Questy
2021
A very silly, physics based game about stealing money and trying to get away with it. Some might get frustrated with the weird physics at times or how the items can react strangely, but this is not a game to be taken seriously, so don't sweat it. đ
Great game if you can get together with a group of friends to play it! Online can be fun too, as long as you can find a decent group.
Great game if you can get together with a group of friends to play it! Online can be fun too, as long as you can find a decent group.
2023
I am surprisingly addicted to this little, casual city builder! The story isn't great, but the gameplay had me playing later than I wanted to just saying, "okay, I'll just do this next thing and head to bed." only to find it had been another hour.
I'm a Steamworld fan, I've liked every game in the series, except maybe the RPG (and that's just because I'm not the biggest fan of turn based RPG's, especially with cards...). So I was already looking forward to checking this one out. However, I wasn't expecting to finish within the week it came out. I figured I would chip away at it every now and then, but I found myself not wanting to stop and see what was next on the build list!
You're building a town of robots trying to unearth "ancient" rocket tech to escape the planet. The story is presented in such a way that it wasn't very exciting. Little characters pop up to talk to each other, or they use still frames to voice overs. The voice overs range from good to kind of awful and while I have always loved the Steamworld art style, being presented several still shots of the robots talking is pretty boring.
However, the gameplay I found I couldn't put down. You start building your town with workers and off you go harvest resources of all types to make them happy. If they're not happy, then they will not work and your towns progress will slow to a crawl, so you need to keep up on it.
Then you also end up finding the local mine where you find more resources and the gameplay becomes more of a light RTS game. Yes, enemies form the depths will attack your miners and you have to keep tabs. I thought it was super cool that they were able to combine these genres together.
I won't spoil it here, but everything keeps evolving and tiering up and you eventually are able to automate certain things but getting to that point is the fun. The ability to say "Wow, I started with nothing and look what I have now. And it only took a few hours!" I love that.
All I can say is after finishing my first town, I immediately started another town in a new environment to build and see how fast I could tier up my new town.
If you're looking for a good city builder game to get your feet wet in the genre, this is the one. I hope this one gets some DLC with some new towns and achievements to grab!
I'm a Steamworld fan, I've liked every game in the series, except maybe the RPG (and that's just because I'm not the biggest fan of turn based RPG's, especially with cards...). So I was already looking forward to checking this one out. However, I wasn't expecting to finish within the week it came out. I figured I would chip away at it every now and then, but I found myself not wanting to stop and see what was next on the build list!
You're building a town of robots trying to unearth "ancient" rocket tech to escape the planet. The story is presented in such a way that it wasn't very exciting. Little characters pop up to talk to each other, or they use still frames to voice overs. The voice overs range from good to kind of awful and while I have always loved the Steamworld art style, being presented several still shots of the robots talking is pretty boring.
However, the gameplay I found I couldn't put down. You start building your town with workers and off you go harvest resources of all types to make them happy. If they're not happy, then they will not work and your towns progress will slow to a crawl, so you need to keep up on it.
Then you also end up finding the local mine where you find more resources and the gameplay becomes more of a light RTS game. Yes, enemies form the depths will attack your miners and you have to keep tabs. I thought it was super cool that they were able to combine these genres together.
I won't spoil it here, but everything keeps evolving and tiering up and you eventually are able to automate certain things but getting to that point is the fun. The ability to say "Wow, I started with nothing and look what I have now. And it only took a few hours!" I love that.
All I can say is after finishing my first town, I immediately started another town in a new environment to build and see how fast I could tier up my new town.
If you're looking for a good city builder game to get your feet wet in the genre, this is the one. I hope this one gets some DLC with some new towns and achievements to grab!
2023
The game that teaches you that smiling at someone in public is an anomaly. This is a really fun (and cheap at $4) experience where you walk through the same hallway scene over and over and look for differences to help you escape.
I'm seeing from other reviews that this is a genre of games, but this is my first of these "spot the difference" type games and I had a lot of fun with it. Some differences are super obvious and others are very subtle. The very subtle ones will have you 2nd guessing whether you actually missed the anomaly or not in each pass-through. This makes a fun but tense playthrough, hoping you can get that number to keep climbing to 8 and escape.
I would love to see a sequel to this with multiple environments!
I'm seeing from other reviews that this is a genre of games, but this is my first of these "spot the difference" type games and I had a lot of fun with it. Some differences are super obvious and others are very subtle. The very subtle ones will have you 2nd guessing whether you actually missed the anomaly or not in each pass-through. This makes a fun but tense playthrough, hoping you can get that number to keep climbing to 8 and escape.
I would love to see a sequel to this with multiple environments!
2018
Gris has an amazing art style with some truly stunning visuals fun platforming gameplay for the most part, but the ambiguous story left me wondering where I am and why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Gris is beautiful. If you want a gorgeous game, you'll want to play this one.
The game is built to be more of a journey than a challenging adventure. The platforming is a bit floaty and fun to traverse around as you gain new abilities. However, the navigation can be tough at times as you're platforming around large areas trying to find little white glowing balls without any kind of map and you may find yourself wondering where to go next or how to get up to to the glowy collectibles.
That's part of the challenge of the game obviously, trying to figure out how to reach your destination, but a few times I did found myself trying to figure out a certain area for much longer than it felt I should really be there.
However, the true issue for me is the story. While I've read that others were moved by it, even some to tears, I really didn't feel anything in this game. I have cried playing other games but this one just didn't hit me. I got to the end, said "Wow, that was an awesome cutscene, what amazing art!" and then finished it and that was all. I think it's just too abstract for me to understand or care maybe? I'm not sure.
Decent game for sure, just expect to lost or confused a bit and maybe don't expect much of a story in this one.
Gris is beautiful. If you want a gorgeous game, you'll want to play this one.
The game is built to be more of a journey than a challenging adventure. The platforming is a bit floaty and fun to traverse around as you gain new abilities. However, the navigation can be tough at times as you're platforming around large areas trying to find little white glowing balls without any kind of map and you may find yourself wondering where to go next or how to get up to to the glowy collectibles.
That's part of the challenge of the game obviously, trying to figure out how to reach your destination, but a few times I did found myself trying to figure out a certain area for much longer than it felt I should really be there.
However, the true issue for me is the story. While I've read that others were moved by it, even some to tears, I really didn't feel anything in this game. I have cried playing other games but this one just didn't hit me. I got to the end, said "Wow, that was an awesome cutscene, what amazing art!" and then finished it and that was all. I think it's just too abstract for me to understand or care maybe? I'm not sure.
Decent game for sure, just expect to lost or confused a bit and maybe don't expect much of a story in this one.
I gave this one a quick chance because it's leaving Game Pass but it's not for me. It's a visual novel, mixed with a 2.5D walking simulator and has VERY light puzzle solving. I found this super boring, but I won't be rating it because I am just not a visual novel gamer in general.
2023
Return to Grace is short and unchallenging yet it's a unique and entertaining walking simulator. What puts this one ahead of the others in the genre for me is that there is a decent sci-fi story that is easy to follow along with and the fun cast of characters and dialog.
Walking sims can be a bit boring and some times tedious with how slow the main character can move and interact with their surroundings. This game has those moments of slow, tedious movement but it's countered with entertaining characters that are introduced in a unique way.
