Replicant1737
474 Reviews liked by Replicant1737
THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON
I won’t lie, this was a struggle to weigh in how I feel overall. Yakuza: Like A Dragon, from the title alone, made its mission statement loud and clear. This is a mainline entry that represents the transition from seven prior games echoing Kiryu’s legacy to whatever uncharted territory lies ahead of Kasuga and his friends. Like Ichiban Kasuga himself, this game started from rock bottom and fought its way to the top with nothing but grit and beaming determination. I can’t knock down how well this did in winning Kasuga over for me as the new leading protagonist for the series. I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store for him in the future, especially when I get around to Infinite Wealth soon enough.
I’ll start this easy by saying while I don’t consider it to be its equal, the storytelling on display here is genuinely on the caliber of Yakuza 0 in terms of the clean execution of its characters, emotions, and themes. I’m gonna be honest, I was hesitant at first. I thought it spent too long on what’s the first act, ranging around 10 chapters. Which felt like stretching out a conflict that wasn’t too interesting to dwell on. Then I found out there were only 5 chapters left, which surprised me because now I didn't know how we'd finish the rest of the story. I assumed at least 10 more were left from how everything was paced, since I was already aware this was the longest Yakuza/Like A Dragon before Infinite Wealth took that crown. It… still pulled itself together in those remaining chapters, very strongly I’ll add, but not without sudden forced grinding sessions that put an awkward half to the pacing. These are the major culprits for how this gained such a bloated playtime, and I think it only drags the game back since it felt like poor padding that took away from the exciting momentum the story was locking in late-game. There were also ties to the previous entries, some as certain boss fights which made me soyjack the hell out, and made for fun fan service. Although, looking at the current state of Yakuza/Like A Dragon because of this, it may have set a dangerous precedent for RGG’s direction when balancing the old and new. The last stretch definitely pulled everything the game tackles about self-value and connections into this beautiful emotional crescendo that I consider being quintessential to the series. Especially important for understanding what makes Ichiban a character worth getting emotionally invested in. If there was any doubt Ichiban couldn't stand side by side with Kiryu, those last hours shake them all away and prove he's more than worthy to pass the torch.
Moving beyond the main story for a bit, the side content, per usual, is loaded with so many fun distractions to waste away in. They really nailed the mini-games here, especially the newly added ones I spent a significant portion of my playthrough on. I’m pleased to say that the substories are also Yakuza 0 tier, each one feeling memorable, charming, and adding character for Yokohoma to feel like a home for people who had nowhere else to go but rock bottom. Yakuza 7 (to be technical) is refreshing because after experiencing entry after entry where the stakes started escalating when the conspiracy plots only got more complex, where emotional stakes could only get higher as characters experienced more hardships, this took everything back to basics. It’s no stretch to say that Yakuza 7 is pretty much a soft remake of the first Yakuza, with how much the story beats parallel each other. The protagonist sacrifices themselves to be convicted for an extended period. They come back to the world, only to be greeted by how much has changed since they first left it. There’s a mystery they have to uncover by tracking down their fatherly patriarch figure. They’re assisted by an aged, down-on-his-luck police officer and a hostess who plays some relevance to the plot. There’s a shadowy group in town who act as information brokers that have mass surveillance on what’s going on. The main antagonist is both a power-hungry politician who’s been puppeteering everything for his grand selfish gain and the brotherly figure to the main protagonist whose absence led them astray into a path hungering for power to affirm their self-worth. Ichiban even shares the same voice actor as Nishiki, which I feel has to be intentional casting for these parallels to hit harder. None of this feels like a shallow rehash but using familiar beats and tropes to recontexulize Ichiban’s journey and how much he’s similar yet different from Kiryu.
I’ll be frank, this is a hot take I guess? I don’t see many be harsh on this surprisingly. This is not great RPG design. It’s hard for me to be uber critical because I admire RGG quite a bit to understand this was a genuine attempt at stepping out of a 20-year comfort zone into a genre they’ve never fully dabbled in. Yakuza/Like A Dragon always had RPG elements since the beginning. They had random encounters, a leveling system where you increase stats and unlock moves, items you can buy that give you certain buffs in combat, weapons and accessories you can equip, and optional side quests reminiscent of ones you’d find in a Japanese-developed RPG you’ve played before. RPGs unquestionably inspired them, but like I said what they took were just elements. Something brought in to complement a core gameplay style they’ve locked in with for so many games, going through constant refinement and revisions. I wouldn’t call RGG games wholly ‘conventional’, if that makes sense, but with Yakuza 7 it’s clear there was an attempt at making a fully-fledged traditional turn-based RPG. Where they pushed the RPG elements already present in Yakuza/Like A Dragon to the forefront and built upon what was missing by pulling from various well-regarded games in the genre. It’s drawing from Shin Megami Tensei, especially with its subseries Persona, where you have menus as long as your arm, but it all came down to spamming three useful moves that drain MP. The Social Links-- I mean, the Drink Links give that inspiration dead away. It pulls from Final Fantasy V with the job system, but it doesn’t have the experimentation that game offers you freely. I don’t understand the thought process for giving you a handful of jobs that mechanically barely feel unique from each other. Going further, I also think for a game that feels designed to address the criticisms people stigmatized RPGs for, it incorporates archaic choices that first warranted that ire. Final Fantasy V lets you switch jobs and customize from the main menu right away, yet here, you need to travel to this one specific place in a large open map to do that. You can’t introduce a system made for flexible party customization and force players to go through so much backtracking to change it. Now, there’s certainly personality to the combat, I suspect taking inspiration from Mother’s trademark zany realism except with an RGG twist that felt perfect, but there’s so little underneath the hood. There’s no strategy needed to defeat most enemies, partly because it hinges on spamming moves and also because there’s hardly much of a real challenge that pushes you. Until certain boss fights near the latter half, I found everything to be incredibly breezy. I never had to focus on doing some extra grinding, optimizing my party, planning out my attacks, or approaching enemy encounters more carefully. What I found most strange is how they incorporated environmental attacks, where if a party member moves near an object they can pick it up and bash enemies with it. It’s easily the most interesting quirk brought to the table here because RGG is flexing on the Dragon Engine’s collision physics, but you have no control over a party member’s spatial positioning in a battle. It’s an illusion of movement seeing your party members aimlessly roam around, and you have to get lucky they move closeby to an object to do an environmental attack. Because of how they walk around freely on their own, with no input by the player, I encountered so many times when a party member had to run up to an enemy to attack but the pathfinding was so rough they either got stuck running to a wall until they almost magically teleported in front of the enemy or had to awkwardly walk and step over a railing to then switch to an attack animation. I thought it was charming in a jank way, but it became annoying later on because it exposed the weaknesses of a rough design here.
Yakuza 7 became a real test for me. I have my problems with the turn-based design and how the story was paced to fill out an arbitrary requirement to make the game feel ‘big’ because it’s an RPG, I guess. Yet the positives outweighed those staggering negatives, I ended up enjoying this very well, even if it didn’t cross as being one of my favorites of the series. If it wasn’t because RGG games are densely packed with so much content from substories, minigames, and whatever wild distraction you can spend hours on to distract yourself from the main game, this would’ve done even less for me. Like, I don’t blame people for being fine with the combat, it’s fun to watch and does the job serviceably. I think that’s what anyone needs when going into an RPG, but for me, I expected much more from someone who's played the games this is explicitly riffing from and sees a pale imitation. I find this worth criticizing because turn-based is what Yakuza/Like A Dragon is going to be from now on. This is the new foundation for a new protagonist with new stories waiting to be played. I’m not at all opposed to the vision RGG wants to cook with Kasuga, so I only hope this was massively reworked with the next mainline entry to get me fully on board. We all have to start somewhere, even if it is rock bottom.
I won’t lie, this was a struggle to weigh in how I feel overall. Yakuza: Like A Dragon, from the title alone, made its mission statement loud and clear. This is a mainline entry that represents the transition from seven prior games echoing Kiryu’s legacy to whatever uncharted territory lies ahead of Kasuga and his friends. Like Ichiban Kasuga himself, this game started from rock bottom and fought its way to the top with nothing but grit and beaming determination. I can’t knock down how well this did in winning Kasuga over for me as the new leading protagonist for the series. I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store for him in the future, especially when I get around to Infinite Wealth soon enough.
I’ll start this easy by saying while I don’t consider it to be its equal, the storytelling on display here is genuinely on the caliber of Yakuza 0 in terms of the clean execution of its characters, emotions, and themes. I’m gonna be honest, I was hesitant at first. I thought it spent too long on what’s the first act, ranging around 10 chapters. Which felt like stretching out a conflict that wasn’t too interesting to dwell on. Then I found out there were only 5 chapters left, which surprised me because now I didn't know how we'd finish the rest of the story. I assumed at least 10 more were left from how everything was paced, since I was already aware this was the longest Yakuza/Like A Dragon before Infinite Wealth took that crown. It… still pulled itself together in those remaining chapters, very strongly I’ll add, but not without sudden forced grinding sessions that put an awkward half to the pacing. These are the major culprits for how this gained such a bloated playtime, and I think it only drags the game back since it felt like poor padding that took away from the exciting momentum the story was locking in late-game. There were also ties to the previous entries, some as certain boss fights which made me soyjack the hell out, and made for fun fan service. Although, looking at the current state of Yakuza/Like A Dragon because of this, it may have set a dangerous precedent for RGG’s direction when balancing the old and new. The last stretch definitely pulled everything the game tackles about self-value and connections into this beautiful emotional crescendo that I consider being quintessential to the series. Especially important for understanding what makes Ichiban a character worth getting emotionally invested in. If there was any doubt Ichiban couldn't stand side by side with Kiryu, those last hours shake them all away and prove he's more than worthy to pass the torch.
Moving beyond the main story for a bit, the side content, per usual, is loaded with so many fun distractions to waste away in. They really nailed the mini-games here, especially the newly added ones I spent a significant portion of my playthrough on. I’m pleased to say that the substories are also Yakuza 0 tier, each one feeling memorable, charming, and adding character for Yokohoma to feel like a home for people who had nowhere else to go but rock bottom. Yakuza 7 (to be technical) is refreshing because after experiencing entry after entry where the stakes started escalating when the conspiracy plots only got more complex, where emotional stakes could only get higher as characters experienced more hardships, this took everything back to basics. It’s no stretch to say that Yakuza 7 is pretty much a soft remake of the first Yakuza, with how much the story beats parallel each other. The protagonist sacrifices themselves to be convicted for an extended period. They come back to the world, only to be greeted by how much has changed since they first left it. There’s a mystery they have to uncover by tracking down their fatherly patriarch figure. They’re assisted by an aged, down-on-his-luck police officer and a hostess who plays some relevance to the plot. There’s a shadowy group in town who act as information brokers that have mass surveillance on what’s going on. The main antagonist is both a power-hungry politician who’s been puppeteering everything for his grand selfish gain and the brotherly figure to the main protagonist whose absence led them astray into a path hungering for power to affirm their self-worth. Ichiban even shares the same voice actor as Nishiki, which I feel has to be intentional casting for these parallels to hit harder. None of this feels like a shallow rehash but using familiar beats and tropes to recontexulize Ichiban’s journey and how much he’s similar yet different from Kiryu.
I’ll be frank, this is a hot take I guess? I don’t see many be harsh on this surprisingly. This is not great RPG design. It’s hard for me to be uber critical because I admire RGG quite a bit to understand this was a genuine attempt at stepping out of a 20-year comfort zone into a genre they’ve never fully dabbled in. Yakuza/Like A Dragon always had RPG elements since the beginning. They had random encounters, a leveling system where you increase stats and unlock moves, items you can buy that give you certain buffs in combat, weapons and accessories you can equip, and optional side quests reminiscent of ones you’d find in a Japanese-developed RPG you’ve played before. RPGs unquestionably inspired them, but like I said what they took were just elements. Something brought in to complement a core gameplay style they’ve locked in with for so many games, going through constant refinement and revisions. I wouldn’t call RGG games wholly ‘conventional’, if that makes sense, but with Yakuza 7 it’s clear there was an attempt at making a fully-fledged traditional turn-based RPG. Where they pushed the RPG elements already present in Yakuza/Like A Dragon to the forefront and built upon what was missing by pulling from various well-regarded games in the genre. It’s drawing from Shin Megami Tensei, especially with its subseries Persona, where you have menus as long as your arm, but it all came down to spamming three useful moves that drain MP. The Social Links-- I mean, the Drink Links give that inspiration dead away. It pulls from Final Fantasy V with the job system, but it doesn’t have the experimentation that game offers you freely. I don’t understand the thought process for giving you a handful of jobs that mechanically barely feel unique from each other. Going further, I also think for a game that feels designed to address the criticisms people stigmatized RPGs for, it incorporates archaic choices that first warranted that ire. Final Fantasy V lets you switch jobs and customize from the main menu right away, yet here, you need to travel to this one specific place in a large open map to do that. You can’t introduce a system made for flexible party customization and force players to go through so much backtracking to change it. Now, there’s certainly personality to the combat, I suspect taking inspiration from Mother’s trademark zany realism except with an RGG twist that felt perfect, but there’s so little underneath the hood. There’s no strategy needed to defeat most enemies, partly because it hinges on spamming moves and also because there’s hardly much of a real challenge that pushes you. Until certain boss fights near the latter half, I found everything to be incredibly breezy. I never had to focus on doing some extra grinding, optimizing my party, planning out my attacks, or approaching enemy encounters more carefully. What I found most strange is how they incorporated environmental attacks, where if a party member moves near an object they can pick it up and bash enemies with it. It’s easily the most interesting quirk brought to the table here because RGG is flexing on the Dragon Engine’s collision physics, but you have no control over a party member’s spatial positioning in a battle. It’s an illusion of movement seeing your party members aimlessly roam around, and you have to get lucky they move closeby to an object to do an environmental attack. Because of how they walk around freely on their own, with no input by the player, I encountered so many times when a party member had to run up to an enemy to attack but the pathfinding was so rough they either got stuck running to a wall until they almost magically teleported in front of the enemy or had to awkwardly walk and step over a railing to then switch to an attack animation. I thought it was charming in a jank way, but it became annoying later on because it exposed the weaknesses of a rough design here.
