Shenobi
429 Reviews liked by Shenobi
Nice of them to be constantly throwing the suicide hotline number in your face because wasting time on this will make you want to kill yourself.
Legitimately probably the worst thing I've ever played. Powered through the first 2 chapters then got to the part of chapter 3 where it turns into the Slenderman game and I said fuck it.
The "deep" depressed girl dialogue is unintentionally hilarious with how absolutely stupid it is. The terrible voice acting doesn't help either. Not scary whatsoever, the little bit of gameplay other than walking is abysmal, the story was entirely predictable (in addition to just dumb). Can't believe this game hasn't been given the Forspoken treatment with the dialogue being meme'd to death. Any day now.
Legitimately probably the worst thing I've ever played. Powered through the first 2 chapters then got to the part of chapter 3 where it turns into the Slenderman game and I said fuck it.
The "deep" depressed girl dialogue is unintentionally hilarious with how absolutely stupid it is. The terrible voice acting doesn't help either. Not scary whatsoever, the little bit of gameplay other than walking is abysmal, the story was entirely predictable (in addition to just dumb). Can't believe this game hasn't been given the Forspoken treatment with the dialogue being meme'd to death. Any day now.
Demon's Crest
1994
The most likely scenario for a sub-series like this is that, after one attempt, it would just fade away while the main series would take over, and yet, this was not the case with Gargoyle’s Quest. These titles wouldn’t go onto being as widely talked about as the main Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, but they would still hold up in terms of quality quite a bit, with each game being very fun, simple platformers with interesting gimmicks that made them interesting to check out, despite their faults. But naturally, every demon has to die at some point, and thus, the series would be concluded after only a four year run, while the main GNG series would continue to go on for… not long at all initially, but hey, that would also come back eventually too. However, before the series could die off, there was one more title that would release for the series: one that doesn’t bear the Gargoyle’s Quest name, but one that would continue the same gameplay, while innovating on it beyond anything it had resembled before. This game would be known as Demon’s Crest.
Just like with the other two Gargoyle’s Quest games, I had never played Demon’s Crest until not too long ago, even though I had seen it in action before. Unsurprisingly, the game is the best looking and most impressive of the bunch, which definitely left an impression on me when I first saw it, as I love this type of gothic-horror shit, especially from this era of gaming. Seriously, how can you not at least be impressed by some of the sprites in the game, like the dragon corpse you fight at the beginning of the game? But anyway, I decided to give it a shot, and yeah, I’d have to agree with most when they say that this is the best game in the series, and one of the hidden gems of the franchise as a whole. It does have its faults, ones that I haven’t seen many others touch upon, but it still stands as one of the best titles in this series as a whole.
The story is typical enough for this series, where the Demon Realm is in a war over who will claim ownership of the Crests, six magical artifacts that, when combined, can give you the powers of a god, and after plenty of fighting, Firebrand manages to gain all of them, only to have them then stolen by the evil Phalanx to use to take over the realm, so it is up to Firebrand to gather all of the crests once again and take him down for good. It is a simple enough scenario, but one that is presented in a, for lack of a better word, epic way, and it does make you more curious then before to give the game a shot. The graphics are fantastic, having that gothic style that I mentioned earlier, while also having fantastic sprites for Firebrand and his forms, the enemies you find, and especially the bosses, the music is pretty great, having that gothic, organ-y tone throughout most of the entire game, making the tracks great to listen to as you trek forward, and the control/gameplay is very similar to that of the previous game, but changed up plenty in terms of how you approach playing the game.
The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Firebrand one more time, go through plenty of different gothic locations all across the realm, defeat plenty of enemies using your various gargoyle abilities while taking on plenty of tricky platforming segments, gather plenty of different items to help you get other items from shops, as well as plenty of upgrades throughout the land that can boost your abilities in plenty of ways, and take on plenty of large, grotesque creatures that will give you quite a challenge if you aren’t up to the task. When taking into account several different aspects of the game, it is very similar to that of the previous games, but then there are all the new elements brought into this game, as well as all of the elements that were changed around, and it almost feels like it came from a completely different series.
When you first start the game, it feels like your typical Gargoyle’s Quest affair, going through a linear level, defeating enemies, getting items and fighting several different bosses: nothing you haven’t seen from this set of games before. But then, when you defeat the final boss of that opening stage, you are then given a new powerup that allows you to transform into a different form, which catches your interest immediately. This is then followed by you being thrown into the overworld, and from there on out, almost the entire game opens up for you. You can now fly to plenty of other different locations throughout the map, take on plenty of new stages, fight bigger and badder foes, and find shops to buy more items or to get more money. These elements aren’t anything particularly new for video games, but to see the series being evolved from what it was before, a game trying to be an RPG, to this, is something to behold.
Another thing to appreciate about this approach is that, upon beating that first level, you now have this sense of freedom that not too many other games at that time had. Yeah, some of the levels are closed off until you complete certain objectives, but that can’t stop you from going to plenty of other levels, taking different routes, seeing what else is available to do, or even beating the whole game immediately. Seriously, you can just go straight to Phalanx to take him out if you want to, without playing through any other level, which may seem pretty anti-climatic, but the fact that the game gives you this option at all is something you don’t see every day, and is something I really appreciate. But even then, if you do decide to go beat the game already, you would then miss out on where this game truly shines: the upgrades.
Throughout the game, you can find many different items throughout the stages, each one either helping you carry something to use on your journey, or ones that will make you stronger as you keep going. These items can range from simple health upgrades, potion bottles, or scraps of paper for spells, but then there are the talisman that you can find, each one giving you a new ability to use, such as being able to break blocks, climb up walls, and take less damage. None of these compare to the crests though, for when you get them, you are able to turn into different gargoyle forms, such as one that allows you to break heavy objects on the ground, one that will let you fly high to the skies, and one that lets you swim underwater. Each one of these forms can be very helpful in plenty of situations, not only for defeating your foes, but also for exploring around the stages more to find new items, as well as new paths to take which can lead to extra pathways, bosses, and rewards. There may not be that many stages in the game, but they make up for it by making these stages meaty, and you will wanna see every corner of them before your journey is all over.
All of that is well and good, but there are some elements that do hold it back, such as the fact that this is still Ghosts ‘n Goblins, which means it will not be afraid to jam that fleshy head of yours straight into a vat of spikes. It is easy enough at the beginning, but it can get hard pretty quickly, and you will need to bring your A-game to take on some of these challenges. Although, even that may not be enough at some points, as I swear, there are just some parts in this game where it seems impossible to get through without getting hit, even though I tried plenty of times to make that the case. It’s not that big of a deal, I’ll take the hit like a man and move on, but still, that does kinda suck. And speaking of things that kinda suck (stop thinking that), this may be a personal peeve that I have with this game, but it is a peeve nonetheless: why can’t you crouch? There are plenty of moments in the game where you will have these pots or enemies that you can’t normally hit on the ground, all because you are too goddamn tall, so your fire goes over them, and you have to position yourself to where you can actually hit these things. Sure, you do have different forms and tools to take care of that for you, but then that requires going into the menu, going to select the form, leaving the menu, and uggggggggggggh……… it could’ve gone by so much faster.
Overall, despite some gripes that I have with the game, personal or otherwise, this is definitely one of the best ways that this sub-series of games could’ve ended out, managing to retain the same basic gameplay that fans have come to know and love from this series, while also expanding on it tremendously to where it could never go back to what it did before… at least, if it had the chance to. I would definitely recommend it for those who were fans of the previous Gargoyle’s Quest titles, as well as those who are a fan of more open-ended platformers like this, because this game will give you plenty of what you want and love out of these types of games, and you will feel satisfied by the end of it. Unless, you know, you do end up going to fight Phalanx right away, in which case you end up throwing the Demon Realm into chaos anyway… so, way to go there, ya demonic dickhead.
Game #520
Just like with the other two Gargoyle’s Quest games, I had never played Demon’s Crest until not too long ago, even though I had seen it in action before. Unsurprisingly, the game is the best looking and most impressive of the bunch, which definitely left an impression on me when I first saw it, as I love this type of gothic-horror shit, especially from this era of gaming. Seriously, how can you not at least be impressed by some of the sprites in the game, like the dragon corpse you fight at the beginning of the game? But anyway, I decided to give it a shot, and yeah, I’d have to agree with most when they say that this is the best game in the series, and one of the hidden gems of the franchise as a whole. It does have its faults, ones that I haven’t seen many others touch upon, but it still stands as one of the best titles in this series as a whole.
The story is typical enough for this series, where the Demon Realm is in a war over who will claim ownership of the Crests, six magical artifacts that, when combined, can give you the powers of a god, and after plenty of fighting, Firebrand manages to gain all of them, only to have them then stolen by the evil Phalanx to use to take over the realm, so it is up to Firebrand to gather all of the crests once again and take him down for good. It is a simple enough scenario, but one that is presented in a, for lack of a better word, epic way, and it does make you more curious then before to give the game a shot. The graphics are fantastic, having that gothic style that I mentioned earlier, while also having fantastic sprites for Firebrand and his forms, the enemies you find, and especially the bosses, the music is pretty great, having that gothic, organ-y tone throughout most of the entire game, making the tracks great to listen to as you trek forward, and the control/gameplay is very similar to that of the previous game, but changed up plenty in terms of how you approach playing the game.
The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Firebrand one more time, go through plenty of different gothic locations all across the realm, defeat plenty of enemies using your various gargoyle abilities while taking on plenty of tricky platforming segments, gather plenty of different items to help you get other items from shops, as well as plenty of upgrades throughout the land that can boost your abilities in plenty of ways, and take on plenty of large, grotesque creatures that will give you quite a challenge if you aren’t up to the task. When taking into account several different aspects of the game, it is very similar to that of the previous games, but then there are all the new elements brought into this game, as well as all of the elements that were changed around, and it almost feels like it came from a completely different series.
When you first start the game, it feels like your typical Gargoyle’s Quest affair, going through a linear level, defeating enemies, getting items and fighting several different bosses: nothing you haven’t seen from this set of games before. But then, when you defeat the final boss of that opening stage, you are then given a new powerup that allows you to transform into a different form, which catches your interest immediately. This is then followed by you being thrown into the overworld, and from there on out, almost the entire game opens up for you. You can now fly to plenty of other different locations throughout the map, take on plenty of new stages, fight bigger and badder foes, and find shops to buy more items or to get more money. These elements aren’t anything particularly new for video games, but to see the series being evolved from what it was before, a game trying to be an RPG, to this, is something to behold.
Another thing to appreciate about this approach is that, upon beating that first level, you now have this sense of freedom that not too many other games at that time had. Yeah, some of the levels are closed off until you complete certain objectives, but that can’t stop you from going to plenty of other levels, taking different routes, seeing what else is available to do, or even beating the whole game immediately. Seriously, you can just go straight to Phalanx to take him out if you want to, without playing through any other level, which may seem pretty anti-climatic, but the fact that the game gives you this option at all is something you don’t see every day, and is something I really appreciate. But even then, if you do decide to go beat the game already, you would then miss out on where this game truly shines: the upgrades.
Throughout the game, you can find many different items throughout the stages, each one either helping you carry something to use on your journey, or ones that will make you stronger as you keep going. These items can range from simple health upgrades, potion bottles, or scraps of paper for spells, but then there are the talisman that you can find, each one giving you a new ability to use, such as being able to break blocks, climb up walls, and take less damage. None of these compare to the crests though, for when you get them, you are able to turn into different gargoyle forms, such as one that allows you to break heavy objects on the ground, one that will let you fly high to the skies, and one that lets you swim underwater. Each one of these forms can be very helpful in plenty of situations, not only for defeating your foes, but also for exploring around the stages more to find new items, as well as new paths to take which can lead to extra pathways, bosses, and rewards. There may not be that many stages in the game, but they make up for it by making these stages meaty, and you will wanna see every corner of them before your journey is all over.
All of that is well and good, but there are some elements that do hold it back, such as the fact that this is still Ghosts ‘n Goblins, which means it will not be afraid to jam that fleshy head of yours straight into a vat of spikes. It is easy enough at the beginning, but it can get hard pretty quickly, and you will need to bring your A-game to take on some of these challenges. Although, even that may not be enough at some points, as I swear, there are just some parts in this game where it seems impossible to get through without getting hit, even though I tried plenty of times to make that the case. It’s not that big of a deal, I’ll take the hit like a man and move on, but still, that does kinda suck. And speaking of things that kinda suck (stop thinking that), this may be a personal peeve that I have with this game, but it is a peeve nonetheless: why can’t you crouch? There are plenty of moments in the game where you will have these pots or enemies that you can’t normally hit on the ground, all because you are too goddamn tall, so your fire goes over them, and you have to position yourself to where you can actually hit these things. Sure, you do have different forms and tools to take care of that for you, but then that requires going into the menu, going to select the form, leaving the menu, and uggggggggggggh……… it could’ve gone by so much faster.
Overall, despite some gripes that I have with the game, personal or otherwise, this is definitely one of the best ways that this sub-series of games could’ve ended out, managing to retain the same basic gameplay that fans have come to know and love from this series, while also expanding on it tremendously to where it could never go back to what it did before… at least, if it had the chance to. I would definitely recommend it for those who were fans of the previous Gargoyle’s Quest titles, as well as those who are a fan of more open-ended platformers like this, because this game will give you plenty of what you want and love out of these types of games, and you will feel satisfied by the end of it. Unless, you know, you do end up going to fight Phalanx right away, in which case you end up throwing the Demon Realm into chaos anyway… so, way to go there, ya demonic dickhead.
