Gears 5 is the best looking, best playing, most compelling game with the best story in the series to date.

Growing up, I was an Xbox gamer. Sure I had a DS and my family had a Wii because so did everyone, but the majority of my gaming time was spent on Xbox. Naturally because of this I ended up playing a good amount of the Gears series. Despite that, I actually never beat a single one of them. Eventually I moved on to Playstation and hadn't looked back since. That was, until this year. Seeing the great value of gamepass and how the future of exclusives was really starting to look up (barring the Redfall setback), I decided it was finally time to return to my gaming roots. As much as I was excited to be able to play things like Hi Fi Rush or Starfield, honestly one of the biggest incentives to get one was to play a series I had always liked but never given the treatment it deserved.

And that brings us here, now. A few days past a month of owning an Xbox, and I have played through all 5 numbered entries and Judgement. The original trilogy is not without its flaws but were all a very fun time, with 3 feeling like a fitting conclusion. Of course its a mega popular series though, so obviously things weren't gonna end there. First was Judgement which, well, its not very good. Its not bad either, I liked it. But... the gameplay changes are very clearly a step down from the trilogy and the story wasn't particularly interesting at all. As a spinoff being developed with a different studio, it was understandable that it was significantly weaker than the main games. The new control scheme meant to be more like Call of Duty didn't help.

But then there was 4. Looking amazing, feeling great to play, absolutely awesome set-pieces. But wow. As a setup for the future of the series, it does a piss poor job. The story feels both padded and incomplete. There's a long stretch in the middle that feels entirely designed to make the game longer, but my jaw dropped when the credits rolled because it felt like half a game worth of plot. It introduces three new main characters in JD, Kait and Del but does barely anything with JD and Del is literally a nothing burger of a character. Combined with how the new characters in 3 and Judgement are treated (Jace, the most useless man to ever exist?), the series seemed to have a serious issue with providing anything interesting for the characters beyond the core 4 (That being Marcus, Dom, Baird and Cole). I still enjoyed 4 but it was hard to feel anything but disappointed coming off from the end.

Now its finally time to talk about the actual one that I'm reviewing! Gears 5 fixed just about every issue I had with the series. JD's character is genuinely interesting, Del turned from a complete nobody to such a bro that he's top 3 characters in the series for me. They finally start to treat their female characters with a little more respect by not killing them offscreen or doing nothing with them by putting Kait front in center as the new protagonist. They finally make the gameplay more interesting by having two big areas with optional objectives, as well as upgrades you can work for. The open areas are really great, and even if the side locations aren't anything amazing what they do do is give great room for character development and by the end of the game I really liked and cared for the whole cast, something that hadn't happened for me since 2. Another thing I really liked was the game letting you make a story effecting choice near the end. It doesn't really effect things much for now as obviously by that point the game is almost over, but assuming Gears 6 doesn't discard this altogether - it really makes me even more excited to see how the series continues to evolve with more choice and options.

All this is to say is that Gears 5 is by far the best in the series, and after Judgement and 4 I'm very happy that my binge has ended on a high note. This year is absolutely stacked so I need to focus on other things for now, but I do look forward to trying out Tactics in the future. Gears 6 can take all the time it needs, but I'm more excited for it than just about any other Xbox property. Not to mention finally being able to play a multiplayer mode that isnt completely dead <3

Also, couldn't figure out where to fit his in my review but even though all games in the series have plenty of funny moments, this made me laugh out loud several times without betraying the darker tone and I really appreciated that.

Nancymeter - 90/100
Achievement Completion - 8% (20/181 - ffs lol)
Time Played - 12-13 hours
Completion #29 of August
Completion #161 of 2023

I have a lot of free time. I often think about all the big games In my backlog, how well acclaimed they are and how I really should get to them. I also think about how I am still at the moment in my life where I could feasibly play all of those. There is constantly a sense of longing to be able to get into and love games like Skyrim or Tears of the Kingdom or whatever really. But, I don't play those. Instead I spend countless hours beating games like Marvel's The Avengers, Gotham Knights and well, Exoprimal. I'm not really sure why I am this way. In fact I think all three are good games in their own right. But I am constantly forsaking "better" experiences just to play a game about exosuits and dinosaurs. There are a million cool games out this year. Pikmin and Fire Emblem and Jedi Survivor and Final Fantasy and Rain Code are just rotting in my backlog, while I spent two and a half days almost entirely on this. I don't think its something I'll be able to understand about myself but hey, Its just what I do. And as one of the few people who has decided to beat this game, what better maniac to review it.

So obviously there is a reason why I spent over 20 hours playing this. And its simple, its pretty damn fun. The idea of it is so silly that its no surprise Capcom made it, but honestly its such a good mix that people should be ashamed they didn't think of it sooner. Shooting massive hordes of prehistoric raptors is peak game concept. (Most) of the exosuits are also really fun to use. There's 4 assault types, 3 tank types and 3 support types. While only 10 does feel a little small, they all have good roles. The only suit I actually disliked was Murasame the tank samurai. Honestly all three of the melee centric ones weren't good to use. But Vigilant, the hottest and of course last one you unlock, is insane at dealing high damage with her chargeable sniper rifle. Once I unlocked her I pretty much exclusively used her, except when my team decided to be chodes and nobody wanted to switch to a support class so ofc I had to play as Skywave instead, who is basically the mommy exosuit of the group. Her staff was very fun to use to both heal teammates and lay down some fire. I did dabble in the other classes a fair bit and while not all of them are really my style they're all very distinct and just fun. The enemy variety is strange, because there's actually a good amount of enemy types but so many of them you'll rarely see in your matches which can get quite annoying.

