I'm as split on this game as the dual protagonists. I can't remember the last time a game simultaneously frustrated and fascinated me. There's some really interesting stuff in this but there's an equal amount of maddening stuff.

So to start there's something happening for the story. Stars or something are clashing, blue and orange, and resulting in one dominating the other. You play as one of these star beings and roam around a sorta-metroidvania map. I say sorta because it doesn't really feel like metroidvania much to me but maybe it's just a bad one? Anyway you roam around and encounter both orange and blue star beings and engage in a combat.

Here's where they fascinating gameplay is. You can simply defeat them but to truly progress you need to beat them in such a way that you absorb them completely. Battles are all turn based and you have a myriad of techniques at your disposal as you progress. Basically what you need to do is fill a meter that makes the opponent susceptible to absorption without killing them. This gets progressively more difficult as enemies will have shields you have to break but doing that wrong will lead to you killing them quicker or they have ways of ending the battle in X amount of turns so you need to do it quick. It's a system that can be satisfying when you figure it out and succeed.

The frustration here is how, despite the game inundating you with tutorials at the start, just won't tell you that suddenly there are new mechanics when dealing with certain types of enemies which is an annoying inconsistency when earlier they stop you mid combat to explain the details of breaking blocks. The other annoyance is back to the multitude of moves at your disposal you can't see while actually IN combat. Even offline single player modes in fighting games will let you pause to check your set list so for a TURN BASED game to not have something like that even when on your turn
feels like a blatant misstep.

The other side of the game here is platforming. As I said, it's sort of metroidvania? There's only like four items you get to access areas you can't get to and you just sorta stumble on them. It never had the feeling of like "oh neat I got this thing after beating a boss/finding a hidden area" because it just presents itself awkwardly. All the enemies in the game feel the same level of threat for the most part and if they don't it's because you found them in a weird order. There's only like arguably four fights that really scream "boss fight" and those don't bestow you means of traversal. It just feels awkward.

On top of that, the movement just feels a bit too rigid. I appreciate what they're going for with swapping characters who only have certain abilities each but it's not snappy enough to really flow that well. I had a few times where a toggle just didn't register and I would fall to somewhere I didn't want to be. The game is designed well enough that it doesn't feel like too much of a slog if you mess up but it does get annoying at times.

There's not really any hazards either so a lot of the core gameplay loop is just kinda basic platforming from one encounter to the next in an empty world. Makes you wonder why it had to be a metroidvania at all. There are at least collectibles to find. One set will increase your time to attack and another your health. There's a third one that unlocks like the "challenge" area but that ended up being my breaking point.

You go through the mostly empty map with backgrounds like mid 2000s Windows screensavers and collect all the green triangles. Your reward is the final part of the map, an optional challenge area. The first part of this area is a platforming gauntlet that isn't even that difficult but the switching mechanic was so finnicky for me that after like 15 failed attempts or so I just said "fuck it" and went to the final boss and finished the game. Shame too because what I do like, the combat system. would probably shine against the secret super boss that laid ahead of said platforming gauntlet but I just couldn't be arsed to do it. Doesn't give you anything special or change the ending anyway so whatever.

So then you get to the final boss and WOW they just fall on their face by having the final boss be an interactive cutscene that is just total nonsense like Somerville or something you have to dive DEEP to know the literal meaning. I just didn't care at that point. The story was boring and the lore was uninteresting. I just was done and that was it.

I suppose this means frustration won out in the end. There's elements of a really neat game in here but I had just enough little frustrations to be done with it when I got near the end. I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone but it could be worth checking out anyway., Maybe you'll click with it sooner than me or have less issues with the platforming. I'm glad I got to experience it but I'm also happy its over lol.

This game was better than it had any right to be. I adored so much of it from the visuals to the main gameplay loop that from start to finish I was having an exceptional time. The turn based combat was an interesting gimmick to break up long stretches of platforming and the platforming itself was designed well enough to not mandate exploration but heavily reward those who did.