Game #520
It’s official. Silent Hill is no longer the name of a franchise set in or dealing with the dark history of an eponymous fictional town in Maine, left forever tainted by the twisted machinations of a cult and where sinners and the damaged alike find themselves drawn to face judgement for their actions or potential healing for their deep-seated emotional wounds respectively. It's now a label Konami can throw on any horror project that deals with themes of trauma, grotesque monsters, and an otherworld concept for brand recognition. Gone is the connective tissue of location and lore that previously unified the games together. A similar visual style is really all that remains.
The Short Message isn't the outing that revealed this to me. It was a suspicion I had as soon as titles like “f” were announced, and had been already confirmed for me ahead of time with the launch of the shameful Ascension which I abandoned keeping up with near the start of 2024 as a form of mercy for myself. I'm not going to lie, that's been a tough pill to swallow as a longtime fan. Yet, I did my best to go into this with an open mind though, knowing full well from what little blurbs I had seen online (I've actually avoided reading a lot of your reviews beforehand to remain as blind and uninfluenced as possible) that this was going to most likely be an experience tailored towards attracting and pandering to a new, more modern audience. That's exactly what I got.
Naturally, as a result I hated this at first. The inexplicit symbolism that defined its predecessors has been stripped away entirely in favor of blunt, in-your-face storytelling perfectly suited for this artless influencer era where everyone gets their opinions from whatever rich internet personality is tactlessly screaming the loudest, and the dialogue is the exact type of obliviously pretentious drivel one would expect from your average wannabe intellectual teenager or college-aged Twitter (X?) addict. It's almost completely devoid of real depth and seems painfully unaware that nothing it's speaking on hasn't been covered elsewhere, and better there.
That's devastating. Genuinely hurts to witness. Miraculously a strange thing happens around its second of three chapters, however. The writers suddenly stop beating you over the head quite as hard with the subject matter (the amount of times the number for the suicide prevention hotline is thrown onscreen...) and begin letting each character's pain speak for itself. Meanwhile a big plot revelation divulges how the protagonist is as much of a perpetrator as she is a victim, in the same vein as the James Sunderlands and Murphy Pendletons prior. The tale shockingly finds its groove and gains a trace of that previously sorely missing complexity, even if only in part because its topics are sure to strike a chord with anyone ever negatively impacted by the rise of social media (so basically just about everyone) or wasn't the most popular in high school. There's even a nice, if ultimately highly flawed, stab taken at exploring the concept of generational curses. As someone who was afflicted by many of the same things as the leading lady for years, that ending certainly tugged on the heartstrings as well.
The gameplay side of the package also suffers from feeling a tad too overly simplistic due to the demographic being pursued here, albeit to a slightly higher degree. TSM's whole concept seems to be "what if P.T., but it's not a puzzle?" You progress through its looping scenario and setting in a very linear, directed manner with no room to mess up or ponder over what to do since whatever you need to collect or interact with next is always clearly defined with a visible icon on the screen. This would almost be a straight "walking simulator" were it not for the chase sequences, survival-horror's current favorite trend that it's been stuck on for a while now thanks to Amnesia. These moments can definitely be intense, but cause the package to run into the same problem as Shattered Memories where despite the fantastic atmosphere and occasional well done jump scare it's not long before any sense of fear quickly dissipates from most of the runtime because you become fully aware of when you're truly in danger or not. Still, I found myself fairly entertained regardless and genuinely think that last sprint through the larger maze area is pretty dang good at getting the heart racing.
And the end of the day, yes this is undeniably a dumbed-down version of the beloved property. If you don't like it, well that's probably because it's not meant for you. This is Silent Hill aimed at a new, younger generation. A crowd that, let's be honest, has been programmed to require all their information and successes be spoon-fed to them. That being said, maybe it's the fact that this is a totally free experience (that got a cool stealth release) or simply because I'm not that far removed from the market they were shooting for, but if this IS the future of the series then I'm onboard. Although somewhat begrudgingly. In spite of my initial misgivings, Short Message ultimately won me over by the strength of its affecting, if severely ham-fisted narrative and competent action/scares. I can't wait to find out if all that stuff with the cherry blossoms ties into “f” in an interesting way either. So in conclusion, against the odds this brief glimpse into what's next for my personal favorite staple in the genre has left me thinking the kids might be alright in the end.
7.5/10
The Short Message isn't the outing that revealed this to me. It was a suspicion I had as soon as titles like “f” were announced, and had been already confirmed for me ahead of time with the launch of the shameful Ascension which I abandoned keeping up with near the start of 2024 as a form of mercy for myself. I'm not going to lie, that's been a tough pill to swallow as a longtime fan. Yet, I did my best to go into this with an open mind though, knowing full well from what little blurbs I had seen online (I've actually avoided reading a lot of your reviews beforehand to remain as blind and uninfluenced as possible) that this was going to most likely be an experience tailored towards attracting and pandering to a new, more modern audience. That's exactly what I got.
Naturally, as a result I hated this at first. The inexplicit symbolism that defined its predecessors has been stripped away entirely in favor of blunt, in-your-face storytelling perfectly suited for this artless influencer era where everyone gets their opinions from whatever rich internet personality is tactlessly screaming the loudest, and the dialogue is the exact type of obliviously pretentious drivel one would expect from your average wannabe intellectual teenager or college-aged Twitter (X?) addict. It's almost completely devoid of real depth and seems painfully unaware that nothing it's speaking on hasn't been covered elsewhere, and better there.
That's devastating. Genuinely hurts to witness. Miraculously a strange thing happens around its second of three chapters, however. The writers suddenly stop beating you over the head quite as hard with the subject matter (the amount of times the number for the suicide prevention hotline is thrown onscreen...) and begin letting each character's pain speak for itself. Meanwhile a big plot revelation divulges how the protagonist is as much of a perpetrator as she is a victim, in the same vein as the James Sunderlands and Murphy Pendletons prior. The tale shockingly finds its groove and gains a trace of that previously sorely missing complexity, even if only in part because its topics are sure to strike a chord with anyone ever negatively impacted by the rise of social media (so basically just about everyone) or wasn't the most popular in high school. There's even a nice, if ultimately highly flawed, stab taken at exploring the concept of generational curses. As someone who was afflicted by many of the same things as the leading lady for years, that ending certainly tugged on the heartstrings as well.
The gameplay side of the package also suffers from feeling a tad too overly simplistic due to the demographic being pursued here, albeit to a slightly higher degree. TSM's whole concept seems to be "what if P.T., but it's not a puzzle?" You progress through its looping scenario and setting in a very linear, directed manner with no room to mess up or ponder over what to do since whatever you need to collect or interact with next is always clearly defined with a visible icon on the screen. This would almost be a straight "walking simulator" were it not for the chase sequences, survival-horror's current favorite trend that it's been stuck on for a while now thanks to Amnesia. These moments can definitely be intense, but cause the package to run into the same problem as Shattered Memories where despite the fantastic atmosphere and occasional well done jump scare it's not long before any sense of fear quickly dissipates from most of the runtime because you become fully aware of when you're truly in danger or not. Still, I found myself fairly entertained regardless and genuinely think that last sprint through the larger maze area is pretty dang good at getting the heart racing.
And the end of the day, yes this is undeniably a dumbed-down version of the beloved property. If you don't like it, well that's probably because it's not meant for you. This is Silent Hill aimed at a new, younger generation. A crowd that, let's be honest, has been programmed to require all their information and successes be spoon-fed to them. That being said, maybe it's the fact that this is a totally free experience (that got a cool stealth release) or simply because I'm not that far removed from the market they were shooting for, but if this IS the future of the series then I'm onboard. Although somewhat begrudgingly. In spite of my initial misgivings, Short Message ultimately won me over by the strength of its affecting, if severely ham-fisted narrative and competent action/scares. I can't wait to find out if all that stuff with the cherry blossoms ties into “f” in an interesting way either. So in conclusion, against the odds this brief glimpse into what's next for my personal favorite staple in the genre has left me thinking the kids might be alright in the end.
7.5/10
Hollow Knight
2017
"Because it's there." - British climber George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Everest (also me, when my wife asks me why I want to finish the burger and all the fries when I'm no longer hungry)
It's no Everest, but the world of Hallownest is huge, intimidating, and wondrous; in a game where the 'plot breadcrumbs' style of storytelling means a general lack of narrative thrust, the mere existence of Hallownest is reason enough to want to explore it. Hollow Knight is sensationally good at worldbuilding through level design, and even through the so-called "slow start" I found myself wanting to get down and dirty exploring every nook of the game world; it helps that a huge portion of the world is almost immediately accessible without extra movement abilities, meaning that my journey of discovering Hallownest for the first time felt unique by virtue of how Hollow Knight seems more open-ended than other Metroidvanias.
Better writers than me have discussed the mechanics in much depth, but I do have to mention them anyway. Combat and movement is tight, consistent, and refined - this is evident in the sheer depth that your relatively small moveset brings to the boss fights, but also in how each new movement option adds more fluency and expressivity in how you traverse each area, bringing a joy to exploration that even the game's slight over-reliance on 'gotcha' hits cannot extinguish.
The 3.5 score at the top of this entry is probably a spoiler that there is a pretty big caveat to my praise above, and that comes in the form of something seemingly inconsequential to anyone who hasn't played the game: the benches (reload points) are on many occasions placed so far from bosses that it feels borderline spiteful. My issue here isn't that the game is hard; I think the difficulty level of the bosses is perfect and it really makes you earn your victories! But punishing failure with 5 minutes of backtracking so you can try again, only to get your ass kicked in 30 seconds, only to repeat the process ad nauseam, is a really frustrating way to git gud. It doesn't help that a fair few of the pre-boss 'gauntlets' are rather unengaging (the tunnel mazes before facing Nosk, or waiting for the series of elevators leading up to the Soul Warrior + Follies).
And much like the affliction that has spread to even the furthest reaches of Hallownest, this 'little' issue of bench placement has infected many other aspects of the game. The bosses are one of the big highlights of Hollow Knight but the bench placement makes the process of learning how to beat them more frustrating than it needs to be. And even the exploration is not spared - backtracking from bench to boss reduces the wonder of charting a living breathing world to a perfunctory and linear commute through a series of rooms I've seen dozens of times before, its effect on my play experience not unlike a long unskippable cutscene in the way it kills my momentum.
It would be easy for me to sum up my experience as thus: Hollow Knight is an otherwise-nearly-perfect game which was tarnished by one small flaw. And yet it's not that simple either! After completing the game and watching the end credits, I found myself experiencing not relief (as I usually do on finishing long games I'm ambivalent on) but profound melancholy. I watched excerpts of speedruns. I watched some videos on the the lore. I reloaded my save and tried some of the challenges that I previously decided were not worth my time cough White Palace cough. Tried and failed, but still. It's hard for me to leave it behind and move onto the next game - there's something alluring about the ruined world of Hallownest and I feel it will occupy my mind for some time.
Because it's there.
(101% completion, standard ending)
It's no Everest, but the world of Hallownest is huge, intimidating, and wondrous; in a game where the 'plot breadcrumbs' style of storytelling means a general lack of narrative thrust, the mere existence of Hallownest is reason enough to want to explore it. Hollow Knight is sensationally good at worldbuilding through level design, and even through the so-called "slow start" I found myself wanting to get down and dirty exploring every nook of the game world; it helps that a huge portion of the world is almost immediately accessible without extra movement abilities, meaning that my journey of discovering Hallownest for the first time felt unique by virtue of how Hollow Knight seems more open-ended than other Metroidvanias.
Better writers than me have discussed the mechanics in much depth, but I do have to mention them anyway. Combat and movement is tight, consistent, and refined - this is evident in the sheer depth that your relatively small moveset brings to the boss fights, but also in how each new movement option adds more fluency and expressivity in how you traverse each area, bringing a joy to exploration that even the game's slight over-reliance on 'gotcha' hits cannot extinguish.
The 3.5 score at the top of this entry is probably a spoiler that there is a pretty big caveat to my praise above, and that comes in the form of something seemingly inconsequential to anyone who hasn't played the game: the benches (reload points) are on many occasions placed so far from bosses that it feels borderline spiteful. My issue here isn't that the game is hard; I think the difficulty level of the bosses is perfect and it really makes you earn your victories! But punishing failure with 5 minutes of backtracking so you can try again, only to get your ass kicked in 30 seconds, only to repeat the process ad nauseam, is a really frustrating way to git gud. It doesn't help that a fair few of the pre-boss 'gauntlets' are rather unengaging (the tunnel mazes before facing Nosk, or waiting for the series of elevators leading up to the Soul Warrior + Follies).
And much like the affliction that has spread to even the furthest reaches of Hallownest, this 'little' issue of bench placement has infected many other aspects of the game. The bosses are one of the big highlights of Hollow Knight but the bench placement makes the process of learning how to beat them more frustrating than it needs to be. And even the exploration is not spared - backtracking from bench to boss reduces the wonder of charting a living breathing world to a perfunctory and linear commute through a series of rooms I've seen dozens of times before, its effect on my play experience not unlike a long unskippable cutscene in the way it kills my momentum.
It would be easy for me to sum up my experience as thus: Hollow Knight is an otherwise-nearly-perfect game which was tarnished by one small flaw. And yet it's not that simple either! After completing the game and watching the end credits, I found myself experiencing not relief (as I usually do on finishing long games I'm ambivalent on) but profound melancholy. I watched excerpts of speedruns. I watched some videos on the the lore. I reloaded my save and tried some of the challenges that I previously decided were not worth my time cough White Palace cough. Tried and failed, but still. It's hard for me to leave it behind and move onto the next game - there's something alluring about the ruined world of Hallownest and I feel it will occupy my mind for some time.