Yakuza 7 became a real test for me. I have my problems with the turn-based design and how the story was paced to fill out an arbitrary requirement to make the game feel ‘big’ because it’s an RPG, I guess. Yet the positives outweighed those staggering negatives, I ended up enjoying this very well, even if it didn’t cross as being one of my favorites of the series. If it wasn’t because RGG games are densely packed with so much content from substories, minigames, and whatever wild distraction you can spend hours on to distract yourself from the main game, this would’ve done even less for me. Like, I don’t blame people for being fine with the combat, it’s fun to watch and does the job serviceably. I think that’s what anyone needs when going into an RPG, but for me, I expected much more from someone who's played the games this is explicitly riffing from and sees a pale imitation. I find this worth criticizing because turn-based is what Yakuza/Like A Dragon is going to be from now on. This is the new foundation for a new protagonist with new stories waiting to be played. I’m not at all opposed to the vision RGG wants to cook with Kasuga, so I only hope this was massively reworked with the next mainline entry to get me fully on board. We all have to start somewhere, even if it is rock bottom.
Thief Gold
1999
Ever since the Black Parade released to marvelous acclaim hitting Moddb’s mod of the year for 2023. I couldn’t help but ask myself “Is Thief good?” In an effort to see if the game holds up, I decided to start with the first installment before I inevitably reach the mod down the road. And I must say after 28 hours on expert difficulty. Thief Gold(Thief 1/T1) by Looking Glass Studio. Is a dark, thrilling, and fulfilling experience in reigniting all the checkmarks I like and love in the stealth realm. And I am glad to be back in the genre once again. From my days in Metal Gear, Syphon Filter & Old Assassin’s Creed.
Originally called Thief: The Dark Project. The gold edition adds three new missions to deepen the plot and five new enemies. Edited original missions with a slew of bug fixes. So this feels like a definitive edition. Although I did have to use several mods I’ll detail later on to bring the game up to modern standards.
The premise is simple and you control a single character Garret who is a master thief. With no special powers whatsoever. His days from being a homeless orphan were discarded long ago since he joined a secret order. Years later he leaves and decides to make it on his own. Delving into the path of thievery without remorse to fulfill his greed for money. He is ambitious, selfish, cynical, and an untraditional protagonist. All qualities I don’t like at all for a main character and yet by the time the end credits are rolling, I am very tempted to head right into the sequel to see what’s next in store for him.
Worldbuilding is subtle, dark, and strangely yet fittingly humorous at times. A mix of middle ages, dark fantasy, and on the cusp of an industrial revolution. With lore dropping from scrolls and conversations between guards during their breaks. Offering vital gossip on the citizenry, complaints of co-workers, and my personal favorite lore stories and convenient tips/hints that may connect to the main cast. A method to reach a previously unassailable location. Secrets will be revealed unintentionally and a good eavesdropper should without hesitation use it to their advantage to maximum effect. G-man will also monologue amongst himself and will at times drop interesting commentary during work. Usually comments like being dumbfounded or witty responses to abrupt changes in objectives. A nice change of pace from the otherwise silence permeating while you lurk in the shadows. Parchment readings and books offer insightful lessons and teachings from the factions of Hammerites and the Pagans. Both believe in their gods in a way bordering unhealthy zealotry and are at odds with one another. The supernatural elements took me by surprise many times. Spells, incantations, and rituals are fitting. Inducing a mystical wonder beyond the medieval. Zombies, ghosts, and malformed supernatural creatures are here to stay. Oh, and bugs like mutated spiders I didn’t think were a threat had me running away once I caught sight of them. Seriously, how can they jump so high and shoot acid!? Machinery such as factories, smelting tools, and items with a steady supply of lava provide their citizenry with new forms of artificial light instead of the traditional natural fire to illuminate surroundings. Creating an interesting level design throughout, a blend of medieval housing full of conventional bricks, wooden planks, and pavement with the power of adopting steel into the surroundings.
Quite ingenious for a stealth-based gameplay approach back in the old days. Erase approaches such as shooting from afar with guns or tasing anyone to oblivion. The game operates on a mission structure. Before a mission starts you are given a briefing of the events prior, a chance to buy equipment using gold earned from a prior mission, and a handy, but vague map. Embarking on a new place in the City at various times. Always looking forward to a new place to see the sightsand steal whatever I can of course. Sometimes your goals will change during an operation. Good o’l no plan survives contact with the enemy is important to keep in mind. Therefore, caution is advised when conducting skullduggery. But hey Garrett has immensely useful tools to help. No stamina gauge when swinging weapons. Innate ability knocking a bow and arrows. The blackjack is easily the #1 most useful weapon. Capable of one-shotting nearly every enemy into blissful unconsciousness. They never get back up despite hours passing by too! You can move them into shadowed areas preventing patrols from encountering them and thus initiating an alarm at a whole base. Arrows dipped in fire, water, gas, and rope are likewise vital in completing a task. Blasting creatures with fire is like launching a missile capable of damaging multiple enemies. Water aids in dousing torches causing the light in room/s to darken and therefore allowing one mistah G to conduct his activities in better stealth mode than dressing up like an orange ninja from a shinobi world. Gas is powerful. No not fart ones, these kinds if launched correctly can take out groups of enemies into dreamland. Vital when being chased by a horde of angry guards…
Additionally, the rope arrow single-handedly changed my whole experience. Making me think outside the box. Reminds me of using the GLOO gun from Prey and applying the weapon to reach places I wouldn’t otherwise be allowed to exploit regular means. The cable, by comparison, allows one to hit any wooden surface dropping a decent length of string. Becoming instantly available for climbing. As a result, you can traverse higher elevations. Furthermore, one can retrieve their shaft if applicable to re-use once again making the tool highly versatile in nearly any sticky situation he’s subjected to. Trust me you’ll need it when you're at a rock and hard place with nearby zombies closing in on your position with nowhere to run except upon checking your surroundings a wooden beam is above. Maybe a handy tool would surely be useful now.
Level design in every assignment is intricate, maze-like, and deep. Displaying an awesome sleight of hand in the dev’s works to craft initially simple environments then suddenly catching me off-guard by transforming into a large several corridors and passageways leading a lost one into a room full of secrets. It is deep and chock full of hidden areas that can be unlocked from levers, switches, and cleverly tucked away corners. Intrinsically linked in the environment. Delivering a cool verticality and thorough ‘puzzle-like’ solving when applicable. The start of any new venture won’t be the same to some extent in the end portion upon completing all your objectives. You will see sprawling organized streets and then hit unfamiliar ruined suburbs and towns. Dive underwater and emerge in desolate gray caves emerging into a facility of machinery mixed with stone masonry. Similar, but different to how dungeons are made from a certain Zelda series. Full of traps, few floors, and twisting passages that can be confusing to any newcomer unused to the design. One of my favorites is encountering an awesome Pixar-like ‘room’ essentially allowing me to venture inside and somehow escape replicating a [T$%] Story-like design. Someone at Looking Glass has good taste being inspired by the 1995 film huh. And to think this was an optional target I could’ve missed. I. Am. Amazed. Sure the rest of the content isn’t filled to the brim with cool sets like those, but to a degree, they offer a unique hodgepodge of interesting locales to wonder and gawk at least. As a newcomer coming into the series I did not expect at all to admire the sheer size of these levels. Some are more subtle in ways before a certain fire nation attacked delving into the mysticism of earth, wind, and water extending the dev’s creativity to their utmost limit. The elements become more profound and are used intricately as I delve deeper into the endgame. Changing the propensity of manmade structures into natural habitats. Surfaces of the earth and elevating platforms in one section demonstrate the move from traditional simple human paths to complex passageways. Can be confusing at times, but hey remember! You have a handy compass and a map too! So all is not lost. A master thief enjoys establishing their path forward through balanced platforming and embracing the wonders of being lost in the thrill of discovery.
Hell the power to jump provides excellent mobility in areas and the level design pays off in spades demonstrating to great effect. For example, Imagine facing a fort with no possible entryway. Ok well, let me go around to see for any wooden roofs or beams. Voila, there is! Shooting a rope arrow then. I climb and then acrobat onto the rampart. But wait, the door is locked inside! Hmm. The new plan is to head to another rooftop and get inside from there. I climb to the nearest rampart point then give myself a boost and ledge grab my way onto my destination. Successfully entering with no one aware. The ledge grab is super satisfying to enact every time. Although I quickly save before I launch myself just in case I fail. Yet holding the jump button is easy to maneuver and painless to execute.
Almost delving into the point of frustration at times, yet never truly becoming mad to the nth degree I wanted to throw my controller. Perhaps due to the save at anytime system in place making retries quick and painless. It is a relief to operate an easy system to retry failed attempts since most levels are so large. Not an open world at all. Garrett conducts most of his missions at different new locations within the metropolis, which we can explore without a time limit. And there’s always something new to look forward to. I ventured into a manor to steal a scepter. Dived into the pits below to enter hidden caverns and reach a prison facility. Sought treasure in abandoned ruins, boldly stole a precious item between two thieves' guilds, and enacted revenge on a rich dude who tried to assassinate me. Seriously the gall of that guy.
Sound design is brilliant, harsh, intense, and fair. And this is weird. Usually, I praise the heck out of the soundtrack, and while it is good. In Thief I found it more enjoyable to analyze how the gameplay and level design work in tandem with the soundscape. Each step you take and every breath you make is calculated. Go on the steel floor versus carpet and rugs and you can see the clear difference upon nearby patrols. Rugs and carpets muffle your steps while treading on steel produces loud noises capable of making any close enemy's senses go on alert. Any action like swinging your sword, launching an arrow, or even bringing out blackjack to play whack a guard heightens an enemy's awareness. G-dude will exhale after an action and it's gotten to a point where I hold my breath whenever I have a close encounter. Exhaling once the coast is clear. Sights and sounds are interconnected. If you’re in a very dark area, chances are you become neigh invisible compared to a brightly lit room. Staying in the shadows like a sneaky fella pays off. And thankfully, you can stay in a crouched position than a normal pose to conduct your sneaky endeavors. Harsh, but I kid you not I repeatedly felt it was balanced throughout at no point during my time did I feel it was brutally unfair at all times. Rather the usage of noise in this instance facilitates between easy to hard and complex as you dive deeper into the latter stages. As if the devs are saying “Hey, we are increasing the difficulty gradually, no steep cliffs or curveballs.” And I like it. Keeps things fresh and exciting to uncover new hurdles. Supernatural entities like zombies and spirits have this ghastly voice. I found myself with chills crawling up my back. And goodness the regular harmless citizen will shout for help to call attention to your current position. Tension is alive. Stress remains an ever-constant companion when pursued, and patience is needed every day for every hour.
