hypothetical life partner walks into the room

"Vee, what are you doing?"

"Playing Balatro."

"It's 4 o'clock in the morning. Why on Earth are you playing Balatro?"

"Because I've lost control of my life."

Eastward, or "Eastbound" as it really should have been called, is so gosh darn pretty. It just looks real nice. It has a unique, detailed look. It feels alive, it moves, you might say it breathes, even. It has some frame drops on Switch here and there, but it is in the whole a visual treat all the way through. The music is pretty good, and the character arcs are nice enough. Unfortunately, the game suffers throughout from a pretty bad sense of pacing and overall odd or incoherent moods.

Eastbound takes a lot of inspiration from the Mother series, a series of JRPGs from the late 90s and early 200s. There's a pretty fun mini game based on classic JRPGs in Eastbound, and some important characters are referred to as "Mother" in the game. Eastbound also takes inspiration from these games by making you spend hours doing gopher tasks that don't really progress the story at all, and having a story that seems like it was only translated halfway. There were far too many moments where a serious plot point--a character death, or several character deaths--would get undercut by the cheery music cue and a change in topic. It seemed like the dissonance was intentional at first, maybe, but it never developed. I don't know.

I think if you really dig the story this game would be fun. I liked the characters well enough, and the gameplay was fine, it all just too way too long. And in the end it didn't really feel worth it. Still it looks nice, and gives very strong Miyazaki vibes. Or perhaps shitty Miyazaki ripoff vibes.

I’m overwhelmingly glad that I stuck with this game through to the end, because I very nearly didn’t. True to what other people have said - Eastward is glacial; largely disinterested with stringing the player along with explosive story beats, overarching goals and villains. While the game shares many similarities to Zelda: Minish Cap and Mother 3 in its aesthetics, dungeon schema and quirky ensemble cast, it feels closer in spirit to Moon: Remix RPG. Eastward is primarily a story of a journey, a potpourri of emotions and vignettes, and it expects you to inhabit the communities of the microworlds you visit on your trip. I wish I had known this going in, and I’d like to start my review by stating as such as a primer for anyone reading because when I clocked what Eastward’s intentions were and met it halfway, I finally found myself sinking in.

Eastward is an adventure RPG revolving around the story of John, a stoic, taciturn miner and his mysterious wide-eyed adoptive daughter named Sam - each born into an isolated town deep beneath the surface. The narrative is ostensibly a one-way ticket on a train powered by Sam’s positive energy and curiosity as she yearns to see the sun for the first time with a thoroughly convincing and endearing childlike wonderment. Upon reaching the surface, I was right there with her.

The world is presented through the dichotomy of John and Sam’s polar opposite personalities. Sam is contagiously cheerful and childishly chatty, but she often fails to perceive the more adult dramas and contradictions. Despite John being ghoulishly silent throughout the game, he exhibits warmth and intelligence at points that the player can fill in themselves. This is particularly noticeable in moments like when Sam and John encounter incubators for artificial human beings hidden deep within ruins for the first time. For Sam, those seem almost like hyper-technological playgrounds, while for John, and consequently also for the player, their mysterious and threatening nature is very evident. It’s all surprisingly effective as far as Game Dad character interactions go.

Eastward is a post-apocalyptic setting fraught with danger, but dotted along the tracks are pockets of humanity small and large, towns and cities with cultures cultivated over time in isolation. Each is inhabited by characters that are of course quirky, but surprisingly fleshed out and genuinely memorable. It’s been a very long time since a game world has felt so alive and well-told down to its minute details, helped in no small part to the stellar pixel work in the meticulously realised characters and environments. Some of the best pixel art I have ever seen. Honestly, it left me genuinely inspired - to take in every inch of the world, but also to create for myself.

I often found myself thinking back to the steps on the path I had already walked, about the characters I could no longer return to, and wondering what they were doing while I was not there to watch. Personally speaking, I can ask nothing more of a game. Eastward acted as a beacon of positive vibrations and inspiration to me. As someone who has never grown out of pinning himself to a train window and imagining the lives of the people in the towns I zoom by, the experience of this game was incisive to something I hold dear. Favourite game of 2021 by far.

