Reniachii
2017
I feel like Hollow Knight is one of those games that are not great until mid-late game.
Don't get me wrong, the game is amazing, but I remember on my first playthrough that I was very frustrated at the basic moveset. Lack of coyote timing, no double jump, and for some reason I also did not use powers. It wasn't until I beated it with 112% that I realized how much I enjoyed the game, how unique everything was.
I think my turning point was after getting the mantis claw and being able to do walljump because it really felt like an upgrade.
The bosses are really great, the atmosphere, dialogues and everything about it is so good and the more I replay this game, the more I love it. Last time I played it with a coop mod with my girlfriend and it was really fun to map out areas that I wanted her to check. I assume playing coop on your first playthrough with your friend and be like "hey, we have these places to check, want to go there?" will make the experience more enjoyable
Don't get me wrong, the game is amazing, but I remember on my first playthrough that I was very frustrated at the basic moveset. Lack of coyote timing, no double jump, and for some reason I also did not use powers. It wasn't until I beated it with 112% that I realized how much I enjoyed the game, how unique everything was.
I think my turning point was after getting the mantis claw and being able to do walljump because it really felt like an upgrade.
The bosses are really great, the atmosphere, dialogues and everything about it is so good and the more I replay this game, the more I love it. Last time I played it with a coop mod with my girlfriend and it was really fun to map out areas that I wanted her to check. I assume playing coop on your first playthrough with your friend and be like "hey, we have these places to check, want to go there?" will make the experience more enjoyable
The execution is questionable, the story is a disorganized mess and not much happens in the narrative -- and that is the point.
When I first finished Serial Experiments Lain for the Playstation, I felt... wrong? uneasy? mainly because the game does have an ending but not scrolling credits after finishing it. For a long time I felt like it was an experience but nothing too crazy.
So, why am I giving it a 5 star?
It has been 3 years since I finished this game and I still haven't forgotten about it. Hell, everytime I see fanart of Lain I get quite afraid because she makes a hypothesis inside the game, but it's proven to be true outside of it and that's what makes it scary. The fact that she owns a place on backloggd, the fact that she receives fanarts decades after her appearence...
this game lets you see Lain's life in a very deep and close way which is partly why everything is so haunting after you're done with it.
When I first finished Serial Experiments Lain for the Playstation, I felt... wrong? uneasy? mainly because the game does have an ending but not scrolling credits after finishing it. For a long time I felt like it was an experience but nothing too crazy.
So, why am I giving it a 5 star?
It has been 3 years since I finished this game and I still haven't forgotten about it. Hell, everytime I see fanart of Lain I get quite afraid because she makes a hypothesis inside the game, but it's proven to be true outside of it and that's what makes it scary. The fact that she owns a place on backloggd, the fact that she receives fanarts decades after her appearence...
this game lets you see Lain's life in a very deep and close way which is partly why everything is so haunting after you're done with it.
2022
I have always wanted to like Animal Crossing and farm games, but they don't feel good to me, mainly because I see them as "relaxing games" rather than "fun" games.
Cult of the Lamb is mainly a roguelike, but you have this side content (that is needed to progress and stay alive) of village/farm sim after runs and it works so god damn well, mainly because people tend to go fast at roguelikes and die for stupid reasons and then they feel stupid because they don't have the need to go fast, but sometimes you just want to play a run while you wait for your resources to process, or a cooldown to finish and that's when you start speedrunning and with a purpose. Hell, when you win or lose that 5 min run, you know you're gonna have something new to play with in the farm sim, which helps to relax and cool down and think about strategies while you do all these things. It's really cool! what's cooler is that you can later use your villagers as "resources" to become more and more powerful, making this part of the content very helpful if you're having troubles with it.
The combat is quite simple but it can get complicated if you desire. You have melee weapons, relics and the powers but tbh you can just use melee weapons or only powers if you want. The game incentivizes all kinds of playstyles and I find that really cool.
Cult of the Lamb is mainly a roguelike, but you have this side content (that is needed to progress and stay alive) of village/farm sim after runs and it works so god damn well, mainly because people tend to go fast at roguelikes and die for stupid reasons and then they feel stupid because they don't have the need to go fast, but sometimes you just want to play a run while you wait for your resources to process, or a cooldown to finish and that's when you start speedrunning and with a purpose. Hell, when you win or lose that 5 min run, you know you're gonna have something new to play with in the farm sim, which helps to relax and cool down and think about strategies while you do all these things. It's really cool! what's cooler is that you can later use your villagers as "resources" to become more and more powerful, making this part of the content very helpful if you're having troubles with it.
The combat is quite simple but it can get complicated if you desire. You have melee weapons, relics and the powers but tbh you can just use melee weapons or only powers if you want. The game incentivizes all kinds of playstyles and I find that really cool.