Lastly, I also want to praise the main objectives of missions and AI. The latter for being smart and dumb. Patrols once memorize their route and what their limit is. Abusing their ai becomes rinse and repeat and oh so satisfying. Never waking up after becoming unconscious. Some enemies of different classifications will vary in their sight and danger capability. I.E. Seeing farther and more acutely aware of their surroundings than the usual shmuck of a guard with base intelligence. Think of them as elite guards who have an intruder radar built in updated to version 2.0 than the base version. Hearing better on how loud footsteps are near along with acute 20/20 vision if close in line in sight. This is fascinating and as I progressed deeper into the game, proved once again the devs are challenging me to be better. Goals likewise increase in complexity. You have standard, hard, and expert. Differs from traditional modifiers of upping the enemy's health I usually see in other games. Their parameters increase meaning more tasks to do. A 'normal' setting would indicate one or two retrieve an item and escape. 'Hard' adds a couple more like finding another item in conjunction with the main goal. Expert unleashes a full page of tasks to do. From not killing anyone, finding multiple items, checking with a friend of yours, and attaining a set amount of money all while completing the main quest and escaping to boot. Here are several examples of differences in difficulty. Insane. Furthermore, as I continued with 'expert' on all missions, they largely increased my time in a level due to how large they can be. I usually spent an hour or two depending on the size. Only occurred on max settings. If you try the standard option you can breeze through levels much faster. The addition of higher parameters causes an interesting shift to occur for the player. Thus I had to explore as much as possible, find hidden secrets, embrace the longer plans, being meticulous to survive and not incur any of the killings. The game is much easier killing anyone you come across. But a master thief should never kill. Only retrieve what was ordered and then get out without a fuss.
Time for my mixed feelings. Not a positive or a negative. Just some points from the game I think could be improved, tweaked for the better, and concerns I had. Didn’t affect my overall experience in a major manner.
First, same old, same old textures - Once I saw gray walls, gray bricks, stone pavement, same dirt in more than half of the missions, and frequent density in the latter stages it all became blurred together. Brought up with the maze-like corridors. I felt myself seeing the familiar paths without end. You don’t have a minimap either except a paper map that will vaguely pinpoint where you are. Therefore I had major deja vu. “Haven’t I been here before?” Thankfully, this isn’t egregious and the level variety for what it’s worth elevates everything else. Making it not so noticeable to see constantly. Makes me wonder if the sequel shakes things up a bit with colorful terrain when appropriate. I’m not asking for a rainbow from the color spectrum, merely suggesting slightly distinct patterns.
Second, Some objectives can be a bit vague to find. Like Mission 3. To retrieve the soul of the mystic required me to check everywhere and refer to my papyrus notes for hints and clues. Further, targets or items are not given exact instructions sometimes. Up to you to piece things together. Granted I personally like the non-approach to hand-holding, but some of these goals can be a real head scratcher. If you don’t come across hints and clues, eavesdropping a guard or finding a key to unlock another passageway or door is often the right path forward. Gentle reminder to explore thoroughly. Or use a guide when needed.
Third, May need a tool like a fire, water, or rope arrow to progress. While not required for every assignment. The wire is invaluable and shouldn't be utilized every so often at every opportunity. Elementals to a lesser degree, but still keep them in stock. Most of your inventory is consumables. And while you can find new ammo during a heist, it is best to at least save a decent amount. For situations when you require them. Sucks to use up all of your stock for minor loot grabbed when they may be needed for a critical venture.
Fourth, Wish some missions had health potions available close by. They’re pretty scarce in a job. Some later missions they in my opinion feel needed to help progress rather than me forcing a quicksave and quickload. Saving my health. Enemies can swarm you if you’re not careful and having more health is better than being one-shot. G-guy isn’t some deadliest warrior. So don’t think you can expertly assassinate any bloke. Keep in mind, I played on expert which usually required no bloodshed. Lowering settings offers no restrictions to eliminating anyone.
Fifth, Controls can take some getting used to. I tried keyboard and mouse and found the initial impression cumbersome so I switched to a controller setup and found it far better. Only had to input a couple more keybinds manually and I was fit as a fiddle tosteal! Borrow items. I suggest changing them if you feel weird handling your main character.
Sixth, due to the title being more than two decades old I highly recommend some of these mods I installed to grant an enhanced vanilla experience. Most you can find via a respective PC gaming wiki article. I did use a faithful texture pack. Not the popular one. Feel they change the original textures too much. I’ll leave the choice of what pack to choose up to you. I prefer Enhancement Pack 2.0 alpha.
Mods:
Unofficial patch for Thief 1/Gold - “improves compatibility with new pcs significantly, fixes graphic issues, adds support for widescreen resolutions and much more.”
Texture pack - “Replace all the old, low-quality objects and textures from Thief 1 and 2 with versions that have higher polygon counts and texture resolutions, while keeping as close to the originals as possible.” - This is the hardest mod to install. For some reason, the directions given resulted in half of the textures being improperly replaced. Displaying half high quality and half low quality. Inside you need to edit an ini file to put in the correct mod_path. Here is what I had that finally got everything to work. Hope it works for everyone else. If not, your mileage might vary.
mod_path usermods+mods\packfix+mods\candles+mods\EP\Thief1+NecroAge\Thief1+NecroAge+EP2\Thief1+EP2+mods+mods\t2skies+mods\EP+FMdml
Take a screenshot before the mod is installed and after to see if everything worked out. The rest of the mods I didn't have any trouble inputting.
Subtitles - Self-explanatory. In-game there is no option for subs. With this mod, you can read the spoken dialogue instead of straining your ears.
Sound Enhancement Pack - Makes all sound enhanced and not muddled. Providing clearer audio in both speech and sfx.
60 FPS Video Pack - Original videos are in a low resolution. With the video pack, all the videos are replaced with higher framerate and resolution.
Aside from minor tinkering to get the game up to speed and my barely noticeable mixed feelings. Thief shines when unconventional level design meets strong simple foundations in the gameplay to accentuate and enhance both categories. At its worst players(maybe newbies) may have difficulty in grasping the maze-like paths to reaching their objectives along with vague to almost obscure hints to their solutions(not always, uncommon I think). More so on increasing levels of difficulty than normal I feel. The central narrative I expected to be boring. And in turn I was mentally preparing myself for underwhelming. So to my delight, I was extremely glad to be wrong and found myself beset with a decent narrative and ultimately a likable protagonist.
Finally reaching the end of my trail I found Thief Gold impressed me to a degree I can’t stop thinking constantly about the missions inside. I adore it so much I had to hold off on playing the rest of the series so I won’t get burned out if I continue to run-non-stop at every entry. Filled with lengthy missions depending on difficulty and fair gameplay mechanics to tackle in whatever and however manner you so choose. A freedom in gameplay philosophy I love! And honestly its given me more thought to level design in general and the approach of AI to objectives. I encourage anyone to give it a shot. Especially those who love Stealth or dipping their toes into the genre. For those curious about this old title, it still holds up quite well. Especially if you installed mods to bring it up to modern standards. And hey here’s one tidbit I found fascinating. Turns out Ken Levine worked on Thief along with Warren Spector. These guys would ultimately father some well-known titles down the road. Pretty insightful stuff. I bet we're in for Shocking Examples down the road.
8.5/10
References & Additional Material:
Thief Black Parade Mod
Different Examples of Difficulty
Thief 1 Credits
Mods - Thief PC gaming wiki - Thief 1/Gold Unofficial patch - Sound Enhancement Pack - 60 FPS Video Pack - Texture pack
Subtitles
Edited: 4-3-24 - Small correction on Blackjack use. From human to nearly every enemy. Thanks to @blackcat for the correction! After the small edit. 99% of review still intact.
Originally called Thief: The Dark Project. The gold edition adds three new missions to deepen the plot and five new enemies. Edited original missions with a slew of bug fixes. So this feels like a definitive edition. Although I did have to use several mods I’ll detail later on to bring the game up to modern standards.
The premise is simple and you control a single character Garret who is a master thief. With no special powers whatsoever. His days from being a homeless orphan were discarded long ago since he joined a secret order. Years later he leaves and decides to make it on his own. Delving into the path of thievery without remorse to fulfill his greed for money. He is ambitious, selfish, cynical, and an untraditional protagonist. All qualities I don’t like at all for a main character and yet by the time the end credits are rolling, I am very tempted to head right into the sequel to see what’s next in store for him.
Worldbuilding is subtle, dark, and strangely yet fittingly humorous at times. A mix of middle ages, dark fantasy, and on the cusp of an industrial revolution. With lore dropping from scrolls and conversations between guards during their breaks. Offering vital gossip on the citizenry, complaints of co-workers, and my personal favorite lore stories and convenient tips/hints that may connect to the main cast. A method to reach a previously unassailable location. Secrets will be revealed unintentionally and a good eavesdropper should without hesitation use it to their advantage to maximum effect. G-man will also monologue amongst himself and will at times drop interesting commentary during work. Usually comments like being dumbfounded or witty responses to abrupt changes in objectives. A nice change of pace from the otherwise silence permeating while you lurk in the shadows. Parchment readings and books offer insightful lessons and teachings from the factions of Hammerites and the Pagans. Both believe in their gods in a way bordering unhealthy zealotry and are at odds with one another. The supernatural elements took me by surprise many times. Spells, incantations, and rituals are fitting. Inducing a mystical wonder beyond the medieval. Zombies, ghosts, and malformed supernatural creatures are here to stay. Oh, and bugs like mutated spiders I didn’t think were a threat had me running away once I caught sight of them. Seriously, how can they jump so high and shoot acid!? Machinery such as factories, smelting tools, and items with a steady supply of lava provide their citizenry with new forms of artificial light instead of the traditional natural fire to illuminate surroundings. Creating an interesting level design throughout, a blend of medieval housing full of conventional bricks, wooden planks, and pavement with the power of adopting steel into the surroundings.
Quite ingenious for a stealth-based gameplay approach back in the old days. Erase approaches such as shooting from afar with guns or tasing anyone to oblivion. The game operates on a mission structure. Before a mission starts you are given a briefing of the events prior, a chance to buy equipment using gold earned from a prior mission, and a handy, but vague map. Embarking on a new place in the City at various times. Always looking forward to a new place to see the sights
Additionally, the rope arrow single-handedly changed my whole experience. Making me think outside the box. Reminds me of using the GLOO gun from Prey and applying the weapon to reach places I wouldn’t otherwise be allowed to exploit regular means. The cable, by comparison, allows one to hit any wooden surface dropping a decent length of string. Becoming instantly available for climbing. As a result, you can traverse higher elevations. Furthermore, one can retrieve their shaft if applicable to re-use once again making the tool highly versatile in nearly any sticky situation he’s subjected to. Trust me you’ll need it when you're at a rock and hard place with nearby zombies closing in on your position with nowhere to run except upon checking your surroundings a wooden beam is above. Maybe a handy tool would surely be useful now.
Level design in every assignment is intricate, maze-like, and deep. Displaying an awesome sleight of hand in the dev’s works to craft initially simple environments then suddenly catching me off-guard by transforming into a large several corridors and passageways leading a lost one into a room full of secrets. It is deep and chock full of hidden areas that can be unlocked from levers, switches, and cleverly tucked away corners. Intrinsically linked in the environment. Delivering a cool verticality and thorough ‘puzzle-like’ solving when applicable. The start of any new venture won’t be the same to some extent in the end portion upon completing all your objectives. You will see sprawling organized streets and then hit unfamiliar ruined suburbs and towns. Dive underwater and emerge in desolate gray caves emerging into a facility of machinery mixed with stone masonry. Similar, but different to how dungeons are made from a certain Zelda series. Full of traps, few floors, and twisting passages that can be confusing to any newcomer unused to the design. One of my favorites is encountering an awesome Pixar-like ‘room’ essentially allowing me to venture inside and somehow escape replicating a [T$%] Story-like design. Someone at Looking Glass has good taste being inspired by the 1995 film huh. And to think this was an optional target I could’ve missed. I. Am. Amazed. Sure the rest of the content isn’t filled to the brim with cool sets like those, but to a degree, they offer a unique hodgepodge of interesting locales to wonder and gawk at least. As a newcomer coming into the series I did not expect at all to admire the sheer size of these levels. Some are more subtle in ways before a certain fire nation attacked delving into the mysticism of earth, wind, and water extending the dev’s creativity to their utmost limit. The elements become more profound and are used intricately as I delve deeper into the endgame. Changing the propensity of manmade structures into natural habitats. Surfaces of the earth and elevating platforms in one section demonstrate the move from traditional simple human paths to complex passageways. Can be confusing at times, but hey remember! You have a handy compass and a map too! So all is not lost. A master thief enjoys establishing their path forward through balanced platforming and embracing the wonders of being lost in the thrill of discovery.
Hell the power to jump provides excellent mobility in areas and the level design pays off in spades demonstrating to great effect. For example, Imagine facing a fort with no possible entryway. Ok well, let me go around to see for any wooden roofs or beams. Voila, there is! Shooting a rope arrow then. I climb and then acrobat onto the rampart. But wait, the door is locked inside! Hmm. The new plan is to head to another rooftop and get inside from there. I climb to the nearest rampart point then give myself a boost and ledge grab my way onto my destination. Successfully entering with no one aware. The ledge grab is super satisfying to enact every time. Although I quickly save before I launch myself just in case I fail. Yet holding the jump button is easy to maneuver and painless to execute.
