I've been pushing this game back further into my backlog for years now. I thought it wouldn't be to my liking, and I had heard that combat wasn't very good. But with Hellblade 2 on the horizon, I decided to give it a shot, both because I was already due for it and as a test to see if I should play the sequel. And as I found out, Ninja Theory had actually made something way beyond my expectations.

Reading comments from people online and hearing from some friends, I was expecting to dislike the gameplay, and as a "gameplay first" kind of guy, I wasn't looking forward to it. But once again, just as with ME: Andromeda, I have learned that the only way to get an accurate opinion about something is experiencing it yourself. Outside of the combat, the gameplay itself is very simple: You just move, look at and interact with things. The loop is also predictable for most of the game, most puzzles involve looking at runes from a certain angle. These puzzles are cool and not very difficult, but it gets a little repetitive by the end. If this was the entirety of the experience, while understandable considering it's a narrative focused game, I probably would've gotten bored eventually. Thankfully, the combat is good, much better than I thought, which I guess makes sense considering Ninja Theory's heritage as an action game studio.

I can understand why people wouldn't like it: It's not flashy, there's no move variety besides the basic action game stuff, and enemy variety is also a little lacking (If it had 3 or 4 other enemies it would've been perfect)... But it feels great. You can feel each hit landing, the weight behind the movements, the impact of a successful block, and so on. This all adds up to brutal encounters, which fits the theme for the series, as it was said in a recent documentary about Hellblade 2, "Senua isn't winning, she's surviving", and it's very engaging. The first time the Furies yelled at me saying "behind you!", it didn't occur to me that enemies could flank me, and all I had time to do was do a short quickstep to the right and watch as a sword barely missed Senua's head; it was after this encounter that this game hooked me for good, and it was a great use of what is probably the main gimmick of Hellblade.

Senua is a troubled individual. She suffers with schizophrenia and psychosis, and has gone through deeply traumatic events throughout her life. She's not alone, but not in a good way; the Furies - voices in her head - are there in every step of the way, whispering into your ears. They often try to make Senua doubt herself, try to hurt her with their words, or make noise in general. Their presence are a highlight, not only are they useful for gameplay purposes, they add a lot to the immersion. With all of her troubles, Senua goes on a journey against her own darkness, and to save the soul of her lover. The story and especially the narrative are phenomenal, and it progresses steadily all the way to the end, it never drags. There's not much else to say besides giving it more praise.

Even as a 2018 game, and with some noticeable blurry textures here and there, Hellblade is still a looker. Both the graphics (I used ray tracing) and the art direction are great. It's a little "gray-ish" in most parts, but this ties into Senua's perception of the world, as colors get a lot more vibrant in flashback moments. Fantastic job for a relatively small studio before they were acquired by Microsoft. Visually, from promotional material, the sequel looks insanely good, let's see how that goes.

Given the nature of the gimmicks and combat, it's no surprise that this game has outstanding audio design. When it comes to music, it's fairly simple, it's there to serve as the background noise, but it's not bad. What really shines here are the sound effects and voice acting, the main example for both being the previously mentioned Furies. Ninja Theory used binaural audio to have them whispering and talking and screaming in your ears. Senua's performance is also scarily good, it's not every day that you see someone do such an impressive and probably realistic rendition of a character with issues such as Senua's.

It's unfortunate for such an experience to end soon, but its relative short size (9 hours to beat getting every Lorestone) worked to its favor, the story and puzzles probably would've felt dragged if it was longer. But what matters is that I loved this game. It's lacking in enemy and puzzle variety, but it makes up for it with everything else. If you enjoy narrative heavy games, this is perfect for you, and I cannot wait to put my hands on the sequel.

SCORE: 9/10

This was actually the last mainline DKC game I played. My first was returns, as I said in my DKC1 review. I played 1 and 3 shortly after that and I played Tropical Freeze the day it released. I didn't play 2 until years later in 2018 where an Instagram account I was following was selling a CIB copy for $35. That sounded like a good deal back then, and considering it's almost $90 now it's even better now, so I bought it off them. I really enjoyed my time with it, but it wasn't until replaying it in 2022, where I truly saw it as a masterpiece. Do I still think that now? Look at my score to find out (that means yes).

