Raxyz
It's a slight improvement gameplay-wise, but a massive "been there, done that" in everything else. The story threads similar themes, character motivations and twists that the first one already made. The gameplay is still the same linear-as-hell style that stifles any and all player creativity (and stealth is broken this time around). And it's riddled with bugs on top of all that.
But I think the "defining" feature of the game is consistently and constantly having people be the absolute worst scumbags possible and having every single misery possible thrown at the protagonists only to then try and pull a moment of "but the world is good isn't it?". That's not to say you can't have this dichotomy of dark fantasy and hope, hell I absolutely can't claim that in a world where Berserk exists. But Requiem absolutely does not pull it off gracefully. It's like someone bringing a sledgehammer to your leg only to point out "but hey, medicine has gotten really far and you can get that fixed right?" while you're still writhing in pain. It's a stark contrast that requires you to shut off your brain and not think too much about it to enjoy.
But I think the "defining" feature of the game is consistently and constantly having people be the absolute worst scumbags possible and having every single misery possible thrown at the protagonists only to then try and pull a moment of "but the world is good isn't it?". That's not to say you can't have this dichotomy of dark fantasy and hope, hell I absolutely can't claim that in a world where Berserk exists. But Requiem absolutely does not pull it off gracefully. It's like someone bringing a sledgehammer to your leg only to point out "but hey, medicine has gotten really far and you can get that fixed right?" while you're still writhing in pain. It's a stark contrast that requires you to shut off your brain and not think too much about it to enjoy.
2023
Backloggd really needs to get their search engine in order. You can't find Tevi in it because it lists all ResidenT EVIl games and never finds this one. You have to reach here from an actual search engine... Anyways, copying my review from Steam:
MASSIVE improvement over Rabi Ribi.
Gameplay is basically more of the same, but even more fluid. You no longer need to manage a "hold button" charge along with another to mash for melee attacks, so that allows for melee combos to become more elaborate as you have less of a mental stack to manage the shots. Ranged combat itself is far better for it too, you can either dump tons of damage at once with multiple charged shots or pace them alongside with the combos (although the target always "unstaggers" after a while). Customization is also huge with sigils, to the point where it kinda becomes a con. Building Sigil loadouts is a double-edged sword where you get to customize a build to perfectly enhance the way you play or cover your shortcoming, but managing the Equip Points can be an boring task when you're juggling which 8p you're dropping to make space for 2 4p or vice-versa.
Boss design is also an huge leap. Unpopular opinion I guess, but bosses in Rabi Ribi weren't that good. They were too much bullet hell and not enough metroidvania. For a genre blender, it was massively unbalanced. This time around though? Perfection. Bosses have (most of the times) reactable patters while also not constantly pissing bullets everywhere. The actual bullet hell segments are left for the fight's climax only, which makes for a much better pacing and challenge. You can also turn the hitbox for it to be always on in bosses which makes the fight far more manageable.
The game isn't easier though. It's still borderline frustrating if you just beeline it to the story's boss and never explore. Hard+ and Inferno is still a gauntlet for the aficionados. Even regular enemies can be your downfall up until the very endgame when you're truly and well overpowered.
And this time around, the story actually makes sense! Because the true ending of Rabi Ribi feels like the dog ending in Silent Hill 2, but instead of being an easter egg you unlock as a fun sideshow, it's the climax to the whole game. In here, story makes sense throughout and the whole just just feels like a coherent story. Art style is also a massive improvement. Prettier HUDs, menus, user interface, backgrounds, character sprites, and more. Plus an amazing OST in boss fights.
Really, Tevi is a hit on all sixes. I have some gripes with how the story doesn't actually come full circle and leaves some questions unanswered, there's a couple of stages where the level design REALLY pissed me off (Verdawn Forest fog map can go ♥♥♥♥ itself), some songs get annoying, the design is far too linear and resistant to skips, but none of these issues drag the overall quality down. Tevi is just consistent all around, showing that even if nothing really "new" is done it can still be enjoyable if it's just polished enough. Lessons were learned, improvements were applied. Can't ask for more from a game that was already good really.
MASSIVE improvement over Rabi Ribi.