2019
One of my biggest problems with roguelikes is how much they focus on making the game harder and harder with modifiers and subsequent playthroughs instead of giving you more options. Streets of Rogue's difficulty comes out of your problem solving skills, knowledge of the game and intelligence (sometimes as a stat too!)
There's like 100 ways to do a single objective and every character has their own quirks and abilities that can help you (or hinder!) your ability to progress. Every NPC also has a role; for example if you hit a drug dealer, they will inject a random drug. It could be strenght, always crit, speed, invisibility, invincibility!!!--- or cyanide. and they instantly die because they used the wrong drug.
sometimes you're trying to threaten someone, you fail the check and they hit you but the cops saw that so they're hitting him but when trying to defend yourself you accidentally shoot a cop so now they're after you and while you're running a random thief steals your healing items so now you're running from the police while chasing the thief that is running from you, dodging bullets, making people even angrier, and the fact that all this chaos can happen to you or a friend in coop in every run is incredible.
I adore this game, legit one of my favorite games from all time and the OST is such a banger omfg
There's like 100 ways to do a single objective and every character has their own quirks and abilities that can help you (or hinder!) your ability to progress. Every NPC also has a role; for example if you hit a drug dealer, they will inject a random drug. It could be strenght, always crit, speed, invisibility, invincibility!!!--- or cyanide. and they instantly die because they used the wrong drug.
sometimes you're trying to threaten someone, you fail the check and they hit you but the cops saw that so they're hitting him but when trying to defend yourself you accidentally shoot a cop so now they're after you and while you're running a random thief steals your healing items so now you're running from the police while chasing the thief that is running from you, dodging bullets, making people even angrier, and the fact that all this chaos can happen to you or a friend in coop in every run is incredible.
I adore this game, legit one of my favorite games from all time and the OST is such a banger omfg
2007
It's a product of its time. The story is simple with a simple plot twist, but I'm kind of glad because that simplicity helped me to not be overwhelmed with all the alien races and species. The story, despite being simple it's not bad and I did not hope for more. It's the first game in the series and it's a good stepping stone. If it was by itself.. I don't think I would of have disliked it, but I don't think I would love it either.
2004
In my opinion a downgrade from the original half life in terms of level and game design, but nonetheless a based asf game
1994
King's Field was an adventure from start to finish as far as pre-game play is concerned (I don't mean that as a bad thing btw, quite the opposite lol).
The first King's Field (this one) came out only for japan, while in USA only the second one came out, under the name of the first one which led to any online search about this game a terrible confusion, since it was not only a game from 25 years ago, but also a game only available in japan with a fanmade translation. In-game, the map is pretty useless and the items don't tell you the stats and don't even have a description, but at the same time you can sell key items without wanting to -- yeah.
Basically, my solution was to find a kings field page that no longer exists since 2002 but thanks to the wayback machine I could see the stats of each item and what they did.
On that page, I rescued another link to another page that died in 2011 that had hand drawn maps with crayons about the game. These maps were made in 2004 and legit were a lifesaver lmao.
But well, leaving all that aside and getting into the gameplay..................... yeah...................... I... liked it.
like, it wasn't an experience I wanted to shoot myself-- but the fact that doing a 360 turn takes 8 seconds (translating to 4 to do a 180) really wasn't a pleasant experience. Lucky for me, I'm on an emulator, and not only did I exploit the save states like never before, but I also set the game to 1.7 speed so it doesn't fuck me up as much. Also, there's nothing I hate more than the ps1 gamepad fr what a nefarious thing lmao but that's not the game's fault, it's the fault of the console from when I was a kid.................
The story was a pleasant surprise since for some reason I always assume that old games don't have plot-twists and that their writing is outdated, but it really wasn't like that? like it's a super mega simple story but with a plot twist and flavor.
I liked it a lot but god what a disgusting final bossfight and what a terrible level design, even more because everything has similar textures so you get lost easily because there is no decoration or anything that you can say "aah ok, I'm here".
imo good game but it's not the place I would recommend to start playing King's Field.
The first King's Field (this one) came out only for japan, while in USA only the second one came out, under the name of the first one which led to any online search about this game a terrible confusion, since it was not only a game from 25 years ago, but also a game only available in japan with a fanmade translation. In-game, the map is pretty useless and the items don't tell you the stats and don't even have a description, but at the same time you can sell key items without wanting to -- yeah.
Basically, my solution was to find a kings field page that no longer exists since 2002 but thanks to the wayback machine I could see the stats of each item and what they did.
On that page, I rescued another link to another page that died in 2011 that had hand drawn maps with crayons about the game. These maps were made in 2004 and legit were a lifesaver lmao.