Let's start with the gameplay changes. The thing you'll notice when you first start the game is you don't play as Donkey Kong anymore. You still play as Diddy Kong but replacing Donkey is newcomer Dixie Kong. The main plot this time is King K Rool is back, he has kidnapped Donkey Kong and you must team-up as Diddy and Dixie to defeat him and save DK. Pretty simple but it works. Anyways, Diddy plays pretty much the same but Dixie is a bit different. Her main gameplay change is the fact that she can glide by using her hair. This is incredibly helpful with certain segments throughout the game and because of this plus being more fun to control, I definitely prefer this duo over the first game's. I still think Diddy feels better to play as since he's still faster here and has a better roll (Dixie's roll sucks if you're trying to roll jump off a cliff) so he was my go to Kong when I had both but Dixie is still very fun to play as here due to her glide. This game did add another new big mechanic that plays a part in a bunch of levels. By pressing the A button, if you have both Kongs, you can perform a Team Up. This basically lets you throw the kong upwards in whatever direction you want, and it lets you get up to high places you normally couldn't get to or collect items up high. It's nice and quick to pull off and just adds that much more depth to the levels.

The levels themselves are better than ever here. The level design is improved, with each level feeling pretty distinct from each other. One moment you'll be riding air balloons over a pit of lava and the next you'll be racing enemies in a haunted amusement park. Levels have gimmicks but they never feel intrusive or annoying to me. The level themes are also way more interesting this time. The mains setting here is pirates and that first world makes great use of it. You had levels where you run on top of a ship, levels where you are swimming inside the ship itself and then levels where you're climbing up the top of a pirate ship. That's all the first world, and even tho it's all pirate themed, they all feel distinct. Besides that, you have typical lava stages tho they're visually appealing in this game, you have these beehive stages where honey stops you dead in your tracks, you have bayou stages..just all the level themes in this game are so much more unique compared to the 1st game. Honestly, the backgrounds used in these levels are better than the 1st game's as well, they made them really clean looking this time around.

As for the collectables, you still collect bananas..and KONG letters. Animal Friend tokens are gone which is nice because they could kinda be annoying at times. Instead of finding a bunch of random bonus rooms to 100% the game, this time you must collect Kremkoins and DK coins. Kremkoins are all found in bonus barrels, or sometimes secret walls. These both lead to the bonus area, which instead of being all lax and random like in DKC1, you have to play a bonus game whether it's collecting all the stars or defeating every enemy or just getting to the coin itself. This is more unified than how it was in DKC1 and I prefer it this way. The DK coins are always only in levels once, and they're usually just in the stages and not in the bonus rooms. Anyways, collecting every Kremcoin and every DK coin, and completing every level, gets you 102% in this game. I much prefer this over the bonus rooms in DKC1. They are much easier to find without a guide, tho I still had to look up some but that's better than almost all of them like in DKC1, and it's better for it.

Animal buddies are back and you have some returning ones plus some new ones. Winky and Expresso are gone but Rambi, Enguarde and Squawks are back. Rambi and Enguarde are exactly the same except they have a charge move you can perform to go super fast and kill any enemies in your path or to open up secret bonus rooms. You can now ride with Squawks and shoot nuts out of his mouth at enemies, so he's changed drastically. There's a new animal buddy called Quawks who is only used in one level and is purple, cannot fly upwards (only glide down) and cannot shoot nuts. He's not worth getting into since it's just a downgrade of Squawks, but the other two animal buddies are. Rattly the rattlesnake, is basically Winky but better. He can jump high, jump on normally dangerous enemies like Winky but you can also charge him up to perform a super jump. The other new animal buddy, Squitter the Spider is awesome and is my favorite buddy in the series. You cannot jump on enemies as him but you can shoot projectile webs out of his mouth and if you press the A button, you can shoot a different type of web and if you press A again..you can create a web platform to jump on. They use this a good amount in some of the stages and this mechanic just makes him super fun and interesting to use. Along with all this, there are also these animal buddy barrels that let you transform into just the animal buddy.

