i spent most of my playthru having fun but tbh kinda bewildered! this does not have the immediately appreciable high level thruline of the original, which ig is the result of suda not being the director? everything feels much more isolated, moving from island to island of maximalist pulp, disrupting the endless cycle repeatedly with formula twists and suprises. it only rly started to make sense when i decided to focus on the Commodification aspect, a sort of texas chainsaw massacre 2 take where everything is louder and grosser and more colorful because now all the horror is being sold for mass entertainment.
its pretty good, but i think it might work less as a capital s Statement (even compared to the original, which i can understand ppl finding a bit Passe in current year) and more like...a decently sturdy framework on which to hang all the big varied colorful bosses and setpieces. as excuses go, and the even further collapsing of the reality of the world into pure abstraction (thru among other things, the removal of the hub world and lack of tactility to the 8 bit minigames), u could do a lot worse, and if the game lives or dies on the big setpieces with a slight (and ever increasing) Nightmarish Tint, it mostly works. the boss sequencing and general ramping of drama and tone in the runup to the finale is particularly striking, and makes the whole game feel more cohesive in hindsight,,,,alice is probably the best boss and best dramatic samurai movie moment in either of these, but even she wouldnt be as felt without the immediately preceding fights setting the stage so well.
theres an almost Snyder Watchmen quality to this where im wondering if im underrating this because, as it engages with the original material as essentially pure pulp, it may understand it and its appeal better then i or anyone else who just wants to wax about it does. i think that might explain and add vibrancy to a lot of things. maybe not the self-parodic levels of lecherousness tho, which i never rly got along with (tho all other aspects of the cutscene direction are stellar, perhaps even eclipsing the original). all this said, u get to play with the cat, thats gotta be worth something
(advice to anyone playing these on pc, the bizarre Running In Windows 7 Compatibility Mode trick fixed the crashing in both games for me)
its pretty good, but i think it might work less as a capital s Statement (even compared to the original, which i can understand ppl finding a bit Passe in current year) and more like...a decently sturdy framework on which to hang all the big varied colorful bosses and setpieces. as excuses go, and the even further collapsing of the reality of the world into pure abstraction (thru among other things, the removal of the hub world and lack of tactility to the 8 bit minigames), u could do a lot worse, and if the game lives or dies on the big setpieces with a slight (and ever increasing) Nightmarish Tint, it mostly works. the boss sequencing and general ramping of drama and tone in the runup to the finale is particularly striking, and makes the whole game feel more cohesive in hindsight,,,,alice is probably the best boss and best dramatic samurai movie moment in either of these, but even she wouldnt be as felt without the immediately preceding fights setting the stage so well.
theres an almost Snyder Watchmen quality to this where im wondering if im underrating this because, as it engages with the original material as essentially pure pulp, it may understand it and its appeal better then i or anyone else who just wants to wax about it does. i think that might explain and add vibrancy to a lot of things. maybe not the self-parodic levels of lecherousness tho, which i never rly got along with (tho all other aspects of the cutscene direction are stellar, perhaps even eclipsing the original). all this said, u get to play with the cat, thats gotta be worth something
(advice to anyone playing these on pc, the bizarre Running In Windows 7 Compatibility Mode trick fixed the crashing in both games for me)