"𝙱𝚞𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚍ō" 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙽𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚖 █

The Cyberpunk franchise is a litmus test of our time. This groundbreaking video game puts on full display the entire spectrum of American society, masterfully pointing out the greatest problems of the neomodern era. Cyberpunk 2077 was, in its own way, a generational manifesto on the affirmation of living life. The use of vivid light and colors, shaky gameplay, ubiquitous blood effects and pervasive crash-to-desktop testifies to the extraordinary self-awareness of the studio director, who once revealed in an interview how he "fucking loves it when hot chicks dissect the shit out of the bad guys." Perhaps no other concept more aptly describes the underlying societal ethos when this game was released.

Especially worthy of note is the repetition in cutscenes of the rockerboy motif, through which the protagonist reinterprets their engrammed reality. One example of this convention's flawless implementation appears in the quest "Disasterpiece": the scene in which the powerful Adam Smasher disembodies the arm of Johnny Silverhand - as played by the transcendently wooden Keanu Reeves - demonstrates in brilliant form the duality of the human and transhuman condition. On the one hand, Johnny loses his cybernetic prosthesis - a symbol of both his tragic past and the ongoing techno-ontological conflict within his psyche; on the other hand, it is precisely due to this dismemberment that Smasher is blown to bits of scrap by a sensational RTX explosion sequence.

And the final disintegration of the antagonist's body into a bloodspray of metallic gore... how should this be interpreted? It is a metaphorical cry of deeply rooted despair, a manifestation of the personal transgression. This fragmentation of body could likewise be interpreted as a fragmentation of the individual mind, thus provoking the question: Whose mind? Indeed, had everything the player seen of Johnny's struggle been, in fact, a personified, embodied fear? Had he not been embroiled in epic battle with a vile corporation, but rather only with himself? Could the entirety of Johnny-V's narrative have only been a manifestation of some cyberpsychotic dream-state?

Among all the depth and nuance that has defined this franchise since its inception, only one thing is truly certain - Cyberpunk 2077 has forever changed the world of video games.

preparing my finest, largest pair of clownshoes for anyone who tries to use the update that adds new apartments that you'll spend maybe 1 minute in each to make the one millionth attempt to rehabilitate this game. all a stable framerate will do to this game is let you see crystal clear how fucking ugly it is in attitude and design.

please just let this shit, racist, transphobic game made by overworked and abused developers die the death it so richly deserves to. there are so many pieces on this website and elsewhere either going for an infuriatingly smug centrist "both extremes are bad" read or desperately trying to resuscitate CP2077 by putting outrageous effort into finding whatever gold exists in the salted earth of these awful hills and it just isn't worth it on any level. i promise you, every second of that effort would be better served on almost every other game.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of those games that has no doubt had and will continue to have "what happened" case studies and documentaries. It's a fascinating game in a lot of ways before even playing it. Riding high off the success of The Witcher III and the goodwill gained from that release and it's superb DLC it felt like the developer CD Projekt Red could do no wrong. Even a simple beep tweet on Cyberpunk's twitter account after a dormant time from announcement caused a lot of discussion and hype leading up to their next big project. Cracks under the surface though unknown to most with troubled development led to launching on platforms the game wasn't ready for. The game came out with performance, AI and balance issues in abundance. Overnight after it's rushed release CDPR's bubble burst. Noise about it for the PS4 specifically was so bad that Sony did the unthinkable removing it from the PSstore and handing out refunds. It stayed that way for months. Moral of the story here? never pre-order no matter who the developer is in this day and age.

So very quick background about Cyberpunk's history out the way, how is the game 3 years later after all it's patching, PS5 version release and 2.0 Update release? All in all pretty good though I have nothing to compare it to prior to this as I was waiting for it to be finished before I played it. So this will not be a No Man's Sky or FFXIV redemption story review. Simply one of how I experienced it as it is now.