The bosses in this game are also a big improvement from 1. Gone are very easy bosses that feel like a big version of a normal enemy. Every boss in this game feels distinct (besides the zinger fight tho his fight was pretty fun) and aren't piss easy and also aren't super quick. They feel like actual bosses, with the K Rool fight being a standout. Definitely my favorite fight in the trilogy. While not too difficult, he's still really fun.

If you had gotten 15 Kremcoins per world, you could pay them to this fella named Klubba. Once you do, you can access a level from the Lost World, a secret super hard bonus world. These are definitely some of the hardest levels in the game, tho I must brag and say it only took me two tries to beat Animal Antics this time around. Going back to the difficulty, yeah this game can be quite tough. It's not like bullshit hard, just the levels themselves can have some very tough portions and honestly, I welcome it. I still died a bunch in this game but I think the difficulty curve is very nice. It doesn't start off hard at all, it gradually start's getting pretty tough by world 4.

The OST is a big upgrade from the first game I think and is honestly amazing. Some of my favorites were Mining Melancholy, In A Snow-Bound Land, LockJaw's Saga,Hot Head Bop, and Forest Interlude. That is not even mentioning the absolute fucking goated song that is Stickerbush Symphony which is honestly a top 5 song for me from any video game ever. It's that amazing and I've loved it before I even played this game. This is a top tier OST I think and may be the best SNES soundtrack of all time.

If I had any little nitpick about this game, it's the fact you have to use banana coins to save and move to other worlds freely. I forgot to mention this in the collectables section, but you also collect bananas throughout the stages, they're plentiful, but after saving once or using Funky's Flights in a world, you must pay each Kong coins to do either action again. Because coins are super easy to get, this wasn't an issue for me but if you reset the game, you lose all your coins (and lives) so I can see where it would be an annoying mechanic to some people.

This is peak Donkey Kong Country imo. Everything from 1 was perfected in this game and then some, and it easily has the best soundtrack in the entire series, which does play a big part in me loving this game. I have more nostalgia for Super Mario World but I cannot deny the fact that this is the better platformer on the Super Nintendo. Because of this, I do think this is the best SNES game I've played period. It's just a masterpiece through and through. Do yourself a favor and play it!

I'm going to get back to the Kirby marathon now but I do plan on replaying DKC3 in the near future so stay tuned for that whenever I decide to play it!

Vozes na minha cabeça

A história é sensacional, acompanhar a saga da Senua e os problemas que ela passa e todo o contexto da doença mental e de como a gnt chega a fazer parte disso, ouvindo a cabeça dela é algo sensacional e a atmosfera é incrível, porém....

A gameplay é cansativa e repetitiva demais, o jogo acaba se tornando longo, mesmo não sendo. Tirando os chefes, os inimigos são basicamente os mesmos e os movimentos para derrotá-los também.

Esse jogo é uma experiência única, MUITO lindo, difícil achar algo tão bem feito, o combate é muito gostosinho e os puzzles funcionam muito bem, mas claramente o foco é a narrativa e sinceramente, É MUITO BOM.

Toda a jornada da Senua é intensa e retrata temas sensíveis e doenças mentais da maneira mais criativa e madura que já vi em uma obra, fazendo a personagem crescer MUITO pra mim, amo muito a Senua, uma das melhores personagens femininas nos jogos pra mim. O jogo conta com toda uma ambientação da mitologia nórdica muito boa, cheio de historias e um universo próprio que faz você se sentir na pele da Senua mesmo, me senti imerso no game e na mente da Senua a cada segundo que passava jogando.

