Games don't get as fascinating as this one. An escape room puzzle game that is just FILLED with pseudo science, conspiracy theories and wikidiving that Uchikoshi went on at 3am on a tuesday night. 999 is a world that brings up outrageous theories and plays with the idea of them all being real, creating this seemlingly fascinating and fun adventure that throws curveballs on you at every turn. The greatest strength of this game though, and Uchikoshi's writing, is writing the absurd whilst also anchoring it down in humanity and this is the reason why 999 peaks above all else in its genre. It's a perfect blend of the out of ordinary with just the ordinary, a fantastic mystery that ends on a high note. Love it.

What a bizarre game. It's bad. Like REALLY bad...and this is the follow up to the standard setter of action games? What the fuck?

The complete lack of a story, the terrible enemy A.I., the fact that Dante's moveset somehow got WORSE since the last game...also wow that one track that keeps playing over battles is so bad.

The moment I fell to disbelief with this game was the Infected Tanks and Infected Chopper sequence. What the fuck were they thinking! Oh my god why am I giving this game so much of my time, I could die tommorow!

A really cool game! Kinda went into this game blind and was happily surprised at how great it was.

The game to me has three main pillars; the combat, the farming and the characters and each one of them is done to a gratifying degree! The combat feels simple but very punchy, due to the main gimmick of the game being the crash system. You can smack dudes or use your grappling arm to chuck and throw people around and when they connect with other enemies (or the enviornment), they crash into them dealing additional damage to both the airplane and the destination. Speaking of that grappling arm, I should probably say that yeah, you get a grappling arm from the first minute of the game and it's a valuable tool in making the combat feel very expressive. But overall the combat is simple but fun.

The farming actually totally caught me off guard. I went into this game aware of the combat/farming sides but kinda expected the farming part to be a more throwaway side part of the game. Boy was I wrong! The farming goes into a sometimes exhaustive video-game recreation of farming, with you having to do heavy labour and managing all the different stages of cultivating and sowing your rice crop. That means manually planting hundreds of seeds in the early game one button press at a time, by the way. While this may scare or bore some players off, I think they did a fantastic job of it and it was one of my favourite parts of the game.

I'm a sucker for forced monotony in games as long as it has some sort of purpose (games being bad on purpose being one of the highest art forms, of course) and sakuna defintely fits into this mold for me. Going through eahc stage and feeling the labour of each part really struck a chord with me and made the whole process much more rewarding in the end of my first few years. The game does something smart though and actually have an exp system built in to the farming side and the more experience you get at doing each part of the farming process, the more upgrades you get. For instance, with seed planting you start out planting seeds one by one, but them you unlock a grid overlay to judge spacing better and you also unlock different skills that you let plant a different amount of seeds all at once and in individual patterns. It's really cool and helps stop the farming from becoming too much of an actual chore over the time.

Also I know I've been blabbering about the farming a lot but I just wanna also praise the system where the rice you grow at the end of the farming process is how you level up. Killing enemies and completing stages doesn't grant you experience points to level sakuna up but all your experience points actually come from the farming side of the game and depending of MANY variables during the farming process, such as tempreture, weather, season, fertilizer, seed spacing and WAY more, depend on how much you level up and also what stats you level up, like strength, magic, luck etc. It's a really, really neat system and I gotta give the dev team praise for how well they pulled off the farming partof the game.

Then there's the characters which, I'll be honest, the story isn't amazing in Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin. Sakuna is blamed for humans breaking into heaven and causing an accident, so sakuna is punished along with the humans to live on a demon infested island where they gotta find something. The story doesn't do too many interesting things but it does act as a vehicle for the characters who I fully enjoyed. The game does a really good job of letting you get to know each character you work with in the game and giving them their own individual stories and personalities. These are backe dup with not only good writing but also a lot of random cutscenes on your home base that, whilst short, usually tell you a little something about a character or their relationship with someone. There's an abundance of them in the game and their all pretty swell. At first it starts a bit light on character building but after the halfway point it really starts to shine (Sakuna and Kokorowa are great).

There's some gripes I have with the game, mostly the level design and the length. Levels maybe feel a little bit too similar/basic and the game feels maybe a little bit too long for my taste but overall I had a great time with Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin. Hihgly recommend those who loves good aesthetics, fun combat and unique games that try to do something a little different.

Amazing game, it's a wonderful mix of action, platforming and metroidvanian topped with some high quality art and music.

Exploring felt excellent, just getting lost in the world in both meanings of the word was a real highlight of the experience and just seeing how many different places, routes connecting to other routes and content there was hiding away in the world was deeply satisfying.

The base game was already great and the DLC managed to add even more flavour to it. It's an awesome game, heavy recommend.

Oooooooooooh Astral Chain, you do so much good stuff. The combat is so incredibly satisfying to learn and pull off in this game, the fact your dodge kinda sucks or isn't the most effective way of moving around in combat felt like the team knew they wanted to create something different from the usual Platinum gameplay style and I'm glad they went with it. The chain mechanic and having helpful buddies to swap out at will is rad. Big thumbs up.

I also really like the art style and look for the world. Some characters can maybe feel a little plain but there's a tonne of real standout looks and visuals in this game. Most of the OST I didn't fuck that hard with but the base theme....fuuuuuuuuuuuck. Also Marie Wentz/Lappy a cute.

As for the stuff Astral Chain doesn't do too well...well, for the start the story is kinda trash. Like I know Platinum games aren't expected to have great story but even something as boiler plate as Vanquish's story felt miles better than the one in Astral Chain. For most of the time it kinda stays plain/building stuff up and then two thirds of the way through the story it decides to completely forget characters (remember the cool looking dude with the electronic dreads who was set up to be your rival? yeah.) and just prematurely rush you into the end game where it doesn't even bother giving you the dignity of a satisying ending. Literally fade to black. Awesome!

