Jaymerg
28 Reviews liked by Jaymerg
Makes sense that most of the communist-chanting options are played almost as jokes, because no one believes those grand statements anymore. More than that, they can't believe. They almost lost their meaning. This town is more complicated than all of that.
The sense of longing and the pain that comes from nostalgia are not enough: the world, the people, society, they have layers and layers. Reality is broken, and the past holds too many traumas for everyone. But you can still peel most of those layers, and get to the bottom of the heart. It doesn't feel like a task or a chore in any moment, it's like the answers are always driving you forward in such a small and concrete environment. You HAVE to keep going!! Be the detective, untangle every mess in your life and roll those dice!!!
The sense of longing and the pain that comes from nostalgia are not enough: the world, the people, society, they have layers and layers. Reality is broken, and the past holds too many traumas for everyone. But you can still peel most of those layers, and get to the bottom of the heart. It doesn't feel like a task or a chore in any moment, it's like the answers are always driving you forward in such a small and concrete environment. You HAVE to keep going!! Be the detective, untangle every mess in your life and roll those dice!!!
It almost feels silly to call anything else an RPG now that this exists. It's a perfect culmination of the idea of injecting stats and rolls and modifiers into a game that actually lets you play a role, to define who this amnesiac man is and how he relates to the world he inhabits.
And what a world: broken and tragicomic, Revachol comes off at first glance as a bitter satire written by a disillusioned leftist. But the deeper you dive, the more it opens up into something haunting and beautiful in its own right, with even a faint glimmer of hope hidden among the ruins. No people is truly broken, argues Disco Elysium, while they still have hearts to care for one another and arms to link against their oppressors.
And what a world: broken and tragicomic, Revachol comes off at first glance as a bitter satire written by a disillusioned leftist. But the deeper you dive, the more it opens up into something haunting and beautiful in its own right, with even a faint glimmer of hope hidden among the ruins. No people is truly broken, argues Disco Elysium, while they still have hearts to care for one another and arms to link against their oppressors.
an even better version of an already 5/5 game. an adventure game, a crpg (in the vein of planescape: torment), a detective sim, a sprawling choose-your-own-dementia jamboree, a dreary mucking-around in self-destruction, inner dreams, despair, love, hope (?!), and loads of politics. you're the sorry cop, the hobocop, the broke-dick disco king of dire debauchery. an absolute scumbag who, just maybe, wants the world to be better. you have the coolest partner, kim kitsuragi: a moral anchor of sorts—sympathetic, albeit amply capable of becoming... displeased with you. it all depends. there are many ways to blaze your trail through revachol. in the milieu of computer games, disco elysium is a rare flower reeking of human life, history, and the yearning of loneliness in a capitalist shit-world. breathe in the stink and let the heartless wind run its fingers through your hair.
YOU -- "But what if humanity keeps letting us down?"
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST -- "Nobody said that fulfilling the proletariat's historic role would be easy. It demands great faith with no promise of tangible reward. But that doesn't mean we can simply give up."
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST -- "I guess you can say we believe it *because* it's impossible. It's our way of saying we refuse to accept that the world has to remain... like this..."
---
A 2 week old fetid corpse hangs from a tree, a ghastly sight; a human life reduced to a macabre piñata for small children to pelt stones at in a twisted idea of entertainment. The children themselves, a hopped-up junkie and a nameless orphan respectively, both the result of a broken system that has unequivocally failed them. The district of Martinaise, pockmarked by the remnants of revolutionary war, abandoned by the world at large, it and its people subject to the pissing contests of petty government officials to see who is lumped with the task of looking after the place, the site of a months-long, on-the-brink-of-warfare labor dispute that's about to boil over with the lynching of a PMC soldier who was meant to "defuse" the situation. All of this, left to the hands of a suicidal, vice-riddled husk of a cop who can barely get his necktie down from the ceiling fan without potentially going into cardiac arrest. Disco Elysium is an undeniably depressing experience that isn't afraid to cover the messy spectrum of humanity, from insane race-realist phrenologists to meth-addled children to every kind of ghoulish bureaucrat under the sun. The district of Martinaise, as fictional as it is, is a place I've seen before, reflected in the streets, reflected in the people, reflected in the system; an undeniably full-faced look at the horrors faced by those below, and the resulting apathy expressed by those above.
---
SUGGESTION -- Brother, you should put me in front of a firing squad. I have no words for how I failed you.
---
Every aspect of Disco Elysium reflects its overall theme of "failure". Martinaise itself has been failed by the institutions meant to help it, abandoned by the powers that be, who only intervene when it looks like anyone is trying to enact change. NPCs can reminisce on days gone by, of the tragedies in their past, or of their cynical rebuke of the future. The various schools of political thought you can adopt and their representatives are mercilessly picked apart, from the Communists too entrenched in theory to take notice of the suffering around them, to the frankly pathetic fascists who use their prejudiced beliefs to shield themselves from their own flaws. Our protagonist is constantly haunted by his past and even starts the game recovering from his own self-destructive ways, and on a gameplay level, the way that our intrepid detective can fumble the bag in nearly every way imaginable and still be allowed to make progress in investigations and sidequests is commendable. Failure is so integral, so vital to Disco Elysium that it's not only an aspect deeply ingrained in its story, but also its very gameplay.
---
VOLITION [Easy: Success] -- No. This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive.
---
And yet, despite this cloying cynicism and acknowledgement of the ugliness of reality, Disco Elysium is magical because of the fact that it ultimately believes that there is a world worth fighting for in the end. It would be incredibly easy to be defeatist in the face of such constant, institutional and societal failure we are presented with in Revachol, to be ceaselessly apathetic in the face of your own overwhelming shortcomings, to fall back into the comfort of old vices instead of facing our problems head on. Still, Disco Elysium has that fire inside of it, an untapped hatred for fence-sitting, for passivity in the face of oppression and valuing the status quo over any meaningful change. Roll up your sleeves and fight for a better future.
---
RHETORIC -- "You've built it before, they've built it before. Hasn't really worked out yet, but neither has love -- should we just stop building love, too?"
---
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST -- "In dark times, should the stars also go out?"
---
RHETORIC -- "Say one of these fascist or communist things or fuck off."
---
Disco Elysium believes in the people. It believes in humanity, no matter how messy our supposed paragons are, or how flawed our beliefs and values can be, or how cyclical we can be in the face of it all. In a city plagued by an inability to move on, Disco Elysium says that there is always a possibility of change. If two broke Communists and a junkie wino can defy the very laws of physics in a slummy apartment, no matter how briefly, with the power of their faith and co-operation; imagine what we could do as a group. As a city. As a species.
Disco Elysium says that the cup is half full. Even if we won't see the own fruits of our labor in our lifetimes, it still looks you in the eyes and says:
"The only promise it offers is that the future can be better than the past, if we're willing to work and fight and die for it," a conviction belted out by the youths of tomorrow.
"Un jour je serai de retour près de toi", written in bright burning letters across a market square.
"TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE/ONLY IN THE NEXT WORLD--FOR NEW PEOPLE/IT IS TOO LATE FOR US," painted on the side of an eight-story tenement.
"Disco Inferno...," a lone voice belted out through a boombox's speakers across a frost-bitten sea.
---
MANKIND, BE VIGILANT; WE LOVED YOU
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST -- "Nobody said that fulfilling the proletariat's historic role would be easy. It demands great faith with no promise of tangible reward. But that doesn't mean we can simply give up."
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST -- "I guess you can say we believe it *because* it's impossible. It's our way of saying we refuse to accept that the world has to remain... like this..."
---
A 2 week old fetid corpse hangs from a tree, a ghastly sight; a human life reduced to a macabre piñata for small children to pelt stones at in a twisted idea of entertainment. The children themselves, a hopped-up junkie and a nameless orphan respectively, both the result of a broken system that has unequivocally failed them. The district of Martinaise, pockmarked by the remnants of revolutionary war, abandoned by the world at large, it and its people subject to the pissing contests of petty government officials to see who is lumped with the task of looking after the place, the site of a months-long, on-the-brink-of-warfare labor dispute that's about to boil over with the lynching of a PMC soldier who was meant to "defuse" the situation. All of this, left to the hands of a suicidal, vice-riddled husk of a cop who can barely get his necktie down from the ceiling fan without potentially going into cardiac arrest. Disco Elysium is an undeniably depressing experience that isn't afraid to cover the messy spectrum of humanity, from insane race-realist phrenologists to meth-addled children to every kind of ghoulish bureaucrat under the sun. The district of Martinaise, as fictional as it is, is a place I've seen before, reflected in the streets, reflected in the people, reflected in the system; an undeniably full-faced look at the horrors faced by those below, and the resulting apathy expressed by those above.