First thing I have to comment about is that as a role playing game I still found Cyberpunk disappointing and to be honest I just don't count it as one. I remember in an interview when the game was still just an announced CGI trailer 10 years ago from a developer that the game would be dense and vertical. I clearly misinterpreted that taking it to mean it would be a bit more like Deus Ex but the end result is quite the opposite. This left it feeling extremely wide and flat with a few buildings to traverse at key points. It just feels like any other open world game with a Cyberpunk skin. This may be a me problem rather than a Cyberpunk 2077 problem but I just expected more to it than that. The level up and skill system is actually just bad and this is after it has been revised, stripped down and balanced as I understand from launch. Normal level up perk point skills seem pointless mostly. Slightly more damage, quick hack damage at 10%? It's all just a bit...boring. I think I would have preferred they scrap perk abilities completely and had all abilities attached to the Cyberware you install. Having gorilla arms that increase physical strength for melee attacks and forcing open doors? Legs giving double jumps? Optics for seeing enemies through walls etc. There are just more useful abilities that offer more utility for both exploration and combat. Additionally these type of upgrades fit the cyberpunk thematic a lot better to boot. Instead it's got multiple systems that feel uninteresting and tacked on. Equipment and Cyberware should have been the focus.

Now I know that so far I have come across as negative but the thing is I actually had a really good time with Cyberpunk 2077. I mean sure as an RPG it's pretty crap and the overall main story feels a bit disjointed but so much of the rest of it is a real blast. A lot of the characters and set pieces really build up Night City as a living result of a corporation only future which is often bleak with a large almost class divide. You play the role of V, a character who through misfortune ends up with a countdown clock dying and is trying to find a solution to that predicament. This leads you to finding fixers, mercs, prostitutes and corporation suits to try and save yourself. It's an interesting setting in that so much of it looks like a modern skyscraper idyllic future city covered in neon lights yet there is a constant layer of filth and garbage bags almost everywhere undermining it's more grandiose appearance at first glance. Many of the characters reflect the city coming across as guarded and jaded but with their own reasons underneath it all. Johnny SilverHand played by Keanu Reeves is a prime example. He is your companion throughout the game and for most of It I actively hated the guy, yet the game with the best ending in was through him in the end. I liked how the characters and city are unveiled and the shades of grey between them all.

From a larger gameplay perspective it's somewhat less interesting though that could be my build. Stealth silencer head shotting goons with an over powered pistol sweeping through areas. AI was pretty unimpressive but I enjoyed some of the abilities and weapons available. It lacks the depth of an immersive sim but jumping onto a roof, finding a hidden entrance, hacking a turret remotely to turn it on it's enemies whilst throwing grenades in to cause carnage is fun, if not especially deep. I guess what you need to know going into this game is where to set your expectations to. I didn't have any really going in and had a good time exploring around the vistas killing gang members and exploring the city. The technical side of things seem to have mostly been fixed. I had one crash and a couple of items fall through floors but otherwise this is a pretty fun open world game with a large amount of content. It's not the game I wanted, nor is it the game CDPR promised but it's not bad either. The characters and set pieces are good fun as is the combat but even fixed a few years later it doesn't reach the clear ambitions CDPR had when starting development. I hope they learned their lesson from this going into the sequel and their other projects.

Still, I got to ride a cool looking Akira motorbike with a katana drawn power sliding into enemies to start a fight. What other games can you finish a review with that in?

+ Night City is a cool looking location.
+ Fun set pieces and fairly interesting characters.
+ Johnny Silverhand is a likeable dick.
+ Akira bike.

- As an RPG it's pretty crap frankly.
- Lacks depth for combat, skills and level design.
- Some story beats and resolutions don't quite land at the end.

Sea of Stars isn't particularly bad it's just mediocre (a common word in critical reviews). It starts off in a really bad way that takes the wind out of its sails early on. It's an extended intro cutscene that introduces our exceedingly bland main cast, then transitions into the simple gameplay that will hold you hostage for the next 20 hours. This game was a 2/5 at best until the late game. When the map opens up you can fight challenging bosses and use your party members to their full potential. It was only then that I was really having fun. What isn't fun is the uninteresting story and consecutive dungeons with baby mode puzzles and exhausting combat encounters. The action commands don't do the combat any favors because it's rarely incorporated into attacks in any interesting ways. You will be using the same moonerang spell for the whole ass game.

