While I adore the aesthetic and atmosphere of Nightmare Creatures, I just cannot overlook how endlessly frustrating I found a lot of the experience to the point that I couldn't say that I wholeheartedly loved it in full. While I hadn't expected this to be a super smooth experience or anything, given that it was a 3D action game in the early PS1 era, there were just certain aspects of the janky gameplay that really didn't do it for me. The side dodge consistently felt pretty awful to use, for one, always feeling as if it was slightly too short to ever be more useable than just jumping backwards instead, and it made a fair few enemies feel almost identical when it came to how you were meant to approach them, even if they initially looked very distinct and interesting, since there were very few viable options in any given scenario. It's not really helped by the fact that almost every one of them can also just be stunlocked with a basic combo, leading most encounters to just boil down to mashing the attack button after managing to get a single hit in.

The thing that made this so frustrating to me in particular however, is the fact that these weird issues are combined with enemy behaviour being obnoxiously erratic, sometimes just chaining attacks together one after the other in a fashion that felt too fast to react to, especially with how minimal the telegraphing could be. This leads to a lot of situations where it just feels like you need to guess when the enemy will back off and provide an opportunity for you to hit them or you'll get hit for big damage. This last point was especially frustrating due to the lives system making it that a single reasonably sized mistake could lead everything to falling apart, especially since they don't replenish from level to level, making each cheap death feel that much more irritating. As a final complaint, basically every boss is just the worst thing ever, whether it's due to easily stunlocking you, having inconsistent attacks that come out with almost no telegraphing, or just generally being a really boring time. Point is, every boss fight was accompanied by me just sighing at the prospect of having to deal with some new frontier of pure bullshit.

I don't want to be too harsh on this game either however, because I really did love bits and pieces of it. While the combat was clearly built with only 1 on 1 encounters in mind, this ended up making group encounters cool with how strongly they encouraged using all the other items that you're sure to have picked up along the way, with directly fighting multiple enemies at once being a last resort rather than the intended method of approaching a situation. Since I'm a massive Bloodborne fan, this game being all about killing werewolves and demons in Victorian era London is naturally something that immediately draws me in as well, especially with how good the game looks, especially with the fog obscuring things in the distance to a degree in a way that gives it a really moody quality.

The dire nature of the plague in the game is also conveyed really well, with the adrenaline mechanic being a cool idea that's elevated by the way that each level has this go down faster, simultaneously representing the increasing danger of this disease along with the growing complacency in the protagonists when it comes to slaughtering hordes of horrible monsters. It makes the last few levels really frantic in particular and adds a cool dynamic between exploration and regular progression, where you can't really spend too long trying to hunt down items or you'll have spent too long since your last kill. With so much about this game that I love, it's just such a shame that it was as downright infuriating to me as it was, and this was even after realising that hard mode is the default option and changing the difficulty down to easy. Might see if I can cheat in some extra lives and give this another shot in the future, but for the time being, it was a very cool, but deeply flawed experience to me.

Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (23rd May – 29th May, 2023).

Jiggly Zone is bizarre, garish, and even a bit nonsensical, it's a labyrinthine gauntlet of precision platforming challenges with only the faintest hints of attempting to frame any of it, and that's basically all the game is. Jiggly Zone is also an extremely cleverly designed game that I thoroughly enjoyed a large portion of. The big thing that separates this game from a lot of other precision platformers that I've experienced is in the way its precision comes less from stringing together sets of insanely strict inputs, and more from pushing even the most basic of movement systems to its limit before expanding upon it even further. Even before the player is given the ability to jump multiple times, there's still this incredibly prominent feeling of Sylvie having been deeply familiar with every facet of what the player is capable of, with the various jump heights all being tested, along with messing about with level boundaries and having to progress through some rooms in a vaguely unconventional way just to get past something that could've seemed very simple at first.

It's rarely anything all too difficult, but it's the way it meshes with the exploration and required backtracking that makes all of it shine so much to me. This is particularly impressive with the way that each room is entirely recontextualised upon gaining new capabilities, not only letting the player reach new areas they weren't before, but also shaping the possibilities of how to traverse previous areas as well, usually leading to far easier methods of moving around to the point where rooms that felt like obstacles now are 2nd nature. The checkpoint system also ties really nicely into this in a couple of different ways as well. While providing the player a method of basically making a checkpoint wherever they are as long as they're standing on flat ground seems like a surefire way to make things extremely easy for the player, there's a bit of a risk-reward dynamic associated with it that I really enjoyed thinking about.

While it's true that you could theoretically throw your checkpoint down after every obstacle, the frequent branching paths that lead to a dead end with just a treasure at the end mean that you could actually create more work for yourself. The little questions of whether it was worth putting down the checkpoint after a particularly hard jump frequently popped up, since just making it that bit further and collecting the treasure you were aiming for meant that you'd just be able to death abuse after grabbing it, bypassing needing to go back through that same tough obstacle again. It essentially led to a far more situational and dynamic system than it might've first appeared to have been, and reveals yet another way in which these was a far more clever game than what it first seemed.