As an explorer, you find your way to an old spire and while there, you have a coms wrist computer that helps you to talk with the AI there. As the story goes, The AI characters will start combining with the others and offer new personalities to help you along the way. So while you're walking around slowly, exploring, you have all of these AI characters jabbering away and it's very fun.
A lot of the walking sims I have played in the past, I feel like they tend to leave it up to the player as to what happened and I'm a bit tired of that. This one is definitely one of those unique sci-fi stories but they at least include a few different endings that explain what is going on and what happened.
For all the great dialog and story bits, there are still moments where I wish you could skip scenes or move a little faster. The game is already pretty short (about 2 hours or so) but there are areas that I feel are padded only because of how slow the character moves. This becomes tedious when you want to see the other endings and find out there is no chapter select, so you HAVE to start the game over to do so. And as fun as the characters are, they get old after hearing it all over again a couple times to see the other endings.
One of the big take aways I have with this one though is that this feels like a game I would recommend to someone who is a big movie buff that wants to try out a game. They could finish this in one sitting, like a movie, and actually get a pretty decent experience out of it within that time frame.
Walking sims can be a bit boring and some times tedious with how slow the main character can move and interact with their surroundings. This game has those moments of slow, tedious movement but it's countered with entertaining characters that are introduced in a unique way.
As an explorer, you find your way to an old spire and while there, you have a coms wrist computer that helps you to talk with the AI there. As the story goes, The AI characters will start combining with the others and offer new personalities to help you along the way. So while you're walking around slowly, exploring, you have all of these AI characters jabbering away and it's very fun.
A lot of the walking sims I have played in the past, I feel like they tend to leave it up to the player as to what happened and I'm a bit tired of that. This one is definitely one of those unique sci-fi stories but they at least include a few different endings that explain what is going on and what happened.
For all the great dialog and story bits, there are still moments where I wish you could skip scenes or move a little faster. The game is already pretty short (about 2 hours or so) but there are areas that I feel are padded only because of how slow the character moves. This becomes tedious when you want to see the other endings and find out there is no chapter select, so you HAVE to start the game over to do so. And as fun as the characters are, they get old after hearing it all over again a couple times to see the other endings.
One of the big take aways I have with this one though is that this feels like a game I would recommend to someone who is a big movie buff that wants to try out a game. They could finish this in one sitting, like a movie, and actually get a pretty decent experience out of it within that time frame.
This review contains spoilers
Having liked the first two Spider-man games that Insomniac and Sony released, I was really looking forward to this one. While the game started out super strong, I feel that as it went on, the seams started to show and there were some very questionable decisions about the story and progression in the game that I just donât get. By the end, I felt the game was bloated and the story was all over the place.
I was really into this game for the first few weeks. I would play a little bit of it every other night or so (as I donât have the time to marathon games like I used to), but as they kept piling villains and story on top of the foundation, it really lost me. I ended up taking a 2 month break from it because I was honestly bored by it. I finally came back to it and spent about a week finishing it up and I have to say, the end left me feeling a bit empty.
The big draw in Spider-man 2 is that you can bounce between both Peter Parker and Mile Morales. Both have stories you play though and the main story moves back and forth between them. Itâs great that they included both and they each have their own move sets and personalities, so it can be refreshing to play as one for a while and then move over to the other. They even team up with each other some times.
While I enjoyed this, I really expected more team ups from Peter and Miles. There were so many missions where they were working alone. I couldnât help but think, why isnât the other one helping right now? There was always a convenient reason why they werenât both there at the same time that felt very contrived. It was also fun when the other spider-man would show up during a city mission to help take out some bad guys, but this only happen a couple times for me. Iâm not sure why?
I do want to say this game is beautiful! I got to play it 4k at 60+ fps on the PS5 and WOW! I love the environment, the first time swinging and flying through the air in New York, I was wide eyed and loving it. The cutscenes and close ups if the main characters look amazing too! I will say that the city's inhabitants were not always so detailed and part of the city look a little shabby but that is the sacrifice you make to run 60+ fps at 4k.
Controlling this game is amazing⌠for the most part. Swinging and gliding around New York is a blast! Fighting is a lot of fun at first and the action is top notch. Fast traveling in this game also sets the standard for fast traveling in gaming as itâs an instantaneous experience! You select a place on the map and within seconds youâre there swinging. But as the game goes on, a lot of that core feeling gets lost in the shuffle in favor of constantly bolting on new abilities and repetitive fights.
As you keep playing the game, you keep unlocking new abilities and moves. While this is really fun at first, maybe this is a me thing, but I feel like there are just too many by the end. If you look at the menu where you unlock abilities, the amount of things you can do is staggering. While each spider-man has their own unlocks, the button combinations between all the combined moves is a lot to think about while fighting enemies. The fighting and moves can be deep, but to me it felt overwhelming.
Letâs say you grab an enemy, you have a handful of options for what you can do with them once you unlock all the abilities and the same is applied to all the other options. While this is deep and Iâm sure rewarding for other gamers who crave this, but itâs difficult for me to remember all of these options and button combos. Because of this, I end up doing the wrong thing a lot and getting punished for it.
There is also a heavy focus on perfect dodging and countering in this game that I did not enjoy a whole lot. Some dodging and countering is fine, but there are times where I think they overdo it. Mainly because there were a handful of times I felt that the enemies were stun locking me because I did not dodge or counter the way the game wanted me to.
There are some areas that just do not feel great for combat. Until you start becoming more comfortable with the zipping around and staying in the air to fight, you will have trouble with these areas and it can be a little frustrating.
There are also some traversal moves while fighting that just donât seem to work some times. I remember distinctly a battle where the enemies were on two levels and I could not for the life of me get Spider-man to zip over to the enemies like I had done a million times before. He just wouldnât lock on to the correct enemy or not see them. Then I would get hit and get frustrated thinking âWhy is this not working? It was working fine in the last fight!â It feels glitchy and unresponsive in a game where you expect instant responsiveness and sudden mistakes, whether due to player error or game issues, can be very punishing.
The game itself is more glitchy than I feel most big reviewers lead us to believe. I have seen some objects that stay floating around after, say, a crate is destroyed. Youâll see a barrel that was on top of the crate just floating there. Iâve also seen certain buildings where each window show you the exact same person before it. I honestly saw an apartment area where there were 4-5 or the same person on the same floor and I was not only scared by this but it took me out of the experience. Iâve also dealt with a couple crashes while playing, which I have no idea why but that is annoying when youâre in the middle of something and the game just up and crashes for some reason.
My first experience with a glitch in the game got me while fighting the sandman, which is literally in the first 10-15 minutes of the game. This was a monumental boss fight, and super fun. However, at a certain point, I could not progress because the button prompt to continue into the next phase would not show! I mustâve swung at him 30 times only to find that I needed to die to reload the checkpoint and then the button prompt would appear.
Despite that one issue, I think this boss fight was the highlight of the whole game and set the rest of the boss fights in the game up to look and feel lackluster in comparison.