Gameplay is basically more of the same, but even more fluid. You no longer need to manage a "hold button" charge along with another to mash for melee attacks, so that allows for melee combos to become more elaborate as you have less of a mental stack to manage the shots. Ranged combat itself is far better for it too, you can either dump tons of damage at once with multiple charged shots or pace them alongside with the combos (although the target always "unstaggers" after a while). Customization is also huge with sigils, to the point where it kinda becomes a con. Building Sigil loadouts is a double-edged sword where you get to customize a build to perfectly enhance the way you play or cover your shortcoming, but managing the Equip Points can be an boring task when you're juggling which 8p you're dropping to make space for 2 4p or vice-versa.
Boss design is also an huge leap. Unpopular opinion I guess, but bosses in Rabi Ribi weren't that good. They were too much bullet hell and not enough metroidvania. For a genre blender, it was massively unbalanced. This time around though? Perfection. Bosses have (most of the times) reactable patters while also not constantly pissing bullets everywhere. The actual bullet hell segments are left for the fight's climax only, which makes for a much better pacing and challenge. You can also turn the hitbox for it to be always on in bosses which makes the fight far more manageable.
The game isn't easier though. It's still borderline frustrating if you just beeline it to the story's boss and never explore. Hard+ and Inferno is still a gauntlet for the aficionados. Even regular enemies can be your downfall up until the very endgame when you're truly and well overpowered.
And this time around, the story actually makes sense! Because the true ending of Rabi Ribi feels like the dog ending in Silent Hill 2, but instead of being an easter egg you unlock as a fun sideshow, it's the climax to the whole game. In here, story makes sense throughout and the whole just just feels like a coherent story. Art style is also a massive improvement. Prettier HUDs, menus, user interface, backgrounds, character sprites, and more. Plus an amazing OST in boss fights.
Really, Tevi is a hit on all sixes. I have some gripes with how the story doesn't actually come full circle and leaves some questions unanswered, there's a couple of stages where the level design REALLY pissed me off (Verdawn Forest fog map can go ♥♥♥♥ itself), some songs get annoying, the design is far too linear and resistant to skips, but none of these issues drag the overall quality down. Tevi is just consistent all around, showing that even if nothing really "new" is done it can still be enjoyable if it's just polished enough. Lessons were learned, improvements were applied. Can't ask for more from a game that was already good really.
2023
The first thing I gotta say about this game, which I don't see mentioned as often as it should, is that the optimization on display here is mouth-watering. 2023 was home to tons of poorly optimized games and devs using the high requirements as crutches. This here? This should be the gold standard. This game is the first one that puts SSD as a minimum requirement that actually makes it worth it. The "menu" in this game is an independently rendered 3D room with all of the collectibles, upgrades and records laid out, and you physically walk around with your character in it. You can enter this "Mind Palace" at ANY TIME during gameplay and the game NEVER stutters for it. My PC is average at best and I ran the game on medium-specs, having to downgrade to low in some visual-intensive areas, and the game still holds together with high FPS and no stutters. Speaking of graphical qualities, this game on low is much more beautiful than a lot of other modern titles on high. Seriously, I can't praise the optimization work in this game enough.
Onto the other aspects of the game though: Gameplay is overall great. Adding a second protagonist with Saga Anderson was a great call to adding some balance to Alan's excessive brooding-ness. The detective mechanics in her gameplay are amazing, and makes me wish Remedy does an investigation game in the future while improving on this system. Combat is pretty much Resident Evil, but slightly worse. Remedy is STILL insisting on making overly bullet sponge enemies, the kind that would put RE2R zombies to shame, and they don't trust you with resource management and therefore resort to the almost demeaning mechanic of dynamic drops. Are you low on ammo? Enemies start dropping resources and every single box or drawer has ammo in it. Do you save ammo by using the crossbow and/or carefully placing headshots so that you always kill an enemy with the least amount of bullets needed? Have fun opening 5 empty containers in a row. If you want to copy the RE formula, you need to understand why it works. Either reduce the enemy density and health, or make resource management a required skill to play it. This is the major thing holding back an otherwise solid gameplay. My only other complaint is a really personal gripe, but I hate that HUD with a burning passion. Boring, lifeless and generic. You could put that in any other TPS and it wouldn't feel out of place because that thing doesn't have an ounce of personality. For a game with such an strong artistic design in other areas, this HUD feels like a stock option you get off an Unreal Asset Store.
