I actually had this game for Wii but I didn’t make it very far, I think what ended up happening was that I sold it for my PS2 (I sold a lot for that dang thing) but I thought it had a very interesting story with neat characters that always stuck out in my head. I mentioned this before but I even named by frog “Nion” because Kento Marek (Starkiller’s father) was originally Kento Nion (it was changed between the book and game and stuff, last minute decision)

But I bought the Ultimate Sith Edition on Steam for 2-3$. Here’s what I have to say about it:

Well the title abbreviates to TFU which is…something, FU2 I suppose, lmao.

From Wii to PC. I really enjoyed the controls on Wii, it made me feel like “One hand is light, one hand is dark”. I wasn’t sure that I liked the skill tree idea when I was a kid but after playing more games proper with that incorporated, I think it’s fine because it shows you just how much more powerful Vader is at the beginning versus how Starkiller is. From a distance it looks like a beat ‘em up/hack and slash but I found a lot to it, the force powers alone made this journey worth it, the amount of things you can manipulate is pretty stunning.

I don’t remember how it was for the Wii, but for this PC version specifically, sometimes the game would freeze, audio would glitch or the loading could take a while. Makes me wish they still had support for this game.

One of the turn offs for me is the health bars above enemies heads, I know it doesn’t bother most people but any game that incorporates that just seems fake to me, I even mentioned how I turned it off in Neo: Twewy. It’s not healthbars that I don’t like, it’s that there are so many of them at one time and directly above their heads.

STORY. We know about the Jedi who escaped Order 66, who gets killed and his son gets found by Vader and taken under his wing. Or at least, I think everybody knows at least that. But I feel it’s so much more. Sam Witwer, who also voices Maul now btw, does a great job. He reminds me a lot of Anakin, showing how much his training shines through. But the idea of Vader using him in secret as his personal lackey is pretty cool too, even away from the Emperor. Palpy wouldn’t let Vader really go after these Jedi, I assume because the Emperor had his own plans for them so he sent someone to do it in secret.

Starkiller’s design alone gives me a lot of information, he has what looks like a restraining bolt on his left, his heart. Which makes him seem cold but also just a puppet to Vader. Nothing more than a droid. A slave. So the slave becomes the slavemaster…maybe I shouldn’t talk about that. But like I said, we get to see Starkiller basically live out this life that Vader couldn’t, and that just so happens to include love, softening him. You see, one of the main characteristics about Anakin is that he’s a good pilot but Starkiller here doesn’t get that joy, he has Juno Eclipse fly for him, his personal chauffeur. I could see Vader depriving SK, I mean he gave him the name Starkiller, didn’t he? He knows killing, that’s it, yet they made him a cool character despite those restraints.

I’ve always considered this canon above any of the other games and wanted it to make an appearance in mainline Star Wars material or at least the idea of it. I mentioned with Obi-Wan Kenobi that it just always seems like there’s another Jedi who escaped Order 66, which at the time this came out wasn’t a problem, but the idea of Starkiller hunting them for a living as if there’s an endless supply is…questionable. But I also mentioned that I thought Kenobi would’ve done better as a game and in a game context, this idea works really well. This was also the original bridge between 3 and 4 so this pioneered a lot of the ideas Star Wars has built since then. And even the lost masters have interesting bits to their story despite just being boss battles. Kasdan Paratus for example is overwhelmed with grief of Order 66 and has a makeshift Jedi Council room made of scrap where he made mannequins of the Masters. That’s deep for someone who has only a few lines of dialogue.

As far as cosmetics and spectacles, it obviously has some really good setpieces, this is where that scene of bringing down the Star Destroyer came from. The complaint I have about that one in particular is that the scene requires you to fight off waves of TIEs as well and I’m fine with QTEs but the way that specific one was done was kind of shoddy. Each world you visit is unique and very fitting like George had a specific hand in it. Remember that really colorful plant area that Aayla Secura was killed in Order 66? You visit that planet! Felucia. And to top it off, you get a new costume every time. You want to change the color of your lightsaber? You can do that if you find the collectibles.

What, that wasn’t enough?

Then aside from the costumes you gain for each mission, you also get skins for different characters throughout the series. I beat Darth Vader with the Ben Kenobi skin from Episode IV and a black lightsaber (I don’t think the darksaber officially existed yet). I played a level as a Clone Wars animated style Starkiller. I beat up Luke Skywalker with a Sith C-3PO and Old Ben with a Luke from RoTJ. It’s letting me live my fantasies and I think that if it wasn’t for gameplay falling a bit short in a few aspects, this would be my favorite Star Wars game but for now it’ll just have to settle for second to Lego Star Wars.

I’ll probably leave the sequel to the novelization. Yeah, believe it or not, there are novelizations of these two games and comic books that add a little more depth, especially in the case of #2. There’s a bit more elaboration to them to which I think would only strengthen the story. One boss in particular just sort of happens in this game and they only briefly explain it afterwards but it kind of comes from out of the blue, a novelization would only expand on this already great game. Even the DLCs that came with the Ultimate Sith Edition are good. I may have only paid around $3 for this but this is worth more than full price to me.

This is PC specific, I'll post a Wii one too

This can be buggy. Places not properly mapped so trying to jump up onto places clearly there in front of you but there's no grab (though, I had auto grab on so maybe manual has a difference). Enemy AI getting stuck in odd places. Player AI getting stuck (mainly when crawling). And the camera…yeesh. Especially when you're trying to jump onto something behind you. It's a blind leap. Even worse when I used a controller, luckily I'm not picky enough to refuse keyboard and mouse.

This isn't an uncommon issue either, it comes down to how much tolerance you have for how a game works and crashes. I ended up verifying game files, uninstalling then reinstalling and somehow it came back. Even then, I played it with task manager in the background but it didn't last. What ended up working was playing in windowed mode. How? I downloaded a thing off github that I could provide upon request but there's a gimmick now. Sometimes the camera only wants to aim downwards so I can't see what I'm doing…It's just a shame that this game has aged this poorly because it could be darn fine if it all worked the way it was supposed to. But the way it is now, this is probably one of the worst games I've ever played.

What's more is that the swan dive just plain doesn't work, when you load a game, you have to start a new game, skip the cutscenes until you can play and then load it from the menu. The way to fix this is to either rename your profile (or just make a new one) or rename the manual save to autosave.trasave. I don't think I was noble by finishing the game with all these problems but if I wanted to play it, I didn't have a whole lot of other options unless I wanted to buy it for a load more money by buying an outdated PS3 or Xbox 360 and as I mentioned, when I tried using a controller, it didn't work so well.