That's really the big problem with Exoprimal, most of its really cool stuff is probably like 15% of the game. When you get to the main story levels they are absurdly hectic and fun (if a bit bullshit) but for like, 45 of your 55 required matches to beat the main story you'll be going through the same 3-4 maps with the same few different objectives. You are unlocking more as you progress but its so little and so rare that it doesn't feel like much. Story progress is a little better since basically every match inbetween the big moments you'll unlock some more lore. And the story was interesting, and I found all the characters to be likeable, but its not really interesting enough for me to sit through like 60 individual glorified audio logs. After a few matches, piecing together the mystery becomes just as slow moving (and grindy) as playing the game. I think playing through matches to work your way to new story beats and getting lore along the way is a genuinely great idea for a multiplayer campaign but the sheer lack of variety in game modes and maps hinders Exoprimal more than anything. You do unlock a new mode after beating the story but its not available yet so pretty unfortunate all around.

Just because I have to mention it, there are microtransactions and there is a battlepass but these are pretty much entirely unintrusive. You can still buy plenty of good skins with ingame currency that is not held back at all. I never had an issue buying the cosmetics available that I liked without having to spend real world money. It would probably be a hella grind to buy every cosmetic on your own but I don't know why you'd even want to do that, and as far as I saw you can't buy more currency anyways.

So because of all that, I absolutely cannot recommend you buy Exoprimal right now. 60 dollars is just not enough for how feature incomplete it is. However, if you've got gamepass (also check out the new indie game Venba thats pretty good) I'd strongly encourage you to give it a try. It just might surprise you. And honestly do it soon, this game is gonna get shut down in like 2 years and it'll be very unfortunate.

So that's my review of Exoprimal. It's been quite a while since I've put up a review lol, but there are still plenty of reviews I'd like to get to. I'm not gonna do the standard "promise I'll have more up soon" thing because that literally never works so just expect a dramatically long hiatus after this so if I do post again soon its like an early Christmas. Thank you all for reading <3

Now time to play Redfall.

-----TLDR-----
+ Extremely Fun
+ some of the exosuits are hot
- Barebones content leads to the game feeling grindy

Nancymeter - 74/100
Achievement Completion - 77% (34/39)
Time Played - Xbox says 29 hours but I don't think that is possible
Completion #2 of August
Completion #133 of 2023

As someone who feels like they're in a constant game of tug of war with each Yakuza game they play, I was genuinely surprised with how much I ended up enjoying Ishin. As far as ones I've completed go, this very well may be my second favorite in the series.

Yakuza games are often funny and unique, with really entertaining characters. I really think Kiryu is one of the best protagonists of all time. But theres always some things that bring them down for me. Grueling pacing, terrible boss design and lackluster endings are what a lot of this series has left me with. Most of the games make up for this overall (besides Yakuza 4. Sorry I dont usually like to use reviews to insult other games but god I fucking despised playing that). But starting with 0 which does have some of the same issues but is by far the strongest I've beaten yet has made the entire series onwards feel a bit disappointing. Especially with my last two experiences, Yakuza 5 and 6. I never ended up reviewing them but they did so much that I wanted from the series and I really felt the Yakuza love again (much needed after 4), but then both of them completely dropped the ball for me with some of the most unsatisfying endings I've ever experienced.

So yeah, I made sure my expectations were tempered for this one. Which I think in the end made me enjoy it more. Its completely fair to expect the mainline series to be high quality but in most cases its understandable to expect a spinoff to be a little weaker. But damn, not this one.

I'm not really familiar with the history behind what inspired the story, but the small amount I do know tells me they definitely took some liberties. I can't really comment on if thats a good thing or not, but the way they play off of some of the real life events is pretty damn cool. Even without the history aspect, its just a badass story to begin with. And my god, characters are getting murdered every other chapter. I love that shit. And! Half of them aren't ridiculously stupid fake out deaths, hallelujah. I can't really get into too much detail because of spoilers but, for basically every Yakuza game there's a few chapters in the beginning or near the middle where I want to cry myself to sleep, but with Ishin I was hooked the entire time past the end of chapter 1.

The combat is already pretty fun. Yakuza needs more guns. Wild Dancer obv is the most entertaining but Swordsman and Gunman are both fun in their own right. Brawler is completely useless, barely touched it lol. The card system is fine, It wasn't implemented all that great and the best cards in the game are free DLC so I just used those the whole time, but It existing is neat. There's also the Another Life farming sim side mode that was cute and fun but for a reason I'm about to get to, I didn't get too far into it.

By 'about to get to', I mean we're going to talk about it right now. The only thing I really disliked about this game is how god damn grindy it is to interact with the side stuff. I usually skip a lot of the side content in this series but I like to do a bit of it when its one of them I particularly like, and it really felt like this one was fighting against me. The battle dungeons are absurdly long, everything in Another Life takes ages (also you can't pay off Haruka's debt with your own money normally for some dumb reason) and trying to upgrade weapons and make the blacksmith actually useful is a nightmare. The light rpg elements and how slow everything is really take away from wanting to interact with much of that.

