Asides from some of the smaller platforming parts being completely annoying with these controls and just don't mesh well with the game's overall breakneck pace and the shotgun which just flat-out doesn't work with the pace here, this is one of the most exciting games I've played in a while. 90's Nickelodeon/Cartoon Network art style alone is enough to recommend it. Soundtrack kills too! Or at least the iconic It's Pizza Time! track which violently overshadows all the other tracks with how catchy it is. Took a good while for me to get into this (and I'm still trying to figure out if I'm fighting with the controls or if they're fighting with me), but boy does it feel otherworldly when you start to feel yourself getting better at it by racking up higher and higher combos and cursing less (or less at the stuff you struggled with in the beginning) as you work your way up the tower. Highlights are Peppino's facial animations on the television (and everywhere else, the taunt button is just wonderful), corpse surfing, and the finale with racing down the tower through all the levels once again. Love that the game understands that jumping on enemies nowadays is LAME. Suplexing tomatoes and cheeses are where it's at now. So much unique stuff going on here that I could easily rack up several more hours in this. Know for a fact that should this ever get ported to Switch or should I ever acquire a Steam Deck that those several more hours would be immediately acquired. Very good game but a perfect handheld/portable game.

The cinematic qualities of Max Payne still shine. Noir York during a freak blizzard is a beautiful thing, especially in these crisp early 2000s 3D graphics. Large skyscrapers shown as the camera flies through a blizzard and Max running in slow motion from an underground lab that's self destructing. Max isn't at his most self-destructive yet, it takes Mona to bring him there.

Remedy had peppered this thing full of cheap deaths. Sometimes you'll survive a shotgun blast and others right after you get out of one of the many comicbook cutscenes several armed goons will spawn in behind you. I was surprised that the parking structure shootout was one of the most difficult. Gunning your way all the way down is a pure gauntlet. Another levels filled with trial and error is the mob restaurant that catches fire. That one took like 15 tries to learn the right path. For some reason I found fighting the trained mercenary soldiers to be way easier than the mobsters. The AI director in this is a strange beast.

Max Payne 2 is my favorite game but this one is right up there especially considering this has a world that's a lot more vivid. Ragnarök is both a nightclub and the end of the world. Jack Lupino mixed the occult, including Cthulhu, and supersoldier drug Valkyr. There are plenty of mobsters, like the Finito brothers and the 'Trio', who have silly names but are deadly killers. Max Payne 1 turns into Half-Life 1 for a couple of levels with you fighting mercs, some of which lurk inside shipping containers, and has you blowing up lazer trip mines and going into an underground lab. There is a whole secret society plot going on.

One of the reasons I really love this one is that feels like a 3D Realms game even though it was developed by Finnish Remedy (3D Realms guys helped produce it). All the destructible environments (these mobsters really love blowing up their own businesses) and all the sinks you can turn on and toilets you can flush. There are secrets everywhere if you look. The lazer trip mines always remind me of messing around with these things for hours in Duke Nukem 3D. Duke Nukem 3D was a riff on all 80s and 90s action heroes, Shadow Warrior was a riff on kung fu and ninja movies, Blood was a riff on all things horror and Max Payne is a riff on film noir, John Woo, and all things heroic bloodshed.

This is the first in a series of reviews of the 3d era of Grand Theft Auto.

When playing hugely influential games from a previous era I like to try and place myself in the shoes of someone from the time. Grand Theft Auto was already a household name but the third numbered entry was a hugely influential title in the history of games. Playing it back today it can seem quaint and dated but you have to understand how this game was received from the perspective of a 2001 audience whose only exposure to open world 3D environments would be driving games like Driver or Midtown Madness. The ability to even leave your car and start blasting innocent people would have seemed like a crazy novelty and indeed it generated shock and horror from the mainstream media and advocacy groups for its portrayal of mayhem and senseless violence. Going forward the GTA series became a powerhouse and it’s DNA can be found in most open world games to this day, I think it’s crucial to understand just how hard GTA nailed it’s 3d open world gameplay with this entry and what the secret sauce of these games are.

