arbitrary backtracking. Remember that bit in Bayo 2 where you’re in a mech suit? Past a certain point of 3, you can summon it on demand too. I’m tempted to argue that 3’s actual gimmick segments are by far the least obnoxious ones Platinum have ever done, but there’s not much point, since its revamped checkpoint system means it can theoretically be enjoyed purely for its normal combat encounters anyhow. It’d have been nicer if it went as far as something like Uncharted 4’s system and let you replay any individual verse in the game, but even being not so fine-tuned and debatably too generous, it’s nonetheless immensely preferable to the days of jumping in and out of the main menu.
Speaking of things Bayo 3 doesn’t get enough credit for: visuals. Compare any of the returning enemies to their original incarnations from 1 or 2 in the model viewer and the upgrade in quality’s immediately apparent. The sole area in which the homunculi fall short of their divine and devilish counterparts is that becoming progressively cracked as they take damage probably isn’t as clear an indicator of their current health as previous games’ custom of armour falling apart to reveal grotesque musculature underneath. Had Singularity’s fractured, digital aesthetic (complemented wonderfully by the distorted choir in his battle theme) been extended to his underlings, I think people would be more charitable to them, because creatively speaking they’re absolutely up to par even if you don't dig into their light Buddhist theming. I wish we could somehow peer into the minds of whichever artist came up with the idea of the giant flowers made of molten humans that litter Virga’s back, or whoever pitched the scenario of fighting a self-cloning, peacock-shaped Sun Wukong in the sky using clouds as a bubble bath. If Bayo 3 might be compared to DMC5 in any regard, it’s that its art direction seems doomed to be drastically undersold.
Viola seems like an obvious point of comparison in this respect, but that’s at least a little bit reductive. I’d bet several halos that most players won’t learn she has her own equivalent of dodge offset until after beating the game for the first time, which begs the question of how many other less obvious, unique tricks she has in her toolbox – certainly more than I feel qualified to talk about at length. To those concerned about where she and the gang end up by the finale, I say this: worry less, and read character bios more. You might say that storytelling via optional collectibles isn’t the ideal way to handle the narrative in a game like Bayonetta, but I’d equally argue that you aren’t a real fan if you can’t explain why Rodin’s pizza chain is penguin themed (and I’m only half joking).
I didn’t mean for this to be so long, but I really like Bayonetta 3. So much so that at one point I tried to make a smiley face in the level select menu. It doesn’t try to beat either of its predecessors at their own game and goes off in a totally different route, leaving in its wake a trilogy that really only ever slightly wobbles in quality and where there are legitimate reasons to revisit each. It’s been a while since I felt such a drive to want to get better at a game, accentuated in no small part by the fact that it’s draped in such a characteristically amazing soundtrack and charm. It’s crazy, it’s rare, it’s you know what.
Demon Slave especially is in the eye of the beholder, but I personally think it’s probably Platinum’s best crack at simultaneously controlling multiple characters thus far. The new wink attack finishers take after Astral Chain’s sync attacks quite heavily, down to being signalled by a lens flare, but they have some tweaks which make them a noticeable improvement upon that base. One key difference is that wink attacks universally have slight invincibility frames, lending them an element of defensive use if done with proper timing and avoiding previous frustrations of your Legion being just dandy while Howard gets smacked across the room – I might’ve died to the bombs at the end of this sequence if it weren’t for this addition. There’s also less ambiguity as to when Bayonetta’s able to do a wink attack, since she always transforms into her demon masquerade form beforehand, hearkening back to the clearer audiovisual language of Bayo 1 where specific grunts of hers always preceded certain attacks. The demons themselves are a great help in encounters with multiple enemies too; when you’re being ganged up on and need some room to breathe, their special directional attacks come in very handy for creating some space. It’s attack, defence, spacing, comboing, traversal and more all in one, and I think the layers it adds to these aspects of Bayo’s combat system is enough to mark it as a firm net positive despite the scoring system arguably overrelying on it to an extent come Infinite Climax.
On a more unambiguous note, the weapons in Bayo 3 are unreal. Not being able mix and match hand/feet equipment sounded suspect pre-release, but it’s a worthwhile exchange for everything else offered in return here. Each of them having a fully fleshed out moveset of both punches and kicks makes me constantly rotate between them all, whereas in the previous games I actively avoided options like 2’s Kafka which couldn’t help but feel relatively limited. Part of what helps them largely circumvent the homogeneity this could’ve introduced is their new Demon Masquerade forms and the movement options that coincide with them. Simoon’s flying ability controls like a dream to the point where I occasionally drop combos because I forget to switch out of it, and the spider form’s swinging/wall climbing or the train’s multidirectional choo choo charge are similarly versatile highlights, but the beauty of Bayo 3’s arsenal is that the rest are also so varied you could ask someone what their favourite is and get a different answer each time. Between the aforementioned, their starkly different charge functions and how equipping different demons can alter the effects of the same combo(s), it’s hard to decide between just two. By the way, press PPP with the yo-yos and don’t cancel the animation that plays afterwards. Thank me later.
I mentioned the spider form’s wall climbing specifically because, for all the talk of Bayo 3’s gimmick sections, it doesn’t seem like it’s getting enough credit for taking gimmicks from its predecessors and incorporating them into standard gameplay. Wall climbing is essentially Witch Walking whenever you want, wherever you want, and the extra manoeuvrability afforded by this (plus the other Demon Masquerade forms) allows the level design to be more creative in terms of hidden verses, collectibles, Umbran Tears, etc. with no real instances of arbitrary backtracking. Remember that bit in Bayo 2 where you’re in a mech suit? Past a certain point of 3, you can summon it on demand too. I’m tempted to argue that 3’s actual gimmick segments are by far the least obnoxious ones Platinum have ever done, but there’s not much point, since its revamped checkpoint system means it can theoretically be enjoyed purely for its normal combat encounters anyhow. It’d have been nicer if it went as far as something like Uncharted 4’s system and let you replay any individual verse in the game, but even being not so fine-tuned and debatably too generous, it’s nonetheless immensely preferable to the days of jumping in and out of the main menu.
Speaking of things Bayo 3 doesn’t get enough credit for: visuals. Compare any of the returning enemies to their original incarnations from 1 or 2 in the model viewer and the upgrade in quality’s immediately apparent. The sole area in which the homunculi fall short of their divine and devilish counterparts is that becoming progressively cracked as they take damage probably isn’t as clear an indicator of their current health as previous games’ custom of armour falling apart to reveal grotesque musculature underneath. Had Singularity’s fractured, digital aesthetic (complemented wonderfully by the distorted choir in his battle theme) been extended to his underlings, I think people would be more charitable to them, because creatively speaking they’re absolutely up to par even if you don't dig into their light Buddhist theming. I wish we could somehow peer into the minds of whichever artist came up with the idea of the giant flowers made of molten humans that litter Virga’s back, or whoever pitched the scenario of fighting a self-cloning, peacock-shaped Sun Wukong in the sky using clouds as a bubble bath. If Bayo 3 might be compared to DMC5 in any regard, it’s that its art direction seems doomed to be drastically undersold.
Viola seems like an obvious point of comparison in this respect, but that’s at least a little bit reductive. I’d bet several halos that most players won’t learn she has her own equivalent of dodge offset until after beating the game for the first time, which begs the question of how many other less obvious, unique tricks she has in her toolbox – certainly more than I feel qualified to talk about at length. To those concerned about where she and the gang end up by the finale, I say this: worry less, and read character bios more. You might say that storytelling via optional collectibles isn’t the ideal way to handle the narrative in a game like Bayonetta, but I’d equally argue that you aren’t a real fan if you can’t explain why Rodin’s pizza chain is penguin themed (and I’m only half joking).
I didn’t mean for this to be so long, but I really like Bayonetta 3. So much so that at one point I tried to make a smiley face in the level select menu. It doesn’t try to beat either of its predecessors at their own game and goes off in a totally different route, leaving in its wake a trilogy that really only ever slightly wobbles in quality and where there are legitimate reasons to revisit each. It’s been a while since I felt such a drive to want to get better at a game, accentuated in no small part by the fact that it’s draped in such a characteristically amazing soundtrack and charm. It’s crazy, it’s rare, it’s you know what.
Mario Party
1998
The nice thing about Nintendo Switch Online for old people like me is that you get a little involuntary nostalgia hit every couple of months. I wouldn’t download and emulate Mario Party of my own volition, but something about it being readily available on my Switch just makes the access to those old memories so much more enticing - even when said memories now launch with an updated warning about how they can cause permanent damage to the palm of your hand.
Funny story about this game - my younger brother and I had it in our heads that it was possible to be skilled at it. Our misguided belief that the winner of a game of Mario Party was in some way deserving of recognition and admiration eventually came to a head when our neighbour - who didn’t own or play video games of any kind whatsoever at any time - played a round with us one rainy afternoon. He came out comfortably 3 stars ahead at the end of 50 turns, brutally shredding our fragile preteenage egos to tatters. This trauma sent my brother crazy, and he had to be locked in the bathroom for an hour because he was quite simply going completely apeshit-crackers at the notion that someone who didn’t even hold the N64 controller correctly could beat him at a game he’d played for a hundred hours. Very funny to recall his little cheeky face lying on a floor sodden with Chance Time-induced tears. Great game.
You can jape endlessly about the unfairness of the original Mario Partys, but there’s nothing you can really say that’s more amusing than participating in it. Taking huge inspiration from the capitalist chaos of Monopoly, this is definitely one of Nintendo’s most postmodern games, directly stating on many occasions that the rules are made up and the coins don’t matter. It revels in unfairness and mean-spiritedness (literally, with the inclusion of a robber Boo) in a way I imagine Shigeru Miyamoto would frown very hard at, and I presume the meaning of Bowser hollering “That’s often the way things go in life!” while tap-dancing on the spot as Mario wails about being mis-sold a suspicious “super duper star” for the tidy sum of 200 coins just completely passed me by as a kid. Just like the game of Life, the lesson to be learned here is that no matter how carefully plot your course and how hard you twirl your joystick, all the money in your bank can be swept away in an instant because some stupid prick stepped on a big red button with your face on it.
Funny story about this game - my younger brother and I had it in our heads that it was possible to be skilled at it. Our misguided belief that the winner of a game of Mario Party was in some way deserving of recognition and admiration eventually came to a head when our neighbour - who didn’t own or play video games of any kind whatsoever at any time - played a round with us one rainy afternoon. He came out comfortably 3 stars ahead at the end of 50 turns, brutally shredding our fragile preteenage egos to tatters. This trauma sent my brother crazy, and he had to be locked in the bathroom for an hour because he was quite simply going completely apeshit-crackers at the notion that someone who didn’t even hold the N64 controller correctly could beat him at a game he’d played for a hundred hours. Very funny to recall his little cheeky face lying on a floor sodden with Chance Time-induced tears. Great game.
You can jape endlessly about the unfairness of the original Mario Partys, but there’s nothing you can really say that’s more amusing than participating in it. Taking huge inspiration from the capitalist chaos of Monopoly, this is definitely one of Nintendo’s most postmodern games, directly stating on many occasions that the rules are made up and the coins don’t matter. It revels in unfairness and mean-spiritedness (literally, with the inclusion of a robber Boo) in a way I imagine Shigeru Miyamoto would frown very hard at, and I presume the meaning of Bowser hollering “That’s often the way things go in life!” while tap-dancing on the spot as Mario wails about being mis-sold a suspicious “super duper star” for the tidy sum of 200 coins just completely passed me by as a kid. Just like the game of Life, the lesson to be learned here is that no matter how carefully plot your course and how hard you twirl your joystick, all the money in your bank can be swept away in an instant because some stupid prick stepped on a big red button with your face on it.