The combat was far deeper than I was expecting, it allowed me to struggle early on without any real punishment that gave a natural sense of progression and feeling of mastery as I became more knowledgeable on the types of fights the game had. I'm a sucker for anything with perfect parries so that being included and not a surface level block/attack system was a welcome addition. The combat really does an incredible job of being lenient enough to not require full mastery but still challenging enough to encourage a deep understanding of what is being asked of you until you hit late game. The four boss fights leading up to the ending were PHENOMENAL (mostly). They were all good but some felt more polished and satisfying than others.

The exploration was another aspect I felt was incorporated well. Your "life" bar being tied to organisms and cards that you had to seek out instead of being tied to your skill tree made all the backtracking feel not like a waste of time and I thought that was something handled adequately. The progression of movement mechanics was done alright enough, the early game can feel kind of slow with only dash b being available but once you get run, shift and shadow grapple after being introduced to shift the game flows a lot more naturally.

My only real gripe with the game was the ending. I later learned there is a secret boss fight that sort of makes up for the whacky ending but even then not really? The game loosely does a job of guiding you towards the conclusion that the story is about the big bang and the creation of the universe and what I believe to be a statement on trying to deny "fate" but I dont necessarily feel that story is told in an all too comprehensible format and this becomes exemplified at the final "boss" which is effectively just an entity speaking an unknown language at you as you waste turns in a pseudo quick time event. The game up until this point was going great and the bosses leading up to this one were handled well so it's a strange ending to me to have the final stretch of the game being effectively just a minimally interactive cutscene.

All in all still a solid game, just one blemished by a lackluster ending.

It's nice when something this old holds up to the hype. It is, quite simply, a masterclass in puzzle game design.

Myst is a game where you just start and have a whole island to explore. There are locales and objects of intrigue spread around waiting to be discovered and tinkered with. Near where you start is a single piece of paper with instructions on how to start but after that it just has you go off. The more you delve into things are examine the details, the more things become clear and thus the more you get out of it.

The puzzles are almost all linked to the environments. Something in an area will link to something else and you have to work out how in order to solve their challenge. It can be kinda tricky because you have to note how things change and that can sometimes come in the form of sounds too. It's been a long time since I played a game where sound was an integral part of the gameplay and its utilized excellently here.

The core of the plot is that there are two men stuck inside of books and you need to find pages of their books in other worlds and bring them back to free them. It's simple enough at first but as you play you learn more about them and their relation to each other as well as world building around them. It all plays out decently well. Definitely more to it than I thought but not like a super robust or deep story. It does end pretty intensely though for what it is and I enjoyed it.

Core gameplay is basically examining the base island you start on, finding out how to go to another world, and then finding your way back to the main island while gathering a page for one of the men. Each world is itself the puzzle and they all have unique themes that play into what you do to solve them. It's all very well put together.

Myst is a fantastic environmental puzzle game with some old school jank like point and click to move around and hilarious tiny FMV scenes but those things give it its charm. I also had an old time-y game thing where I lost all my progress because I forgot to manual save during the part that I've found out is infamously annoying to most but even I didn't find it to be that bad. Ultimately it's a strong puzzle game and probably one of my favorites ever. Recommended to anyone who enjoys solving puzzles.

lmao I'm so fucking done with Spyro. Maybe someday if someone gets to really work out a fourth game and it's done well with some new ideas I'd try that. A few years ago I promised a friend I'd beat the trilogy cos I think he gifted it to me? I forget. Anyway the first one was pretty jank and shitty but there was that stink gen 5 game charm I guess so I stuck with it.

I heard the sequels were better and rode that hope into 2 which was a bit more interesting and had some fun characters and a good villain. I dunno if it really felt better to play or what but I had a not terrible time with it overall.

Now I've finished the third game and it's back to being just annoying. I dunno if it's just this game was rushed or if it's that I just inherently find the gameplay in Spyro to be not that good or both. I mean I enjoy the general concept of a collectathon game, I loved DK 64 and Banjo Kazooie back in the day but maybe I was just more tolerant of it as a kid or Rare just spoiled me by being the best at it.