Now that I said that, I bought the Wii version because I heard that it's the best version, a bit of an outliar. So, that will be a second review for my second attempt. I mentioned Underworld but don't get the Wii version of that one. (rather complicated, I know.)

Using this as my Wii review:
For those who haven't read my PC review, might be confused, so check that out here.

So how's this compared to the PC version?

Controls are still a bit unsavory because some stuff is mapped to the D-Pad which can be kind of hard to use when the remote is vertical. Moving the camera is also kind of like that by holding the C-button on the nunchuck and pointing the Wii remote where you want to look but at least you can see where you're jumping this time. I guess camera's just a Tomb Raider Anniversary curse.

Instead of just levers, there are little knicks and knacks like 'rubs' which sounds wrong but they're inscriptions that you can dust off like a DS game and run charcoal over them to get an imprint and match them up on a wheel. There are also a few more types of collectibles through that. You can chip away at the wall using a pick and cement knife to pick up your relics rather than just picking them up off the floor, same locations though. The gears are always right there on the floor though and 9/10 it'll be the same solution. And there's this funny drawing puzzle where you have to make symbols but they're really just squiggly lines.

I won't bother mentioning what's the same because most of it is, but I didn't get as many enemies getting stuck or even Lara for that matter, it was all mostly normal.

Framerate takes a dip but that's to be expected. Locking on seems a bit tougher because you actually have to aim at the enemies so there's no "up close and personal shooting mode" anymore. There's a flashlight now so some places are darker than before and QTEs are motion based. Wolves and stuff can grab onto you and you have to shake the nunchuck to get them off.

The dinosaur battle is a bit middling because in the original (PS1), you just fight it. In this one, you 'can' do that but it's going to be super annoying and long so they added the gimmick that you need to dodge at just the right time and let it hit these spike things but it relies solely on the dodge ability, you can't jump behind these spike logs so it turns out pretty cheesy. This was for both games but it's really disappointing to have a scene that iconic just be kind of limp. But at least you hear the gun through the Wii remote, there's that.

Take it from someone who bought the game twice because he wanted to like it but thought it was just the version he was playing, I label it as a bad game. Worst Tomb Raider I've played so far (not that I've played that many).

Was it worth it though? Yeah, kind of, now I know it wasn't just the version. What took me 2 hours in the Wii version took me four days to complete on PC, not just because it was my first playthrough but because it took so long to get it to work correctly. (I was in St. Francis Folly for reference) So I got to play the game a bit easier at times but it ended up evening out with annoying jumps that I knew how to make but just couldn't execute due to the Wii or bad level design (like the mapping I mentioned in the PC review). I saw enough potential in it enough to play it but it just didn't live up to that overall, too many things bogging it down. It seems (though outdated) the original PS1 game has this beat in very many aspects but I'm done trying to live through this again.

The voice acting is campy like it’s a commercial and when it’s not, it’s narration. The main, Alan, is a dick to everyone. Alice is his wife and there’s a part where the power goes out and immediately after, she screams for you but he’s literally a foot away, the same place he was before it went out. You find out later that she’s scared of the dark because it happens again, kinda silly but I get that it’s meant to be quirky and symbolic.

It crashed quite a few times during my playthrough actually, I think part of it had to do with me changing the volume which is odd but hey whatever. The gameplay is similar to Murdered: Soul Suspect which means it’s pretty stiff. The story is set up like an average tv show, it’s even split up into episodes, which reminds me of a Telltale game but at least if there’s a specific episode you want to play, you can, rather than just playing the whole game again. One reason to do that would be to get the collectible thermoses and manuscripts, those are just bonuses so if you want to spot up on lore or want achievements, that’s your route, there are also a few other things hidden about that I found none of which means they must be hard because I explored a lot during the beginning.

The whole idea and structure is based on Twin Peaks and considering that the game itself has been considered to be a tv show at one point and Remedy has Quantum Break as a tv show, it’s kind of a cool idea on paper, but the story would just be be a decent but cheesy book at best in my opinion, maybe tv series for some people but other than the light and darkness aspects in the gameplay and the self awareness of the story, I don’t see where this shines as a game specifically (other than the final dlc). It seems hit or miss with the episodes, every other one seems good and give you good places to explore but most of the odd numbers seem kind of bland (except 5).

There are these lamps around the place that heal you.-lights weaken the enemies so you get a flashlight, flares, have to start generators etc-there’s invisible writing on things that you can only find with your flashlight (or headlights if you’re in a car)-you lose stamina because you only keep your sprint for so long before you slow down. I wish there was a meter like Skyward Sword but it’s mainly used for dodging here so I guess it’s on purpose to have you be slow without it.

There’s this annoying cop that calls Alan different authors and it would be clever if it was once or twice but it’s every freaking time, I don’t think he’s ever even called him Alan and it’s a different author every time! Not to mention he’s always pointing his gun at you, name one scene where he isn’t, it’s like he was out to get you from the start but he’s not meant to be the bad guy.

There are hidden QR code’s throughout the game, I didn’t think much of it, that maybe you get an item to revisit it but no if you actually go and use the QR Scanner on your phone, it will brings up stuff like memes and text easter eggs.

I even played the dlc (which comes with the Steam version automatically). As for those two chapters, I wouldn’t have paid for them separately, however, I feel like it’s a more fitting ending (or set up for a sequel) because yeah the regular game’s original ending is bittersweet which is fine but the delivery feels rushed. “The Signal” seemed kind of pointless other than to say “Oh uh this is what’s happening.” It’s a companion piece, you need the second one but not too much of the first one. “The Writer” is better than the actual game. If someone handed it to me alone and said it was their showcase for a potential game, I would be all over it, it’s pretty good, but other than that, I was unimpressed by this game, even for the time it was made, just not my cup of tea. One of the worst games in recent memory.

I remember being in Gamestop as a kid, just browsing the games to see which 3 I could get since it was buy 2 get one free. My grandma was with me and she said she thought I wanted Tomb Raider, showing me the Wii port of Underworld, which so happens to be the one with just Lara's cleavage and midriff on the cover so then I scoffed because I was like "As if I'd ever be caught dead playing a Tomb Raider game." Me still pretending to be grandma's little angel that wouldn't even imagine thirsting over a female video game character...yet...and to remain a hardcore Indiana Jones fan by saying Lara was just a cheap knockoff. And the way the games looked, I kind of can't blame my past self. I mean, they came out with what? 5/6 games and decided to reboot it. Each one after that kind of rebooted in a little bit of the sense but also acted as a sequel. Reboot/spinoff again with Lara and the Guardian of Light which switched up everything entirely, then they reboot again and make it grittier and grounded and drab, more akin to something like Uncharted. So I've always seen this series as experimental and always trying to push the next type of gameplay rather than keep a cohesive storyline that isn't about the world ending every 5 seconds. And I always felt bad that you shoot the animals.