---
SUGGESTION -- Brother, you should put me in front of a firing squad. I have no words for how I failed you.
---
Every aspect of Disco Elysium reflects its overall theme of "failure". Martinaise itself has been failed by the institutions meant to help it, abandoned by the powers that be, who only intervene when it looks like anyone is trying to enact change. NPCs can reminisce on days gone by, of the tragedies in their past, or of their cynical rebuke of the future. The various schools of political thought you can adopt and their representatives are mercilessly picked apart, from the Communists too entrenched in theory to take notice of the suffering around them, to the frankly pathetic fascists who use their prejudiced beliefs to shield themselves from their own flaws. Our protagonist is constantly haunted by his past and even starts the game recovering from his own self-destructive ways, and on a gameplay level, the way that our intrepid detective can fumble the bag in nearly every way imaginable and still be allowed to make progress in investigations and sidequests is commendable. Failure is so integral, so vital to Disco Elysium that it's not only an aspect deeply ingrained in its story, but also its very gameplay.
---
VOLITION [Easy: Success] -- No. This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive.
---
And yet, despite this cloying cynicism and acknowledgement of the ugliness of reality, Disco Elysium is magical because of the fact that it ultimately believes that there is a world worth fighting for in the end. It would be incredibly easy to be defeatist in the face of such constant, institutional and societal failure we are presented with in Revachol, to be ceaselessly apathetic in the face of your own overwhelming shortcomings, to fall back into the comfort of old vices instead of facing our problems head on. Still, Disco Elysium has that fire inside of it, an untapped hatred for fence-sitting, for passivity in the face of oppression and valuing the status quo over any meaningful change. Roll up your sleeves and fight for a better future.
---
RHETORIC -- "You've built it before, they've built it before. Hasn't really worked out yet, but neither has love -- should we just stop building love, too?"
---
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST -- "In dark times, should the stars also go out?"
---
RHETORIC -- "Say one of these fascist or communist things or fuck off."
---
Disco Elysium believes in the people. It believes in humanity, no matter how messy our supposed paragons are, or how flawed our beliefs and values can be, or how cyclical we can be in the face of it all. In a city plagued by an inability to move on, Disco Elysium says that there is always a possibility of change. If two broke Communists and a junkie wino can defy the very laws of physics in a slummy apartment, no matter how briefly, with the power of their faith and co-operation; imagine what we could do as a group. As a city. As a species.
Disco Elysium says that the cup is half full. Even if we won't see the own fruits of our labor in our lifetimes, it still looks you in the eyes and says:
"The only promise it offers is that the future can be better than the past, if we're willing to work and fight and die for it," a conviction belted out by the youths of tomorrow.
"Un jour je serai de retour près de toi", written in bright burning letters across a market square.
"TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE/ONLY IN THE NEXT WORLD--FOR NEW PEOPLE/IT IS TOO LATE FOR US," painted on the side of an eight-story tenement.
"Disco Inferno...," a lone voice belted out through a boombox's speakers across a frost-bitten sea.
---
MANKIND, BE VIGILANT; WE LOVED YOU
This review contains spoilers
Having played the original release of this game, I enjoyed this remake/remaster. However, I feel it falls short in some places where the original didn't. Most people with this opinion will point to the fact that the playable character is different, and while I DO prefer the father version of the titular character Nier, playing as brother Nier is not one of my big issues with this game. If anything, it was more incentive to play it, since the original PS3 version of NieR Replicant was not released in the West, and instead Square opted to release NieR Gestalt featuring father Nier for both consoles the game released on.
My issues instead lie with a number of other more specific things, the first being the voice acting. Liam O'Brien, Laura Bailey, and Julie Ann Taylor deliver a stellar performance in Replicant ver. 1.22, though all three of their performances feel a bit weaker and less emotional than in the PS3 version of the game. Despite liking his performances elsewhere, I was not impressed with Zach Aguilar's delivery while playing the younger version of brother Nier. Many lines lacked emotion and urgency where they would be appropriate. Ray Chase as the adult version of brother Nier, on the other hand, did a very good job with the character and in one instance even surpassed Jamieson Price's outstanding voice work as father Nier in the PS3 release. As a whole though, Price's voice work was irreplaceable and it saddens me to see him only get a single line of dialogue in this release.
Slight script changes were made, and I dislike a lot of them. I realize this is unavoidable as the protagonist is an entirely different character, but some of them are questionable and didn't need to be changed. Brother Nier as a whole seems to have a lot less personality than father Nier, which is strange as the game was originally written with only brother Nier in mind. I'm unsure of whether or not these script changes are more faithful to the Japanese dialogue, but if they are, the localization changes were minor enough that I feel they should have been left alone.
The gameplay, despite being "improved", is really no different and is even worse off in some cases. Combat is virtually the same outside of being flashier, which causes no real improvement in quality of the combat and makes attacks feel like they have less weight to them. Enemies seem to be spongier than the original release, and seem to abuse annoying attacks with the potential to stunlock the player way more often. Boar riding controls differ, and are less simple and efficient than they previously were. Bosses take significantly less damage than normal while dialogue is playing during boss fights, presumably to make sure you don't miss dialogue by killing a boss too quickly. Missing dialogue like this was an annoying issue in the original, but making bosses take almost no damage while characters are talking is a horrible compromise. This is especially irritating in subsequent playthroughs while trying to get other endings. Facade is also more difficult to traverse, as jump height and object heights differ between releases.
Graphics are an "improvement" but cause the game to lose the unique look the original release had. Lighting is less colorful and causes some objects to stand out awkwardly due to their colors. Character models (particularly Kaine, who even had a change in eye color, and Grimoire Weiss, who looks flatter and less metallic) look wildly different from the originals, Devola and Popola are much harder to tell apart. Grimoire Noir's magic is an odd Mountain Dew yellow-green color instead of its original gold. Text is also noticeably smaller in this release, which makes it difficult to read if playing on a TV as opposed to a computer monitor.
Most of the remade soundtrack is unnecessary and inferior to the original. Many songs feel exactly the same aside from the addition of new instruments that ruin the feel and flow of the originals.
The new content is a welcome addition, and what I was most interested in upon purchasing the game. However, some of it does break the flow of the game and as much as I enjoyed playing through Ending E as Kaine, I miss having the bittersweet/outright sad ending D as the definitive ending of the game. Being able to restore your save file gets rid of the weight that the decision to delete it in the first place held, and the connection to Automata felt more like cheap fanservice than actual interesting lore. Having Kaine playable in this ending also means the opportunity to have her playable in Route B, which the game tells you is "Kaine's Story", is wasted. Similarly, I feel an opportunity to have father Nier selectable whether it be in the base game or as DLC was missed considering they went through the effort to model him and bring in his voice actor for one single line.
As a whole, I realize this is an incredibly nitpicky and negative review. I enjoyed the game and recommend it to anyone whose only option to play it is this. I just prefer the original and wanted to make this disorganized ramble of a review explaining why. I strongly suggest playing the PS3/360 release first, though I recognize that this isn't feasible for everyone. Many of the original game's strengths are retained in this release, and much of my complaints likely come from my familiarity with the original, which is easily one of my favorite games of all time. If you actually took the time to read all this, haven't played either version, and have no way to play the PS3 version, pick this one up anyway. The story and characters are still excellent and you'll have a good time.
My issues instead lie with a number of other more specific things, the first being the voice acting. Liam O'Brien, Laura Bailey, and Julie Ann Taylor deliver a stellar performance in Replicant ver. 1.22, though all three of their performances feel a bit weaker and less emotional than in the PS3 version of the game. Despite liking his performances elsewhere, I was not impressed with Zach Aguilar's delivery while playing the younger version of brother Nier. Many lines lacked emotion and urgency where they would be appropriate. Ray Chase as the adult version of brother Nier, on the other hand, did a very good job with the character and in one instance even surpassed Jamieson Price's outstanding voice work as father Nier in the PS3 release. As a whole though, Price's voice work was irreplaceable and it saddens me to see him only get a single line of dialogue in this release.