Bayonetta 3
2022
Bayonetta is a franchise that's always meant a lot to me. The drama surrounding the release of this has been absolutely disheartening. I lost a lot of respect for what I considered to be one of my favorite voice actresses and the way it was handled by Kamiya especially was very awful. This had quickly gone from my most anticipated game of the year (or perhaps ever really) to something I felt sick thinking about it. I wasn't sure what to do. Seeing the way Taylor muddied the waters of an important topic for personal gain, throw the new voice actress under the bus and then for the cherry on top asks people to donate to an anti-choice organization just fucking blew my mind. And then finally the previews and reviews started rolling in. Reading and hearing people talk about the game made me feel like I could finally get excited again. I was able to get it a day early and just the experience of completely ignoring the internet until I finished it was such a relief. The gameplay is refined from what I already thought was perfect for me to basically just the next level perfect. I'm a fan of all the changes and everything they keep the same. The story wasn't necessarily the direction I was anticipating but in the same vein I enjoyed it a lot more than I would of thought. Even if you're not a fan of it the gameplay alone is more than enough to keep you engaged. Genuinely such a blast to play and experience. For a franchise I once thought would be dead forever to get an entire trilogy and shine even through unfortunate controversy is not what obliviously gay thirteen year old me sitting and playing this christmas morning would of ever expected. I'm glad to of gotten to play these each at a pretty pivotol moment in my life. I wholeheartedly loved this and even as I'm writing this review I am starting up a second playthrough to explore the mechanics more thoroughly.
Jennifer Hale is a great Bayonetta.
Jennifer Hale is a great Bayonetta.
Bayonetta 3
2022
I'm torn. This has some of the moment to moment funnest gameplay in the series. It also has flatout the worst story. It also has a million setpieces of mixed quality.
You can tell Kaimya & Co. took a lot of stuff from Scalebound to use here and I think that stuff works great! The various Demon Slaves are really fun (with a few exceptions), and the Masquerade system also opens a lot of neat opportunities.
Viola the newcomer is fun but very limited. Her skill tree can be maxed really quickly & the game's insistence on giving every weapon a traversal option with a universal input of R x2 or Fwd+R while putting her main mechanic of parrying on the same button is madness. Her variation on the Demon Slave system felt worse overall as well.
The many setpieces are mixed - the first arc in Japan with like 5 goddamn chase setpieces was awful but later ones like the Queen Butterfly or the Paris shmup sequence were great. I just wish there were maybe....15% less of em.
The multiple AU Bayonettas all have pretty cool looks (that you can unlock ofc). I will say the Chinese Warlord costume was the worst. Far too busy.
The Jeanne chapters were... a thing. I didn't hate them. I didn't like them. I still don't understand, like, a lot of the gimmicks.
I won't get into specifics of the story but my main complaints could be summarized as "one of the most nothing villains possibly ever" and "the mechanics the entire story are based on have almost zero explanation". I also have qualms with it wanting me to be emotionally invested in certain things I had no reason to be.
In conclusion I'm glad we're now 3 for 3 on Bayonetta games being super fun but wildly inconsistent in terms of weird things that hurt the experience.
You can tell Kaimya & Co. took a lot of stuff from Scalebound to use here and I think that stuff works great! The various Demon Slaves are really fun (with a few exceptions), and the Masquerade system also opens a lot of neat opportunities.
Viola the newcomer is fun but very limited. Her skill tree can be maxed really quickly & the game's insistence on giving every weapon a traversal option with a universal input of R x2 or Fwd+R while putting her main mechanic of parrying on the same button is madness. Her variation on the Demon Slave system felt worse overall as well.
The many setpieces are mixed - the first arc in Japan with like 5 goddamn chase setpieces was awful but later ones like the Queen Butterfly or the Paris shmup sequence were great. I just wish there were maybe....15% less of em.
The multiple AU Bayonettas all have pretty cool looks (that you can unlock ofc). I will say the Chinese Warlord costume was the worst. Far too busy.
The Jeanne chapters were... a thing. I didn't hate them. I didn't like them. I still don't understand, like, a lot of the gimmicks.
I won't get into specifics of the story but my main complaints could be summarized as "one of the most nothing villains possibly ever" and "the mechanics the entire story are based on have almost zero explanation". I also have qualms with it wanting me to be emotionally invested in certain things I had no reason to be.
In conclusion I'm glad we're now 3 for 3 on Bayonetta games being super fun but wildly inconsistent in terms of weird things that hurt the experience.
Bayonetta 3
2022
Just as Bayonetta was a response to the Devil May Cry series, a lot of Bayonetta 3's choices make it feel like a response to Devil May Cry 5 specifically. The somewhat melancholy beats in the story, the bombastic celebratory feeling of wrapping up a saga, the switching between characters, even the fun challenges outside of combat verses that I can't help but think were added because so many people complained about DMC5 being all combat... maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it all feels a bit too familiar. And similar to the former situation, I think that despite both being extremely quality games that I would take either of in a heartbeat, I think Bayonetta 3 outclasses its competitor... if only by just a bit.
It's not a perfect game to be sure, but it looks to be an easy best in the series for me.
I think 3 manages to hit pretty darn close to 1's nice levels of balance (there are a couple abilities and weapons that feel slightly overtuned, but thankfully the giant demons are kept pretty well in check compared to Umbran Climax) while keeping 2's immaculate presentation and feeling of being on a crazy roller coaster ride the whole way through, creating a perfect formula for excitement. Bayonetta feels wonderful to control as per usual and has plenty of options, and newcomer Viola is a welcome change of pace that had me playing her every chance I got (though her Witch Time parry window took some MAJOR adjustment). The genre bending here is incredible and at times I was howling at how creative they had gotten. Given there are some tiny missteps here I think, I think the gameplay style of the Side Chapters specifically were a novel idea but had the most misses for me, especially the first two which are probably my least favorite stages in the game. Despite this, I don’t think there’s a single segment I really dread getting to on a replay, which I feel is a marked improvement.
I enjoyed the story, though it's about what you would expect from one of these games; there is a little bit of asspullery afoot (especially in regards to Luka’s character, though maybe it’s just been too long), but the series has always had some of that here and there and I can forgive it for some truly exciting and fun moments with these characters. I absolutely ADORED Viola being a complete dork with the facade of having it together, it made for some of the story's best moments as the complete polar opposite of Bayonetta (who continues to steal the show as usual). I won’t say too much more, but this is a great celebration of Bayonetta as a series, and color me very excited for wherever they choose to go next.
I’m sure you may know where I’m going when I say unfortunately this game has one big undeniable flaw: the presentation. Don’t get me wrong, the cutscenes are great as always, the music is the best in the series, the art style remains awesome, every aspect owns… except for the fact that the Switch is absolutely dying trying to run this game. I do think the performance is being singled out a bit too much, it could be much better but I think it’s fairly consistent at least and very rarely drops into the realm of being unplayable. I also think that Platinum’s engine is taking a bit too much blame as it feels pretty clear that they did some heavy work on it to add more detail and I can see it scaling pretty well to more powerful hardware (perhaps the reason for these presentation issues).
But the resolution was consistently a problem. The game is a bit of a pixely mess all the way through, and it’s especially bad in the action-heavy opening chapters. It makes it even funnier that they featured a photo mode, because despite trying excessively I could barely ever even get a picture that looked serviceable. I really hope they put in some optimization work post-launch, up the resolution for whenever the Switch successor comes along, just something, because this game deserves to be seen in its full glory.
All that said, I adored my time with this game. In a year where my gaming motivation has been about as finicky as it ever has been, Bayonetta 3 grabbed my attention and held it hard. This is definitely a new all-timer for me, and I couldn’t be happier that it lived up to the hype.
It's not a perfect game to be sure, but it looks to be an easy best in the series for me.
I think 3 manages to hit pretty darn close to 1's nice levels of balance (there are a couple abilities and weapons that feel slightly overtuned, but thankfully the giant demons are kept pretty well in check compared to Umbran Climax) while keeping 2's immaculate presentation and feeling of being on a crazy roller coaster ride the whole way through, creating a perfect formula for excitement. Bayonetta feels wonderful to control as per usual and has plenty of options, and newcomer Viola is a welcome change of pace that had me playing her every chance I got (though her Witch Time parry window took some MAJOR adjustment). The genre bending here is incredible and at times I was howling at how creative they had gotten. Given there are some tiny missteps here I think, I think the gameplay style of the Side Chapters specifically were a novel idea but had the most misses for me, especially the first two which are probably my least favorite stages in the game. Despite this, I don’t think there’s a single segment I really dread getting to on a replay, which I feel is a marked improvement.
I enjoyed the story, though it's about what you would expect from one of these games; there is a little bit of asspullery afoot (especially in regards to Luka’s character, though maybe it’s just been too long), but the series has always had some of that here and there and I can forgive it for some truly exciting and fun moments with these characters. I absolutely ADORED Viola being a complete dork with the facade of having it together, it made for some of the story's best moments as the complete polar opposite of Bayonetta (who continues to steal the show as usual). I won’t say too much more, but this is a great celebration of Bayonetta as a series, and color me very excited for wherever they choose to go next.
I’m sure you may know where I’m going when I say unfortunately this game has one big undeniable flaw: the presentation. Don’t get me wrong, the cutscenes are great as always, the music is the best in the series, the art style remains awesome, every aspect owns… except for the fact that the Switch is absolutely dying trying to run this game. I do think the performance is being singled out a bit too much, it could be much better but I think it’s fairly consistent at least and very rarely drops into the realm of being unplayable. I also think that Platinum’s engine is taking a bit too much blame as it feels pretty clear that they did some heavy work on it to add more detail and I can see it scaling pretty well to more powerful hardware (perhaps the reason for these presentation issues).
But the resolution was consistently a problem. The game is a bit of a pixely mess all the way through, and it’s especially bad in the action-heavy opening chapters. It makes it even funnier that they featured a photo mode, because despite trying excessively I could barely ever even get a picture that looked serviceable. I really hope they put in some optimization work post-launch, up the resolution for whenever the Switch successor comes along, just something, because this game deserves to be seen in its full glory.
All that said, I adored my time with this game. In a year where my gaming motivation has been about as finicky as it ever has been, Bayonetta 3 grabbed my attention and held it hard. This is definitely a new all-timer for me, and I couldn’t be happier that it lived up to the hype.
Bayonetta 3
2022
Wow. We have officially reached peak character action, and I'm not sure if it will ever be matched.
I'd been waiting for Bayonetta 3, like zillions of others for years upon years, starving for anything more than the short teaser trailer they showed what felt like eons ago. When we finally got the Project GG fakeout trailer, I jumped for joy, screamed, did a jig, and kept waiting. To say that there had been expectations for the Umbral Witch's third entry would be an excessive understatement, as the first two beloved entries delivered something so right to gaming that was foreign to the medium. Bayonetta is an unapologetically raunchy and sexy character with a sense of humor derived straight from her Devil May Cry DNA, with an arsenal of moves that would put a Joestar to shame.