I honestly forget where I got this game, but I remember it was one of the first SNES games I ever played. The first was Super Mario World and I absolutely adored it. Because of that game, I got really into retro Nintendo games and some time after, I bought Yoshi's Island. Part of me thinks I bought this at my local flea market because it always reminded me of going there on the weekends. Yoshi's Island in general, is a big weekend game. I remember just playing it on my days off from school, and because of that it always gave off that vibe. Either way, I played through the game and loved it. I think since then, I only 100%ed it one other time or maybe not at all. So this was only, potentially, my 2nd time fully beating this game. I'm glad I did because just like Super Mario World, it's absolutely wonderful.

The most striking aspect of the game that you'll notice right away, is just how visually appealing it is. Its crayon-like artstyle is super pleasing to the eyes, and it also makes the most of the console and the newly created FX chip at the time. The FX chip was an add on to carts created by Argonaut Games (my beloved Croc developer). Basically, created to enhance the graphics of certain SNES games, and Yoshi's Island was one of the few games to use it. The FX chip, along with the wonderful artstyle, just gives the game this timeless look. Best looking game on the SNES imo, with Kirby's Dreamland 3 right behind it.

The gameplay itself is much more complicated than Mario World. In Yoshi's Island, you can run and jump and all that, but you can also create/throw eggs. Eating an enemy, and pressing down on the d-pad, let's you create eggs. These can be tossed at enemies and items and greatly enhances the regular Mario gameplay. You can have the eggs bounce off walls and based on the angle you threw it at, collect items you wouldn't have otherwise been able to get. You can have eggs skip across water. You can have eggs reflect against or be obtained by certain enemies and then thrown/hit back at you to get collectables. The egg mechanic gets utilized super well. This along with the varied level design makes the game a blast. Cuz yeah, the level design is super good in this game and is always throwing new things at you. Whether its the fuzzy enemies that make the screen all trippy, to the ski slopes in world 5, to the temporary platforms that disappear if you jump on them too much. And that's not even getting into the Yoshi transformations which are all fun too. Never was I bored with any level. Frustrated though? Maybe a little.

This is a good segway into the other half of the gameplay I wanted to talk about, the 100% requirements. See, unlike Super Mario World, you don't just have to beat each and every level and get all secret exits. You have to get a score of 100 in each level. There are three collectables that contribute to a score. Red coins, flowers and Yoshi's health. You must get all 20 red coins, all 5 flowers and have 30 health by the end of a level to get a score of 100. Then you do this in each world, 6 times for the normal levels and two times for each boss level. Then you unlock a bonus game and a bonus level. So why is this frustrating to do? Well, first it depends on the level. The early levels aren't too bad but some of the later levels are quite hard. The red coins appear as normal coins (tho there is a redness to them that is quite visible) so these can be tricky to find. The flowers are very obvious, you just have to be sure to find them. They hide both of these kind of collectables in some devious places sometimes. Usually it's not too bad but rarely, even now after having played the game before, I had to look them up because they're obtuse. This is all fine and dandy but the real hard collectable is the health. It all depends on how easy the stage is and how often they give you health in the stage, but sometimes it can be super difficult to have 30 star points (that's what the game calls the health) by the end of the game. Especially in that last world, hoo boy did I have to use an star point item in almost every one of those levels.

That's another thing the game has, you can get items (and live) from minigames at the end of stages. When you jump through the goal, and the ring stops on one of the flowers you collected in the stage, you can play a minigame. Like I said, it can give you lives but more importantly items. Some of these items suck but 2 of them give you +10 and +20 star points respectively. Seeing as, as long as you're alive, your star count always goes back up to 10. You can get hit as much as you want, get to the end of a stage, and pop a +20 and have full star points before ending a stage. Getting these items can be quite hard depending on the minigame, but the match cards game makes it super easy to grind these items out. You can replay this minigame as much as you want with the world 4 bonus game, so as long as you can 100% that world, going back to 100% every other level will be that much easier if you suck. Overall, I think the collectables are fun to collect and 100%ing the game isn't that bad because of the item system. The game can just be somewhat devious with its hidden collectables and its difficulty near the end game (that world 5 bonus level can suck it) which is why I found it a bit frustrating at points and not as replayable as Mario World. However, once I remembered you could at least cheese the star points in the endgame, this issue lessened a bit.