The boss fights are just plain not fun. There are some highlights in some of them but for the most part, they all play the same way and can be frustrating when your moves or abilities are ignored, which seemed to happen a lot during the Kraven fights for some reason. Also, each boss fight doesnât give you enough room to swing and dodge it seems. I would get caught up on geometry a lot when I was dodging or swinging. Also, the camera during boss battles isnât exactly the best, so you canât see youâre going to run into something until it happens and then when you do, the camera is up in your face and you canât see the enemies or attacks coming at you.
The game takes the control away from the player constantly too. So a lot of sections of the game are scripted as -- Fight dudes, watch cut scene, swing for a minute, fight dudes, cutscene, fight dudes, maybe there is a unique piece of gameplay like running through a building, cutscene, fight dudes⌠and it continuously goes on like this. It pushed me to get really tired of the fighting in the game. It seems like every instance where there is a break of some kind, they just throw in a crop of enemies for you to take out. Because of this, the fighting got tedious.
Especially when the symbiotes are introduced. Too much health, too many abilities to use, so much dodging and parrying. The symbiote nests are basically just much more powerful enemies you have to fight in waves while a timer ticks down. Theyâre much more powerful and annoying to deal with. There are several of these symbiote nests to take care of around the city. I did all but like 2 or 3 of them in the game before moving on. They were challenging and I got a little bored of doing them, so I continued the main story and then you know what the game did? It gave me an upgrade that helps me do more damage to the symbiotes. My jaw just about dropped. This wouldnât have been useful to the player who just finished all of the nests!
Which leads us to the final boss of Venom, whom I found so annoying to deal with, I put the game all the way down to the easiest mode (where you canât die) and finished him off that way. I was so disappointed to have to finish the game that way because I played the whole game on the normal mode until then, but I was so irritated by that point of dealing with this annoying boss whom I couldnât seem to get a grasp on, I had to switch it. I had almost switched it earlier during the bell fight with Kraven but I managed to squeak that one out.
Now a lot of what I mentioned above can be forgiven in certain instances. While a lot of it is annoying, some of it is meant for challenge. However, what canât be forgiven are some of the story and character choices in the game. There are some things that had me scratching my head or even talking out loud to myself saying âWhat? Really?â
NOTE: Below are story beats, so don't read any more if you don't want spoilers:
Letâs start with Mary Jane. To change things up, they put in a couple stealth section with Mary Jane where she sneaks into the Hunters hideout to rescue someone. In the first one, the scenario is believable up until she takes an arrow to the shoulder with tranquilizer in it. Sheâs not a super hero right? How was she able to push through the tranquilizer dart AND the arrow to the shoulder and somehow stay awake and able to take dudes out? Iâm not sure most normal people would be able to continue after that.
Furthermore, having her stealth around with a stun gun makes total sense because sheâs not a superhero. However, seeing her kick the crap out of a hunter henchman with her lady loafers on is kind of ridiculous, especially after taking a tranquillizer dart.
Characters reactions to things happening within the game some times did not feel real. No one ever reacted like you would in real life to crazy things happening. Itâs really odd. For example, Iâm a little annoyed that Peterâs friend Harry isnât more surprised that Peter is spider-man. He finds out and is just kind of like, âoh, youâre him?â And they move on. Really weird. If I found out my best friend was Spider-man, I would flip out!
And once they find out that Harry has powers too, Harry gets involved in this huge scene where he automatically knows how to fight and leap around as good as spider-man can. Which is odd considering spider-man has been doing it for a while, he had to learn all of this stuff, but this guy can just show up and he knows what to do?
There is a scene where Miles as Spider-man is helping a student ask his boyfriend out to a homecoming dance. I did this side quest when some really important stuff was going on in the game. This felt forced into the game and very corny. Doesnât Spider-man have way more important things to do?
Mr. Negative is suddenly a nice guy again. Why? Because Miles decided not to kill him for killing his father? Itâs so sudden, I donât really get it.
At the Kraven bell fight, Kraven gets out of Spider-man crushing him with the symbiote tentacles by biting one of them? Wtf? What kind of teeth does Kraven have? And then they also just let him run off. Like???
The amount of times Peter Parker says âmeet cuteâ is more than Iâve heard in my life. I didnât even know what that was until this game. Who says that?
During the scene where Venom is turning Mary Jane into the Scream lady, Venom goes to attack Peter and Mary Jane dives in front of him. WHY!? SHE HAS NO POWERS! What is she thinking? Then Peter is just looking at Venom and says âDonâtâŚâ as Venom pulls her over to him but Peter doesnât do a thing about it. Like, dude, youâre spider-man get in there and save your girl!
Miles shows up with a new suit towards the end of the game out of nowhere. Was he just suddenly making this suit? Where did it come from? When did he have time to make it? It wouldâve made a better side quest for him to do than some of these dumb side things they have in the game, where he is maybe collecting pieces for the suit? I found out later it was a promotion thing to sell some Adidas shoes. The shoes he is wearing in the game are/were available at one point in real life and because he is wearing these new shoes, he wanted a suit to match them I guess. Stupid. When did he have time to buy them?
The last mission of the game they have this plan to have venom chase spiderman through the city -- Sounds EXCITING! And Miles is going to take out all the symbiotes that are at the entrance -- Exciting! Instead, theyâre like, hey, here, do another Mary Jane part with the stun gun⌠what on earth? Luckily this part was just a run and stun section, no stealthing around but whose idea was it to be like, yea letâs do Mary Janes part first. This also wouldâve been a great bonding mission for Mary Kane and Miles, where Miles couldâve been in there helping her while you controlled Mary Jane. I guess instead he stayed outside and distracted the Symbiotes... but still. More team ups please!
Then shortly after that, Mary Jane is riding her motorbike and crashing through a window with it. This felt like they were REALLY trying to make her as awesome as spider-man but for me, it doesnât work. Sheâs just this small, lady journalist. I know itâs supposed to be action shlock but it takes me out the experience a bit.
At the end of the game, Peter Parker just gets to be himself for a bit, so does that mean the next game will just be Miles? Why is Peter Parker wanting to be himself? Because Mary Jane doesnât like him being spiderman? It wouldâve made more sense to have Peter and Mary Jane allude to the fact theyâre going to plan their wedding or something and he needs a break. This portion of the story lead almost nowhere.
But through the whole game, Peter keeps doubting himself saying that the city doesnât need him anymore (this felt more like he was fishing for compliments than actual self doubt) and Miles can do it. So I assume theyâre setting the next game up to be only Miles? But why? Whatâs the point? They already did a Miles Morales game! I was Spider-man 3 to have 3 heroes this time? Maybe ad Spider Gwen in there?
The characters are constantly second guessing themselves in this one too. âWhy didnât I ask Pete about that thing? Iâm such a bad friend!â or âWhy havenât I checked in with MJ, Iâm a monster!â Itâs like, jeeze, way to be over dramatic about everything.
The story feels all over the place with all the villains too. You fight off Sandman, and Kraven, and Lizard, and Mister Negative, and Mysterio, and Kraven again, then eventually you fight venom, but you also fight a character called Scream (which is just Mary Jane as a symbiote and it only last one mission). I'm not even mentioning all of the side villains that the game is hinting at introducing in a sequel. Typically in comics, a story arc will involve a couple villains but because there are so many villains in this game, it really feels like theyâre putting together 3 story arcs in one. It's too much! For some, this might be a bonus, but to me it feels really disjointed and I lost track of everyoneâs motivation. This also felt like they bloated experience a bit. I'd rather a good, deep story with a couple villains than introducing a new one every 2 missions.