Slight script changes were made, and I dislike a lot of them. I realize this is unavoidable as the protagonist is an entirely different character, but some of them are questionable and didn't need to be changed. Brother Nier as a whole seems to have a lot less personality than father Nier, which is strange as the game was originally written with only brother Nier in mind. I'm unsure of whether or not these script changes are more faithful to the Japanese dialogue, but if they are, the localization changes were minor enough that I feel they should have been left alone.
The gameplay, despite being "improved", is really no different and is even worse off in some cases. Combat is virtually the same outside of being flashier, which causes no real improvement in quality of the combat and makes attacks feel like they have less weight to them. Enemies seem to be spongier than the original release, and seem to abuse annoying attacks with the potential to stunlock the player way more often. Boar riding controls differ, and are less simple and efficient than they previously were. Bosses take significantly less damage than normal while dialogue is playing during boss fights, presumably to make sure you don't miss dialogue by killing a boss too quickly. Missing dialogue like this was an annoying issue in the original, but making bosses take almost no damage while characters are talking is a horrible compromise. This is especially irritating in subsequent playthroughs while trying to get other endings. Facade is also more difficult to traverse, as jump height and object heights differ between releases.
Graphics are an "improvement" but cause the game to lose the unique look the original release had. Lighting is less colorful and causes some objects to stand out awkwardly due to their colors. Character models (particularly Kaine, who even had a change in eye color, and Grimoire Weiss, who looks flatter and less metallic) look wildly different from the originals, Devola and Popola are much harder to tell apart. Grimoire Noir's magic is an odd Mountain Dew yellow-green color instead of its original gold. Text is also noticeably smaller in this release, which makes it difficult to read if playing on a TV as opposed to a computer monitor.
Most of the remade soundtrack is unnecessary and inferior to the original. Many songs feel exactly the same aside from the addition of new instruments that ruin the feel and flow of the originals.
The new content is a welcome addition, and what I was most interested in upon purchasing the game. However, some of it does break the flow of the game and as much as I enjoyed playing through Ending E as Kaine, I miss having the bittersweet/outright sad ending D as the definitive ending of the game. Being able to restore your save file gets rid of the weight that the decision to delete it in the first place held, and the connection to Automata felt more like cheap fanservice than actual interesting lore. Having Kaine playable in this ending also means the opportunity to have her playable in Route B, which the game tells you is "Kaine's Story", is wasted. Similarly, I feel an opportunity to have father Nier selectable whether it be in the base game or as DLC was missed considering they went through the effort to model him and bring in his voice actor for one single line.
As a whole, I realize this is an incredibly nitpicky and negative review. I enjoyed the game and recommend it to anyone whose only option to play it is this. I just prefer the original and wanted to make this disorganized ramble of a review explaining why. I strongly suggest playing the PS3/360 release first, though I recognize that this isn't feasible for everyone. Many of the original game's strengths are retained in this release, and much of my complaints likely come from my familiarity with the original, which is easily one of my favorite games of all time. If you actually took the time to read all this, haven't played either version, and have no way to play the PS3 version, pick this one up anyway. The story and characters are still excellent and you'll have a good time.
Knights of the Old Republic will probably always be the best Star Wars narrative and one of the best narratives of all time. The world building, the societies, the fractions, the quests, the characters, the plot, the twists, the soundtrack and the atmosphere. Impeccable.
The Witcher 3 is, now that I've played it, officially a part of the Holy Trinity of Western RPG's with Red Dead Redemption 2 and Mass Effect 3 due to its tremendous character writing, unparalleled world building and lore, and overall style. Seriously, there is not one thing about this game that after completion, I felt it needed.
Characters in the Witcher, be it in the games, show, or books, are the definitive strongsuit and most important aspect as set in place by Andrzej Sapkowski way back in the 90's when first creating the story of Geralt that would eventually sweep the world by storm. Everybody in the series matters, nobody is intrinsically good, nobody is faultless. Geralt of Rivia, who is probably the greatest protagonist in video game history is a man of imperfection, a mutated shell of a human whose history is marred with bloodshed and tragedy. Geralt never looks back though, he is a pragmatist with a heart. I've never encountered a character in a series who is as multi-faceted and believable as Geralt. He bows to nobody and adheres to his own code, owes no alleigances to men of state or people of power, loves those who he wants to love, and is confident in his staggering ability in combat. One beautiful aspect of the series is how often you split between fighting and conversation, as the history of the continent and people within are decided by Geralt's words, which he carefully must pick and cater to those he speaks with. He is a sly and cunning man, and always cognizant of the intentions of those around him, he is no fool. He knows his love for Ciri, Yennefer, and Vesimir can lead him astray, but his abilties make up for it.
The protagonist Geralt takes center stage as the player character and decision maker within the story, but every single character within the world crafts what is the greatest low-fantasy adventure and most well fleshed out world in video game history. Secondary characters like Yennefer, Triss, Vesimir, Ciri, Dandelion, Zoltan, Keira, Djikstra, Ehmyr, and many more add an invaluable amount to not only the story, but the passion behind the player's actions. Each character has their own unique motives, their own special relationship to Geralt and the others around, their own piece that fits together for the final puzzle. You spend hours seperately with each of these characters, disputing romance, debating politics, bargaining, and laughing in good faith. The depth that The Witcher 3 goes in to with your supporting cast, without ever overstaying its welcome is only paralleled with one game, Red Dead Redemption 2. I only want to spend MORE hours with the Witchers of Kaer Morhan, with the two beautiful Sorceresses in Triss and Yennefer learning about their world and complicated relationships with Geralt, with the beautiful and evasive Cirilla, and countless others. Few games are like the Witcher 3 and have you smiling when you reunite with characters from previous games or books, when I met with Roche for the first time I jumped with joy, same as with the lovable duo of Dandelion and Zoltan. I can not drive the point home enough, these side characters are some of the most fleshed out peers and comrades of any video game ever. Even the more minor characters, involved in singular quest chains like the Bloody Baron, Cerys, or [REDACTED DUE TO SPOILERS] leave a mark that you shant forget, as their memories and experiences add an extreme amount to the overall journey.
Now, this is clearly evident to anybody who has seen the show or read any of the books, but aside from the characters, the thing that lays the groundwork for the Witcher's success as a game franchise is the beautiful worldbuilding by Andrzej Sapkowski. EVERYTHING from the Eastern-European influenced folklore to the medieval European architecture and setting is meticulously laid out with extreme thought and care. The cities withing the Witcher 3 feel like real Medieval cities reflecting of their culture. The royal castle of Vizima feels like that befitting of a grand emperor, the free city of Novigrad is one of the most impressive and fleshed out cities in any video game in the history of the medium, and the multiple communities within Skellige are a thing of Scandinavian beauty. The towns and world were so beautiful to traverse, many a moment was spent stopping and staring at the colorful countrysides. Disclaimer, I did play this game with a 4K texture pack enabled to make the pretty things more pretty. But man, I could speak for days about how REAL this felt as a fantasy setting. There is a perfect balance of power within the universe of the Witcher, and that is evident in its third entry. Sorceresses are extremely powerful, yet their volatility is too high for excessive power usage. The Wild Hunt are an impressively scary force, however they are kept in check by certain abilities that will be explained. Geralt and the Witchers themself are the strongest of human warriors, however they are the last of a dying breed. The power in the Witcher series is kept in check by wit and chess-like geopolitics, as it would be in an actual medieval setting. Not by a superhero or undefeatable protagonist. The Witcher is a carefuilly crafted universe of lore that has been in motion for nearly thirty years, culminating with the effort that it took to get to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Each narrative empowering, passionate, and given an incredible amount of thought.