Now to the game itself. I expected to have a good time, playing through a campaign and getting on to the next game, hopefully satiated with my favorite femme fatale. What I didn't expect was to have an experience where I'd smile from ear to ear the entire time, laugh out loud to the point where it hurt, and tear up upon the games conclusion. Bayonetta to me was always a "fun" series in games 1 and 2, and even the anime, but it dawned on me with 3 that it was more than a game, but a memory to hold and take with me. What Platinum never fails to do with their character action games (MG: Revengance, Nier: Automata, Astral Chain) is keep the gameplay loop fresh, evolving from entry to entry with something new yet familiar so fans of the companies attention to making action fun feel rewarded and continiously interested in what is yet to come. In Bayonetta 1 you become familiar with Witch Time and ultra tight dodging and 1 on 1 combat with humanoids and massive angels alike. Bayonetta 2 begins to think bigger with its addition of the demonic elements into your routine arsenal. Bayonetta 3 takes the series' formula and supersizes it, giving the titular witch an entire arsenal of Kaiju-demons and weapons to bring with her in battle. I LOVED this, as it gives FULL agency to the player in making Bayonetta the game THEY want while keeping the game in its base alive. I played with Bayonetta's legendary pistol as my main weapon and toyed around with secondaries. Going from the G-Pillar (which is an awesome name) associated with Gomorrah, and the massive trainsaw associated with totally not DoomTrain from FFVIII. Being able to summon Doom Train, Gomorrah, and Madame Butterfly in combat whenever my meter was high made fights feel epic and grandiose, as they should with the series. Having the ability to jump between my fast combo and a heavy hitting G-Pillar or Trainsaw (I forgot the actually name but its a chainsaw made out of a train so I'm running with it) felt great because I could weave in and out of combat and do big damage when I wanted. With each area you visit, you gain a new demon to summon and weapon to use, meaning that your experience will vary from location to location and you'll have the time and availability to try out each set. Platinum's been phenomenal with player agency ever since Kamiya began his journey on the DMC series, bringing with him total player control at each step of his character action expertise (and even outside of it, like with Wonderful 101.) In all, Bayonetta 3's combat feels like a player sandbox, throwing enemies at you and letting the player decide on the best route to take to remedy opposition. This made the entire experience a delight, as I didn't feel hamfisted into playing a certain way.
Many games have experimented with adding new playable characters to series with a beloved protagonist to varying success. Metal Gear Solid 2 had the infamous Big Shell fakeout where players discover they're going to play the majority of the game as the freshly minted Raiden instead of the heroic Solid Snake. Yakuza 4 which I recently played has the player split between four characters, the last of which you play being the Dragon of Dojima. Devil May Cry 4 drops the hot headed and bragadocious Nero on the player, a cringe, young, unfamiliar blonde with an attitude and a whole lot to say. Speaking of cringe, young, blonde, and hot headed... Bayonetta 3 introduces a new playable character: Viola. Viola is cringe, there's no way to go around that, but remember Luka in Bayonetta 1? In 2? He's as cringe as they come, but with Bayonetta's self aware satire and humour, it fits like a glove. She's annoying... but it's alright in the scope of the game at hand. Tasked with saving the multiverse, she is mostly inexperienced and unready for the objective at large, which is perfectly contrasted with the aged Bayonetta in her third attempt at righting the ship. I didn't love her playstyle at first, but the totally not Nero stand-in, grew on me as I played and eventually graced into the game's last chapter. She uses a katana, with one of her special combo's being practically Vergil's judgement cut, coupled with the familiar (if you've played Bayonetta 1&2) Cheshire summon who can aid her in combat. With no built in witch time mechanic it was very tough to understand how to play her at first, as you're more or less implored to take a Metal Gear Rising approach to fighting. Making use of perfect parry's allows for witch time with Viola, which admittably was rather tough to master because her block button is the same (when double tapped) as her gap closer, meaning that players must use dilligent timing and patience to master the art of not taking damage. While I ultimately enjoyed Bayonetta's gameplay WAY more than I did Viola's, I applaud Platinum for the risk they took in making a bold and brash character like Viola with a completely different moveset.
Difficulty is an interesting concept with Bayonetta and Platinum at large. The concept of an action game being hard is largely subjective, as reflexes and attention span vary from person to person. I found Bloodborne for example to be, generally speaking, quite easy, which is the opposite of what many others will say. Now, I'm not alone in that quip but it is just a sign of how the opinion of a reviewer in stating a game's difficulty should always be called into question in regards to the reader's own experience. What is easy for me, may be hard for you. Now I've played many Platinum Games' games at this point... starting with Bayonetta (and going even further into all the DMC games if you take in Kamiya's repertoire) into Rising, Automata, Astral Chain, Bayonetta 2, into Bayonetta 3 so I'm quite familiar with the way these games are meant to be played and the requirements for dodge timings and damage windows. I found Bayonetta 3 to be quite easy, not necessarily because of the difficulty of combat in and of itself, but the tools Platinum gives players to just up and complete the game. Gone is the increasing cost of restorative items that grew out of DMC and in is the ability to purchase healing/power items ad nauseum. I LOVED how I had a safety net of healing and damage items in case I ran into difficult enemies. Did it make the game easier? Sure, but did it make it "less fun" because I didn't have to spend as much time grinding in enemy encounters so I understood each and every witch time moment? No.
The story is light, but who really cares? It's serviceable enough in the nearly 14 hours it took me to complete and gives moments of comedy and sorrow to each of the series' mainstays. Enzo, Rodin, Jeanne, Luka, and Bayonetta all return with a new look but retain their unique brands of exposition. Jeanne is beautiful once again, Bayonetta is even beautifulist (that is a word I will only use in regards to Bayonetta,) and Viola was quite astonishing as well. You'll travel from location to location and meet some very intricate characters that all will repeat familiar stories and moments, with their tragic downfalls becoming a trend to the game's climax. I don't want to spoil anything but damn, if I didn't say that the Chinese location had one of the most eye-candy characters in gaming history I would be lying. Also, riding a train on the Great Wall of totally not China will shooting cannons at a Kaiju before summoning a massive Demon to have a bubblebath fight is an absolutely unforgettable and unbeatable moment in gaming history.
Music has only improved in each Bayonetta entry with 3 being the complete peak of the series thus far. Bayonetta's theme is incredible, and Viola's totally not Paramore combat theme is going to be a popular listen for me in the weeks to come. The motifs/themes in each level and at familiar moments of the games are excellently laid as is usual with Platinum, adding even more to the basically flawless game at large.
I know there was a lot of controversy about it, and I did really love Hellena Taylor as Bayonetta but man... Jennifer Hale is gonna do what Jennifer Hale is gonna do. She does a PHENOMENAL job voicing Bayonetta, even as an Canadian-American. She crushed it, and I'm really happy she's who Platinum was able to get.
I knew this game would make me happy, but I didn't know how much. I didn't know this game would make me cry at the ending. I didn't know how much Bayonetta as a franchise meant to me. I didn't know this would make me reflect on my experience with Platinum and Kamiya to this degree. Bayonetta 3 knocked every single expectation I had for the Umbral Witch out of the park to never be seen again. Bayonetta 3 is peak, peak gaming, peak action, peak Bayonetta. This is a MUST play to fans of the franchise, and of character action games. Platinum went all that and then some to make this feel like the ultimate experience.
I'd been waiting for Bayonetta 3, like zillions of others for years upon years, starving for anything more than the short teaser trailer they showed what felt like eons ago. When we finally got the Project GG fakeout trailer, I jumped for joy, screamed, did a jig, and kept waiting. To say that there had been expectations for the Umbral Witch's third entry would be an excessive understatement, as the first two beloved entries delivered something so right to gaming that was foreign to the medium. Bayonetta is an unapologetically raunchy and sexy character with a sense of humor derived straight from her Devil May Cry DNA, with an arsenal of moves that would put a Joestar to shame.
Now to the game itself. I expected to have a good time, playing through a campaign and getting on to the next game, hopefully satiated with my favorite femme fatale. What I didn't expect was to have an experience where I'd smile from ear to ear the entire time, laugh out loud to the point where it hurt, and tear up upon the games conclusion. Bayonetta to me was always a "fun" series in games 1 and 2, and even the anime, but it dawned on me with 3 that it was more than a game, but a memory to hold and take with me. What Platinum never fails to do with their character action games (MG: Revengance, Nier: Automata, Astral Chain) is keep the gameplay loop fresh, evolving from entry to entry with something new yet familiar so fans of the companies attention to making action fun feel rewarded and continiously interested in what is yet to come. In Bayonetta 1 you become familiar with Witch Time and ultra tight dodging and 1 on 1 combat with humanoids and massive angels alike. Bayonetta 2 begins to think bigger with its addition of the demonic elements into your routine arsenal. Bayonetta 3 takes the series' formula and supersizes it, giving the titular witch an entire arsenal of Kaiju-demons and weapons to bring with her in battle. I LOVED this, as it gives FULL agency to the player in making Bayonetta the game THEY want while keeping the game in its base alive. I played with Bayonetta's legendary pistol as my main weapon and toyed around with secondaries. Going from the G-Pillar (which is an awesome name) associated with Gomorrah, and the massive trainsaw associated with totally not DoomTrain from FFVIII. Being able to summon Doom Train, Gomorrah, and Madame Butterfly in combat whenever my meter was high made fights feel epic and grandiose, as they should with the series. Having the ability to jump between my fast combo and a heavy hitting G-Pillar or Trainsaw (I forgot the actually name but its a chainsaw made out of a train so I'm running with it) felt great because I could weave in and out of combat and do big damage when I wanted. With each area you visit, you gain a new demon to summon and weapon to use, meaning that your experience will vary from location to location and you'll have the time and availability to try out each set. Platinum's been phenomenal with player agency ever since Kamiya began his journey on the DMC series, bringing with him total player control at each step of his character action expertise (and even outside of it, like with Wonderful 101.) In all, Bayonetta 3's combat feels like a player sandbox, throwing enemies at you and letting the player decide on the best route to take to remedy opposition. This made the entire experience a delight, as I didn't feel hamfisted into playing a certain way.
Many games have experimented with adding new playable characters to series with a beloved protagonist to varying success. Metal Gear Solid 2 had the infamous Big Shell fakeout where players discover they're going to play the majority of the game as the freshly minted Raiden instead of the heroic Solid Snake. Yakuza 4 which I recently played has the player split between four characters, the last of which you play being the Dragon of Dojima. Devil May Cry 4 drops the hot headed and bragadocious Nero on the player, a cringe, young, unfamiliar blonde with an attitude and a whole lot to say. Speaking of cringe, young, blonde, and hot headed... Bayonetta 3 introduces a new playable character: Viola. Viola is cringe, there's no way to go around that, but remember Luka in Bayonetta 1? In 2? He's as cringe as they come, but with Bayonetta's self aware satire and humour, it fits like a glove. She's annoying... but it's alright in the scope of the game at hand. Tasked with saving the multiverse, she is mostly inexperienced and unready for the objective at large, which is perfectly contrasted with the aged Bayonetta in her third attempt at righting the ship. I didn't love her playstyle at first, but the totally not Nero stand-in, grew on me as I played and eventually graced into the game's last chapter. She uses a katana, with one of her special combo's being practically Vergil's judgement cut, coupled with the familiar (if you've played Bayonetta 1&2) Cheshire summon who can aid her in combat. With no built in witch time mechanic it was very tough to understand how to play her at first, as you're more or less implored to take a Metal Gear Rising approach to fighting. Making use of perfect parry's allows for witch time with Viola, which admittably was rather tough to master because her block button is the same (when double tapped) as her gap closer, meaning that players must use dilligent timing and patience to master the art of not taking damage. While I ultimately enjoyed Bayonetta's gameplay WAY more than I did Viola's, I applaud Platinum for the risk they took in making a bold and brash character like Viola with a completely different moveset.