But that rather large-but-not-really issue aside, this was definitely one of the most surprising games I've played in a minute. Very high contender for the most fun and best written game in the series.

We are now at the blog portion of this review. Skip to the bottom for a TLDR and my final score if you don't care about all that. Things have been going solid, this was one of 5 games I beat in a day (not in their entirety obv) the other day so I'm pretty proud of that. Found a sealed copy of Persona 4 Arena for PS3 so happy to get that. Been playing Breath of the Wild too. Not sure what my next review will be but a MGRR one is quite likely. Also been doing a lot more creative writing which made trying to do write this review harder than usual. I hope this turned out good enough and you enjoyed reading it. If you did, thank you <3

-----TLDR-----
+ Great story
+ Fun gameplay
+ sexy music
- Extremely grindy side content

Nancymeter - 89/100
Trophy Completion - 41%
Time Played - i forgor I'll add this in later
Completion #3 of May
Completion #92 of 2023

I don't need to tell you this. You already know. Doom Eternal is a badass game. One of the best first person shooters out there. There is so much variety and depth in the ways you deal with enemies and how you can use your tools, its almost like a puzzle game. But you're rarely forced to repeatedly fight with enemies the same specific way, the strategy is almost always up to you. This makes the combat feel very freeing and goes together well with how hectic it can get, fighting onslaught after onslaught of demons. The platforming is fun and fluid, the level design is amazing and the automap really incentivizes collecting things and exploring. The progression system is very well done and makes the game constantly feel rewarding. The cutscenes and dialogue are also very funny. Slayers actions and the way people react to him had me laughing constantly. Its just an awesome game all around.

My complaints are minor in the grand scheme of things. For one, as great as the music was, I could barely hear it for most fights. This might be a personal thing but I'm pretty sure I've had the problem with previous games. Having to turn down the sound effects so low to hear it was more distracting than anything. I also think the pacing of this could be a little better. Despite having so much fun in the beginning, I was definitely ready for it to be over by the end. I think it was probably just one level too long. My two final complaints don't effect my score or feelings on the game at all but I want to say them anyways. The trophy list is pretty terrible. I dont know why so many are focused on online mode. I did not bother to try it. And also, I'm really disappointed with how Mick Gordon was treated by higher ups while working on this. Its just pretty pathetic.

It has been quite a while since I played Doom 2016, so I don't really remember it much. But I thought it was good, not great. Doom Eternal really surprised me with how much I ended up enjoying it in comparison, and its definitely left me wanting to give 2016 another try. A few minor complaints hardly get in the way of how fun it is. If you haven't played this yet for some reason... stop procrastinating.

-----TLDR-----
+ fun varied gameplay
+ good level design
+ rewarding progression system
+ funny
- Could of been one or two levels shorter
- Couldn't really hear the music :(

Nancymeter - 91/100
Trophy Completion - 76%
Time Played - 17 hours
Completion #1 of May
Completion #90 of 2023

Man, what a letdown. I beat Bayonetta 2 on Christmas Eve so naturally didn't have the time to write a review. But I thought it was an improvement on the original in basically every way. I loved it. So naturally I was really excited for this one even with all the dumb drama surrounding its release. Now that I've finally got to it... all I really feel is disappointment.

Before I start being too negative I'll say a few things I like about it. First of all I love how colorful this game is. My biggest complaint with the first game was how damn dreary it looked, and to see 2 and 3 be a lot more vibrant is pleasing. Plus the location variety is fun and helps keep things interesting (desperately needed). I also think there's a really fun selection of weapons to use, Tartarus and the yo-yo being my favorite. And! This game has a lot of dancing. I love dancing. I love Bayonetta dancing. But if this game thinks I'll forgive it for throwing a lot of dancing at the end after mostly boring me for 12 hours then its kinda wrong!

God this game was such a slog to get through for so much of it. The combat may be flashy and the weapons may be cool but it didn't feel fun. The new enemies are almost all just boring. And it feels entirely too reliant on the summoning which besides giving more dancing just makes the combat feel slow and sluggish. Then there is playing as Viola which is a whole other can of worms. You only play as her in three chapters and an epilogue but everything about her moveset is so basic that those three chapters end up feeling like some of the longest in the game. Besides the normal combat the game does switch things up a bit often. I do really like when games get funky with their genres so its appreciated here but even some things like the kaiju fights are just so helplessly boring. There is also Jeanne's side chapters (you don't get to call them Side Chapters and make them mandatory, fuck you) that shake things a bit too but its just.. I really don't know how else to put it. Its not fun.

All of this translates into the cutscenes too. I love the over the top cutscenes in the first two games and DMC but its just way too much here. Its almost all action with very little substance and they drag on and on. Multiple times I just found myself completely zoning out. It all felt mindless. So much creativity with so little love put into it. The story of course suffers from this. Theres very little plot but this game still has the most cutscenes in the series. The first games story was barely decipherable but still fun. 2's was quite enjoyable but still nothing amazing. But here in Bayo 3 its both hard to follow and not enjoyable. The whole multiverse thing is great potential that's handled spectacularly uninterestingly. Only does it really do cool things with it at the very end where its already too late. I actually didn't really mind the whole Viola-Bayo-Luka thing going on but the ending is just kinda bad. Viola is basically female Enzo and I don't hate him but we really did not need more of that. There are dozens of attempts at humor with her and they did not land for me a single time. And now with the game really heavily pushing that they want to continue the story with her as the new main character in Bayo 4? Yeah. My interest in this turning into a saga has almost entirely diminished.