The main thing that really stops me from outright loving this however, is the fact that the 2nd and 3rd powerup were put way too close together and felt as if they entirely trivialised a lot of sections that felt as if they were almost intended to have been explored before collecting that 3rd powerup. This turned the last stretch of the game outside of the absolutely brutal final area into a pretty uneventful slog, where you were just able to effortlessly breeze through everything while still feeling as if you had a bit to go. It wasn't quite a case of things feeling second nature and more intuitive either, it was more akin to feeling as if the player was a bit too strong for the challenges that had been crafted, unceremoniously bypassing everything instead, including a bunch of areas that you hadn't explored before. Despite this, I thought it was pretty cool, the style this game has of being so aggressively singular in its focus (in this case, level design above all else) is the kind of thing I could see myself really getting into making as well, so I do find it quite interesting from that perspective as well, since if anything, this is proof that even that could be really effective.

Fantastic at making the mundane feel terrifying even before anything even happens, with those constant walks across the car park being especially chilling despite nothing happening. The mere act of existing and feeling so vulnerable as you're just exploring the plaza to pass the time being absolutely chilling is a great move in effectively replicating the general sense of anxiety that one can very easily have when walking anywhere alone at night and ended up making for a great bit of atmosphere. I also loved how many different little distractions were scattered around during this section, whether it was the multiple comics, the minigames, or just discovering more context about the laundromat and a string of mysterious killings, it all felt far more fleshed out than I was expecting for a game so small. While a decent portion of the more conventional horror content somewhat paled in comparison to me, despite still having some very strong vibes, the final confrontation was fantastically tense and made the whole thing worth it to me. Worth a play!

Haven't really played a game that's able to so effectively pile on the stress in the way this one does. Design choices on top of design choices that seem perfectly hand crafted to interact with one another in such a way that you're almost never able to feel fully comfortable with anything you do, all of it working near-flawlessly in this approach, even when your first playthrough is on one of the easier difficulties. Basically what I'm saying is that this is a borderline magical game with how well it accomplishes almost everything it sets out to do with basically every decision made being one that further contributes to the experience as a whole in a positive way. With this said, the way that the game's player hostility feels is rather interesting, since despite how unforgiving it often is, there's an underlying element of the game still wanting to push you towards success, even if it's one that can often be hard to see, at least on the first few difficulties. It's a cool dynamic because it never really feels like you hit a point where your progress is severely hindered unless you play really terribly, it just always feels like everything is going wrong and you're able to only barely scrape by, making for a really effective experience with how you always feel on the backfoot.

The level design stands out to me as a really high point, with the mansion being borderline magical with how it plays out, being as small as it is while still expanding outwards in such a way that the amount you have left to do feels almost intimidating. The mix of tight corridors and more expansive rooms makes for a nice balance in how it feels like you're expected to deal with enemies, giving you enough opportunities to easily kite around while still providing those moments where you either feel forced to precariously bait out grabs to run around or sacrifice some of your hp to take a hit while trying to escape. This works well with the tank controls providing just enough imprecision to your movement to make the former option feel like a real risk to take, often leading to the 2nd outcome anyway, further making you carefully consider your options when the only way to get past the situation without using any resources not only will be quite difficult, but will also most likely lead to you having to do this in the same location repeatedly due to backtracking, which could ultimately lead to a worse outcome than just spending some resources to destroy what's in your path and prevent the issue from constantly resurfacing.

This type of decision making reaches its peak with the entire crimson head mechanic however, straight up being one of the greatest bits of game design I've seen with how much it's able to transform the feeling of navigation. Because of these, the idea of not killing a certain enemy becomes just as interesting as killing them, due to having to take into account how much kerosene is left lying around making it that you're having to expend a lot if you want to stop the crimson heads from appearing, not just with raw items, but also with inventory space, since if you want to make full use of this mechanic, it'll cost you either one or two inventory slots, depending on the character, or force you to backtrack constantly, either way feeling like quite an unfavourable, yet necessary outcome at points. I also feel like this works in forcing the player to heavily consider their surroundings and the layout of the mansion, since there are so many factors at play that are vital to keep in mind to avoid wasting a lot of what you have later down the line, since as it is, most interactions with an enemy can already feel extremely costly without a bit of luck on your side.

While this gameplay experience definitely settles down a bit once the player leaves the mansion, the atmosphere does more than enough to make up for it, while also still keeping a decent amount of this feeling of dwindling resources to go along with it. The art direction and camera angles particularly do a great job at this, especially with how breathtaking a lot of the backgrounds are, with the amount of movement that takes place in them despite being entirely pre-rendered being downright mindblowing. Basically every room is rich with detail, with this constant theme of decaying grandiosity pervading everything, whether you're exploring a mansion, a garden, or a lab, and I feel like it adds a lot to the weight of the situation while also leaning into a fantastic sense of mystery that slowly unravels as you discover more of the dark secrets of your setting. The camera angles are definitely a strong point for contributing to a sense of horror with the way it often feels like the cameraman put good money on the zombies killing you and wants to rig things in any way possible.

If you're not careful you will be hit by zombies around a corner that you couldn't see because of how everything is positioned, but due to how you already have a ton of stress put on you from all the other interactions that have eaten away at your resources, it's not like you can afford to try preemptively make the first move in case you're wrong and have just wasted even more than you already feel like you've had to. Basically, while the game didn't actively scare me more than a couple of times, there were very few moments throughout that didn't feel extremely stressful in one way or another, with even a 2nd playthrough being able to evoke similar feelings given how much inventory management is centred around balancing survival and having key items to progress, an impressive feat considering I expected knowledge about where most things were to have made it an extremely smooth experience, even with a higher difficulty setting. Simply one of the greatest games of all time, the amount of game locations I like more than Spencer mansion is probably countable on one hand.