Difficulty is an interesting concept with Bayonetta and Platinum at large. The concept of an action game being hard is largely subjective, as reflexes and attention span vary from person to person. I found Bloodborne for example to be, generally speaking, quite easy, which is the opposite of what many others will say. Now, I'm not alone in that quip but it is just a sign of how the opinion of a reviewer in stating a game's difficulty should always be called into question in regards to the reader's own experience. What is easy for me, may be hard for you. Now I've played many Platinum Games' games at this point... starting with Bayonetta (and going even further into all the DMC games if you take in Kamiya's repertoire) into Rising, Automata, Astral Chain, Bayonetta 2, into Bayonetta 3 so I'm quite familiar with the way these games are meant to be played and the requirements for dodge timings and damage windows. I found Bayonetta 3 to be quite easy, not necessarily because of the difficulty of combat in and of itself, but the tools Platinum gives players to just up and complete the game. Gone is the increasing cost of restorative items that grew out of DMC and in is the ability to purchase healing/power items ad nauseum. I LOVED how I had a safety net of healing and damage items in case I ran into difficult enemies. Did it make the game easier? Sure, but did it make it "less fun" because I didn't have to spend as much time grinding in enemy encounters so I understood each and every witch time moment? No.
The story is light, but who really cares? It's serviceable enough in the nearly 14 hours it took me to complete and gives moments of comedy and sorrow to each of the series' mainstays. Enzo, Rodin, Jeanne, Luka, and Bayonetta all return with a new look but retain their unique brands of exposition. Jeanne is beautiful once again, Bayonetta is even beautifulist (that is a word I will only use in regards to Bayonetta,) and Viola was quite astonishing as well. You'll travel from location to location and meet some very intricate characters that all will repeat familiar stories and moments, with their tragic downfalls becoming a trend to the game's climax. I don't want to spoil anything but damn, if I didn't say that the Chinese location had one of the most eye-candy characters in gaming history I would be lying. Also, riding a train on the Great Wall of totally not China will shooting cannons at a Kaiju before summoning a massive Demon to have a bubblebath fight is an absolutely unforgettable and unbeatable moment in gaming history.
Music has only improved in each Bayonetta entry with 3 being the complete peak of the series thus far. Bayonetta's theme is incredible, and Viola's totally not Paramore combat theme is going to be a popular listen for me in the weeks to come. The motifs/themes in each level and at familiar moments of the games are excellently laid as is usual with Platinum, adding even more to the basically flawless game at large.
I know there was a lot of controversy about it, and I did really love Hellena Taylor as Bayonetta but man... Jennifer Hale is gonna do what Jennifer Hale is gonna do. She does a PHENOMENAL job voicing Bayonetta, even as an Canadian-American. She crushed it, and I'm really happy she's who Platinum was able to get.
I knew this game would make me happy, but I didn't know how much. I didn't know this game would make me cry at the ending. I didn't know how much Bayonetta as a franchise meant to me. I didn't know this would make me reflect on my experience with Platinum and Kamiya to this degree. Bayonetta 3 knocked every single expectation I had for the Umbral Witch out of the park to never be seen again. Bayonetta 3 is peak, peak gaming, peak action, peak Bayonetta. This is a MUST play to fans of the franchise, and of character action games. Platinum went all that and then some to make this feel like the ultimate experience.
Silent Hill
1999
A bit of an interesting one.
I was avoiding this franchise from like leagues away, mostly cuz I don't do horror and I knew that these games will scare me, but already after finishing the first one I don't regret it a bit. Playing with the lights out really gave a whole new level to how absolutely perfect the atmosphere of the game is, just completely intricately paced from beginning to end. The horrors of the town slowly developed and enveloped the entire aesthetic as things never really stopped being intrinsically unsettling and spooky on most fronts. My favorite moments have to be the hospital in terms of art design, but the sewer to the amusement park really takes the cake on the heartpounding rush side of things. The sound design is absolutely excellent too, with the radio sound etched in my mind in a good way, as well as the industrial vibes that bleed through the hospital and dark overworld. Music's pretty swell here too.
It's really a shame then, that when removed from that aesthetical core, the game starts to have its edges dulled. And I do mean removed, the gameplay of juking monsters and """"managing"""" resources wears itself thin by about halfway through, to where all intents and purposes the atmosphere begins to be enveloped by its own form of mediocrity. You do get some neat moments, I quite liked the first boss and I think a few of the actual puzzles here are really interesting to figure out. But generally once you're used to the controls and have gotten through the hospital, you've done everything. There's also not really much here to say in terms of the story, mostly following rather straightforward beats in an incredibly obfuscated way. It does lead to a couple genuinely great moments, but a lot of it is so incredibly background that I don't think it deserves attention.
Real emphasis on how fucked the resource management is though for a second, what is most definitely the one way this game could ramp the hell up out of the tension is so massively overtuned to where you'll never run out of anything unless you realllllly try.
This kind of sums up to an experience that really peaks early and ends with more of a whimper than it really deserves, at least for me. I even went out of my way to dodge more enemies instead of just shooting them, and that still didn't save sections that could've been a lot more crazy to go through. Definitely still ABSOLUTELY worth your time, but with expectations set very low.
I was avoiding this franchise from like leagues away, mostly cuz I don't do horror and I knew that these games will scare me, but already after finishing the first one I don't regret it a bit. Playing with the lights out really gave a whole new level to how absolutely perfect the atmosphere of the game is, just completely intricately paced from beginning to end. The horrors of the town slowly developed and enveloped the entire aesthetic as things never really stopped being intrinsically unsettling and spooky on most fronts. My favorite moments have to be the hospital in terms of art design, but the sewer to the amusement park really takes the cake on the heartpounding rush side of things. The sound design is absolutely excellent too, with the radio sound etched in my mind in a good way, as well as the industrial vibes that bleed through the hospital and dark overworld. Music's pretty swell here too.
It's really a shame then, that when removed from that aesthetical core, the game starts to have its edges dulled. And I do mean removed, the gameplay of juking monsters and """"managing"""" resources wears itself thin by about halfway through, to where all intents and purposes the atmosphere begins to be enveloped by its own form of mediocrity. You do get some neat moments, I quite liked the first boss and I think a few of the actual puzzles here are really interesting to figure out. But generally once you're used to the controls and have gotten through the hospital, you've done everything. There's also not really much here to say in terms of the story, mostly following rather straightforward beats in an incredibly obfuscated way. It does lead to a couple genuinely great moments, but a lot of it is so incredibly background that I don't think it deserves attention.
Real emphasis on how fucked the resource management is though for a second, what is most definitely the one way this game could ramp the hell up out of the tension is so massively overtuned to where you'll never run out of anything unless you realllllly try.
This kind of sums up to an experience that really peaks early and ends with more of a whimper than it really deserves, at least for me. I even went out of my way to dodge more enemies instead of just shooting them, and that still didn't save sections that could've been a lot more crazy to go through. Definitely still ABSOLUTELY worth your time, but with expectations set very low.
Silent Hill
1999
I spent a lot of my life overlooking Silent Hill 1, and I don’t think I’m alone in that as a Silent Hill fan, as a general Gamer, and having played a few of the later ones of these I KNOW that’s true of later Silent Hill developers lol.
The second game in the series is well known for being in the weird position of being the odd duck that diverges the most from what would become the norms of the original set of Silent Hillses and also the one that most pierced public consciousness, but I think a lot of what’s here to ground the first game really strengthens it as an actual video game that you play? I promise this is a segue I’m gonna stop comparing this game to 2 now.
The town of Silent Hill as presented in the game Silent Hill feels the most like a real place that it ever will in this entire series, even as it retains the bizarre qualities that instantly mark it as something suspicious and hostile. Yes, the streets are too wide and in a weird twist on normal video game logic a lot of the buildings you enter feel too big on the outside compared to the inside, and these inconsistencies lend themselves to the persistent feeling of offness that is aided by, y’know, the monsters and the fog and the static hiss from your radio. But these weird inconsistencies of the town’s anatomy WOULD just feel like normal quirks of video game geography if such close attentiveness wasn’t paid to the mundane details of normal townie life that so many modern games can’t find in themselves. The signage in this game is out of this world good. Silent Hill is a sleepy beach town in Michigan or Pennsylvania with a population of like 800 and one school and I know this because I’ve been there, I’ve been to this bar, I’ve been to this pier, I’ve seen that chainsaw in that window, I’ve seen that bowling alley named after that lady whose name is not super well-suited to naming stuff after. And having such a tangible reality to the locations you visit grounds everything; this game predates the conception of Silent Hill as a purgatorial space for people to work out there own demons, and instead is – and feels – like a real place that something awful has happened to.
This is reflected everywhere: in the state of the world, in the way characters respond to each other and to the events they’re perceiving, in the actors’ performances, even in the flow of the story. There is the expected dreaminess to the plotting and mechanics of getting from place to place. Occasionally Harry will black out and wake up across town or with people mysteriously flitting in and out of his presence. But the sequence of events, the actual A to B to C of the story being told here is extremely straightforward. The game goes pretty far out of its way to make sure you know exactly what’s going on and when and why and how, and I think that’s to its benefit. A very wise friend of mine once said that a lot of horror just boils down to what if a fucked up guy looked at you and Silent Hill 1 might have the least amount of fucked up guy looks at you in the entire series but it has the ETHOS of it down pat. The scares are straightforward too: a kid crying in a bathroom but no one is in there; a corpse nailed to a wall; a scary little kid with a knife and oh no there’s a fence where there wasn’t one! These things are immediate and in your face and rarely subtextual but that doesn’t make them not scary.
And that’s also not to say that Silent Hill 1 isn’t rife with psychological horror and subtext, it’s just, like, actual subtext. People say Silent Hill 2 has psychological subtext and symbolism but those are very loose uses of those words; that’s just, like, regular text! It’s a great game, not a subtle one lmao. Silent Hill 1 has a lot to say about the anxiety of parenthood, our responsibilities to our children, the violence of isolation. It just ALSO says AHH AHH WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT A GIANT MOTH AHHH, which is also good.
Aesthetically, I don’t think Silent Hill has ever looked better and possibly never could have looked better than on the PS1. The grit and the grunge is perfectly at home in the jaggy polys and muddy texture work, even as you can see the console pushing to its limits to render some of the most gorgeous environments and interiors it will ever produce. Set pieces are visual feasts, with the two onscreen nightmare world transitions being actual marvels, particularly the one at the beginning of the game that happens during live gameplay. There are standout visual moments littered throughout this game from start to finish, despite a relatively small suite of areas and a really limited color pallet. Its short length surely helps.