The music of the Witcher 3 is something of note as well, and those who have played this game can easily find a common ground in this aspect, whether they liked the other aspects or not. These songs are long and drawn out, borrowing aspects from Medieval instruments and fantasy choruses and sounds. Each song, whether its for a specific zone or character, couples with the mood and settings perfectly without any shadow of a doubt. I paused when I was riding the trusty steed Roach through the winding hills of Skelige as the beautiful soundtrack played and looked at the open ocean. I was in awe, completely lost in the world. I felt like Geralt, wind howling and hitting my face on a horse looking over a familiar crag. It's moments that games like this and RDR2 nail that have the player completely divulged into the immersive nature that they put forth.
The only knocks I can give the Witcher 3 is the combat being far less than stellar in difficult and rigidity, and the ham-fisted relationship with Yennefer that is more of a qualm I have with the series as a whole. The former is excusable with the addition of the points I made above, however the latter irked me to a fairly large degree. I don't like Yennefer, full stop, which is interesting because she is clearly Geralt's canon love interest if you know anything about the series or have played even a few minutes of this game. The topic of whether I like her or not is strictly an opinion of subjective nature and each player is left to their own vices in that regard, however my qualm for this post is moreso how the game deals with that if you pick Triss as your romantic option. The game does a mostly great job in dealing with this, even hiding nuggets of voice lines in conversation about the awkwardness of having Yennefer around when you're romantically involved with the sorceress you spent time with in the last few games. It does get a little awkward sometimes when there are plot elements that pair you with Yennefer and imply that she is your betrothed, but as this review is a five star review, that is clearly not enough to detract any major points away from the game.
I had not played the Witcher 3 until now because I was not a fan of the low-fantasy medieval setting. Once I played the Witcher 2, I became invested and watched the show, read some books, and became completely enthralled in the world of Geralt. With the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt you have a tremendously crafted narrative, flawlessly written memorable and diverse characters, a lively fleshed out world with a cavernous lore and history, and a magnificent soundtrack that thrusts immersion into the the player.
I strongly recommend The Witcher 3 to those who are looking for a narrative video game journey that they will not forget.
Characters in the Witcher, be it in the games, show, or books, are the definitive strongsuit and most important aspect as set in place by Andrzej Sapkowski way back in the 90's when first creating the story of Geralt that would eventually sweep the world by storm. Everybody in the series matters, nobody is intrinsically good, nobody is faultless. Geralt of Rivia, who is probably the greatest protagonist in video game history is a man of imperfection, a mutated shell of a human whose history is marred with bloodshed and tragedy. Geralt never looks back though, he is a pragmatist with a heart. I've never encountered a character in a series who is as multi-faceted and believable as Geralt. He bows to nobody and adheres to his own code, owes no alleigances to men of state or people of power, loves those who he wants to love, and is confident in his staggering ability in combat. One beautiful aspect of the series is how often you split between fighting and conversation, as the history of the continent and people within are decided by Geralt's words, which he carefully must pick and cater to those he speaks with. He is a sly and cunning man, and always cognizant of the intentions of those around him, he is no fool. He knows his love for Ciri, Yennefer, and Vesimir can lead him astray, but his abilties make up for it.
The protagonist Geralt takes center stage as the player character and decision maker within the story, but every single character within the world crafts what is the greatest low-fantasy adventure and most well fleshed out world in video game history. Secondary characters like Yennefer, Triss, Vesimir, Ciri, Dandelion, Zoltan, Keira, Djikstra, Ehmyr, and many more add an invaluable amount to not only the story, but the passion behind the player's actions. Each character has their own unique motives, their own special relationship to Geralt and the others around, their own piece that fits together for the final puzzle. You spend hours seperately with each of these characters, disputing romance, debating politics, bargaining, and laughing in good faith. The depth that The Witcher 3 goes in to with your supporting cast, without ever overstaying its welcome is only paralleled with one game, Red Dead Redemption 2. I only want to spend MORE hours with the Witchers of Kaer Morhan, with the two beautiful Sorceresses in Triss and Yennefer learning about their world and complicated relationships with Geralt, with the beautiful and evasive Cirilla, and countless others. Few games are like the Witcher 3 and have you smiling when you reunite with characters from previous games or books, when I met with Roche for the first time I jumped with joy, same as with the lovable duo of Dandelion and Zoltan. I can not drive the point home enough, these side characters are some of the most fleshed out peers and comrades of any video game ever. Even the more minor characters, involved in singular quest chains like the Bloody Baron, Cerys, or [REDACTED DUE TO SPOILERS] leave a mark that you shant forget, as their memories and experiences add an extreme amount to the overall journey.
Now, this is clearly evident to anybody who has seen the show or read any of the books, but aside from the characters, the thing that lays the groundwork for the Witcher's success as a game franchise is the beautiful worldbuilding by Andrzej Sapkowski. EVERYTHING from the Eastern-European influenced folklore to the medieval European architecture and setting is meticulously laid out with extreme thought and care. The cities withing the Witcher 3 feel like real Medieval cities reflecting of their culture. The royal castle of Vizima feels like that befitting of a grand emperor, the free city of Novigrad is one of the most impressive and fleshed out cities in any video game in the history of the medium, and the multiple communities within Skellige are a thing of Scandinavian beauty. The towns and world were so beautiful to traverse, many a moment was spent stopping and staring at the colorful countrysides. Disclaimer, I did play this game with a 4K texture pack enabled to make the pretty things more pretty. But man, I could speak for days about how REAL this felt as a fantasy setting. There is a perfect balance of power within the universe of the Witcher, and that is evident in its third entry. Sorceresses are extremely powerful, yet their volatility is too high for excessive power usage. The Wild Hunt are an impressively scary force, however they are kept in check by certain abilities that will be explained. Geralt and the Witchers themself are the strongest of human warriors, however they are the last of a dying breed. The power in the Witcher series is kept in check by wit and chess-like geopolitics, as it would be in an actual medieval setting. Not by a superhero or undefeatable protagonist. The Witcher is a carefuilly crafted universe of lore that has been in motion for nearly thirty years, culminating with the effort that it took to get to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Each narrative empowering, passionate, and given an incredible amount of thought.
The music of the Witcher 3 is something of note as well, and those who have played this game can easily find a common ground in this aspect, whether they liked the other aspects or not. These songs are long and drawn out, borrowing aspects from Medieval instruments and fantasy choruses and sounds. Each song, whether its for a specific zone or character, couples with the mood and settings perfectly without any shadow of a doubt. I paused when I was riding the trusty steed Roach through the winding hills of Skelige as the beautiful soundtrack played and looked at the open ocean. I was in awe, completely lost in the world. I felt like Geralt, wind howling and hitting my face on a horse looking over a familiar crag. It's moments that games like this and RDR2 nail that have the player completely divulged into the immersive nature that they put forth.
The only knocks I can give the Witcher 3 is the combat being far less than stellar in difficult and rigidity, and the ham-fisted relationship with Yennefer that is more of a qualm I have with the series as a whole. The former is excusable with the addition of the points I made above, however the latter irked me to a fairly large degree. I don't like Yennefer, full stop, which is interesting because she is clearly Geralt's canon love interest if you know anything about the series or have played even a few minutes of this game. The topic of whether I like her or not is strictly an opinion of subjective nature and each player is left to their own vices in that regard, however my qualm for this post is moreso how the game deals with that if you pick Triss as your romantic option. The game does a mostly great job in dealing with this, even hiding nuggets of voice lines in conversation about the awkwardness of having Yennefer around when you're romantically involved with the sorceress you spent time with in the last few games. It does get a little awkward sometimes when there are plot elements that pair you with Yennefer and imply that she is your betrothed, but as this review is a five star review, that is clearly not enough to detract any major points away from the game.
I had not played the Witcher 3 until now because I was not a fan of the low-fantasy medieval setting. Once I played the Witcher 2, I became invested and watched the show, read some books, and became completely enthralled in the world of Geralt. With the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt you have a tremendously crafted narrative, flawlessly written memorable and diverse characters, a lively fleshed out world with a cavernous lore and history, and a magnificent soundtrack that thrusts immersion into the the player.
I strongly recommend The Witcher 3 to those who are looking for a narrative video game journey that they will not forget.
The Witcher 3 is a grandiose and emotional story of a man looking for his daughter. Because finding said daughter takes time and a man's gotta sit down and rest every now and then, in a more immediate sense The Witcher 3 is a game about Geralt stumbling on all of his old friends who all happen to be in the same corner of the world at the same time and going for a drink and catching up with all of them.