The best FF of the first 5 and it's not even all that close for me if I'm being entirely honest. While not necessarily as streamlined and tightly constructed as Final Fantasy IV was, most of its individual elements end up adding up to something that ends up feeling greater and more ambitious regardless. While a bit uneven comparatively, I do feel like that almost every individual element of this game feels at its best so far, with a lot of focus being put upon a ton of more unique moments and interactions especially providing this with a very unique tone in the series, as well as feeling like the point in which a lot of series staples became properly established.

The combat is easily the best part of the game, taking the job system from III and making it something far more interesting and nuanced this time around. Rather than III's approach, which rendered the idea of mixing and matching classes rather useless outside of specific times where the game practically forces you to pivot, along with having a bunch of them that basically served as strict upgrades that rendered others obsolete, the job system in V clearly focuses extremely strongly on providing an incredible amount of variety and versatility to your party composition. While having 25 different classes by the end of the game will obviously lead to some of them feeling a bit more useful than others, I felt that the game did an excellent job at providing a lot of unique utility to each of them, leading to a lot of versatility and viability. This was heavily appreciated since it essentially meant that as long as you didn't try building a team around blatantly bad ideas, you'd usually either have a way to deal with the situation, or it wouldn't take much to put yourself in such a position, which works wonderfully for letting the player still often go with the classes that seem cool to them, rather than only having a couple of options that will actually work.

This is taken further by the way you're able to mix and match different class abilities once you've levelled them up a bit, not only allowing for a much wider range of options, but providing a greater reason to bother actually using multiple classes as you proceed rather than just sticking with one or two, adding greater strategic depth to the experience. This naturally can lead to some insanely broken combos, but I don't see this as an especially bad thing as much as something that rewards experimentation and results in one of my favourite things to do in JRPGs anyway, figuring out clever ways to completely break the systems in play. What I like about this though is that until neat the very end of the game, the player likely will not have a team that is a catch-all solution to every situation, where sacrifices will basically always have to be made in one way or another, leaving holes in your strategy to play around. My favourite way this manifests is with some of the abilities you get working as enhancements rather than additional combat options, leading to situations where you'll be forced to choose between sacrificing some of your effectiveness in one area for a more varied moveset, or making the decision that those options won't be needed for what's up ahead. This balancing act continues throughout the game and results in a lot of time spent planning out new strategies to move forward.

The encounter design goes a long way in making all of this work as well, taking a more open ended approach where you'll often have enemies and bosses that hard-counter certain methods, but leave enough room for there to be a lot of effective ways to take them down regardless. It encourages you to play around with a few different ideas without ever truly feeling as if you've been railroaded into one or two very specific playstyles. I also love how there seems to have been an increase in purely strange and surprising encounters, with the Tonberry being my favourite of the bunch, with its insane hp pool combined with it having absolutely no attacks for most of the fight, just instead ominously walking closer to your party. It's a moment that feels carefully crafted to entirely throw inexperienced players off and to keep them on their toes, not to just take any random encounter so lightly, and there are a few others like this as well that basically continuously hammer home that a even a lot of these common enemies are perfectly capable of killing you without some kind of plan in mind, and it keeps things really engaging when you hit the point where everything seems threatening and like a small puzzle you need to solve so you can trivialise them.

While the narrative side of things definitely seems to be what ends up under fire most often with this, it does a perfectly fine job most of the time while still having some incredible highlights that stand tall amongst what the series had up to this point. While not having as strong a hook as IV in particular, I still feel like the lack of narrative emphasis here is a bit of an overstated complaint, as while it definitely falls more in line with typical tropes and story beats, it by no means just feels like something used as a vessel for more gameplay. The game sees the player travelling through a nicer set of locales than the past, with dungeons expanding far beyond castles and caves this time around, with setpieces such as the ship graveyard, the engine room of a ship, and the haunted library all being fantastic changes of pace to be sent through that makes the journey between each story beat feel more exciting than ever. I also appreciated the way that the more tragic elements of this game got a focus without being undercut by other decisions that were made in the same way that IV's story ended up feeling, as while things never quite get as dire as they seem to in IV, the stakes still feel far more real. Exdeath similarly fills a similar role, where he might not be especially intriguing as a character, but his presence is felt with every step of your journey while still letting some hope in with the heroes succeeding at something once in a while as well, and his role in the final stretch of the game is awesome. With that said, there is one thing this game has narratively that strongly elevates everything for me, and that's Gilgamesh, not just being easily the most fun character in the series so far, but also being the driving force for so many of the absolute greatest setpieces in the game, having this aura of imposing danger mixed with comedy that causes him to be an absolute treat every time he's onscreen.

Basically, while the game doesn't quite feel super polished and streamlined in certain areas, this is still peak Final Fantasy so far and it's not even close. The combat system is genuinely incredible, the narrative, while simple, is a great ride throughout with some mountainous high points, the music is insane as usual, and the way the encounters are designed makes for an engaging experience from start to finish where you very rarely feel like you can just cruise through thoughtlessly. The first game in the series where I just feel like it's an incredibly strong game in general without the caveat of it feeling like just the foundation of something greater further down the road.

Few games slap as hard as DMC 5, simple as that. It feels like the logical extreme of the game's core dynamic of styling on your enemies as indulgently as possible, with killing them not being enough, it feels like such a singularly focused experience on trying to make combat be the most fun it could be, it's the culmination of a lot of narrative beats that had been established throughout the series, it's just, so many things. Both for better and for worse, DMC 5 sees so much of the gameplay of past games be refined and polished until it's practically gleaming, streamlining things to the point where there are just huge sections of the game that you feel like you're gliding through while obliterating the enemies that stand in your way while constantly learning the seemingly endless intricacies of the coolest ways to destroy all that stands in your way.