Because it's there.
(101% completion, standard ending)
A Wizardry clone that modernizes the traditional systems and gives them a beautiful coat of paint, but utterly fails at dungeon and item design. Also hampered by lackluster dungeon graphics past the first dungeon and a weird difficulty curve.
Nearly every non-spellcaster class possesses a variety of in-battle skills, giving attackers more to do than hack away every turn forever. Each class has a niche: Warriors are tanks with extremely strong single-target physical attacks but no other options; Samurai have excellent damage output but poor defense for a frontliner; Monks have a grab bag of special attacks but no strong single-target attacks; and so on. Besides ensuring niche protection, this encourages you to multi-class. Unlike in Wizardry, multi-classing is a fully functional system that works about how you'd expect it to, though halflings' and half-onis' wacky statlines make it hard for them to meet the prerequisites of some classes.
Other key modernizations: fixed encounters are visible as pools of fog; item information is fully exposed; level drain and aging (but not, surprisingly, permadeath!) are out; ironman mode is a toggle rather than an obligation. Unfortunately, the game's big gimmick, max-HP-reducing attacks, doesn't really work: the only way to restore your max HP is to return to town, and there's rarely a compelling reason not to return to town, so when you get hit with one (which is pretty rare), you just return to town.
The art is excellent. Enemies look cool; the character portraits, while few, are good; the UI is fairly stylish (if you can excuse the inexplicable bloom). Dungeon graphics are a bit weaker: the first major dungeon is a gorgeous blend of 2D and 3D, but everything after looks like PS2 textures as seen through a crappy black-and-white filter. The music is outstanding, but the battle theme's lead-in is longer than the average encounter; it wore on me before the game was out.
The big problem: the dungeons are really boring. Like, less interesting than the ones in Wizardry 1, the decades-old game that founded the genre. The penultimate dungeon was decent aside from some truly heinous mandatory secret doors, but it takes maybe eight hours to get there, and then the final dungeon sucks again (mostly because it's incredibly short, leaving you to grind to fight the final boss).
Equipment drops are unvaried and largely boring until the final dungeon, which hands out special items like candy. A DRPG with boring items is almost as bad as a DRPG with boring dungeons, and this game is both.
Also, there were a few large difficulty spikes. The first, a quartet of heavy-hitting minibosses partway through the second dungeon, made me drop the game until I came back and spent an hour grinding. The second, a pair of even heavier-hitting minibosses at the start of the final dungeon, was maybe half that. The last, the final boss whose AoE attacks can take out endgame-level thieves and wizards in a single round, took a few hours. The common thread here is that there isn't really any way around it: if you don't have enough HP, you gotta grind (and probably reclass your characters so they can level faster and get more HP). I'm not particularly enthused about spending four or five hours in a 15-hour game grinding, especially when said game costs $40.
The localization has some small technical issues, but it reads well.
Overall verdict: absolutely not worth your time or money, but a sequel with better dungeon design might be.
Nearly every non-spellcaster class possesses a variety of in-battle skills, giving attackers more to do than hack away every turn forever. Each class has a niche: Warriors are tanks with extremely strong single-target physical attacks but no other options; Samurai have excellent damage output but poor defense for a frontliner; Monks have a grab bag of special attacks but no strong single-target attacks; and so on. Besides ensuring niche protection, this encourages you to multi-class. Unlike in Wizardry, multi-classing is a fully functional system that works about how you'd expect it to, though halflings' and half-onis' wacky statlines make it hard for them to meet the prerequisites of some classes.
Other key modernizations: fixed encounters are visible as pools of fog; item information is fully exposed; level drain and aging (but not, surprisingly, permadeath!) are out; ironman mode is a toggle rather than an obligation. Unfortunately, the game's big gimmick, max-HP-reducing attacks, doesn't really work: the only way to restore your max HP is to return to town, and there's rarely a compelling reason not to return to town, so when you get hit with one (which is pretty rare), you just return to town.
The art is excellent. Enemies look cool; the character portraits, while few, are good; the UI is fairly stylish (if you can excuse the inexplicable bloom). Dungeon graphics are a bit weaker: the first major dungeon is a gorgeous blend of 2D and 3D, but everything after looks like PS2 textures as seen through a crappy black-and-white filter. The music is outstanding, but the battle theme's lead-in is longer than the average encounter; it wore on me before the game was out.
The big problem: the dungeons are really boring. Like, less interesting than the ones in Wizardry 1, the decades-old game that founded the genre. The penultimate dungeon was decent aside from some truly heinous mandatory secret doors, but it takes maybe eight hours to get there, and then the final dungeon sucks again (mostly because it's incredibly short, leaving you to grind to fight the final boss).
Equipment drops are unvaried and largely boring until the final dungeon, which hands out special items like candy. A DRPG with boring items is almost as bad as a DRPG with boring dungeons, and this game is both.
Also, there were a few large difficulty spikes. The first, a quartet of heavy-hitting minibosses partway through the second dungeon, made me drop the game until I came back and spent an hour grinding. The second, a pair of even heavier-hitting minibosses at the start of the final dungeon, was maybe half that. The last, the final boss whose AoE attacks can take out endgame-level thieves and wizards in a single round, took a few hours. The common thread here is that there isn't really any way around it: if you don't have enough HP, you gotta grind (and probably reclass your characters so they can level faster and get more HP). I'm not particularly enthused about spending four or five hours in a 15-hour game grinding, especially when said game costs $40.
The localization has some small technical issues, but it reads well.
Overall verdict: absolutely not worth your time or money, but a sequel with better dungeon design might be.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
1994
(Part 1 of 5)
It seems so wild to me that, despite now living in a constant state of confusion, with the quality of his titles constantly going up and down like a rollercoaster, Sonic was pretty much on top of the world back when he was fairly new to the gaming scene. Not all of his games at this point were good, but for a good majority of them, Sonic had managed to knock it out of the park with high speed platforming, enjoyable challenges and bosses to take on, secrets that lead to wonderful rewards, and just a general overall sense of fun that can be seen throughout the titles, and it was clear at this point that Sega was nowhere near close to stopping. It wasn’t too long after we got a slew of Sonic titles, both main titles and spin-offs, when we would get yet ANOTHER Sonic game, but this one was important, as it was the BIG one, one that would prove to be the fastest and the best of the bunch. That game would come to be known as Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
So, truth be told, out of all my years playing this particular entry in the Sonic series, I had actually never played through the original version of the game. I had always played through the & Knuckles version of the game, which makes sense, given that it is the complete version of this game, but I figured, if I am gonna review this game correctly, I have to cover EVERYTHING about it, all the way from the original release to all the little secrets about this title. Therefore, I decided to then play through the original Sonic 3 for the first time, and what a shocker, it was a wonderful time. I wouldn’t say that this is the version of the game that you should play, nor is it perfect by any means, but for what we have here, it is still a great Sonic game on its own, and one of the best games to have for the Sega Genesis.
The story is similar to the previous games, yet somewhat mixed around, where after his defeat in Sonic 2, Robotnik and his Death Egg end up crashing into another land known as Angel Island, a floating island that manages to sink into the ocean due to the previously mentioned crash. Soon after this, he repairs the Death Egg, and Sonic and Tails can’t have that, so they go off to stop him, which is all mostly a typical story from this franchise, but it is good enough to get you on your way, as well as having a few extra elements to it that I will get to in a bit. The graphics are wonderful, being the best looking game in the series so far, making the environments as colorful and full of life as ever, while also providing great designs for all of the characters, enemies, and bosses. The music is also incredible, with there being plenty of bangers that you can listen to throughout the game, which makes sense, given that part of it was made by Michael Jackson!.... oh, wait, I’m sorry, it was “allegedly” made by him (even though we all know he did). Anyway, as for the controls and gameplay, both of these work just as well as they did before, if not better, and they have some new elements added to them to spice things up just a tad.
The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Sonic, Tails, or both of them at the same time, take on six different zones through many different locations seen on Angel Island, run through each level at the speed of sound while defeating plenty of different Badniks along the way, gather plenty of rings and powerups to help you out against the many foes and traps you will find, locate special stages in order to get a chance at nabbing the Chaos Emeralds, and take on the many different machines that Dr. Robotnik has prepared for you in plenty of boss fights. Those who are familiar with Sonic at this point know exactly what they are getting into with this game, and thankfully, it just so happens to be the fastest, tightest, and most enjoyable adventure in the series so far. Not to mention, just like with every other mainline Sonic game at this point, there have been numerous additions made to this game to ensure you don’t get tired of it easily.
In terms of Sonic himself, he retains all of his moves from the previous games (except for the Super Peel Out, because fuck you), and in addition, he has a brand new move called the Insta-Shield. It doesn’t really do much, as it just creates a little barrier around the player for a brief moment, but this move can actually be pretty useful for both taking something out and getting yourself out of a bind, so I would say it is a good addition to Sonic’s moveset. Speaking of good additions, Sonic also now has new shields he can mess around with, each one of them carrying an elemental property of some sort. There is the Fire Shield, which allows him to not only dash in mid-air, but also protects himself from fiery hazards, the Bubble Shield, which lets you bounce on the ground for extra height, while also protecting you from drowning, and then there is undeniably the best one, the Electric Shield, which gives you a double jump, and it allows you to attract any lonesome ring that you pass by straight towards you. These shields, when you can get them, are very helpful against whatever you may run into along your journey, and on their own, they are pretty fun to use to see what new paths you can reach by using them.
In terms of other new additions, there is, of course, one new character that gets introduced in this game: Knuckles the Echidna, and when you first encounter this guy, you think he’s an asshole! He just uppercuts you out of nowhere, steals all of your Chaos Emeralds, laughs at you, and then runs away, which leads you to think “What a dick! When I find him, I’m gonna kill that fucker!” Unfortunately though, you don’t get to fight him at all in this game, and he just laughs at you more while making your life hell throughout the entire journey. That’s all he really does in this part of the game, but not only does he get more purpose and story in the later part that I will get to soon, but also, just like with Tails, Amy, and Metal Sonic, Knuckles does become one of the central characters of the Sonic series, not appearing as often as some characters like Tails or Robotnik, but enough to where many fans of the series will recognize him and love him all the same. And I mean, how can you not? He’s like Sonic, except infinitely cooler, obviously. Not to mention, he doesn’t chuckle. He’d rather flex his muscles.
Of course though, we can’t forget about one of the main draws of any Sonic game: getting the Chaos Emeralds, and just like with the previous games, there is a brand new method of getting them here, and in my personal opinion, this is the best method of getting them that the series has had so far. Throughout the stages, there are plenty of these big ol’ 3D rings that you can find, hidden in alcoves that are either easy to spot, or can be pretty tricky to find. Once you find them, you just simply jump right into them, and boom, you are in the special stage! No need for any 50 rings bullshit or anything like that, you are just right into it, which I prefer heavily over the alternative.
As for the special stages themselves, they consist of you running through these simplistic, 3D environments where you have to collect a handful blue balls (stop laughing), while doing your best to avoid all of the red balls that plague the levels, and once you manage to collect them all, BOOM, the Chaos Emerald has been retrieved. Yeah, it isn’t as complex, exciting, or drug-trippy as other Sonic special stages, but they are pretty damn easy in comparison to what this series has given us before, and honestly, I am all for that. What’s even better is that, once you get all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, you can now transform into Super Sonic once again, who functions basically the same as he did in Sonic 2, but who cares, because you are now a golden god, and everything cowers in sheer terror as you blaze through them, which is all that matters at the end of the day.
Would you believe it though when I tell you that, in terms of special stages, that’s not all that this game has to offer? If you do still manage to get 50 rings and pass by a checkpoint, a sparkling ring will appear above it, and when you jump into it, you can then enter one of three special minigames, with them serving the purpose of getting you more rings, power-ups, as many rings as you can carry. I don’t typically go for these types of special stages, as I usually already have plenty of rings and lives to work with, but not only can they be pretty helpful for those that need it, but once you get the hang of them, they can be pretty fun to bounce around and exploit for your own good. And finally, speaking of things I don’t typically check out, there is also the multiplayer mode of this game, returning from Sonic 2. It essentially works almost the same as that game, except now you can play as Knuckles, and you run through several stages that aren’t in the main game at all. These are pretty cool to mess around with, not just to see new content, but also to challenge your friends if you have nothing else to do, even if I myself don’t personally ever see myself trying out this mode ever again.
So yes, all of this makes for a better and more enjoyable experience when compared to every previous mainline Sonic entry, but… there is one area of the game that is severely lacking: the content. The game as a whole is pretty short, with you being able to beat it in about an hour if you know what you’re doing, which isn’t helped by the fact that there isn’t as much content here, with there being only six zones with two acts each to play through. That may sound like quite a bit, but compared to Sonic 2, which had 11 zones in total, or even Sonic CD, which had 7 zones, each with two different acts and a boss fight, that is quite a decrease in content. Of course, there is an explanation for all of this (which I will get into in a later part), but still, that does kind of suck, especially if you were one of the people who bought this game back when it first came out, and you were able to beat it relatively quickly, considering what you have to deal with.
