This was my first Insomniac Spider-Man, and it was a little overwhelming at first as it definitely assumes familiarity with the first game despite being a standalone release.

Personally fine with it being a shorter game, as I think I'd get bored if it lasted much longer and it's open world didn't seem to offer much variety to make me want to dig into it's content. Obviously, the main appeal is its traversal which is fun but because it’s so simple It’s a bit shallow.

You can see the inspiration from the Arkham games in the combat, but I find it strange how much the game pushes you towards stealth, because I don’t think it’s as much fun as the venom combat and the game seems to punish you not using stealth even if it’s not essential.

The little puzzle sections I generally wasn’t in love with, they often felt a bit unintuitive over what your goal is.

Ultimately, I’m not really the Sony AAA cinematic/open world guy. So, I knew going in a lot of these things would be issues to me and the story wouldn’t be very engaging as I’m not a Spider-Man guy. But I still got a fair amount of enjoyment out of my time with this, as a sort of free if you have PS Plus game, so I don’t regret playing it.

One of the strangest experiences I’ve had with a game where it was rare that I would say I was having a bad time or finding it a slog to get through, yet I’d also rarely say I was having a great time.

The only time I died in this game (playing on normal difficulty.) was during a train defence mission, and yet I frequently felt like I must have been ignoring some fundamental aspects of combat and levelling.

The battle system means that you would have to be deliberately negligent to have your whole team KO. If you’re well stocked on healing items it should never be a problem because eventually, you’ll chip away and win. It is an incredibly forgiving system that breeds bad habits in me because there’s no pushback against playing badly. The game hasn’t given me an incentive to be more optimal and improve my build, and it doesn't do a good job explaining some of your options. Also the AP needed for upgrades is bafflingly expensive, and while the game is very generous with XP. Very strange balancing.

Much has been said about how incoherent the story is. Interesting that a game originally called “Final Fantasy Versus XIII” seem to have all the opposite strengths and weaknesses to Final Fantasy XIII.

XIII starts linear and opens up, XV starts open and then (figuratively and literally) puts you on rails for the 2nd half.

In XIII there’s so much mythos and lore that’s told to you, yet you barely explore the world and see what a society shaped by these deities looks like.
In XV you explore a world that not dissimilar to our own that feels at odds with the fantasy elements that the game insists did shape it.

I almost found myself wishing this did still have the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos attached because at least some shared proper nouns would have helped connect certain things.

It’s all frustrating because the open world does have some smart systems, even though the sidequests and hunts are all fine but dull, (the finding 5 frog type missions are very bad.)

The loop of doing these simple tasks, fighting monsters, banking XP, picking up ingredients that you can make meals that gives you additional boosts for doing more hunts all syncs up pretty well. In some ways it’s a more considered open world than seen in FF7 Rebirth. The world feels like a more natural believable space.

There’s more dynamic dialogue between the boys, so you can at least enjoy that while doing some of these activities, something that was sorely lacking in FF7 Rebirth and could have elevated that open world a long way.

Although ultimately it leads to tedium because the novelty of driving around soon wears thin, and you're left with a clunky fast travel system to circumvent it.

The thing most people love about this game is the boys camping road trip and bonding, and while I did like it, I can’t say that I felt as much for these boys as most other FF casts. I think because most of the game’s content is in its open world, the interactions that happen feel less meaningful.

The critical path is less than half the length typical of other Final Fantasy game. In some ways I can’t complain it’s briefness means I got through it without much issue, but Final Fantasy is where I want these huge sprawling stories, and in FFXV… well it might have been there in the design document but it wasn’t apparent to me playing it. When this stuff this does come into the story more I didn’t understand or know what anyone was talking about. Which just meant that all it’s biggest moments don’t really hit. And there are some good choices made at the end that feel wasted.

Ardyn was a great villain though, I’ll give him that.

Had a speed replay of this using the remaster speed ups and boosts, and it made me marvel at 14-year-old me for getting through this without guides, because I felt like I must have been missing some obvious with upgrading something, because I was so underpowered. I was obviously under level because of the nature of the playthrough, but I shouldn't have been that much lower.

Anyway, the main reason for playing again was to see how the story holds up, and there is a lot that I really like here, the themes and emotional depth, and cast of characters work very well.

I do think the fact that it's a ps2 games holds it back quite a lot though. There are some very strange directional choices, most scenes have this oddly slow stilted pace to them, or just odd bits of extraneous dialogue. And some very poor acting for some of the characters. It's a shame because the heart of the story is one of the series best, but this stuff does get in the way for me.

It does also feel like an unusually brief story for a FF game. I remember thinking the same at the time but playing it this way really did emphasize that there's not that many twists and turns along the way. Really did surprise me when I realized I was already in Zanarkand. I know it has some very extensive side and super boss content to explore, and it would have been good if some of that stuff was more integrated into the main story.