That last point is a bit of a double edged sword however and one that really highlights where my problems with the idea of streamlining being an exclusively positive thing to do in game design come in. On one hand, the game is a very, very focused experience where almost everything about it lends itself to further reinforcing and bringing attention to the combat of the game, but this ends up leading to a lot of the non-combat stuff that still exists to feel pretty undercooked in comparison. The level design took the biggest hit from this, as while yeah, I thought that the level gimmicks of DMC 4 were undeniably largely bad, they also served some purpose of giving a bit of character to each stage, even if I'd have probably preferred them approaching them in a way that didn't feel quiiiite so pace breaking. On the other side of this coin, I just don't like the level design of 5 much, with the majority of stages boiling down to being mostly linear hallways with designated arena locations and occasional tiny diversions made so there would still be somewhere to hide collectibles. It's all serviceable but almost never outright interesting and almost feels like an afterthought.

The atmosphere similarly took a huge hit for me in this one, as while the scenery of the Qliphoth initially is incredible, especially with how grandiose it all can feel, it also doesn't really have the variety or staying power that can carry it through a decent chunk of the game. Everything rapidly begins looking and feeling the game here, and nothing ends up having any real sense of character to it, which is reinforced by the very simplistic level layouts on the whole. The ruined cityscapes fare a bit better just due to a greater sense of variety but there's nothing especially engaging most of the time here either, especially since the enemy encounters at this point are generally far less engaging since it's still ramping up to those more intense points later on.

With all this complaining though, DMC 5 is then lucky that the combat is literally the best I've experienced in a game to the point where it is able to carry everything else on its back. The updates to Nero's moveset from 4 work nicely in further facilitating his ability to endlessly juggle enemies, with the devil breakers especially spicing things up with how they can further add to what you're doing, especially being nice at adding an extra avenue of some great burst damage. While he doesn't have the same seemingly endless movepool that characters like Dante have, the mechanics he does have all fit very neatly together and there's still definitely enough there to make things a lot of fun, along with effectively establishing the basics of combat. Dante is of course where the game shines however, with his varied arsenal of weapons all fulfilling their own niches while also being individually great to use, making them feel better than ever to rapidly switch between. It was always fun beforehand to do this, but I feel that more than ever in 5, the use-cases of each of them feel very intuitive and defined, leading to more situations where it just makes sense to switch through them even when playing in a more casual manner. DMC5 just does an excellent job of making you feel like a total badass even when you're not very good at the game yet, just like the past titles in the series, but the frankly insane variety of moves and techniques you can pull off here makes that slow climb into becoming good at the game feel unmatched in terms of the way it makes you feel like a total god.

The enemy design is also a step up here since it thankfully feels like they were actually designed very nicely with these two characters in mind, without a lot of reliance on character specific mechanics that would create a disconnect when switching between the two of them. There are still definitely annoying enemies as well, anything that teleports a ton being especially frustrating to me due to feeling a bit antithetical to the game's dynamics around style and combos, but there's still nothing that comes close to the lower points in past games either, with nothing to me standing out as outright horrible. That said though, not even the combat is fully safe from issues, most of them revolving around V and the fact that he absolutely sucks to play as to the point where he's the biggest reason why I don't see myself going and giving this game a perfect score. I feel like the mage/summoner archetype isn't the best fit for this type of game and V really proves that to me here. Not only does he feel very imprecise, since you deal all your damage by having your demon pets attack in a way that never quite clicked for me even after a ton of playing as him, but the one potentially interesting dynamic of being able to simultaneously attack while focusing on mobility doesn't ever reach its full potential to me because of his evasive manoeuvres forcing one of your pets to stop attacking, which is especially egregious thanks to the fact that it resets any charge you might have been building to unleash a larger move.

It also doesn't help that most of the enemies don't especially feel good to fight as him, whether it's the teleporting enemies being more frustrating than ever to keep at, big, tanky enemies feeling as if they take lifetimes to kill because of less consistent ways of dishing out huge damage, or even just standard enemies feeling as if all their appeal is lost due to not really having to worry about your own positioning or crowd control too much beyond "make sure to run away from them". It means that not only is he an annoying character to play as since nothing quite feels as if it works as it should, but he's also incredibly boring to play as, since I felt that you were rarely in any actual danger as much as you just took a long time to do anything you wanted. It's especially bad with the boss fights you fight as him almost exclusively being irritating to hit while rarely posing much of a threat to you as long as you focus on dodging whenever possible. The real danger with these, especially the Geryon Knight, is that it feels like you'll die of boredom before being able to get past it, which is especially the case on higher difficulties where even basic enemies can feel like you'll be stuck there fighting them forever.

It's once again just, amazing that despite my issues with this, that the combat is as unbelievably good as it is, not to mention that the high points are unreal. I wholeheartedly adore this game and have played it for an insane amount of time at this point. Any faults it has definitely do annoy or disappoint me, but it's not enough to stop the majority of this game being absolutely peak action. I still do think that it's a case where it would've benefitted from a tiny bit less streamlining with the level design since it can make things feel a bit like a series of enemy encounters and nothing else at times, and V is genuinely awful and gets less fun the more I play as him, but yeah, game is still peak anyway and feels very powerful in the way that it feels like the logical extreme on what was already crazy before. Also playing as Vergil is one of the greatest gaming experiences one could have, it's essential to do this.