The Wii apparently has a flashlight and some pointer puzzles...so there's that. But I mainly just wanted it because it starts out with the mansion being blown up which is pretty cool, even though I like exploring the mansion, the story behind it made me want to see why. But like I mentioned with my Anniverary review, the Xbox version is probably the best. Why? Because it runs smoother and it's the only one with the dlc, Beneath the Ashes and Lara's Shadow. But do you really want to buy two $10 dlcs from 2009? I ended up just watching them online. You also have to buy the games separately, there's no trilogy collection like PS3 (which doesn't come with the DLCs for whatever reason).

So if you did end up reading my Anniversary review, disregard most of that for this game because this one actually did pretty much everything better. There are some issues that still carry over though but I won't reiterate.

Performance wise, I had some really good framerate and some unbearable framerate, what triggered it, I have no clue but sometimes it got so bad it crashed (very rare though). It still has that lock in place camera for whatever reason too.

Moving objects can be finnicky but silly because you can place them and sometimes they'll go shooting across the room. You may accidentally bump into it and it'll stick to you and move it out of where its supposed to be. It's like a game of prop hunt.

Movement is a lot more fluid, I feel you can get a little more done in a shorter amount of time. You didn't get to ride the bike in Anni, but you could in Legend and you can in this one. There's a level where you take it with you to explore a few temples and it's not just a scripted sequence. But then it gets a bit weird because you take it with you into the tomb and you have to navigate with it in those halls and then stop and get off and do something real quick and then jump right back on. And you have to use it because there are ramps you have to jump, I thought the point of the bike was to look cool but it's just a hassle half the time.

Story is the macguffin "collect this to get that" sort of end of the world thing to find your parents but there are some cool elements incorporated, I certainly understand it more now that I've played the other two in the trilogy though. Did that scene of the mansion blowing up at least live up to my expectations? No, not really.

I actually forgot I knew about this and it bothered me then and it bothers me now but it's such a small nitpick with the design. Lara gets dirty, not muddy, just dirty. It's the sort of thing that on a detailed and technical level sounds interesting but I personally just don't really like the way it looks. Now you may not be able to turn that off but you can adjust your settings to tailor your gameplay how you want it. Enemies having too little health? You can increase it individually rather than switching to hard mode. Little stuff like that.

There aren't really fightable bosses or QTEs this time around, which I'm not going to complain about, just a strange departure. Instead we get slow mo (jump) sequences and structures you have to destroy to take the villain down.

As far as the trilogy goes, it's kind of average, even a little weak. The stories are very loosely connected and the gameplay could use an overhaul. I might rank them all one day but I don't really feel the need to yet. As far as the game itself goes, it had some cool moments like the octopus but is in no way a great game in my eyes, I'd leave it as kind of underbaked and average. Even after seeing the DLC, I don't care to see it continued.

I read the synopsis but I was never really clear on what the game was until I bought it. Sure, it's a visual novel but were there interactive elements to it? Were there choices?

Lemme start by describing it. This is a visual novel about an AI called 'Eliza', it's like a therapist type chatbot similar to the real life app 'Woebot' but the 'proxy' or host is a real person and they're basically reading a script based off of what Eliza thinks is the right thing to say and they can't break away. You play as an ex developer for Eliza, Evelyn, you don't move around or anything, the situations are fixed, the thing that you can interact with are some of the choices which are mainly attitude based. You interview clients and they tell you about their problems. The problem with that is that Eliza is a chatbot so it has a set formula, it's more just there to listen than to actually have a conversation with, they describe it as "someone talking who thinks you're way more interested than you actually are" which is where they start to talk about corruption.

Eliza is the new and big thing, which means higher ups want to profit off of that, it's not necessarily about mental health to them, to Evelyn, however, she has a bit more personal ties where the story grows deeper. I won't spoil too much though, but I will say that it's nice to see these clients come back and you learn more about them and their story and how they're being affected, I liked Maya and Darren the most because I could relate to them, and somewhat Evelyn too, we barely see Damien but I appreciate him as well. You also level up after every session and get ratings and tips since you're technically a contractor, but those seem fixed, it's not really anything.

One choices question about 'choices' for me is "are there alternate endings?" The quick answer is yes, but you don't make that decision until the end, it saves you the stress of having it based on a compilation of all of your choices, I personally picked the last one and I liked it but I thought there might've been something else so I checked them all out and I would say either the last one or the third one was best. It's not a bad game, I like some of the points it brings up especially for a visual novel but I felt it could've had more interactivity like having you choose to go off script more. The game is about 5 hours long give or take, right now my Steam says my playtime is 1.6 hours for some reason but hopefully that gets ironed out, I also found some stuttering here and there but I'm not sure if it's a game thing or a performance thing.

This is actually the first PoP game that I bought because, well- Just look at it. It appealed to me most, he's got what looks like a cybernetic hand, a blue and red head scarf keeping some sort of mystery about him, nice balance between grit and cartoon. And really even the gameplay, a big wide open world, and the girl stays right along side you. It was the makings of something great, but then...I played it.

I don't even know if it was two hours. I just felt like I had enough, like I had seen everything it had to offer already and here's why:

Background information first. The game has a decent story with the Prince looking for this donkey that has a bunch of treasure alluding for an adventure that happened off screen when he comes across Elika who is being chased and one thing leads to another and she releases darkness out of a tree. Ok, maybe that doesn't sound too great but it's more character based. The struggle between her and her father is interesting as you see the darkness overtake him, which gives you all the reason to bring an end to this madness. You see flashbacks of her because she doesn't really want to talk about what's going on or give you context so it's fed to you little by little, she's not even interested in the Prince, she just sees him as beneficial to her journey and over time the two grow fond of each other, which is how it should be.

The cartoony nature lets for a variety of unique animations, like her climbing on your back when you're climbing up vines, doing a little twirl when you switch positions, catch each other when they fall and just overall a ton of fun stuff that makes up for the fact that you can't play as her. Unfortunately, the Prince really just makes jokes, he isn't given much, they made him too pun-oriented as even Nolan North was confused by it but whatever, it's a disconnect. So what's the issue here?

Well, you have to get your fair share of light orbs- wait a second- I just played Twilight Princess! Yeah it's that but it's the whole game. Like there aren't even enemies to keep you busy really. It splits the map up into sections where you climb these huge towers and trek landscapes to get to what amounts to a fountain, you fight a boss at the fountain, unlock it, and poof, light appears so you backtrack through the level (which does have varying paths but you definitely backtrack) in order to collect the orbs. There're little dark blobs that block your way sometimes and platforms can indeed have an enemy every now and then but it's not rewarding for anything, you don't get light, you don't get currency, you don't get anything, they're just another obstacle, not anything special, just a random nuisance.