You may think that this is a role-playing game because of the RPG tag but actually the G in the RPG here stands for Geralt, so you're Role-Playing Geralt, who is, lucky for you, one of the most terrific video game protagonists that you'll ever meet (you're also him in this game!)
The writing is all-around great here, which makes even all the side-quests worth experiencing too. Many times the smaller stories will surprise you and blow your mind. Different outcomes in quests based on your choices mean there's plenty of replayability here too.
You may think that this is a role-playing game because of the RPG tag but actually the G in the RPG here stands for Geralt, so you're Role-Playing Geralt, who is, lucky for you, one of the most terrific video game protagonists that you'll ever meet (you're also him in this game!)
The writing is all-around great here, which makes even all the side-quests worth experiencing too. Many times the smaller stories will surprise you and blow your mind. Different outcomes in quests based on your choices mean there's plenty of replayability here too.
A charming and simply magical experience, a game everyone needs to play
The best version of the game regarded as one of the best games of all-time. The enhanced graphics bring more life in the games visuals and make it more beautiful. The 3d is also pretty impressive in this game too. It also adds Master Quest from the GameCube version that adds more longevity to the game and a good challenge and a boss challenge mode for those who might want to fight the bosses again. Not only was this the 3ds's first killer app, but also the definitive version of a fantastic game that anybody who has ever touched a controller should play.
This is something like tenth or eleventh playthrough of this game, maybe more, and I still completely adore it. Poking my head in on the other games in the recently released Castlevania Advance Collection I played this on (really great thing, btw. you can switch region versions if you want to play Dracula X with terrible slowdown!! that unironically rules!!) demonstrates that IGA's team were struggling to make this form fully click but here they nail it harder than anyone has ever done since.
Aria is the best example I can think of for how crucial the macro level design is in a Metroidvania. When Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night came out a couple of years ago, it was most directly following on from this game and its immediate sequel in gameplay design, and in that sense made a number of cool improvements and tweaks to the soul system, but failed to electrify in the same way because the design of the castle just wasn't there. Too big, too many long, winding, flat corridors that you run through achingly slowly. Here, the castle feels massive but clever placement of shortcuts, multiple paths, and teleporters makes it easy to navigate without ever robbing it of that size, thanks primarily to teleporters that are convenient but not too convenient.
Every time you get a new pickup that expands your scope of navigation in the castle, there's something right nearby to let you test it out, which in turn fires your neurons and gets you to remember all the things you passed by earlier that you can get to now. Far too many times in games like this, I get a new item or power and just think to myself "ok...how does this help me progress?" Aria never gives you a pickup without understanding how good and cool the thing you just got was.
There are great little touches like that all over the game. The way there's just a little friction involved in going to the shop, allowing you to interact with the first enemies again and be reminded of just how far you've come, the way it will let you get a glimpse of certain areas that you won't come back to for hours so that they remain in your mind, Aria makes exploration and discovery a constant delight, and remains, for me, unquestionably the level design high point of the Igavanias.
It's probably the narrative high point too, except maybe Ecclesia, which isn't saying much but it's still an effective story! The dialogue is silly and it's pretty slim but the twist at the end was both a genuine surprise at the time (though unlocking that twist being very cryptic is maybe my one real complaint about the game) and resonates very well with the gameplay arc of the game being about the mastery of this space and the demons inside it. And the final boss is the castle itself??? I love it when a dumb game literalizes it's themes into a big thing for you to beat up right at the end and Aria is one of the best examples of that, it rules.
Also, sue me, I'm just a sucker for stories about people asserting their selves over outside forces that wish to make them someone else! And i'm sure taking Castlevania into the future was a decision that was mocked at the time, but it means that Soma can find a fucking GUN and it RULES.
This is a pretty rambly review, but I just love this game so much it's hard to talk about it without just listing all the things about it that rule. I love Soma's sprites, I love that Claimh Solais makes the game cake once you find it but the second-last boss is super resistant to it, making it still a super tense fight, I love all the goofy and evocative enemy designs, I love the soundtrack straining against the limits of the game boy advance, I love it all.
Sometimes a game presses all your buttons just right, and Aria of Sorrow is that for me.
Soma Cruz is my boyfriend.
Aria is the best example I can think of for how crucial the macro level design is in a Metroidvania. When Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night came out a couple of years ago, it was most directly following on from this game and its immediate sequel in gameplay design, and in that sense made a number of cool improvements and tweaks to the soul system, but failed to electrify in the same way because the design of the castle just wasn't there. Too big, too many long, winding, flat corridors that you run through achingly slowly. Here, the castle feels massive but clever placement of shortcuts, multiple paths, and teleporters makes it easy to navigate without ever robbing it of that size, thanks primarily to teleporters that are convenient but not too convenient.
Every time you get a new pickup that expands your scope of navigation in the castle, there's something right nearby to let you test it out, which in turn fires your neurons and gets you to remember all the things you passed by earlier that you can get to now. Far too many times in games like this, I get a new item or power and just think to myself "ok...how does this help me progress?" Aria never gives you a pickup without understanding how good and cool the thing you just got was.
There are great little touches like that all over the game. The way there's just a little friction involved in going to the shop, allowing you to interact with the first enemies again and be reminded of just how far you've come, the way it will let you get a glimpse of certain areas that you won't come back to for hours so that they remain in your mind, Aria makes exploration and discovery a constant delight, and remains, for me, unquestionably the level design high point of the Igavanias.
It's probably the narrative high point too, except maybe Ecclesia, which isn't saying much but it's still an effective story! The dialogue is silly and it's pretty slim but the twist at the end was both a genuine surprise at the time (though unlocking that twist being very cryptic is maybe my one real complaint about the game) and resonates very well with the gameplay arc of the game being about the mastery of this space and the demons inside it. And the final boss is the castle itself??? I love it when a dumb game literalizes it's themes into a big thing for you to beat up right at the end and Aria is one of the best examples of that, it rules.
Also, sue me, I'm just a sucker for stories about people asserting their selves over outside forces that wish to make them someone else! And i'm sure taking Castlevania into the future was a decision that was mocked at the time, but it means that Soma can find a fucking GUN and it RULES.
This is a pretty rambly review, but I just love this game so much it's hard to talk about it without just listing all the things about it that rule. I love Soma's sprites, I love that Claimh Solais makes the game cake once you find it but the second-last boss is super resistant to it, making it still a super tense fight, I love all the goofy and evocative enemy designs, I love the soundtrack straining against the limits of the game boy advance, I love it all.
Sometimes a game presses all your buttons just right, and Aria of Sorrow is that for me.
Soma Cruz is my boyfriend.
if metroid is the brains of the search action genre, castlevania is certainly the brawn. build up your level, find cool new weapons, and slaughter your way through hundreds of the undead and the macabre. these are empowering games that let you turn the tables on enemies that hastened your demise in the retro castlevania titles. it's a formula the developers were happy to roll with for seven odd titles, adding new systems to each but generally keeping the same pacing between them. every traversal powerup seems to open up the world in all directions with new areas lurking around each corner compared to metroid's tightly-constrained progression and focused exploration. it's the turn-off-your-brain metroidvania, perfect for when you wanna have youtube on in the background or are couchlocked with your friends.
having only played symphony of the night in the past, aria of sorrow refines the experience that game presents with fewer extraneous systems and expanded combat options. protagonist soma cruz can equip three "soul" abilities at any given time: one subweapon attack, one traversal option/familiar, and one passive. these are gained randomly from the various mobs strewn throughout the hallways of dracula's castle, and every single mob has a unique one more or less. the simplicity of this design is freeing in how it lets you choose your loadout without restrictions or incentives otherwise. experimenting with each new soul feels natural as you slowly accrue a collection of increasing quality. it fits in so naturally for a handheld game and works perfectly for those looking to simply try new ones as they go along as well as those insisting on grinding for each individual soul.