But well, leaving all that aside and getting into the gameplay..................... yeah...................... I... liked it.
like, it wasn't an experience I wanted to shoot myself-- but the fact that doing a 360 turn takes 8 seconds (translating to 4 to do a 180) really wasn't a pleasant experience. Lucky for me, I'm on an emulator, and not only did I exploit the save states like never before, but I also set the game to 1.7 speed so it doesn't fuck me up as much. Also, there's nothing I hate more than the ps1 gamepad fr what a nefarious thing lmao but that's not the game's fault, it's the fault of the console from when I was a kid.................
The story was a pleasant surprise since for some reason I always assume that old games don't have plot-twists and that their writing is outdated, but it really wasn't like that? like it's a super mega simple story but with a plot twist and flavor.
I liked it a lot but god what a disgusting final bossfight and what a terrible level design, even more because everything has similar textures so you get lost easily because there is no decoration or anything that you can say "aah ok, I'm here".
imo good game but it's not the place I would recommend to start playing King's Field.
2019
I really appreciate the worldbuilding and storytelling that the game has. The mechanics of a tactical platformer are very well thought and while the DLCs (specially ghost of the babe) are kind of mean, I enjoyed 100%ing this game from start to finish. Hell, it quickly became one of my favorites.
1995
An unbalanced mess. However -- it's a fun one and quite engaging.
King's Field II is a complete improvement on the first game, improving camera speed, movement, more songs and a freer map design, but the problem is that King's Field has such a connected world that you can go from the beginning to the endgame zone in 30 minutes easily. Obviously the enemies will destroy you since they also have ranged attacks, but it's really worth the risk since the gear endgame literally makes you almost invincible wtf like there is a helmet that regenerates hp, another armor that gives you mana + another ring that gives hp, and they are quite visible, you just have to have the right key which is not that hard to get since you can buy it easily. The problem is that there are like 7 different keys and you have to open menu --> select menu --> select item with EVERY key and on top of that there's an incredible input delay lol
Another thing that really pissed me off is that you can easily get softlocked if you don't know how certain mechanics work that are never explained to you, and the main path is blocked by diamond keys that can be used infinitely--only in the direction you opened the door. This is on purpose, to create one-way trips that you can't get out unless you have another key or use an item to teleport, if you even understood the mechanics lol
The combat felt much more clunky than before but in a way it also improved... I don't know how to explain it.
While I'm more of a fan of the previous level design, concentrated on different floors instead of everything being connected, Fromsoftware really stepped out of their comfort zone with the second game and tried lots and lots of new things and I'm glad about that.
EDIT: I forgot to talk about the story! And I really liked that it was darker and better told than the first game :--) I also like that you can more or less imagine what's going to happen in the third game, really well crafted everything.
King's Field II is a complete improvement on the first game, improving camera speed, movement, more songs and a freer map design, but the problem is that King's Field has such a connected world that you can go from the beginning to the endgame zone in 30 minutes easily. Obviously the enemies will destroy you since they also have ranged attacks, but it's really worth the risk since the gear endgame literally makes you almost invincible wtf like there is a helmet that regenerates hp, another armor that gives you mana + another ring that gives hp, and they are quite visible, you just have to have the right key which is not that hard to get since you can buy it easily. The problem is that there are like 7 different keys and you have to open menu --> select menu --> select item with EVERY key and on top of that there's an incredible input delay lol
Another thing that really pissed me off is that you can easily get softlocked if you don't know how certain mechanics work that are never explained to you, and the main path is blocked by diamond keys that can be used infinitely--only in the direction you opened the door. This is on purpose, to create one-way trips that you can't get out unless you have another key or use an item to teleport, if you even understood the mechanics lol
The combat felt much more clunky than before but in a way it also improved... I don't know how to explain it.
While I'm more of a fan of the previous level design, concentrated on different floors instead of everything being connected, Fromsoftware really stepped out of their comfort zone with the second game and tried lots and lots of new things and I'm glad about that.
EDIT: I forgot to talk about the story! And I really liked that it was darker and better told than the first game :--) I also like that you can more or less imagine what's going to happen in the third game, really well crafted everything.
1996
This review contains spoilers
With KFIII, the Verdite kingdom trilogy comes to an end and hooly shit, it's amazing how good the story is in each game.
While in the previous game you would discover that the moonlight sword from the first game was made to revive one of the dragons who basically have the roles of demi-gods, in this one, the first game's protagonist goes insane and it's the second game's protagonist who gives his life to seal the castle with him inside, leaving the son of the first game's protagonist to fight his old man which wouldn't carry as much weight if it weren't for the fact that you literally played as each of these characters, and at the same time it's ironic since your old man in this game basically had a similar mission in the first game. Still, it's a bummer that it's more stilted than Dark Souls because unlike DS, King's Field has nothing but the main theme. While in Dark Souls if they tell you about a cult, you can also find out what they did in that cult, read stories about it and so on, here it's just reading items to know the existence of the cult and say "oh wow, this bug was created by this wizard" which is lowkey leatdown because they don't end up taking advantage of a story that is already very rich, but to be honest, all the old games were like that and it wasn't until Dark Souls came along that people started to worry about filling in the parts of the story where everything felt half empty, because before games were bought mostly for the gameplay because they didn't make the jump between arcades and home consoles very well.