Overall, despite the lack of stages for a Sonic game, this is still a pretty great version of this game, one that does offer plenty of content to mess around with, fun new additions that make playing through it all the more enjoyable, and that same solid gameplay that manages to still be just as fun and timeless as ever. I would definitely recommend it for those who are fans of Sonic, as well as those who just love old-school 2D platformers in general, because this is certainly one of the best ones you could find on the Sega Genesis, or from the 16-bit era in general. Although, if we are being completely honest, if you are looking for the true Sonic 3 experience, then you probably shouldn’t play this one, and you’ll soon see why……….. BUT FIRST-
Game #506
It seems so wild to me that, despite now living in a constant state of confusion, with the quality of his titles constantly going up and down like a rollercoaster, Sonic was pretty much on top of the world back when he was fairly new to the gaming scene. Not all of his games at this point were good, but for a good majority of them, Sonic had managed to knock it out of the park with high speed platforming, enjoyable challenges and bosses to take on, secrets that lead to wonderful rewards, and just a general overall sense of fun that can be seen throughout the titles, and it was clear at this point that Sega was nowhere near close to stopping. It wasn’t too long after we got a slew of Sonic titles, both main titles and spin-offs, when we would get yet ANOTHER Sonic game, but this one was important, as it was the BIG one, one that would prove to be the fastest and the best of the bunch. That game would come to be known as Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
So, truth be told, out of all my years playing this particular entry in the Sonic series, I had actually never played through the original version of the game. I had always played through the & Knuckles version of the game, which makes sense, given that it is the complete version of this game, but I figured, if I am gonna review this game correctly, I have to cover EVERYTHING about it, all the way from the original release to all the little secrets about this title. Therefore, I decided to then play through the original Sonic 3 for the first time, and what a shocker, it was a wonderful time. I wouldn’t say that this is the version of the game that you should play, nor is it perfect by any means, but for what we have here, it is still a great Sonic game on its own, and one of the best games to have for the Sega Genesis.
The story is similar to the previous games, yet somewhat mixed around, where after his defeat in Sonic 2, Robotnik and his Death Egg end up crashing into another land known as Angel Island, a floating island that manages to sink into the ocean due to the previously mentioned crash. Soon after this, he repairs the Death Egg, and Sonic and Tails can’t have that, so they go off to stop him, which is all mostly a typical story from this franchise, but it is good enough to get you on your way, as well as having a few extra elements to it that I will get to in a bit. The graphics are wonderful, being the best looking game in the series so far, making the environments as colorful and full of life as ever, while also providing great designs for all of the characters, enemies, and bosses. The music is also incredible, with there being plenty of bangers that you can listen to throughout the game, which makes sense, given that part of it was made by Michael Jackson!.... oh, wait, I’m sorry, it was “allegedly” made by him (even though we all know he did). Anyway, as for the controls and gameplay, both of these work just as well as they did before, if not better, and they have some new elements added to them to spice things up just a tad.
The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Sonic, Tails, or both of them at the same time, take on six different zones through many different locations seen on Angel Island, run through each level at the speed of sound while defeating plenty of different Badniks along the way, gather plenty of rings and powerups to help you out against the many foes and traps you will find, locate special stages in order to get a chance at nabbing the Chaos Emeralds, and take on the many different machines that Dr. Robotnik has prepared for you in plenty of boss fights. Those who are familiar with Sonic at this point know exactly what they are getting into with this game, and thankfully, it just so happens to be the fastest, tightest, and most enjoyable adventure in the series so far. Not to mention, just like with every other mainline Sonic game at this point, there have been numerous additions made to this game to ensure you don’t get tired of it easily.
In terms of Sonic himself, he retains all of his moves from the previous games (except for the Super Peel Out, because fuck you), and in addition, he has a brand new move called the Insta-Shield. It doesn’t really do much, as it just creates a little barrier around the player for a brief moment, but this move can actually be pretty useful for both taking something out and getting yourself out of a bind, so I would say it is a good addition to Sonic’s moveset. Speaking of good additions, Sonic also now has new shields he can mess around with, each one of them carrying an elemental property of some sort. There is the Fire Shield, which allows him to not only dash in mid-air, but also protects himself from fiery hazards, the Bubble Shield, which lets you bounce on the ground for extra height, while also protecting you from drowning, and then there is undeniably the best one, the Electric Shield, which gives you a double jump, and it allows you to attract any lonesome ring that you pass by straight towards you. These shields, when you can get them, are very helpful against whatever you may run into along your journey, and on their own, they are pretty fun to use to see what new paths you can reach by using them.
In terms of other new additions, there is, of course, one new character that gets introduced in this game: Knuckles the Echidna, and when you first encounter this guy, you think he’s an asshole! He just uppercuts you out of nowhere, steals all of your Chaos Emeralds, laughs at you, and then runs away, which leads you to think “What a dick! When I find him, I’m gonna kill that fucker!” Unfortunately though, you don’t get to fight him at all in this game, and he just laughs at you more while making your life hell throughout the entire journey. That’s all he really does in this part of the game, but not only does he get more purpose and story in the later part that I will get to soon, but also, just like with Tails, Amy, and Metal Sonic, Knuckles does become one of the central characters of the Sonic series, not appearing as often as some characters like Tails or Robotnik, but enough to where many fans of the series will recognize him and love him all the same. And I mean, how can you not? He’s like Sonic, except infinitely cooler, obviously. Not to mention, he doesn’t chuckle. He’d rather flex his muscles.
Of course though, we can’t forget about one of the main draws of any Sonic game: getting the Chaos Emeralds, and just like with the previous games, there is a brand new method of getting them here, and in my personal opinion, this is the best method of getting them that the series has had so far. Throughout the stages, there are plenty of these big ol’ 3D rings that you can find, hidden in alcoves that are either easy to spot, or can be pretty tricky to find. Once you find them, you just simply jump right into them, and boom, you are in the special stage! No need for any 50 rings bullshit or anything like that, you are just right into it, which I prefer heavily over the alternative.
As for the special stages themselves, they consist of you running through these simplistic, 3D environments where you have to collect a handful blue balls (stop laughing), while doing your best to avoid all of the red balls that plague the levels, and once you manage to collect them all, BOOM, the Chaos Emerald has been retrieved. Yeah, it isn’t as complex, exciting, or drug-trippy as other Sonic special stages, but they are pretty damn easy in comparison to what this series has given us before, and honestly, I am all for that. What’s even better is that, once you get all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, you can now transform into Super Sonic once again, who functions basically the same as he did in Sonic 2, but who cares, because you are now a golden god, and everything cowers in sheer terror as you blaze through them, which is all that matters at the end of the day.
Would you believe it though when I tell you that, in terms of special stages, that’s not all that this game has to offer? If you do still manage to get 50 rings and pass by a checkpoint, a sparkling ring will appear above it, and when you jump into it, you can then enter one of three special minigames, with them serving the purpose of getting you more rings, power-ups, as many rings as you can carry. I don’t typically go for these types of special stages, as I usually already have plenty of rings and lives to work with, but not only can they be pretty helpful for those that need it, but once you get the hang of them, they can be pretty fun to bounce around and exploit for your own good. And finally, speaking of things I don’t typically check out, there is also the multiplayer mode of this game, returning from Sonic 2. It essentially works almost the same as that game, except now you can play as Knuckles, and you run through several stages that aren’t in the main game at all. These are pretty cool to mess around with, not just to see new content, but also to challenge your friends if you have nothing else to do, even if I myself don’t personally ever see myself trying out this mode ever again.
So yes, all of this makes for a better and more enjoyable experience when compared to every previous mainline Sonic entry, but… there is one area of the game that is severely lacking: the content. The game as a whole is pretty short, with you being able to beat it in about an hour if you know what you’re doing, which isn’t helped by the fact that there isn’t as much content here, with there being only six zones with two acts each to play through. That may sound like quite a bit, but compared to Sonic 2, which had 11 zones in total, or even Sonic CD, which had 7 zones, each with two different acts and a boss fight, that is quite a decrease in content. Of course, there is an explanation for all of this (which I will get into in a later part), but still, that does kind of suck, especially if you were one of the people who bought this game back when it first came out, and you were able to beat it relatively quickly, considering what you have to deal with.
Overall, despite the lack of stages for a Sonic game, this is still a pretty great version of this game, one that does offer plenty of content to mess around with, fun new additions that make playing through it all the more enjoyable, and that same solid gameplay that manages to still be just as fun and timeless as ever. I would definitely recommend it for those who are fans of Sonic, as well as those who just love old-school 2D platformers in general, because this is certainly one of the best ones you could find on the Sega Genesis, or from the 16-bit era in general. Although, if we are being completely honest, if you are looking for the true Sonic 3 experience, then you probably shouldn’t play this one, and you’ll soon see why……….. BUT FIRST-
Game #506
Final Fantasy IV
1991
At this point in time, the Final Fantasy series had created a pretty successful, albeit divisive at points, trilogy on the NES. These three games that would redefine the entirety of the RPG genre as we know it, garner many fans worldwide, and would cement the Final Fantasy series as Square/Square Enix’s flagship franchise from that point onwards. So naturally, after achieving a hat trick with those games, Square was ready to keep this gravy train rolling, with another installment in the series that would be the final entry for the NES, while preparing for what would come out for the SNES later. However, due to the fact that the SNES was about to be released, Square decided to shift gears and re-develop that NES game for this new system, and while they were at it, they were going to release it overseas as well… only, they would end up changing the name of the game to Final Fantasy II for us, because “lol, get fucked, America”. But anyway, just a few months after the SNES would come out for us in America, we would get this next chapter in the series, which we now truly know as Final Fantasy IV.
Before initially playing this game a good couple years ago, I had no clue about the reputation this game held, nor what it managed to do for the Final Fantasy series as a whole. I had just thought it was just gonna be another entry in the series, this time now being brought onto the next generation of consoles, with nothing else to really get too excited about. However, then I played through the game, and needless to say, I immediately fell in love with what I was presented with, as this game is, in my opinion, the best entry in the series that we had ever gotten at that point, and definitely my favorite of the series that I have played so far. Granted, it does have plenty of issues, ones that became abundantly more clear as the years would go by, but for what we have here, it is a massive leap in quality from the previous titles, and one that manages to take the series, and the genre as a whole, into new heights once again.
The story, for the time, was the most developed, character-focused, and engaging one not just in the series, but for video games as a whole, showing that video game stories didn’t have to be just one-note, and that they could show off plenty of emotions and dramatic moments when treated with care…………. even though, looking back, you can see that the story here is kind of a mess, but trust me, we will get into that later on. The graphics are pretty good, having plenty of great sprites for characters, enemies, and bosses, but when you look at it side by side with previous games, you can REALLY tell that it is just an NES game that was prettied up for the SNES, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is worth pointing out. The music is some of the best the series has ever had, with there being plenty of wonderful, iconic tunes that I love hearing even after having played it several years ago, such as with the boss theme, the common town theme, and, for my personal favorite track in the game, the Red Wings theme. And finally, as for the controls and gameplay, both of them work basically the exact same way that you would expect from a Final Fantasy game, but with notable changes that make the game so much more enjoyable by comparison.
The game is a traditional RPG, where you primarily take control of Cecil Harvey, go through plenty of different locations not just on the world that you live on, but also the Underworld and even the fucking moon at some point (yeah, things get pretty ridiculous), talk to plenty of NPCs that you will encounter who will either give you helpful hints/advice, or they will aid you on your quest in some way, find plenty of items that you can use to either upgrade yourself, get better items with from shops or otherwise, or to help you progress along in the game, and of course, get into random battles, where you will slash away at your foes before you either using your main weapon, spells, or whatever else you have lying around in your pockets, and gain experience points to level up and increase your stats. For the most part, it is your standard RPG through and through, which, even on its own, would’ve been fine enough to play through, and I would have had a good time with it. However, with the changes that this game implements, it sky-rockets it upwards into being some of the best content that I have seen out of this series so far, making me eager to get to the other titles in the series sooner or later to see where we can go from here.
In terms of the gameplay, not much has really changed, except for one key difference when it comes to the main battles, which now introduces the Active Time Battle system. Rather than taking turns to fight your opponents like in the previous Final Fantasy games, here, the battle is constantly moving, with characters taking turns based on whatever their speed is, allowing them to use commands faster than opponents in optimal scenarios. That may make the game sound pretty easy, but then you remember, the enemies can use this too, which means that, in a battle, you always have to be quick on your toes to use commands before your opponent can, making battle much more fun and exciting as a result. I have never played any other RPG before this that used this type of battle system, so needless to say, it was somewhat odd seeing this play out for the first time for me, but soon after, I quickly fell in love with it, and adored every second of it, as it did make things feel a lot more active, a lot more reactionary, and a lot more strategic, which made me get invested even more. It’s a good thing too, because apparently, this style will be used for plenty of other FF games later down the road, which I am all here for.
That’s really all that got changed for the gameplay though, as again, for the most part, it all plays practically the same as every other game in the series so far. In terms of other aspects of the game though, such as the story, the characters, and what occurs in said story… well, really, what hasn’t been changed? For the first time in any Final Fantasy game, or most other video games at the time for that matter, we have a set of characters that are already defined, have definitive personalities, relationships with other characters, and moments seen throughout that further define them. Yeah, we saw a brief bit of this in FF II, but that was pretty limited in terms of what it managed to do, as this game takes those ideas and pushes them even further.
Not to mention, each character also has a predetermined job class that they work with. You can no longer change up what job a character has, which does kinda suck, but at the same time, not only do the jobs that the characters get fit them pretty well, but they also grow and develop them overtime, learning better skills and different tactics to use in battle. This especially helps out with the boss fights, which do have more strategy to them rather than just “kill this guy while not getting killed yourself”, requiring you to pay attention to what they are doing while you continue attacking, as performing the wrong move at the wrong time can change the heat of the battle very quickly. With that being said though, for what we do get in this game in terms of character traits, dramatic moments, and character chemistry, it is all pretty basic, with elements that we have seen plenty of times ever since, which can make going back to this game feel generic and underwhelming as a result, but for what it is, I was still able to enjoy the cast of characters and the story that we got here… despite how flawed it comes off as.