Much like Remake FFVII Rebirth is a game of highs and lows. My biggest issue with Remake was the absurd amount of padding - Sections like the walkways before the 2nd reactor, the collapsed expressway, going to the sewers twice, that other underground area. Some very dull sidequests.

In Rebirth the main path of the game doesn’t feel anywhere near as padded, and although some dungeon areas start to outstay their welcome (Looking at you, Cait Sith’s unwieldy box throwing.) The fact that you’re in different locations, doing different things, and the fact that the combat itself is improved meant I was never truly bothered.

However, there is a lot more bloat and padding in Rebirth than there was in Remake, it’s just been reformatted to the open world. That makes it far more tolerable because you can at least choose to do it in your own time, on your own terms, but overall, the “world intel” parts of the game do feel like a missed opportunity. There’s a very obvious comparison with the Ubisoft style of open world where it’s mainly a series of things to tick off in each region that are mostly the same. As regions become more complicated to navigate simply finding the way to the tower/lifespring/summoning stone/protorelic becomes quite a challenge itself and one that’s not very fun. It’s always feels just within your reach of doing, but always takes a bit longer than you expect.

The protorelic quests are most unique to each region, but this ends up kind of backfiring because there’s always 4 parts in each region and whatever mechanic they have usually starts testing your patience around the 3rd one and really becomes a drag the 4th time. But they’re they’re the most rewarding in terms of what you receive and because they have some actual cut-scenes and character interactions to them. Cosmo Canyon for instance has the most compelling quest because it features some extremely cute Avalanche Flashbacks, but they’re locked behind the most obtuse and complicated minigame, which I soon looked up solutions for to get through it.

The lack of dynamic character interactions in the open world is a real sore point for me. You’re running around the open world with Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, Red, Yuffie, and Cait, and for the most part… none of them are saying a word. Just a few moments of chatter and banter between them at certain instances, would have gone such a long way towards making exploring the world its own reward. Instead, what you get is Chadley, Chadley, and more Chadley, and then MAI his AI Girlsona. I didn’t want to ride the Chadley-Hate train because it seems too obvious, but it’s just… he seems to be the main character of the game. Like sure he doesn’t interact with the main story much, but I think he has more dialogue than any other character. And most of it’s just completely unnecessarily over-explaining things. I understand why this happens, his dialogue is functional, to explain mechanics and systems. But if this game adopted Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen’s romance mechanics every player would be going on a gold saucer date with Chadley.

What does determine the gold saucer date however is a combination of dialogue choices and bond quests. Which to me highlights another issue. The side quests are mostly much better than they were in Remake. However, they’re all focused on one character at a time, because it’s there to serve the “who do you go on a date with later.” Mechanic.

So, what will usually happen is you’ll talk to a quest giver in a region, then one other character will pipe up and say something, giving Cloud a reason to accept the quest, while other characters stand silently in the background. Through this quest pretty much the only interaction will be between Cloud, the character the quest is tied to, and any other NPCs involved. This is good in a sense that Cloud has some one-on-one interactions with different members of the group, but equally I’m left wondering why nobody has anything else to say during these quests. No words or thoughts for the current situation. It feels strange, and another missed opportunity for more chatter with the cast. This would have been the perfect time for it when the current stakes in the world aren’t so urgent and would show the group developing a stronger bond.

It's certainly not as if this doesn’t exist throughout the main story of the game, because what is there is good, but there could have been so much more.

Everything I’ve talked about is ultimately not the biggest deal breaker but optional or not, it does still account for a significant amount of the game. Its importance is diminished because it’s not the main course, but it can’t be dismissed either.

When looking at the more crucial elements, combat is absolutely top tier. I never quite clicked with it in Remake, but some minor changes and additions of synergy abilities have transformed this into my favourite combat system of any JRPG.

When the game is following the main story path it’s so good. There’s no game where I wholeheartedly love the characters and world beyond rationality than FF7. For the most part, the slight changes and additions make a lot of sense – Sephiroth appearing to make Cloud doubt Tifa was a smart change, and gives a good reason, why Tifa is reluctant to question Cloud on his telling of the Nibelheim. Yuffie and Caith Sith are improved characters with better justifications for joining the group. Red XIII I’m less sure about, I think they overplay his change post-Cosmo Canyon. There’s a middle ground to be sat between him trying to play the wise old sage, and him loosing up so much he becomes a silly, dorky little child.

There are some changes I think are less good, Dyne didn’t have as strong an impact as he could have had. The backstory for the Gi tribe in Cosmo Canon, I think was a promising idea in theory, but I think it might have added a complication that wasn’t needed.

The real thing I have to talk about is the way the meta-narrative comes into things. I wasn’t initially happy with the way remake ended, but over time I accepted that it does create some intrigue and tension that a straight remake wouldn’t be creating. There were even times in this game where some of the “meta-narrative elements” worked perfectly and made for one of the best chapters in the game.