And while we're here, I wanted to take advantage and talk about the gameplay since for me it's like peak King's Field since I don't like dungeon crawlers and the level design of this game is not as confusing and labyrinthine as the first two, which I understand that King's Field fans don't like, since it's a step-down of the first two, but in my case it's what made me enjoy it more. The third game basically takes place on the outskirts of Verdite Castle, not on another island or inside the cemetery, but in the surrounding villages, forests, etc. and it really felt refreshing to me. The textures and mapping also has a lot of things, it's no longer flat-ground flat walls like in the first two (especially the first one), there's more variation and it's harder to get lost, which made the experience much better.
The combat is still the same as in the first two games, with some slight improvement, I mean basically you have to turn around the enemies and use all your money on drugs and I found it super funny because while in the other two games the final bosses are terrible in the sense that they do too much damage, here they literally give you a spell that gives you godmode for like 5 minutes at the cost of nothing lmfao but yeah, I don't know, I really liked that at one point you go to the graveyard of the first game and you're like "yoooo", and especially seeing the appearance of the protagonists of all the King's Field
While in the previous game you would discover that the moonlight sword from the first game was made to revive one of the dragons who basically have the roles of demi-gods, in this one, the first game's protagonist goes insane and it's the second game's protagonist who gives his life to seal the castle with him inside, leaving the son of the first game's protagonist to fight his old man which wouldn't carry as much weight if it weren't for the fact that you literally played as each of these characters, and at the same time it's ironic since your old man in this game basically had a similar mission in the first game. Still, it's a bummer that it's more stilted than Dark Souls because unlike DS, King's Field has nothing but the main theme. While in Dark Souls if they tell you about a cult, you can also find out what they did in that cult, read stories about it and so on, here it's just reading items to know the existence of the cult and say "oh wow, this bug was created by this wizard" which is lowkey leatdown because they don't end up taking advantage of a story that is already very rich, but to be honest, all the old games were like that and it wasn't until Dark Souls came along that people started to worry about filling in the parts of the story where everything felt half empty, because before games were bought mostly for the gameplay because they didn't make the jump between arcades and home consoles very well.
And while we're here, I wanted to take advantage and talk about the gameplay since for me it's like peak King's Field since I don't like dungeon crawlers and the level design of this game is not as confusing and labyrinthine as the first two, which I understand that King's Field fans don't like, since it's a step-down of the first two, but in my case it's what made me enjoy it more. The third game basically takes place on the outskirts of Verdite Castle, not on another island or inside the cemetery, but in the surrounding villages, forests, etc. and it really felt refreshing to me. The textures and mapping also has a lot of things, it's no longer flat-ground flat walls like in the first two (especially the first one), there's more variation and it's harder to get lost, which made the experience much better.
The combat is still the same as in the first two games, with some slight improvement, I mean basically you have to turn around the enemies and use all your money on drugs and I found it super funny because while in the other two games the final bosses are terrible in the sense that they do too much damage, here they literally give you a spell that gives you godmode for like 5 minutes at the cost of nothing lmfao but yeah, I don't know, I really liked that at one point you go to the graveyard of the first game and you're like "yoooo", and especially seeing the appearance of the protagonists of all the King's Field
2019
Artemy Burakh Route (cuz the other two ain't released yet)
The first Pathologic was an experience I had never lived before and after finishing it I was left wanting more, wanting to be able to play it as if it was the first time. Lucky for me; Pathologic 2 exists.
Pathologic 2 is the same situation and characters of the first game but "re-written". Like someone who brings out a book and revises it 10 years later, basically but more extreme since they changed almost all the mechanics and absolutely all the problems I had with the first installment were fixed (even the ones I didn't think were problems until I played Pathologic 2). The story is super improved in every way. Translation, dialogue, quests... when I say "everything" I mean everything. That I played all three routes of the first game and still got new information with this one was a pleasant surprise.
Oh right, I forgot to mention that while Pathologic 1 has 3 routes (aka three playable characters), Pathologic 2 (at the time of the review) only has one, with the second story just around the corner, and being as it took me 60 hours to do the first route without getting bored it's a great achievement since the first installment was 24 hours of gameplay per character + what you take to read and being that you couldn't run and the map was big.... yeah... it wasn't a fun experience (gameplay wise). Now in Pathologic 2 the map is smaller, you move faster, the combat is more interesting, the trading with the npcs is more interesting and above all the new plot twists and ways in which they tell things are MUCH more interesting.
If it's your first time playing Pathologic, I 100% recommend starting with this one and only play the first game if you really feel like it (no shame on using console commands!) but in the meantime, I can't wait for the game to be complete as the stories of all the characters offer a different point of view with different opinions, making the world of Pathologic richer in narrative. Highly recommended.