The combat is a lot different, it has a sort of fighting game element where it locks you in a battlefield, and you skirt around each other like Contest of Champions. It's not "bad" but it can be annoying because of the control scheme. I learned it over time but it basically creates its own buttons. Red glove. What does it refer to? What did you map that button to? Grey glove, uh, block? Sword is obvious. But it doesn't show you the buttons, just the symbols and it's not much more in depth than that. I played this on PC and honestly those colors resemble the Xbox control style, the PS3 version has the actual buttons (and I don't have an Xbox controller so I had to fight with my PS4 controller to figure it out) but I think it helped that I played with a controller this time around because I used a keyboard and mouse on that dropped playthrough.

You get the rapid press sometimes but it's not necessarily how fast you press it, it's how early you start. And like sumo wrestling, getting too close to the edge for either of you will lock you in a heated quick time event to launch the other over the edge.

Perhaps one of the divisive parts though is that you don't "die". It's like this, falling will just have Elika catch you and put you at the last platform. Fighting, you're given a chance to save yourself with a quick-time event and even if you fail, the enemy just heals themself a little.

Then you have the "hub" of sorts which leads to the temple but traveling this empty wasteland takes a while because of your walk speed. I don't mind it in the confinement of these areas with the structures but when there's nothing there and you're just trekking...speed it up. Luckily if you unlock the fountain then you can fast travel.

They even have cool traversal methods that you learn by taking so many light orbs back to the temple (in the hub) but they're not free abilities, they're limited to where the spaces are. The "power plates" eww, that's their official name? You couldn't say like "Ephereal Tiles" or some sort of lore based jargon like spirit energy emits from them, juicing you up with power for a short burst? Spirit Burst?

And you have what amounts to this huge wide open and lush background painstakingly created with breathtakingly beautiful places that you can't wait to explore but you barely even notice them. Like you probably see this picture and think what fun is in store for that place and what set-piece it might hold but the camera pits you against these wood and stone structures and that's about it, the rest goes relatively unnoticed, you don't go and walk around these places at all like you'd expect.

There's a PoP retrospective on YT. He mentioned that it's enjoyable playing as a side gig, just something to turn music on and play like it's Minecraft parkour and so I lodged that in the back of my brain and here I am, with a new approach and a new opinion on a game that I thought I'd never return to.

So I'm done complaining because I did indeed keep coming back to it and enjoying myself by viewing it from a movement standpoint. And yeah, it's not the best use of its appealing assets but I still found something in it.

I've wanted to play a good Batman game for a long time, heck even a good DC game. The last good Batman game I played was the Lego Batman series, which I loved, but I could never bring myself to play the Arkham series despite hearing that it was incredible. I've seen gameplay and things of all sort but naturally I would want to start with the first game, Asylum, but I never had the system for it since I was team Nintendo so I tried the demo on my old laptop...it couldn't run decently enough to be comfortable with, my laptop was old and non-beefy and I wasn't even too big of a fan of what I played in that demo.

Arkham Knight came out and I had a PS4, along with that came ‘Return to Arkham’ but I didn't have enough interest to pursue either. Spider-Man for PS4 comes out and people compared it to Batman. I loved that game but I wouldn't care to see the same gameplay put into a different game. So, what made me break down and get Arkham City then? Well I can confirm that you play as Bruce Wayne. This very much interested me because I like playing both parts, I like the little bubble of ordinary inside of an unordinary world. I thought we might get a slice of life out of Bruce Wayne...but in reality, it’s just one scene at the beginning of the game and it’s a good sequence but not the Bruce Wayne I was hoping for (kind of representative of the game if I’m honest). I tried the demo out and it grew on me.

Not only do you play as Bruce Wayne but you play as Catwoman and with this Game of the Year edition, it comes with added costumes (which is kind of just a bonus since I wouldn't normally care about that) but I particularly like using the Dark Knight Returns outfit because it makes me feel like I'm Ben Affleck's Batman. I would use either the 70's or Animated one more but I can't help but feel they look out of place, it's not the game's fault though, I felt that way with some of the Spider-Man costumes. With that, this game has a pretty big cast of villains especially if you count the side missions.

Catwoman isn’t as involved as I would have liked. I remember seeing promos for this game and being like "Catwoman and Batman working together!" Well not really, you save Catwoman then you play as her to save Batman. Then after the credits roll Catwoman comes back? Why did the credits roll if the game wasn't over? Well Catwoman is apparently DLC. I'd be disappointed if I paid to get 4 episodes (missions) of playing as Catwoman, it's not even a proper cohesive story and barely ties into Batman's at all, I played the ending and didn't even know it was the ending of her story, I had to look it up because you just pick up the stuff and it’s over.

For the console version, you can pick specific episodes and pick the costumes through that but with the PC version (might just be GOTY edition, I don't know) you have to change it as if you would Batman's and the two extra suits (Halloween and Animated) you have to pick either Year One or Animated Batman and it automatically switches to her alternate costume, which is kind of lame that she doesn't even get her own menu. As for the challenges, you get a menu for all of them and even Harley Quinn's Revenge so I don’t know what to think. I'm not usually one for challenges but you can play as Nightwing and see (some of) Wayne Manor, which is pretty cool.

The gameplay is pretty much what a beat-em-up would be like in a 3D environment. They focus a lot on combat and for good reason. One thing I've known before I even played the game and kind of respected was that you know an enemy is down for the count when you hear that crack and then the slow motion for the final enemy in the group, if I didn't know better that Batman is a ‘pacifist’ of sorts, I would’ve mistaken him for a killer because there are some brutal take-downs and Batman is cold and merciless with his personality like he's fed up with your b.s. (Poor Tim though). The take-downs stay fresh, showing me combos I haven't seen before, so yeah it's kind of just button mashing but I'm okay with that, it has a lot of thought, care and effort put into every move on the developer's end and they don't really make it so easy either. I feel like Spider-Man made it more balanced but it doesn't feel like Spider-Man to me so I almost can't compare it. That could be because I played Spider-Man on PS4 and this on PC but I doubt it, I notice a lot of different things that Spider-Man did differently, maybe it just used some elements, so that inital concern is out of the window.

This seems like a very short game, the credits started rolling and I was like "Really?" I would've done more side-quests but I figured I still had a while, plus it doesn't always let you do them when some main missions have urgency. Speaking of, Batman just leaves some of the victims there, like the nurses and the scientists, he's like "Wait here" and then comes back late in the game and is like "You're good at hiding...so keep doing it." Like dude, you just abandoned these guys the whole game, I get the urgency and stuff but they're desperate and we never really even got them out (unless that's a side mission I don't know about but I really doubt it)

Now Harley Quinn's Revenge.

