I can defo see the appeal with this, pokemon and guns, ok cool.
Character creator is cursed - love it, but the rest im meh with.

These survival based games are not my thing to clarify, but I found the world boring, the lack of any sort of ambient soundtrack was offputting, a bit overwhelming with just throwing you into it with no direction, and constant menuing for basic tutorials that I am never gonna read.

Ok this is still in game preview/ early stages, but it feels like another generic Ark Survival type game that will get lost in about 3 months once the hype ends.

Ragdoll Physics of the dead pals is the reason I like watching streams of this lol

Pikmin is a series I only recently got into and I can’t believe how much they nailed the formula on the first try. It’s a game where one second you’re having a chill time solving the most efficient route to collect a ship part and the next you’re stressed out of your mind dealing with an enemy that has the potential to wipe out half of your Pikmin. It somehow works and solving how to go about each level can be super satisfying.

Although, I wish I had played this game before playing Pikmin 4. The QoL improvements in the newest instalment are very apparent after dealing with this game's clunky controls and abysmal AI. These Pikmin are so stupid. I can’t believe the amount of times these little dumbasses fell off the side of a bridge/ramp and got left behind.

But despite that, the charm and aesthetic of this game really shines through. Controlling your little army of Pikmin through a mysterious shrunken world and unravelling what secrets each of them has to offer is what I love about this series.

I've been meaning to get into pikmin for a while now, I played the pikmin 3 demo on wii u way back when, and quite enjoyed it, so here I am many moons later finally giving the series a shot, starting with the first game (the switch port).

I really enjoyed my time with it, I liked the gameplay, the music, and I thought the atmosphere and areas were pretty good, you're this tiny man who's stranded on a strange planet, inhabited by all sorts of creatures, one of them of course being the pikmin, not only that, but you've only got 30 days (which I believe is about 15 mins per day) to get the essential parts of your ship back as oxygen is deadly for olimar, who actually has a family back home, and as the days go on, you see him not only learn more about his surroundings, but also just his general thoughts, wondering if he'll truly ever get back home...

The gameplay of pikmin boils down to growing pikmin, using your pikmin to collect objects, solve puzzles and fight off enemies, this game is all about efficiency, multi-tasking if you will. Knowing how to approach enemies, what parts to prioritise, the best routes to take is key to mastering this game, now on your first playthrough you obviously wont know much, which creates quite a tense playthrough, as you rush to one piece to another, not having a clue whats what, really driving the whole stuck alone on a foreign planet home.

The only negative I have with the game is that it's quite jank and there's some annoying qwerks, I'll break it down into 3 things, 1 you're pikmin will stop at every grass patch and... concrete I think it is, to get nectar, and while it's useful you're pikmin stopping every minute gets annoying pretty quickly, It would have been better to have to manually throw them/ send them to it specifically like for most things in the game. 2 is just general qwerkiness, I'm not sure if these were intentional but your pikmin will just flat out stop following you sometimes, they'll just run really slow, or they simply just wont obey you, again it might be intentional but I feel there could have been a better way to make them feel "real". Lastly 3, pikmin just have the hardest time with slopes and bridges, there's not much else to say really they just either get stuck, clip through or cant walk on em propperly.

But overall, I found it to be a really good time, despite the jankyness of an early 3D 2000s game, I think it's a great experience you should try at least once, or maybe the other games, I haven't played them, but I hear nothing but praise from the people who have. I'm glad I started and I hope it only gets better from here :)

$10?! For this?! I feel i should give Capcom more money out of respect. Separate Ways is the RE4 expansion that tells the story from Ada’s point of view. Originally included in the PS2 version of RE4 it’s become a part of every RE4 release since. The OG Separate Ways had some cool moments but it was clearly a step down from the base game. The remake of Separate Ways is a big improvement coming to the table with some impressive new setpieces and boss battles all held together with the fantastic RE4 combat system.