The first Pathologic was an experience I had never lived before and after finishing it I was left wanting more, wanting to be able to play it as if it was the first time. Lucky for me; Pathologic 2 exists.
Pathologic 2 is the same situation and characters of the first game but "re-written". Like someone who brings out a book and revises it 10 years later, basically but more extreme since they changed almost all the mechanics and absolutely all the problems I had with the first installment were fixed (even the ones I didn't think were problems until I played Pathologic 2). The story is super improved in every way. Translation, dialogue, quests... when I say "everything" I mean everything. That I played all three routes of the first game and still got new information with this one was a pleasant surprise.
Oh right, I forgot to mention that while Pathologic 1 has 3 routes (aka three playable characters), Pathologic 2 (at the time of the review) only has one, with the second story just around the corner, and being as it took me 60 hours to do the first route without getting bored it's a great achievement since the first installment was 24 hours of gameplay per character + what you take to read and being that you couldn't run and the map was big.... yeah... it wasn't a fun experience (gameplay wise). Now in Pathologic 2 the map is smaller, you move faster, the combat is more interesting, the trading with the npcs is more interesting and above all the new plot twists and ways in which they tell things are MUCH more interesting.
If it's your first time playing Pathologic, I 100% recommend starting with this one and only play the first game if you really feel like it (no shame on using console commands!) but in the meantime, I can't wait for the game to be complete as the stories of all the characters offer a different point of view with different opinions, making the world of Pathologic richer in narrative. Highly recommended.
I'm going to start the review by saying that Automatron is one of the worst story DLCs I've ever played in a video game. Not only did it take me about 1.5 hours to complete (which is little compared to literally every other story dlc in the entire Fallout franchise) but the story sucks. The word "boring" doesn't even begin to describe this DLC for how bad it is. At the beginning it can be entertaining but the bots are damage sponges that take a lot of life and at the end they literally spam you. The story I wanted to end it as peaceful as possible but if you want to do that you have to eat enemy spam for 5 minutes with default music from the game. The layout of the areas in general are boring, recycled and cheap and worse to navigate than the vaults.
Where this dlc does work is with the settlements as you can create bots and then use them under your power to work for you--when that's pretty much what the dlc story talks about and says it's bad?? idk
oh right, it also brings a new faction that I wish they didn't exist for me. Truly atrocious.
Where this dlc does work is with the settlements as you can create bots and then use them under your power to work for you--when that's pretty much what the dlc story talks about and says it's bad?? idk
oh right, it also brings a new faction that I wish they didn't exist for me. Truly atrocious.
2021
This review contains spoilers
I usually tell myself that playing something new with low expectations is usually the best thing to do because it gives rise to new surprises. Many times it has happened to me that I play a pretty bad title and the successor ends up fixing all my problems but unfortunately this didn't happen with Solar Ash.
Hyper Light Drifter, a game from the same creator, is a game that never managed to hook me but manages to be pretty solid. One of my complaints I always had with Hyper Light was that it has no dialogue, only drawings and the only understandable text is in a made up language. Apparently this complaint was quite popular so Solar Ash has a story with written dialogues, and it is here where my biggest problem comes and it is that the main character is not mute in fact she never shuts up and her dialogues are disgustingly repetitive, obvious and unnecessary, making her at the same level as an average marvel protagonist and the npcs also do theirs, they barely take into account what the main character says, only that she is forced to speak after each text box and it is horrible because it takes away the seriousness of the whole game.
A specific case is where there is a kitty who has been looking for her husband for years and doesn't know where he is and the plot twist is that the husband is dead and she has dementia thanks to the effects of the bugs that affect the atmosphere and cause interferences (yeah ok). The thing is that the chick at the end when she realizes it says something like "uuuh yeah.. he's gone uuu" and the main character responds with things like "aww" "poor thing!" "I'm so sorry for you" EVERY SINGLE TIME AND IT'S LIKE HNNGNHN LET HER VENT and it's worse when it happens with important parts like the main story that legit are pure quotes that they saw and said omggg
the foreshadowing and plot twist is super useless too and it's that kind of games that try to be deep and say "noo you are in a shitty world where all your family is dead" but then the main character says things like "wooo this is fun xD !!!!" that break the whole mood like i don't know why you would make a sad story about how accepting the truth hurts but is necessary to not suffer anymore (shitty message btw, totally lacking of empathy) if what is shown in the gameplay is nothing to do
the mechanics and gameplay are fine but they take you too much by the hand when they don't have to and let you free when you need help the most like why the fuck would you move the camera and activate the mechanics I intentionally try not to use mid-bossfight like ???? and it wouldn't be such a problem if bossfights were not timed
The combat is completely unnecessary and boring. I get it with the bosses and the process of waking them up, but putting enemies in for the sake of it is just annoying because most of the time you'll be fine just running from them because they're not a major threat either, it's just that they inflict contact damage like it's the NES.