One other thing that CANNOT be understated about this game is that it is highkey hilarious, one of the funniest games of all time. Horror and Comedy trade on the exact same impulses of tension and release, and while bad horror often veers into comedy, a good horror game is just as capable of having fun as it is at scaring you and Silent Hill is truly masterful at both. There are some goofs that clearly aren’t intentional, like characteristic bad PS1 line reads. BUT there’s also stuff that feels winking, and scares so fun that I refuse to believe they’re anything but intentional gotchas. Take the infamous cat scare. Pretty funny. They got you. Then later it happens again, but there’s no cat, then you get control again, and like two seconds after you’re relaxed a corpse falls out of a locker. ICONIC, incredible scare. ALSO very funny, they fuckin got me dude, good one. Or the late game moment where a random refrigerator has a random tentacle monster that randomly eats you out of nowhere if you don’t solve an extremely simple puzzle out of the blue with a bespoke cutscene and everything in a moment unlike any other in the game. Fuck you, absolutely owned, hope you saved recently asshole! OR or or, what about the game’s one (1) sidequest, which has you running all over town for like an HOUR AND A HALF, finding keys and opening safes and constantly making you think you’re gonna find useful items and stuff and you never do never do never do until at the very end you find what seems to be a very important item and then a character you met one time at the very beginning of the game comes in threatens to kill you takes the item and leaves, and Harry literally just shrugs and goes “well THAT was a waste of time.” OWNED. OWNED. LMAO. Funniest game ever made.
And that’s not even talking about the big man Harry Mason himself, a truly wonderful video game himbo, the ur video game dad and the greatest of them, one of the stupidest guys ever to do it but we love him! He has committed no great sins, he has no deep guilt, he is simply a guy who wants to find his daughter, even as things spin more and more wildly out of his control. Always three steps behind everyone else, never able to articulate himself properly when it counts, but nevertheless an extremely good dude who is just trying his best, I sincerely love this guy.
I didn’t really talk about the part where you play this game but it’s really good! It’s short, the puzzles are all actually good unlike in its sequel, and you can mostly just like run past the enemies which is nice. I had a good time running around but I wasn’t so empowered as to just like, feel cool and invincible the whole time.
Great game!
The second game in the series is well known for being in the weird position of being the odd duck that diverges the most from what would become the norms of the original set of Silent Hillses and also the one that most pierced public consciousness, but I think a lot of what’s here to ground the first game really strengthens it as an actual video game that you play? I promise this is a segue I’m gonna stop comparing this game to 2 now.
The town of Silent Hill as presented in the game Silent Hill feels the most like a real place that it ever will in this entire series, even as it retains the bizarre qualities that instantly mark it as something suspicious and hostile. Yes, the streets are too wide and in a weird twist on normal video game logic a lot of the buildings you enter feel too big on the outside compared to the inside, and these inconsistencies lend themselves to the persistent feeling of offness that is aided by, y’know, the monsters and the fog and the static hiss from your radio. But these weird inconsistencies of the town’s anatomy WOULD just feel like normal quirks of video game geography if such close attentiveness wasn’t paid to the mundane details of normal townie life that so many modern games can’t find in themselves. The signage in this game is out of this world good. Silent Hill is a sleepy beach town in Michigan or Pennsylvania with a population of like 800 and one school and I know this because I’ve been there, I’ve been to this bar, I’ve been to this pier, I’ve seen that chainsaw in that window, I’ve seen that bowling alley named after that lady whose name is not super well-suited to naming stuff after. And having such a tangible reality to the locations you visit grounds everything; this game predates the conception of Silent Hill as a purgatorial space for people to work out there own demons, and instead is – and feels – like a real place that something awful has happened to.
This is reflected everywhere: in the state of the world, in the way characters respond to each other and to the events they’re perceiving, in the actors’ performances, even in the flow of the story. There is the expected dreaminess to the plotting and mechanics of getting from place to place. Occasionally Harry will black out and wake up across town or with people mysteriously flitting in and out of his presence. But the sequence of events, the actual A to B to C of the story being told here is extremely straightforward. The game goes pretty far out of its way to make sure you know exactly what’s going on and when and why and how, and I think that’s to its benefit. A very wise friend of mine once said that a lot of horror just boils down to what if a fucked up guy looked at you and Silent Hill 1 might have the least amount of fucked up guy looks at you in the entire series but it has the ETHOS of it down pat. The scares are straightforward too: a kid crying in a bathroom but no one is in there; a corpse nailed to a wall; a scary little kid with a knife and oh no there’s a fence where there wasn’t one! These things are immediate and in your face and rarely subtextual but that doesn’t make them not scary.
And that’s also not to say that Silent Hill 1 isn’t rife with psychological horror and subtext, it’s just, like, actual subtext. People say Silent Hill 2 has psychological subtext and symbolism but those are very loose uses of those words; that’s just, like, regular text! It’s a great game, not a subtle one lmao. Silent Hill 1 has a lot to say about the anxiety of parenthood, our responsibilities to our children, the violence of isolation. It just ALSO says AHH AHH WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT A GIANT MOTH AHHH, which is also good.
Aesthetically, I don’t think Silent Hill has ever looked better and possibly never could have looked better than on the PS1. The grit and the grunge is perfectly at home in the jaggy polys and muddy texture work, even as you can see the console pushing to its limits to render some of the most gorgeous environments and interiors it will ever produce. Set pieces are visual feasts, with the two onscreen nightmare world transitions being actual marvels, particularly the one at the beginning of the game that happens during live gameplay. There are standout visual moments littered throughout this game from start to finish, despite a relatively small suite of areas and a really limited color pallet. Its short length surely helps.
One other thing that CANNOT be understated about this game is that it is highkey hilarious, one of the funniest games of all time. Horror and Comedy trade on the exact same impulses of tension and release, and while bad horror often veers into comedy, a good horror game is just as capable of having fun as it is at scaring you and Silent Hill is truly masterful at both. There are some goofs that clearly aren’t intentional, like characteristic bad PS1 line reads. BUT there’s also stuff that feels winking, and scares so fun that I refuse to believe they’re anything but intentional gotchas. Take the infamous cat scare. Pretty funny. They got you. Then later it happens again, but there’s no cat, then you get control again, and like two seconds after you’re relaxed a corpse falls out of a locker. ICONIC, incredible scare. ALSO very funny, they fuckin got me dude, good one. Or the late game moment where a random refrigerator has a random tentacle monster that randomly eats you out of nowhere if you don’t solve an extremely simple puzzle out of the blue with a bespoke cutscene and everything in a moment unlike any other in the game. Fuck you, absolutely owned, hope you saved recently asshole! OR or or, what about the game’s one (1) sidequest, which has you running all over town for like an HOUR AND A HALF, finding keys and opening safes and constantly making you think you’re gonna find useful items and stuff and you never do never do never do until at the very end you find what seems to be a very important item and then a character you met one time at the very beginning of the game comes in threatens to kill you takes the item and leaves, and Harry literally just shrugs and goes “well THAT was a waste of time.” OWNED. OWNED. LMAO. Funniest game ever made.
And that’s not even talking about the big man Harry Mason himself, a truly wonderful video game himbo, the ur video game dad and the greatest of them, one of the stupidest guys ever to do it but we love him! He has committed no great sins, he has no deep guilt, he is simply a guy who wants to find his daughter, even as things spin more and more wildly out of his control. Always three steps behind everyone else, never able to articulate himself properly when it counts, but nevertheless an extremely good dude who is just trying his best, I sincerely love this guy.
I didn’t really talk about the part where you play this game but it’s really good! It’s short, the puzzles are all actually good unlike in its sequel, and you can mostly just like run past the enemies which is nice. I had a good time running around but I wasn’t so empowered as to just like, feel cool and invincible the whole time.
Great game!
Silent Hill
1999
"harry mason introduced the everyman to survival horror" "as an ordinary man harry mason can't take many hits and struggles with firearms" my man is standing here nailing headshots with hunting rifles like it's nothing. he's getting pounced on by flesh gorillas, mauled, and then crawling out like he just took a scratch. he's surviving electrocution and then nailing noscopes like it's easy. and there's no question he's been doing his cardio as well, sprinting across an entire town while barely breaking a sweat. barely loses his composure until a lady literally turns into a blood demon in front of him. even then he takes a second to sit with it and then starts running around literal bizarro world again as if nothing happened. what does chris redfield have that harry doesn't?
when I played silent hill 2 I managed to self-impose the dread and anxiety required to fully immerse myself in the dilapidated corridors and alleys of the titular town. not so much this time. my friends/roommates were really into watching this one so I rarely played this one alone in the dark like I did its sequel, and I played the game accordingly. lots of riffing and plenty of laughs at the stilted dialogue, creepy setpieces, and oddball puzzles. when I got to the lighthouse I was really having to strain my tank controls prowess to run up the spiral staircase, and as a bit I made a couple other people try it to prove I wasn't crazy; I'll always remember that shit.
but I can't deny that when I played this alone for a bit in the otherworld version of the school, even as I worried that I couldn't remember how to envelope myself in that fear, I could feel those telltale signs occurring. the tightening of the chest, and that prickle in the throat letting me know that the imagery of strung-up bodies and rusty grating were starting to make me anxious. even with few prior antecedents that managed to capture this disgust and visceral psychological torment within the digital world they managed to perfectly envision it on such limited hardware. scenes like the rows of windmills placed in the middle of nowhere after the caterpillar fight or something as simple as covered corpses on beds in the hospital convey sickness and decay without hesitation. the lighting as well, from the muggy daytime streets to the narrow beam of the flashlight control the player's gaze so perfectly, unsettling them as they dare to peek into a corner or open yet another door.
what perhaps surprised me the most was the game's structure. from back to front the game isn't particularly long, and unlike its sequel the actual dungeon sections are much less heavily emphasized. these locations in silent hill 2 contain heavy story significance and a much stronger sense of relevance to james' history and mental state in comparison to the school and the hospital, which serve more functional purposes to harry than thematic ones. the rooms as well feel much more cookie-cutter by comparison, with fewer key areas of interest and more vessels to contain keys of various shapes. where this game succeeds in disorienting the player most is in the ever-shifting locality of the places you visit. building floors that disappear, bathrooms that exit on different floors than you entered on, and entire city streets melting away before your very eyes; all of this culminates in the nowhere, where previous areas are stitched together into a dizzying maze detached from any semblance of reality.
silent hill also has significantly better puzzle design than its follow-up thanks to the lack of any sort of item combination feature. keys are keys, no need to weld multiple random items together to get to the next area. instead the progression feels much more directly drawn from resident evil, with a mixture of fun little brainteasers and lock-and-key matching. surprisingly these appear very little in the second half of the game, assuming that you totally skip the kaufmann side quest as I did (thought I looked around a good deal and yet totally missed the bar, and as soon as you walk down the street on the boardwalk you're completely locked out of this whole section unfortunately). past the hospital there's quite a while of just running past hordes of enemies completely incapable of keeping up with you: in the town center, the sewers, the dock on the way to the lighthouse, and then the sewers again. not really an issue considering you still get to take in the sights regardless, but I would've preferred a little more "dungeon-crawling" so to speak.
when I first tried this game years ago the clunky combat and controls threw me off, and if you feel like you're in this boat take some time to get used to it and explore. items are ridiculously common and taking damage usually yields little risk provided you keep tabs on your health. although I didn't use the strafe at all and barely touched the backjump, overall these are some super tight controls. would not blame anyone for trying the second game first and then coming back to this one like I did.
when I played silent hill 2 I managed to self-impose the dread and anxiety required to fully immerse myself in the dilapidated corridors and alleys of the titular town. not so much this time. my friends/roommates were really into watching this one so I rarely played this one alone in the dark like I did its sequel, and I played the game accordingly. lots of riffing and plenty of laughs at the stilted dialogue, creepy setpieces, and oddball puzzles. when I got to the lighthouse I was really having to strain my tank controls prowess to run up the spiral staircase, and as a bit I made a couple other people try it to prove I wasn't crazy; I'll always remember that shit.