Which speaking of, in terms of the story, again, it needs to be asked, what DIDN’T get changed? Out of all the Final Fantasy games so far, this one has the most developed and thorough storyline of the bunch, with plenty of character moments, overarching plotlines, and development that we have seen. On the surface, it is all pretty basic, just being another game about collecting a bunch of elemental crystals to stop a big, bad evil person, which is all well and good, but we also have Cecil going from his dark, “evil” nature to becoming a Paladin, Cain being brainwashed and needing to have himself snapped out of it by our party, Rydia losing her village and needing to learn to overcome her trauma, and several other moments that I haven’t mentioned here. Again, a lot of this is pretty basic looking back, but around the time when most video game stories were “Go save your girl” or “Go kill this big evil thing”, this went a long way, influencing video game storytelling all the way up to this day.
However, this then leads perfectly into one of the biggest problems with the game: again, the story is kind of a mess. Yes, it is pretty generic all things considered, and some parts of it have definitely not aged well over time, but when you ignore all that, there’s also several other elements of the story that feel overused and are, to put it bluntly, fucking stupid. First of all, throughout the journey, you will lose a lot of party members, such as with Cid, Porum and Pallum, Yang, and so on and so forth, with you being led to believe that all of them sacrificed themselves for the sake of your quest. But then, as you keep going through the game, you then learn that everyone is ok, and almost nobody ended up dying whatsoever! So with that being said, I have to ask, what was the point of all those fake-out deaths? Sure, a fake-out death can be effective when used correctly, and for most part, they are all pretty well done, but the more times you end up doing this, it not only becomes more predictable and less effective, but it also becomes, again, fucking stupid.
And speaking of fucking stupid, there is also the means in which a lot of the plot elements in this game are carried out. For some reason, Cecil has the biggest case of Murphy's Law that I have ever seen, as whenever he and his crew go on to doing anything in this game, and I really do mean anything, SOMETHING will go wrong, and prolong the journey forward. It all usually involves them going to some place, finding out the problem in said place, taking care of said problem, only to then have the reward or goal snatched away from them in the last second because “Ha ha, FUCK YOU”. There is one part of the game that stands out heavily when it comes to this. It’s when Cecil and the gang defeat Golbez, one of the game’s villains, inside of this sanctuary that holds one of the crystals they need. While celebrating their defeat and discussing what they should do next, Golbez’s hand starts to crawl around the room and go towards the crystal. Cecil and the crew then proceed to watch this hand go up to the crystal, steal it away, and then leave, WHILE DOING NOTHING AT ALL TO STOP IT. Call this story good all you want, but moments like that you cannot defend, as it is just way too stupid to justify.
But don’t worry, my problems with the game don’t just go as far as the story, because oh no, I got some gripes with the game too, albeit very minor ones. Most of the gameplay works pretty well, and again, I would consider it to be the best in the entire series so far, but like with all of these games so far, there just seems to be one or two areas that’s entire purpose is to piss you off. One such place is the Sealed Cave, a location in the Underworld that has one of the crystals you need to get, but it is filled to the brim with these Trap Door enemies, who can all throw themselves into lava for all I care. They can do massive damage to you whenever you fight them, most of the time even one-shotting party members, and to top it all off, they can split into multiple enemies, which can also mean more damage can be dealt to you. But then again, these kinds of issues only apply to one or two areas throughout the entire game, and even then, if you are playing the original SNES version of the game (the US version, anyway), it is very easy, so there aren’t too many instances where you will have a lot of hard-as-hell situations to deal with.
Overall though, despite having one or two annoying areas to go through, as well as a story that is repetitive and flawed when looking back on it, FFIV is, without a doubt in my mind, the best game in the series so far, bringing the classic gameplay to the next generation of consoles in a brand new and exciting way, while further enhancing elements like the story and characters even further, influencing not just RPGs, but all of video games further as a result. I would absolutely recommend it not just for those who are big fans of FF and RPGs in general, but also for someone who wants to get into either FF or RPGs in general, because while it may not be one of the most approachable or beloved game of the series, it is one of the best places to start, and I cannot recommend it enough. Although, now that I think about it, this game sets a pretty high bar for the next game to top. I’m not sure how it will be able to do it. I dunno, maybe they will find a way………. or, you know, they might fumble the ball along the way.
Game #503
Before initially playing this game a good couple years ago, I had no clue about the reputation this game held, nor what it managed to do for the Final Fantasy series as a whole. I had just thought it was just gonna be another entry in the series, this time now being brought onto the next generation of consoles, with nothing else to really get too excited about. However, then I played through the game, and needless to say, I immediately fell in love with what I was presented with, as this game is, in my opinion, the best entry in the series that we had ever gotten at that point, and definitely my favorite of the series that I have played so far. Granted, it does have plenty of issues, ones that became abundantly more clear as the years would go by, but for what we have here, it is a massive leap in quality from the previous titles, and one that manages to take the series, and the genre as a whole, into new heights once again.
The story, for the time, was the most developed, character-focused, and engaging one not just in the series, but for video games as a whole, showing that video game stories didn’t have to be just one-note, and that they could show off plenty of emotions and dramatic moments when treated with care…………. even though, looking back, you can see that the story here is kind of a mess, but trust me, we will get into that later on. The graphics are pretty good, having plenty of great sprites for characters, enemies, and bosses, but when you look at it side by side with previous games, you can REALLY tell that it is just an NES game that was prettied up for the SNES, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is worth pointing out. The music is some of the best the series has ever had, with there being plenty of wonderful, iconic tunes that I love hearing even after having played it several years ago, such as with the boss theme, the common town theme, and, for my personal favorite track in the game, the Red Wings theme. And finally, as for the controls and gameplay, both of them work basically the exact same way that you would expect from a Final Fantasy game, but with notable changes that make the game so much more enjoyable by comparison.
The game is a traditional RPG, where you primarily take control of Cecil Harvey, go through plenty of different locations not just on the world that you live on, but also the Underworld and even the fucking moon at some point (yeah, things get pretty ridiculous), talk to plenty of NPCs that you will encounter who will either give you helpful hints/advice, or they will aid you on your quest in some way, find plenty of items that you can use to either upgrade yourself, get better items with from shops or otherwise, or to help you progress along in the game, and of course, get into random battles, where you will slash away at your foes before you either using your main weapon, spells, or whatever else you have lying around in your pockets, and gain experience points to level up and increase your stats. For the most part, it is your standard RPG through and through, which, even on its own, would’ve been fine enough to play through, and I would have had a good time with it. However, with the changes that this game implements, it sky-rockets it upwards into being some of the best content that I have seen out of this series so far, making me eager to get to the other titles in the series sooner or later to see where we can go from here.
In terms of the gameplay, not much has really changed, except for one key difference when it comes to the main battles, which now introduces the Active Time Battle system. Rather than taking turns to fight your opponents like in the previous Final Fantasy games, here, the battle is constantly moving, with characters taking turns based on whatever their speed is, allowing them to use commands faster than opponents in optimal scenarios. That may make the game sound pretty easy, but then you remember, the enemies can use this too, which means that, in a battle, you always have to be quick on your toes to use commands before your opponent can, making battle much more fun and exciting as a result. I have never played any other RPG before this that used this type of battle system, so needless to say, it was somewhat odd seeing this play out for the first time for me, but soon after, I quickly fell in love with it, and adored every second of it, as it did make things feel a lot more active, a lot more reactionary, and a lot more strategic, which made me get invested even more. It’s a good thing too, because apparently, this style will be used for plenty of other FF games later down the road, which I am all here for.
That’s really all that got changed for the gameplay though, as again, for the most part, it all plays practically the same as every other game in the series so far. In terms of other aspects of the game though, such as the story, the characters, and what occurs in said story… well, really, what hasn’t been changed? For the first time in any Final Fantasy game, or most other video games at the time for that matter, we have a set of characters that are already defined, have definitive personalities, relationships with other characters, and moments seen throughout that further define them. Yeah, we saw a brief bit of this in FF II, but that was pretty limited in terms of what it managed to do, as this game takes those ideas and pushes them even further.
Not to mention, each character also has a predetermined job class that they work with. You can no longer change up what job a character has, which does kinda suck, but at the same time, not only do the jobs that the characters get fit them pretty well, but they also grow and develop them overtime, learning better skills and different tactics to use in battle. This especially helps out with the boss fights, which do have more strategy to them rather than just “kill this guy while not getting killed yourself”, requiring you to pay attention to what they are doing while you continue attacking, as performing the wrong move at the wrong time can change the heat of the battle very quickly. With that being said though, for what we do get in this game in terms of character traits, dramatic moments, and character chemistry, it is all pretty basic, with elements that we have seen plenty of times ever since, which can make going back to this game feel generic and underwhelming as a result, but for what it is, I was still able to enjoy the cast of characters and the story that we got here… despite how flawed it comes off as.
Which speaking of, in terms of the story, again, it needs to be asked, what DIDN’T get changed? Out of all the Final Fantasy games so far, this one has the most developed and thorough storyline of the bunch, with plenty of character moments, overarching plotlines, and development that we have seen. On the surface, it is all pretty basic, just being another game about collecting a bunch of elemental crystals to stop a big, bad evil person, which is all well and good, but we also have Cecil going from his dark, “evil” nature to becoming a Paladin, Cain being brainwashed and needing to have himself snapped out of it by our party, Rydia losing her village and needing to learn to overcome her trauma, and several other moments that I haven’t mentioned here. Again, a lot of this is pretty basic looking back, but around the time when most video game stories were “Go save your girl” or “Go kill this big evil thing”, this went a long way, influencing video game storytelling all the way up to this day.
However, this then leads perfectly into one of the biggest problems with the game: again, the story is kind of a mess. Yes, it is pretty generic all things considered, and some parts of it have definitely not aged well over time, but when you ignore all that, there’s also several other elements of the story that feel overused and are, to put it bluntly, fucking stupid. First of all, throughout the journey, you will lose a lot of party members, such as with Cid, Porum and Pallum, Yang, and so on and so forth, with you being led to believe that all of them sacrificed themselves for the sake of your quest. But then, as you keep going through the game, you then learn that everyone is ok, and almost nobody ended up dying whatsoever! So with that being said, I have to ask, what was the point of all those fake-out deaths? Sure, a fake-out death can be effective when used correctly, and for most part, they are all pretty well done, but the more times you end up doing this, it not only becomes more predictable and less effective, but it also becomes, again, fucking stupid.
And speaking of fucking stupid, there is also the means in which a lot of the plot elements in this game are carried out. For some reason, Cecil has the biggest case of Murphy's Law that I have ever seen, as whenever he and his crew go on to doing anything in this game, and I really do mean anything, SOMETHING will go wrong, and prolong the journey forward. It all usually involves them going to some place, finding out the problem in said place, taking care of said problem, only to then have the reward or goal snatched away from them in the last second because “Ha ha, FUCK YOU”. There is one part of the game that stands out heavily when it comes to this. It’s when Cecil and the gang defeat Golbez, one of the game’s villains, inside of this sanctuary that holds one of the crystals they need. While celebrating their defeat and discussing what they should do next, Golbez’s hand starts to crawl around the room and go towards the crystal. Cecil and the crew then proceed to watch this hand go up to the crystal, steal it away, and then leave, WHILE DOING NOTHING AT ALL TO STOP IT. Call this story good all you want, but moments like that you cannot defend, as it is just way too stupid to justify.
But don’t worry, my problems with the game don’t just go as far as the story, because oh no, I got some gripes with the game too, albeit very minor ones. Most of the gameplay works pretty well, and again, I would consider it to be the best in the entire series so far, but like with all of these games so far, there just seems to be one or two areas that’s entire purpose is to piss you off. One such place is the Sealed Cave, a location in the Underworld that has one of the crystals you need to get, but it is filled to the brim with these Trap Door enemies, who can all throw themselves into lava for all I care. They can do massive damage to you whenever you fight them, most of the time even one-shotting party members, and to top it all off, they can split into multiple enemies, which can also mean more damage can be dealt to you. But then again, these kinds of issues only apply to one or two areas throughout the entire game, and even then, if you are playing the original SNES version of the game (the US version, anyway), it is very easy, so there aren’t too many instances where you will have a lot of hard-as-hell situations to deal with.
Overall though, despite having one or two annoying areas to go through, as well as a story that is repetitive and flawed when looking back on it, FFIV is, without a doubt in my mind, the best game in the series so far, bringing the classic gameplay to the next generation of consoles in a brand new and exciting way, while further enhancing elements like the story and characters even further, influencing not just RPGs, but all of video games further as a result. I would absolutely recommend it not just for those who are big fans of FF and RPGs in general, but also for someone who wants to get into either FF or RPGs in general, because while it may not be one of the most approachable or beloved game of the series, it is one of the best places to start, and I cannot recommend it enough. Although, now that I think about it, this game sets a pretty high bar for the next game to top. I’m not sure how it will be able to do it. I dunno, maybe they will find a way………. or, you know, they might fumble the ball along the way.