The movement and level design is super restricted, riddled with invisible walls and places that conveniently have no collision, which becomes incredibly annoying when you try to find the collectibles as the layout of the maps is like a cross + there are 4 directions and the center and it's a constant loop of go to the end point --> go back to the center --> go to another end point and it sucks because the levels, to make the illusion that they are bigger, they change the gravity and camera so you end up walking on the ceilings or walls which while cool, it's not intuitive because the game doesn't have walljump either. I got through it in 6 hours at 98%, 2 and a half hours I'm SURE was because I got stuck because I didn't know the way. While you can press Q to know where to go, it only shows you where your target is, not the entrance. It's like those times where A Hat In Time shows you exactly where the timepiece is instead of the entrance to the place and it becomes an odyssey to try to figure out how to get there, but A Hat In Time has interesting things along the way while Solar Rush has nothing interesting and because of the invisible walls it encourages you to explore at all.
On top of that the collectibles and side quests are probably the worst. Nothing interesting and predictable from the beginning. There are 3 npcs and 4 or 5 log entries from different people. All the characters in the encrypted and semi-destroyed logs, surprisingly are dead and the game doesn't try to hide it from you as many times you grab the loot caches in different order so you end up getting the final one first and then all the others only to realize they don't matter much either as it all boils down to entry 1: "hi I'm [name] I investigate this thing you know it's bad" and the final entry is "uuhhhgh the bad thing killed me.... "which wouldn't be a problem except that they literally don't contribute anything since they don't tell you what they discovered or anything to give you an idea of how dangerous it is, they just say "uuu bad thing scares me bad thing is near uu bad thing gg" DURING 5 AREAS the side quests are just as predictable, "omg this place was destroyed over 200 years ago however I'm still looking for my husband who I saw lately was here" or "hello I belong to a cult and I spend my time praying. What is my ending? well I keep praying lol".
Ngl, after all this I appreciate that Hyperlight has the story told only in pictures because it makes the experience more personal and creates a whole experience based on what you understood, while here they keep bombarding you with how you have to feel when you don't really care because they all say exactly the same thing and you don't need to read more than a minute to realize that you won't miss anything if you skim it and I'll post several screenshots in the comments so you can see what I mean.
Overall, an experience that looks like a gamejam. A game where the strongest is supposed to be the game design is exactly the place where it is weakest.
Hyper Light Drifter, a game from the same creator, is a game that never managed to hook me but manages to be pretty solid. One of my complaints I always had with Hyper Light was that it has no dialogue, only drawings and the only understandable text is in a made up language. Apparently this complaint was quite popular so Solar Ash has a story with written dialogues, and it is here where my biggest problem comes and it is that the main character is not mute in fact she never shuts up and her dialogues are disgustingly repetitive, obvious and unnecessary, making her at the same level as an average marvel protagonist and the npcs also do theirs, they barely take into account what the main character says, only that she is forced to speak after each text box and it is horrible because it takes away the seriousness of the whole game.
A specific case is where there is a kitty who has been looking for her husband for years and doesn't know where he is and the plot twist is that the husband is dead and she has dementia thanks to the effects of the bugs that affect the atmosphere and cause interferences (yeah ok). The thing is that the chick at the end when she realizes it says something like "uuuh yeah.. he's gone uuu" and the main character responds with things like "aww" "poor thing!" "I'm so sorry for you" EVERY SINGLE TIME AND IT'S LIKE HNNGNHN LET HER VENT and it's worse when it happens with important parts like the main story that legit are pure quotes that they saw and said omggg
the foreshadowing and plot twist is super useless too and it's that kind of games that try to be deep and say "noo you are in a shitty world where all your family is dead" but then the main character says things like "wooo this is fun xD !!!!" that break the whole mood like i don't know why you would make a sad story about how accepting the truth hurts but is necessary to not suffer anymore (shitty message btw, totally lacking of empathy) if what is shown in the gameplay is nothing to do
the mechanics and gameplay are fine but they take you too much by the hand when they don't have to and let you free when you need help the most like why the fuck would you move the camera and activate the mechanics I intentionally try not to use mid-bossfight like ???? and it wouldn't be such a problem if bossfights were not timed
The combat is completely unnecessary and boring. I get it with the bosses and the process of waking them up, but putting enemies in for the sake of it is just annoying because most of the time you'll be fine just running from them because they're not a major threat either, it's just that they inflict contact damage like it's the NES.