Almost delving into the point of frustration at times, yet never truly becoming mad to the nth degree I wanted to throw my controller. Perhaps due to the save at anytime system in place making retries quick and painless. It is a relief to operate an easy system to retry failed attempts since most levels are so large. Not an open world at all. Garrett conducts most of his missions at different new locations within the metropolis, which we can explore without a time limit. And there’s always something new to look forward to. I ventured into a manor to steal a scepter. Dived into the pits below to enter hidden caverns and reach a prison facility. Sought treasure in abandoned ruins, boldly stole a precious item between two thieves' guilds, and enacted revenge on a rich dude who tried to assassinate me. Seriously the gall of that guy.
Sound design is brilliant, harsh, intense, and fair. And this is weird. Usually, I praise the heck out of the soundtrack, and while it is good. In Thief I found it more enjoyable to analyze how the gameplay and level design work in tandem with the soundscape. Each step you take and every breath you make is calculated. Go on the steel floor versus carpet and rugs and you can see the clear difference upon nearby patrols. Rugs and carpets muffle your steps while treading on steel produces loud noises capable of making any close enemy's senses go on alert. Any action like swinging your sword, launching an arrow, or even bringing out blackjack to play whack a guard heightens an enemy's awareness. G-dude will exhale after an action and it's gotten to a point where I hold my breath whenever I have a close encounter. Exhaling once the coast is clear. Sights and sounds are interconnected. If you’re in a very dark area, chances are you become neigh invisible compared to a brightly lit room. Staying in the shadows like a sneaky fella pays off. And thankfully, you can stay in a crouched position than a normal pose to conduct your sneaky endeavors. Harsh, but I kid you not I repeatedly felt it was balanced throughout at no point during my time did I feel it was brutally unfair at all times. Rather the usage of noise in this instance facilitates between easy to hard and complex as you dive deeper into the latter stages. As if the devs are saying “Hey, we are increasing the difficulty gradually, no steep cliffs or curveballs.” And I like it. Keeps things fresh and exciting to uncover new hurdles. Supernatural entities like zombies and spirits have this ghastly voice. I found myself with chills crawling up my back. And goodness the regular harmless citizen will shout for help to call attention to your current position. Tension is alive. Stress remains an ever-constant companion when pursued, and patience is needed every day for every hour.
Lastly, I also want to praise the main objectives of missions and AI. The latter for being smart and dumb. Patrols once memorize their route and what their limit is. Abusing their ai becomes rinse and repeat and oh so satisfying. Never waking up after becoming unconscious. Some enemies of different classifications will vary in their sight and danger capability. I.E. Seeing farther and more acutely aware of their surroundings than the usual shmuck of a guard with base intelligence. Think of them as elite guards who have an intruder radar built in updated to version 2.0 than the base version. Hearing better on how loud footsteps are near along with acute 20/20 vision if close in line in sight. This is fascinating and as I progressed deeper into the game, proved once again the devs are challenging me to be better. Goals likewise increase in complexity. You have standard, hard, and expert. Differs from traditional modifiers of upping the enemy's health I usually see in other games. Their parameters increase meaning more tasks to do. A 'normal' setting would indicate one or two retrieve an item and escape. 'Hard' adds a couple more like finding another item in conjunction with the main goal. Expert unleashes a full page of tasks to do. From not killing anyone, finding multiple items, checking with a friend of yours, and attaining a set amount of money all while completing the main quest and escaping to boot. Here are several examples of differences in difficulty. Insane. Furthermore, as I continued with 'expert' on all missions, they largely increased my time in a level due to how large they can be. I usually spent an hour or two depending on the size. Only occurred on max settings. If you try the standard option you can breeze through levels much faster. The addition of higher parameters causes an interesting shift to occur for the player. Thus I had to explore as much as possible, find hidden secrets, embrace the longer plans, being meticulous to survive and not incur any of the killings. The game is much easier killing anyone you come across. But a master thief should never kill. Only retrieve what was ordered and then get out without a fuss.
Time for my mixed feelings. Not a positive or a negative. Just some points from the game I think could be improved, tweaked for the better, and concerns I had. Didn’t affect my overall experience in a major manner.
First, same old, same old textures - Once I saw gray walls, gray bricks, stone pavement, same dirt in more than half of the missions, and frequent density in the latter stages it all became blurred together. Brought up with the maze-like corridors. I felt myself seeing the familiar paths without end. You don’t have a minimap either except a paper map that will vaguely pinpoint where you are. Therefore I had major deja vu. “Haven’t I been here before?” Thankfully, this isn’t egregious and the level variety for what it’s worth elevates everything else. Making it not so noticeable to see constantly. Makes me wonder if the sequel shakes things up a bit with colorful terrain when appropriate. I’m not asking for a rainbow from the color spectrum, merely suggesting slightly distinct patterns.
Second, Some objectives can be a bit vague to find. Like Mission 3. To retrieve the soul of the mystic required me to check everywhere and refer to my papyrus notes for hints and clues. Further, targets or items are not given exact instructions sometimes. Up to you to piece things together. Granted I personally like the non-approach to hand-holding, but some of these goals can be a real head scratcher. If you don’t come across hints and clues, eavesdropping a guard or finding a key to unlock another passageway or door is often the right path forward. Gentle reminder to explore thoroughly. Or use a guide when needed.
Third, May need a tool like a fire, water, or rope arrow to progress. While not required for every assignment. The wire is invaluable and shouldn't be utilized every so often at every opportunity. Elementals to a lesser degree, but still keep them in stock. Most of your inventory is consumables. And while you can find new ammo during a heist, it is best to at least save a decent amount. For situations when you require them. Sucks to use up all of your stock for minor loot grabbed when they may be needed for a critical venture.
Fourth, Wish some missions had health potions available close by. They’re pretty scarce in a job. Some later missions they in my opinion feel needed to help progress rather than me forcing a quicksave and quickload. Saving my health. Enemies can swarm you if you’re not careful and having more health is better than being one-shot. G-guy isn’t some deadliest warrior. So don’t think you can expertly assassinate any bloke. Keep in mind, I played on expert which usually required no bloodshed. Lowering settings offers no restrictions to eliminating anyone.
Fifth, Controls can take some getting used to. I tried keyboard and mouse and found the initial impression cumbersome so I switched to a controller setup and found it far better. Only had to input a couple more keybinds manually and I was fit as a fiddle to
Sixth, due to the title being more than two decades old I highly recommend some of these mods I installed to grant an enhanced vanilla experience. Most you can find via a respective PC gaming wiki article. I did use a faithful texture pack. Not the popular one. Feel they change the original textures too much. I’ll leave the choice of what pack to choose up to you. I prefer Enhancement Pack 2.0 alpha.
Mods:
Unofficial patch for Thief 1/Gold - “improves compatibility with new pcs significantly, fixes graphic issues, adds support for widescreen resolutions and much more.”
Texture pack - “Replace all the old, low-quality objects and textures from Thief 1 and 2 with versions that have higher polygon counts and texture resolutions, while keeping as close to the originals as possible.” - This is the hardest mod to install. For some reason, the directions given resulted in half of the textures being improperly replaced. Displaying half high quality and half low quality. Inside you need to edit an ini file to put in the correct mod_path. Here is what I had that finally got everything to work. Hope it works for everyone else. If not, your mileage might vary.
mod_path usermods+mods\packfix+mods\candles+mods\EP\Thief1+NecroAge\Thief1+NecroAge+EP2\Thief1+EP2+mods+mods\t2skies+mods\EP+FMdml
Take a screenshot before the mod is installed and after to see if everything worked out. The rest of the mods I didn't have any trouble inputting.
Subtitles - Self-explanatory. In-game there is no option for subs. With this mod, you can read the spoken dialogue instead of straining your ears.
Sound Enhancement Pack - Makes all sound enhanced and not muddled. Providing clearer audio in both speech and sfx.
60 FPS Video Pack - Original videos are in a low resolution. With the video pack, all the videos are replaced with higher framerate and resolution.
Aside from minor tinkering to get the game up to speed and my barely noticeable mixed feelings. Thief shines when unconventional level design meets strong simple foundations in the gameplay to accentuate and enhance both categories. At its worst players(maybe newbies) may have difficulty in grasping the maze-like paths to reaching their objectives along with vague to almost obscure hints to their solutions(not always, uncommon I think). More so on increasing levels of difficulty than normal I feel. The central narrative I expected to be boring. And in turn I was mentally preparing myself for underwhelming. So to my delight, I was extremely glad to be wrong and found myself beset with a decent narrative and ultimately a likable protagonist.
Finally reaching the end of my trail I found Thief Gold impressed me to a degree I can’t stop thinking constantly about the missions inside. I adore it so much I had to hold off on playing the rest of the series so I won’t get burned out if I continue to run-non-stop at every entry. Filled with lengthy missions depending on difficulty and fair gameplay mechanics to tackle in whatever and however manner you so choose. A freedom in gameplay philosophy I love! And honestly its given me more thought to level design in general and the approach of AI to objectives. I encourage anyone to give it a shot. Especially those who love Stealth or dipping their toes into the genre. For those curious about this old title, it still holds up quite well. Especially if you installed mods to bring it up to modern standards. And hey here’s one tidbit I found fascinating. Turns out Ken Levine worked on Thief along with Warren Spector. These guys would ultimately father some well-known titles down the road. Pretty insightful stuff. I bet we're in for Shocking Examples down the road.
8.5/10
References & Additional Material:
Thief Black Parade Mod
Different Examples of Difficulty
Thief 1 Credits
Mods - Thief PC gaming wiki - Thief 1/Gold Unofficial patch - Sound Enhancement Pack - 60 FPS Video Pack - Texture pack
Subtitles
Edited: 4-3-24 - Small correction on Blackjack use. From human to nearly every enemy. Thanks to @blackcat for the correction! After the small edit. 99% of review still intact.
Resident Evil 2
2019
I must confess I haven't played the original PS1 game, but after playing through this a few times I definitely want to.
As someone who got into RE with 4, I always wanted to get into the classic horror style of the original games and this definitely piqued my interest to continue going down that path. This is genuinely frightening at times (the groans of the sewer monsters icked me on a visceral level, I found them scarier than even Big Daddy Warbucks), and the zombies can take several shots before they flinch so you're always thinking about your next course of action. It is the classic horror approach of limited resources, so you always need to prioritize what you need at any given moment (side note, I really wish it had a psuedo-NG+ where you can start a file with more inventory slots but I suppose that's part of the experience). Then there's Mr. X, who is definitely my favorite stalker character out of the RE games I've played. Lady D from Village is pretty easy to avoid and not prevalent enough to be a threat, DaBaby is much scarier at first but once you learn how to despawn it it's not so bad. Mr. X had me tense up on all of my playthoughs thus far, even if I feel I get how he worked (I find myself yelling FASTER at Claire and Leon whenever I hear the heavy footsteps).
My first run of the game was Leon A + Claire B (I think when I do the PS1 game I'll do Claire A + Leon B), and I honestly think I prefer Claire's side of the story. The differences between both As and Bs isn't too much, but it's enough to make some scenes feel super different (case in point, how Marvin talks to Leon as opposed to Claire).
I definitely want to try for the platinum trophy, but I've been craving to starting 4's remake so I think I've had my fill for the time being. Definitely anxious yet excited to try hardcore mode.
9/10
As someone who got into RE with 4, I always wanted to get into the classic horror style of the original games and this definitely piqued my interest to continue going down that path. This is genuinely frightening at times (the groans of the sewer monsters icked me on a visceral level, I found them scarier than even Big Daddy Warbucks), and the zombies can take several shots before they flinch so you're always thinking about your next course of action. It is the classic horror approach of limited resources, so you always need to prioritize what you need at any given moment (side note, I really wish it had a psuedo-NG+ where you can start a file with more inventory slots but I suppose that's part of the experience). Then there's Mr. X, who is definitely my favorite stalker character out of the RE games I've played. Lady D from Village is pretty easy to avoid and not prevalent enough to be a threat, DaBaby is much scarier at first but once you learn how to despawn it it's not so bad. Mr. X had me tense up on all of my playthoughs thus far, even if I feel I get how he worked (I find myself yelling FASTER at Claire and Leon whenever I hear the heavy footsteps).
My first run of the game was Leon A + Claire B (I think when I do the PS1 game I'll do Claire A + Leon B), and I honestly think I prefer Claire's side of the story. The differences between both As and Bs isn't too much, but it's enough to make some scenes feel super different (case in point, how Marvin talks to Leon as opposed to Claire).
I definitely want to try for the platinum trophy, but I've been craving to starting 4's remake so I think I've had my fill for the time being. Definitely anxious yet excited to try hardcore mode.