Despite huge missteps with story and pacing, I didn't hate Bayonetta 3. It has cool colors and lots of dancing and Bayonetta is still one of my favorite video game characters. But, I just can't help but feel really disappointed having completed it. I was sure this could be an easy 4.5 for me but Im struggling to find enough reasons for why it deserves a 3/5. Its mostly just the dancing.

man :/

A few more things I wanted to add but didn't know where to fit in to the review. Jennifer Hale my queen does great as the new actress for Bayo. Having one voice line for being idle is annoying. New soundtrack is cool but Tomorrow is Mine still clears. The Switch needs a sequel desperately.

Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 64/100
Game Completion #18 of April
Game Completion #88 of 2023

I never reviewed Horizon Forbidden West when I beat it late last year. Despite being received quite well, for some reason most of what I see online about this series (and this site) is a lot of negativity and it just makes me not want to interact at all. But I promised to review every 2023 thing I beat this year and this is no exception.

First things first, like the base game (and me), its so damn pretty. I believe Horizon is unquestionably one of the best looking games out there right now - that are going for a "realistic" style anyhow. I'd say only really Ghost of Tsushima or the recent Dead Island 2 come close. The final boss of this is probably the best boss in the series as far as I can remember. The setting for it is just so beautiful and the fight itself is pretty sick as well. There's also some cool locations like a Dinosaur themed amusement park and such. The DLC does nothing but add to how gorgeous the game is. But being a DLC its still got all the issues of the main game, particularly the utterly jank climbing/parkour. Expecting that to be changed in something thats not a sequel would be silly obviously but its still as annoying here as it is in the base game.

The story of this is, pretty okay. The stories in Zero Dawn and Forbidden West are some of my favorites ever, the lore and everything surrounding them is just so damn cool. Even Dawn's DLC, Frozen Wilds, had a really interesting story going for it. Burning Shores just doesn't really hold a candle to them. It's a lot more character driven between Aloy and her new "friend" Seyka. And that's great. I really enjoy their relationship and I hope Seyka returns for the third game too. But because of that, the overall story is just not super interesting. Its basically just more character development and doesn't add much to the universe besides that. There's a couple new side quests, and those are pretty enjoyable as well but still nothing superb. It also introduces a handful of new enemy types which are neat additions to the already pretty stacked roster.

Overall, I would recommend Burning Shores to fans of the base game. It may be a little light on content for its price but the quality is definitely still there. Whether you get it now or on sale, its a worthwhile addition to the series and worth a playthrough for sure.

Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 79/100
Trophy Completion - 88%
DLC Completion #3 of April
DLC Completion #19 of 2023

You've heard it here first folks: Disney Speedstorm sure is a free to play kart racer. It is a perfectly fine game. Outside of the mobile game like UI it has good presentation. Looks clean and the soundtrack is pretty solid. The core racing gameplay plays well, because why wouldn't it? It's a tried and true formula. Its got boosting and drifting and powerups, the whole shebang. I can't attest to how heavily monetized it is since its in early access but its looking pretty rough on that front. Lots of currencies and characters and cosmetics to buy. Most excitedly ways to upgrade your racers and give them better stats. I am sure nothing can go wrong there. Will have to see how it plays out at launch. Overall. its fun but, yknow. I'm sure your kids will love to spend your money on this.

Also to be clear I played this through PS Plus, I am not insane enough to buy the founders pack for early access of a free to play game.

just wanted to review a game cuz why not, I'm bored. Don't really have any stake in this but hey, hope the people who actually care are happy with it.

Tchia, for all its faults, is still one of the most wonderfully unique and charming games I've played in a long time. The story, while maybe it could've used being a bit longer to flesh out some characters a little more, is such a wild ride that constantly had me laughing whether because it was being legitimately funny or batshit insane (it was often both). Its also surprisingly dark for something that looks like an animated movie for kids. We're talking a villain who eats babies whole and a visual gag of a headless chicken with blood included. Also fucking like a bunch of people die, its crazy. While doing all the side content will probably take you 4x as long, the main story should only take you around 5 hours or so and I really think everyone should give this a shot especially if you got it on PS plus last month just to experience it. Also it features lesbians! Girls kiss! The story also gets wholesome with it so that's like an extra five stars.

Where Tchia will lose some people is the gameplay. The charm is absolutely still there, you can literally pick up a dog and hold it over your head, its hilarious. It also features a really cool mechanic where you can posses nearly every small animal or object. Some of the animals have different abilities you can use, like Cats have night vision. I did not find almost any of that really useful but its a cute little thing. However I did always have several birds stored in my backpack to use them to fly around when needed. And yes, the birds do have a dedicated poop button, if you were wondering. Now yes everything I've just described is awesome but then the open world stuff comes in. You've got your usual clearing out camps or doing races and stuff. None of it is bad but, I just never really wanted to do it. It just felt like a distraction when all I cared about was the story. Unfortunately as well, a lot of the gameplay in the story amounts to fetch quests. Finding an animal or item for someone and bringing it back to them. Its pretty boring, if I'm honest. There also some combat, which just involves soul jumping into explosive objects and launching yourselves into enemies. The soul jumping is fun but the combat is just pretty eh, and the enemies can be pretty annoying to deal with in dense areas where they'll constantly trap you, drain your stamina and force you to do a little qte. That's another thing, you'll drain stamina from doing almost everything. You're encouraged to find fruit around the islands to increase your stamina but they are very minor increases. If you run out of stamina too you'll basically faint and be returned to the nearest campfire. Thankfully there is an option in the settings to basically make it so you'll never faint. This really isnt a game that benefits from being difficult, and the challenge really is just annoying more than truly hard so I'd really recommend playing with that option on to keep Tchia the chill fun time its meant to be. My final gameplay critique is there are way too many campfire rhythm minigames. I do actually quite like rhythms games (Miku gang rise up) but they were just a bit excessive here, sometimes happening within ten minutes of eachother or less. You do have an option to let them autoplay which I ended up doing most of the time. These are full length songs and while the music in this game, vocal tracks especially, is amazing it just is another part of the gameplay that feels repetitive.