but I can't deny that when I played this alone for a bit in the otherworld version of the school, even as I worried that I couldn't remember how to envelope myself in that fear, I could feel those telltale signs occurring. the tightening of the chest, and that prickle in the throat letting me know that the imagery of strung-up bodies and rusty grating were starting to make me anxious. even with few prior antecedents that managed to capture this disgust and visceral psychological torment within the digital world they managed to perfectly envision it on such limited hardware. scenes like the rows of windmills placed in the middle of nowhere after the caterpillar fight or something as simple as covered corpses on beds in the hospital convey sickness and decay without hesitation. the lighting as well, from the muggy daytime streets to the narrow beam of the flashlight control the player's gaze so perfectly, unsettling them as they dare to peek into a corner or open yet another door.
what perhaps surprised me the most was the game's structure. from back to front the game isn't particularly long, and unlike its sequel the actual dungeon sections are much less heavily emphasized. these locations in silent hill 2 contain heavy story significance and a much stronger sense of relevance to james' history and mental state in comparison to the school and the hospital, which serve more functional purposes to harry than thematic ones. the rooms as well feel much more cookie-cutter by comparison, with fewer key areas of interest and more vessels to contain keys of various shapes. where this game succeeds in disorienting the player most is in the ever-shifting locality of the places you visit. building floors that disappear, bathrooms that exit on different floors than you entered on, and entire city streets melting away before your very eyes; all of this culminates in the nowhere, where previous areas are stitched together into a dizzying maze detached from any semblance of reality.
silent hill also has significantly better puzzle design than its follow-up thanks to the lack of any sort of item combination feature. keys are keys, no need to weld multiple random items together to get to the next area. instead the progression feels much more directly drawn from resident evil, with a mixture of fun little brainteasers and lock-and-key matching. surprisingly these appear very little in the second half of the game, assuming that you totally skip the kaufmann side quest as I did (thought I looked around a good deal and yet totally missed the bar, and as soon as you walk down the street on the boardwalk you're completely locked out of this whole section unfortunately). past the hospital there's quite a while of just running past hordes of enemies completely incapable of keeping up with you: in the town center, the sewers, the dock on the way to the lighthouse, and then the sewers again. not really an issue considering you still get to take in the sights regardless, but I would've preferred a little more "dungeon-crawling" so to speak.
when I first tried this game years ago the clunky combat and controls threw me off, and if you feel like you're in this boat take some time to get used to it and explore. items are ridiculously common and taking damage usually yields little risk provided you keep tabs on your health. although I didn't use the strafe at all and barely touched the backjump, overall these are some super tight controls. would not blame anyone for trying the second game first and then coming back to this one like I did.
Resident Evil 3
2020
Having Jill pick up boltcutters and go "these could be used to cut the chains on a door..." while looking straight ahead at a bolted door sets the tone early on, but critiquing the game for this would be treading too closely on its father's hallowed ground; almost everything dumb and gung about this RE3 was present in that RE4 too, so let RE who is without sin cast the first stone.
With the bar set low, there's an unsurprising consistency to how every subsequent puzzle operates precisely one rung below what would be considered an entertaingly 'clever' solution. You'll often pick up an item and think "Aha! So if I just take this to...", only to find the game is all but making it unavoidable that you and your Clown Key will see the Clown Door on your way down the only unbarricaded corridor in a dozen-block radius. It's merely an Imagine Babiez simulation of the Resident Evil mansion-crawler, but nonetheless an enjoyable one. To unload 125 bullets into a zombie and still have enough rounds to glibly massacre twelve more feels positively philistinic when coming straight off the train from Resident Evil 2, but I think this is an admirably different experience - especially given they're in the same engine. RE3 is impressive in its own way - I could actually feel the old Mercenaries DNA bubbling up to the surface during the hospital holdout, and that made me really glad I finally gave up a few hours to play through it. Good times.
I remember borrowing a friend's copy of this game midway through 2020, but ultimately decided against inserting the disc. Something instinctive told me that this game would be Too Much during a pandemic, and I'm sad-glad to learn my gut was right. As I alluded to way back when, 2020 was the first and hopefully last time in my life I'll watch a real human body in a plastic bag be dropped into a makeshift grave, and this game was full to the brim with that same image. Just surreal to think about April 2020 again, isn't it? That unpleasant memory mingled with the game's, giving those opening street sections a unique morbidity that zombie movies never used to have for me; something formerly cartoonish is now psychologically horrific, closing the gap between survival horror as it exists in reality and in fiction. Kinda funny that I was thinking about all of it, again, in a computer game where someone shouts "suck on this, bitch!" while unloading a railgun into a giant tentacle monster. But that's exactly what I wanted to do to the killer virus too.
With the bar set low, there's an unsurprising consistency to how every subsequent puzzle operates precisely one rung below what would be considered an entertaingly 'clever' solution. You'll often pick up an item and think "Aha! So if I just take this to...", only to find the game is all but making it unavoidable that you and your Clown Key will see the Clown Door on your way down the only unbarricaded corridor in a dozen-block radius. It's merely an Imagine Babiez simulation of the Resident Evil mansion-crawler, but nonetheless an enjoyable one. To unload 125 bullets into a zombie and still have enough rounds to glibly massacre twelve more feels positively philistinic when coming straight off the train from Resident Evil 2, but I think this is an admirably different experience - especially given they're in the same engine. RE3 is impressive in its own way - I could actually feel the old Mercenaries DNA bubbling up to the surface during the hospital holdout, and that made me really glad I finally gave up a few hours to play through it. Good times.
I remember borrowing a friend's copy of this game midway through 2020, but ultimately decided against inserting the disc. Something instinctive told me that this game would be Too Much during a pandemic, and I'm sad-glad to learn my gut was right. As I alluded to way back when, 2020 was the first and hopefully last time in my life I'll watch a real human body in a plastic bag be dropped into a makeshift grave, and this game was full to the brim with that same image. Just surreal to think about April 2020 again, isn't it? That unpleasant memory mingled with the game's, giving those opening street sections a unique morbidity that zombie movies never used to have for me; something formerly cartoonish is now psychologically horrific, closing the gap between survival horror as it exists in reality and in fiction. Kinda funny that I was thinking about all of it, again, in a computer game where someone shouts "suck on this, bitch!" while unloading a railgun into a giant tentacle monster. But that's exactly what I wanted to do to the killer virus too.
Resident Evil 2
2019
"𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗'𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢, "𝙽𝙴𝚂𝚃" — 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚁𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢'𝚜 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚎.
𝙷𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝙽𝙴𝚂𝚃, 𝙻𝚎𝚘𝚗 𝚖𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚋𝚒𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚗 𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙶-𝚅𝚒𝚛𝚞𝚜.
𝙻𝚎𝚘𝚗 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚏 𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚝, 𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚍."
I had the pleasure of watching Speed for the first time earlier this year, and I enjoyed it very much. My favourite thing about the film was Keanu Reeves, who played the role of the hero, Jack Traven. Jack is a naively good-spirited cop who talks down crazed gunmen via the appeal of "c'mon, we're just dudes... chillin' out together...", an honest babyfaced fella who is more concerned with saving old ladies in wheelchairs at the side of the road than he is with blowing off the heads of terrorists from lands far away. While deification of the great Keanu is obviously one of the most overplayed bits in the history of the internet, every cliche has to come from somewhere - and it's easy to see why we worship a guy who has the talent to make a cop so damn likable.
It goes without saying that no police officer is innocent, but I don't think that means mean every person behind a badge is irredeemable. Perhaps a contentious statement, but I find it too hard to believe - too hard to reckon with, even - that there isn't a naive subset of the force who got into the job because they genuinely wanted to protect goodness in this world. This is a theme that Resident Evil 2 deals with in surprising nuance for a game about a big zombie in a fedora who can walk through walls. Coming hot off a replay of the Stallonesque Resident Evil 4, the most fascinating thing about Resident Evil 2 to me now is how the game puts discernible effort into its First Blood, (re)building Leon S. Kennedy as a person who begins adult life as nothing more than a Saved By The Bell extra in a windbreaker, a cherubic little have-a-go himbo hero who is transposed through capitalist-realist circumstance into a vengeful terminator who ends up clenching his kevlar-gloved fists in the R.P.D.'s suit of armour as he comes to realise that even a global viral outbreak won't change the system.
𝙻𝚎𝚘𝚗: 𝙸𝚝’𝚜 𝚐𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙵𝙱𝙸.
𝙰𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎: ...𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑?
As Shinji Mikami alluded to in an interview, Capcom has gradually tightened the bolts that govern how the goofiness and scariness of these games interact and intermingle with each new entry in the franchise. In this installment, I think that's best exemplified in Leon's relationship with Ada. She begins the story in distant sunglasses that eye-roll deadpan disbelief at some of Leon's worst witticisms and navietes, but is ultimately charmed by his earnest nature, granting him the status of co-conspirator (at least in some matters) in a way that kinda reminds me how the uptight local antiheroes of One Piece arcs often end up dancing to the beat of Monkey D. Luffy's revolutionary drum once they come to appreciate just how stupidly heroic he really is. Ada is a New Game++ life-player who's seen the world's garbage at its most toxic, but even the most cynical of gaming veterans can't resist pumping their fists when Leon tries an unconvincing "Chew on that, you overgrown son of a bitch!" after stuffing an alligator's mouth full of explosive gas canisters. It's a relatively small thing in the grand scheme of a Resident Evil's world, but I think it goes a long way towards making the player feel like a character's protector and guide - which is important in a game that is explicitly about the horror of survival.
Mechanically I don't have a whole lot to say about how Resident Evil 2 plays because minusforever already wrote the book on this game in 2021, so lemme just call out a small detail I really appreciated here in comparison to Silent Hill 2, which I was playing at the exact same time - it's called the "triple trip". Like a foolhardy teenager trying to carry all his mother's shopping back from the car in one journey, one of my favourite things about the way this game's puzzle box unfolds is the constant opportunities to score three or more objectives in a single movement, executing on a well-laid plan like a chess master strapped with a desert eagle. For years I've abhorred survival horror and adventure games that force the player to go Point A<->Point B<->Point A<->Point B with individual key items, and it seems the designers of Resident Evil 2 have too. Almost every pairing of item and item-hole can be compressed into discrete sequences that call to mind the simplification of an algebra equation (if algebra was intermittently disrupted by a cancerous demon wrapping its tendrils around your neck), and the way the game enables these condensements - by showing you as much of the map as possible before handing over the first piece that will enable you to master a series of unlockings - is nothing short of masterful. Gonna be replaying this game for a while to come.
𝙷𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝙽𝙴𝚂𝚃, 𝙻𝚎𝚘𝚗 𝚖𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚋𝚒𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚗 𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙶-𝚅𝚒𝚛𝚞𝚜.
𝙻𝚎𝚘𝚗 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚏 𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚝, 𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚍."
I had the pleasure of watching Speed for the first time earlier this year, and I enjoyed it very much. My favourite thing about the film was Keanu Reeves, who played the role of the hero, Jack Traven. Jack is a naively good-spirited cop who talks down crazed gunmen via the appeal of "c'mon, we're just dudes... chillin' out together...", an honest babyfaced fella who is more concerned with saving old ladies in wheelchairs at the side of the road than he is with blowing off the heads of terrorists from lands far away. While deification of the great Keanu is obviously one of the most overplayed bits in the history of the internet, every cliche has to come from somewhere - and it's easy to see why we worship a guy who has the talent to make a cop so damn likable.