I think a chunk of it comes down to the controls. I just don't like how Spyro himself moves. I'm not saying it's flat out wrong, I just don't think I like it. He's a creature on four legs so it makes sense he turns more widely than other 3D platformer characters. Just little bits of it get annoying after a while. Also the camera is just straight up wonky to me and I find myself running off a platform or just dying to things because it doesn't keep up with how I wanna move. It just doesn't mesh with my mind that well.

All of this stood out in my mind worse than in 2 because in this game there is a multitude of other characters you play as in their own sections. I was told by the friend that these sections as other characters are regarded by fans as the worst aspect of the game and yet I found myself enjoying it. I liked flying around shooting stuff as the penguin or smashing guys as the yeti. Hell my absolute favorite was the like "bullet hell-esque" sections as Sparx. I would take a whole game of that. I thought that to myself though and realized I was enjoying this game most when it wasn't being a Spyro game and I think that's ultimately pretty telling.

There's also a bunch of little things in this that I wouldn't say are a detriment necessarily but stuff that stood out to me as being worse than the last game. Like in this there are areas where you skateboard around but you start them on foot and get on the skateboard but they're still treated as separate areas within a level you have to load into. It's a bit of a contrast to Spyro 2 levels that felt like pretty big and you can get lost in almost. Maybe that game just hid its loading well but the big purple portals in this one just feel like corner cutting and make me wonder if this one was more rushed out.

Speaking of rushed, I feel like they didn't really do enough to establish the characters in this one. The villain is definitely the weakest in the series and just wasn't a thing I was like excited to be building towards. There's only really one other new character who they play into like a villain becoming one of the good guys but stuff just kinda happens with her and it doesn't feel written in an engaging way.

I know that's probably thinking TOO MUCH about character and plot development in a Spyro game but just something about the opening cutscene in 2 with being sent to another world and meeting the professor and his companions and how it all tied into Ripto just got my attention right away and made me want to involve myself more. It was neat! Compare to this game where everything feels placed around. Like even returning characters just feel wasted overall.

So yeah I dunno. This game kinda exposed itself to me in how much I maybe don't like it after all. Going through it just felt like checking things off a list. Some of the worlds and music are neat but it all falls flat in my mind compared to 2. It's probably not the best highlight but I did enjoy the side stuff as other characters. Playing as gun monkey was funny. Gimme Sparx 1943 I dunno.

I didn't despise this game because of the amount of times it allows you to NOT play it and it's still probably better overall than the first one. I don't think I could recommend this now though. I mean, fans of it will play it regardless but its not gonna be in my top like 10 3D platformers I recommend someone try if they want one. Still glad to have completed what I said I would do and I'm glad I did Year of the Dragon in 2024, a proper Year of the Dragon in itself.

Boy there sure is a lot of game here. It's weird when a game or series goes open world or semi open world like this game. A lot of times they feel the need to shove a bunch in to the game. Maps littered with icons to walk to and do busy work. A crafting system is implemented and so the ground is littered with things to pick up. There's a robust minigame card game made for this and there are people around to play in ALL major locations regardless of tone of the events. Also just minigames for days. There's nothing inherently wrong with them but when a game sets a tone of haste and then forces me to do minigames it just feels bad.

The busy work stuff too is just so dull too. Activate towers is something Ubisoft burned into everyone's brains. Fine. Zelda did this well though. Activate a tower and see more of the world and pick places to go. Rebirth tower just puts more chores on your map to go do. Go to shrine and play memory game, go to fountain and press triangle three times, go fight monsters in specific way, and so on. You could say open world stuff just isn't for me and that's true but it also hurts more when I've seen other open world games have their open world and keep it engaging rather than like house work. Also fuck whoever said "oh you wanna move around the world more quickly? do this hackneyed stealth section first". Double also fuck glorified box moving puzzles you solve in your head near instantly and take forever to actually "solve" in comparison.