9/10
Outer Wilds
2019
This review contains spoilers
I kind of hate myself for needing to look up clues to how to get into the ash twin project, I had all the info but I still think it was too hard to figure out.
Holy shit that ending though.
Holy shit that ending though.
While in the middle of my Cult of the Lamb playthrough, my power went out for 4 hours. In that time, I had nothing to do except go on my phone but eventually it died. I remembered my 3DS was fully charged and so I decided to look through my DS/3DS games to see if I can be productive and replay something I hadn't in a while. Decided on the original New Super Mario Bros, since I hadn't played the series in years. After playing through the first world, my power came back on not long after. Decided to continue replaying this even with the power back on so here we are.
The New Super Mario Bros games were not games I ever truly loved. Yes, by the time 2 and U came out, the series became super stale. But even with DS and Wii, I never found them amazing at all. Replaying DS, this seems to still be true for me. In fact, this may be my least favorite of the bunch, at least next to 2 for several different reasons. Even despite that however, it's still a fun time overall and worth coming back to for a certain addition I'll talk about later.
First thing you'll notice when playing the game, would be its graphics. Personally, I always thought the NSMB games had a fine enough artstyle tho I much prefer how the sprite-based games looked in the past. DS though is sadly the ugliest in the series now. It was certainly a marvel back then but nowadays, just looks kinda ugly a lot of the time compared to the other titles.
Level design-wise, the game has plenty of levels that actually are pretty memorable. The sewers level, the giant wiggler level, the pipe maze level, the fucking brutal 8-1 level with the birds. I wish more of the levels were memorable like these, since a large chunk can be forgettable but I was surprised just how many I ended up remembering. This game also added the star coin collectable and honestly, they can be a tremendous pain in this game. They don't hide them behind invisible walls like future game but some of them require a powerup from other levels or toad houses and it can be frustrating. Same with the secret exits (which came back from Mario World). Like a third of those require the aforementioned outside powerup and they're a pain. I do recommend going for 100% tho cuz once you beat the game, you can actually buy bottom screen skins with any star coins you have and I never knew this and it's awesome. Such a great reward for going out of your way to get them.
One more aspect of the gameplay I wanted to get into were the powerups. 80% of the game you'll be seeing the fire flower which is a good powerup of course. The other 20%, you'll see the three new ones (and the classic star I guess) and I gotta say they're not that great. The mega mushroom is a great concept and is fun to use but is barely in any levels naturally. The mini mushroom is also not used that much and I honestly never liked much just because it's so floaty. And the shell is just obnoxious since you start moving on your own the moment you hit top speed and you have to manually stop to get out of your shell. I'm sure it's super fun when speed running but alas, it just annoyed me more than anything. This is another thing I think future games did better, especially WIi, that one has a great selection of powerups.
I really don't have much to say about the soundtrack. It's alright at best I think and it doesn't help the 1-1 theme gets reused in Wii. I did actually like the map theme for world 7 though, something about that feels so nostalgic. This game is somewhat nostalgic to me since I remember seeing a classmate play this on field trip bus ride when I was 8 and thinking it looked so cool. Never ended up playing the main campaign until after I played the other 3 NSMB games but my memory of that bus ride is engrained in my memory, and part of me thinks that classmate was on world 7 that day which might explain why the song feels so nostalgic. Either way, besides that one song I really like, never cared for the game's ost sadly.
This is all fine and dandy, but the real reason I think someone should come back to this one is its multiplayer modes. Minigames are a blast to play, even if most of them are ported straight from 64 DS, but there are a couple new ones which is nice. I probably played these more than the actual game back in the day. The Mario vs Luigi mode was also a lot of fun back in the day too. The goal was to get the most stars and you could steal them from the opposite Mario brother. Was just really fun constantly screwing the other person over. Though I guess since (most of) the minigames are in 64 DS and future games had multiplayer in it's campaigns, these aren't amazing reasons to come back to NSMB DS specifically, but it's still a nice little package of multiplayer goodness overall.
Like I said, was never a huge fan of the New Super Mario Bros games, and while this still rings true...I'd say this was still a fun time overall. Would be fun to replay them all but I'd have to spread them out considering how samey they are lol.
The New Super Mario Bros games were not games I ever truly loved. Yes, by the time 2 and U came out, the series became super stale. But even with DS and Wii, I never found them amazing at all. Replaying DS, this seems to still be true for me. In fact, this may be my least favorite of the bunch, at least next to 2 for several different reasons. Even despite that however, it's still a fun time overall and worth coming back to for a certain addition I'll talk about later.
First thing you'll notice when playing the game, would be its graphics. Personally, I always thought the NSMB games had a fine enough artstyle tho I much prefer how the sprite-based games looked in the past. DS though is sadly the ugliest in the series now. It was certainly a marvel back then but nowadays, just looks kinda ugly a lot of the time compared to the other titles.
Level design-wise, the game has plenty of levels that actually are pretty memorable. The sewers level, the giant wiggler level, the pipe maze level, the fucking brutal 8-1 level with the birds. I wish more of the levels were memorable like these, since a large chunk can be forgettable but I was surprised just how many I ended up remembering. This game also added the star coin collectable and honestly, they can be a tremendous pain in this game. They don't hide them behind invisible walls like future game but some of them require a powerup from other levels or toad houses and it can be frustrating. Same with the secret exits (which came back from Mario World). Like a third of those require the aforementioned outside powerup and they're a pain. I do recommend going for 100% tho cuz once you beat the game, you can actually buy bottom screen skins with any star coins you have and I never knew this and it's awesome. Such a great reward for going out of your way to get them.
One more aspect of the gameplay I wanted to get into were the powerups. 80% of the game you'll be seeing the fire flower which is a good powerup of course. The other 20%, you'll see the three new ones (and the classic star I guess) and I gotta say they're not that great. The mega mushroom is a great concept and is fun to use but is barely in any levels naturally. The mini mushroom is also not used that much and I honestly never liked much just because it's so floaty. And the shell is just obnoxious since you start moving on your own the moment you hit top speed and you have to manually stop to get out of your shell. I'm sure it's super fun when speed running but alas, it just annoyed me more than anything. This is another thing I think future games did better, especially WIi, that one has a great selection of powerups.
I really don't have much to say about the soundtrack. It's alright at best I think and it doesn't help the 1-1 theme gets reused in Wii. I did actually like the map theme for world 7 though, something about that feels so nostalgic. This game is somewhat nostalgic to me since I remember seeing a classmate play this on field trip bus ride when I was 8 and thinking it looked so cool. Never ended up playing the main campaign until after I played the other 3 NSMB games but my memory of that bus ride is engrained in my memory, and part of me thinks that classmate was on world 7 that day which might explain why the song feels so nostalgic. Either way, besides that one song I really like, never cared for the game's ost sadly.
This is all fine and dandy, but the real reason I think someone should come back to this one is its multiplayer modes. Minigames are a blast to play, even if most of them are ported straight from 64 DS, but there are a couple new ones which is nice. I probably played these more than the actual game back in the day. The Mario vs Luigi mode was also a lot of fun back in the day too. The goal was to get the most stars and you could steal them from the opposite Mario brother. Was just really fun constantly screwing the other person over. Though I guess since (most of) the minigames are in 64 DS and future games had multiplayer in it's campaigns, these aren't amazing reasons to come back to NSMB DS specifically, but it's still a nice little package of multiplayer goodness overall.
Like I said, was never a huge fan of the New Super Mario Bros games, and while this still rings true...I'd say this was still a fun time overall. Would be fun to replay them all but I'd have to spread them out considering how samey they are lol.
NieR: Automata
2017
A great display of video games as an artform.
NieR: Automata is a game that goes above and beyond with its unique way of storytelling, taking full advantage of making the experience one that can't be substituted through a book or a movie - not just in terms of visual design, but also through the use of dynamic music and having its story told from the point of view of multiple protagonists.
Note that I have played NieR Replicant (the first game) right before this entry, so comparing the two games was inevitable for me. On one hand I still feel like I was doing Automata a disservice by doing so, but at the same time it was nice hearing remixes of familiar songs when they were still fresh in my memory. Either way, in my opinion something very important to anyone interested in this game, is to play Replicant first if you want the full experience. Not only because you would miss many cool references, but also because Automata doesn't hold back with spoiling the first game through the documents you can find in it and personally I'd be pretty upset if I read those before playing Replicant. Those documents are cool for returning players because you get more context for the events of the previous entry, but also spoil some of the biggest twists. Play this first at your own risk.
In contrast to Replicant, Automata's story has a lot more spectacle to it than Replicant's more grounded and personal narrative. This time you're not taking control of the teenage boy who wants to cure his sister, but instead slip into the role of android warrior 2B, who is fighting in an all-out war against machines to reclaim the planet. Considering the scale of the story, you're just one of many androids - Automata is less about the characters' personal struggles and more about the main conflict at hand. And while the overarching narrative is solid, the real highlight is how the story is told and the messages behind it. This game has multiple routes and endings and they're used particularly well here, compared to Replicant, where the routes were the same in terms of gameplay, but with new scenes. Even if Automata's Route A and B are the same string of events told through a different perspective (which turned a surprising amount of people off from doing multiple routes), the unique gameplay of 9S and some scenes from his perspective alone are worth warranting the second playthrough. Route C however is where the story really picks up in pace, while also being a fresh experience at the same time. New enemies, new plot, new soundtrack. (The enemy variety in Automata in general is way better than Replicant, there are so many machines and bosses with cool ideas!) Also, the finale of Route C completely blew me away with the "art direction" of it and the final battle at the end was the cherry on top. For those concerned about missables, after beating this route, you'll unlock Chapter Select and can freely return to any point in the story before, so there's no reason for FOMO, feel free to tackle the game at your own pace. In regards to achievements, what I found particularly interesting was the integration of a trophy shop. It's just like the name would suggest, a hidden in-game shop where you can buy the remaining achievements in exchange for virtual currency. Pretty cool if you locked yourself out of a trophy, but also really made me think about the actual point of trophies in general...
Combat and movement in Automata are definitely an upgrade to Replicant's combat... for the most part. Coming right from the first game, I was a bit surprised how slippery the controls felt, like they didn't have much weight to them. The most glaring difference was the missing vibration on hit though, it really gave the attacks more impact for me. Turns out the controls are actually quite good and responsive after spending a while with them, it just took me a bit to adjust. Now, the combat in Automata literally consists of hack-and-slash. As 2B, your main approach to offense will be slashing through the enemies (while looking really stylish) by dual-wielding a set of two weapons of choice, reaching from her signature katanas to the Beastbane from Replicant, you're free to mix and match towards whatever matches your own personal playstyle. Meanwhile the other protagonist, 9S, puts the emphasis on the "hack" in hack-and-slash. He does not have the luxury of using two weapons at once, as his model is not designed for combat, but rather for gathering intel - in gameplay terms this means you can hack into your enemies to deal large amounts of damage, destroying most normal enemies instantly. Hacking consists of a Space Invaders-like bullet hell minigame, where you need to shoot down hostile ships or towers which are shooting projectiles at you. If you get hit three times, you're getting kicked and need to hack the enemy again to get another shot at the minigame. In order to successfully complete a hack, normally all enemies need to be destroyed before being able to shoot the otherwise guarded core, but there are some exceptions, like bosses and special hacks have unique screens with other conditions attached to them. Hacking and slashing aside, there's actually a third type of combat (even if it's rarely used), the aerial combat. There are a few parts where you're mounting a flying mech and need to shoot down enemies in a rail shooter-like fashion. These segments are either 2D or top-down, your possible movements are defined by the camera angle.
Following up to the "possible movements", I'd like to talk about the possible movements in the overworld and the level design in general, because I'm really sold on both of those aspects. Moving around feels great, has a very parkour-ish feel to it and hopping or gliding onto certain structures is awesome. This also comes from the level design being a lot of fun to traverse and explore, a big step up from Replicant. All areas have an unique theme they're designed after and they're like semi-open worlds. No loading screens (aside from the ones disguised as elevators) are a huge plus and make for a really seamless experience. Not to mention those individual levels are gorgeous and still filled with so many small details, my favorites are the Forest Kingdom and Amusement Park. Shoutout to the Flooded City, although I wish that area was a bit larger. After reflecting on those areas, I'm not really sure if I prefer the medieval design of Replicant's world or the post-apocalyptic world of Automata. But one thing is for certain: traversing Automata's world didn't break my controller's right trigger spring. (Yeah, that happened in Replicant. Not even because I threw the controller or anything, it was just because I dashed a lot...)