other than that, it's business as usual. interesting boss fights galore (though not quite as many as sotn), meat-and-potatoes combat that forgives the player more often than not, and lots of canceling attacks with the backdash. the overall palette of the castle leaves something to be desired with its light hues and heavy reliance on blue shades, no doubt predicated on the game boy advance's notoriously poorly-lit screen. many microdesign issues I had with sotn rear their head here as well, specifically in terms of hallways of repeating enemies one after another, although I feel like this occurred less often in this game. I also don't necessarily feel like the early game areas feel significantly differentiated from each other; it wasn't until I hit more fascinating locales such as the floating gardens or the clock tower that I could really tell the individual areas apart. these aren't deal-breakers, but rather more a reflection of how staid the formula likely was at this point in the series chronology.
as a bite-sized metroidvania it hit the spot no questions asked. I rather enjoyed the cluttered and projectile-heavy final boss and the truncated true ending area that didn't take quite as much time as sotn's full second castle - though I must admit going on a killing spree powerful as fuck through a whole second castle really did have its appeal. not all metroidvanias can claim to have the same breezy, welcoming style as the castlevania series, and this entry really pulled me back into the series after not touching these games much for the past five-odd years.
having only played symphony of the night in the past, aria of sorrow refines the experience that game presents with fewer extraneous systems and expanded combat options. protagonist soma cruz can equip three "soul" abilities at any given time: one subweapon attack, one traversal option/familiar, and one passive. these are gained randomly from the various mobs strewn throughout the hallways of dracula's castle, and every single mob has a unique one more or less. the simplicity of this design is freeing in how it lets you choose your loadout without restrictions or incentives otherwise. experimenting with each new soul feels natural as you slowly accrue a collection of increasing quality. it fits in so naturally for a handheld game and works perfectly for those looking to simply try new ones as they go along as well as those insisting on grinding for each individual soul.
other than that, it's business as usual. interesting boss fights galore (though not quite as many as sotn), meat-and-potatoes combat that forgives the player more often than not, and lots of canceling attacks with the backdash. the overall palette of the castle leaves something to be desired with its light hues and heavy reliance on blue shades, no doubt predicated on the game boy advance's notoriously poorly-lit screen. many microdesign issues I had with sotn rear their head here as well, specifically in terms of hallways of repeating enemies one after another, although I feel like this occurred less often in this game. I also don't necessarily feel like the early game areas feel significantly differentiated from each other; it wasn't until I hit more fascinating locales such as the floating gardens or the clock tower that I could really tell the individual areas apart. these aren't deal-breakers, but rather more a reflection of how staid the formula likely was at this point in the series chronology.
as a bite-sized metroidvania it hit the spot no questions asked. I rather enjoyed the cluttered and projectile-heavy final boss and the truncated true ending area that didn't take quite as much time as sotn's full second castle - though I must admit going on a killing spree powerful as fuck through a whole second castle really did have its appeal. not all metroidvanias can claim to have the same breezy, welcoming style as the castlevania series, and this entry really pulled me back into the series after not touching these games much for the past five-odd years.
Mass Effect
2007
“Mass Effect will continue” sounds more like a threat than a cause for celebration at this point in Bioware’s history, but whatever turn the franchise takes next, I’m glad we got this one out of it. Mass Effect 2 was my introduction to the series, and my brother and I agreed at the time that neither of us could understand what people saw in it. When PS3 peasants like us were afforded the opportunity to play Mass Effect 1 years later and it culminated in spacewalking up the side of the Citadel with Sovereign looming overhead, though, I remember my brother watching on and saying “I think I understand now.” Revisiting it almost 10 years later, I’m with him on that one more than even then.
That isn’t to suggest that spectacle does the heavy lifting, however. Mass Effect probably doesn’t get enough credit for adapting the structure of a real time with pause RPG to the format of a third person shooter, and not just for the novelty of bouncing people around with biotics. There’s a satisfaction in moulding your squadmates from total jobbers into spacefaring John Woos via fiddling with their equipment and stats that isn’t really there in this game’s successors, at least not to the same degree. Both the level up and equipment screens look a lot more complicated than they actually are, but a couple of slightly cumbersome menus are worth tolerating for that rewarding, palpable sense of progression.
More conspicuous is the fact that supersoldier Shepard can only run for about 5 seconds before running out of breath, but he at least retains more manoeuvrability than a rusty schoolbus thanks to a significantly less rigid cover system than what would come later. Of all Cerberus’ crimes, their most egregious may just be making sprinting, vaulting & taking cover all share the same input in the sequels.
Shepard’s believability as a roleplaying template is also at its best here. Picking Paragon or Renegade options as the situation demands rather than going all in on one or the other feels more natural, since they’re less perfection personified versus petty prick and more diplomatic leader versus get-the-job-done-no-matter-what hardman. I played my Shepard going mostly Paragon before he eventually got fed up with aliens’ nonsense (especially b*tarians), realised that human supremacy is the only way to go and became accordingly irritable – compared to later entries, it’s pleasantly surprising how much it felt like an actual character arc of my own making rather than him being a schizo.
Believability in general is something Mass Effect’s writers were great at. Picking the Paragon option when Ashley mentions her faith to you is such an understated moment, and yet it demonstrates a better understanding of faith than any number of works in and outside of this medium to the extent that I can’t believe something like it exists in a Bioware game. What further helps your squad feel like real fleshed out people rather than dedicated quest dispensers is that they actually interact with each other really regularly, discussing and disagreeing on the current state of affairs after each main mission. This, plus Saren is by far the best antagonist this series ever saw, founded on the pretty reasonable motivation of trying to minimise the damage done by a seemingly undefeatable omnicidal threat, as opposed to trying to trick you into not realising what a moron he is by way of Martin Sheen acting circles around everybody else.
Every optional planet you can visit having the same three warehouses on them is a harder sell, as is how often the Mako or even just walking around civilian areas amounts to mindlessly holding forward for prolonged periods of time, but there’s probably a case to be made for it being the slightest of net positives in that tangibly exploring the galaxy is preferable to looking at it through a scanner. Granted, the sense of discovery is lessened a bit when you see a bunch of chest-high walls and immediately know what’s coming, but you get used to it. It was the 7th gen, you know?
As much of a drag as those things can be, Mass Effect becomes better the more I dwell on it. The electronic rock soundtrack’s a perfect match for the setting and otherwise far cooler than the standard fare orchestral stuff they’d increasingly rely on afterwards, speaking to Sovereign is an enthralling moment that exemplifies why Bioware used to be spoken of in the same breath as the likes of Black Isle or Troika, and in general there just aren’t a lot of space opera RPGs with this kind of scale or ambition or colourful, tight knit characters. We never got the Stargate SG-1 game I dreamed of when I was little, but I’m happy Mass Effect’s here to sort of fill that gap.
It only feels right to cap off with this - most credit sequences simply can't compete.
That isn’t to suggest that spectacle does the heavy lifting, however. Mass Effect probably doesn’t get enough credit for adapting the structure of a real time with pause RPG to the format of a third person shooter, and not just for the novelty of bouncing people around with biotics. There’s a satisfaction in moulding your squadmates from total jobbers into spacefaring John Woos via fiddling with their equipment and stats that isn’t really there in this game’s successors, at least not to the same degree. Both the level up and equipment screens look a lot more complicated than they actually are, but a couple of slightly cumbersome menus are worth tolerating for that rewarding, palpable sense of progression.
More conspicuous is the fact that supersoldier Shepard can only run for about 5 seconds before running out of breath, but he at least retains more manoeuvrability than a rusty schoolbus thanks to a significantly less rigid cover system than what would come later. Of all Cerberus’ crimes, their most egregious may just be making sprinting, vaulting & taking cover all share the same input in the sequels.
Shepard’s believability as a roleplaying template is also at its best here. Picking Paragon or Renegade options as the situation demands rather than going all in on one or the other feels more natural, since they’re less perfection personified versus petty prick and more diplomatic leader versus get-the-job-done-no-matter-what hardman. I played my Shepard going mostly Paragon before he eventually got fed up with aliens’ nonsense (especially b*tarians), realised that human supremacy is the only way to go and became accordingly irritable – compared to later entries, it’s pleasantly surprising how much it felt like an actual character arc of my own making rather than him being a schizo.