Not too fond of this one unfortunately, it mostly just plays as a weaker Mega Man game without the cool dynamic of being able to use various weapons to circumvent a lot of nasty challenges thrown at you. The fact that you can only ever have one subweapon at a time is pretty annoying in this regard because you just know that there are other tools that could potentially be usable but you're sacrificing whatever power you have currently to get it, not knowing if the weapon you'll pick up will actually benefit you more in the upcoming sections or not. That said, it's not like it ends up changing things a whole bunch anyway because the assortment of weapons are all pretty lame, mostly just covering a lot of basic archetypes without anything that stands out as especially creative or engaging to actually use to any degree.

The level design in general also really doesn't do it for me, as while the ledge grabbing definitely adds a degree of verticality to the level design that can lead to some great moments such as when you need to climb up a huge building and jump across rooftops, it's not really enough to fully carry the experience. There are so many moments that feel designed to either be incredibly inconvenient, or to just be "gotcha" moments where you just get hit unless you know exactly what's coming, the worst case of which being the mole enemies that pop up from the ground way too late to allow the player to safely move at an even slightly consistent, enjoyable pace. I will say though, despite not really enjoying a lot of this, the first couple of levels before the difficulty ramps up are pretty neat, and the music is consistently amazing, it just ends up falling apart the further you get and I just feel like I'd play literally any Mega Man game over this, and I don't even like a few of those games.

I mean, before even playing the game, you know that Snake Pass will be very good, you get to control a cute, friendly snake! The fact that actually playing the game is also wonderful is just a bonus. The control scheme of Noodle is a really interesting one that is particularly effective at making you entirely rethink how to approach even the most basic of platforming challenges, replacing thoughts of jumping to new areas with understanding how to slither up the bits of environment surrounding you. It ends up having a dynamic more akin to a puzzle platformer than a more traditional one, where almost every obstacle's challenge stems from working out how to approach something as opposed to the execution of that approach itself.

It's not as if the game doesn't require good execution at all either though, since the control scheme is initially pretty tough to wrap your head around all the intricacies of, particularly the careful balance you often need to strike between being very meticulous and being fast. The level design plays into this very nicely as well, with a lot of sections being built in such a way that you're able to bypass a lot of seemingly difficult challenges if you fully come to terms with the nuances of your movement, leading to an experience that feels rife with discovery that largely feels self-motivated. It goes a long way in making you feel like you're beginning to understand the unconventional methods you need to take to accomplish basic traversal without feeling directly enforced either, leading to a unique experience in a way that isn't as immediately apparent as the fact that you're playing as a snake.

The presentation elevates things that bit further as well, with the beautiful, lush environments and fantastic soundtrack making it pretty pleasant to exist in these levels even if you're stuck at a particular section for an extended period of time while you're further refining your movement. One thing I think would've been nice is something to have added a bit more variety to the individual stages though, as while what the 15 levels here have still make for a fun time, it does begin to wear out its welcome a tiny bit by the final couple, and I think it's just because of the lack of real variety beyond a couple of clever obstacles that still didn't feel like quite enough to differentiate one level from the next. It's definitely not a dealbreaker since there's some appeal in coiling around the various poles and platforms to reach greater heights even after you've done it countless times, but some more unique stage elements would definitely elevate this further. Even with that said though, this is great, would highly recommend for people to play this if they're interested in seeing a rather fresh take on collectathons.

The combination of Hotline Miami style brutality and fast paced stealth mechanics with layers of "PSX style" jank seems like a fun idea but it's unfortunately really not something that pans out to anything interesting. Doesn't help that any jank feels like not an especially consistent factor of the game, where aiming and moving is weird, but then the civilians seem to be a bit overly responsive and create this weird disconnect. The dissonance of systems is even more clear with the way you've got a ranking system that's based on being able to cause as much carnage as possible within a short time while also punishing players heavily for being seen and also seemingly wanting to also encourage players to use stealth by hiding in the shadows etc. It's just not a great combination because none of the elements end up being used properly and everything culminates in a very empty experience, exacerbated by very lacklustre level design. Seemed fun but missed the mark across most of the ways I was interested in, it's not even really that fun as just a slab of total brutality either.

The pain of such an amazing combat engine being located in such an inconsistent, unfinished game is something that would sting way more if not for the fact that DMC 5 exists and apparently takes all the cool things even further than this one does. This of course doesn't change the fact that this is still an unfortunate step down from DMC 3 that clearly suffered a lot from a lack of development time along with having a plethora of weird gimmicky ideas that only serve to drag down the overall experience. On the other hand though, I cannot think of many examples this is a prime example of a game that's carried so hard by one element being insanely good that it can make you somewhat overlook the fact that almost everything surrounding it doesn't really do anything for you.

The movesets of both Nero and Dante are really sick in this game, Nero playing in a very different way that appeals to me perfectly, and Dante showcasing just how you can cram even more avenues for chaining absurd combos together into a system that already had a lot of that. Nero's greater focus on air mobility and enemy juggling just appeals to me perfectly, giving the player enough tools to stay airborne for way longer without having to become a god at the game to do so. The way the vast majority of his moves flow into each other so cleanly further adds to this and provides a certain sense of smoothness to his fighting style compared to the more jagged, visceral edge that defines Dante's playstyle. Speaking of Dante's playstyle, it absolutely rules here with the amount of tools you get at your disposal along with the absolutely deranged things you can chain together if you really want to get the most out of his capabilities. While I'm not good enough to take full advantage of it, the ability to change styles on the fly is nonetheless insanely cool and would make me want to keep trying to improve if not for the fact that actually interacting with the obstacles thrown your way are just not very engaging.