The most surprising thing is the length, coming in at about 5-6 hours this “expansion” is bigger than many RE games including the recent RE3 remake and one character run of RE2. Now yes it does reuse a load of RE4 locations but it does so in a way to have new encounters and gameplay twists. For those 5-6 hours the intensity and creativity feels like a perfect extension of the base game. I don’t think it ever reaches the highs of the main campaign, that game is too perfect, but it definitely fits into the middle quality stuff which is still better than nearly any action game.

I loved how creative some moments got, right from the bat there is a new (well new to the gameplay, we see it before) monster giving chase to Ada with some cool visual effects that lead to a thrilling boss battle. El Gigante makes a return but this time you battle him at the farm with every building completely destructible. Ada has her hookshot which allows her to reach rooftops and far areas and you can zip to roofs as the giant starts to tear down the houses piece by piece. Well known locations like the hedge maze are remixed and make use of Ada’s quicker mobility with the hookshot.

It’s not all reused areas though, many of the cut locations from the original RE4 make their return in this expansion. Stuff like the Nosvistador sewer sequence is expanded upon in a whole new area. The most egregious cut from the original, the loss of “It” or U-3 boss battle is thankfully recreated in this game. While that battle is intense and a whole lot of fun, I felt the original still did it better. There are some great surprises later on as well, this add on is one hell of a ride.

Ada doesn’t get the full arsenal that Leon gets but she has a few new tricks. One of the coolest is the ability to rip shields off enemies with the hook shot. A crossbow with explosive arrows is added to the weapon roster, it’s very powerful and much better to use than the mine gun. Outside of that it’s pretty much the same as base game, which is fine, it’s top of genre level combat.

Ada gets more fleshed out in the story here. Most of the time she is the hard exterior cool spy that tries to never show weakness but this story allows us to see cracks in her persona. Moments of caring, moments of doubt, it’s subtle but it’s there. The voice actress Lily Gao grew on me as the game went on, she won’t ever replace Cahill for me but it works. Luis gets some more backstory as well, but the most surprising addition is Wesker being much more involved, which of course I loved. I did not like Krauser getting the boot, he doesn’t play any role in this expansion which is a shame cause I enjoyed his part in the original.

Oh I have to mention the music! They went all out to create some killer tracks, really exciting music that fits into the old school RE music vibe. One of the best pieces is a remix of Ada’s theme from RE2.

While not exactly included with the $10 expansion, the same update added Ada and Wesker into Mercenaries for free, so to me it’s part of the new content. Ads plays like Ada, nothing special there. It’s Wesker that steals the show, it’s basically easy mode, as it should be! Wesker has a totally unique power mode where you basically go beserk and do matrix kung fu instant kill attacks on everything. Oh and he can deflect any attack with his hand resulting in an instant kill counter. The final Mercs level, the docks, was also included, finally RE4 is complete.

Separate Ways is a fantastic game. The fact that it is just an expansion and uses so many parts of RE4 is the only reason it’s not going to be talked about as one of the better RE games ever. If RE4 didn’t exist and this came out alone I think it could be a top 6 RE game. It’s by far the greatest RE expansion ever. I think it’s easily better than RE3 remake, hell I could argue it’s better than 7 and 8, but those being full original games make that a hard sell. What matters is that it is more of RE4 remake, which is one of the greatest games ever made, the quality is still there. Buy this, don’t even think about it.

Overall Score: 9

Finished this game a few minutes ago. It is such an underrated masterpiece made by SEGA.

There's a big of jank with a few minigames (Catfighting with it's pure RNG and baseball which made no sense.. even using a controller.), graphics are good for its time and sometimes the lip sync looks hilarious, but that's not all it has to offer.

With some amazing side quests, it fits in nicely with the main storyline. I would most definitely recommend using a controller, operating with a keyboard with a Japanese game is a no go.. I did however, switch to using a keyboard + m for the telephone game and the karaoke.. Purely because that's what I'm familiar with. The final thing I'll mention is theres a fighting style for everyone.. I don't really want to include spoilers, so you'll find out for yourself.

I'll end off by definitely recommending this game.. It took me 70ish hours to do the main story + a few sidequests, it's definitely worth it though!


dame da nae.