Something else I really liked were the bosses. Honestly, they're not all winners but they're probably better than any 2D Mario game. They all take full advantage of Yoshi's move set and egg mechanics and are also a treat to the eyes since they're usually so flashy looking too. I can really commemorate how creative they got with them. Like one of them has you getting eating by a frog and throwing giant eggs at the frog from within its stomach. There's a boss where you must use the egg water bounce mechanic to defeat it (or you can defeat it by killing it before the fight even begins, and Kamek has his own unique dialogue for doing so, so it's not even an exploit...it's a cheeseable method the developers put in which is hilarious). Just unique bosses all around. Baby Bowser at the end is one of the best final bosses in the series too I'd say. It takes a little getting used to with the whole change in perspective but its badass nonetheless. Also, the ending after that is so very heartfelt and feels good every time, I love it.

One other thing I wanted to mention was the game's OST. It's incredibly hard to dislike it, it's so happy and upbeat a lot of the time. The entire soundtrack is awesome but my two favorite songs are the Athletic Theme and the Underground Theme. They're my most listened to songs in the entire ost, and the underground theme especially is my absolute favorite in the game. That one always spoke to me and it out of any song in the game, gave me that whole weekend feeling I talked about earlier. I really don't know why, but I love it.

I originally had this game at a 9, and even despite my small criticism of the collectables, I can't help but bump this to a 10. I'd say I love Super Mario World slightly more but this is one of my favorite games ever and my 2nd favorite SNES game now. It's amazing, it's fantastic, it's wonderful. Go play it.

Atmosfera linda, mas para mim faltou algo

Jusant faz jus demais ao estilo walking simulator, apesar de aqui ser climbing 90% do tempo. É daqueles games mais parados, calmos, onde apreciar a jornada e comtemplar a introspeção do pensamento são os pontos chave para a experiência. Acontece que, para mim, essa introspecção se perdeu do mais absoluto nada, enquanto eu escalava e escalava, porque foi essa a sensação que eu tive na metade do jogo. Eu estava subindo morro acima, mas não estava obtendo a satisfação.

Para mim foi muito fácil entender o pq e isso está baseado no fato de eu ter achado o pano de fundo do game com um potencial TÃO grande que foi explorado de forma TÃO rasa. A história é contada em files que você vai encontrando (inclusive de forma bem fácil) com o passar o tempo e com os objetivos secundários de "ouvir as conchas" e "achar os afrescos". Esses são gostosos de achar, pois estão atrelados a exploração com a descoberta de cenários com base nas escaladas, mas os textos, tirando os da Bianca, nossa senhora, são bem desinteressantes e cansativos de se ler. Quando passou da metade do game, eu estava já de saco cheio de ler e só queria continuar.

No fim do game, mas ainda atrelando a história, eu consegui sentir envolvido, mas perdido. Tudo está envolto na temática da água e, baseado nos dias de hoje e no que vamos enfrentar no futuro, o game dá uma lição. Pensar que povos, histórias, cidades todas foram devastadas e o jogo é todo um "passar por um lugar morto", me fez refletir bastante, mas ainda sim, desejar também que a história fosse contada de forma diferente, com mais ousadia talvez, explorando com mais rigor essa temática e mostrando de forma mais explicita o desafio e as consequências de um mundo como Jusant.

É, talvez alguns sintam o que eu achei que faltou e talvez alguns achem que outras coisas poderiam estar no jogo também e ser contado de outro modo, mas mesmo assim, com a proposta que ele traz, vale a jogatina, sem dúvida alguma.

O game é legal, é exatamente um Mario Kart só q pra Playstation 2. Curti os controles, o drift é bem fácil de fazer.