The movement and level design is super restricted, riddled with invisible walls and places that conveniently have no collision, which becomes incredibly annoying when you try to find the collectibles as the layout of the maps is like a cross + there are 4 directions and the center and it's a constant loop of go to the end point --> go back to the center --> go to another end point and it sucks because the levels, to make the illusion that they are bigger, they change the gravity and camera so you end up walking on the ceilings or walls which while cool, it's not intuitive because the game doesn't have walljump either. I got through it in 6 hours at 98%, 2 and a half hours I'm SURE was because I got stuck because I didn't know the way. While you can press Q to know where to go, it only shows you where your target is, not the entrance. It's like those times where A Hat In Time shows you exactly where the timepiece is instead of the entrance to the place and it becomes an odyssey to try to figure out how to get there, but A Hat In Time has interesting things along the way while Solar Rush has nothing interesting and because of the invisible walls it encourages you to explore at all.
On top of that the collectibles and side quests are probably the worst. Nothing interesting and predictable from the beginning. There are 3 npcs and 4 or 5 log entries from different people. All the characters in the encrypted and semi-destroyed logs, surprisingly are dead and the game doesn't try to hide it from you as many times you grab the loot caches in different order so you end up getting the final one first and then all the others only to realize they don't matter much either as it all boils down to entry 1: "hi I'm [name] I investigate this thing you know it's bad" and the final entry is "uuhhhgh the bad thing killed me.... "which wouldn't be a problem except that they literally don't contribute anything since they don't tell you what they discovered or anything to give you an idea of how dangerous it is, they just say "uuu bad thing scares me bad thing is near uu bad thing gg" DURING 5 AREAS the side quests are just as predictable, "omg this place was destroyed over 200 years ago however I'm still looking for my husband who I saw lately was here" or "hello I belong to a cult and I spend my time praying. What is my ending? well I keep praying lol".
Ngl, after all this I appreciate that Hyperlight has the story told only in pictures because it makes the experience more personal and creates a whole experience based on what you understood, while here they keep bombarding you with how you have to feel when you don't really care because they all say exactly the same thing and you don't need to read more than a minute to realize that you won't miss anything if you skim it and I'll post several screenshots in the comments so you can see what I mean.
Overall, an experience that looks like a gamejam. A game where the strongest is supposed to be the game design is exactly the place where it is weakest.
2002
I'm going to cut to the chase; the game is pretty "meh" to good.
I hate with all my life that they give you so little ammo for so many fucking enemies.
Like, I understand the joke is to dodge the zombies, but it's horrible because there are times when you get 3 in the same room and not only do they have an absurd amount of HP (almost a whole loader per zombie), but on top of that they can respawn stronger if you don't burn them or if you don't kill them. Sure, I don't mind, but add to that the fact that you can only burn a small amount of them, plus the fact that you need to take up two inventory slots to do so and that they have charges on top of that.
RE1 is literally CBT for inventory management, because in the hypothetical case that you have the inventory full of non-consumable items, you're screwed because you can't throw anything away. I was trying to collect all the items in the first playthrough, and it was a pain to have to backtrack for 7 minutes just because I had to empty the inventory, because not only you have to have the key items/healing in the inv, but also the weapons and ammo, and when you get 4 key items in a single puzzle, so you bring another 4 because you didn't know when you were going to use them + weapon and ammo just in case, and the other character has even less slots and it's like wtf why would you do that?
I understand that it's part of the "fun" of the game, but maybe I would appreciate it more if there were more melee weapons, because the little knife is a pain in the ass.
not only it doesn't do any damage, but you have to be really close to a zombie to hit it, almost as if you were doing a parry and to make it worse, zombies attack faster than your reaction speed and turn 360 to hit you, so backstabs are not a viable strategy either.
In the end you are forced to use a crappy weapon because otherwise you have no slots, but it doesn't make much difference because firearms are worse than the knife, but safer so it becomes a chain of dodging enemies and cheesing everything that can be cheesed.
Also, all this while passing through 90 thousand giant corridors (but narrow, obviously) with 80 million locked doors so good luck knowing which key opens which door. To make it even worse, I was using a mod to "fix" some bug in the game, but in reality what that shitty mod did was to give me a chance of crashing the game every time I enter a room or load a save file, and as saves are limited, I lost hours of progress because of that shit. Fun stuff
The next time I play resident evil I'm going to use a guide, because I don't feel like constantly shooting myself in the first playthrough.
Something in favor I can give tho, is that the puzzles are more fun than silent hill, but it's absurd that I have gone from 15 hours of playtime to pass it in 2 hours and 20 minutes in the following playtroughs I did to get the achievements
edit: I originally wrote this review a years back, and I now recognize I was mainly frustrated at how unforgiving it is. The rest of the games are better and don't really need a guide, but in short; re1 is a harsh game.
I hate with all my life that they give you so little ammo for so many fucking enemies.
Like, I understand the joke is to dodge the zombies, but it's horrible because there are times when you get 3 in the same room and not only do they have an absurd amount of HP (almost a whole loader per zombie), but on top of that they can respawn stronger if you don't burn them or if you don't kill them. Sure, I don't mind, but add to that the fact that you can only burn a small amount of them, plus the fact that you need to take up two inventory slots to do so and that they have charges on top of that.