The oddest thing is Sandman is never heard from again after you defeat him. You have this amazing fight with him at the very start of the game and he has some collectibles that you can get but honestly, it felt so flat. It wouldâve been great had he come back to help you fight venom or something at the end. You know, like he was a new, reformed man. Even Mr. Negative didnât come back to help much and heâs a good guy now? I donât understand the character arcs in this one. They just wanted to add villains for the sake of it and then were like âWhat do we do now?â and everyone shrugged.
I could keep going on about story stuff but I think you get the message. I think this game couldâve benefitted and been more focused if it was just a bit longer than the Miles Morales game. Instead of 18 or so hours, maybe 12-14 hours. Leave us wanting more. Cut out a villain or 2. Tighten up those story pieces and characters. Cut out a few unlockable abilities. Tighten the combat up a little. Personally, I want quality not quantity.
Despite the game being gorgeous and doing a lot of things right, this game just didnât click with me as we got about halfway through it. I feel the first game and Miles Morales are better experiences. I think they just tried to cram too much in here and the game really suffers for it.
I was really into this game for the first few weeks. I would play a little bit of it every other night or so (as I donât have the time to marathon games like I used to), but as they kept piling villains and story on top of the foundation, it really lost me. I ended up taking a 2 month break from it because I was honestly bored by it. I finally came back to it and spent about a week finishing it up and I have to say, the end left me feeling a bit empty.
The big draw in Spider-man 2 is that you can bounce between both Peter Parker and Mile Morales. Both have stories you play though and the main story moves back and forth between them. Itâs great that they included both and they each have their own move sets and personalities, so it can be refreshing to play as one for a while and then move over to the other. They even team up with each other some times.
While I enjoyed this, I really expected more team ups from Peter and Miles. There were so many missions where they were working alone. I couldnât help but think, why isnât the other one helping right now? There was always a convenient reason why they werenât both there at the same time that felt very contrived. It was also fun when the other spider-man would show up during a city mission to help take out some bad guys, but this only happen a couple times for me. Iâm not sure why?
I do want to say this game is beautiful! I got to play it 4k at 60+ fps on the PS5 and WOW! I love the environment, the first time swinging and flying through the air in New York, I was wide eyed and loving it. The cutscenes and close ups if the main characters look amazing too! I will say that the city's inhabitants were not always so detailed and part of the city look a little shabby but that is the sacrifice you make to run 60+ fps at 4k.
Controlling this game is amazing⌠for the most part. Swinging and gliding around New York is a blast! Fighting is a lot of fun at first and the action is top notch. Fast traveling in this game also sets the standard for fast traveling in gaming as itâs an instantaneous experience! You select a place on the map and within seconds youâre there swinging. But as the game goes on, a lot of that core feeling gets lost in the shuffle in favor of constantly bolting on new abilities and repetitive fights.
As you keep playing the game, you keep unlocking new abilities and moves. While this is really fun at first, maybe this is a me thing, but I feel like there are just too many by the end. If you look at the menu where you unlock abilities, the amount of things you can do is staggering. While each spider-man has their own unlocks, the button combinations between all the combined moves is a lot to think about while fighting enemies. The fighting and moves can be deep, but to me it felt overwhelming.
Letâs say you grab an enemy, you have a handful of options for what you can do with them once you unlock all the abilities and the same is applied to all the other options. While this is deep and Iâm sure rewarding for other gamers who crave this, but itâs difficult for me to remember all of these options and button combos. Because of this, I end up doing the wrong thing a lot and getting punished for it.
There is also a heavy focus on perfect dodging and countering in this game that I did not enjoy a whole lot. Some dodging and countering is fine, but there are times where I think they overdo it. Mainly because there were a handful of times I felt that the enemies were stun locking me because I did not dodge or counter the way the game wanted me to.
There are some areas that just do not feel great for combat. Until you start becoming more comfortable with the zipping around and staying in the air to fight, you will have trouble with these areas and it can be a little frustrating.
There are also some traversal moves while fighting that just donât seem to work some times. I remember distinctly a battle where the enemies were on two levels and I could not for the life of me get Spider-man to zip over to the enemies like I had done a million times before. He just wouldnât lock on to the correct enemy or not see them. Then I would get hit and get frustrated thinking âWhy is this not working? It was working fine in the last fight!â It feels glitchy and unresponsive in a game where you expect instant responsiveness and sudden mistakes, whether due to player error or game issues, can be very punishing.
The game itself is more glitchy than I feel most big reviewers lead us to believe. I have seen some objects that stay floating around after, say, a crate is destroyed. Youâll see a barrel that was on top of the crate just floating there. Iâve also seen certain buildings where each window show you the exact same person before it. I honestly saw an apartment area where there were 4-5 or the same person on the same floor and I was not only scared by this but it took me out of the experience. Iâve also dealt with a couple crashes while playing, which I have no idea why but that is annoying when youâre in the middle of something and the game just up and crashes for some reason.
My first experience with a glitch in the game got me while fighting the sandman, which is literally in the first 10-15 minutes of the game. This was a monumental boss fight, and super fun. However, at a certain point, I could not progress because the button prompt to continue into the next phase would not show! I mustâve swung at him 30 times only to find that I needed to die to reload the checkpoint and then the button prompt would appear.
Despite that one issue, I think this boss fight was the highlight of the whole game and set the rest of the boss fights in the game up to look and feel lackluster in comparison.
The boss fights are just plain not fun. There are some highlights in some of them but for the most part, they all play the same way and can be frustrating when your moves or abilities are ignored, which seemed to happen a lot during the Kraven fights for some reason. Also, each boss fight doesnât give you enough room to swing and dodge it seems. I would get caught up on geometry a lot when I was dodging or swinging. Also, the camera during boss battles isnât exactly the best, so you canât see youâre going to run into something until it happens and then when you do, the camera is up in your face and you canât see the enemies or attacks coming at you.
The game takes the control away from the player constantly too. So a lot of sections of the game are scripted as -- Fight dudes, watch cut scene, swing for a minute, fight dudes, cutscene, fight dudes, maybe there is a unique piece of gameplay like running through a building, cutscene, fight dudes⌠and it continuously goes on like this. It pushed me to get really tired of the fighting in the game. It seems like every instance where there is a break of some kind, they just throw in a crop of enemies for you to take out. Because of this, the fighting got tedious.
Especially when the symbiotes are introduced. Too much health, too many abilities to use, so much dodging and parrying. The symbiote nests are basically just much more powerful enemies you have to fight in waves while a timer ticks down. Theyâre much more powerful and annoying to deal with. There are several of these symbiote nests to take care of around the city. I did all but like 2 or 3 of them in the game before moving on. They were challenging and I got a little bored of doing them, so I continued the main story and then you know what the game did? It gave me an upgrade that helps me do more damage to the symbiotes. My jaw just about dropped. This wouldnât have been useful to the player who just finished all of the nests!
Which leads us to the final boss of Venom, whom I found so annoying to deal with, I put the game all the way down to the easiest mode (where you canât die) and finished him off that way. I was so disappointed to have to finish the game that way because I played the whole game on the normal mode until then, but I was so irritated by that point of dealing with this annoying boss whom I couldnât seem to get a grasp on, I had to switch it. I had almost switched it earlier during the bell fight with Kraven but I managed to squeak that one out.