Tchia may suffer from some common open world problems, it may not run the best, it may bore you sometimes but despite all this, I wholeheartedly recommend it. Its bold, its hilarious and it is downright unforgettable.

Trophy Completion - 0% (not the best trophy list lol)
Time Played - 5+ hours
Nancymeter - 81/100
Game Completion #75 of 2023
April Completion #5

Ultimately, did I enjoy most of my hour or so I played with this game? I think I did. But also, I feel like I've already experienced everything the game has to offer. Will I come back to this regularly? Is there really a reason to? Well, I can't really say yes to either. Of course, every game is better with friends but that may only buy you another couple hours of enjoyment out of this. As far as I can tell only the first two very very short tutorial levels are developer made and everything else is user generated content. That's not entirely damning on its own but its clear from the level creator side of things the game is quite restrictive. There is only so many ways people can get creative with the same couple types of traps, enemies. There is an okay selection of blocks and textures but its not enough to stop levels from feeling the same, even when theyre as different as the game allows them to be. The core gameplay loop is enjoyable and every game with a grappling hook is a win but much like everything else, its not enough. What is there is fun but... there's nothing really there. Hopefully this gets supported more in the future, but its gonna need a lot of work to make me, and I suspect most people, wanna come back to it - even with it being a free PS Plus offering.

Just wanted to give my quick thoughts on this unfortunately disappointing game. Thanks for reading <3

My original review of the first game, Deliver us the Moon wasn't negative but I was hardly singing its praises. I ended off the review by mentioning wanting to try the sequel when it releases and saying there is potential. Well that sequel is finally here! And my expectations have been surpassed.

One of my biggest complaints about the first game was that the way it told its story was entirely holograms and text logs, which made it really difficult to get engaged even when some of the subject matter was pretty interesting. An immediately noticeable improvement in Mars is that it has actual characters and a story not told entirely by what are basically flashbacks while controlling a completely expressionless and unidentifiable character. This is by far its biggest strength. The writing in this is just great and the voice acting for basically everyone is actually fantastic. Every character feels real and it was easy to care about everything that transpired. There's still a lot of text logs and holograms but these holograms now play an important role in uncovering the past and causing reactions and changes in the characters, instead of just being the whole story. And the story is great! It's just super well put together with interesting arcs and at times its very thought provoking, especially with the ending.

But, well as strong as the characters and story are... there is a reason I can't give it higher than a 3.5. This game was made by a small studio and its unfortunately clear that this was a very ambitious project. They made the right choice on getting great voice actors (like my queen Nicole Tompkins) but I'm just not sure the rest of their budget was enough to truly match the scope they had in mind. As great as characters are, their character models range from sometimes passable to just flat out terrible. The hair textures on some of them are The Last of Us Part I PC port level quality. Moreso, the animations for nearly everything are super janky and hard to look at. Graphically the game is good most of the time but there is a huge amount of pop in and I had to wait for textures to load in frequently. I also had a few progress halting glitches but nothing too major. But gameplay wise the light platforming is decent and the puzzles are pretty well thought out, not really any complaints there.

Deliver Us Mars proves that developers KeokeN have what it takes to make a good game, and with the right budget I have no doubt they could make a great one. While it may have a lot of shortcomings, this is a game well worth playing and I will no doubt be there for whatever game they make next.

---------------

Hey y'all, sorry it keeps being so long between my reviews! I really do mean to put more out but its very difficult especially with how often I beat them and how long they take to write. I definitely want to make more but they just might be a little shorter than I usually do like this one. When I don't write a review I find I forget the game a lot quicker, and so I want to try to find a middle ground there. Anyways! Thanks for reading everyone, your support means a lot to me. Have a good day, and I'll see you next time. (hopefully in just a couple days with a Pikmin 3 review 🤫)

Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #246)
Time Played - 10 hours 26 minutes
Nancymeter - 75/100
Game Completion #67 of 2023
March Completion #17

I'm not very big into Star Wars nowadays, but after having a blast with Battlefront II and seeing how hype the trailers for Survivor have been I decided it was the perfect time to replay this as I've been meaning to get to it for a while. I also made sure to play it over a month before the sequel comes out to avoid burnout and as I'm sitting here writing this while watching the credits scroll I think that was definitely a smart decision.