Game #503
Throughout the 30 years of its entire lifespan, it was always clear why the original Doom was not only a phenomenal game in its own right, but why it is now considered a bona fide classic to this day. There were aspects about it that future games would manage to refine and execute better, but even with that in mind, the game was still fast-paced, action-filled, immensely satisfying, rewarding for those who took the time to really look around for secrets, and it created a type of game that not too many others could properly replicate, in terms of both quality and feel. It also helped that the game was immensely successful, and is now considered to be the father of FPS games to come out from that point onward, so naturally, given the game’s immense success, a sequel was developed right away to continue this game’s legacy and to refine a lot of the elements present within the game. This game would come out not too long after the original, and it would be known as Doom II: Hell on Earth.
Making a sequel to the original Doom and releasing it so soon was kind of a risk for id Software, when you think about it. The original game already had plenty of things that people absolutely loved, and plenty of different reasons to play it over and over again, whether it be through playing through single-player mode to see what secrets you missed, or even through multiplayer mode with your friends. So, how the hell (Ha Haaaaaaaa) were they going to top the original game in such a short time? Well, that, my friends, was simple: by making Doom again, but better. This development choice would pay off for them, not only going on to also sell very well, but it would also receive just as much praise as the original game, if not more. In my opinion, it absolutely deserves that recognition and success it got, because I not only think this game is better than the original Doom in just about every way, but I also consider to be fantastic, providing yet another round of non-stop, blood-pumping action with just enough change to make it wonderful to revisit time and time again.
The story picks up right from where the original game left off, where after defeating the Spider Mastermind from the previous games, Doomguy finds his way back to Earth, where he finds that it has been completely overrun by demons, slaughtering innocent lives and taking over the planet as their own, so naturally, it is up to him to single-handedly take them all down and stop this demonic invasion once and for all, which is a simple enough set-up that both feels satisfactory enough for a natural continuation, while also being just enough to get the player right into the meat of things. The graphics are……. literally the exact same as the previous game, but hey, that’s fine, as the game still looks great either way, the music is also just as wonderful, having plenty more kick-ass tunes to jam out to while shoving the barrel of your gun in some poor demon’s face and blowing it clean off, the control is… also the exact same, so nothing more to touch on there, and the gameplay is very similar to the original game, to the point where you could call it a direct copy with nothing else going on, but there is more to it then you realize.
The game is still a first-person shooter, where you take control of Doomguy once again, go through many different levels, now all bunched together rather then being split up into multiple episodes (which is a better choice, if you ask me), take down any demonic scumbag that stands in your way as you find your way through these facilities and hellish landscapes, gather plenty of different health and ammo pickups, power ups, and additional weapons to make your slaughter all the sweeter, and take on plenty of big and bad forces of hell that will fuck you up if you aren’t ready and quick on your feet. In many ways, it is almost identical to that of the original Doom, which is a good thing, considering that this style of gameplay was already fun enough to begin with, so you can jump in right away and have a blast, but underneath the similar coat of paint, there is a little more going on here.
When I say this game is identical to the original Doom, I mean that in almost every way possible. The graphics, gameplay, general feel, and means of progression are the exact same, which may make you question why this was made as a sequel in the first place, instead of say, an expansion of the previous game. However, when you look deeper into it, you’ll then notice some key differences that make it stand out. If I were to describe the game in one sentence, I would say it is “Doom for Super Players” (but not that kind of super), as while it may be incredibly similar, the gameplay is much faster, more difficult, more reactionary in plenty of scenarios, and all the more invigorating. Even from the first couple of levels, you notice a lot more going on in them then the first batch of levels in the original game, which does make this feel more like a natural progression for the Doom series, for if you have played the original game, you should be experienced enough to handle whatever this game can throw at you.
What also helps with this is that, while most of the game remains relatively the same, there were some key elements that do spice things up. There are new enemies to be found here, each packing their own new means of challenging the player, and not only do they have great designs, but they can be pretty tough to take down if you aren’t careful, forcing you to learn different ways to approach a foe, and thus, improving your skills as a player as a result. In addition, there are new goodies that can be found throughout the levels, such as the Megasphere, which fills up both your health and armor all the way to 200, which is pretty damn helpful, and the Super Shotgun, a new weapon that is pretty much just a better version of the shotgun. That may make you question why they even bothered to make this weapon in the first place, but if you do bother questioning that at all, I will kindly ask you to get the fuck out of here and rethink everything, because the Super Shotgun is AWESOME. Sure, it may use more ammo then its counterpart, but it does more damage, covers a wider range of fire, and can kill multiple targets if used effectively, not only making the original shotgun obsolete in just about every way, but also becoming my new go-to weapon for any situation in this game.
Not only that, but the levels themselves also just FEEL different, still keeping the same general flow of progression familiar for those experienced with the original Doom, while also giving you more to do. You could focus on the goal at hand and just try to find your way to the exit so you can get a move on, but you can also look around in various places that don’t necessarily help you reach the end quicker, but they can reward you handsomely if you go out of your way, encouraging exploration more than ever before. Not to mention, this game still does have plenty of secrets for you to find, and just like with the original game, they can be quite hard to find, so those who enjoy looking for secrets and other means of reaching that glorious 100% mark, Doom II has plenty of that for you in spades.
However, at the end of the day, if you are not a huge fan of what the original Doom gave you, then you definitely won’t be able to get into this title, as it is essentially just Doom 1, but with more stuff. Yeah, it does have new features that can be fun to mess around with, but it has you doing the exact same stuff that you did in the last game with no major changes to be seen, which can definitely turn people away who weren’t able to get into this type of gameplay in the first place. Thankfully though, that is really the only complaint that I can think of for this title, because for those of us who are big fans of this game, it still manages to provide plenty for us to do, see, and kill all the same, and there is nothing more that a Doom Slayer like myself could ask for.
Overall, despite a huge lack of change, Doom II surpasses the original almost flawlessly, and it is a fantastic game as a whole, being even more fun, fast, satisfying, and gruesome as ever, while refining everything about the original game to the point where it could be hard to go back to after this… even though plenty will still go back to it. I highly recommend it for those who were big fans of the original game, as well as those of you who are into classic FPS games in general, because if you somehow haven’t played this game at this point, then… what the HELL are you waiting for?...... alright, you know what, I think that is one too many hell puns for a Doom review. Don’t wanna make reading this feel like you are actually being tortured in Hell, because trust me, there is already plenty about real life that could do that instead.
Game #496
Making a sequel to the original Doom and releasing it so soon was kind of a risk for id Software, when you think about it. The original game already had plenty of things that people absolutely loved, and plenty of different reasons to play it over and over again, whether it be through playing through single-player mode to see what secrets you missed, or even through multiplayer mode with your friends. So, how the hell (Ha Haaaaaaaa) were they going to top the original game in such a short time? Well, that, my friends, was simple: by making Doom again, but better. This development choice would pay off for them, not only going on to also sell very well, but it would also receive just as much praise as the original game, if not more. In my opinion, it absolutely deserves that recognition and success it got, because I not only think this game is better than the original Doom in just about every way, but I also consider to be fantastic, providing yet another round of non-stop, blood-pumping action with just enough change to make it wonderful to revisit time and time again.
The story picks up right from where the original game left off, where after defeating the Spider Mastermind from the previous games, Doomguy finds his way back to Earth, where he finds that it has been completely overrun by demons, slaughtering innocent lives and taking over the planet as their own, so naturally, it is up to him to single-handedly take them all down and stop this demonic invasion once and for all, which is a simple enough set-up that both feels satisfactory enough for a natural continuation, while also being just enough to get the player right into the meat of things. The graphics are……. literally the exact same as the previous game, but hey, that’s fine, as the game still looks great either way, the music is also just as wonderful, having plenty more kick-ass tunes to jam out to while shoving the barrel of your gun in some poor demon’s face and blowing it clean off, the control is… also the exact same, so nothing more to touch on there, and the gameplay is very similar to the original game, to the point where you could call it a direct copy with nothing else going on, but there is more to it then you realize.
The game is still a first-person shooter, where you take control of Doomguy once again, go through many different levels, now all bunched together rather then being split up into multiple episodes (which is a better choice, if you ask me), take down any demonic scumbag that stands in your way as you find your way through these facilities and hellish landscapes, gather plenty of different health and ammo pickups, power ups, and additional weapons to make your slaughter all the sweeter, and take on plenty of big and bad forces of hell that will fuck you up if you aren’t ready and quick on your feet. In many ways, it is almost identical to that of the original Doom, which is a good thing, considering that this style of gameplay was already fun enough to begin with, so you can jump in right away and have a blast, but underneath the similar coat of paint, there is a little more going on here.
When I say this game is identical to the original Doom, I mean that in almost every way possible. The graphics, gameplay, general feel, and means of progression are the exact same, which may make you question why this was made as a sequel in the first place, instead of say, an expansion of the previous game. However, when you look deeper into it, you’ll then notice some key differences that make it stand out. If I were to describe the game in one sentence, I would say it is “Doom for Super Players” (but not that kind of super), as while it may be incredibly similar, the gameplay is much faster, more difficult, more reactionary in plenty of scenarios, and all the more invigorating. Even from the first couple of levels, you notice a lot more going on in them then the first batch of levels in the original game, which does make this feel more like a natural progression for the Doom series, for if you have played the original game, you should be experienced enough to handle whatever this game can throw at you.
What also helps with this is that, while most of the game remains relatively the same, there were some key elements that do spice things up. There are new enemies to be found here, each packing their own new means of challenging the player, and not only do they have great designs, but they can be pretty tough to take down if you aren’t careful, forcing you to learn different ways to approach a foe, and thus, improving your skills as a player as a result. In addition, there are new goodies that can be found throughout the levels, such as the Megasphere, which fills up both your health and armor all the way to 200, which is pretty damn helpful, and the Super Shotgun, a new weapon that is pretty much just a better version of the shotgun. That may make you question why they even bothered to make this weapon in the first place, but if you do bother questioning that at all, I will kindly ask you to get the fuck out of here and rethink everything, because the Super Shotgun is AWESOME. Sure, it may use more ammo then its counterpart, but it does more damage, covers a wider range of fire, and can kill multiple targets if used effectively, not only making the original shotgun obsolete in just about every way, but also becoming my new go-to weapon for any situation in this game.
Not only that, but the levels themselves also just FEEL different, still keeping the same general flow of progression familiar for those experienced with the original Doom, while also giving you more to do. You could focus on the goal at hand and just try to find your way to the exit so you can get a move on, but you can also look around in various places that don’t necessarily help you reach the end quicker, but they can reward you handsomely if you go out of your way, encouraging exploration more than ever before. Not to mention, this game still does have plenty of secrets for you to find, and just like with the original game, they can be quite hard to find, so those who enjoy looking for secrets and other means of reaching that glorious 100% mark, Doom II has plenty of that for you in spades.
However, at the end of the day, if you are not a huge fan of what the original Doom gave you, then you definitely won’t be able to get into this title, as it is essentially just Doom 1, but with more stuff. Yeah, it does have new features that can be fun to mess around with, but it has you doing the exact same stuff that you did in the last game with no major changes to be seen, which can definitely turn people away who weren’t able to get into this type of gameplay in the first place. Thankfully though, that is really the only complaint that I can think of for this title, because for those of us who are big fans of this game, it still manages to provide plenty for us to do, see, and kill all the same, and there is nothing more that a Doom Slayer like myself could ask for.
Overall, despite a huge lack of change, Doom II surpasses the original almost flawlessly, and it is a fantastic game as a whole, being even more fun, fast, satisfying, and gruesome as ever, while refining everything about the original game to the point where it could be hard to go back to after this… even though plenty will still go back to it. I highly recommend it for those who were big fans of the original game, as well as those of you who are into classic FPS games in general, because if you somehow haven’t played this game at this point, then… what the HELL are you waiting for?...... alright, you know what, I think that is one too many hell puns for a Doom review. Don’t wanna make reading this feel like you are actually being tortured in Hell, because trust me, there is already plenty about real life that could do that instead.
Game #496
Persona 3 Reload
2024
Those that have called this a soulless cash grab really haven't played more than a handful of hours, initially I was rubbed the wrong way as well because the change in atmosphere is immediately noticeable, though I don't think you can keep that same feeling it originally had considering the evolution of gaming and the time gap of release, recently noticeable with the Resident Evil 4 remake as well. The more I played it the more I loved it and while I still prefer FES, it's better to look at Reload as a companion piece rather than a replacement.
A lot of problems the mass had with the original release have been fixed to a certain extent here, people griped about Tartarus always feeling the same, the Tactics system not allowing for creativity (there's even a well known mod to allow for controllable party members in FES), the general lack of content in spare time you had to experience, but Atlus listened to a lot of the criticism and touched upon what's dated. I love Persona 3 for all of its flaws and it wouldn't be the same game without some issues, so to say Reload is Persona 3 "perfected" would be an overstatement as it has an equal amount of problems, but that's moreso because it's Persona 3.
I appreciate Reload so much for offering a different perspective on the characters and story, one easier for modern audiences to get to experience while delivering the same emotional response that it's always had with its gut-wrenching final month and more importantly, I think Aigis was done better in Reload which is arguably the most crucial aspect to what makes the game as impactful as it is, for its core themes. There's so much more optional character interaction this time around that really fleshes out the main cast, and even Takaya believe it or not.
Is it the "definitive" version people have sought out ever since the release of Portable? It's still a difficult question to answer even now... I think you can't go wrong with Reload if you don't like the idea of going back to an older release, though if you're patient and want to answer the "definitive" question yourself, play FES and then Reload in the future.
A lot of problems the mass had with the original release have been fixed to a certain extent here, people griped about Tartarus always feeling the same, the Tactics system not allowing for creativity (there's even a well known mod to allow for controllable party members in FES), the general lack of content in spare time you had to experience, but Atlus listened to a lot of the criticism and touched upon what's dated. I love Persona 3 for all of its flaws and it wouldn't be the same game without some issues, so to say Reload is Persona 3 "perfected" would be an overstatement as it has an equal amount of problems, but that's moreso because it's Persona 3.