Now a lot of what I mentioned above can be forgiven in certain instances. While a lot of it is annoying, some of it is meant for challenge. However, what canât be forgiven are some of the story and character choices in the game. There are some things that had me scratching my head or even talking out loud to myself saying âWhat? Really?â
NOTE: Below are story beats, so don't read any more if you don't want spoilers:
Letâs start with Mary Jane. To change things up, they put in a couple stealth section with Mary Jane where she sneaks into the Hunters hideout to rescue someone. In the first one, the scenario is believable up until she takes an arrow to the shoulder with tranquilizer in it. Sheâs not a super hero right? How was she able to push through the tranquilizer dart AND the arrow to the shoulder and somehow stay awake and able to take dudes out? Iâm not sure most normal people would be able to continue after that.
Furthermore, having her stealth around with a stun gun makes total sense because sheâs not a superhero. However, seeing her kick the crap out of a hunter henchman with her lady loafers on is kind of ridiculous, especially after taking a tranquillizer dart.
Characters reactions to things happening within the game some times did not feel real. No one ever reacted like you would in real life to crazy things happening. Itâs really odd. For example, Iâm a little annoyed that Peterâs friend Harry isnât more surprised that Peter is spider-man. He finds out and is just kind of like, âoh, youâre him?â And they move on. Really weird. If I found out my best friend was Spider-man, I would flip out!
And once they find out that Harry has powers too, Harry gets involved in this huge scene where he automatically knows how to fight and leap around as good as spider-man can. Which is odd considering spider-man has been doing it for a while, he had to learn all of this stuff, but this guy can just show up and he knows what to do?
There is a scene where Miles as Spider-man is helping a student ask his boyfriend out to a homecoming dance. I did this side quest when some really important stuff was going on in the game. This felt forced into the game and very corny. Doesnât Spider-man have way more important things to do?
Mr. Negative is suddenly a nice guy again. Why? Because Miles decided not to kill him for killing his father? Itâs so sudden, I donât really get it.
At the Kraven bell fight, Kraven gets out of Spider-man crushing him with the symbiote tentacles by biting one of them? Wtf? What kind of teeth does Kraven have? And then they also just let him run off. Like???
The amount of times Peter Parker says âmeet cuteâ is more than Iâve heard in my life. I didnât even know what that was until this game. Who says that?
During the scene where Venom is turning Mary Jane into the Scream lady, Venom goes to attack Peter and Mary Jane dives in front of him. WHY!? SHE HAS NO POWERS! What is she thinking? Then Peter is just looking at Venom and says âDonâtâŚâ as Venom pulls her over to him but Peter doesnât do a thing about it. Like, dude, youâre spider-man get in there and save your girl!
Miles shows up with a new suit towards the end of the game out of nowhere. Was he just suddenly making this suit? Where did it come from? When did he have time to make it? It wouldâve made a better side quest for him to do than some of these dumb side things they have in the game, where he is maybe collecting pieces for the suit? I found out later it was a promotion thing to sell some Adidas shoes. The shoes he is wearing in the game are/were available at one point in real life and because he is wearing these new shoes, he wanted a suit to match them I guess. Stupid. When did he have time to buy them?
The last mission of the game they have this plan to have venom chase spiderman through the city -- Sounds EXCITING! And Miles is going to take out all the symbiotes that are at the entrance -- Exciting! Instead, theyâre like, hey, here, do another Mary Jane part with the stun gun⌠what on earth? Luckily this part was just a run and stun section, no stealthing around but whose idea was it to be like, yea letâs do Mary Janes part first. This also wouldâve been a great bonding mission for Mary Kane and Miles, where Miles couldâve been in there helping her while you controlled Mary Jane. I guess instead he stayed outside and distracted the Symbiotes... but still. More team ups please!
Then shortly after that, Mary Jane is riding her motorbike and crashing through a window with it. This felt like they were REALLY trying to make her as awesome as spider-man but for me, it doesnât work. Sheâs just this small, lady journalist. I know itâs supposed to be action shlock but it takes me out the experience a bit.
At the end of the game, Peter Parker just gets to be himself for a bit, so does that mean the next game will just be Miles? Why is Peter Parker wanting to be himself? Because Mary Jane doesnât like him being spiderman? It wouldâve made more sense to have Peter and Mary Jane allude to the fact theyâre going to plan their wedding or something and he needs a break. This portion of the story lead almost nowhere.
But through the whole game, Peter keeps doubting himself saying that the city doesnât need him anymore (this felt more like he was fishing for compliments than actual self doubt) and Miles can do it. So I assume theyâre setting the next game up to be only Miles? But why? Whatâs the point? They already did a Miles Morales game! I was Spider-man 3 to have 3 heroes this time? Maybe ad Spider Gwen in there?
The characters are constantly second guessing themselves in this one too. âWhy didnât I ask Pete about that thing? Iâm such a bad friend!â or âWhy havenât I checked in with MJ, Iâm a monster!â Itâs like, jeeze, way to be over dramatic about everything.
The story feels all over the place with all the villains too. You fight off Sandman, and Kraven, and Lizard, and Mister Negative, and Mysterio, and Kraven again, then eventually you fight venom, but you also fight a character called Scream (which is just Mary Jane as a symbiote and it only last one mission). I'm not even mentioning all of the side villains that the game is hinting at introducing in a sequel. Typically in comics, a story arc will involve a couple villains but because there are so many villains in this game, it really feels like theyâre putting together 3 story arcs in one. It's too much! For some, this might be a bonus, but to me it feels really disjointed and I lost track of everyoneâs motivation. This also felt like they bloated experience a bit. I'd rather a good, deep story with a couple villains than introducing a new one every 2 missions.
The oddest thing is Sandman is never heard from again after you defeat him. You have this amazing fight with him at the very start of the game and he has some collectibles that you can get but honestly, it felt so flat. It wouldâve been great had he come back to help you fight venom or something at the end. You know, like he was a new, reformed man. Even Mr. Negative didnât come back to help much and heâs a good guy now? I donât understand the character arcs in this one. They just wanted to add villains for the sake of it and then were like âWhat do we do now?â and everyone shrugged.
I could keep going on about story stuff but I think you get the message. I think this game couldâve benefitted and been more focused if it was just a bit longer than the Miles Morales game. Instead of 18 or so hours, maybe 12-14 hours. Leave us wanting more. Cut out a villain or 2. Tighten up those story pieces and characters. Cut out a few unlockable abilities. Tighten the combat up a little. Personally, I want quality not quantity.
Despite the game being gorgeous and doing a lot of things right, this game just didnât click with me as we got about halfway through it. I feel the first game and Miles Morales are better experiences. I think they just tried to cram too much in here and the game really suffers for it.
I loved the original version of this on the GBA when it came out 20 years ago and this remake on the Switch not only keeps the spirit alive but shows that this type of game is still a lot of fun, despite a few flaws.
As a puzzle game fan, I'm really glad this exists! I would've never expected Nintendo to bring back this series because it never seemed like anyone cared about it, despite it having a few sequels.