I'm not smart enough to comprehend why the writing is so uncanny but multiple people have expressed the same sentiment that it doesn't feel right. I specifically despise when they make meta jokes about jrpg tropes and stuff like "the GOAT boat."

Game looks wonderful I just wish the art was attached to a better game. I bought the game but I would recommend using gamepass for it.

The bottom line is that Sea of Stars is an ultimately mediocre title that manages to cobble together its form by stealing things from a dozen other, older, better titles. Each thing it steals is implemented worse than the game it steals from, but still good enough to not be bad. The act of playing the game is fine. It's Fine. It is the ultimate definition of Mid. Mid of Stars.

To list all this game's faults on a lower level than "wow it looks pretty" would to be sit here all day, but I can't help but go over some of the biggest issues I had during my time with it.

The first and foremost is the writing and plot--the plot by itself is pretty standard, just your basic "go kill the demon king" storyline when you get down to it, but its building off lore from a game pretty notorious for having nonsense lore(The Messenger) so it ends up being nonsense here as well--none of the worldbuilding details or twists really ever land because you never get the sense that this world is anything more than levels in a video game. There's like maybe five actual towns in the game, for gods sake. This is compounded by the character writing that manages to be completely uninteresting at best, and positively dreadful at worst. The worst of it is a major side-character in act 1 that speaks exclusively in video game references, who basically ruins every scene she is in and kill what little pathos there can be in this game. Once she steps aside, it gets a little better and I'd even say act 2 cooks for a short time, but then they do the very bold decision to put the only two characters with any sort of internality on a bus until literally the final boss door. Its frustrating. That's not to speak of the other issue with the game not respecting itself, every scene that gets a little tropey immediately gets a Marvel quip to kill any tension and remind you you're seeing scenes played out in a dozen older games with way more self-respect. It sucks.

Then, there's the game pacing. As mentioned, the game has I think six actual "towns" in it, and you only visit each of them at a single point in your journey which means you consistently go 4+ dungeons at a time without any "downtime" where you can sidequest, play minigames, talk to npcs etc. They completely missed the memo on the "vibes" of a jrpg in spite of aping these games so hard--those points where you're just sort of idly walking around town are important and this game just doesn't have any of that. This is compounded by what I'd call location issues--backtracking even after you get to the end of the game with all movement options is painful, consistently involving traversing old dungeons or going through two-three extra screens to get to where you need to go, so the game actively disincentivizes you from trying to do anything besides progress the main quest.

The actual gameplay is split into two--puzzle dungeons generously described as "Crosscode but worse" and combat described as "Mario RPG but worse", double-hampered by piss-easy difficulty. Like, this game has 8 different accessibility options but I struggle to find how anyone would need them when the game difficulty is toggled so low.

Which sucks, because the one place the game excels in is the economy/item management, you have a very limited inventory that heavily incentivizes consumable usage, and also the gold is a really tight resource that you have to manage. In theory, this is great and adds an attrition factor the long dungeon dives mentioned earlier--in practice, the difficulty tuning being so low means you never interact with those systems because you can easily go through the game never using consumables which means you can sell all the crafting supplies for a surplus of money.

Even the OST manages to not really be striking, like its perfectly serviceable but I never really found myself humming a tune or getting hyped by a song. Its just, rpg music. You could replace it with the rpgmaker default soundpack and I think the experience would have been exactly the same.

And yet, in spite of all this, I still finished the game including the true ending that demands like 95% completion because it was juuuust that not bad enough that I could sunk cost fallacy my way through it.

The final thing I'd leave you with that speaks to the shoddy nature of the game is the opening--after the framing device, the game opens with our new heroes going off to their first mission. You fight exactly one tutorial battle vs a goblin, then it forces you into a flashback where you see their backstory. This last an hour and leads up to exactly the beginning of the game. Why did they have the flashback? Why would you not just start the game from the backstory sequence? Its the sort of thing literally any editor would notice and rectify immediately.

Truly, the Mid of Stars.