I planned to play the game unmodified to understand it’s core gameplay and history, however this is simply not possible with the Steam version on modern platforms, I tried to get it to run without mods but I couldn’t get it to boot. With little option I turned to a mod called ‘Definitive Edition’ (Not to be confused with the officially released GTA Definitive Edition Trilogy, which is a bad product that you should not buy). This mod allows the game to run well but does add some ‘quality of life’ features that weren’t in the original as well as various graphical enhancements and effects which do alter the look of the game. I think this is a compromise that is necessary to make however the mod did tone down the blue tint and motion blur that was in the original ps2 version which I think is iconic. I did opt to disable some mods like ‘classic axis’ which adds modern camera controls, quite frankly it’s more frustrating to use than the original stupid fixed camera position and created a glitch with aimed weapons like the sniper. I also downloaded a simple map mod, GTA 3 does not come with an in-game map by default. Physical copies of the game came with a paper map with all the locations on it, the map mod I downloaded was an early pause screen map with no legend or icons present. It had a waypoint feature but no GPS. (which is a good thing, I’ll explain later) I think its fair that I should have a convenient map to reference and use as I please.

Gameplay in GTA 3 is really divided into 2 distinct but related scenarios, driving is the means of navigating the world and the on-foot gameplay serves the bulk of the combat, however these systems overlap significantly. Your car is also a weapon and you can run to hijack cars to get away from the scenes of chaos you create, you can also perform drive-by shootings for mobile firepower. Hijacking cars in Grand Theft Auto is so iconic that it’s the name of the game and in GTA 3 it’s just as satisfying as ever to pull an old lady out of her shitty SUV and drive it headfirst into a ditch. It’s really amazing just how much time you will spend in a car in this game, there are options to use a boat or even a plane however jumping in water is an instant death because Claude’s massive balls prevent him from swimming and anyway there’s not much in the bays of the city to explore. Plane controls are absolutely dreadful, I still don’t know how to get it to fly for longer than 4 seconds even after consulting the internet so I avoided the dodo. Cars are king in GTA 3 and thankfully the driving is good, the variety of vehicles means that different cars feel unique to drive, heavy set cars sway and swing on their suspension as real cars would, they’re slow but they’re so much fun to swing and handbrake turn, conversely sports cars are nimble, fast and brake quickly but they’re also very flimsy. Police chases are exhilarating thanks to very aggressive police car AI who will attempt to pit and crash your car, leaving you vulnerable when you have to abandon your vehicle and face the cops gunfire head-on.

There are parts of GTA 3 that I think surpass even more recent Rockstar releases like GTA V and Red Read Redemption 2; the game is very hands-off and unstructured in it’s open world design which leads to engaging and organic gameplay moments that the player creates for themselves. Aside from the system of having to unlock parts of the city through story and mission progression, all trust is put in you as a player to memorise, navigate and build your arsenal. There are no GPS lines on mini-maps that lead you by the nose, there is no slow-walking lengthy character exposition or heavy scripting, GTA 3 missions are open ended and on you to use your wits and knowledge to complete using the tools that the game provides. Some people say the game is unforgiving and sometimes you might find yourself dying to something which isn't fair like a dodgy camera or bad lock-on but for the most part it's on you to gear up and prep for dangers ahead and in that sense it's very fair, likewise if you flip a car or make a mistake its on you to fix in that moment, you can't reload an easy mid-mission checkpoint so thinking on your feet and playing flexibly during a mission is important. There are powerful weapons, armour and vehicles at your disposal if you know where to look, if you collect secret packages you can even get them to spawn in your safehouse. This is one reason I think the GTA 3d trilogy is so highly regarded, because not only is the player given an open sandbox to fuck around in but because they had to commit their city to memory in order to equip themselves. Navigating Liberty City becomes second nature, you start to memorise spawns for fast cars and assault rifles. You learn the map inside out and you can navigate the streets like the back of your hand and just when you think you’re comfortable a new area of the map is opened and you can start exploring all over again. You really begin to immerse yourself in the world and it’s an excellent sense of freedom that you can’t replicate in modern games that demand gigantic maps with lines and arrows that tell you the shortest route to an icon. If you want to get somewhere in GTA 3 you better commit that route and area to your memory. All of this this freedom is complimented by a great amount of detail and interaction in the world which makes you feel at home in Liberty City.

There are details in this game which seem second nature to us now but that’s because GTA 3 pioneered these small touches and raised our expectations so greatly like the way your car becomes impacted and dented; doors and hoods fly open, fenders get ripped off, hiitting a fire hydrant spurts jets of water into the air, streetlamps get uprooted and roll around with a metallic thud. Rain splashes on your car windscreen and running over a pedestrian creates a sickening crunch as your wheels leave behind a trail of bloody tire marks. All of this shows that the developers really went all out on trying to create a world that was not just a hollow sandbox arena to play in but a vision for a world and city that you could tear through with impactful and satisfying interactions. It’s a symphony of violence and a celebration of unchained mayhem. I think it must have taken a really talented group of developers to be able to integrate all these small and intricate gameplay details into an open-world with a such a broad scope.