It made me realize that people play this game very differently, maybe they have a different difficulty set, the console version is very different or maybe they unlocked something I don't know about but I see them knocking out 3 enemies at a time then KO’ing each and every one, I'm not sure how they knocked that many out at once and I'm not sure how they got them to stay down long enough to take them down one after the other, not to mention mastering the Critical Hit meter. It's not a very long story though, I've seen videos that finish it in an hour, for me it took maybe 2 and I didn't even do the final boss, I just got fed up because I would do a part so many times, get to the end then not be able to take out the last guy, I just looked the cutscene up on YouTube.But I like Batman most for Stealth and Robin for combat. Maybe I'll play Arkham Knight some day, I don't know, I imagine it improves a whole lot. As I was saying, it’s a good game just not what I expected.

I've bought Resi 4 on Steam, after the first level of playing it, I realized that it wasn't for me, all the enemies looked the same and it looked repetitive, zombies kept spawning and there was no way to get rid of them all, I ran out of ammo, it was a mess. I knew that the genre did that, I know that that’s the point, but I didn’t like it. Plus, I couldn't even really get the gunplay to work right. I heard that it was at its best on the Gamecube but I haven't given it another shot since then. However I saw that Resi2 got a demo, so I played it when it released and I kind of liked it, I was sold on the game and asked for it for Christmas (or maybe even my birthday, so yeah it’s been a long time but I was busy with other games) Now, the RE3 remake is already out...wow, time to play RE2 then, huh? So, you can consider this my "first" RE game.

Right out of the gate, visuals are stunning, almost needless to say and the level of accuracy is immense. I mean I didn't expect there to be a gas station at the beginning but it even had the lighters and beef jerky towards the front and stuff, they really went all out.

I can't imagine seeing this game when the original came out with PS1 graphics, it's ambitious, this is clearly the way it belongs. I thought a bug flew on screen but then I realized it was in-game, it's immersive, I don't normally read all the little tidbits and notes and stuff but it was generally interesting to read on the lore along with the VHS tapes and get some clues as to what to do next. I tried to play through it as if it were 1998 so I didn't look much up, I usually tried to do it myself with a few small exceptions. I felt accomplished by the end of each session like "Wow, I did that. I'm smart." It's rewarding. Now I played through each campaign so both Leon and Claire (starting with Leon) Claire on the other hand I was more lenient with, I looked up a decent amount because I was already in the station doing the same puzzles as Leon. It makes me wonder how they got the same items story-wise though, I mean we see Leon leaving her notes but you can't blow up the same wall twice in reality, that's nitpicking the game a little bit though. I will say that I felt like it was a wild goose chase when I did look it up because every thing I looked up was giving me different information "The portable safe is in this room." "No it's in this room." "This is the combination for the unicorn statue" "No it isn't, this is." Because it varies when you're playing on standard vs hardcore and whether it's your first or second run. So, I got my punishments for looking it up I guess.

But with that said, I know some of these types of older games have a tendency to make it really confusing and difficult without a guide so I was kind of worried about not knowing what to do or where to go. While I will say I had had to look a few things up, it became cut and dry once I figured out the pattern, most of the things I looked up were things I was going to do anyway but wanted to make sure before I somehow unleashed a hoard of zombies that I certainly didn't want. Same goes for story too, I knew close to nothing about it. But you basically just have to make it to the next area, think of it as that Chowder episode where he loses his hat and Chestnut has it so he has to go around doing odd jobs one by one in order to progress. The overall goal is to get out of the police station and kind of just find a way to survive but you have to focus on the smaller goals / getting to the next room. I looked pretty thoroughly through everything and managed to find everything I needed without even trying or knowing what it was for half the time like "Well this should come in handy later." puts it in storage chest Speaking of, I like how each chest is like an Ender Chest and is interchangeable as if it was the same one chest in every location, that makes things much easier rather than some hardcore game of "where did I put my keys?" that I'm not into. But you learn to find your destination a lot easier than I thought. That was always something I hated about Resident Evil games while watching them, that there was a lot of backtracking but actually playing the game hits differently, it's not what I expected, it's actually kind of fun, like I mentioned saying "I know where that is!"

Maybe it's just the setting of a police station that did that for me or maybe seeing speedrunners doing it with the old games and paying no mind made me scared or maybe the fixed camera angle of the old games (so that each side of the room had the clip as if it were just a picture) along with the idea that the originals are dated rather than PS4 but regardless, it's just surprisingly not annoying like I thought.

Games can easily stress me out but I actually found myself cruising and feeling good about it despite all these zombies...then I met Mr. X. He chases you EVERYWHERE throughout the game. Thing of nightmares. I will probably hear footsteps in my sleep now. I knew he was coming but I didn't know his presence wasn't always scripted, it's just a game of cat and mouse...and he's the cat! It gets me paranoid because I'll stop and hear footsteps then stand still for a good 5 minutes and he's still tromping around. I walk down a hall. BOOM! Crashes through the wall, making ME screech. There's no way to get rid of him and it kind of ruins the atmosphere to be honest, I know it's trying to be scary but it's more annoying than scary because every time I move I'm like "Ok stop" and I'll stand around for a minute, checking the map, to check the fastest route to where I need to go, just to make sure and then continue... only to turn the next corner and then repeat. I couldn't even move comfortably anymore, it's space invading. The tension is high because he can come into the main hall which I liked to use to save but alas, I had to memorize where all the other save points were or check the map again.

So, you get to play as Claire, which I like, but with Leon's story it's kind of just like "Well I'm going to do my own thing and if she survives, she survives." I understand each step is essential to progressing and getting closer but for all he knows, she's just out in the rain, waiting for him to unlock the door. And I also know that she said that she can handle herself (before Leon had to point out the zombie behind her! lmao) and he has survival on the forefront of his mind too but still. They flirt every time they're on screen together but the thing is that I love it, I ship it, it's cheesy but I don't care, that’s half of what I’m even here for.

As for the rest of the story, you're telling me that they made not just one movie but a SERIES of movies and it wasn't this?! This is great, this is a master-craft in its work. I'm not a big fan of zombie movies, I'm sure there's one out there that I like but I can't think of any off the top of my head but this? This is it! (Jennifer Lawrence would make a good Claire tbh) Let alone the horror genre in general, I'm not even frightened all that easily, I just think a lot of the plots and decisions are stupid in horror, this goes against all that. Speaking of spooky, I know making the screen brightness balanced is normal for games but I don't think it's mattered more than here, brighten that baby up because sometimes it's pitch black, immersive but still hard to see.