Crafting such an in-depth, complex and fun combat engine and then making its only use cases 7 levels which are entirely reused, complete with enemies clearly not designed for Dante and anything new added being the worst thing ever is heartbreaking. The gimmicks introduced for this latter portion of the game are never anything that come across as interesting at all, with any challenges they introduce stemming more from being inconvenienced than providing an interesting shakeup to the formula. It's obviously made worse by the fact that these extra painful gimmicks are, as stated, located in stages that you've literally already fully gone through as Nero and are now just backtracking through for the 2nd half of the game. The enemies also suck to fight a lot of the time, with a lot of them not really having clear and simple counters with Dante, despite the absurd power he packs. This leads to a situation where each encounter takes place on one of two extremes, either everything is eviscerated in seconds, or you're stuck having to do something really finicky and awkward, grinding the pacing to a halt.

Maybe I'd have been fine with this if not for the fact that it's not as if the level design was especially engaging the first time around anyway. Everything just feels a bit too small and lacking in any real setpieces or even atmosphere in a lot of cases that really made me love how 1 and 3 handled its stages. A lot of the extra mechanics and "puzzles" don't really feel good either, with a lot of them either feeling weirdly artificial or just janky (not in a fun way) to use. The gyro blades especially come to mind with the latter issue, where the player just had to push these big spinning blades through destructible walls and all that, but actually moving them where you wanted was a constantly imprecise pain. The dice sections also are just bad, no further explanation needed.

That said, one other thing I actually did like about the game was the narrative and cutscenes, as was expected. Whether it's the first half being dead serious but in this really goofy way mostly where everything feels super over the top, or the 2nd half which is just a lot of Dante being Dante but to an even greater extent than usual, it's just a great time. In the end it's really just like, DMC 4 is damn lucky that just swinging a sword around in it is one of the coolest things ever and that Dante is who he is, because these two things are really the main things stopping me from disliking the game. I was going to mess around with some of the other playable characters in this afterwards, given how cool I was finding certain aspects so fun for a while, but the 2nd half of the game really, really hurt my desire to replay this anytime soon, even if I'll still say that I enjoyed it to an extent regardless.

A mild improvement from Touhou 2, giving the player the ability to actually slow their movement as well as having attack patterns that feel like they embody the flashier nature that the series would only further lean into as the games went on. The pretty intense slowdown that this occasionally has is also pretty helpful in making this one of the easier games in the series, feels nice when you're bad at these sorts of games to have a bit more time than it might first seem. I'd like this even more if not for a few too many moments of frustrating bullet visibility in the later levels along with the fact that there is a lot of time that feels a bit like dead air in between boss fights, but even so, I like this one quite a bit.

Only played this for the base FF4, neither of the extras added.

Really happy with the way each Final Fantasy game just seems to get better in my eyes without ever feeling like just a case of "the previous game but a tiny bit better and more refined", they've each felt pretty different so far, and while I might prefer the vibe of FF3 to an extent, I just cannot deny that this is my favourite FF as a whole so far. Everything here just feels more impressive in scale, so much more carefully refined, more nuanced, takes more advantage of this underlying complexity, just, so much cooler on the whole, I love it. After the more sprawling adventure of 3 that focused almost entirely on the world surrounding the player, having another more deeply character-driven narrative here is also a nice change of pace.

The character-driven nature of FF4 is particularly interesting with the way it plays around with its game conventions to craft this slightly offbeat tone throughout the story to me. The biggest example of this is that while this game is mostly very easy like the previous games, once again feeling like a bit of a power fantasy with all the big numbers and the way you're often able to completely end fights in a couple of turns, especially early on, but having some more interesting thematic elements that contrast with this very well. The sheer brutality of Cecil in the beginning sections of the plot, along with the actions taken, make the power at your fingertips almost feel wrong to have, with this self-reinforcing theme of the dangers of unimaginable power being ever-present as time and time again it clearly ends up being the cause of strife for all involved. It takes multiple forms too, whether it's Cecil's power being used the way it is in the opening section or the game, Tellah becoming more reckless once he believes he can take down the object of his vengeance, or even how the main antagonist's perceived superiority over humanity led them to a sense of entitlement over how they should be led forward. It's all a great way of tying in core gameplay elements with story and I think that the way it's handled here is wonderful at making everything feel that little bit off without ever fully dwelling on it for too long in such a context.

Gameplay and story also nicely overlap in a few other ways, my favourite of which being the dynamic gameplay and story that ends up being revealed to the player through the revolving door of party members you meet throughout. It not only adds to the variety of what happens due to being able to interact with a mainly different cast at regular intervals, but it also leads to a lot of more engaging scenarios due to the unconventional team setups that the player will find themselves in. My favourite of these is pretty early in the game, where you're a dark knight with 3 mages on your side, but all the enemies are undead, so your melee fighter can do almost nothing to them, forcing you to make tactical use of your party's mp while occasionally being clever with healing items and the like. There are a few other sections that put you into some inherently difficult to immediately vibe with situations, but it never gets difficult enough that it walls you either, more of just a way to really force players to more deeply engage with the systems at their disposal. I also love the way abilities are handled, with each character having one or two specifically related to them, bringing another way to further reinforce elements of characterisation while lending itself more to a varied gameplay experience at the same time.