Missions in GTA 3 are also really varied and open to interpretation, unlike in say, red dead 2 where the player is expected to follow a very linear chain of scripted events. GTA 3 puts a couple dots on your radar and tells you to go commit some hate crimes in whatever order you please. I’m not even being facetious about the ‘hate crime’ comment, one of the rampage missions I picked up handed me a flamethrower and said ‘Roast 20 Colombians’ whereupon a group of men in flower shirts saying ‘ay gringo’ spawned on the street. Juvenile racism aside the missions are a superb and refreshing experience after having sat through so many linear sight-seeing tours in modern games. GTA 3 presents a feeling of being totally unchained and let loose on a world that was begging for it.

I haven’t mentioned the story yet and quite frankly that’s because it’s rubbish and I can’t be bothered, it’s clear that story isn’t a priority here. The game starts with your girlfriend betraying you in a bank robbery and leaving you for dead so you do missions for various gangs until the plot decides to move on, most missions are isolated from the main plot with only a handful directly tied to the overarching story. There’s a cast of characters who have their own quirks and personalities but the ones that survive are very shallow and one dimensional, the only one I like is the Donald Trump stand-in mayor of the city and Rockstar clearly agrees because he went on to appear in subsequent games. The player character, Claude, is completely and utterly mute and comes across as a total psycho who just un-fazingly commits horrific crimes and extreme violence. The whole game feels very chaotic evil and drab compared to other games in the series but in that sense I kinda like Claude as an unsettling figure. Really he’s just a goofy looking dude in some cargo pants but that makes him more scary, he’ll slaughter an entire group of people just because someone asks him to. Real quick I would like to touch on the licenced music in the game. Radio stations are an iconic part of the series thanks in no small part of the variety of stations in GTA 3 and this game has one of my personal favourite stations. MSX FM which is like a drum and bass pirate radio station the likes of which you can still tune into to this very day in parts of the UK. It’s an institution in itself and MC Codebreakers utterly incomprehensible rhymes still bring me great joy. Aside from that there’s also a techno/trance station, pop, rock, hip-hop, Reggae and talk show with series staple and apparently real human guy Lazlo.

What I’m hoping to get across with this review is to offer more than just a cursory glance at a game which is considered to just be obsolete and ageing. I went easy on criticising the game because I think it really deserves better than to be known as the lesser game in the classic 3d trilogy. Yes it is true that it can be a clunky and frustrating experience where you die to unfair nonsense, because your camera got stuck or your lock-on didn’t work properly. Claude is very fragile and one wrong step or jump can turn you into Swiss cheese, you do have to get into a routine of arming yourself to the teeth and using body armour ALL THE TIME, however this only feeds into the exploration aspect of the game as you reroute and pick up all those weapon spawns again. I think GTA 3 is not just a stepping stone for the series (although to be clear it definitely is) but is also a case study in open world design and a great game on it’s own merit. I had a blast playing it and I think it more than accomplished the goal at creating one of the most intricate and most fun open world games of it’s time. If your only experience with this game is using weapon cheats to mess around as a kid I do highly recommend revisiting this entry, it’s a blast.

This would have been a perfect game for the Nintendo DS. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t already fantastic on the Switch, but that I can absolutely imagine it as an exemplar of the DS’s controls–imagine being able to control Cheshire with the touch pad and Cereza with the D-pad. It would have been perfect for the system. Reminds me of Phantom Hourglass or Okamiden in terms of its artful, almost watercolor aesthetic. I believe this game is technically supposed to be a metroidvania, but it’s far different in perspective and design than any metroidvania I’ve ever played–which is why I would go about thinking of it as its own thing. I cannot recommend this game enough.

Cereza and the Lost Demon is such a sincere and out-of-nowhere type of game, and I was shocked at the quality. I feel like this is a fantastic example of what we can get from major studios if they aren’t trying to make “realistic” games for the masses. The combat is delightful on top of fun navigation–despite the nightmare that is the main map interface–and the writing is splendid. Not the best writing I’ve ever seen in a game, but then again, how many games even have “good” writing.

The main point of appeal would be the relationship between Cereza and Cheshire, which slowly develops not only in the narrative, but also in the small idle animations as well as level-up animations and in the music of each area. The way the devs have put this sweet and adorable growth of the two’s strange relationship is so charming and utterly delightful, and if the rumors of this being the “start of a new series” are true, I would absolutely be first in line.