The soundtrack is excellent. As I already stated in my opener, NieR Automata greatly makes use of the dynamic soundtracks - this means the songs shift between multiple variants, based on what is currently happening. Like when you hack an enemy as 9S, the current song slowly transitions into an 8-Bit version, depending on how much the hacking meter is filled, eventually the the hacking sequence starts and the full 8-Bit rendition plays until the minigame is completed, where it fades back to the normal version. But not only does the combat have changing music, the songs in individual areas also change based on location or story progress. An example fairly early on is the desert theme, Memories of Dust. As you walk into the desert for the first time, you will hear an instrumental version of this song, but as you get closer to the apartment ruins, the vocals fade in. It also works in reverse, because if you walk away from that location, the lyrics will fade out again. The most impactful use of the dynamic soundtrack for me was at the very end, and I won't specify this further, since you'll know what I mean when you get there.
Something very important for the PC players: Please do yourself a favor and set the anti-aliasing to SMAA, because MSAA looks really horrible in this port and also chugs performance for some reason; you won't even get consistent 60 frames, because there's some built-in limiter. Meanwhile the FidelityFX CAS option makes the colors look off, so I'd recommend turning that off too. These two things unironically took me three hours to figure out and I don't want you to go through the same pain.
In the end, I absolutely adored NieR Automata as an experience. While it didn't emotionally impact me nearly as much as Replicant, I prefer the direction and creative approach in this one, like using the route system for something a lot more meaningful than playing through the exact same events three times (and the final area four times!). It's definitely a game I will be thinking about for quite some time, as it really opened my eyes on games as an artform. Thanks for reading and glory to mankind!
NieR: Automata is a game that goes above and beyond with its unique way of storytelling, taking full advantage of making the experience one that can't be substituted through a book or a movie - not just in terms of visual design, but also through the use of dynamic music and having its story told from the point of view of multiple protagonists.
Note that I have played NieR Replicant (the first game) right before this entry, so comparing the two games was inevitable for me. On one hand I still feel like I was doing Automata a disservice by doing so, but at the same time it was nice hearing remixes of familiar songs when they were still fresh in my memory. Either way, in my opinion something very important to anyone interested in this game, is to play Replicant first if you want the full experience. Not only because you would miss many cool references, but also because Automata doesn't hold back with spoiling the first game through the documents you can find in it and personally I'd be pretty upset if I read those before playing Replicant. Those documents are cool for returning players because you get more context for the events of the previous entry, but also spoil some of the biggest twists. Play this first at your own risk.
In contrast to Replicant, Automata's story has a lot more spectacle to it than Replicant's more grounded and personal narrative. This time you're not taking control of the teenage boy who wants to cure his sister, but instead slip into the role of android warrior 2B, who is fighting in an all-out war against machines to reclaim the planet. Considering the scale of the story, you're just one of many androids - Automata is less about the characters' personal struggles and more about the main conflict at hand. And while the overarching narrative is solid, the real highlight is how the story is told and the messages behind it. This game has multiple routes and endings and they're used particularly well here, compared to Replicant, where the routes were the same in terms of gameplay, but with new scenes. Even if Automata's Route A and B are the same string of events told through a different perspective (which turned a surprising amount of people off from doing multiple routes), the unique gameplay of 9S and some scenes from his perspective alone are worth warranting the second playthrough. Route C however is where the story really picks up in pace, while also being a fresh experience at the same time. New enemies, new plot, new soundtrack. (The enemy variety in Automata in general is way better than Replicant, there are so many machines and bosses with cool ideas!) Also, the finale of Route C completely blew me away with the "art direction" of it and the final battle at the end was the cherry on top. For those concerned about missables, after beating this route, you'll unlock Chapter Select and can freely return to any point in the story before, so there's no reason for FOMO, feel free to tackle the game at your own pace. In regards to achievements, what I found particularly interesting was the integration of a trophy shop. It's just like the name would suggest, a hidden in-game shop where you can buy the remaining achievements in exchange for virtual currency. Pretty cool if you locked yourself out of a trophy, but also really made me think about the actual point of trophies in general...
Combat and movement in Automata are definitely an upgrade to Replicant's combat... for the most part. Coming right from the first game, I was a bit surprised how slippery the controls felt, like they didn't have much weight to them. The most glaring difference was the missing vibration on hit though, it really gave the attacks more impact for me. Turns out the controls are actually quite good and responsive after spending a while with them, it just took me a bit to adjust. Now, the combat in Automata literally consists of hack-and-slash. As 2B, your main approach to offense will be slashing through the enemies (while looking really stylish) by dual-wielding a set of two weapons of choice, reaching from her signature katanas to the Beastbane from Replicant, you're free to mix and match towards whatever matches your own personal playstyle. Meanwhile the other protagonist, 9S, puts the emphasis on the "hack" in hack-and-slash. He does not have the luxury of using two weapons at once, as his model is not designed for combat, but rather for gathering intel - in gameplay terms this means you can hack into your enemies to deal large amounts of damage, destroying most normal enemies instantly. Hacking consists of a Space Invaders-like bullet hell minigame, where you need to shoot down hostile ships or towers which are shooting projectiles at you. If you get hit three times, you're getting kicked and need to hack the enemy again to get another shot at the minigame. In order to successfully complete a hack, normally all enemies need to be destroyed before being able to shoot the otherwise guarded core, but there are some exceptions, like bosses and special hacks have unique screens with other conditions attached to them. Hacking and slashing aside, there's actually a third type of combat (even if it's rarely used), the aerial combat. There are a few parts where you're mounting a flying mech and need to shoot down enemies in a rail shooter-like fashion. These segments are either 2D or top-down, your possible movements are defined by the camera angle.
Following up to the "possible movements", I'd like to talk about the possible movements in the overworld and the level design in general, because I'm really sold on both of those aspects. Moving around feels great, has a very parkour-ish feel to it and hopping or gliding onto certain structures is awesome. This also comes from the level design being a lot of fun to traverse and explore, a big step up from Replicant. All areas have an unique theme they're designed after and they're like semi-open worlds. No loading screens (aside from the ones disguised as elevators) are a huge plus and make for a really seamless experience. Not to mention those individual levels are gorgeous and still filled with so many small details, my favorites are the Forest Kingdom and Amusement Park. Shoutout to the Flooded City, although I wish that area was a bit larger. After reflecting on those areas, I'm not really sure if I prefer the medieval design of Replicant's world or the post-apocalyptic world of Automata. But one thing is for certain: traversing Automata's world didn't break my controller's right trigger spring. (Yeah, that happened in Replicant. Not even because I threw the controller or anything, it was just because I dashed a lot...)
The soundtrack is excellent. As I already stated in my opener, NieR Automata greatly makes use of the dynamic soundtracks - this means the songs shift between multiple variants, based on what is currently happening. Like when you hack an enemy as 9S, the current song slowly transitions into an 8-Bit version, depending on how much the hacking meter is filled, eventually the the hacking sequence starts and the full 8-Bit rendition plays until the minigame is completed, where it fades back to the normal version. But not only does the combat have changing music, the songs in individual areas also change based on location or story progress. An example fairly early on is the desert theme, Memories of Dust. As you walk into the desert for the first time, you will hear an instrumental version of this song, but as you get closer to the apartment ruins, the vocals fade in. It also works in reverse, because if you walk away from that location, the lyrics will fade out again. The most impactful use of the dynamic soundtrack for me was at the very end, and I won't specify this further, since you'll know what I mean when you get there.
Something very important for the PC players: Please do yourself a favor and set the anti-aliasing to SMAA, because MSAA looks really horrible in this port and also chugs performance for some reason; you won't even get consistent 60 frames, because there's some built-in limiter. Meanwhile the FidelityFX CAS option makes the colors look off, so I'd recommend turning that off too. These two things unironically took me three hours to figure out and I don't want you to go through the same pain.
In the end, I absolutely adored NieR Automata as an experience. While it didn't emotionally impact me nearly as much as Replicant, I prefer the direction and creative approach in this one, like using the route system for something a lot more meaningful than playing through the exact same events three times (and the final area four times!). It's definitely a game I will be thinking about for quite some time, as it really opened my eyes on games as an artform. Thanks for reading and glory to mankind!
Picayune Dreams
2023
What a cool game. The core gameplay is a surreal outer-space take on the Vampire Survivors formula, though it asks a bit more of the player than most entries in the genre. This is punctuated with straight up bullet-hell boss fights. Each boss fight is preceded by a bizarre conversation between the hero and the boss that generally establishes a bit of lore and personality. Beating a boss unlocks a Yume Nikki-style dream-horror story segment. Upping the difficulty and tying in a story with some rather compelling themes does a lot to elevate the genre.
This is further bolstered by an absolutely killer breakcore soundtrack that accentuates the stress of playing a bullet hell while maintaining the surreal feeling the rest of the game sets.
It took me a little over 5 hours to get my first victory, and I'll definitely be back for more!
This is further bolstered by an absolutely killer breakcore soundtrack that accentuates the stress of playing a bullet hell while maintaining the surreal feeling the rest of the game sets.
It took me a little over 5 hours to get my first victory, and I'll definitely be back for more!
Yakuza 5 Remastered
2019
dreams are big, and subtext is for cowards
have you ever wanted to be a taxi driver? what about a bear hunter? what about an idol? what about a guy who has money?? what about a ex baseball pro??? well guess what! with yakuza 5, your dreams (wink) canm come true!!!!!!
yakuza 5 does have some littol flaws that keep it from being a 5/5 for me, such as the encounter rate which made me want to have an encounter with falling off the side of a cliff :3 there's some plot issues but tbh they are not so bad that they bring down the game much, if at all, for me.
the new characters make me ascend higher than the highest highs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! takasugi and shinada 4 lyfe <333333 i think also this game in the series is one of the first to really dig deep into self reflection, and using dreams (wink) to showcase characters flaws and goals in such a beautiful way oh my god, very good very well done rgg i love u
i also think the antags are very good and i'm so happy that yakuza 5 did not fall into the same tropes that have been going on for 4 games in a row. good job yakuza 5
yakuza 5's themes are dreamlike (wink), i think they really do well at weaving the protagonists stories together, and make the finale section of the game genuinely superb writing. there's something so special about these larger than life characters, who often times literally and metaphorically explode off the screen, have wishes that are so human. dreams (wink) are so big and huge, yet the humans wanting them are so small, but can still be a constant inspiration for those around them
yume think i'm exaggerating, but i wouldn't dream of it, this game is sheer peak, and i cannot wait for more of the story to come <3
have you ever wanted to be a taxi driver? what about a bear hunter? what about an idol? what about a guy who has money?? what about a ex baseball pro??? well guess what! with yakuza 5, your dreams (wink) canm come true!!!!!!
yakuza 5 does have some littol flaws that keep it from being a 5/5 for me, such as the encounter rate which made me want to have an encounter with falling off the side of a cliff :3 there's some plot issues but tbh they are not so bad that they bring down the game much, if at all, for me.
the new characters make me ascend higher than the highest highs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! takasugi and shinada 4 lyfe <333333 i think also this game in the series is one of the first to really dig deep into self reflection, and using dreams (wink) to showcase characters flaws and goals in such a beautiful way oh my god, very good very well done rgg i love u
i also think the antags are very good and i'm so happy that yakuza 5 did not fall into the same tropes that have been going on for 4 games in a row. good job yakuza 5
yakuza 5's themes are dreamlike (wink), i think they really do well at weaving the protagonists stories together, and make the finale section of the game genuinely superb writing. there's something so special about these larger than life characters, who often times literally and metaphorically explode off the screen, have wishes that are so human. dreams (wink) are so big and huge, yet the humans wanting them are so small, but can still be a constant inspiration for those around them
yume think i'm exaggerating, but i wouldn't dream of it, this game is sheer peak, and i cannot wait for more of the story to come <3
Nightshade
2003
Massively underrated or just Made For Me to a degree no other game has ever been? A little bit of both. Either way, this is going in my 5-star Favorite Games Of All Time Superstar Club.
A much superior game to Shinobi 2002, and also maybe the best action game I've played since Ninja Gaiden, Nightshade is exactly what I like in my action games to a degree that I wonder if I actually designed this game through some rift in time. We need to start considering games like this and Ninja Gaiden Black as art games. I think incredibly stylish and well-choreographed action are as artistically unique uses of the medium as boring-as-fuck shit I'll never in a million years finish like Kentucky Route Zero.
One of the absolute best designed ninja suits ever, worn by a badass woman, incredibly fast and skillful gameplay, style and substance, with an incredible drum'n'bass soundtrack to boot. The game would have to periodically cut to episodes of Columbo if I were to rate it any higher.
This is a 5-star based on vibes alone, as I really don't think this one is for everyone. It's incredibly difficult, requires precision and mastery on a level that most will find frustrating, and the camera, while a massive improvement on Shinobi's, is still not ideal for the later level's bottomless pits. From my personal standpoint, you absolutely should play this with save states, as the general checkpoint system is far too punitive for the kind of accuracy it demands from you. It's VERY old-school in that sensibility.