Believability in general is something Mass Effect’s writers were great at. Picking the Paragon option when Ashley mentions her faith to you is such an understated moment, and yet it demonstrates a better understanding of faith than any number of works in and outside of this medium to the extent that I can’t believe something like it exists in a Bioware game. What further helps your squad feel like real fleshed out people rather than dedicated quest dispensers is that they actually interact with each other really regularly, discussing and disagreeing on the current state of affairs after each main mission. This, plus Saren is by far the best antagonist this series ever saw, founded on the pretty reasonable motivation of trying to minimise the damage done by a seemingly undefeatable omnicidal threat, as opposed to trying to trick you into not realising what a moron he is by way of Martin Sheen acting circles around everybody else.
Every optional planet you can visit having the same three warehouses on them is a harder sell, as is how often the Mako or even just walking around civilian areas amounts to mindlessly holding forward for prolonged periods of time, but there’s probably a case to be made for it being the slightest of net positives in that tangibly exploring the galaxy is preferable to looking at it through a scanner. Granted, the sense of discovery is lessened a bit when you see a bunch of chest-high walls and immediately know what’s coming, but you get used to it. It was the 7th gen, you know?
As much of a drag as those things can be, Mass Effect becomes better the more I dwell on it. The electronic rock soundtrack’s a perfect match for the setting and otherwise far cooler than the standard fare orchestral stuff they’d increasingly rely on afterwards, speaking to Sovereign is an enthralling moment that exemplifies why Bioware used to be spoken of in the same breath as the likes of Black Isle or Troika, and in general there just aren’t a lot of space opera RPGs with this kind of scale or ambition or colourful, tight knit characters. We never got the Stargate SG-1 game I dreamed of when I was little, but I’m happy Mass Effect’s here to sort of fill that gap.
It only feels right to cap off with this - most credit sequences simply can't compete.
Mass Effect
2007
I can't believe I never played this back in the day, what a ride! Sure the combat is mediocre, the animations and real-time cutscenes are iffy sometimes but come on if the good parts don't more than make up for them!
I didn't even mind running through the same copy+pasted bases and mines a dozen times on random uncharted planets, the world-building is next level and despite all its flaws it was addictive and enjoyable the whole time. I can't wait to start 2.
*The only real problem I have is - you guessed it - another trophy issue... I've completed the game, I've done over 40 side-assignments and yet the trophy for completing 'the majority of the game' hasn't popped. My gf got this before hitting the halfway point in the story and everyone online says they got it at ~55 total missions, I've done at least 60 :(
I didn't even mind running through the same copy+pasted bases and mines a dozen times on random uncharted planets, the world-building is next level and despite all its flaws it was addictive and enjoyable the whole time. I can't wait to start 2.
*The only real problem I have is - you guessed it - another trophy issue... I've completed the game, I've done over 40 side-assignments and yet the trophy for completing 'the majority of the game' hasn't popped. My gf got this before hitting the halfway point in the story and everyone online says they got it at ~55 total missions, I've done at least 60 :(
Grand Theft Auto V
2013
Moreso than most games I've written about, it's hard to articulate my experiences with Grand Theft Auto V. As the best-selling action game of all time and subsequently one of the most recognized pieces of entertainment of our time, there's not much new ground to cover. No matter your issues with the game, it's consistently made billions of dollars.
As somebody who likes to write about the games in my free time, a part of me feels like it would be safe to stop there. But honestly, that's an attitude that feels almost antithetical to the points made ad nauseam through this game's narrative. Caught somewhere between an old punk band playing their greatest hits to an aging audience that sees them as part of the establishment they once rioted against and a new punk band taking the opening slot to a welcome applause from the same crowd, Grand Theft Auto V is both beholden to the dirge of the formula that its predecessors helped popularize and bolstered by the effort it makes to move away from what was becoming stale at the time. As a playground for destruction, it provides the requisite tools. It allows players to create goofy scenarios of their own accord without ever fearing that the player might veer off onto a course that isn't related to the narrative or a side quest of some sort. It's no Saints Row 2, but it actually runs at a stable framerate and is more readily available, so it's much easier to play nowadays. The two pillars of its sandbox, driving, and shooting, wouldn't exactly make compelling games on their own. Of the two, the driving is arguably better. But there's enough there that, if a team wanted to take what was there and morph it into something more small-scale, it would hardly be a fool's errand to get it up to snuff. Combined as they are in a massive open-world sandbox, there's enough there to provide hours of entertainment away from the main quest. The driving strikes a perfect balance between weightiness and floatiness, never absolutely embracing either camp but providing enough of the goods from both to create something simultaneously challenging and approachable to someone who's never picked up a controller before. The combat feels like a watered-down version of Max Payne 3 with the weapon wheel and abilities from Read Dead Redemption, which is to say that it mostly works but isn't anything spectacular. Watered-down or not, Max Payne 3 was a really fun game, though, and that shines through here. You won't be diving off of staircases or doing any of the crazy action moves that you did in that game, which I do believe makes this the lesser game. But in exchange for the replayability that hurdling yourself off a ledge in slow-motion while systematically slaughtering everyone around you offers, there's a wonderfully eclectic collection of weapons on offer. Not all of them have as much use as others; outside of the one mission where it's required, using a jerry can and then shooting the gas trail feels jankier than Postal 2, and I mean that with sincerity. Almost everything else, though, is lots of fun to play around with, in and out of story content. Where things do start to falter a little bit is that the open world content is too inconsistently interesting for a 100% completion playthrough to feel like anything but a massive chore. I know this is the kind of opinion that'll get me downvoted off of Reddit within a microsecond, but I honestly think Cyberpunk 2077 plays with its setting in more interesting ways. "Look around the world and collect a ton of things" sounds like a lot of fun until you realize that you have to collect 50 of the fuckers, and that's just one quest. It begs you not to be too goal-oriented while asking you to see if you can complete as many of its arbitrary goals as you can. And none of that would be a serious issue if the things you were collecting felt tangible in any way. A torn piece of a letter is a torn piece of a letter. You don't get to see the letter as you're putting it back together, and the game doesn't use the letter in any mysterious way that might interest you in collecting all fifty shreds. Going back to Cyberpunk, the one piece of its world that did feel like a massive checklist, mini-boss fights, is used to expand its setting. It's not enough that you've killed or incapacitated someone who was bugging out; you have to look around to understand why they went haywire in the first place so the person you're corresponding with can find better ways to help that person if you kept them alive. It's intriguing, builds on top of, and, in some cases, recontextualizes what you know while leaving a fair amount of the event to your imagination. If even one of the exhausting number of spaceship parts this game asks you to collect had something similar, I'd be going under bridges all the time. That's not to say that there isn't anything of the sort that's interesting here. There's a side-mission where the game asks you to find places that look eerily similar to screenshots sent to you so you can track down suspects. If the developers kept it at that level or tried to do something that wasn't just "find all of the stuff!" I wouldn't be complaining. But for fucks sake, you could at least make a murder mystery interesting without asking the player to fetch an endless number of collectibles for it.
And then there's the story.
I honestly don't know how to feel about Grand Theft Auto V's narrative. It's entertaining in a few areas, anti-climatic in others, and a bit too much of one good thing in-between all of the cracks left over by both. If you intend to spend 30 hours with a lighthearted action romp that doesn't take itself too seriously, you probably won't mind this. If you can't stand it when characters in a story are just stand-ins for whatever the writer's beliefs on society are and barely have anything recognizable past that, I don't have very good news to tell you. The three leads do manage to surpass this through the physical and vocal performances of the actors behind them, but I don't believe the rest of the cast fares any better. The best it gets is Trevor's drug buddies, but that's because Trevor is a fun character to play straight off of. Everyone else falls into this slippery slope where if everything is satirical, it starts to lose its bite. The main missions are at least pretty fun, even if it has the Rockstar problem of "every mission needs to have a shootout, and if not a shootout, then a car chase, and if not a car chase, then something monotonous to play off of your expectations of both." I don't blame anyone for never being bothered to see this game to its credits because, fun as that may be, it's a little too obvious in its structure. And that's not even talking about the other massive insecurity Rockstar's singleplayer games have struggled with since GTA III. The most fun moments I've had in Grand Theft Auto V's main stories have been when I've found incredibly arbitrary ways to fail. Planting a bomb on the door of a clueless janitor's home, not seeing him react to it when he gets to said door, and then blowing it up in his face is some Looney Tunes shit, and the game telling you that the obviously dead janitor was just "spooked" is never not hilarious. There are missions in Grand Theft Auto V where the game accounts for what the player is doing in a given situation; none of the fun ones are part of the main quest.
