Jinzuku
BACKER
Unnecessarily long & incredibly tiring going to a new zone that has over 40 things to collect every time. 732 collectables in a single game are far too much & while they are optional, most open-world fans will feel compelled to get them all to satisfy their OCD. The Assassin's Creed license feels forced on rather than integral. Combat is fun, but after a while, I felt like I was going through the motions to just get to the end of the game.
Taking place during the events of part 1, but this time you follow Yuffie, something that was never part of the original game. Seeing what she was up to before meeting up with the party is great. She controls different from all the other characters in part 1. All this does is hype me up even more for part 2 and I'm all for it.
2020
As addictive as it is buggy. They built a great world with great characters, but the constant fear of crashes & glitches wears you down. The foundation is there, I could see this being a 10 when there is a PS5 version with a lot of big patches. Has a case of the "Ugly Gear Syndrome" you'll spend most of the time looking ridiculous as you change & equip gear constantly.
2020
Truly a celebration of all things PlayStation, showcasing a wide variety of hardware and games throughout the years. There's a lot of charm in the little robots, especially when they are re-enacting scenes from some popular games of old. This is what I imagine it would be like if there was a PlayStation theme park. On a technical level, this demonstrates in a major way what the DualSense controller is capable of when a developer puts their mind to it. Some have been utilised in games that came after but none have done it to this extent. Feeling every drop of rain hitting your character through the controller is a surreal feeling. What's not to love, it's free, cute, short and impressive.
2021
It's a real shot of nostalgia when games were much simpler. The biggest shift between I & II is that rather than levelling up traditionally, the game adopts the Bethesda style. As such, the progression is where you get better at doing something the more you do it. For example, you'll do better with Swords the more you attack with a Sword, and your max HP goes up the more you are damaged. There are times when it's not super clear where you have to go and you'll be treading over old ground multiple times. It was because of this that I ended up always over-levelled for the bosses, so never struggled in a fight.
This shows how much Lego games have come a long way. While it was largely enjoyable, the sheer number of bugs made getting some collectables way harder than it should have been. Character variety is seriously lacking as you get a lot of repeat characters while only having one character that can blow up silver bricks. Unless you are a hardcore fan of the franchise then this might be one to skip.
I played some of these games back in the day, although enough time has passed that I remember nothing about their stories. This covers the first three games, which I will write about collectively as I played them consecutively. During the games, you find yourself backtracking all over the place in the real world and trying to figure out where you are going in the digital world. Getting around is a hassle, with no map to refer to, so you spend a lot of time going the wrong way. When this is then met with random encounters, it wears you down. Luckily, this collection has an option to make your base blaster literally 100x more powerful, making fights essentially trivial. In the end, though, busting makes me feel good.