Also some of those bossfights are absolutely jaw-dropping. Like holy shit.

"No can do."
"Can't get there."
"You're in my spot, sir."

Guys please just throw a fucking stinger into the room I am begging you

Probably my favorite era of games almost purely because of how they looked—Textures just a little too sheened over to convince you they aren't game objects. Faces a little too polygonal to convince you they aren't plastered mesh, but not enough that they enter the uncanny valley. Enemies a little too near-sighted or proficiently accurate to convince you they aren't functioningly oscillating A.I. And lighting just a little too sharp to convince you of unadorned naturalism—this is where everything should occupy in my opinion. Not necessarily between realism and artifice or functionality and jank but between dream and reality. Onwards is a sunk cost. This game is good.

As many have already said, this is probably the best tactical shooter of all time. SWAT 4 is truly one of the only fps games where you really have to think before you act. While twitch reflexes will get you some way through the game, exercising tactical thinking by appropriately applying your available tools to the situation is absolutely required to win. Every room demands your full attention to detail and analysis as it only takes one bad guy to wipe your entire squad. The random placement of enemies each time a level is loaded prevents you from brute forcing your way through levels through memorization and you are required to think through the situations in each level all over again every time you play. The amount of command you have over your AI squadmates is unlike anything I've seen and really allows you to think about how to approach a situation from different angles and the different maneuvers you can execute.

The shooting and movement are clunky, though I consider this a conscious design choice as the game is a tactical strategy game first and an fps second. Most of the time, if you've applied the best tactics to your situation, your AI squadmates will neutralize all the threats without you having to fire a single shot.

The overall aesthetics of the game are slightly dated but the environments have a high level of variety so you won't find yourself staring at one for too long. The attention to detail to the props found in each level is noticeable and goes a long way to making the environments seem realistic and lived in.

The sound design is extremely well done and is probably responsible for 70% of the immersion factor. The dynamic music that intensifies when breaching rooms is also a great.

Overall, SWAT 4 is a flawless game. Highly recommend it to players who are fans of tactical fps games or strategy games in general.

Review applies to both this game and Kirby's adventure which this is a remake of. This is an extremely solid follow-up to Kirby's Dream Land. Taking everything that already works from the first game and giving Kirby the new iconic copy ability that changes everything, and makes Kirby who he is today.

A great platformer with a relaxed but fun difficulty. Kirby's (Adventure) knightmare in dreamland keeps you on your toes offering you new copy abilities to play with until the final levels. Copy abilities offer some good replayability due to the fact that it offers you mutliple ways to play.

Nothing here reaches the heights some other parts of the series do, but it is consistently good the whole way through. I like to consider Kirby's Adventure the original Super Mario Bros of the franchise where it is a great foundation to the rest of the series, but still has potential to reach the great heights it eventually does.

Only on paper, Dead Cells main formula feel like a certain slam dunk: a combination of the maze like levels of metroidvanias with the rouge-likes mechanics of titles like Spelunky or Hades.
It cn be hard to combine these two aspects in a balanced and fun experience... good thing that the devs knew what they were doing.

Dead Cells is an extremely well put together title: hard at times like a lot of rogue likes, but extremely good in terms of gameplay, variety and replayability. The really creative level variety and simple but solid platforming merges perfectly with and incredible presentation and soundtrack.

To this you add an incredible set of crossovers that adds gameplay formulas reminiscent to Hollowknight, Castlevania, Shovel Knight and many other beloved games.

I will admit that I feel like the game is not an automatic 10/10. Some of the biomes like the Rampants create levels maybe too linear, and the fact that most of the opened routes like the Dilapidated Arboretum being locked behind DLC can feel like the base game is much smaller than it actually is.

But aside from these weird design decision, Ded cells is incredible: one of the best Indie rogue-likes on the market.

Hearing that new video game system you’re about to buy comes with a free title designed to show off its special capabilities likely calls to mind some paltry minigame compilation à la Welcome Park on PS Vita. Sony has actually preloaded their latest home console with a full-fledged 3D collect-a-thon platformer of remarkable quality though! It may not end up being as iconic as Wii Sports, but is a very welcome member of the PS5’s library nonetheless.

It feels like a gleeful celebration of the company’s long history. Not in a supercilious, self-aggrandizing way, but in a manner more akin to sitting down with an old friend and reminiscing fond memories. Everywhere you look there’s an Easter egg or deep cut reference that’s been lovingly placed there to bring a smile to the face of any abiding PlayStation devotee while reminding them of the types of experiences they can’t get anywhere else.