You play as Mario, traversing levels, collecting presents, unlocking doors and freeing mini Mario toys that Donkey Kong has stolen from the toy company.
The physics in the game are much different than they are in a normal 2D Mario game. If you're new to this series, it controls much more like an original Donkey Kong game, where Mario doesn't jump as high and he doesn't move quite as quick. Some will find this off putting but as a guy who played Donkey Kong growing up, I think it's great to have a throw- back like this available, even if it's not precise and takes a little getting used to.
I love trying to find out how to get all the presents within a level and get that gold star. Chances are, if you stumped on one, you'll go to a future level and learn a new technique only to return to the level that stumped you and get that gold star. It's a great feeling.
While I do quite enjoy the game, there are a few fiddly things. One is that the enemy hit box is strangely aligned or something, as there were times when I felt like I died on an enemy for no reason. I felt as though I landed on the enemy's head, not anywhere else. Dying isn't a huge issue because the levels are so quick to play, but it can still be annoying when you're right at the exit and this happens.
Speaking of dying, can we just get rid of the lives system for these games already? What's the point of it these days?
I would've also liked a bit more guidance on what the mini Marios can do. At times, playing with the mini Marios following can feel a bit trial and error and there are a few levels with them that will have you scratching your head a little. In the extra levels that unlock after you complete the main game, they're all mini Mario based. By this point, you'll probably have figured out all the mini Mario tricks but it would've been nice to know they can do certain things up front.
Because of this, I would've liked some kind of "preview mode" where you can look at the level before you start, as there is a timer and it starts ticking as soon as you begin.
I would've also loved a toggle mode to bounce between the GBA graphics and the current, as so many remasters do these days, but unfortunately since it's remake, that isn't an option.
But what is here is an enjoyable puzzle game with a ton of levels and replay-ability with time trials and gold stars to collect. While there is no real reward for 100% in the game (It would've been nice to get a gold Mario to play as or something) solving all of these levels is a lot of fun.
As a puzzle game fan, I'm really glad this exists! I would've never expected Nintendo to bring back this series because it never seemed like anyone cared about it, despite it having a few sequels.
You play as Mario, traversing levels, collecting presents, unlocking doors and freeing mini Mario toys that Donkey Kong has stolen from the toy company.
The physics in the game are much different than they are in a normal 2D Mario game. If you're new to this series, it controls much more like an original Donkey Kong game, where Mario doesn't jump as high and he doesn't move quite as quick. Some will find this off putting but as a guy who played Donkey Kong growing up, I think it's great to have a throw- back like this available, even if it's not precise and takes a little getting used to.
I love trying to find out how to get all the presents within a level and get that gold star. Chances are, if you stumped on one, you'll go to a future level and learn a new technique only to return to the level that stumped you and get that gold star. It's a great feeling.
While I do quite enjoy the game, there are a few fiddly things. One is that the enemy hit box is strangely aligned or something, as there were times when I felt like I died on an enemy for no reason. I felt as though I landed on the enemy's head, not anywhere else. Dying isn't a huge issue because the levels are so quick to play, but it can still be annoying when you're right at the exit and this happens.
Speaking of dying, can we just get rid of the lives system for these games already? What's the point of it these days?
I would've also liked a bit more guidance on what the mini Marios can do. At times, playing with the mini Marios following can feel a bit trial and error and there are a few levels with them that will have you scratching your head a little. In the extra levels that unlock after you complete the main game, they're all mini Mario based. By this point, you'll probably have figured out all the mini Mario tricks but it would've been nice to know they can do certain things up front.
Because of this, I would've liked some kind of "preview mode" where you can look at the level before you start, as there is a timer and it starts ticking as soon as you begin.
I would've also loved a toggle mode to bounce between the GBA graphics and the current, as so many remasters do these days, but unfortunately since it's remake, that isn't an option.
But what is here is an enjoyable puzzle game with a ton of levels and replay-ability with time trials and gold stars to collect. While there is no real reward for 100% in the game (It would've been nice to get a gold Mario to play as or something) solving all of these levels is a lot of fun.
What an absolutely underrated 2d platformer. While it borrows from plenty of other platformers, it uses these influences in the best ways possible to create a very enjoyable adventure!
For 2d platforming fans, this game can be best described as a combination of Donkey Kong Country Returns and Rayman Legends. For newer players who may not have played those games, then think of this as a fun, super vibrant 2d platformer with lots of secrets to find and lots of challenging areas to cross. All the while, you play as this long tailed, cute Marsupial character (he's from an old comic series).
The game does that great thing that most games should do where the core game isn't too tough to run through but if you want the challenge, it is there after the fact. Collecting everything, going for the 100% and playing the tougher challenges is where the hardcore platforming fans will have a ton of fun.
On top of the core game, they added in a whole new dinosaur themed world that includes new and different biomes and challenges. When I started this portion of the game, I was amazed to see that they added so much more new content for free!
So on the negative side, the boss battles could've been a lot more inventive. The boss battles are basically a set of forced scrolling levels where you are trying not to let the left side of the screen catch up and get you while also chasing the boss on the right (which we've seen in many games). Each one just gets progressively harder, but I would've liked a bit more variation in the boss battles.
There were also times, very few, but they did happen, where the controls didn't feel super fluid. This was mostly in the really difficult levels after the main game. There were times where I would look at my controller in dis belief because I thought I jumped? Again, it didn't happen often but for this to happen in a level that demands super precision platformer, it was a little irritating.
Great game though, if you're a platforming fan of any kind, you have no reason to pass this one up!
For 2d platforming fans, this game can be best described as a combination of Donkey Kong Country Returns and Rayman Legends. For newer players who may not have played those games, then think of this as a fun, super vibrant 2d platformer with lots of secrets to find and lots of challenging areas to cross. All the while, you play as this long tailed, cute Marsupial character (he's from an old comic series).
The game does that great thing that most games should do where the core game isn't too tough to run through but if you want the challenge, it is there after the fact. Collecting everything, going for the 100% and playing the tougher challenges is where the hardcore platforming fans will have a ton of fun.
On top of the core game, they added in a whole new dinosaur themed world that includes new and different biomes and challenges. When I started this portion of the game, I was amazed to see that they added so much more new content for free!
So on the negative side, the boss battles could've been a lot more inventive. The boss battles are basically a set of forced scrolling levels where you are trying not to let the left side of the screen catch up and get you while also chasing the boss on the right (which we've seen in many games). Each one just gets progressively harder, but I would've liked a bit more variation in the boss battles.
There were also times, very few, but they did happen, where the controls didn't feel super fluid. This was mostly in the really difficult levels after the main game. There were times where I would look at my controller in dis belief because I thought I jumped? Again, it didn't happen often but for this to happen in a level that demands super precision platformer, it was a little irritating.
Great game though, if you're a platforming fan of any kind, you have no reason to pass this one up!
An ARPG that is unfortunately bogged down by odd menu design and repetitive filler side quests (which have to be done to grind your levels up). However, despite all of this, I found myself really getting into the gameplay loop and wanted to see the story to the end, even if it was a bit disappointing.
The core gameplay in this one is a lot of fun. A 2d platformer mixed with an ARPG, how can you go wrong? Well, I'll tell you.