Boss fights are something I didn't think a whole lot about until I actually got to it. Doing the first boss fight with G was really memorable for me because I could cower away all I wanted in that gridded pit of a machine room and just launch grenades at him but it wasn't until the bosses in the sewer that I really started to like it. First was that Crash Bandicoot type running sequence, then we had G-2. I had actually ran out of ammo at that point, I used it all on the sewage monsters (I didn't get the flamethrower, I didn't know how, as I said, I did this more or less blind) so I just kept running, and clicked X every time the option came up, hoping to pick up something good. All I got was a combat knife and a flash grenade, then I started messing with the buttons on the control panel, in hopes of cheesing it and just going to the next section but then I realized what I was actually doing. I was using those buttons to move a crate and using that crate to slam G into a pit. I love the classic boss style, I haven't played a boss like that in a long time. One where it doesn't matter how much ammo you have, but just using the environment to your advantage without it explicitly telling you (except the death screen giving you hints). That was until the later boss fights, you basically just keep unloading your belt until they die, kinda lame but whatever.

This actually made me rethink the genre and also about giving one of the other games a shot (PLEASE REMAKE CODE VERONICA, I BEG!) it might be right time, right place (PS4 with modern graphics and modern gunplay) that made me actually interested. The “true ending” is unlocked by playing through one of the two’s campaign and then playing through the other, which is basically the same game but with different cutscenes and context (some new areas too) so it’s definitely worth it, you could even just speedrun the second run if you’d like, you even unlock a secret boss and for those who have already seen the true ending, know that I liked it based off of what I said earlier, no spoilers.

This is the one I was looking forward to most out of the trilogy. After I finished the first game, I made a list of hopes that I want for the future of the franchise. This game delivered that on almost all fronts, I didn't even expect it until a brand new game came out but no this is just one of the best sequels ever. Needless to say that I already hold this highly and even higher than the last.

Let's start with that. First off, there's a better use for flight, using superflight which works similar to supercharge and you just have a limit to using your flight wherever whenever instead of just gliding. On top of that, gliding adds the ability to 'hover' which helps with banging into walls when you're oh so close to reaching the ledge, you just hold (in my case triangle) to hop up an extra step, which brings me to my next topic.

New abilities! You no longer die when you're in the water, you can even swim underwater and guess what? No breath meter! (unless it's a flight level (Man I wish those would go extinct!)) How do you get this? Glad you asked, yet another thing I asked for, gems. The gems are used for something this time around, Moneybags. He's a new character that basically acts as the Tom Nook of the franchise and deprives you of things then taxes it, asking for a certain amount of gems to obtain it. Gems also compile now so you can use gems from anywhere to use for Moneybags but can still look in the menu to see how many are left in the level.

Now the thing about abilities like that is that it prevents you from getting 100% on stuff right off the bat unless you already have the right abilities. (such as sometimes needing to dive underwater for gems) You don't need them to finish the level, just 100% it (just to be clear). I guess that adds replayability though, I'm alright with that, I'll make an exception.

This goes for the last game too but I failed to mention it because I didn't know about it. Motion blur...why is it there? It's subtle but when you move the camera around so much then it starts to suck, I thought it was the vibrant colors making my head hurt the whole time so I only played in small doses but no, I think it was the motion blur, so if you're like me and get headaches from just about anything, turn it off in the menu.

I will add that there are actual bosses this time around at the end of each realm. Ripto as an end boss makes up for having Gnorc at the end of the last game, I was really satisfied. Also is this where Dark Souls got its inspiration? Because you essentially collect 'souls' every time you defeat an enemy and you use them to unlock gates, it's really spooky to think about and I think it'd be funny if they acknowledged it.

I asked for more story and we got it, plenty of cutscenes and I love every bit. The world of Avalar is just as good as the Dragon Realm in the original game, if not better. The one thing I might ask more of is to make some of it a bit darker, I get it's for kids, but I just mean Legend type of dark, maybe add Cynder in there wink wink. There's plenty to FAWN over here and not to mention how much it improves on the system overall. I felt like it needed an extra gameplay element to it in the last game, well the new story boosts that concept and doesn't make it as simple as saving dragons, this time you're collecting Talismen from each of the leaders of the worlds so that you can gain enough power to beat Ripto. With every few worlds, there will be a little side mission that you can do and get some other items in the process which sometimes in turn unlock new levels entirely.

These missions comprise of little tasks, such as a new gameplay mechanic...spitting! You can pick up rocks and stuff and spit it either into a specific spot or at enemies, it's pretty sweet and you also have an aiming function. I won't spoil all the gameplay nooks and crannies but dang does this game improve on the last.

I've always heard good things about this game, even seeing playthroughs of it made it intriguing because it looks like a quality platformer. Strange for a licensed game but then I saw the opening logos and realized. This is Deep Iron Studios, I knew I heard that name before and yeah they made Battle for Bikini Bottom, The Spongebob Movie game, Night of 100 Frights, The Incredibles games! So you know these people actually care what they're putting out and even if they lose a deadline, they're going to at least try.

So that's what they did, the opening segment (aka tutorial) gives you pretty much everything from momentum based speed and jumping to going into "box mode" which you can "box dash" with to destroy crates. This isn't a game where you fight enemies mind you (at least for most of it) but one where you explore the area, collect and solve little puzzles both environmental and mini-game like. It's also brimming with personality giving me some reasonable cutscenes before the events of the movie before converging. Not only that but I mentioned collectibles, there are the boxes which contain various power sources to open doors and laser capsules, that's right, you can shoot a laser. But there are also artifacts which glimmer in the sunlight and when inspected, a little cutscene will play out where Wall-E digs up an item like say an umbrella and then proceed to play with said umbrella. It'd be cool if these optional rewards were usable but hey, they're still fun to watch the animations, they fit right in.

Think of playing as a skateboard for most of the game. That's how this is. There are ramps (not really moves you can perform) but it comes up with some pretty cool traversal methods. Now all these things are great but I might complain just a little bit. Some things can be finicky or precise like sometimes you're not as fast as you should be going down a hill and when certain jumps can or cannot be jumped off of or landed on. Your jump isn't very high to start out with and you can't change direction in the air, once you're up, you're locked.

I think one way to solve this might be to just throw out the jump button for certain sections because there will be a stretch of obstacles and jumps that you need to make but if you don't have enough speed or momentum then you won't make them, I'd rather just have him smooth glide off the ramp so I know when and where to jump but that's me being picky. I'm sure lots of these things were known and they just didn't have enough time to iron them out but it's a solid game.