It goes without saying that no police officer is innocent, but I don't think that means mean every person behind a badge is irredeemable. Perhaps a contentious statement, but I find it too hard to believe - too hard to reckon with, even - that there isn't a naive subset of the force who got into the job because they genuinely wanted to protect goodness in this world. This is a theme that Resident Evil 2 deals with in surprising nuance for a game about a big zombie in a fedora who can walk through walls. Coming hot off a replay of the Stallonesque Resident Evil 4, the most fascinating thing about Resident Evil 2 to me now is how the game puts discernible effort into its First Blood, (re)building Leon S. Kennedy as a person who begins adult life as nothing more than a Saved By The Bell extra in a windbreaker, a cherubic little have-a-go himbo hero who is transposed through capitalist-realist circumstance into a vengeful terminator who ends up clenching his kevlar-gloved fists in the R.P.D.'s suit of armour as he comes to realise that even a global viral outbreak won't change the system.
𝙻𝚎𝚘𝚗: 𝙸𝚝’𝚜 𝚐𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙵𝙱𝙸.
𝙰𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎: ...𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑?
As Shinji Mikami alluded to in an interview, Capcom has gradually tightened the bolts that govern how the goofiness and scariness of these games interact and intermingle with each new entry in the franchise. In this installment, I think that's best exemplified in Leon's relationship with Ada. She begins the story in distant sunglasses that eye-roll deadpan disbelief at some of Leon's worst witticisms and navietes, but is ultimately charmed by his earnest nature, granting him the status of co-conspirator (at least in some matters) in a way that kinda reminds me how the uptight local antiheroes of One Piece arcs often end up dancing to the beat of Monkey D. Luffy's revolutionary drum once they come to appreciate just how stupidly heroic he really is. Ada is a New Game++ life-player who's seen the world's garbage at its most toxic, but even the most cynical of gaming veterans can't resist pumping their fists when Leon tries an unconvincing "Chew on that, you overgrown son of a bitch!" after stuffing an alligator's mouth full of explosive gas canisters. It's a relatively small thing in the grand scheme of a Resident Evil's world, but I think it goes a long way towards making the player feel like a character's protector and guide - which is important in a game that is explicitly about the horror of survival.
Mechanically I don't have a whole lot to say about how Resident Evil 2 plays because minusforever already wrote the book on this game in 2021, so lemme just call out a small detail I really appreciated here in comparison to Silent Hill 2, which I was playing at the exact same time - it's called the "triple trip". Like a foolhardy teenager trying to carry all his mother's shopping back from the car in one journey, one of my favourite things about the way this game's puzzle box unfolds is the constant opportunities to score three or more objectives in a single movement, executing on a well-laid plan like a chess master strapped with a desert eagle. For years I've abhorred survival horror and adventure games that force the player to go Point A<->Point B<->Point A<->Point B with individual key items, and it seems the designers of Resident Evil 2 have too. Almost every pairing of item and item-hole can be compressed into discrete sequences that call to mind the simplification of an algebra equation (if algebra was intermittently disrupted by a cancerous demon wrapping its tendrils around your neck), and the way the game enables these condensements - by showing you as much of the map as possible before handing over the first piece that will enable you to master a series of unlockings - is nothing short of masterful. Gonna be replaying this game for a while to come.
Drakengard
2003
this game requires no introduction anymore so i'm not beating around the bush. drakengard has been on my mind a fair bit recently - on the off chance you'll forgive a second log i think it's worth examining some of what the title accomplishes uniquely well, or what it's able to achieve with respect to the various titles that it's in conversation with. first of all: there's nothing quite as flatline-inducing or revealing of the author's own tendencies as reading that drakengard was intentionally poorly designed, a commonly held idea in various hobbyist communities frustratingly stemming just as often from its supporters as from its detractors. not only is this a frightfully pedantic and dull reduction of the text - it's also just an elaborately constructed fiction masking deeper truths. for instance, i think it's plain as day our burgeoning critical language still struggles with titles seemingly antithetical to traditional enjoyment, and are only able to escape from suffocating evaluative lexicon through irony or genre labels. survival horror isn't normally 'fun' & people appear willing to understand this so the genre gets a normative pass en masse, although it seems worth mentioning that the longer they exist in the public eye the more their mechanical frameworks get totally demystified by the public, arguably reducing them to vehicles for pleasure and gratification anyways, resident evil being the prime example.
drakengard, of course, isn't survival horror. it's largely a musou with some horror trappings, but it's rather plain about its affectation. however, because the traditional 'game' part of it is in such conflict with its aesthetic, we end up with the idea that this dissonance is a result of intentionally languid, engineered dissatisfaction. oh wow that wacky yoko taro wanted you to feel bad so he made his debut game bad. bzzzzt. wrong. square enix wanted a commercial success with drakengard. if they didn't, they wouldn't have requested that a project starting out as a simple remix of ace combat (owing massive inspiration to electrosphere in particular, another game that combines peerless arcade bluster with bleak narrative proceedings) would incorporate elements of its contemporary blockbuster peer, dynasty warriors. none of this is to say that drakengard can't be an awkward game, but it's in large part due to a friction with cavia's inexperience/lack of technical expertise, their attempts at holding true to their initial vision for the project, and square enix being desperate for a worthy competitor to koei tecmo's success.
here's where i'll stake a claim on something potentially contentious and risible. on the basis of the title's struggles in production & development, it is somewhat shocking that drakengard is not just 'not bad', but is a totally competent musou game. given the milieu in which it released, you might even dare to call it 'good', or 'well-made'. i'll double down with something absolutely no one wants to hear: most people have no point of reference because musou is rarely put in its historic context, appreciated for its strengths, or even, broadly speaking, played. disregarding popular experimental offshoot licensed games which carry their own unique magnetism, dynasty warriors has an especially prevalent stigma in contemporary action game circles, and few seem willing to return to reevaluate the franchise. if we accept this as the case, we can begin to understand why nostalgia is the primary driver of fondness for early musou, and why you always hear dynasty warriors 3 is the best one. 'load of bull', you say, 'drakengard is not good', you say, 'dynasty warriors sold millions and is beloved for inventing the drama; surely it's better', you say, but take a look at these admittedly small sample sizes (evidence A and evidence B) and you tell me which is actually the niche ip at present. one of these broader game worlds got a FFXIV collaboration. it was not dynasty warriors.
anyways the idea that drakengard could be a respected peer to dynasty warriors - or even, perhaps, better - is not ahistorical. drakengard came out in 2003, only a few months after the release of dynasty warriors 4. by this point in the dynasty warriors timeline, your only sources of inspiration for the musou canon are dynasty warrior 2 and dynasty warriors 3. they're fine games for what they are - content-rich, pop recontextualizations of romance of the three kingdoms that fold the intense political drama, grandiose character dynamics, and poeticizing of feudal history intrinsic to the novel and morphs them into larger-than-life battles of one against one hundred. it works for that series, but having played dynasty warriors 3, it's also very simply orchestrated. DW3 is kinetic and energetic, sure, but form is not function. as a still nascent series, DW3 has yet to experiment with elements that would come to define later entries, such as a strong emphasis on field management - its presence in 3 is largely muted and, dependent upon your stats, can often be negated. it is mostly a game of fulfilling your objectives, grinding up your stats, and engaging in undemanding combat pulling the same strong combo strings against some unique generals and a multitude of carbon copy generic ones. and i happen to appreciate it for what it is, but there is no question in my mind if you slotted that exact same mechanical framework into drakengard's tone and setting, it would be similarly deemed bad on purpose.
other than its tone what does drakengard do differently from this purely mechanical perspective? honestly, not too much from DW3! archers are still often priority targets, because if you don't prioritize them you will get knocked off yourhorse dragon. mission structure is usually quite similar, arguably with a bit less back and forth. combos require virtually the exact same input. the camera in both games is kind of fucked up. aside from abstruse unlock requirements and a...unique, system of progression, the biggest differences are mostly relegated to additions rather than subtractions. there are more enemy designs than just grunt soldiers. you can dodge now. the game is weapon-driven rather than character-driven ala DW3, which allows for its own form of unique experimentation. the soundtrack is excellent, i'm not accepting complaints. to aid in breaking up the pace, there are aerial missions that play somewhat comparably to panzer dragoon on-rail segments which are actually quite fun; likewise, the hybrid missions allow for angelus to be used as a means of offence in ground warfare and rain hellfire from above. it keeps things relatively varied. there's no troops to manage because caim is fighting a losing war and willingly formed a pact with the only being capable of potentially turning the tides, and the game is content to use the musou form to communicate ideas about caim and angelus to great effect.
of course, it's the narrative which gives drakengard a lot of its greatest texture (and is also demonstrative of its greatest strengths and appeals as a DW clone), but we can save discussion of that for some other time; for now it's more important for me to say that it's not quite the outright condemnation of violence through ludology that so many claim it is (it's far more interested in more subtle forms of violence than the explicit and ceaseless murder it depicts anyways). really, this was just a self-indulgent exercise in placing drakengard in its historic context once and for all, away from all the retrospectives it's been getting as a result of nier's runaway success. drakengard is a game that won't be for most, but it's a game that's lingered in my memory long since i first played it. it takes an, at the time, relatively new genre, and through sheer passion and dedication spins it into a uniquely transgressive idea while still remaining an enjoyable title to let unfold. if it feels numbing or meditative, that's more or less the exact emotional resonance that something like DW3 is targeting - drakengard just uses it to achieve more things than a sense of gratifying white noise. it remains peerless because of all of its contradictions, because of how messy and thorny it is as a game, and because we'll never see anything approaching this utterly unique interplay of emotional rhythms and macabre, uncanny storytelling wearing the skin of its crowdpleasing predecessors ever again.
drakengard, of course, isn't survival horror. it's largely a musou with some horror trappings, but it's rather plain about its affectation. however, because the traditional 'game' part of it is in such conflict with its aesthetic, we end up with the idea that this dissonance is a result of intentionally languid, engineered dissatisfaction. oh wow that wacky yoko taro wanted you to feel bad so he made his debut game bad. bzzzzt. wrong. square enix wanted a commercial success with drakengard. if they didn't, they wouldn't have requested that a project starting out as a simple remix of ace combat (owing massive inspiration to electrosphere in particular, another game that combines peerless arcade bluster with bleak narrative proceedings) would incorporate elements of its contemporary blockbuster peer, dynasty warriors. none of this is to say that drakengard can't be an awkward game, but it's in large part due to a friction with cavia's inexperience/lack of technical expertise, their attempts at holding true to their initial vision for the project, and square enix being desperate for a worthy competitor to koei tecmo's success.
here's where i'll stake a claim on something potentially contentious and risible. on the basis of the title's struggles in production & development, it is somewhat shocking that drakengard is not just 'not bad', but is a totally competent musou game. given the milieu in which it released, you might even dare to call it 'good', or 'well-made'. i'll double down with something absolutely no one wants to hear: most people have no point of reference because musou is rarely put in its historic context, appreciated for its strengths, or even, broadly speaking, played. disregarding popular experimental offshoot licensed games which carry their own unique magnetism, dynasty warriors has an especially prevalent stigma in contemporary action game circles, and few seem willing to return to reevaluate the franchise. if we accept this as the case, we can begin to understand why nostalgia is the primary driver of fondness for early musou, and why you always hear dynasty warriors 3 is the best one. 'load of bull', you say, 'drakengard is not good', you say, 'dynasty warriors sold millions and is beloved for inventing the drama; surely it's better', you say, but take a look at these admittedly small sample sizes (evidence A and evidence B) and you tell me which is actually the niche ip at present. one of these broader game worlds got a FFXIV collaboration. it was not dynasty warriors.