As delightful as all of that is though, it’s the gameplay that matters most and if that didn’t hold up then this package would carry no value. Astro’s Playroom manages to succeed due to spacing out the stages meant to make use of the controller’s unique functions with excellent traditional ones that you can explore and grab things in at your leisure. The levels that see you tilting the DualSense and playing around with its touchpad and adaptive triggers admittedly are a tad gimmicky (especially those dang frog suit sections), but remain fun in spite of that by never outstaying their welcome.

Another aspect that really impressed me was the sheer amount of interactivity. In the starting hub area alone, you can smack all of the little Bots to have them tag along behind you and amass a huge horde of followers. What purpose does this serve? None as far as I can tell! It's just a single example of the many neat little features the devs have included that allow you to find extra amusement in engaging with your surroundings. It's something I wish more games would do.

This might also be the perfect length, striking that nice balance between charming demo you spend a little time with before moving on to the games you actually bought the console for and a more fulfilling offering that can keep you coming back for a few additional hours via the healthy amount of collectibles to hunt down. AP won't be on any top ten of the PS5's lifespan lists when all is said and done, yet is a fantastic freebie regardless that there's absolutely no reason for you to not check out if you own the hardware.

9/10

"Character action" has never done it for me. I feel the floaty combos and distant cameras really dampen the impact of combat. I'm so glad that we live in the timeline where instead of representing the future of the Resident Evil series, Devil May Cry became its own franchise. Resident Evil 4 was a game that Capcom attempted to make several times, before begging Mikami to come back to the director's seat, and even he scrapped a couple of false starts before he settled on the game he ought to be making. The change in camera was the big thing that players talked about, but it was the shift in focus and tone that really made Resi 4 so beloved by its biggest fans. Mikami had gained skill, establishing multiple complementary mechanics and tying that to a campaign, but he was also more confident in his own sense of humour and whimsy. Resi 4 was a game with a real sense of personality, but it was compromised by the pressures of the surrounding franchise, the publisher and the fanbase. For his next game, he'd disregard all these aspects and make it entirely for himself.

When I first played God Hand, it took about five seconds before I knew I loved it. It's very much built on the back of Resi 4, but makes no apologies for its eccentricities. It takes the weight and impact of Resident Evil 4's shotgun and puts that behind each punch. Resi 4 utilised the sensibilities of modern games just enough to adopt a mostly useless camera manipulation system to the right analogue stick, but God Hand foregoes those conventions entirely, tethering it to your critical dodge system. God Hand doesn't care about any other game. It's fully confident in what it's doing.

God Hand's vibe is a very divisive thing, and not something you can choose to opt out of, but a truly cultured mind will undoubtedly side with it. Its sense of humour comes from a very specific place. It's a deep affection for Fist of the North Star and low-budget 70s kung fu films, but there's so much fondness for late-80s and early-90s action games, too. It loves the ridiculous, digitised voice clips from Altered Beast and Final Fight. The greatest joy is when you encounter an absurd, one-off, late-game disco miniboss, and he hits you with the same audio clips as the standard grunts from Level 1. This is a game full of explosive barrels and giant fruit. Shinji Mikami started production on Resident Evil 4 trying to fulfil the obligation to make his scariest game ever, and by the end, he got so bored with that direction that he created a giant stone robot Salazar that chased you through brick walls. God Hand was the logical next step for him.

There's a focus to God Hand's ambitions that implies Clover really knew what they had with it. A few ridiculous bosses and minigames notwithstanding, the levels are typically fairly boxy and nondescript. All the attention is on the distribution of enemies and items. It's spectacularly un-fancy. Flat ground and big brick walls that disappear when the camera gets too close to them. It doesn't care. The fighting feels great, and we're having a great time with all these stupid baddies. Fuck everything else.

Your moveset is fully customisable. Between levels, you're given the opportunity to buy new moves, and apply them to your controls, either as specials tethered to a specific button combination, or even as part of the standard combo you get while mashing the square button. It offers players real versatility as they figure out their preferred playstyles, and what works for them, while trying something less intuitive can open you up to new approaches. There are quick kicks and punches that overwhelm opponents, heavy-damage moves that take longer to pull off, guard breaks, and long-range attacks that can help with crowd control. There are certain moves and dodges that are highly exploitable, and risk breaking the game's balance. Clover are aware of this though, and whenever they found a strategy that made the game boring, they made sure to penalise you for using it by boosting the difficulty massively whenever you try it.