That said, the core JRPG stuff is mostly fun. I enjoy the combat and how you're encouraged to use other weapons for new moves. The pressure and staggering effects add some depth to how you approach things so you can't always mindlessly hack through stuff. I also still love how the kept in the auto battle system so you can choose to let the characters move around and build up ATB on their own but also take control whenever you want. It's all still well implemented. Materia is still fun to swap around and experiment with I think although this time around I found myself using more character abilities than spells in general. The only thing that felt a bit much was the Folio system which was like a skill tree for each character. It's neat that it's there I guess but it's kinda cumbersome to navigate and ultimately I just ignored it and really didn't have much trouble getting through the game (except dying twice on the final final boss but whatever).

They also kept in and expanded on synergy moves. This is actually something the Folio system is good for as you can unlock new synergy moves with different characters as you ascend the branches of the skill tree. I did this enough to have a couple and it was pretty neat. You get moves shared between characters that are strong and cost no ATB. Instead you build up to them by having used ATB moves already with each character. So like after you do two ATB moves with Yuffie and two with Tifa for example you're then able to use their sync move. They're all full of spectacle and feel great to build up to and pull off.

On top of sync moves being flashy fun to use in battle, they also have a slight effect outside of it. Specifically doing sync moves with a character and Cloud can help deepen their relationship. Yeah in this game they have like the equivalent of Persona social links (though not as in depth). So you can increase friendship with characters in combat but the bulk of it is usually done when you get to a new location and the game gives you the opportunity to talk with each character. Find them all and there's some good character moments that usually trigger a timed dialogue tree choice where the "right" one will deepen your relationship with said character. Of course this also leads to having a "romance" scene with whoever you have at the highest affection level by the time you get back to the Gold Saucer. It's a fun addition to the game and really helped in feeling engaged in the character's personalities.

OH also to build into deeper character engagement they have sections where you play as a different character and they have some gimmick specific to them that you have to use to progress. It ranges from kinda neat and inoffensive to mildy annoying and then straight up "fuck you Cait Sith" tier. I get what they're going for but it kinda sucks. Fortunately they also have sections of the game where they split the party into groups and this does a much better job showing the developing comradery of various characters.

So then how's the actual story? Well it's mostly just ok lol. It's the same weak connections that were present in this chunk of the OG game. You go to places on weak reasoning because plot. It's good they implemented the character stuff I mentioned before because that's where any sort of plot element really shines. The actual story at play here is just "Sephiroth gonna do something lets chase random almost-leads." and then like two thirds the way through and a couple personal character arcs later they stumble onto the plot to get the thing. It's whatever. The best bit is the wacky Nomura incoherent space fights and the "Zack is out there" extra story bits. It ultimately just leads to more "what the fuck are they thinking?" but it's still on the third game to see if they deliver on anything substantial or not. The story in this is more or less exactly as it goes in OG FFVII. I think it's fine.

So yeah. It's the second act of FFVII but made to look real pretty. It was too self conscious to just be a JRPG but bigger so there's a bunch of open world crap in it. Maybe you'll like it but it's clearly not for me. I enjoy the base combat and seeing the OG game realized as like this full thing. Also the character moments and the wacky extra stuff going on keeps me going. It definitely felt like a lot though and I'm ready to play something shorter and more video game-y. Don't need to recommend anything here. People playing this already know they're gonna play it. It's a sequel after all. Enjoyable enough but way too much extra junk for my liking.

I genuinely think this game is overhated, and was the victim of what felt like a smear campaign by gaming "journalists" and gamers in general - especially from those who never had any intention of playing the game.

The gameplay is extremely solid, and for a looter shooter it's everything you could want from a game like this - and people who like games like this, will REALLY like this one.

I personally had a solid time with it, but it will be awhile before I pick it up again - especially if the content updates Rocksteady have talked about come to fruition.