Tyler is a refreshingly genuine depiction of a trans person, there were a lot of moments in the story that i related to as a trans person myself and it helps that he's a likeable character in his own right, so i was invested in seeing his story through

the story was enjoyable enough with some very good moments but it's hurt by being one of those silly games where you just walk around in rooms full of white bubbles and press A on them to make people say stuff all stiffly and it's just like the most boring way to make a game anyone has ever come up with probably, some of the puzzles were alright though

you're also bombarded with notes and letters and documents and other walls of text scattered around which i just couldn't be bothered to read properly after a while

that combined with a pretty unsatisfying ending, Tell Me Why didn't exactly set my world on fire, but as i said it's like an epic trans game so i enjoyed it anyway

also very cool that they made it free for pride month (happy late pride)

bland and paper-thin in almost every regard, stretched out to an absurd length making for an overall miserable experience in my opinion

from the very first moments of the game you're assaulted with walls and walls of just the most boring, repetitious dialogue, and it's always either banal exposition about the ancient evil corrupting the land, or a prophecy or other played out fluff like that, overbearing tutorialisng about stuff like don't like walk into fire or something, or incredibly tepid attempts at humour that almost never landed for me, your companion character issun's constant harassment towards like every woman you come across was particularly painful

i found none of the characters interesting or likeable, aside from amaterasu because she's really cute

it doesn't help that almost all of these long conversations are presented in the most boring 'A cam to B cam' kind of way, near the end of the game i realised i was reading the words, but i was retaining nothing, i found it tragically funny when near the end when all the characters you've met along the way were praying for me and giving me words of encouragement and all that, i didn't know who half of them were

the game has dungeons akin to ones you'd find in zelda games, but if you're hoping for some good puzzles like i was you'll be very disappointed, they're usually just a long series of rooms with puzzles i figured out in like a second without effort, turning them into a slog

this is partially due to the brush techniques, the main gimmick of the game. these allow you to manipulate the environment around you, but they're all pretty uninspired; draw a line from some fire and you can melt some ice, use some wind to make a thingy turn, use some ice to freeze something in place, slow down time so you can run past a fast guy, make specific parts of water go up, etc.

these are not only boring and kinda clunky to use but the way they're set up is part of what makes the puzzles so obvious, if a room has fire in it, you're probably going to use it, if you see a swirly bit of water, you're probably going to use it, and it rarely gets more complicated than that, you rarely have to like combine them together in an interesting way or anything like that, and you can't really give a 'wrong answer' to any of the puzzles if that makes sense, it's just drag this one thingy to this other thingy and a door opens more often than not

the slowing down time ability is also funny because once you get it, 99% of the combat encounters become just spamming it and mashing X, meaning most of the brush techniques are on par with bad zelda items; being glorified keys rather than tools for general use

if these were the only issues i would find okami to be merely mediocre, but it's so ridiculously long for how shallow it is that it crosses a line

the game is essentially JUST this, along with running back and forth across an oversized overworld, for over thirty hours, and i wanted it to be over after two

it never gets any better, i had to take breaks from it for days at a time and considered dropping it at multiple points, it was heartbreaking whenever i thought i'd killed the final boss and then like a dark cloud comes out of it and it goes somewhere else and the narrator lady is like 'wow their journey is FAR from over!!'

this happened multiple times, and it got even worse when the game started needlessly recycling content as well, making you re-fight a load of bosses you've already fought

i was kind of indifferent to the artstyle in all honesty, but that underwater area looked amazing. i felt similarly about the music, i mostly found it kinda dull but there were a handful of songs i really liked and enhanced some moments i otherwise wouldn't have cared about. i also liked feeding all the animals as well because they're cute and i like them :3

unfortunately that's the nicest i have to say, okami is just one of the most painfully boring games i've played in quite a while and the only thing i feel after finishing it is a sense of relief. i've literally just finished it, and have already forgotten most of it

a mature, engaging and tasteful depiction of some very heavy themes most games, especially at the time, don't even come close to matching. even playing it for the first time today it's still every bit as effective

the scenes are incredibly well shot and directed, the stilted, sort of uncanny vocal performances work wonders, and it's so well paced and told to the point that i was on the edge of my seat for basically every single cutscene, with the final act especially being probably one of the best i've ever seen in a game

my only major problem with the game is, the gameplay

not due to the tank controls or camera or combat i think those are all great, it's mostly the level design and the way the map works

you go to a variety of different areas in the game and they're all great aesthetically and atmospherically, and are home to many great scenes, but there's a lot of time dedicated to what is more or less checking lots of locked doors and opening your map to see if you're going the right way and then finding one that you can go in and there's a thingy in there so you check your map to find the door you can open which leads to another door you can open etc. and it's just a little milquetoast to me, and very stop-and-start

i think a town as malleable as silent hill could offer some more interesting level design but i could be missing the point

the final area plays with some interesting ideas such as having to explore a floor without any of your items, or seemingly normal doors that warp you somewhere else, but i feel like they're only scratching the surface of what could be done

there are some puzzles as well, some of them were good, some felt a bit irritating and esoteric to me and i had to look stuff up on occasion, though i'm willing to admit that could be due to my own impatience or stupidity, at one point i got completely stumped because i missed a wholeass giant hole in a wall

you'd think from the sounds of this i might be quite mixed on the game, but honestly none of my issues really bothered me, as there was always something that captured my interest or imagination at every turn, it is still every bit the legendary game you've always heard about

the original metroid 2 was a game about the mindless genocide of an entire planet, piece by piece. everything about it, intentional or otherwise, felt fit to purpose

the environments lack colour and distinguishing features, the metroid fights are messy and repetitive, the music can be just horrifying

it's not a fun game in the traditional sense, but it sells the themes of the game perfectly and the feelings it elicits are unlike any game i've ever played

it's a long, one way descent into the heart of a dying planet that becomes even more lonely and alien the deeper you go, with plenty of time to be left alone with your thoughts

i resent the idea that this or samus returns are replacements for it; there's a lot of games out there like those two, but none quite like metroid 2

AM2R feels reverant and respectful of the original in the sense that the map and structure and all that literal stuff have been lovingly recreated and modernised, but those very abstract, specific qualities metroid 2 has have been lost i think

but that aside, it's a very well designed, polished, professional and fun game that stands alongside the very best of the official games, and if i didn't know any better i'd probably mistake it for one

it understands on a very deep level what makes the later metroid games so fun and satisfying, but maybe not what made metroid 2 satisfying in its own way

basically what i'm trying to say is, they're both awesome, play both! (and maybe samus returns as well idk i haven't played it)