That's the big feature. The difficulty. God Hand starts out really hard, and when the game registers that you've dodged too many attacks or landed too many successive hits, it gets harder. This was a secret system in Resi 4, but in God Hand, it's part of your on-screen HUD, always letting you know when you've raised or lowered a difficulty level. Enemies hit harder, health pick-ups drop less frequently, and attacks become harder to land. The game's constantly drawing you to the edge of your abilities, and if you die, you have to try the entire section again from the start. It never feels too dispiriting, though. You retain all cash you've picked up after you died, and you feel encouraged by a drop in difficulty. If you do well enough on your next attempt, it won't take long before the difficulty gets back to where it was. There's also some fun surprises for those who get good enough to maintain a Level 3 or Level Die streak for long enough, with some special enemy spawns and stuff. You feel rewarded for getting good, but never patronised or pandered to. Your reward is a game that felt as thrilling as it did when you first tried it.

It's the little eccentricities in God Hand's design that I really admire. Pick up a barrel and Gene will instantly shift his direction to the nearest enemy, eliminating any extraneous aiming bullshit, and pushing your attention towards the opportunity for some cheap long-distance damage. If an item spawns, it remains there until you pick it up, giving you the opportunity to save it for when you really need it, even if the backtracking route becomes a little ridiculous. Since the camera is so stubbornly committed to viewing Gene's back, they've implemented a radar system to keep track of surrounding enemies, and it makes little sense in the context of the scenario, but the game doesn't care about that stuff. It's another thing that makes the fights against gorillas and rock stars more fun, so run with it. Between each section of the game, you're given the opportunity to save, or warp to a kind of mid-game hub world, with a shop, training area and casino, which you can use to unlock better moves and upgrades when you need them most. You can gain money by taking the honest route and chipping away at its toughest challenges, or take the less honourable route with slot machines and gambling on poison chihuahua races. It's blunt, utilitarian, and it's entirely complementary to the way God Hand feels to play.

It's the consistency in tone and intention that completes the package. God Hand knows what it is, and how it feels, and it never betrays that. It doesn't obsess over lore or characters, but it really has fun in introducing new baddies and scenarios to put you in. And I really like its taste. I like that all the big bosses meet up at a secret hell table to exchange barbs between levels. I like the fight on an enormous Venetian gondola. I like the dumb, weird, repetitive soundtrack. The developers are world-class talents, and they just wanted to make a dumb, stupid, fun game.

I probably ought to give the soundtrack a little more credit. This is from Masafumi Takada, out on loan from Grasshopper Manufacture before he became a real gun for hire, working on Vanquish, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Danganronpa and Smash Bros Ultimate. He's great at elaborate, high-energy compositions, but his work on God Hand is some of his dumbest stuff. It's great. The constant Miami 5-0 surf rock, the warbling Elvis boss fight music, and the Flight of the Bumblebee guitar for the fight against a giant fly. He's having the time of his life on this one, fully liberated from the pressures to convey a consistent tone or atmosphere. It's stunning work, and he makes the correct call every time he has to write a new piece of BGM for God Hand.

Shinij Mikami is a bit of an enigma, and his work on Resident Evil has unfortunately typecast him as a horror director, but he's never expressed a real affinity for the genre. He was put into that position under an obligation to Ghouls 'n Ghosts' Tokuro Fujiwara, and the game he ended up making was full of corny heroes and giant snakes. The subject matter was a shock to audiences in the mid-nineties, but in reality, it wasn't that far removed from his work on SNES Aladdin. By my estimation, God Hand's the closest we've come to seeing the real Mikami through his work. He's made Resident Evil 4, and he wants to leave that behind him, but EA and ZeniMax kept dragging him back to his biggest hit.

God Hand feels like the only point in history God Hand could have happened, and it's pretty wild that it did in the first place. I mean, it makes sense that once you hand Capcom the Resi 4 Gold Master disc, they'll let you do whatever you want, but they were so rattled by the result that they fired all of their key talent and started making calls to Canada to produce Dead Rising 2. Confidence in Japanese development was at an all-time low after 2006, and the PS3 and Xbox 360 resulted in some of the most embarrassing entries in many legacy franchises. The PlayStation was born out of a SNES project, and that ethos was what drove the first decade of Sony Computer Entertainment. Afterwards, a new game proposal would not be greenlit without referencing the design of the latest Grand Theft Auto. The Konami, Namco, Square and Capcom that we have today don't reflect who they were in the nineties and early 2000s. To me, God Hand feels like the final page of that chapter. But, man, what a fucking statement to close out on.