>> Prós
• JOGABILIDADE : Extremamente boa e fácil, os comandos são bem colocados em sua opção inicial.
• DESAFIO : No inicio é bem fácil mas dps fica mais complicado de chegar em primeiro pra liberar as demais pistas do modo história.

>> Contras
• PISTAS : Tem apenas 12 pistas, achei q poderia ter pelo menos umas 20.

>> Perso Favorito = Crash.

>> Mundos
• TERRA = 2.5/5
• BARIN = 3/5
• FENOMENA = 3/5
• TEKNEE = 2.5/5

Finalmente joguei Kingdom Hearts, tenho uma vaga lembrança de ja ter jogado na infância pq lembro de uma fase no País das Maravilhas, mas n tenho certeza pq n bate com o mundo q aparece no game.
O jogo é incrivel, a gameplay dele é bem fácil de se acostumar e avançar no jogo. Meu mundo favorito é o de Halloween Town tanto pelo cenário quanto pelos trajes dos personagens, oq menos gostei foi o do Monstro e oq achei mais criativo foi o da Deep Jungle.
N sei oq foi mais irritante, se foi passar por Hollow Bastion 2 vezes ou aquele monte de batalha do End of the World, o x1 contra o Ansem foi uma dor de cabeça. Só acho q poderiam ter desenvolvido mais algumas interações com os mundos da Disney, principalmente na parte da despedida dos personagens
>> Game finalizado 100% ( todas 46 trinities, todos 99 dálmatas, todas 5 páginas livro, recorde nos 5 minigames Pooh, todas as 11 keyblades, todos 10 relatórios do Ansem ).

>> Prós
• HISTÓRIA : A proposta do game é bem interessante ( e isso q consolidou a franquia ). Achei mt boa essa introdução para um primeiro game e uma grande sacada dos criadores de juntar esses universos em um jogo foda desses.
• JOGABILIDADE : Boa parte dos controles são bem fáceis de controlar, principalmente nas batalhas.
• CENÁRIOS : Mt bom viajar pelos diversos filmes da infância.
• PERSONAGENS : Outro ponto positivo é o grande elenco de personagens carismáticos.

>> Contras
• JOGABILIDADE CAMÊRA : Era só colocarem o direcional pelo segundo analógico igual a maioria dos jogos. Usar o R2 e L2 pra virar a visão é bem chato.
• CERTOS MOMENTOS : Achei q poderiam ter desenvolvido melhor algumas interações q parecem q ficaram vazias ( tipo o Sora q nem se apresenta direito pro Jack no mundo de Halloween ou em certos momentos q o Sora n tem uma reação condizente com as cenas ).

>> Perso Favorito = Sora, Donald, Pateta, Riku e Gênio.

>> Mundos 
• DESTINY ISLAND = 3/5
• TRAVERSE TOWN = 3/5
• WONDERLAND/ALICE = 3.5/5
• DEEP JUNGLE/TARZAN = 4/5
• OLYMPUS COLISEUM/HERCULES = 4/5
• AGRABAH/ALADDIN = 4/5
• MONSTRO/PINOCCHIO = 2.5/5
• ATLANTICA/ARIEL = 3/5
• HALLOWEEN TOWN/JACK = 4.5/5
• 100 ACRE WOOD/POOH = 3.5/5
• NEVERLAND/PETER PAN = 3.5/5
• HOLLOW BASTION = 4/5
• END OF THE WORLD = 4/5

Joguei o primeiro na trilogia da steam.
Simplesmente puro cinema
Cometi o erro de jogar 3 trials um depois do outro de uma vez, quando chegou no terceiro dei uma desacelerada e esse foi o único ponto negativo desse jogo, um erro meu.
A história é incrível, os personagens são alguns dos mais bem escritos que eu já presenciei, o quanto ri em certos diálogos eu vou levar no coração pra sempre.
Não tenho coração para pegar os outros dois agora já que os dois últimos casos são PURA EMOÇÃO mas certamente é uma franquia que vai sempre está nos meus holofotes.