while i think Rez Infinite is a perfectly well made score attack game that i overall enjoyed, i also have a host of issues with it that i think will prevent me from replaying it in the future

i quite strongly dislike the aesthetic first of all, it's got like a computery wire-framey thing going on and it's incredibly boring on my opinion, none of the background elements stick out and all the enemies are just kinda shapes with an eye with like other shapes attached to them, they don't really have like a clear identity to me

this goes for the bosses as well like i can't really tell what they're supposed to be nor do i really care, i do quite like the guy that like turns himself into different stuff made out of blocks like a snake and a big robot guy but even this idea feels a little played out

the music generally was also quite weak or in some cases just straight up annoying, like the stage 2 boss which is very whiny or the stage 4 boss that sounds like a load of monkeys fixing cars like it's soooooo full of itself omg like academy award search party over here

it is cool that shooting stuff like adds to the song though it does make it feel more satisfying

the gameplay is generally quite solid but it also feels a little limiting, i haven't played the Panzer Dragoon games yet but i've watched a friend play through them and are familiar with how they work, and apparently a lot of people who worked on those games also worked on Rez and this is a sort of spiritual successor to those games

in Panzer Dragoon you're able to make quick 90° turns and this adds another layer of challenge as you need to be more aware of threats coming from all sides, making for more dynamic and engaging play

Rez has camera changes too but rather than putting the onus on the player to execute them they happen automatically, which is not only far less interesting to me, but in places where you have a full range of motion, usually in boss fights, you have to make these slowwwww sweeping turns behind you when the guy you're shooting at suddenly zips behind you, which is one of those things that just doesn't feel good

this rears it's head especially in the stage new to Rez Infinite, Area X, which is far more open which makes navigation feel even more clunky and tank-like, though they did add a useful option to move backwards as well which helps, i assume it feels much better in VR which it seems clearly designed for but normal mode is kinda rough, it also has a weird issue where you have to tap A again to start aiming at stuff again every time a new section starts, where normally just keeping A held down is enough, which was mildly annoying and also killed my family

as well as being able to turn quickly, Panzer Dragoon also had a minimap to help keep track of threats coming from all sides but Rez has no such thing so the only way to check for stuff off camera is just to slowly turn around like a dork, probably opening yourself up to more danger in the meantime

the challenge of the game is also like in this weird place where sometimes it's incredibly easy and it feels like nothing is fighting back, to suddenly a million tiny pieces of shit are right in front of you and you don't know how they got there and you take like seven hits and die instantly which is infuriating

i keep harping on about the bosses but i really don't like them like what are they even doing especially the first two like the first one periodically will just shoot at nothing like an idiot and the second one has this stupid attack where he just keeps making these walls that come for you really slowly and you have to shoot four bits on them and it's like the easiest shit in the world but he just keeps doing it, they improve a bit after that but even then they still feel like they take too long and are too repetitive without enough really going on in them, with some very awkward streches of just nothing happening

i've also had the stage 4 boss like weirdly rubber-band to me and instantly doing damage without any of the wind-up because i was like beating him too quickly or something

a lot of the stages don't really stand apart from one another for me but i think the final area is fantastic, it has a distinct look, really cool music in the background that keeps building and keeps getting cooler, and even a little story going on about the universe or something that i admittedly didn't really care about but it's well told since it's just a couple of sentences each in the transitions between sections with like a cool background change

the stage also demonstrates how to do a boss rush well by having the rematches be much shorter than their first encounters, but also having new attack patterns and movement, so they still resemble their first forms but they feel like new fights, rather than being boring padding like boss rushes usually are

the final boss is a bit dull though and getting interrupted to watch an unskippable cutscene of a woman being rebuilt over and over throughout it, even in score attack mode, feels like needless pomp and circumstance and a case of mixed up priorities, the story just struck me as one of those things that wants to be all up in your face looking like it's saying something really deep but not actually saying anything at all, but it's possible i could be being close minded about it though but either way it failed to engage me personally, and feels a bit at odds with an hour long rail shooter you're meant to replay a bunch

this review is just a collection of stuff i've written at like 3am which is just things i was thinking about while playing the game and i fear i sound overly negative and whiny, but i really did enjoy myself, building the highest combos you can and memorising enemy patterns is inherently satisfying to me, even in the more uneventful sections there's always some stuff to shoot so i was never like bored bored

i liked the game enough to get all the achievements and spent a good deal of time in score attack mode just trying to perfect the first couple of levels, this along with some cute extra modes and unlockables mean there's enough hear to keep me occupied for hundreds of hours probably, but unfortunately, all those little issues i brought up really added up for me over time and i could start to tell that i'd had my fill

i had my fun, but my hyperfixation lies elsewhere