Story is an improvement over the first game, but it still uses the Stephen King's precepts as a crutch too often. I can't say that the story is bad, but it's also not conclusive and entirely depends on Alan Wake 3 if we're ever gonna judge its quality because so far it only runs in circles. (Or a spiral... No context spoiler FTW). The narrative is great. The way it tells the story is compelling, I just hope the actual story in the end is worth all this meandering.
All in all, it's a great game. One of 2023's best. There's still room for improvement though.
Onto the other aspects of the game though: Gameplay is overall great. Adding a second protagonist with Saga Anderson was a great call to adding some balance to Alan's excessive brooding-ness. The detective mechanics in her gameplay are amazing, and makes me wish Remedy does an investigation game in the future while improving on this system. Combat is pretty much Resident Evil, but slightly worse. Remedy is STILL insisting on making overly bullet sponge enemies, the kind that would put RE2R zombies to shame, and they don't trust you with resource management and therefore resort to the almost demeaning mechanic of dynamic drops. Are you low on ammo? Enemies start dropping resources and every single box or drawer has ammo in it. Do you save ammo by using the crossbow and/or carefully placing headshots so that you always kill an enemy with the least amount of bullets needed? Have fun opening 5 empty containers in a row. If you want to copy the RE formula, you need to understand why it works. Either reduce the enemy density and health, or make resource management a required skill to play it. This is the major thing holding back an otherwise solid gameplay. My only other complaint is a really personal gripe, but I hate that HUD with a burning passion. Boring, lifeless and generic. You could put that in any other TPS and it wouldn't feel out of place because that thing doesn't have an ounce of personality. For a game with such an strong artistic design in other areas, this HUD feels like a stock option you get off an Unreal Asset Store.
Story is an improvement over the first game, but it still uses the Stephen King's precepts as a crutch too often. I can't say that the story is bad, but it's also not conclusive and entirely depends on Alan Wake 3 if we're ever gonna judge its quality because so far it only runs in circles. (Or a spiral... No context spoiler FTW). The narrative is great. The way it tells the story is compelling, I just hope the actual story in the end is worth all this meandering.
All in all, it's a great game. One of 2023's best. There's still room for improvement though.
Is it a good game? ...no. It clearly isn't.
Is it a fun one? Fuck yes.
I can complain about some of the level design, the OST isn't that great, story can be downright gibberish at times, but if anything, this game proves that having a good gameplay loop can be an immense boon. It's not really a Megaman X game, but it's certainly fanservice-y enough for fans to be happy for seeing all the characters from different subseries playable at once. And it's a power fantasy on its own right to play a gacha and be able to just buy whatever the ♥♥♥♥ you want without having to spend real cash for it. Speaking of cash, I would only say that this game is slightly overpriced, but it's definitely worth it on sale at least.
And I hope this becomes a trend. Un-gacha-fy some of these games and release them as an offline package. Games as a service will always eventually die, but this way you can at least preserve some of these for posterity. It was fun playing as Vampire Zero even if it's not something you'd expect to see in a Megaman game. Or maybe precisely because of it.
Is it a fun one? Fuck yes.
I can complain about some of the level design, the OST isn't that great, story can be downright gibberish at times, but if anything, this game proves that having a good gameplay loop can be an immense boon. It's not really a Megaman X game, but it's certainly fanservice-y enough for fans to be happy for seeing all the characters from different subseries playable at once. And it's a power fantasy on its own right to play a gacha and be able to just buy whatever the ♥♥♥♥ you want without having to spend real cash for it. Speaking of cash, I would only say that this game is slightly overpriced, but it's definitely worth it on sale at least.
And I hope this becomes a trend. Un-gacha-fy some of these games and release them as an offline package. Games as a service will always eventually die, but this way you can at least preserve some of these for posterity. It was fun playing as Vampire Zero even if it's not something you'd expect to see in a Megaman game. Or maybe precisely because of it.
Excellent in its simplicity. Haven't enjoyed a turn-based RPG like that for quite a while. Good pacing balance between gameplay and story. The gameplay starts off slow, but has an decent depth with its mana system later on. The story is outright great. Even if it seems a bit generic at first, it subverts quite a lot of clichés and delivers a great balance of charismatic characters, political conflicts and overall world building.