I appreciate Reload so much for offering a different perspective on the characters and story, one easier for modern audiences to get to experience while delivering the same emotional response that it's always had with its gut-wrenching final month and more importantly, I think Aigis was done better in Reload which is arguably the most crucial aspect to what makes the game as impactful as it is, for its core themes. There's so much more optional character interaction this time around that really fleshes out the main cast, and even Takaya believe it or not.
Is it the "definitive" version people have sought out ever since the release of Portable? It's still a difficult question to answer even now... I think you can't go wrong with Reload if you don't like the idea of going back to an older release, though if you're patient and want to answer the "definitive" question yourself, play FES and then Reload in the future.
Skyrim is a game that you cannot avoid. It's available on damn near everything. It's not a matter of if you'll play Skyrim, it's a matter of when. As far as I can tell, this must be some rite of passage, and my time has finally come. Enter H'kage, a female Khajiit who slices and dices, strikes from the shadows, and will rob you blind if given the chance. This game brought out my inner kleptomaniac AND hoarder. Neither of those things are good for the game's save file size, but we'll get to that problem in a while. For now, it's time to embrace Bethesda's masterpiece.
The moment you escape the opening, you can go anywhere you please. See that mountain? There's probably a proper path up it somewhere, but this is Skyrim! Strafe your face up against any incline while mashing the jump button, you'll be surprised at the places you can reach. A new icon pops up on your compass? Time to take a leisurely stroll through the majestic, mountainous region of Tamriel, breathtaking from any angle. But what does one do in Skyrim? Well, it's a lot of fighting. Skyrim's combat feels like the equivalent of smashing action figures against each other, and not in the fun imaginative sense; I mean the combat truly feels like wildly smashing plastic figures against themselves. Granted, melee isn't nearly the only option at your disposal. Magic attacks didn't really do anything for me, but the healing was always nice to have on hand. A good way to tank damage if stabbing unaware bandits in the back with a dagger didn't work out.
Even if the combat is limp, my greatest takeaway from Skyrim is its sidequests. Despite the fact that I don't remember the names or faces of the people who sent me on my various quests, Skyrim did a damn good job at making the journey the memorable part, and not the destination. Almost every single cave and village I came across had something unique to experience. Sometimes I'd stumble into the lair of an alchemist breeding a nuclear spider army, other times I would find a guy pretending to be a ghost in a crypt. These little self-contained stories provide the best kind of tales to share with your friends, especially if it leads to some cool items. Needless to say, this made it all the more jarring that I thought the main quest was nothing special.
There you are, playing your high fantasy open-world game, when all of a sudden, you're the Dragonborn. You didn't ask for this. You didn't choose this, and yet, here we are. I thought the main questline of Skyrim to be boooooriiiiing. I think most of my disinterest stems from a lack of agency. Being the Dragonborn is cool enough, but it doesn't really play into anything. I just am the Dragonborn, whether I like it or not. None of your choices on the main path matter, all these important events kinda just happen around you. Fighting dragons and collecting shouts is cool, but it's not that necessary, and I rarely used them. Also, screw the Blades. I don't know why they're so pissy about the Shoutmasters on the mountain, and I am NOT killing one of the only interesting characters in the whole narrative. When people complain to the point of modding in the option to simply say "no", I think the writers officially lost the plot. I made a point to play through the main story quests before my save file got too big and whoops, I can't hide this problem any longer.
Yeah, I played Skyrim on the PS3, and as it turns out, PS3 Skyrim is arguably the worst version of the game. I got the game for Christmas, so I didn't really have a say in my platform of choice, but I'd probably have ended up getting it on PS3 just to know how people experienced Skyrim back in 2011, in its purest, unmodded form. From my point of view, Skyrim is Skyrim is Skyrim, minus the PC version, because people have modded that game to the moon and back, and I didn't want that clouding my opinion of the game. It's not "literally unplayable" on PS3, but your experience is on a time limit of sorts. Your save file size increases as you discover locations, take on more quests, and hoard more items. As your save grows bigger, load times take longer, and the game becomes buggier. Have you ever been swimming, and suddenly you stop swimming, and then you drop to the bottom and can't reach the surface? That's what actual nightmares are like, and this happened to me late in my playthrough! There were points where I passed up on exploring optional locations because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to fulfill my self-assigned goal of finishing the main quest before the game slapped me with an infamous 10-minute loading screen or some game-breaking bugs. I never reached that point, but 11MB+ is nothing to scoff at.
Frankly, I would love to play Skyrim forever. I played it for a few weeks straight, only to feel a guilty sense of procrastination wash over me. I would play it more if I didn't set myself the "beat the main story quests" goal (and even then I got most of the trophies anyways, whoops), but I have other games I want to play. Todd will take hold of me again some other day...it's only a matter of time.
The moment you escape the opening, you can go anywhere you please. See that mountain? There's probably a proper path up it somewhere, but this is Skyrim! Strafe your face up against any incline while mashing the jump button, you'll be surprised at the places you can reach. A new icon pops up on your compass? Time to take a leisurely stroll through the majestic, mountainous region of Tamriel, breathtaking from any angle. But what does one do in Skyrim? Well, it's a lot of fighting. Skyrim's combat feels like the equivalent of smashing action figures against each other, and not in the fun imaginative sense; I mean the combat truly feels like wildly smashing plastic figures against themselves. Granted, melee isn't nearly the only option at your disposal. Magic attacks didn't really do anything for me, but the healing was always nice to have on hand. A good way to tank damage if stabbing unaware bandits in the back with a dagger didn't work out.
Even if the combat is limp, my greatest takeaway from Skyrim is its sidequests. Despite the fact that I don't remember the names or faces of the people who sent me on my various quests, Skyrim did a damn good job at making the journey the memorable part, and not the destination. Almost every single cave and village I came across had something unique to experience. Sometimes I'd stumble into the lair of an alchemist breeding a nuclear spider army, other times I would find a guy pretending to be a ghost in a crypt. These little self-contained stories provide the best kind of tales to share with your friends, especially if it leads to some cool items. Needless to say, this made it all the more jarring that I thought the main quest was nothing special.
There you are, playing your high fantasy open-world game, when all of a sudden, you're the Dragonborn. You didn't ask for this. You didn't choose this, and yet, here we are. I thought the main questline of Skyrim to be boooooriiiiing. I think most of my disinterest stems from a lack of agency. Being the Dragonborn is cool enough, but it doesn't really play into anything. I just am the Dragonborn, whether I like it or not. None of your choices on the main path matter, all these important events kinda just happen around you. Fighting dragons and collecting shouts is cool, but it's not that necessary, and I rarely used them. Also, screw the Blades. I don't know why they're so pissy about the Shoutmasters on the mountain, and I am NOT killing one of the only interesting characters in the whole narrative. When people complain to the point of modding in the option to simply say "no", I think the writers officially lost the plot. I made a point to play through the main story quests before my save file got too big and whoops, I can't hide this problem any longer.
Yeah, I played Skyrim on the PS3, and as it turns out, PS3 Skyrim is arguably the worst version of the game. I got the game for Christmas, so I didn't really have a say in my platform of choice, but I'd probably have ended up getting it on PS3 just to know how people experienced Skyrim back in 2011, in its purest, unmodded form. From my point of view, Skyrim is Skyrim is Skyrim, minus the PC version, because people have modded that game to the moon and back, and I didn't want that clouding my opinion of the game. It's not "literally unplayable" on PS3, but your experience is on a time limit of sorts. Your save file size increases as you discover locations, take on more quests, and hoard more items. As your save grows bigger, load times take longer, and the game becomes buggier. Have you ever been swimming, and suddenly you stop swimming, and then you drop to the bottom and can't reach the surface? That's what actual nightmares are like, and this happened to me late in my playthrough! There were points where I passed up on exploring optional locations because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to fulfill my self-assigned goal of finishing the main quest before the game slapped me with an infamous 10-minute loading screen or some game-breaking bugs. I never reached that point, but 11MB+ is nothing to scoff at.
Frankly, I would love to play Skyrim forever. I played it for a few weeks straight, only to feel a guilty sense of procrastination wash over me. I would play it more if I didn't set myself the "beat the main story quests" goal (and even then I got most of the trophies anyways, whoops), but I have other games I want to play. Todd will take hold of me again some other day...it's only a matter of time.
This is my second attempt to play Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I originally bought it when it launched in 2010 having been hyped by the launch trailer with Patrick Stewart and Robert Carlyle narrating. Its been 14 years since then and all I remember is not enjoying it much and eventually trading it in but nothing specific about it. A friend of mine bought it so we decided to play through it together as Castlevania fans, what could go wrong?
Everything about this game feels bad to play.
Let's start with the protagonist Gabriel Belmont, he has all the personality and emotional range of a slab of granite. Literally anything that happens gives him no reaction at all like the developers forgot to animate his face. A magic horse teleporting in next to him? No problem. Giant titan smashing out of the lake? Sure. Dead wife appearing in front of him? It's Tuesday. Not a flicker of acknowledgement of surprising events like an animated corpse. His voice actor Robert Carlyle is normally a great performer but it doesn't seem like he was given much direction here. Perhaps it's because voice acting is a very different skill? but it really sounds like he is just reading off a script. Perhaps I'm underselling him here and he is acting to the characters visually displayed emotions, which is absolutely nothing, so in fact an A+ performance.
I could overlook this if the game was fun to play and control Granite Belmont but that's actually the worst part, by a country mile. It's a 3D action game but has a fixed camera with a soft lock following the action. Because the game lacks personality as much as Mr. Granite it's essentially a God of War clone but it fails to understand the level design to make that enjoyable leaving large dead zones of the camera view constantly. The combat just feels terrible, It's slow but not deliberate. Attacks lack weight and impact yet everything is unresponsive at the same time. The controls are somewhat baffling in their design to compound this further. Roll is on L2 with the left analog stick, the right analog stick doesn't seem to be used at all as you can't control the camera. There is no manual lock on to attack enemies, just a soft lock that's easy to lose. It's feels so cumbersome, even after a few hours it still felt like we were learning the controls.
A second friend came by when we were playing and gave it a go and their only impression was "This doesn't feel good does it?"
You can buy more combos for your whip using experience gained through combat but none of them feel easy to pull off or actually useful in any way when you do. The whip completely lacks impact. Enemies will just interrupt you mid attack so most the time hit and run is the most effective strategy. It's Castlevania yet you get access to one sub weapon of a throwing knife and two magic spells of light and shadow. Light heals you, shadow increases your attack. It's...coloured auras in which you collect orbs from enemies with L3 or R3 depending which pool you want to refill. Getting access to this IP and only giving that as options feels so...derivative.
This complete lack of imagination extends to the level and enemy designs equally. Enemies are bland fantasy archetypes of werewolves, trolls, goblins, and spiders. We completed 14 levels in two chapters with several hours of play and barely saw anything else. This is a series known for animated armour, floating medusa heads, dancing ghosts, chimeras etc. How do you take the past games and boil them down to such uninteresting foes? The first main level after the tutorial fight was a swamp you slowly trudge through with some goblins. It's so painfully generic but it's not even done well or designed interestingly to make it fresh. It utterly lacks the panache and style of the series it's based on.
It feels like it's aged terribly going back to it, it has all the worst aspects of the PS3 era. Quick time events for finishing enemies or traversing with a circle going into another circle. Balancing to cross a beam and having to hold R2 if you are about to fall. The game also constantly takes control away from you like it's mansplaining everything feeling incredibly patronising. Constant tutorials, pop ups, camera sweeps. Just let me play the game! I know I can pick up items with R2, I've been playing for over 2 hours! It treats you like your memory is wiped every 15 minutes.
The game tries to be a large epic with high production values with epic music and voice acting yet there are large chunks of levels with no music at all but it's not atmospheric, just empty. What music there is is forgettable like a generic orchestral theme for a summer block buster but no punch or stand out beats. Like trailer music.
After several hours my friend and I just called it quits. Maybe it gets better further on? I am aware of the twist but after learning there were still 34 more levels we just didn't actually want to play anymore. We moved onto Space Marine after this as my friend hadn't played it and the quality difference on the same system was night and day. Full camera movement, easy fluid to use controls, and interestingly a better frame rate and clearer image quality. It really just emphasized all of this game's flaws.
The thing is, I'm sad about this. We wanted to like this, we wanted to beat it and play Lords of Shadow 2 to fill in some gaps in our Castlevania history and see Granite Belmont's story unfold. There isn't an original idea to be had here though and everything just feels so banal with it. Playing this feels like a PS3 game with all the negatives that sentence implies. It takes the worst aspects of gaming in that generation and merges them together but above all it's just forgettable.
Even Patrick Stewart can't save this.
+ I like Granite Slab's outfit.
- Awful camera, controls and combat.
- Bland level, skills and enemy designs.
- Gabriel has the personality of a plank of wood used in a button measuring contest.
- Everything feels so safe and by the numbers like designed by committee.
Everything about this game feels bad to play.
Let's start with the protagonist Gabriel Belmont, he has all the personality and emotional range of a slab of granite. Literally anything that happens gives him no reaction at all like the developers forgot to animate his face. A magic horse teleporting in next to him? No problem. Giant titan smashing out of the lake? Sure. Dead wife appearing in front of him? It's Tuesday. Not a flicker of acknowledgement of surprising events like an animated corpse. His voice actor Robert Carlyle is normally a great performer but it doesn't seem like he was given much direction here. Perhaps it's because voice acting is a very different skill? but it really sounds like he is just reading off a script. Perhaps I'm underselling him here and he is acting to the characters visually displayed emotions, which is absolutely nothing, so in fact an A+ performance.