Survival horror games wish they could give me the same level of "edge of my seat tension to jumping out of my seat release" as I experienced waiting for the title screen of Dragon's Dogma 2 to say "Dragon's Dogma 2".

Dragon's Dogma 2 is a game I have a metric fuckton to say about, to the point that I kind of hate having to open by discussing its rocky launch. Capcom's unfortunate habit of higher-ups forcing their devs to add microtransactions into a game, that are seemingly intentionally made as useless as possible to counteract this, is nothing new. The fact there was active misinformation about their nature, owing both to Dragon's Dogma being far more niche than an RE, MH or DMC, and people not fact checking, was. The golden rule applies as ever; if you think you need to spend real money on a port crystal, Rift crystals or jail key, don't. Everything is readily available in game, you'll be fine. They even turned the ox cart you escort early in the original into a fast travel point between towns, so not only do you have options, you can choose to watch the world roll by as you go, or, possible monster interference notwithstanding, doze off and arrive in mere moments. Isn't that grand?

Aside from that, the PC version was also a hot mess, which is a lot harder an issue to shrug off. DD2 is a pretty huge game, far more so than the modern REs or DMC5, all of which were running on the same engine and providing stellar experiences on PC. Monster Hunter is the closest comparison, and I think both World and Rise's PC ports went through similar states of needing to be fixed up, but one was a PS4 and Xbox One title, and the other launched on the Switch. DD2 leads the charge as, to my recollection, Capcom's first strictly 9th gen title, with a huge, interconnected world with nary a load screen in sight while venturing on foot, and it runs at 30FPS on consoles with the odd dips. Definitely surprising, given it's directed by a man known for prioritising 60FPS gameplay with the most popular titles he's helmed, but it was never too egregious from my experiences.

But hey, from what I heard, it ran like absolute piss on PC at launch, so maybe it was a callback to how DD1 ran on PS360 at launch? No idea what the technical stuff under the hood is like, nor the state of the PC release at time of writing, but if push comes to shove, it might do you good to hold off until some further patches, or a discount, if that's your only option. Denuvo and some pretty absurd spec requirements probably aren't helping, either. What a damn shame, since Dark Arisen's PC port played a huge factor in a ton of eyes being put on the game over the years.

But getting away from what transpired around launch, what is Dragon's Dogma 2? It's Dragon's Dogma with a fucking budget. The original game was woefully incomplete, roughly 50 to 60% of its planned content just straight up missing. Plot points get picked up and dropped off, the game's finale is massively padded, we never got to go to the moon. There was always that want, from myself, and people playing at launch in 2012, to see what the game could've been like if given a full budget and dev time. Rather than take the approach of a DMC5 to the original's DMC4, however, DD2 feels more like Itsuno getting a mulligan. As such, a lot of similar structural beats will feel pretty familiar to returning players, complete with a lot of story relegated to the oodles of side quests, and spoiler alert, the moon still remains out of our grasp. Can you imagine how sick it would've been to bring the RE Engine's abbreviation (REach for the moon) full circle like that? For shame.

Don't take me likening DD2 to a mulligan as a negative, mind. Warts and all, DD1 is one of the best games I've ever played, and I'll talk more on that swiftly. But I'll openly admit, there were parts of me that were left ever so slightly wanting. Wanting those vocations from the now dead DD Online, or the beastmaster vocation we all thought V from Devil May Cry 5 was a testing ground for. Wanting another bombastic J-rock title theme. Wanting pawns and NPCs to be that little bit more quotable as in the original. Okay, those last two are nitpicks, but that's besides the point. There was a part of me that wanted some of, if not all the DDO vocations to get a second lease on life, but alas. I'll just have to wait for fans to get private servers rolling. Maybe the game was over schedule due to the pandemic, maybe Capcom just wanted it out for the end of the fiscal year to bolster their quarterly reports a touch. Itsuno stands by the game not being unfinished, so I'll trust him, but regardless. Whatever the reason, it made a small part of me yearn for just a little bit more Dragon's Dogma.

