As someone who really likes the challenge and difficulty in souls-likes but doesn't invest nearly as much energy into understanding their UI or RPG/stats aspect, Another Crab's Treasure is a game that I had to love.

The enemies and bosses, the systems like the shells and unlockable skills, and the story are all great. And while everything isn't perfect (expect some 3D jank and cutscenes feel cheap compared to the rest of the game), each of these elements work together as a fantastic whole that I loved playing through.

I do not have a lot of experience with these point and click style adventure games. In fact this might be the first one I have ever played, and for that, its quite good. First things first, the world is amazing, gorgeous in setting, sound, and world building. The idea of having multiple languages of people all living in close proximity, and us being an outsider trying to decipher said languages from context clues makes for a fantastic puzzle concept; and the execution of such here is simply superb. Having a book filled with visual representations and translations from the other languages in the game, combined with a chart of glyphs to reference back to works well. I never felt too stuck, or as if any answer was too obscure of weird for me too reasonably figure out on my own. If anything, the world can be a little annoying to traverse if you forget something on the other side of the map, and the over arching story does fumble in my opinion near the end. But this is still a great title, and definitely one worth of play if this is the sort of thing that interests you.

Chants of Sennaar is a game I never expected to like as much as I did! the premise of the game is simple; you simply go around this mystical tower, translating languages and trying to form links between the inhabitants. the puzzles are never too difficult, but rewarding once you figure them out and give that joy of discovery. the story is quite low-key and leaves a lot to interpretation, but I think it works in a puzzle game like this. the graphics are quite neat, but when I started the game they felt a bit off-putting and the colors were little too bright for my eyes, but the further into the game I went, I really grew to love the overall aesthetic and the world.

my only issue was the forced stealth in couple levels, while none of these sections were too difficult, they still took the enjoyment out of the game. in addition some of the answers felt a bit obtuse at times and I had to search some stuff up, but this wasn't a huge detriment to my enjoyment. ~

I think Animal Well is an example of a subgenre that fundamentally does not work in games: the overly esoteric puzzler largely cracked through community-effort. These games have existed before, though they're never been overly populous, but Animal Well is a particularly egregious example of the trend.

Other games of this ilk, Fez and Void Stranger come to mind, are conceivably solvable by oneself with a lot of trial and error. Often that's what these games come down to: a "How would I know to do that?" level of ridiculous solution. This blow is softened when the effort is outsourced to a community who can work together to try everything in a fraction of the time it would take one person. How much you feel like you'd enjoy being a part of this discovery process will vary, but something is undeniable here: It only happens once. If you miss the boat on the community puzzle solving then all that exists are the solutions published across countless websites. The way these games are intended to be played has a very rapid expiration date given how the internet works, but at least these other titles can conceivably be solo'd.

Animal Well does not share that trait. There is a very in-your-face puzzle that can only be solved by networking with at least 50 other people to compare notes about the unique item in your current save. The game explicitly leans into the idea that the secrets will be solved as team; the game explicitly asks you to turn to the internet to get through it.

I bought this game a few days after release and this puzzle had already been solved. There was nothing for me to do. And hey, once I am already forced to just look up a pre-existing solution, why not do it for other puzzles? They may also require outside assistance.

It's such a baffling design decision. Animal Well will spend the vast majority of its existence as an old game. The "gameplay" portion of this puzzle is already finished and will never exist again. It dings the experience solely to facilitate the short-lived fun of a few dozen people in some Discord. Incredibly short-sighted.

And this is why I think all of the games in this niche subgenre just do not work. They all share the same issue: the nature of setting their game in a physical environment is at odds with the effort required to work through esoteric puzzles. The cost of combing through areas for hidden compartments or niche interactions with forgotten items is much higher when travel time, platforming, and being put in danger are necessitated.
The motivation to try tapping the interact button three times on every bush sprite vanishes when I have to go through the spike platform zone.

There "game" portion of the computer game becomes busy work in the way of trial and error brute force puzzle solving. Better conveyance would solve this, but of course then the puzzles themselves wouldn't be needlessly secretive. To some, it's so much more interesting to have a secret series of collectables that require setting up your printer than it is to save 12 hours time by indicating their existence. To others, it's laborious.

Without focusing on these more involved puzzles, Animal Well is simply lacking. The platforming isn't fun despite some extra, hidden techniques hidden in the game's inventory. The aesthetic is both uninspired and severely misguided; artificial scanlines are not only ugly but at-odds with the need to pore over the finer details of the map. The base game content in what has been called the first two "layers" is too short to justify the purchase.

Buy Animal Well if you enjoy looking up solutions online to feel clever about the work others have already done. Buy Animal Well if you enjoy parking your RV at a campground rather than pitching a tent in anything resembling wilderness.

Dark souls 2 não foi dirigido pelo Miyazaki, porque ele estava trabalhando em outro projeto. Um projeto exclusivo para o novo console da Sony na época, o Playstation 4. Miyazaki estava trabalhando no Bloodborne, então a maioria dos recursos que a FromSoftware tinha, foi utilizado para o desenvolvimento desse jogo já que era um exclusivo de grande porte Sony, que também estava sendo co-desenvolvido pela SIE Japan Studio. Então o Desenvolvimento da continuação de um dos jogos mais aclamados de todos os tempos, Dark Souls, foi deixado para o time B da FromSoftware trabalhar. Pelo comando de dois novos diretores (Tomohiro Shibuya e Yui tanimura) e pela supervisão do Miyazaki, foi feito um dos jogos mais controversos de todos os tempos, DARK SOULS 2.

Dark Souls 2 é o jogo que possui a maior quantidade de bossfights da franquia Soulsborne (obviamente excluindo Elden Ring), e é incrível como nehuma delas me anima ou apresenta uma grande dificuldade, e os que apresentam alguma dificuldade não é nem por causa do boss em si e sim pelo caminho até ele, que é LOTADO de inimigos.

Uma das coisas que mais gosto nos jogos da FromSoftware e que também extremamente memoráveis são suas trilhas sonoras, que são lindas, tristes, desesperadoras, épicas e acima de tudo contam uma história. No Dark souls 2 eu não senti nada disso, nenhuma música desse jogo é memorável, a única que consigo lembrar de cabeça é a de Majula, tirando essa todas são esquecíveis.

As áreas iniciais são muito bem feitas porque elas detalham bem como vai ser o combate do jogo, CHEIO, LOTADO, ABARROTADO DE INIMIGOS. Na edição "Scholar of The First Sin" eles tiveram a brilhante idéia de colocar mais inimigos. Como essa versão foi a primeira que eu joguei, tive uma impressão mais negativa do jogo. Jogando a versão original fiquei impressionado que Iron Keep e Amana Shrine ( duas áreas do jogo) foram bem menos ruins de se atravessar.

Dark Souls 2 tem uma das melhores idéias da franquia, por exemplo, Bonfire Asthetics, Power Stance, Soul Vessel, mas todas essas coisas acabaram sendo ocultadas pelo level design questionavel, bossfights ruins, hitboxes bugadas pelo stat de ADP, Ganks irritantes, Runbacks dolorosas. Eu sinceramente poderia ficar muito mais tempo escrevendo sobre os problemas desse jogo, mas eu não vou, porque sou preguiçoso.

Dark Souls 2 é um jogo que podia ser muito bom, mas por causa do seu desenvolvimento problemático acabou sendo um jogo ruim (NA MINHA OPINIÃO).

DS2 MOMENT

4/10