Despite the fact that there are aspects of this game that are addictive and very enjoyable, the menu, map and quest system are very clunky and don't work well together. Like the maps only show marks for the main quest and only one selected side quest at a time. Once you finish that selected side quest, you have to then select another in the quest menu, then back out to the main game and then to map again to see where it is. and back and forth, back and forth and it sucks.
This also applies to the fast traveling. You use sign posts in the dungeons to fast travel around however, there is a map screen and the location selection screen. However the map doesn't list the names of the locations, so you're taking a guess as to which sign post location will take you where. Why didn't they put it all on the map just to make it easier!? It makes no sense at all and it becomes a nightmare in a couple areas because there are entrances and exits all over the place on the map!
There are also a million shops to upgrade your characters at (okay, it's more like 20, but it's still a lot!). One person does armor, one person does blades, one person upgrades your armor and blades, one person upgrades your runes, one person upgrades your tools, one person upgrades your bags... was it really necessary to have so many different vendors for upgrades!? It's really overkill...
This could've earned a much higher rating if they would've fixed some of these quality of life issues, but here we are.
Oh and the side quests. Good god the side quests. There has to be over a hundred side quests and while there are a few inventive and/or adventurous ones, a lot are repeat quests and others are literally filler.
Some quests will have you fetch a material only later to have you get the exact same quest again from the same or another person and you're collecting the exact same material! Then there are the filler quests which are like, go talk to this person who is a screen over. DONE. Turn In. Why bother with this!?
On another note, the visual design is also strange where the environments are 3d and gorgeously done but the characters are in 2d and have this very jaunty animation to them. It doesn't meld for me as the characters don't feel like they're in the same world.
And I have to also mention that I did have it happen about 3 times where I went to save and the game just hung. I had to restart the game each of those times and lost a bit of progress each time. VERY annoying.
Not a terrible game in the slightest but there are just too many bad design decisions that it's really hard to ignore them here.
The core gameplay in this one is a lot of fun. A 2d platformer mixed with an ARPG, how can you go wrong? Well, I'll tell you.
Despite the fact that there are aspects of this game that are addictive and very enjoyable, the menu, map and quest system are very clunky and don't work well together. Like the maps only show marks for the main quest and only one selected side quest at a time. Once you finish that selected side quest, you have to then select another in the quest menu, then back out to the main game and then to map again to see where it is. and back and forth, back and forth and it sucks.
This also applies to the fast traveling. You use sign posts in the dungeons to fast travel around however, there is a map screen and the location selection screen. However the map doesn't list the names of the locations, so you're taking a guess as to which sign post location will take you where. Why didn't they put it all on the map just to make it easier!? It makes no sense at all and it becomes a nightmare in a couple areas because there are entrances and exits all over the place on the map!
There are also a million shops to upgrade your characters at (okay, it's more like 20, but it's still a lot!). One person does armor, one person does blades, one person upgrades your armor and blades, one person upgrades your runes, one person upgrades your tools, one person upgrades your bags... was it really necessary to have so many different vendors for upgrades!? It's really overkill...
This could've earned a much higher rating if they would've fixed some of these quality of life issues, but here we are.
Oh and the side quests. Good god the side quests. There has to be over a hundred side quests and while there are a few inventive and/or adventurous ones, a lot are repeat quests and others are literally filler.
Some quests will have you fetch a material only later to have you get the exact same quest again from the same or another person and you're collecting the exact same material! Then there are the filler quests which are like, go talk to this person who is a screen over. DONE. Turn In. Why bother with this!?
On another note, the visual design is also strange where the environments are 3d and gorgeously done but the characters are in 2d and have this very jaunty animation to them. It doesn't meld for me as the characters don't feel like they're in the same world.
And I have to also mention that I did have it happen about 3 times where I went to save and the game just hung. I had to restart the game each of those times and lost a bit of progress each time. VERY annoying.
Not a terrible game in the slightest but there are just too many bad design decisions that it's really hard to ignore them here.
2024
This is a good ,pixelized 2d platformer that I had 4 hours of fun with. Don't be fooled though, this is not a metroidvania.
I'm not sure you can consider this a metroidvania game as the progression is linear. The game gives you a false sense of genre when it starts because it feels VERY Metroid, but as you go, you realize there is only one path forward and no open exploration. I mean, you can explore a bit in the beginning, but there is no real reason to (no secrets).
As of launch week, the game does have a few bugs here and there. Falling through platforms and odd physics stuff popped up now and then but very rarely.
The AI is absolutely dumb. None of the enemies were a challenge, even the bosses were super easy.
The game doesn't ramp up true challenge until the last half of it. You spend the first half collecting abilities with mild challenge and then you spend the 2nd half navigating much more treacherous areas with all your abilities.
I wish the GMO/Pokemon characters were the abilities that you collect instead of just collecting equipment. The GMO seemed very tacked in for no other reason than just to collect them.
Much of this is nit picky except for maybe the AI stuff. Looking forward to the sequel!
I'm not sure you can consider this a metroidvania game as the progression is linear. The game gives you a false sense of genre when it starts because it feels VERY Metroid, but as you go, you realize there is only one path forward and no open exploration. I mean, you can explore a bit in the beginning, but there is no real reason to (no secrets).
As of launch week, the game does have a few bugs here and there. Falling through platforms and odd physics stuff popped up now and then but very rarely.
The AI is absolutely dumb. None of the enemies were a challenge, even the bosses were super easy.
The game doesn't ramp up true challenge until the last half of it. You spend the first half collecting abilities with mild challenge and then you spend the 2nd half navigating much more treacherous areas with all your abilities.
I wish the GMO/Pokemon characters were the abilities that you collect instead of just collecting equipment. The GMO seemed very tacked in for no other reason than just to collect them.
Much of this is nit picky except for maybe the AI stuff. Looking forward to the sequel!
Miles Morales a fun, polished game, but I feel the first Spider-Man is a better game over all. This one features virtually the same gameplay plus one new feature "Venom" and almost no interesting super villains to fight (Rhino, plus one new one that I'm sure most will not care about much). The story and characters are really what kept this one going for me. This really felt more like a side story to the first game, maybe a HUGE DLC or something of that ilk. Luckily, I really like the first game, so I didn't mind playing more of it.
2021
If you're looking for a pleasant 2D platformer that is a very quick playthrough and won't challenge you much (sort of a cozy, comfort food style game) this might be the game for you.
Hoa is a vibrant 2D platformer that's all about collecting butterflies. No joke! Some may balk and think the game is too childish for them and they may be right. I wish I could say that the gameplay would change your mind, but it's very simple and there isn't much substance. That is until the final level, which kind of comes out of nowhere as it will challenge you in ways that are almost experimental.
However, the game is competently made, it's unique in its setting and characters (I've never played as a little flower gnome thing that does favors for giant bugs before) and it's comfort food for those who like platformers.
Hoa is a vibrant 2D platformer that's all about collecting butterflies. No joke! Some may balk and think the game is too childish for them and they may be right. I wish I could say that the gameplay would change your mind, but it's very simple and there isn't much substance. That is until the final level, which kind of comes out of nowhere as it will challenge you in ways that are almost experimental.
However, the game is competently made, it's unique in its setting and characters (I've never played as a little flower gnome thing that does favors for giant bugs before) and it's comfort food for those who like platformers.