anyways the idea that drakengard could be a respected peer to dynasty warriors - or even, perhaps, better - is not ahistorical. drakengard came out in 2003, only a few months after the release of dynasty warriors 4. by this point in the dynasty warriors timeline, your only sources of inspiration for the musou canon are dynasty warrior 2 and dynasty warriors 3. they're fine games for what they are - content-rich, pop recontextualizations of romance of the three kingdoms that fold the intense political drama, grandiose character dynamics, and poeticizing of feudal history intrinsic to the novel and morphs them into larger-than-life battles of one against one hundred. it works for that series, but having played dynasty warriors 3, it's also very simply orchestrated. DW3 is kinetic and energetic, sure, but form is not function. as a still nascent series, DW3 has yet to experiment with elements that would come to define later entries, such as a strong emphasis on field management - its presence in 3 is largely muted and, dependent upon your stats, can often be negated. it is mostly a game of fulfilling your objectives, grinding up your stats, and engaging in undemanding combat pulling the same strong combo strings against some unique generals and a multitude of carbon copy generic ones. and i happen to appreciate it for what it is, but there is no question in my mind if you slotted that exact same mechanical framework into drakengard's tone and setting, it would be similarly deemed bad on purpose.
other than its tone what does drakengard do differently from this purely mechanical perspective? honestly, not too much from DW3! archers are still often priority targets, because if you don't prioritize them you will get knocked off your
of course, it's the narrative which gives drakengard a lot of its greatest texture (and is also demonstrative of its greatest strengths and appeals as a DW clone), but we can save discussion of that for some other time; for now it's more important for me to say that it's not quite the outright condemnation of violence through ludology that so many claim it is (it's far more interested in more subtle forms of violence than the explicit and ceaseless murder it depicts anyways). really, this was just a self-indulgent exercise in placing drakengard in its historic context once and for all, away from all the retrospectives it's been getting as a result of nier's runaway success. drakengard is a game that won't be for most, but it's a game that's lingered in my memory long since i first played it. it takes an, at the time, relatively new genre, and through sheer passion and dedication spins it into a uniquely transgressive idea while still remaining an enjoyable title to let unfold. if it feels numbing or meditative, that's more or less the exact emotional resonance that something like DW3 is targeting - drakengard just uses it to achieve more things than a sense of gratifying white noise. it remains peerless because of all of its contradictions, because of how messy and thorny it is as a game, and because we'll never see anything approaching this utterly unique interplay of emotional rhythms and macabre, uncanny storytelling wearing the skin of its crowdpleasing predecessors ever again.
Going from the original to this is a significant leap ahead, a swansong that pays its tribute to the miles and miles of experience, refined to such a degree that you can really feel it to an almost clinical level. In a sense this already fails at matching up to what it's paying respect to years in the past, as its edge is mostly sanded, the unique artistry of the single stream of consciousness replaced by a more general structure. Things rise, things fall, go to one climactic finish that blissfully spreads its message of a loving companionship versus the mechanical ends of humanity.
But yeah I love that more. An easy victim to the usual, the violent swells, the compounding final boss rush, the absolute insanity of an XBLA-vibe masterwork. What I felt with the original was that it lacked "impact", and even though it's on the more appreciation-over-time end, I kind of kicked its ass. It was too easy for me on Normal and I didn't spend a credit. The almost-but-not-quite formless nature of most of its music enshrouding its levels left me feeling very miffed and unflinching towards things on an initial level. For whatever inexplicable reason, though it's significantly less of an innate strength in tone versus the OG's harsh and heavy beat vibetown, I could really feel the energy through each mission in Star Successor. But it's definitely possible that it's more many things coming together in ways that definitely appeal to me way more. Treasure is simply encapsulating the most awesome parts and aesthetical sensibilities of the generation they're in.
Of course, the biggest demonstration Star Successor has on offer is how it has simply mastered layered action in its gameplay. There's actually such cool shit to how bullet patterns and enemies come together onto your mental stack, testing significantly more within its frame of movement than ever before. If nothing else, Star Successor is quite literally the best mechanical rail shooter, and it's lovingly difficult!!! Despite the intense "who the fuck would want to 1cc this" length, each mission is a perfectly paced piece with some of the best positional boss battles to rival most action games! While not the exact back-to-back variety you'll see on the N64 the whole of Star Successor also doesn't feel like it quite ever does the same thing twice, although there's some overlap. I was so expressively losing myself in the final stage too. Real piercing the heavens stuff. Good shit.
I apologize though, you'll have to forgive me for comparing the two so strictly. Star Successor is not Trying to be the original again, and while there's merit to meshing the two together to see their more apparent differences and how much the developers have grown, it's still a battle of appeals. People should be playing both of these because as a sequence they're reflective on the absolute best of us and how that culture of the best of us moves over time. The most poignant note is that we'll be making 100 different versions on the same determination of our spiral united power, yet still result in beautiful wholly unique stars that inspire the way forward.
But yeah I love that more. An easy victim to the usual, the violent swells, the compounding final boss rush, the absolute insanity of an XBLA-vibe masterwork. What I felt with the original was that it lacked "impact", and even though it's on the more appreciation-over-time end, I kind of kicked its ass. It was too easy for me on Normal and I didn't spend a credit. The almost-but-not-quite formless nature of most of its music enshrouding its levels left me feeling very miffed and unflinching towards things on an initial level. For whatever inexplicable reason, though it's significantly less of an innate strength in tone versus the OG's harsh and heavy beat vibetown, I could really feel the energy through each mission in Star Successor. But it's definitely possible that it's more many things coming together in ways that definitely appeal to me way more. Treasure is simply encapsulating the most awesome parts and aesthetical sensibilities of the generation they're in.
Of course, the biggest demonstration Star Successor has on offer is how it has simply mastered layered action in its gameplay. There's actually such cool shit to how bullet patterns and enemies come together onto your mental stack, testing significantly more within its frame of movement than ever before. If nothing else, Star Successor is quite literally the best mechanical rail shooter, and it's lovingly difficult!!! Despite the intense "who the fuck would want to 1cc this" length, each mission is a perfectly paced piece with some of the best positional boss battles to rival most action games! While not the exact back-to-back variety you'll see on the N64 the whole of Star Successor also doesn't feel like it quite ever does the same thing twice, although there's some overlap. I was so expressively losing myself in the final stage too. Real piercing the heavens stuff. Good shit.
I apologize though, you'll have to forgive me for comparing the two so strictly. Star Successor is not Trying to be the original again, and while there's merit to meshing the two together to see their more apparent differences and how much the developers have grown, it's still a battle of appeals. People should be playing both of these because as a sequence they're reflective on the absolute best of us and how that culture of the best of us moves over time. The most poignant note is that we'll be making 100 different versions on the same determination of our spiral united power, yet still result in beautiful wholly unique stars that inspire the way forward.
Splatoon 3
2022
I play turf war, I have fun.
I play the single player, I have fun.
I play salmon run, I have fun.
It simply delivers every way you turn.
There is certainly a push and pull between "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and "have I paid 60 clams to skip Deep Cut reading the news instead of skipping Off the Hook reading the news?" but hell, it's all good, it's all solid, and I'm still delighted whenever the Squid Sisters show up and do or say absolutely anything.
Fingers crossed the DLC (no I'm not wild about the fact that paid DLC was announced before the game released) can escape the trappings of a glorified weapons tutorial. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed single player very much, and I fully understand why it's the way it is, but I'm ready for levels that deliver the true potential of the platforming, rather than re-re-reintroducing me to the splat roller. We've met!
I play the single player, I have fun.
I play salmon run, I have fun.
It simply delivers every way you turn.
There is certainly a push and pull between "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and "have I paid 60 clams to skip Deep Cut reading the news instead of skipping Off the Hook reading the news?" but hell, it's all good, it's all solid, and I'm still delighted whenever the Squid Sisters show up and do or say absolutely anything.
Fingers crossed the DLC (no I'm not wild about the fact that paid DLC was announced before the game released) can escape the trappings of a glorified weapons tutorial. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed single player very much, and I fully understand why it's the way it is, but I'm ready for levels that deliver the true potential of the platforming, rather than re-re-reintroducing me to the splat roller. We've met!
Splatoon 3
2022
its more splatoon, but the single player is actually good now and they finally (after 7 years) figured out that its fun when youre able to play with your friends. holy shit. just ignore the communication errors. paid online service btw.
maybe i was just really burnt out when splatoon 2 dropped, as it hadnt been that long since the first game which id poured hundreds of hours into. but that game simply didnt grab me the way the first one did, and the way this has been doing. i cant stop playing, its summer 2015 all over again. i love how fucking stupid everything about this game is, the cheesy dialogue, the music going BEN BEN w/ the among us theme, getting spawn camped on mahi mahi because some genius decided it should have like 10cm^2 area now, getting tenta missiled by 3 flyfishes while waiting 10 years to do a roller flick because some genius decided the current salmon run rotation should have dynamo roller, trying to get the shades to sit on the moai head in your locker just right, keeping lil judd in your peripheral vision at all times after beating him in a childrens card game, etc etc
i dont want to be out here talking about how splatoon's core game design is genius or whatever because i dont actually play other shooters these days. likewise i dont want to be talking about how innovative this is because splatoon has gotten pretty comfortable now. 1 was the trailblazer 7 years ago, this is the third rodeo. ive already started seeing people unhappy that the word "splatoon" has gone from meaning "creative new weird wii u ip" to "hugely successful series that has started putting out entries that all look and play the same" which is fair really. maybe ill be more cynical when we get around to like splatoon 6 with idols called like Carol and Reefe ready to announce the single worst map rotation youve ever seen. as of right now its simply too fun and charming. now if youll excuse me i have to grind to level 98 so i can unlock the dab
maybe i was just really burnt out when splatoon 2 dropped, as it hadnt been that long since the first game which id poured hundreds of hours into. but that game simply didnt grab me the way the first one did, and the way this has been doing. i cant stop playing, its summer 2015 all over again. i love how fucking stupid everything about this game is, the cheesy dialogue, the music going BEN BEN w/ the among us theme, getting spawn camped on mahi mahi because some genius decided it should have like 10cm^2 area now, getting tenta missiled by 3 flyfishes while waiting 10 years to do a roller flick because some genius decided the current salmon run rotation should have dynamo roller, trying to get the shades to sit on the moai head in your locker just right, keeping lil judd in your peripheral vision at all times after beating him in a childrens card game, etc etc
i dont want to be out here talking about how splatoon's core game design is genius or whatever because i dont actually play other shooters these days. likewise i dont want to be talking about how innovative this is because splatoon has gotten pretty comfortable now. 1 was the trailblazer 7 years ago, this is the third rodeo. ive already started seeing people unhappy that the word "splatoon" has gone from meaning "creative new weird wii u ip" to "hugely successful series that has started putting out entries that all look and play the same" which is fair really. maybe ill be more cynical when we get around to like splatoon 6 with idols called like Carol and Reefe ready to announce the single worst map rotation youve ever seen. as of right now its simply too fun and charming. now if youll excuse me i have to grind to level 98 so i can unlock the dab