It also has many difficulty options, including a beginner mode which I found very welcoming of the game after the US release of Shinobi cut the easy mode for god-knows-why. Shinobi is a game I really like, but find WAY too unwelcoming and prickly to truly love. It's like a friend's really ill-behaved cat, where you know that little piece of shit is going to scratch or hiss at you just for daring to exist near it. Impossible to love but too endearing to hate.
A lot of this comes to Hibana feeling better to control than Hotsuma, especially in-air. Shinobi would demand a lot of perfect air-combos, but Hotsuma didn't feel quite as maneuverable and lacked a dedicated kick button, meaning enemies who could block you were a massive pain in the ass. The most immediate improvement Nightshade adds is that Hibana can kick from the air, giving you better gap-closing opportunities, better combo extension, and allows for you to deftly navigate the game's bottomless pits through knowing how to RESET those in-air combos. It feels much more stylish and skillful than Shinobi, while giving it the necessary bit of streamlining to feel more approachable.
I also played the undub of this game, as one of the biggest "What the fuck" changes is removing the Japanese dub entirely. Shinobi was pretty unique in letting you listen to the Japanese voice track instead of the English dub. This isn't a huge problem as for the era, these dubs aren't actually that bad. I like Hibana's voice in the English dub, and my research indicates that her voice actress also was interviewed in documentaries about Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, which is curious. More curious is Hisui, who is voiced by "E. Cahill", which, and I'm not sure, might be Erin Cahill, better known as Jen Scotts from Power Rangers: Time Force. I have watched many hours of Power Rangers throughout my adult life, and a lot of them was on Time Force, and I REALLY don't know if they are the same. Who is the same though is Hibana's japanese voice actress, Atsuko Tanaka, who has been in EVERYTHING EVER. You might know her best as Motoko Kusanagi in Stand Alone Complex and the dub voice for Lisa in Night Trap. Her voice for Hibana is sooooo good, applying a very deep and professional tone with this cool-guy edge you rarely get to see a female character have. She manages to be a consummate professional like Hotsuma while being incredibly distinct from him in her devil may care attitude in contrast to Hotsuma's grave seriousness.
One of the most striking things about Hibana is her flare for style. Hotsuma's TATE poses were classic ninja-movie stuff: dude puts his sword away calmly while his enemies collapse to pieces. Hibana is more willing to strike a pose: spinning her knives, holding her sword in the air, and the more TATEs you build up the more dramatic. Pulling off the 30 TATE might be when I decided this was a 5-star game, it was so enormously difficult, as Nightshade punishes you HARD for input spamming, forcing you to get a rhythm down to approaching TATEs. It was then I realized that Nightshade was cooking in a way no one really appreciated, in the similar way Sekiro feels rhythmic in its combat encounters, building long-stretches of TATEs in Nightshade is the same way!
The rhythm of this is enhanced by the BEAUTIFUL MATSERPIECE M'WAH PERFECTO soundtrack consisting of the best drum'n'bass ever fucking PRODUCED. Composed by a ton of Sega pros, one of the most notable names on here is Fumie Kumatani: the composer for all the BEST TRACKS in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. She was also responsible for the best tracks in Shinobi!! She can do no wrong!
Here are some of my favorite tunes, including the composer name as sourced from VGMDB.
Shinobi Tate by Fumie Kumatani
https://youtu.be/Nl930cF0tVU?si=EwDidZuTuXPeROaJ
Overcome Speed by Keiichi Sugiyama
https://youtu.be/MjCJuppjOG8?si=iyzeCCjOLmNjRb5p
Dark Kingdom by Tomonori Sawada
https://youtu.be/8ZN8vzehu4c?si=bLXEisdEXEYjQmQN
Jade Water by Fumie Kumatani
https://youtu.be/hZT1ZB-VQBc?si=eqM6PIEcUsxpAklq
As with Shinobi, this OST is a must-listen if you like D'n'B, as they assembled the fucking Avengers of the Amen Break on this one.
I have written more words about Nightshade than have been written in 20 years, so I'll try and wrap it up. I find this an immensely stylish and rewarding game with a surprisingly dramatic and well-directed storyline, with gameplay improving on everything Shinobi did while adding in more. Bosses are more mechanically interesting, levels feel more considered, and movement feels fantastic once you get its intricacies down. It's not gonna be for everyone, but it was for me more than any game really could hope to be.
A much superior game to Shinobi 2002, and also maybe the best action game I've played since Ninja Gaiden, Nightshade is exactly what I like in my action games to a degree that I wonder if I actually designed this game through some rift in time. We need to start considering games like this and Ninja Gaiden Black as art games. I think incredibly stylish and well-choreographed action are as artistically unique uses of the medium as boring-as-fuck shit I'll never in a million years finish like Kentucky Route Zero.
One of the absolute best designed ninja suits ever, worn by a badass woman, incredibly fast and skillful gameplay, style and substance, with an incredible drum'n'bass soundtrack to boot. The game would have to periodically cut to episodes of Columbo if I were to rate it any higher.
This is a 5-star based on vibes alone, as I really don't think this one is for everyone. It's incredibly difficult, requires precision and mastery on a level that most will find frustrating, and the camera, while a massive improvement on Shinobi's, is still not ideal for the later level's bottomless pits. From my personal standpoint, you absolutely should play this with save states, as the general checkpoint system is far too punitive for the kind of accuracy it demands from you. It's VERY old-school in that sensibility.
It also has many difficulty options, including a beginner mode which I found very welcoming of the game after the US release of Shinobi cut the easy mode for god-knows-why. Shinobi is a game I really like, but find WAY too unwelcoming and prickly to truly love. It's like a friend's really ill-behaved cat, where you know that little piece of shit is going to scratch or hiss at you just for daring to exist near it. Impossible to love but too endearing to hate.
A lot of this comes to Hibana feeling better to control than Hotsuma, especially in-air. Shinobi would demand a lot of perfect air-combos, but Hotsuma didn't feel quite as maneuverable and lacked a dedicated kick button, meaning enemies who could block you were a massive pain in the ass. The most immediate improvement Nightshade adds is that Hibana can kick from the air, giving you better gap-closing opportunities, better combo extension, and allows for you to deftly navigate the game's bottomless pits through knowing how to RESET those in-air combos. It feels much more stylish and skillful than Shinobi, while giving it the necessary bit of streamlining to feel more approachable.
I also played the undub of this game, as one of the biggest "What the fuck" changes is removing the Japanese dub entirely. Shinobi was pretty unique in letting you listen to the Japanese voice track instead of the English dub. This isn't a huge problem as for the era, these dubs aren't actually that bad. I like Hibana's voice in the English dub, and my research indicates that her voice actress also was interviewed in documentaries about Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, which is curious. More curious is Hisui, who is voiced by "E. Cahill", which, and I'm not sure, might be Erin Cahill, better known as Jen Scotts from Power Rangers: Time Force. I have watched many hours of Power Rangers throughout my adult life, and a lot of them was on Time Force, and I REALLY don't know if they are the same. Who is the same though is Hibana's japanese voice actress, Atsuko Tanaka, who has been in EVERYTHING EVER. You might know her best as Motoko Kusanagi in Stand Alone Complex and the dub voice for Lisa in Night Trap. Her voice for Hibana is sooooo good, applying a very deep and professional tone with this cool-guy edge you rarely get to see a female character have. She manages to be a consummate professional like Hotsuma while being incredibly distinct from him in her devil may care attitude in contrast to Hotsuma's grave seriousness.
One of the most striking things about Hibana is her flare for style. Hotsuma's TATE poses were classic ninja-movie stuff: dude puts his sword away calmly while his enemies collapse to pieces. Hibana is more willing to strike a pose: spinning her knives, holding her sword in the air, and the more TATEs you build up the more dramatic. Pulling off the 30 TATE might be when I decided this was a 5-star game, it was so enormously difficult, as Nightshade punishes you HARD for input spamming, forcing you to get a rhythm down to approaching TATEs. It was then I realized that Nightshade was cooking in a way no one really appreciated, in the similar way Sekiro feels rhythmic in its combat encounters, building long-stretches of TATEs in Nightshade is the same way!
The rhythm of this is enhanced by the BEAUTIFUL MATSERPIECE M'WAH PERFECTO soundtrack consisting of the best drum'n'bass ever fucking PRODUCED. Composed by a ton of Sega pros, one of the most notable names on here is Fumie Kumatani: the composer for all the BEST TRACKS in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. She was also responsible for the best tracks in Shinobi!! She can do no wrong!
Here are some of my favorite tunes, including the composer name as sourced from VGMDB.
Shinobi Tate by Fumie Kumatani
https://youtu.be/Nl930cF0tVU?si=EwDidZuTuXPeROaJ
Overcome Speed by Keiichi Sugiyama
https://youtu.be/MjCJuppjOG8?si=iyzeCCjOLmNjRb5p
Dark Kingdom by Tomonori Sawada
https://youtu.be/8ZN8vzehu4c?si=bLXEisdEXEYjQmQN
Jade Water by Fumie Kumatani
https://youtu.be/hZT1ZB-VQBc?si=eqM6PIEcUsxpAklq
As with Shinobi, this OST is a must-listen if you like D'n'B, as they assembled the fucking Avengers of the Amen Break on this one.
I have written more words about Nightshade than have been written in 20 years, so I'll try and wrap it up. I find this an immensely stylish and rewarding game with a surprisingly dramatic and well-directed storyline, with gameplay improving on everything Shinobi did while adding in more. Bosses are more mechanically interesting, levels feel more considered, and movement feels fantastic once you get its intricacies down. It's not gonna be for everyone, but it was for me more than any game really could hope to be.
Devil May Cry 2
2003
Devils don't cry in Devil May Cry 2, but you will.
Devil May Cry 2
2003
A few years ago I made a very funny joke review, and while I still think it's incredibly funny I also think it's important to get my actual thoughts on DMC2 on record. Game sucks. It's a miracle this game got released at all, and for the amount of time they had to make it it's astonishing that there is a beginning, middle and end. But it all sucks to play.
What IS amusing is the amount of reviews by people who really want to be contrarians, but come face-to-face with some true, unfiltered slop. This is when domesticated dogs meet wolves and realize they aren't built for this. This review page might as well have a "TURN BACK, NO SURVIVORS" for anyone who is bold enough to try and play DMC2 and have fun. It's not built for fun, it's not even built for hate, it's built for nothing.
What IS amusing is the amount of reviews by people who really want to be contrarians, but come face-to-face with some true, unfiltered slop. This is when domesticated dogs meet wolves and realize they aren't built for this. This review page might as well have a "TURN BACK, NO SURVIVORS" for anyone who is bold enough to try and play DMC2 and have fun. It's not built for fun, it's not even built for hate, it's built for nothing.
Never has a game made me cry this much before.
It's snowing. A boy and his younger sister are starving and freezing, so they seek shelter in an abandoned supermarket to find rations and warmth. No one else is in sight, the streets and supermarket are empty - until mysterious shadows break into the store and threaten the siblings. With his remaining strength, the boy heads out to the parking lot and decides to take on the monsters with just an iron pipe and dark magic spells from a mysterious book, as he needs to protect his beloved sister at all costs. It's a hopeless battle, but the brother has no other choice.
NieR Replicant ver1.22 tells the tale of the young Nier and his quest to find a cure to heal his bedridden sister Yonah. Their parents are dead, so Nier is doing his best as a big brother and takes on various requests in his village to earn some pocket money to buy food, but at the same time he hates seeing his sister alone and wants to spend more time by her side. Life isn't easy for the two of them and it would be a shame if it got any worse.
Alright, I'm not giving an entire rundown of the plot here. My point is: The game is sad! Really sad. As you've read in the opening sentence, never has a game made me tear up and shiver as much as Replicant before and I'm a sucker for stories with emotional impact. It's really one of the best narratives I've ever seen. The moment I stepped foot into Aerie Village I knew I was in for a ride, but to be fair, the game does start rather slow and doesn't really gain momentum until an hour or so in, but that's because Replicant starts by showing Nier's daily life in the village and his routine (comparable to Twilight Princess' intro segment, but only half as long). The payoff is worth it though, as experiencing the plot unravel firsthand from an average shonen story to pure Yoko Taro madness is truly an one-of-a-kind experience and you'll never see this adventure the same way again after some reveals. Through episodic storytelling in the form of multiple routes, the player needs to replay a part of the game each time, but in each subsequent playthrough, new scenes that give context to certain events are added, which totally enhanced the experience for me, especially since you'll always know after your first playthrough what's going to happen next. Not gonna elaborate on that further, since it's a very spoilery topic by nature, so you should just experience it for yourself. However, I can understand how people are upset with the repetition, especially since the third playthrough is nearly identical to Route B. But trust me, pushing through is worth it and by the time you reach Ending E most of your questions should be answered, which is a great reward. The only thing I'm a bit torn on is the requirement to have all weapons in your inventory to access Routes C, D and E, since some of them are missable. A bunch of missed weapons can be bought at the blacksmith in Aerie Village after a certain point in the story, but some also require you to do three certain side quests. My recommendation: Since you can't get all the weapons on Route A normally anyways (3 are locked behind the World of Recycled Vessel content, which only unlocks after beating the game once), I suggest you just play through that one normally and pick up every weapon you find along the way (remember to break the crates!!) and if you are still missing some, you might look up where to get them on Route B. This requirement really shows the age of the original game, but shouldn't distract you from the overall outstanding narrative.