This is the first Ratchet and Clank where I actually cared about the story and I'm interested to see where they're taking it with the next one. Also, graphically, I think this is the most gorgeous 3D platformer ever created!
While this is Ratchet and Clank through and through, I'm not sure it's the series at it's best? In presentation and fidelity, it definitely is. However, I almost felt like the Remake from 2016 felt better in a gameplay sense?
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still a fun game but I feel like most fights were the same where I would throw out a couple Fungi's and a sprinkler and kind of just do some support and clean up in the back. It felt easy to cheese at times.
Also, enemies seemed to repeat a lot more throughout this game than in the 2016 remake. I felt like I fought the same enemies and boss types A LOT through out my play through. It kind of felt like "Oh, these guys again" a lot.
Despite that, the game does offer a lot of variety. Lots of extra mini game type stuff like riding the speedle, the virus tank missions and Clanks puzzle areas... I really appreciated the variety and how it broke up the main game. If this game was ONLY the shooting portion, I'm not sure I would've liked it as much.
There was another issue I had where I was on a certain level trying to mop up all the collectibles but I was having a hard time accessing certain parts. I wasn't aware that later in the game, these areas "officially" opened up and I could explore them to finish the level then. I wish they put something up, even like a little character to be say "Hey Rivet, we're all good here!" Or "Hey it's under construction over here" something to tip the player off that they can't go there just yet.
I also want to point out that the rumbling and feedback on the PS5 controller needs to be experienced in this game, it really does take it to another level. The feeling of some of the weapons with the controller was something I was not expecting and really enjoyed.
So, while this game may be a bit prettier than the 2016 remake, offer some variety with the gameplay and have a really cool "rumble experience" I do feel like the weapons and gunplay were maybe a half step back. I don't feel bad putting this game at the same rating as the 2016 remake because I think they're equals in certain regards.
However, I can't wait to see what they do in the next sequel because I think that they are going to absolutely nail it. At least, I hope!
While this is Ratchet and Clank through and through, I'm not sure it's the series at it's best? In presentation and fidelity, it definitely is. However, I almost felt like the Remake from 2016 felt better in a gameplay sense?
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still a fun game but I feel like most fights were the same where I would throw out a couple Fungi's and a sprinkler and kind of just do some support and clean up in the back. It felt easy to cheese at times.
Also, enemies seemed to repeat a lot more throughout this game than in the 2016 remake. I felt like I fought the same enemies and boss types A LOT through out my play through. It kind of felt like "Oh, these guys again" a lot.
Despite that, the game does offer a lot of variety. Lots of extra mini game type stuff like riding the speedle, the virus tank missions and Clanks puzzle areas... I really appreciated the variety and how it broke up the main game. If this game was ONLY the shooting portion, I'm not sure I would've liked it as much.
There was another issue I had where I was on a certain level trying to mop up all the collectibles but I was having a hard time accessing certain parts. I wasn't aware that later in the game, these areas "officially" opened up and I could explore them to finish the level then. I wish they put something up, even like a little character to be say "Hey Rivet, we're all good here!" Or "Hey it's under construction over here" something to tip the player off that they can't go there just yet.
I also want to point out that the rumbling and feedback on the PS5 controller needs to be experienced in this game, it really does take it to another level. The feeling of some of the weapons with the controller was something I was not expecting and really enjoyed.
So, while this game may be a bit prettier than the 2016 remake, offer some variety with the gameplay and have a really cool "rumble experience" I do feel like the weapons and gunplay were maybe a half step back. I don't feel bad putting this game at the same rating as the 2016 remake because I think they're equals in certain regards.
However, I can't wait to see what they do in the next sequel because I think that they are going to absolutely nail it. At least, I hope!
2022
This review contains spoilers
This is a decent 2d, semi-precision platformer with an interesting art style but the saccharin story and dialog was just too much for me and there is too much of it. I don't like visual novels in my platformers.
In Lapin, you play as a rabbit who is part of a burrow of rabbits who need to relocate to a new burrow. During which, you will hop, wall jump and use the environment to get from point A to point B. The mechanics, especially the jump control, take a little getting used to and can feel a bit janky at first, but once they click, it can be a lot of fun.
What's not fun is the story and dialog. The story, characters and dialog are always so sweet and sickeningly so. It's very much a preteens approach to a slice of life anime story with rabbits.
You come across the rabbits on your travels through the different levels and chat with them. I never felt like any of the conversations lead anywhere interesting. Constant reminders about how they're there for each other and they will help one another and it's like, yea, I know, you've told me this like 3 times before already.
They also try to pull at your heart strings at every possible corner. Every rabbit has a sad backstory that they try to dive into so you learn about the characters. Every rabbit in the burrow is loved by each other and they're all they have and you're reminded of these things over and over again as you talk to the other rabbits. It gets old.
I have so many other questions though, like, how did the rabbits move all their heavy equipment to the new burrow? Why are there ghost rabbits? How are you able to use magical powers by the end of the game?
However none of these questions are really answered, which is puzzling because they tacked on another hour-plus of optional story if you want to deep dive into the burrow's lore and character relations.
The art style is very interesting as well because the on screen rabbits look great. However, the expanded portrait style rabbits faces that they show during dialog sequences look pretty bad and like amateur anime.
The background and other elements on screen vary heavily as well. Some times you'll see a background that looks amazing and then other times it kind of looks like they slapped it together really quickly. It's strange.
When i was playing the game, I just wondered who this was for? Who is the gamer that WANTS long, saccharin, visual novel style cutscenes and dialog taking them away from the platforming action? They must exist, but I know it's not me.
In Lapin, you play as a rabbit who is part of a burrow of rabbits who need to relocate to a new burrow. During which, you will hop, wall jump and use the environment to get from point A to point B. The mechanics, especially the jump control, take a little getting used to and can feel a bit janky at first, but once they click, it can be a lot of fun.
What's not fun is the story and dialog. The story, characters and dialog are always so sweet and sickeningly so. It's very much a preteens approach to a slice of life anime story with rabbits.
You come across the rabbits on your travels through the different levels and chat with them. I never felt like any of the conversations lead anywhere interesting. Constant reminders about how they're there for each other and they will help one another and it's like, yea, I know, you've told me this like 3 times before already.
They also try to pull at your heart strings at every possible corner. Every rabbit has a sad backstory that they try to dive into so you learn about the characters. Every rabbit in the burrow is loved by each other and they're all they have and you're reminded of these things over and over again as you talk to the other rabbits. It gets old.
I have so many other questions though, like, how did the rabbits move all their heavy equipment to the new burrow? Why are there ghost rabbits? How are you able to use magical powers by the end of the game?
However none of these questions are really answered, which is puzzling because they tacked on another hour-plus of optional story if you want to deep dive into the burrow's lore and character relations.
The art style is very interesting as well because the on screen rabbits look great. However, the expanded portrait style rabbits faces that they show during dialog sequences look pretty bad and like amateur anime.
The background and other elements on screen vary heavily as well. Some times you'll see a background that looks amazing and then other times it kind of looks like they slapped it together really quickly. It's strange.
When i was playing the game, I just wondered who this was for? Who is the gamer that WANTS long, saccharin, visual novel style cutscenes and dialog taking them away from the platforming action? They must exist, but I know it's not me.