2021
When a game goes under a "revamping" it's usually bad news, but they actually delivered on this one. Nobunaga is now finally his own character instead of discount Cao-Cao. No more open world shenanigans, but a few lessons learned with newer games. They tried a new more dramatic approach to storytelling which I'm not exactly thrilled by, but I can appreciate the variety. The most common criticisms levied at this game such as "not having enough content" is cherry picking what's not there instead of all the new things they tried. It's honestly a good musou game, haven't had so much fun with one since the PS2 ones.
Still not as flawless as the original, but kudos for the team for preserving the game's art direction far better than the Wii version. A decent way to replay these classics easily in the modern age.
Honestly, way too overpriced for what it offers. Little to no single player content, playerbase is dead in certain regions (in south america I can confirm it's a discord fighter already) and it doesn't do things that differently from the previous title.
Like, it's a good fighting game. But it's behind the times. You can get an indie fighting game for less than half of this price that does largely the same or spend a little more and get SF or Tekken with loads more content and a healthy playerbase each.
Like, it's a good fighting game. But it's behind the times. You can get an indie fighting game for less than half of this price that does largely the same or spend a little more and get SF or Tekken with loads more content and a healthy playerbase each.
2019
I first played this game near release, shortly after playing Quantum Break. Now, I absolutely hate QB, and back then the first hours of Control didn't convinced me it wouldn't be yet another cheap TPS with sponge enemies.
Well, joke's on me because this game is nothing short of amazing. First, the story. They aren't bound the Stephen King precepts of "horror stories can't have explanations" and so they actually do try writing a cohesive supernatural story. The FBC is an organization meant to detect, contain and study the type of events like what happened at Alan Wake. Therefore they HAD to explain it or at least offer a substantiate amount of theories and studies about the thing they deal with.
The story in this game is great, not exactly perfect, but such a step up from everything that came before it that left me pleasantly surprised. Jesse is also an extremely charismatic protagonist. They managed to make a character with quirky/joke-y monologues without her sounding like TikTok zoomer BS like most character in this archetype does. Her reactions are mostly believable, and her story as a survivor of another event much like the one that happens in Alan Wake is intriguing.
Gameplay is also a massive improvement, and it also only falls short of perfection by little. The main problem with Control's combat is Remedy's insistence of making enemies be bullet sponges while dealing ridiculously high amounts of damage to the player. This coupled with a bad health pickup system makes combat sometimes infuriating when it should be awesome. The accessibility options that come with the Ultimate edition do offer a damage resistance option and I feel like the endgame pratically demands that setting to be turned on if you don't want to cheese the health gate mechanic like the Borderlands series.
All in all, this is a really great game, with only minor shortcomings preventing it to be a true masterpiece. It's my favorite Remedy game so far (and yes, that includes AW2).
Well, joke's on me because this game is nothing short of amazing. First, the story. They aren't bound the Stephen King precepts of "horror stories can't have explanations" and so they actually do try writing a cohesive supernatural story. The FBC is an organization meant to detect, contain and study the type of events like what happened at Alan Wake. Therefore they HAD to explain it or at least offer a substantiate amount of theories and studies about the thing they deal with.
The story in this game is great, not exactly perfect, but such a step up from everything that came before it that left me pleasantly surprised. Jesse is also an extremely charismatic protagonist. They managed to make a character with quirky/joke-y monologues without her sounding like TikTok zoomer BS like most character in this archetype does. Her reactions are mostly believable, and her story as a survivor of another event much like the one that happens in Alan Wake is intriguing.
Gameplay is also a massive improvement, and it also only falls short of perfection by little. The main problem with Control's combat is Remedy's insistence of making enemies be bullet sponges while dealing ridiculously high amounts of damage to the player. This coupled with a bad health pickup system makes combat sometimes infuriating when it should be awesome. The accessibility options that come with the Ultimate edition do offer a damage resistance option and I feel like the endgame pratically demands that setting to be turned on if you don't want to cheese the health gate mechanic like the Borderlands series.