What you wanted more? Ok, well you can also play as Eve so there are 'racing' where you can fly around like an on rails shooter. I 100%'d this game guys and I never do that, sure it wasn't hard but I went the extra mile because I enjoyed it and was having fun.

For this review I'm going to be referring to this game as "ReRe".

Let's get one thing out of the way, this was a game made for the 3DS then was ported over to other systems so it's obviously going to be smaller scale making a lot of the stuff not really something to blame it on, it's the core that I'll be judging as if I were playing it in its intended way.

I really only have Resident Evil 2 Remake and a little bit of Resident Evil 4 to go off of for reference but this was one of the ones that I was most interested in, which is kind of ironic but oh well. I finished RE2 and was craving more RE and I found the demo for ReRe on Steam. Imagine my surprise when I heard Michelle Ruff as Jill, I was already sold on the game, the question was "What platform?" Because I could get the ReRe 1 & 2 bundle on Switch, but I tried the RE5 demo on there and I didn't like the control scheme and I really don't like the control scheme for it on Steam, it was the same with RE4, I even tried plugging in my PS4 controller and it thought left was up and up was left, I couldn't change any of it in the settings either, just the keyboard and mouse ones, so here I am with a PS4 copy.

As you probably know, this game is split up into episodes, similar to that of Alan Wake. Each episode has its own levels, so you could start as Jill then go over as Chris for example in order to display different sides of the stories. I actually kind of like this because with RE2, I always felt like I NEEDED to do the next thing in order to save, it works for a game like this, better than Alan Wake especially considering that you only played as Alan and it was only one side of the story. But it's not so split up that it resets your inventory, you keep your herbs and your ammo (or lack thereof).

A lot of people complain about the scanner and how it gets repetitive and that it should've just stayed on the 3DS but let me say that I love when a game uses the controller, whenever you use it, the controller makes little robotic sounds, same with when Parker calls you on the com, I adore it. It makes me feel motivation to try and get that S rank at the end of each mission because it's basically the same as taking pictures. On top of that, it's night vision, so you can just use it to look around, sometimes you find hidden handprints, it's really neat. And the stuff that you scan, nets you percentage points so whenever you scan a specific type of enemy, it'll register it and once it reaches 100 then you get a herb! Which is a cool system, different from previous games with the mixing and such, here, there is just one type of herb and you can still pick it up on its own if need be.

Let's talk about the setting. The idea that this is "Resident Evil on a ship!" sounds intriguing but limited, given the background of the early games but I beg to differ. I really like the idea of a ship being your environment, there are chapters where you play in other places at different times too so it never feels too familiar. It isn't just aimlessly walking, trying to get in the next room either, there are set objectives and it shows you where to go (not that it's all that hard to find anyway) because it's split up into sections, normally you'll only explore one or a few sections per episode so yeah it is easier in that sense but I'm fine with that. It goes away from the formula but the elements are still there, just not as much, there are still keys to rooms that you have to unlock and then you have to backtrack. I really like the ship itself too, I was in awe when I got to the Clock room, I love it, I'm a bit of a nerd for pirates and stuff so it's right up my alley (apparently there are even pirate skins you can unlock!). Just look at the way the helm spins whenever the next door unlocks and takes you down that elevator.

They even have a solid level just dedicated to swimming, which sounds pretty bad but the swimming controls are actually good and I found myself immersed and tilting with the camera. Now those pirate skins are unlocked using Raid Mode. What is that? Well, you go around various stages of the game just shooting, take out as many enemies as you can, balls to the wall. The bonus stage unlocked after beating the campaign is the "Ghost Ship" which is basically the entire ship that you speedrun in order to unlock the pirate skins I mentioned (why is it always so difficult...) In a way, I have to appreciate this mode because while I might not be as handy aiming with a PS4 controller versus a mouse, it's kind of fun to run around, choosing your own weapons, infinite ammo and just wailing on enemies (I don't like that for any campaign but for a bonus mode it's fine.)

Now some of the characters because you can actually play as a lot of them here.

I've never got the chance to play as Chris before but now I'm really glad I did, I completely understand. I always hear that he's the butt end of a joke but people still like it. He's a muscle-headed Chad, that only thinks about the mission, he's not a character, he's a tool but dang does that make him likable. At one point, he’s trying to unlock a door through a computer and I’m like “You sure HE’S the one that should be doing that?) I think Jill ends up doing it anyway, Jessica is well aware of his obliviousness though, it actually makes for an interesting dynamic.

Parker isn't my favorite. He's there to be there really, sometimes I need support and he'll shoot that last zombie but that's about it. Raymond...for some reason, I like Raymond?? I mean, he's like a red-haired Casey Neistat.

Jessica is kinda funny because she's half and half like Chris. I thought she'd be super serious but "Parker better get me dinner!" Also speaking of half and half, she has one pant leg, the other one is bare?? Ok? The characters are cheesy, much like a tv show but I love them. I would've liked a little more Rachel though.

The final boss is actually pretty dumb, he has a weak point but he lasts way longer than he should, the previous chapter's boss was much more fun. As for the alignment of a survival horror game versus an action game, this one is more closely aligned with an action game but I would beg that it's more connected to survival horror than others such as RE5 or 6. The game isn't terribly long, my play-through was a little over 5 hours but I enjoyed it for what it was and again, it's a 3DS game.

I never played any of these games, this was the first, I've heard a lot about them and this one intrigued me the most so I gave it a go. Here's what I thought (PC version/Nonspoiler):

First off the cannon controls are wonky, it's like the sensitivity was driven down to the ground and you don't want to go in and mess with the settings to the point of making your actual character uncontrollable. I had a lot of issues with gameplay, I would try to do something or even try NOT to do something and it would just do its own thing, I know that's a common thing people make up excuses for but I felt like some of the jumps in this game were cheated. The combat is pretty weird because you just keep kicking and slashing, you can grab which is cool but I'm just not a big fan of the system as a whole, I expected a more stealth like approach to this game. NOPE. There actually isn't even an option at most points, you just have to run it and gun it as best you can, that's not to say this game is too hard though.

I actually like this game for some reason, it's a relatively open world (with reasonable limits most of the time) with optional side quests, different gear, different colors you can dye your outfit. There are waypoints you can buy and that way next time you can just go inside one waypoint to get to another but honestly I just ran around the map by foot or by horse and was fine with it, the world was flourishing enough and simple enough to traverse. I have to say I expected something different but I can't say what I got was "bad", I mean I've heard all kinds of bad things about AC so I just chalked them up towards that and there are a lot of things wrong as I mentioned but it still kept me going. By the time I finished it, there are very little things this thing did that others games didn't do better including Uncharted and Tomb Raider but the story and feeling (Dat Italiano) made it.