Also the pacing I found to be a bit dodgy sometimes. The balance of this game is between the real world, where you mostly do fights and explore, and the astral plain, where you sometimes do fights and platform, and I don't think either area are that bad, it's just you sometimes stay in one area for way too long. This especially feels bad with the astral plain sections because I already wasn't too hot on the platforming in the game, so having those sections going on for long felt really bad. Just in general, the flow of the game can feel pretty uneven and sluggish at times.

Also something that sucks is that I feel like you don't really get a good amount of time to feel the full potential of the combat in this game since it keeps handing you out buddies and abilities up until the later parts of the game. Top that with having the combat take a little bit to get used to, you don't ever really feel like you're making the most of the combat potential until you're getting near the end of the game which kinda blows. In something like Devil May Cry this doesn't matter too much since you can just replay the game easily but in Astral Chain that becomes a little bit more laborious due to the amount of dialogue and cutscenes as well as the playtime (my save file said 30 hours when I finished my first playthrough) to the point where you wonder if it's even worth going into the game again.

Also, just in general, I feel like the game has less soul to itself compared to Platinum's other titles.

I know I really went on about the game negatively there but I still do love the core of this game. The combat system, the aesthetic, the world: it's all really good! It's just a shame it also comes with problems that really hurt itself.

Marie still cute.

A real solid return to form for Resident Evil. Game does a really good job of balancing modern action resi evils and older survival horror resi evils together into a modern entry. Game is third person action but I dig how the FOV when aiming is limited and that the aim gets real shakey when you move. Also there are actual attempts at making the player consider their inventory which, whilst I still think there's an abundance of ammo for a survival game, the fact you have to think about it at all and and manage your pick ups is still appreciated in a modern triple A horror game.

The real highlight is the first half of the game, playing through the police station is a joy with BIG THUMBS UP going to the inclusion of Mr. X. I'm a big fan of Nemesis type characters and the way the game lets you learn the layout of the police station first by exploring it and getting it stuck in your brain before dumping this tyrant into its tight spaces, constantly trained on you suddenly turns a familiar environment upside down. It's great! Lots of fun! Also game looks fantastic.

The real downside for this game for me is everything after the police station; the sewers and the labs. I really feel like the quality takes a bit of a dive into a less interesting game during these parts, apart from some select sections being the dark sludge sewer alley and the final boss section of each campaign. The area design just feels less interesting overall and Mr. X doesn't really stay a thing after the police station parts (at least for leon's campaign, I'm a bit blurry on claire's later stuff). It's the only thing that always stops me from wanting to replay this otherwise real quality game.

Easy going. This was a nice game to have to just be able to pick up for a few hours and just relax by exploring, cleaning up some ground goop along the way and enjoying the several events and lovey dovey bantering between the two protagonists. Very light feeling game with an appreciated focus on two people in a relationship who are just enjoying themselves.

Whilst that stuff left me feeling positive on the game, I also gotta admit there isn't much else beneath that. The main story is irrelevant, the forced drama between the two at one point is boring, the few other characters you talk to are so 2D and barely in it that it makes the "choice" at the end of the game entirely laughable because the game gives you zero reason for ever thinking about wanting to ever go back to your home planet. Also if you play the game more than my recommended allotted time per day then you start to realise that you're mostly on the same biome for 80% of the game and you're doing the same stuff you were doing at the end of the game that you were at the start.

And it's a tough game to recommend because of all that. I feel like they did enough of a good job on the relationship between the main characters and the world exploration that I could forgive those flaws and come out feeling good but if one of those things don't click then the entire house starts to crumble.

Underappreciated lil' metroidvania. Immediatley stands out from the rest with it's movement mechanics where you won't be using your legs to walk but instead to leap, as wall jumping is the only way you can move around the world. It's more than just a gimmick though, moving around can feel great and overall it adds a fast and kinetic feel to the game purely from basic movement and exploring. Later on the game starts to add some real bullet hell rooms/bosses where you're forced to use your movement skills and eyeballs efficiently and it's a keen challenge! Some of them can get a little too much but overall the game does a good job of making use of your movement options and making it feel satisfying!

Game also has a real look to it as well. Due to there being no "floor" to the game, it likes to play tricks with orientation and the geometry of the rooms with camera changes when entering and visual detail to the environments with some abstract looks, one of the earlier examples being a forest where trees are growing up from both sides of the screen. It really adds a cool visual look to the game and makes sure that it sticks out in your mind when it comes to metroidvania worlds, it's neat! The pixel art on characters and bosses are well done and give them an almost higher quality Sega Genesis kinda look? I can't exactly pin point it but a bunch of designs feel like they were inspired from select classic games. There's a character early on who's proportions feel off that reminds me of 80s games where character's sizes didn't mean too much and in the end you had these dudes who were unintentionally way larger or looked different in perspective, I also might be talking out my butt but I feel it!

It's got power ups although I think they made too many attack based ones that feel kinda situational, especially since selecting a specific one can be difficult by the end of the game since you have to constantly scroll through a list and in a frantic battle that can be pretty hard. There's a cool teleportation one that changes the game a bit but it's not used enough and in the end I just spammed rockets to kill everything lol.

ALSO one little thing that really impressed me was the game's use of HD Rumble in a perticular moment. There's a place where you're standing under a character that's known for singing and the controller starts to make a mechanical chirping noise using the rumble inside the controller and it's done so well that it took me off guard. A game using controller rumble as instrument with pitch changes? That's fucking cool! Honestly, games need to do more with this. Pls.

But yeah, good game! If you want a solid, not too long metroidvania that's a little bit different then by all means try this! You'll probably have a good time.