That is not to insult this game as I did actually even enjoy it a little more this time around, but there are some pretty big issues I have with it that hold it back for me. For one, the gameplay isn't always the most satisfying. When I first played this game I had virtually no experience with Soulslikes but now I consider them a genre I really enjoy (even if I rarely find the time to play them) and I was able to pick up on more of the similarities this time around. But really its more of a Soulslite and I don't find the implementation of many staples the genre is known for to really compliment this game in meaningful ways. The lightsaber combat is pretty good - the lack of dismemberment disappointing but understandable - but it doesn't really feel as tight or as in depth as I'd expect other games like this to be. Also quite frankly while there is a good amount of enemy types, I found virtually every single one that wasnt a stormtrooper variation to be a huge pain in the ass to fight. Thats not to say that its not fun still and pushing enemies off cliffs will never not be fun, but by the time i reached the final boss I was just pretty over the system in general and ended up dropping it to story mode just to get done with it. Skill issue? perhaps but I know if FromSoft added an easy mode update to all of their games right this moment I would still never go for it. Basically the combat is good but the challenge feels more reliant on being annoying than actually honing skill.

My only other big issue with this is that the PS5 version at the very least is quite buggy. I don't remember if it was this noticeable for my first playthrough on ps4 but there were a whole lot of little things that just kinda got in the way. Once or twice Cal just randomly died for no reason during platforming sections, sometimes in fights where you get swarmed and stunlocked the camera fucked off and made it really hard to see and there were multiple cutscenes with out of sync audio that had to be fixed by closing the game. Another thing thats not really a glitch but a bit bothersome is the huge amount of clipping. The ponchos are stylish (but severely lacking in color options like cmon) and optional but its a pretty big distraction to see Cal's hands and legs phase through them in every cutscene and I wish they put a little more care into that. And this is the game that has multiple different lightsaber holstering animations that have a lot of personality so I really doubt its from a lack of love.

Story wise I think the game is pretty solid. I like the whole cast and it has some pretty good arcs and emotional moments. But it does really suffer from feeling like the first in a series. I am very curious to see where the story goes with Survivor but the story definitely feels a little underwhelming where Fallen Order ends off. Its kinda at a point where the main goal is complete but theres no real setup for how the story will continue and it just doesnt entirely work. Cal is a likeable protagonist and I am looking forward to see what they do with his character, I especially want to see more of Merrin as well. The gameplay loop mostly has you traveling back and forth between planets and there is maybe a bit too much backtracking but there are always new areas opened up so its not like you're replaying the same exact thing again and again. I also found the puzzles to be a lot more enjoyable on this playthrough where I remember them being kinda annoying to begin with. I don't generally like puzzles but the ones in this are pretty well thought out and done so I dont have any complaints about them. Overall despite having some technical issues and some complaints about the story and combat as a standalone this is a really great single player Star Wars game that I'm glad is as successful as it is.

Seeing as its been said that this story is planned as a trilogy I am more than okay with that. I definitely am a little unsure on what the story of Survivor will end up being. My biggest hopes after completing this was for a bigger cast and more of them beyond mostly just staying back at the Mantis but It seems like Survivor is going in a different direction. There is apparently a prequel graphic novel meant to explain what happens inbetween the two games but I ain't paying 15 dollars to read it and so I really just hope they have some good ideas and that they don't give the game an ending that super suffers from middle child syndrome. Beyond that I just hope its a little more polished and honestly it's looking like a big step up in a lot of ways. I'll get back to you in May for my review on that one as well :p

Thanks for reading y'all. Still working on a couple other reviews but can't say when they'll be out. I really appreciate you if you've made it this far. See you next time <3

Nancymeter - 81/100 (oh wow a 2 point increase!!)
Time Played: 14 hours for this playthrough
Trophy Completion - 100%
Game Completion #4 of March
Game Completion #54 of 2023

So far this year I've beaten things like Rogue Warrior, Life of Black Tiger, Orc Slayer, Duke Nukem Forever, Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back and much more of equally nonexistant quality. The Quiet Man? It's worse than all of those.

I will go so far to even say that it is my least favorite game I've ever played. I can't call it the worst game of all time as there are many games that are so broken that its impossible to even beat them. However I genuinely wish this was one of those because the 2.99 I spent on this would of had more use in the fucking blender. From story to gameplay to anything else you can think of that makes up a game The Quiet Man completely and utterly fails at.

So to start, the main concept of the game is that since the main character is deaf the vast majority of the game barring the first and last cutscene is nearly completely silent. Only via a second playthrough do you get the option of experiencing the audio, but more on that in a bit. I do think this is actually a really interesting concept but the abysmal execution makes the entire thing fall apart. Firstly there is no subtitles. This is understandable to a degree as you'd naturally assume the whole point of this "mechanic" is that you don't get to hear or understand anything the main character can't. But it doesn't actually work like that. There's maybe one or two instances in the game where anyone uses sign language. The main character very clearly is at the least able to read lips or something of the sort as in every single cutscene he is capable of having conversations and understanding everything being said to him. So why no subtitles? Why does the game open with a message explicitly emphasizing that there are no subtitles. The whole point of the game just completely falls apart because of this. What's worse is that these cutscenes are pointlessly long slog-fests. The game is thankfully only a couple of hours long but so much of it is just spent in these torturously long completely silent scenes of people just fucking talking. Not to mention extended completely silent scenes of a woman singing and playing piano. There are zero interesting visuals to accompany it either, and the framing and composition for the FMVs makes CW shows look like they were filmed by Roger Deakins in comparison. This is all to say that it is fucking boring as god damn motherfucking shit. This would be a great way to get your kids to go to sleep but honestly letting anyone play or watch this is probably highly unethical. And guess what? Knowing the dialogue and story actually makes this even worse. Im convinced that the whole no subtitles thing to make this as unnecessarily cryptic as possible is entirely to mask the fact that the actual story is fuckass. The new game plus audio thing wasnt even in the original game! It had to be patched in because people were rightfully complaining about how miserable this game is. If I'm being completely honest I did not and will not be fully playing this game again to experience the full story. From what i've heard and seen it is so terrible on a base factor (and so easily to tell so from what you're able to piece together of it in your first playthrough) and I highly doubt any new information could possibly save this game. There is some twists near the end and it takes a weird supernatural turn that's just... like I can't even begin to explain it man its just so stupid. In summary the cutscenes are too long, the story is terrible, and the dialogue only makes it worse. But hey, that's only one half of the game. Surely the actual gameplay is better?