Okay, so the story is good, but what about the gameplay? I think it's great personally! (Except for the part where I broke the spring in my controller's right trigger... by dashing too much.) The controls are simple and the combat feels satisfying, there are great animations and the attacks feel like they have weight to them. Being able to utilize weapons and magic at the same time is really cool, you can pull off some interesting maneuvers by combining certain spells with standard attacks; there's even an in-game tutorial for it, if I remember correctly. But the combat is not the only aspect of the game, a lot of time is spent... backtracking (and fishing). There's really a lot of running around, especially if you're looking to complete as many side quests as possible. As someone who wanted to get the most out of Replicant, I finished the game with 97% sidequest completion and only left out two specific ones deliberately because I really didn't like the idea of spending several real-time days on the gardening part of the game with only a chance to get the flower seeds you need. That quest aside, surprisingly I really enjoyed my time with most of the sidequests! A whole lot of them were just fetch quests, yet you get some nice (voiced) dialogue out of them and I got to spend more time in this cozy world, so it didn't really matter to me - the extra banter alone made it worth to me. There's also some particularly good quests, like ones where you can make decisions that actually impact your rewards and the people around you. As an example, in one quest you can decide whether to help a criminal out or not and you have to live with that decision. Same goes for several occasions throughout the game where Nier can decide to either tell the truth or lie to people - there is no "right" choice and it's up to the player to decide what they think is for the best. Very cool.
The cast of this game is awesome, and I'm not just talking about the main party. Characters like the twins, Fyra or the postman really add to the liveliness in this overall rather bleak world and everyone has their own unique story behind them. I mean there's even a backstory for the fisherman who gives you all those fishing quests! Fishermen and postmen aside, Nier's actual companions deserve the spotlight just as much. Weiss, Emil and Kainé are some of the most unusual JRPG companions I have ever seen (and I love them for it), since they basically go against most of the common tropes you'd expect out of a sidekick. Personally I found the banter of the party to be really interesting at times, since their distinctive personalities are just destined to have a weird dispute every now and then.
The rearranged soundtrack is just beautiful. While NieR Gestalt focused more on the bass of the songs and sounds "rougher", Replicant ver1.22 centers the instruments more and has a "softer" tone, which fits the melancholic vibe incredibly well in my opinion. If you'd ask me to pickthree four favorite songs, I'm going with Snow in Summer, Temple of Drifting Sands, Song of the Ancients (Devola) and Fleeting Words (Outsider). I'm not linking them this time, because it's quite hard to find an upload of the individual ver1.22 arrangements on YouTube and its even harder to find spoiler-free ones (very important for a story-heavy game like this).
To wrap this up, I firmly believe Nier Replicant is a must-play for anyone who loves JRPGs with great narrative, characters and soundtrack (but can also handle a little repetition). While the game can be a little slow at times, the experience of slowly piercing this story and context together for yourself is unbeatable and I hopeit makes you just as sad you can find just as much enjoyment in it as I did!
It's snowing. A boy and his younger sister are starving and freezing, so they seek shelter in an abandoned supermarket to find rations and warmth. No one else is in sight, the streets and supermarket are empty - until mysterious shadows break into the store and threaten the siblings. With his remaining strength, the boy heads out to the parking lot and decides to take on the monsters with just an iron pipe and dark magic spells from a mysterious book, as he needs to protect his beloved sister at all costs. It's a hopeless battle, but the brother has no other choice.
NieR Replicant ver1.22 tells the tale of the young Nier and his quest to find a cure to heal his bedridden sister Yonah. Their parents are dead, so Nier is doing his best as a big brother and takes on various requests in his village to earn some pocket money to buy food, but at the same time he hates seeing his sister alone and wants to spend more time by her side. Life isn't easy for the two of them and it would be a shame if it got any worse.
Alright, I'm not giving an entire rundown of the plot here. My point is: The game is sad! Really sad. As you've read in the opening sentence, never has a game made me tear up and shiver as much as Replicant before and I'm a sucker for stories with emotional impact. It's really one of the best narratives I've ever seen. The moment I stepped foot into Aerie Village I knew I was in for a ride, but to be fair, the game does start rather slow and doesn't really gain momentum until an hour or so in, but that's because Replicant starts by showing Nier's daily life in the village and his routine (comparable to Twilight Princess' intro segment, but only half as long). The payoff is worth it though, as experiencing the plot unravel firsthand from an average shonen story to pure Yoko Taro madness is truly an one-of-a-kind experience and you'll never see this adventure the same way again after some reveals. Through episodic storytelling in the form of multiple routes, the player needs to replay a part of the game each time, but in each subsequent playthrough, new scenes that give context to certain events are added, which totally enhanced the experience for me, especially since you'll always know after your first playthrough what's going to happen next. Not gonna elaborate on that further, since it's a very spoilery topic by nature, so you should just experience it for yourself. However, I can understand how people are upset with the repetition, especially since the third playthrough is nearly identical to Route B. But trust me, pushing through is worth it and by the time you reach Ending E most of your questions should be answered, which is a great reward. The only thing I'm a bit torn on is the requirement to have all weapons in your inventory to access Routes C, D and E, since some of them are missable. A bunch of missed weapons can be bought at the blacksmith in Aerie Village after a certain point in the story, but some also require you to do three certain side quests. My recommendation: Since you can't get all the weapons on Route A normally anyways (3 are locked behind the World of Recycled Vessel content, which only unlocks after beating the game once), I suggest you just play through that one normally and pick up every weapon you find along the way (remember to break the crates!!) and if you are still missing some, you might look up where to get them on Route B. This requirement really shows the age of the original game, but shouldn't distract you from the overall outstanding narrative.
Okay, so the story is good, but what about the gameplay? I think it's great personally! (Except for the part where I broke the spring in my controller's right trigger... by dashing too much.) The controls are simple and the combat feels satisfying, there are great animations and the attacks feel like they have weight to them. Being able to utilize weapons and magic at the same time is really cool, you can pull off some interesting maneuvers by combining certain spells with standard attacks; there's even an in-game tutorial for it, if I remember correctly. But the combat is not the only aspect of the game, a lot of time is spent... backtracking (and fishing). There's really a lot of running around, especially if you're looking to complete as many side quests as possible. As someone who wanted to get the most out of Replicant, I finished the game with 97% sidequest completion and only left out two specific ones deliberately because I really didn't like the idea of spending several real-time days on the gardening part of the game with only a chance to get the flower seeds you need. That quest aside, surprisingly I really enjoyed my time with most of the sidequests! A whole lot of them were just fetch quests, yet you get some nice (voiced) dialogue out of them and I got to spend more time in this cozy world, so it didn't really matter to me - the extra banter alone made it worth to me. There's also some particularly good quests, like ones where you can make decisions that actually impact your rewards and the people around you. As an example, in one quest you can decide whether to help a criminal out or not and you have to live with that decision. Same goes for several occasions throughout the game where Nier can decide to either tell the truth or lie to people - there is no "right" choice and it's up to the player to decide what they think is for the best. Very cool.
The cast of this game is awesome, and I'm not just talking about the main party. Characters like the twins, Fyra or the postman really add to the liveliness in this overall rather bleak world and everyone has their own unique story behind them. I mean there's even a backstory for the fisherman who gives you all those fishing quests! Fishermen and postmen aside, Nier's actual companions deserve the spotlight just as much. Weiss, Emil and Kainé are some of the most unusual JRPG companions I have ever seen (and I love them for it), since they basically go against most of the common tropes you'd expect out of a sidekick. Personally I found the banter of the party to be really interesting at times, since their distinctive personalities are just destined to have a weird dispute every now and then.
The rearranged soundtrack is just beautiful. While NieR Gestalt focused more on the bass of the songs and sounds "rougher", Replicant ver1.22 centers the instruments more and has a "softer" tone, which fits the melancholic vibe incredibly well in my opinion. If you'd ask me to pick
To wrap this up, I firmly believe Nier Replicant is a must-play for anyone who loves JRPGs with great narrative, characters and soundtrack (but can also handle a little repetition). While the game can be a little slow at times, the experience of slowly piercing this story and context together for yourself is unbeatable and I hope
Dragon's Dogma II
2024
when im in a worst dlc competition and Dragon's Dogma 2: Portcrystal - Warp Location Marker walks in
Sifu
2022
I was a big fan of Absolver though the school system isn't as traditional as pressing square and triangle like Sifu has. Sifu makes you feel like a kung fu master from the moment you press the first takedown animation and that's a good testament to the game. At first, you get your ass beat a lot until you start to learn parry timing and what attacks to avoid. Repetition is key in this game as by the time I got to the final boss, I truly felt like I mastered the game enough to take on the challenge.
(Note: I've completed the contents of this DLC in Replicant ver1.22, where it's already included. From the looks of it, the content is identical with the Gestalt version though.)
The World of Recycled Vessel might just be one of the most redundant and aimless expansions I've ever played. The advertised "story" is pretty much nonexistent, and the gameplay portion doesn't really make up for it either, since it's just fighting your way through reused rooms filled with enemies. It's not entirely unoriginal though, there are two new arenas that I especially liked: some basketball court and a raft on the horizon of Seafront.
Now, the presentation of the DLC is also... unique, to say the least. Being able to play as Father Nier was definitely my personal highlight of it, since I never played Gestalt. Soundtrack's fine too, even if most of the remixes aren't quite memorable in my opinion. I really like the Song of the Ancients remix here though. My biggest issue with the "art direction" of the DLC is just how there's a video filter slapped on almost every stage for no reason; it was really irritating at times.
The cherry on top are the rewards for these trials - three below-average weapons that, realistically speaking, hardly anyone would ever use at the point the DLC unlocks. They don't even have a cool gimmick or anything, however you need them in your inventory to get access to the last three endings in the game. You also get some costumes for the cast, but they're whatever to me. By the way, you don't get ANY exp or materials from the enemies in the trials (but the healing items you use here are lost ironically), just a weak payout in exp and gold at the end of each door. Just like with the weapons, these amounts are practically worthless by the time you unlock the DLC.
It certainly was nice to play as Father Nier for once, but the rest of the expansion just didn't really stick for me. I think it's rather funny how they made a combat-centered DLC for Gestalt when the general consensus is the combat being rather rough in that game (can't comment on it, didn't play Gestalt). My review for Replicant ver1.22 is probably dropping very soon, and I can guarantee you I had a way better time with it than with World of Recycled Vessel. Thanks for reading.
The World of Recycled Vessel might just be one of the most redundant and aimless expansions I've ever played. The advertised "story" is pretty much nonexistent, and the gameplay portion doesn't really make up for it either, since it's just fighting your way through reused rooms filled with enemies. It's not entirely unoriginal though, there are two new arenas that I especially liked: some basketball court and a raft on the horizon of Seafront.
Now, the presentation of the DLC is also... unique, to say the least. Being able to play as Father Nier was definitely my personal highlight of it, since I never played Gestalt. Soundtrack's fine too, even if most of the remixes aren't quite memorable in my opinion. I really like the Song of the Ancients remix here though. My biggest issue with the "art direction" of the DLC is just how there's a video filter slapped on almost every stage for no reason; it was really irritating at times.
The cherry on top are the rewards for these trials - three below-average weapons that, realistically speaking, hardly anyone would ever use at the point the DLC unlocks. They don't even have a cool gimmick or anything, however you need them in your inventory to get access to the last three endings in the game. You also get some costumes for the cast, but they're whatever to me. By the way, you don't get ANY exp or materials from the enemies in the trials (but the healing items you use here are lost ironically), just a weak payout in exp and gold at the end of each door. Just like with the weapons, these amounts are practically worthless by the time you unlock the DLC.
It certainly was nice to play as Father Nier for once, but the rest of the expansion just didn't really stick for me. I think it's rather funny how they made a combat-centered DLC for Gestalt when the general consensus is the combat being rather rough in that game (can't comment on it, didn't play Gestalt). My review for Replicant ver1.22 is probably dropping very soon, and I can guarantee you I had a way better time with it than with World of Recycled Vessel. Thanks for reading.