All in all, this is a really great game, with only minor shortcomings preventing it to be a true masterpiece. It's my favorite Remedy game so far (and yes, that includes AW2).
It's decent, but sometimes far too inconvenient. Like, everything in this game is painfully slow. The menu, the animations, the prompts, buying packs, opening packs...
You pretty much HAVE to be playing the PC version and put Cheat Engine's speedhack to 50 to play it like a normal game. And then it's pretty fun... Until you start buying packs. Then there is no speedhack that improves this slog because not only it's really, really slow and the thing drops duplicates for some reason... I mean more than three copies. And no, you don't get to sell or trade them. They just do into the Bowels of the Cards because you can't have more than three copies in your deck at any time and the game refuses to do anything with these extras. Can't craft cards, can't sell cards, can't trade cards, just press Enter 4 times in a certain rhythm until you finally get the last 3 cards a particular pack is missing... It's maddening.
Also, this thing should be considered an documentary because it perfectly explains the slow powercreep you feel with each campaign. By the time you reach Link Summons even the game breaks and the computer takes upwards of 3 minutes to think of its play and 2 more to execute all the looping Link summons
...it's fun outside of those cases though. It's just that it's REALLY annoying when you have to deal with all this bs. lol
You pretty much HAVE to be playing the PC version and put Cheat Engine's speedhack to 50 to play it like a normal game. And then it's pretty fun... Until you start buying packs. Then there is no speedhack that improves this slog because not only it's really, really slow and the thing drops duplicates for some reason... I mean more than three copies. And no, you don't get to sell or trade them. They just do into the Bowels of the Cards because you can't have more than three copies in your deck at any time and the game refuses to do anything with these extras. Can't craft cards, can't sell cards, can't trade cards, just press Enter 4 times in a certain rhythm until you finally get the last 3 cards a particular pack is missing... It's maddening.
Also, this thing should be considered an documentary because it perfectly explains the slow powercreep you feel with each campaign. By the time you reach Link Summons even the game breaks and the computer takes upwards of 3 minutes to think of its play and 2 more to execute all the looping Link summons
...it's fun outside of those cases though. It's just that it's REALLY annoying when you have to deal with all this bs. lol
2022
Decent enough visual novel, but sadly still bound by certain constraints of illusion of choice. Reading a murder mystery is fun because you can guess at the culprit and just enjoy the ride. A game could very well allow you to solve it, but instead Pentiment requires you to hit certain beats and doesn't always account for the players choices going forward. Good game, but not groundbreaking.
2018
A decent-ish story and good art direction can't entirely overcome the shortcomings of poor mobility, bad boss design, and overall bland gameplay. It's as average as an average metroidvania gets. Not too horrible that you'll drop in boredom yet no great reward for sticking with it through the end either.
2010
I'm only reviewing this now, but this has been my perception of the game since release:
An absolutely godawful gameplay is barely held together by an interesting narrative in a not-so-interesting plot. I always found this game massively overhyped, but honestly, kudos to Remedy for making it work with successive titles.
An absolutely godawful gameplay is barely held together by an interesting narrative in a not-so-interesting plot. I always found this game massively overhyped, but honestly, kudos to Remedy for making it work with successive titles.
2023
One of, if not the, best movement I've ever seen in a 3D platformer. Game has slight issues with combat and doesn't have much of a story, but the gameplay is just that good that carries the entire experience. A masterclass in OG game design. You don't need a lot of buttons or a lot of mechanics, you just need a system with high enough skill ceiling and a great level design to put it to test.
2022
Great game marred by an underwhelming ending. It's not Backbone levels of bad where it'll make you hate every minute you spent playing it, but it's nowhere near the same level of quality as the rest of the game is. Fun narrative game. Could've been among the best, but falls short of meeting expectations.
The game also fails to use non-linear narrative to its fullest. You're actually railroaded into certain events and it's not like 999 where the true ending is locked behind seeing another bad ending. There's only 1 time throughout the entire game where you actually get to choose between branching path A or B. Most of the times, you only got 1 choice.
The game also fails to use non-linear narrative to its fullest. You're actually railroaded into certain events and it's not like 999 where the true ending is locked behind seeing another bad ending. There's only 1 time throughout the entire game where you actually get to choose between branching path A or B. Most of the times, you only got 1 choice.