The gameplay of The Quiet Man is arguably a dozen times worse than the stupid ass story. It is janky, unpolished and barebones to a laughable degree. There is basically zero explanation to anything, all you have to go off is a really awful menu that just shows symbols instead of just telling you what the buttons do so you're mostly left to button mashing your way through the whole game. And honestly thats really all you need to do for the most part. It's so poorly put together that you can just spam attack through nearly the entire thing. The enemies are the same couple ones with very minimal variance throughout most of the game. They clip through the environments and don't have transition animations so they often just teleport all over the place. The reused characters is so funny too especially when some are in the FMV cutscenes so its especially noticeable. Also not to insinuate anything but besides like some of the bosses, literally every enemy in this is a minority... so on top of everything else that's maybe not the best look. Despite how stupidly easy it is to just button mash through all of the encounters the game can be randomly hard at times. A big chunk of this is definitely because of how the controls aren't explained at all and you're expected to do certain actions for some enemies but more than this the camera is total garbage and there are multiple instances of cutscenes being flashed on screen during the combat making it hard to even see what's happening. Just as easily as you can stunlock enemies they can stunlock you and your character is very frail. Also like previously mentioned the characters just teleport around between animations so its just a huge clusterfuck of game vomit. Also they have the audacity to have a trophy for beating the game without getting hit, which is really funny.

Yeah, thats kinda all I have to say about this game. There's some other random shit like how bland it looks, like how the death loading screens being your mom/love interest looking at you lovingly. She has nice eyes and a good smile so thats basically the only part of the game I enjoyed more than I enjoy stubbing my toe. Also yeah, the same actress is used for both the main characters mom in flashbacks and as the main characters love interest. I'm not gonna comment further on it, I'm just as confused as you are. There's more I could complain about, endlessly even. But I'm tired of talking about this game lmao. In summary, this game is terrible and It's my least favorite game I've ever completed. It also gets the honor of being the very first game I ever give a 0/100 to, so congrats!

Thanks for reading y'all. Sorry this is only my third review three months in. Typing is just hard lol. I'm working on a Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe and Assassin's Creed Ezio Collection review at the moment so hopefully it won't be too long before you see me again. Take care, don't play this game.

Nancymeter - 0/100
Time Played - too damn much
Trophy Completion - who cares
Game Completion #1 of March
Game Completion #51 of 2023

It's not quite the Doom x Hatsune Miku crossover I was hoping for but its probably as close as we're gonna get...

Hey y'all. I didn't mean for it to be nearly a month before my next review but I guess here we are now. It's not that I haven't been playing stuff either, quite the opposite actually. I've been playing way too much as a matter of fact. So much so the thought of giving all these games a thoughtful Nancyfly review is dreadful. But more on that later

Metal Hellsinger is, well it's Metal Hellsinger. A rhythm based first person shooter. I know at this point thats not quite an original concept but it still feels niche enough to call it unique. I do hope this grows into a genre that can stand on its own and I'd like to see more games like this with a different setting/type of music even. That's kinda the thing about this game. It feels likes it is laying the groundwork to pave the path forward for others like it, but ends up not really feeling satisfactory on its own.

Let's just get this out of the way - not to be disrespectful to everyone who worked on it, but nobody cares about the story. It'll get you from level to level but its largely irrelevant. A pro to it though is that the artwork in the cutscenes is quite pretty. Also gotta hand it to Troy Baker for his voice acting as Paz. I know being all like "woah, the most prolific video game voice actor of our time did a good job!?" is a bit of an eye roll but he pulled his Joel voice out of the closet and cranked it up to Sam Elliott, it's great.

Now onto what the people really care about. The music is, to nobody's surprise, really great. I'm not actually much of a metal fan. I wouldn't listen to it on my own its just not really my vibe. In video games however it does get the blood pumping, and Hellsinger is no exception. The instrumentals are solid but its when you get enough fury for the vocals to kick in where the soundtrack really shines. As for the combat, it's pretty okay. You basically just shoot and move to the beat. There's some limited weapon variety, but for a short game on a budget it does the job. I found the explosive crossbow to be awfully unreliable and the sword never necessary but the others were all fun to use. I basically stuck with The Hounds - dual revolvers - the whole way through. Mostly because I'm partial to revolvers and spinny twirly reload animations. Plus when using their ultimate your character does the same animation where your guns float as Tracer in Overwatch which I thought was funny. What does drag this game down the most is the enemies and bosses. There are definitely a few different enemy types you'll face, but for demons they have pretty mediocre designs and very few of them actually require any significant gameplay changes on your part. You'll fight so many of them, and a good few of the combat arenas last way too long. The game as fun as it is wears thin at about the halfway point. The bosses are also pretty bad. Most of them are just the same monster but with different attacks. Now this makes sense within the story but even with new movesets it just makes all the fights kinda dull (particularly one where you have to constantly wait like 15 seconds for it to reveal itself). I was never excited for or anticipating the next boss battle because I knew itd just be the same lame creature over again. The final boss is actually really cool and I enjoyed that fight a lot. I feel like if more of the fights where on that level or at least more unique this game wouldn't feel nearly as underwhelming as it does.