Once you've beaten Grand Theft Auto V and seen all you intend to see, there's not much to do outside of playing the aggressively monetized online mode. Except for using mods to swap all pedestrian models with Goku, replacing the textures of one specific building in the world with the shittiest looking McDonalds you've ever seen, replacing several of the ads in the open world with weeb shit, and then installing a mod menu to make every car start at a thousand miles per hour so you can steal a bus and make Speed 3 a real movie. Is that a run-on sentence? Probably. But I don't care. The modding scene for GTA games has always been out there, and it's no different here—which is why ennui runs through my system when I say you shouldn't buy this game if you intend to support the creators of such projects. In short: Fuck Take-Two Interactive. To elaborate, Take-Two Interactive likes to dick over its fans who dare to modify their game, seeing their contributions as blasphemous if they don't align with their corporate aspirations. It's ironic that I brought up Cyberpunk earlier because these motherfuckers would fit right in with that universe. But most ironic of all, the CEO of Take-Two said that his company would never release a game like that and that they're focused on quality, yadda yadda yadda. Less than a year later, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy—The Definitive Edition was pooped onto store shelves. Whoops! It turns out that when you talk out of your ass like that, people are less likely to trust anything you say going forward. Especially when you remove a lot of the wonderful work your fans are creating because you see it as "competition." What a sick joke!
As somebody who likes to write about the games in my free time, a part of me feels like it would be safe to stop there. But honestly, that's an attitude that feels almost antithetical to the points made ad nauseam through this game's narrative. Caught somewhere between an old punk band playing their greatest hits to an aging audience that sees them as part of the establishment they once rioted against and a new punk band taking the opening slot to a welcome applause from the same crowd, Grand Theft Auto V is both beholden to the dirge of the formula that its predecessors helped popularize and bolstered by the effort it makes to move away from what was becoming stale at the time. As a playground for destruction, it provides the requisite tools. It allows players to create goofy scenarios of their own accord without ever fearing that the player might veer off onto a course that isn't related to the narrative or a side quest of some sort. It's no Saints Row 2, but it actually runs at a stable framerate and is more readily available, so it's much easier to play nowadays. The two pillars of its sandbox, driving, and shooting, wouldn't exactly make compelling games on their own. Of the two, the driving is arguably better. But there's enough there that, if a team wanted to take what was there and morph it into something more small-scale, it would hardly be a fool's errand to get it up to snuff. Combined as they are in a massive open-world sandbox, there's enough there to provide hours of entertainment away from the main quest. The driving strikes a perfect balance between weightiness and floatiness, never absolutely embracing either camp but providing enough of the goods from both to create something simultaneously challenging and approachable to someone who's never picked up a controller before. The combat feels like a watered-down version of Max Payne 3 with the weapon wheel and abilities from Read Dead Redemption, which is to say that it mostly works but isn't anything spectacular. Watered-down or not, Max Payne 3 was a really fun game, though, and that shines through here. You won't be diving off of staircases or doing any of the crazy action moves that you did in that game, which I do believe makes this the lesser game. But in exchange for the replayability that hurdling yourself off a ledge in slow-motion while systematically slaughtering everyone around you offers, there's a wonderfully eclectic collection of weapons on offer. Not all of them have as much use as others; outside of the one mission where it's required, using a jerry can and then shooting the gas trail feels jankier than Postal 2, and I mean that with sincerity. Almost everything else, though, is lots of fun to play around with, in and out of story content. Where things do start to falter a little bit is that the open world content is too inconsistently interesting for a 100% completion playthrough to feel like anything but a massive chore. I know this is the kind of opinion that'll get me downvoted off of Reddit within a microsecond, but I honestly think Cyberpunk 2077 plays with its setting in more interesting ways. "Look around the world and collect a ton of things" sounds like a lot of fun until you realize that you have to collect 50 of the fuckers, and that's just one quest. It begs you not to be too goal-oriented while asking you to see if you can complete as many of its arbitrary goals as you can. And none of that would be a serious issue if the things you were collecting felt tangible in any way. A torn piece of a letter is a torn piece of a letter. You don't get to see the letter as you're putting it back together, and the game doesn't use the letter in any mysterious way that might interest you in collecting all fifty shreds. Going back to Cyberpunk, the one piece of its world that did feel like a massive checklist, mini-boss fights, is used to expand its setting. It's not enough that you've killed or incapacitated someone who was bugging out; you have to look around to understand why they went haywire in the first place so the person you're corresponding with can find better ways to help that person if you kept them alive. It's intriguing, builds on top of, and, in some cases, recontextualizes what you know while leaving a fair amount of the event to your imagination. If even one of the exhausting number of spaceship parts this game asks you to collect had something similar, I'd be going under bridges all the time. That's not to say that there isn't anything of the sort that's interesting here. There's a side-mission where the game asks you to find places that look eerily similar to screenshots sent to you so you can track down suspects. If the developers kept it at that level or tried to do something that wasn't just "find all of the stuff!" I wouldn't be complaining. But for fucks sake, you could at least make a murder mystery interesting without asking the player to fetch an endless number of collectibles for it.
And then there's the story.
I honestly don't know how to feel about Grand Theft Auto V's narrative. It's entertaining in a few areas, anti-climatic in others, and a bit too much of one good thing in-between all of the cracks left over by both. If you intend to spend 30 hours with a lighthearted action romp that doesn't take itself too seriously, you probably won't mind this. If you can't stand it when characters in a story are just stand-ins for whatever the writer's beliefs on society are and barely have anything recognizable past that, I don't have very good news to tell you. The three leads do manage to surpass this through the physical and vocal performances of the actors behind them, but I don't believe the rest of the cast fares any better. The best it gets is Trevor's drug buddies, but that's because Trevor is a fun character to play straight off of. Everyone else falls into this slippery slope where if everything is satirical, it starts to lose its bite. The main missions are at least pretty fun, even if it has the Rockstar problem of "every mission needs to have a shootout, and if not a shootout, then a car chase, and if not a car chase, then something monotonous to play off of your expectations of both." I don't blame anyone for never being bothered to see this game to its credits because, fun as that may be, it's a little too obvious in its structure. And that's not even talking about the other massive insecurity Rockstar's singleplayer games have struggled with since GTA III. The most fun moments I've had in Grand Theft Auto V's main stories have been when I've found incredibly arbitrary ways to fail. Planting a bomb on the door of a clueless janitor's home, not seeing him react to it when he gets to said door, and then blowing it up in his face is some Looney Tunes shit, and the game telling you that the obviously dead janitor was just "spooked" is never not hilarious. There are missions in Grand Theft Auto V where the game accounts for what the player is doing in a given situation; none of the fun ones are part of the main quest.
Once you've beaten Grand Theft Auto V and seen all you intend to see, there's not much to do outside of playing the aggressively monetized online mode. Except for using mods to swap all pedestrian models with Goku, replacing the textures of one specific building in the world with the shittiest looking McDonalds you've ever seen, replacing several of the ads in the open world with weeb shit, and then installing a mod menu to make every car start at a thousand miles per hour so you can steal a bus and make Speed 3 a real movie. Is that a run-on sentence? Probably. But I don't care. The modding scene for GTA games has always been out there, and it's no different here—which is why ennui runs through my system when I say you shouldn't buy this game if you intend to support the creators of such projects. In short: Fuck Take-Two Interactive. To elaborate, Take-Two Interactive likes to dick over its fans who dare to modify their game, seeing their contributions as blasphemous if they don't align with their corporate aspirations. It's ironic that I brought up Cyberpunk earlier because these motherfuckers would fit right in with that universe. But most ironic of all, the CEO of Take-Two said that his company would never release a game like that and that they're focused on quality, yadda yadda yadda. Less than a year later, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy—The Definitive Edition was pooped onto store shelves. Whoops! It turns out that when you talk out of your ass like that, people are less likely to trust anything you say going forward. Especially when you remove a lot of the wonderful work your fans are creating because you see it as "competition." What a sick joke!