But that's only because I love Dragon's Dogma. And on a gameplay level, Dragon's Dogma 2 is more Dragon's Dogma. Everything from the original is here and accounted for. The game's unique approach to adventuring, asking you to watch the limits of what you're carrying and picking the right time to set out on your trek, should you not choose to fast travel, returns with a vengeance. A turnoff for some, especially with no infinite ferrystone this go around, but I was eager to cock a leg because of how much fun I was having exploring the world and going around boiling goblins and saurians with my sorcerer. The pawn system returns, and is just as cool as ever, allowing a still entirely single player game to feel like it has its own community, with pawns recruited by other players gaining quest or enemy knowledge and using their tactics or acting as guides on your own adventure. Could've done without the loss gauge, a new mechanic preventing HP from being recovered until the party rest at either an inn or campfire, but you could always argue that's another point in favour of the game for making it feel like an adventure, or preventing you from growing complacent and spamming your heals or relying on your trusty Mage.

And then there's the combat. DD1's left and right hand skills might be gone, and in some respects, I missed it. Especially now there's 4 skills on the face buttons, rather than 3, the thought of having 8 total on top of the regular moves on offer, was an itch the game really left me yearning to scratch... but it never got under my skin much, because DD2 is using DD1's combat and building on it. Vocations new and old, climbing on monsters to target their weak points or stagger them, synergy between player and pawn when casting magic simultaneously, it's all here and with more to offer. Sure, I wish there was more enemy variety; goblins, saurians, bandits, harpies, knackers and oozes being the lion's share of basic mooks, and the odd boss monsters throughout the world, from ogres, cyclops and griffins to the odd dragons, are here too, but when I'm having as much fun as I am both during exploration and combat, it's honestly something I'm more than willing to let slide from the amount of enjoyment I'm getting.

Through most of the game, I was swapping between the old familiar vocations of Fighter, Sorcerer and Magick Archer, but the brand new Mystic Spearhand became a quick favourite with its unique approach to combat, offering a telekinetic grab on smaller foes to be used like ammo, timing inputs for follow ups and teleports, to even an AOE move that just makes your party invincible for a couple seconds. It's kinda cracked. The Warfarer was my endgame pick, juggling Fighter's sword and Magic Archer's bow for handy coverage of both ranged and close quarters. It's not quite the full on vocation switch I'd dreamt of, especially given its ability to swap weapons takes up a skill slot and only leaves you with three to pull from your unlocked pool therein, but I had the goofiest grin on my face as I peppered enemies with my auto targeting magic projectiles, swapped weapons, and closed the distance for a Blink Strike.

And I didn't even use all the vocations, either! My pawn was running wild with the Thief vocation into the end game, and it's focus on huge damage and its sick grapple hook were awesome to see, but I never got to try it firsthand. Nor did I try the similarly new Trickster vocation, or returning Mage, Warrior or Archer. There's even entire chunks of the game I missed; new bosses like Medusa and the entire Sphinx side quest I never experienced, along with the crackhead mechanic of the Dragonsplague, wherein your pawn can go apeshit and wipe out an entire town if you're ignorant to the signs.

And in spite of an almost 65 hour playthrough now under my belt, I already want to go back again. I wanna get those trophies I missed, do those side quests I skipped over, try the other vocations, just like how I felt with the original game last year. That's one of the best things I can say about a game; that even after a lengthy first playthrough like that, that I already want to get right back into it and go another round. I almost feel thankful the PC version isn't too optimised on the Steam Deck yet; otherwise I fear I'd literally never be able to put the fucking thing down. I haven't even talked about things concerning the postgame, where Itsuno's true crackhead (endearing) vision comes into play. With its own unique mechanics that almost seem designed to punish the complacent player, I want anyone reading this to experience that shit blind like I did. It's not another Everfall, that's all I'll say.

And that's exactly what Dragon's Dogma 2 is. Itsuno's vision. The one that he couldn't make a reality with the budget, time and hardware afforded to him over a decade ago. To the many who bounced off the original Dragon's Dogma for many a reason, you probably aren't going to be swayed by the sequel's commitment to some of its more contentious, less friendly mechanics. But that's because Dragon's Dogma wasn't meant to be a massive, mainstream RPG hit. Hideki Kamiya, when developing the original Devil May Cry, claimed he'd rather have 10% of people love DMC, than to have 90% of people like it, and I wouldn't be surprised if Itsuno was thinking along a similar line of logic. Dragon's Dogma wasn't meant for everyone. But goddamn it, it was meant for me, and I'm so happy to have had such a great time playing both the original, and now its sequel that makes that humble little 7th gen JRPG feel like a mere tech demo in comparison. An all timer that I'm ecstatic to have experienced.

Itsuno-san, I fucking kneel.