I'm going to split this review up in a sandwich so we'll have some good then some bad then a overall but it will be a lot of list of thoughts and just things about the game. I only ever played Brotherhood other than this so you can have that to go off of for reference. I've had dreams about this game before I played it and while I knew that it would never meet the expectation of those dreams, it still surprised me at how good it did.

The good. There are parts where the wind will blow your ship hard enough to make you change course and you have to steer against it, that sounds like one of the easily finicky features but I had no problem at all, it was welcome. This really is a definitive pirate experience, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You can sync watch towers to teleport from one part of the island to another or if you sync all of them in that island then you can just fast travel from anywhere there rather than traversing the entire map (whole diff island). There's a Mayan outfit that you can collect tokens for throughout the game, so I got it and it has some neat perks my only complaint is that it has no hood. You have a scope to check out ships and what level and cargo they have so you know whether to bother plundering them or not. The shipmates sing songs (which are called shanties) whenever you're sailing which really kind of brings it to life which and you can collect these shanties in the form of flying pages so they can sing new songs. You can rescue pirates and add them to your crew, whether they're castaways stuck at sea or need your helping fighting guards, I always liked recruiting in Brotherhood. Every time you get on the ship, the crew cheers, I love it!

You can technically see a beefy ship and watch it tussle with other ships until they chip it down, as long as you get a blow in then you can still plunder it but you still have to take out the crew, especially the captain. You have a blow dart so you can tranquilize people but it's only a limited time before they wake up unless another guard finds them then they can wake up faster. You can change the colors of your sails but I think it would have been more effective to have the sails act as an upgrade so certain ones will give you better speed or something, just something that would have been cool but you can upgrade the ship through other means so that's cool. You can skin animals and use their hides to create armor or upgrades to health or whatever but I rarely ever hunted anything so it's not necessary at all but I appreciate that you can skip the cutscene of actually skinning it. Which is another thing that's not all that bad but something to point out, you don't have instant health vials like you do in Brotherhood, you just kind of have to work through it, if you're good then it's not a problem though.
One more thing...BLACKBEEEAAARRRRDDDD!

The bad. So I played this without subtitles...because I couldn't find how to turn them on, then I did find it in the main menu settings towards the end, I really hate that but it's my bad, just a disclaimer for how my experience went. However the story isn't all that great or big, it's kind of just whatever, half the time I'm not sure what relevance some characters have to the plot but it's not a big deal, this isn't really a game for story but that doesn't mean it doesn't have good scenes.
There's a windmill that sounds pretty cool but climbing up it is a pain in the rear partially due to controls, it took me so long to figure out and do it properly. James Kidd is a douche, enough said. There's a certain person you have to kill when you get marooned which doesn't make much sense to me because I had a berserk dart (meant for the crocodiles but again I barely hunted so I saved it) so why couldn't I have had the option to use that?

Glitches and stuff. When you open chests, it's a bit finicky and you have to be in a certain spot, same with when you knock someone out, it will say "loot ammo" but you have to be in the right spot even if it gives you a button prompt (towards the head). I was on a trailing mission and was in the final stage where they have a conversation before the cutscene, so I was hiding in a bush, didn't move because I was listening. They almost finished the convo when it said "target lost" which if you know AC games, there's a vicinity where you need to be in, I was well within that range and I was practically in the exact same spot when I succeeded the second time. In the last part of Havana, I was looking for the target, using eagle vision and such but he didn't show up. I went everywhere in the green area, I even ended up taking out every person in the area and nothing. I looked it up and sure enough the guy who was supposed to be there, didn't spawn! I had to exit the animus and go back in to restart the mission. (he was on the close side of the church). I infiltrated a naval base and in order to capture it, you need to go into the war room. I took out the officers then went there, in the middle of the cutscene of me opening the door, some guy back-stabbed me, there was no way I could have defended from it. A similar instance happened (but without the cut-scene) in the jungle. I died to a jaguar I believe and respawned but when I respawned, the little summary of the island showed up where it gives stats for what collectibles you have and stuff, it take up a 1/3 of the screen so I couldn't block any attack from it in the quick time event because I had no idea what button to press. I mentioned the Mayan outfit, with collecting the tokens, Edward will say "One more to finish my collection" after collecting so many which gets your hopes up but chances are that you'll need more, he says it too early. I went after a courier and I was right behind him whenever the chase started and I guess the game didn't like that so he rubberbanded away at an unreasonable speed. A shipmate glitched out of the ship and just hung there in mid air while I sailed.

Major rant. Back in the day it was cool to collect stuff because you would usually get something cool out of it and it was mysterious but with the internet now, it's just not mysterious so it doesn't work as well, so why not tell people what doing something will reward you? Especially if it sounds boring like "Animus Fragments" which are nothing more than balls of light. I ended up looking it up when I was around 75% done with the game which means I could have collected at least half of them right? (there are 200!) I'm not a completionist but alas the reward is too good...a skeleton crew! I wanted to end it as decked out as I could because I'm not usually one for post game content either but I did a nice big roundup of these fragments, but not quite all of them...I looked more into it and apparently you need to do challenges and the fragments are just a piece of the bigger picture...so alright, a lot more work but I WOULD still do it in order to get the skeleton crew. It even involves online missions I believe and I'm not up for that. But then...I figured out all of this requires you to more or less 100% the game which means you don't get it UNTIL POST GAME. So you finish the game and you don't even have it for the end, it doesn't even show up in cut-scenes (which wouldn't be a big deal but given the circumstances-) It's just not worth it, you can't even save after the main missions are done apparently so you get to just roam around with it for a little bit. I would rather it not be in the the game at all than tease me like it did, what a let down, what a sham! I was going to say how GREAT this game was but this made me mad because of how promising it was. There aren't even mods or bypasses or anything because it's an AC game.

The overall. It outdoes Brotherhood in the gameplay but the story for BH was better. In the end, I had more fun with this one for sure but I'm going to dock it for the misinformed skeleton crew, save yourself the hours of trying to get it. I will however say that if you are into pirates then check this game out! Like even if you're only slightly into them or have some sort of soft spot, try it! I played KH3 in the Caribbean and while I liked the world, I never thought I would be so giddy over a bunch of pirates like I was with this game. However this apparently connects to AC3 in some way, so I didn’t understand it, I might or might not try that one, not sure yet, I hear it’s sort of weak but if you want to understand the ending to its fullest then you should probably plan on playing AC3 either before or after or just look it up and spoil it, whichever you prefer. If there’s anything I’m wrong about or you want to convince me to play AC3, everything’s welcome, be my guest.