RE1 is literally CBT for inventory management, because in the hypothetical case that you have the inventory full of non-consumable items, you're screwed because you can't throw anything away. I was trying to collect all the items in the first playthrough, and it was a pain to have to backtrack for 7 minutes just because I had to empty the inventory, because not only you have to have the key items/healing in the inv, but also the weapons and ammo, and when you get 4 key items in a single puzzle, so you bring another 4 because you didn't know when you were going to use them + weapon and ammo just in case, and the other character has even less slots and it's like wtf why would you do that?
I understand that it's part of the "fun" of the game, but maybe I would appreciate it more if there were more melee weapons, because the little knife is a pain in the ass.
not only it doesn't do any damage, but you have to be really close to a zombie to hit it, almost as if you were doing a parry and to make it worse, zombies attack faster than your reaction speed and turn 360 to hit you, so backstabs are not a viable strategy either.
In the end you are forced to use a crappy weapon because otherwise you have no slots, but it doesn't make much difference because firearms are worse than the knife, but safer so it becomes a chain of dodging enemies and cheesing everything that can be cheesed.
Also, all this while passing through 90 thousand giant corridors (but narrow, obviously) with 80 million locked doors so good luck knowing which key opens which door. To make it even worse, I was using a mod to "fix" some bug in the game, but in reality what that shitty mod did was to give me a chance of crashing the game every time I enter a room or load a save file, and as saves are limited, I lost hours of progress because of that shit. Fun stuff
The next time I play resident evil I'm going to use a guide, because I don't feel like constantly shooting myself in the first playthrough.
Something in favor I can give tho, is that the puzzles are more fun than silent hill, but it's absurd that I have gone from 15 hours of playtime to pass it in 2 hours and 20 minutes in the following playtroughs I did to get the achievements
edit: I originally wrote this review a years back, and I now recognize I was mainly frustrated at how unforgiving it is. The rest of the games are better and don't really need a guide, but in short; re1 is a harsh game.
2007
I Wanna Be The Guy Remastered (2020 - Original in 2007)
One of the biggest reasons I stopped playing the first one was because it crashed a lot and your save files got corrupted TOO often, and while there is a tool to fix your save file, it was doing it every 8 minutes which became quite exhausting. The remastered not only fixes this, but also adds several quality of life changes while keeping the essence of the original. You don't know how much I was happy when I saw that there is a button to skip the cinematics before the bosses that used to play EVERY TIME you faced the boss after dying and they lasted about 1 minute. There's still a lot of jank that I understand they didn't fix because lowkey was the joke of the game, but at the same time I'm curious to see what an IWBTG with coyote timing lmao would be like.
I loved that they have put several visual updates, not only in what upscaling is concerned, but directly to put better sprites and even add effects when a bug dies or spawns, something that the original didn't have. Also, this version mimics windows xp so that a certain trick near the end of the game still works lol
Anyways talking about the normal game, the level design is much better than I remembered, the traps are quite fun but if there's something I can't stand are the screens with cycles. For most of them there is a way to manipulate the position, but it's a real pain, those screens and the ones where you have to memorize invisible platforms (looking at you metroid section) like I have no problem when they are few, but when making the room flawless means being inside for 3 minutes, it becomes a problem because it means that the 900 deaths you have, easily become 1 hour being in the same room.
If you have time and want to relive IWBTG at its best, go ahead;
https://natsu-iw.itch.io/iwbtgr
One of the biggest reasons I stopped playing the first one was because it crashed a lot and your save files got corrupted TOO often, and while there is a tool to fix your save file, it was doing it every 8 minutes which became quite exhausting. The remastered not only fixes this, but also adds several quality of life changes while keeping the essence of the original. You don't know how much I was happy when I saw that there is a button to skip the cinematics before the bosses that used to play EVERY TIME you faced the boss after dying and they lasted about 1 minute. There's still a lot of jank that I understand they didn't fix because lowkey was the joke of the game, but at the same time I'm curious to see what an IWBTG with coyote timing lmao would be like.
I loved that they have put several visual updates, not only in what upscaling is concerned, but directly to put better sprites and even add effects when a bug dies or spawns, something that the original didn't have. Also, this version mimics windows xp so that a certain trick near the end of the game still works lol
Anyways talking about the normal game, the level design is much better than I remembered, the traps are quite fun but if there's something I can't stand are the screens with cycles. For most of them there is a way to manipulate the position, but it's a real pain, those screens and the ones where you have to memorize invisible platforms (looking at you metroid section) like I have no problem when they are few, but when making the room flawless means being inside for 3 minutes, it becomes a problem because it means that the 900 deaths you have, easily become 1 hour being in the same room.
If you have time and want to relive IWBTG at its best, go ahead;
https://natsu-iw.itch.io/iwbtgr