In the end, Metal Hellsinger delivers on the fun gameplay and good music it promised. My score may be a bit harsh - but I guess I was just expecting it to be a lot more impressive than the final cut. For the studios first game it's a great start and I'm game for a sequel. But I might not remember this one in the morning. Thanks for reading <3

Lil Update: I got the platinum! Also decided to raise the score a little bit. the hounds and music are too good to warrant a 3/5 so as of now its a very low 3.5 :p. Also would like to mention the fact that this is 40 on ps5 but 25 everywhere else is pretty insulting and gross. Just get the ps4 version you wont notice a difference

Bonus! Profile Update!
I have been on a roll so far this year, I've already beaten over 25 games. These have been of pretty varying lengths with a lot of them being quite short. (Here's a list of every one I've done https://backloggd.com/u/Nancyfly/list/games-and-dlc-completed-in-2023/) and i've been going out of my way to play some pretty awful ones too. Most namely Duke Nukem Forever, Rogue Warrior and Life of Black Tiger. Beating so many games just makes reviewing not really viable. This one here has already taken nearly an hour of my time. There's also just the fact that some games I beat I really don't have much to say about. I want the reviews on my profile to be kept to a certain quality standard here on out and some games it's just hard to have enough new to write about I can feel proud of. Trust me, I've tried. There are still a couple games I beat recently that I plan to review - DmC, Gotham Knights (which i may have some controversial thoughts on) and Dark Pictures: The Devil In Me - and I'd like to get those out sooner or later. I also plan to do a full review of every 2023 game that comes out this year that I beat. But I just don't need the pressure of reviewing everything I do and I'm not gonna force myself to continue down that route. That's why I'm working on a new backloggd list where I will do a mini review - just sharing quick thoughts on the games that don't make the cut of a standard review for whatever reason. I hope to have that started by the time I post my next review (it's still quite a lot of writing with all the games I'm behind on lol) and I'll have it linked in my bio and at the end of every review. That way I'll have a way of remembering my thoughts on a game better in the future and anyone who'd like to see what I've been playing in-between big reviews can still get their much needed dose of Nancyfly.

If you read this far, I love you, you are loved. Happy early birthday. Have a good day. Don't forget to brush your teeth. See you next time.

Nancymeter - 68/100
Time Played - 5 hours 56 minutes
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #235)
Game Completion #6 of February
Game Completion #27 of 2023

Blackgate was not even close to what I had in mind for my first new completion of 2023, but I needed space for Ridge Racer Type 4 and Secret Agent Clank so sacrifices had to be made.

In all honestly, this wasn't nearly as bad as expected. It was even almost pretty good. I am not really a fan of this genre from all the games I've tried but I think the fact that its Batman and the atmosphere were more than enough to get me moving forward. I think the Arkham formula honestly transfers quite well to this format, but there are a few pretty big hiccups that stop it from reaching its full potential.

Namely the controls are pretty finicky. Especially on vita, the bumpers are just really not reliable and they don't do this game any favors. It just feels a little bit too clunky. As im sure is common with this genre the amount of backtracking is just way too much. I really don't see why there is no way to fast travel between sections. Im sure most of my playtime was spent running around like a headless chicken trying to figure out how to just leave an area to go where I needed to be, and the map doesnt help with that at all. It's a 2D map but there's multiple sections where you can interact with the background or go up floors and this just does not translate which makes navigating more frustrating than it needs to be. Not to mention it doesn't orient itself either so you have to constantly open and close it to make sure you're going the right direction. Another complaint with this is the boss fights. While i think the Arkham combat works well on handheld still, most of the boss fights are more puzzle oriented. But they're just really annoying lmao. I don't think I had fun with a single one of them. Thankfully you can find the Darkest Night suit which negates any damage done to you which made the final boss fight much less of a headache. The last complaint is the story is just kinda sucky lol. You can fight the bosses in any order but that doesnt really change much. The biggest pro is Catwoman is featured heavily in it and she's my favorite DC character. But the ending is just really abrupt and unsatisfying. Its not terrible, it is a handheld spinoff after all. But its just another thing on the pile that kept me from loving it.

All those negatives aside, I still enjoyed my time with Blackgate overall and I liked it a lot more than I liked the actual Arkham Origins. It's a weird, often confusing and sometimes annoying mess but it was worth a play. In the end, at the very least I can cross beating a metroidvania off the bucket list.

Thank's for reading y'all, this has been a Nancyfly mini review <3

Nancymeter - 69/100
Time Played - 16 hours 46 minutes
Trophy Completion - 53% (21/31)
Game Completion #2 of January
Game Completion #2 of 2023