I feel like a lot of the game is built upon idiosyncrasies like this revolving door of characters however, and while I love most of it, I also understand the downsides that could be perceived as well. The ATB is the biggest one of these to me, as I dunno if it changes how it feels in future entries, but it felt very frenetic here at first to the point where it felt as if it was a bit too fast at first, affecting any decision making that could be made as carefully due to the comparative lack of control over battle cadence. That said, I definitely got used to it by the end and found that it added a lot of little interesting elements to how the battles felt, particularly with how enemies using absolutely massive attacks, while usually pretty devastating, would also come with the upside of that extra long animation that basically all the powerful spells have providing you that tiny bit more time to plan out your next move once you're able to input commands again. I also liked the way it added a greater sense of weight to some of those stronger attacks, seeing this slow moving bar go up as your other party members continue to fight, just waiting for the all powerful spell to finally be unleashed. Little bits and pieces like this added a lot more to the moment to moment gameplay, and when combined with encounters that more readily took advantage of the various use cases of some of the tools present in the game, it made for a really fun time.

My favourite of all this is the way that there were so many ways reflect could be used due to its effects applying to both defensive and offensive spells, meaning that certain situations would actually benefit from making enemies immune to all magic, or to have reflect cast on you be a bad thing. There were a surprising amount of encounters that seemed to just keep escalating this one idea, along with there being a surprising amount of cases where I felt the need to put in just that tiny bit of strategy beyond attack spam to succeed, while still allowing enough of the random fights to feel mindless enough to never feel especially taxing as a whole either. I also liked the increased focus on moments of spectacle, with a few more immediately recognisable setpieces than before, with them being usually of far higher quality as well. One of my favourites of these was the Fabul siege with the way it was able to convey such a strong sense of hopelessness even if you were able to destroy the waves that were sent your way, constantly feeling on the backfoot, knowing that even if you're winning your own battles, those surrounding you haven't been quite so fortunate. It all serves to add that bit extra to the story that I feel hadn't been conveyed quite as strongly in any of the previous games, even if the town destruction of 2 is still the most impactful individual moment of the series so far to me.

With all this said though, one thing I do feel wasn't quite up to scratch for me was the way the narrative of the 2nd half of the game just, kinda fell apart in a lot of key areas, particularly with the redemption story that was so core to Cecil's early characterisation feeling a bit lost after a certain big event. The more introspective nature of the first half ends up feeling a bit lost after a certain big event occurs and then you're back to a more typical journey to find the crystals and defeat the evil spooky bad dude, even if the cast of characters this time, along with some incredible setpieces and pacing bring it up a notch when compared to the previous entries. It feels like a shame because I personally believe that Cecil's arc hadn't really been completed and had more just entered the 2nd stage of proving oneself to have actually improved, and while that technically happens throughout, it feels as if the entire internal conflict that spurned on so much of the early stages of the game just fizzled out. It didn't ruin the experience or anything, but it definitely felt like a weak point that made it unfortunately a bit harder than I'd have liked to actually connect with some of the events that took place beyond thinking that certain ideas were insanely badass.

As a whole, I love the world of Final Fantasy already, but this is the first game in the series that felt as if it really solidified this love beyond just a vague aesthetic appreciation. I was excited to keep going through the series before, but this really has intensified that a lot, even with its problems becoming increasingly clear the longer I played. Maybe a good place to start in the series regardless? Hard to say at this point considering that I haven't played much, but this definitely at least vibes as an alright starting point.

Might be a bit early to call this before I've even really started going for the high level rankings, but this might just be my favourite 2D platformer already. It just feels like an absolute perfect storm of some of the greatest character control I've experienced in a game combined with level design that perfectly supports this, but it tops all of this off with such an absurd amount of personality baked into even the smallest of details. It's a pretty huge accomplishment for a game that looks like this to be able to surpass any expectations I had, but Pizza Tower just did it in every single regard. The aesthetic is absolutely on point, being this neat combination of embodying the spirit of really feral, crusty looking 90s cartoons all put through the filter of MS Paint, but then it ends up being further elevated by how chaotic the actual gameplay is. I expected things to look really bizarre and charmingly gross, but the sheer amount of expressive animation for everything takes it to a whole other level, something particularly notable with the increasingly depraved facial expressions of Peppino as you build speed from a sprint.

This kind of vibe works equally as well for the enemies, with each of them feeling as if they have so much charm even when you only sometimes see them on screen for a second or two before running past. The brand of appealing ugliness that the game takes on is something I heavily appreciate in general and I would love more things to lean into such a style, especially if done to this level of quality. I also think it's really cool how this game just, has some of the greatest character control in a platformer to me, with so many moves perfectly flowing into one another while also facilitating frankly ludicrous speeds. Everything has a great sense of weight to it as well, you might be fast, but more in the way of being a bizarrely mobile freight train than what the archetypal fast character might look and behave in gameplay. The level design and sense of difficulty the game has also play into this really well, with the levels being built around being able to maintain a sense of momentum, and the lack of ability to die making it that you never feel truly punished for going too fast, with the worst that can happen almost always just being losing this pace momentarily and also potentially losing your combo.