But after the end of the game, my God do I wish they were just doing a straight remake instead.

The only way to cope with the disappointment is to tell myself, that things can be salvaged in the next game, but I also feel like the way they’ve gone already confuses a particularly crucial narrative beat in the next game. There are other ways it could resolve and hit a similar strong emotional note. But it’s hard to trust the writing team after this. Maybe something can happen in part 3 that entirely recontextualizes things, but I’m not sure that is a good approach when if Remake to Rebirth is anything to go by, we’re in for a 4 year wait.

Can already suspect how part 3 will go, it’ll follow most of the same beats, pad some bits out, have some new bits some of which are worse and some which are better, and ultimately end in a similar way to the original.

It’s frustrating because I feel this review is predominately focusing on the negative which I swear I’ve not been trying to do. I don’t think I can quite express how much I enjoyed this game. Just how emotionally invested I was in this story, world, and characters. It really hit home how important and formative the original game was to me at the age I played it. I don’t think there’s any form of media that I’ve cared about more. I’m not typically fixated on nostalgia and favourite media from childhood but with FF7 that’s just some irrational emotion it hits for me beyond what my critical eye could defend.

And this game has the fucking audacity to actually improve a lot of it. It breaks my brain to think that the same people are responsible for things I love and hate so much and act as if they’re the same. We all have good and bad ideas, but this team take it to another level.


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This is The Stanley Parable, with a heavy dose of The Beginners Guide added in, in the sense that it feels like Davey Wreden working through some things. And I appreciate the game a lot on that level, because it’s interesting to play a game where you’re essentially invited to explore someone’s head, and by the time of the epilogue ending I felt things had come to a very moving conclusion.

I don’t think I get on so well with the humor of the game so much anymore, I didn’t dislike it, but it’s more just mild smiles from me now, and everything regarding the bucket soon outstayed it’s welcome, which could probably be countered with “ahh but that’s the point.” But doesn’t really change the fact that I wish it had been something I found funnier instead.

A strong sequel that iterates on the ideas of the first game. It’s hard to have the same impact, and some of the new mechanics can feel a bit too fiddly times, having to make minor adjustments to the sails, so frequently.

Some sections drag on slightly too long or repeat slightly too often, it’s odd when a short game can still feel too long, but it’s all worth it for the moments when you progress past a puzzle and a new “thing” is revealed and the feeling of triumph, and the beauty of the moment hits in such a special and unique way.

Sable ticked so many of the right boxes and got me at just the right time. A more serene peaceful version of Breath of the Wild in some ways.

A young woman goes on her “gliding” a sort of gap year/ pilgrimage. The puzzles and platforming are all fairly simplistic, but work for the game and feel very satisfying to do because it’s so undirected. It has the satisfaction of seeing some structure in the background and thinking “will something happen if I do this?” And the answer is often yes.

It’s the mood of the world really works, it’s mysterious there’s lore to uncover that gives you glimpses of the past world, it just creates an excellent vibe, it’s nice to simply exist in this alien world and wonder about it’s past.

It’s a bit of a buggy game and the framerate is choppy, but judging by past reviews a lot of the major issues have been fixed, because there was nothing impeding my progress. (I alternated between playing on Series S and PC.)

Anatomy is a game that made me very glad I live in a small one-bedroom flat because when I finished playing it wouldn’t take too long to check all the rooms.

Even then, peering into the kitchen and switching the light on, opening the fridge, checking the bathroom, and then further down the hallway finally peering into the living room was an anxious experience.

Anatomy is the terror you felt as a child when you had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and that short distance between your bedroom and the bathroom seemed to stretch on forever. Even worse is if this happened in a home you were staying in on holiday and for some reason you had to go all the way downstairs to use the toilet, and it was the most terrifying thing in the world. Keeping you back to the wall as you navigate this unknown space so nothing can grab you from behind.

I’m not even sure that actually happened to me and yet it feels like an almost universal memory. There are various memories I have of holidays as a child staying in unfamiliar homes. These memories are too faded now that I probably couldn’t even place enough details to ask my parents or siblings “what was up with that place, when did we go there, why?” But they linger sometimes, vague memories of unfamiliar liminal spaces that create a sense of unease. Houses where you were too young to really understand the dimensions of the physical space so it feels like any room could lead to anything else.

Anatomy isn’t actually about any of these things by the way, but it triggered these memories in me. It’s more particularly about the house itself that seems to be malevolent, and I think that’s a fascinating facet to the fear I’m thinking of. that a physical space itself can have it out for you. Something that has motives beyond human understanding, and yet it’s supposed to be a familiar, mundane and comforting space.

Obviously, Anatomy is a game that you’re best off going in knowing as little as possible, it’s well worth checking out, Kitty Horroshow also has other free games her available from her site.