While initially, the decision to focus so heavily around building these levels with getting high rankings and combos in mind didn't really do a whole lot for me, I ultimately think that it was a great choice for the way the game plays as a whole. Rather than focusing on a more traditional, hazardous obstacle course to get through and encouraging a more careful playstyle, by placing the vast majority of the difficulty here on perfecting the levels rather than purely beating them, it allows for this much more confident and often reckless playstyle to feel not just feasible, but the ideal way to play, especially on the first runs before you start caring about such rankings. There were so few times where I really ended up taking my finger of the sprint button throughout my playtime because even when it felt a bit ill-advised, the simple action of being fast felt awesome nonetheless. There's a nice variety of stuff thrown your way too, with most levels having some cool, unique mechanics in them that almost never felt fully transformative and pace breaking (though I'll admit that I don't really like playing as Gustavo anywhere near as much as Peppino), but they were still significant enough to always add some kind of unique dimension to the experience that would make it stand out from the crowd.

I cannot think of the last time where I so feverishly wanted to just, keep playing a game and never put it down as I did with this one, I cannot think of the last time I played a game that I genuinely felt had absolutely no glaringly weak elements or moments along with making everything feel this varied and special, I just, cannot think of another game that surpassed my expectations to the extent that Pizza Tower did. Maybe my opinion will shift to an extent after attempting to P rank some of the levels here, but for the time being, I consider this as nothing short of a masterpiece.

Edit: After P ranking a decent chunk of levels I'll lower this slightly, still a fantastic game but some of these levels really weren't built too well with keeping your combo feeling especially good thanks to some of the more inconvenient detours you need to make.

Don't think there have been many cases where I've been entirely sold on a game based on the opening cutscene along but this is absolutely one of them. Kinda crazy too that the first game in the series that really makes me think "alright here's where Devil May Cry truly starts" is the 3rd entry, especially since I do think that the first game is a masterpiece, it just doesn't quite vibe as the kind of game that the series would eventually become. So many rough edges smoothed out while also adding a ton of its own, so many new systems and ideas to play around with while also having a lot of issues that arise from the increased complexity, a constant give and take scenario that ends up being amazing by virtue of just how damn fun it is even when it occasionally just doesn't work properly.

The combat is where this shines the most, really honing into the combo system and making it something that feels actually fun and usable, feeling so badass that you're actually encouraged to string together these massive, flashy combos. A lot of extra tools were added to aid in this process, giving the player the ability to seamlessly switch between weapons with the push of a button while also having the option for a few different styles that change up the playstyle pretty significantly without feeling at odds with the experience at all. Combine this with the far better enemy design that aims to force the player to take better advantage of the tools at their disposal and keep them on their toes and you've got yourself a game that rarely falls flat in terms of being an exhilarating time. Even during sections that are basically just seemingly endless waves of enemies approaching you, it never really feels like a big problem simply because of how fun it is to be messing around with such a robust combat system.

A lot of other changes come into play as well to further improve how this all feels, with the biggest one being the change of the camera to a more mobile one. While this does come with the downside of losing a great deal of the vibe that DMC1 had, the trade-off is being able to fight things without the camera blatantly screwing you over with frequency. This also contributes in ways such as making the dodge roll a more consistent manoeuvre to pull off, and actually letting you more reliably chain attacks together. The only real issue I have with all of this is that I feel it doesn't always translate so smoothly to larger targets, especially those with attacks that cover a lot of ground. This mostly affects the boss fights, where quite a few of them, while still being fun, have certain elements that just absolutely suck to deal with, whether it's attacks that are too big and too quick, the camera being an absolute pain to deal with during them, or just feeling awkward to actually approach properly. Very few of the bosses I'd actually consider outright bad, but there is once again, a certain sense of give and take with them, even if you also have your standout amazing moments like the Vergil fights or the absolute goofiness of the Jester which I just wholeheartedly adore.

I really like the atmosphere this has too, as while I preferred the more gothic, eerie vibes of 1, there's something about the unbridled badass edginess that this game embodies that I cannot get enough of. Balancing these aspects of hacking down waves of demons while metal music blasts in the background is the wonderfully lighthearted dialogue and the ridiculous sense of spectacle from the action sequences in the cutscenes. The massive, stupid grin I got on my face every time Dante said another silly quip or used an entire motorcycle as a weapon, or whenever the Jester did literally anything, is something unmatched from most games to the point where these scenes ended up being the biggest thing I was looking forward to in the game despite the actual gameplay being absolutely top notch as well.

If there was any complaint with the whole vibe and setting of the place, it's that I do wish that depending on the mission, certain areas were just gated off or something, as there were a few too many cases of accidentally getting led down the wrong path and going way too far off course just because there was nothing stopping me or even guiding me from these wrong paths in a game that does ask you to retread your steps at multiple points throughout the game. This wasn't really a dealbreaker I'll admit, and sometimes it ended up being annoying purely because I was a bit stupid or unobservant, but it still undoubtedly felt a bit off to me, especially since there's blatantly just, nothing of value at all on these paths ever. I also felt like certain bits of the mid to late game ended up being a bit much with the amount of reused content, having the player trek through the same areas they already had, sometimes not even adding anything meaningfully new, making bits and pieces of the later few missions feel a bit repetitive, even if it gets amended in the final couple with the bigger focus on some awesome setpieces.

Despite the issues though, this game has absolutely given me some mild brainrot already that I just know will accelerate the moment I go in for my 2nd playthrough, not only better mastering the game, but experimenting with the other tools that I didn't really get much of a chance to use. There's just so much personality in almost everything here and the game is hellbent on utilising all of it to its absolute fullest potential to make for one of the most fun games I've played.