I could overlook this if the game was fun to play and control Granite Belmont but that's actually the worst part, by a country mile. It's a 3D action game but has a fixed camera with a soft lock following the action. Because the game lacks personality as much as Mr. Granite it's essentially a God of War clone but it fails to understand the level design to make that enjoyable leaving large dead zones of the camera view constantly. The combat just feels terrible, It's slow but not deliberate. Attacks lack weight and impact yet everything is unresponsive at the same time. The controls are somewhat baffling in their design to compound this further. Roll is on L2 with the left analog stick, the right analog stick doesn't seem to be used at all as you can't control the camera. There is no manual lock on to attack enemies, just a soft lock that's easy to lose. It's feels so cumbersome, even after a few hours it still felt like we were learning the controls.
A second friend came by when we were playing and gave it a go and their only impression was "This doesn't feel good does it?"
You can buy more combos for your whip using experience gained through combat but none of them feel easy to pull off or actually useful in any way when you do. The whip completely lacks impact. Enemies will just interrupt you mid attack so most the time hit and run is the most effective strategy. It's Castlevania yet you get access to one sub weapon of a throwing knife and two magic spells of light and shadow. Light heals you, shadow increases your attack. It's...coloured auras in which you collect orbs from enemies with L3 or R3 depending which pool you want to refill. Getting access to this IP and only giving that as options feels so...derivative.
This complete lack of imagination extends to the level and enemy designs equally. Enemies are bland fantasy archetypes of werewolves, trolls, goblins, and spiders. We completed 14 levels in two chapters with several hours of play and barely saw anything else. This is a series known for animated armour, floating medusa heads, dancing ghosts, chimeras etc. How do you take the past games and boil them down to such uninteresting foes? The first main level after the tutorial fight was a swamp you slowly trudge through with some goblins. It's so painfully generic but it's not even done well or designed interestingly to make it fresh. It utterly lacks the panache and style of the series it's based on.
It feels like it's aged terribly going back to it, it has all the worst aspects of the PS3 era. Quick time events for finishing enemies or traversing with a circle going into another circle. Balancing to cross a beam and having to hold R2 if you are about to fall. The game also constantly takes control away from you like it's mansplaining everything feeling incredibly patronising. Constant tutorials, pop ups, camera sweeps. Just let me play the game! I know I can pick up items with R2, I've been playing for over 2 hours! It treats you like your memory is wiped every 15 minutes.
The game tries to be a large epic with high production values with epic music and voice acting yet there are large chunks of levels with no music at all but it's not atmospheric, just empty. What music there is is forgettable like a generic orchestral theme for a summer block buster but no punch or stand out beats. Like trailer music.
After several hours my friend and I just called it quits. Maybe it gets better further on? I am aware of the twist but after learning there were still 34 more levels we just didn't actually want to play anymore. We moved onto Space Marine after this as my friend hadn't played it and the quality difference on the same system was night and day. Full camera movement, easy fluid to use controls, and interestingly a better frame rate and clearer image quality. It really just emphasized all of this game's flaws.
The thing is, I'm sad about this. We wanted to like this, we wanted to beat it and play Lords of Shadow 2 to fill in some gaps in our Castlevania history and see Granite Belmont's story unfold. There isn't an original idea to be had here though and everything just feels so banal with it. Playing this feels like a PS3 game with all the negatives that sentence implies. It takes the worst aspects of gaming in that generation and merges them together but above all it's just forgettable.
Even Patrick Stewart can't save this.
+ I like Granite Slab's outfit.
- Awful camera, controls and combat.
- Bland level, skills and enemy designs.
- Gabriel has the personality of a plank of wood used in a button measuring contest.
- Everything feels so safe and by the numbers like designed by committee.
Mega Man Zero 2
2003
I have gone on record saying that I firmly believe that Zero 1 is better than 2. I first tried playing the DS version of Zero 2 on the Mega Man Zero Collection, and this time I tried the Switch version, which has the save state checkpoints, because some of my issues with Zero II came with its rather obnoxious difficulty. Unfortunately however, my opinion on Zero II hasn't changed much from the last time I played it. I find Zero 2 to be a downgrade in several ways, first being the level design. I have very mixed opinions on Zero 2’s level design. On one hand, Zero 2 eliminates most of the cheap stuff about Zero 1’s level design, but it's bogged down by some really finicky gimmicks. Zero 1’s level design didn't have many gimmicks from what I remember, but Zero 2 really dives into this concept a whole lot more, to mediocre results. The level concepts are mostly fine, but in execution they're more tedious than fun. For example, the factory has you hitting bombs to explode areas of a wall, but more often than not, the bombs don't travel where you want them to go, which gets annoying pretty fast. Occasionally, the level design does actually take good advantage of the gimmicks, however. For example, in the Arctic stage, the ice is used in the intro to build up momentum so you can get a Cyber Elf, which is a nice test of skills. But examples of this are few and far between, unfortunately. The level design also occasionally uses the Chain Rod, a hook shot that just feels so god awful to use. It transfers your momentum awfully, and it just feels forced whenever used. You also have to use it in a lot of do-or-die scenarios, and combined with the poor momentum translation, it gets annoying really fast. This is kind of a nitpick and doesn't make sense with Zero 2’s levels, but something I really liked about Zero 1 is the interconnected world. Not only did this encourage exploration outside of levels so you could memorize the layout before heading into the mission, but it gave Zero 1 a great sense of worldbuilding. It made all the stages feel like they mattered, but this is all but gone in Zero 2. Once again, since you teleport to stages in Zero 2, it wouldn't make sense, but then again, Mega Man X did this, even though each area wasn't interconnected. Once again, a nitpick, but still. My mixed opinions of the stage design also translates into the bosses, unfortunately. They're not awful, but some of these fights get super fucking annoying. Jesus christ, actually ASS FUCK the Phoenix boss, and I hope it never rises from the ashes of hell ever again.
Occasionally, Zero 2 can be an improvement over its predecessor. For one, the level up system from Zero 1 is much, much faster, cutting down on the grinding in the game. A much needed improvement overall. I also like the forms and EX Skills, as well as the fact that the Sword now ignores i-frames, which kind of made it harder to go back to Zero 1 TBH. But in my humble opinion, Zero 2 is a bit of a step back from Zero 1. It's not awful, but once I beat it the first time, it felt like a lot could've been done better.
Occasionally, Zero 2 can be an improvement over its predecessor. For one, the level up system from Zero 1 is much, much faster, cutting down on the grinding in the game. A much needed improvement overall. I also like the forms and EX Skills, as well as the fact that the Sword now ignores i-frames, which kind of made it harder to go back to Zero 1 TBH. But in my humble opinion, Zero 2 is a bit of a step back from Zero 1. It's not awful, but once I beat it the first time, it felt like a lot could've been done better.
Axelay
1992
I was far too uncharitable to this in the past, this is excellent. 10/10 level and boss design, a robust and intricate weapons system, a staggering sense of awe and power, and immaculate programming in the performance, visual tricks and object physics. Definitely the best SNES shmup.
But I really, REALLY dislike that extra loops don't carry over the weapons you earn from the stages, that's so stupid, that's so so so so so so so stupid, how, why, what's the point
But I really, REALLY dislike that extra loops don't carry over the weapons you earn from the stages, that's so stupid, that's so so so so so so so stupid, how, why, what's the point
Super Metroid
1994
While it hadn’t gotten as much love as other Nintendo franchises at this point, like with Mario, Zelda, Kirby, and others, the Metroid series was still considered to be one of their big IPs at the time, and had a bit of a reputation at that point. The original Metroid and Metroid II: Return of Samus, despite not reaching the same level of quality as future titles in the series, were still good games in their own right, and were a pretty good launch point for this series as a whole. Not to mention, they were pretty successful, selling 2.7 million copies and 1.7 million copies respectively, so naturally, a sequel was going to be made… but not right away. There would be somewhat of a gap in between releases, primarily because the devs were waiting for just the right time, the perfect time, to bring Samus back into the limelight once again. This perfect time would come in 1994, and with the help of Intelligent Systems, who had developed plenty of games with Nintendo before (including the original Metroid), they would then release the long-awaited next chapter in the Metroid saga, Super Metroid.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t go onto sell as well as its predecessors, but it would go onto garner universal praise from fans, die-hard or otherwise, and critics alike, with it now considered to be not only one of, if not THE best Metroid game of all time, but also one of the greatest video games ever made. Many have sung its praises over the years in many ways, it would get plenty of mods later down the road supporting replayability, it would become a favorite amongst speedrunners, and it would help go onto establishing an entire sub-genre of video games as a whole. As for myself though, I wouldn’t jump onto the Super Metroid bandwagon for quite some time, despite watching plenty of videos about it that would praise the game and go into great detail about why it was considered a masterpiece. When I eventually did decide to give the game a fair shot, I immediately understood why, as it is an incredible game, and absolutely deserves the reputation it has garnered over the years. While it may not be my personal favorite Metroid game, it is clear when playing the game that the devs put plenty of love, detail, and care into this game, making it one of the best games you could ever play not only from this era, but from any era.
The story continues on from where Metroid II ended off, where Samus Aran, now with a baby Metroid in her possession, brings it to a team of scientists at the Ceres research station to conduct further study on the specimen, but shortly after she leaves, the station is attacked by Ridley, back in the flesh after his defeat in the original game, killing everyone inside and stealing the baby Metroid, and fleeing back to the planet Zebes, so it is up to Samus to travel to Zebes once again, get back the baby Metroid, and uncover what is really going on here. It is a fairly simple premise, one that is easy to understand for new players, but also complex enough to create intrigue for those that are wanting to learn more about this game and its universe, making it very pleasing to experience and ponder about.
The graphics are absolutely phenomenal, not only bringing Samus to the 16-bit era in the perfect way, but also creating plenty of iconic locations, enemy designs, and atmosphere that still holds up tremendously well almost 30 years later, the music is wonderful, creating a perfect balance of being moody, setting the tone for many of the environments you travel in, yet still being filled with plenty of life, while also being tense and action–packed when it needs to, the control is perfect, feeling like the perfect evolution for how Samus should control in one of these games, while giving plenty of new things to mess around with right from the get-go that give you more versatility than ever, and the gameplay is pretty similar to the last two titles in the series, but now it has been made to be a lot more exciting, approachable, and memorable.
The game is a 2D action-adventure game, where you take control of Samus Aran once again, go through the depths of the planet Zebes once again, this time with much more detail, life, and secrets to find, defeat plenty of creatures, big or small, that inhabit the planet and want you dead as you go deeper and deeper into the planet, gather plenty of upgrades to Samus’s arsenal to make her into the ultimate warrior, such as with health upgrades, beam power ups, or regular power ups that give you new abilities, and take on plenty of bosses, both new and old, that will provide a challenge to those unprepared for what is to come. It has all the same elements that the previous two games had, not really introducing anything that majorly different for the series at the time, but there is one thing that it does manage to do above all else: perfect the formula.
As I mentioned earlier, Samus is now more capable then she has ever been before, not only having the same basic abilities and powers that she could get from the previous game, but she is now also able to aim in eight separate directions, she can crouch, and she even now has a wall jump, where you can continuously scale up a wall if you press the right sequence of buttons, allowing you to ultimately make the game YOUR BITCH. It is the perfect way to naturally evolve not just Samus and her capabilities, but also how the game plays, because when compared to the original game and Metroid II, this is just perfect in every way. Not only that, but the arsenal of weapons that she can acquire throughout the game is just as helpful as before, with classics like the Missiles, the Morph Ball, the Hi-Jump boots, the Screw Attack, and the various beam powers making a return, and each of them are incredibly helpful in plenty of situations.
Not only that, but there is also a good amount of new power ups for you to mess around with in the game as you go about finding them. There’s the Speed Booster, which allows Samus to run extremely fast and make her an unstoppable bullet train, the Shine Spark, which allows you to fire yourself through hard structures while using the Speed Booster, the Grapple Beam, which can be used to latch onto certain surfaces and swing around all over the place to reach new areas or more goodies, and the X-Ray Scope, which allows you to scan nearby areas to see if you can find any hidden passageways, power ups, or otherwise. Most of these new additions would become staples in the series in the coming years, and all of them are extremely useful and wonderful to test out in plenty of locations… with the exception of the X-Ray Scope, which I barely used at all, but hey, it is there for newcomers, so that is good.
And speaking of newcomers, like I mentioned before, this game is much more approachable when compared to the previous two titles, not just in terms of what it provides the player, but also in terms of design. In the first two Metroid games, there was always the possibility of getting lost or confused while traveling through these corridors, because not only did you not have any way to track where you were in the game, but also because a lot of the hallways look almost identical to each other, meaning you could think you are in a whole new area, but instead are stuck back-tracking when you didn’t want to so that.
Thankfully, with Super Metroid, not only do you now have a map which can track where you have been, making it a lot easier to decide where you want to go next, but every single area in the game, big or small, now has a distinct look and design to it, making it so that you will always have new things to discover, and even if you haven’t fully explored one area due to a lack of tools needed to do so, you can always find your way back in order to do so later. With that being said though, even though you do have a map, it doesn’t automatically point out every single thing to you, encouraging you to explore around more and see where more items and secrets can be hidden, which is always a great thing to have when it comes to any video game.
One last admirable quality about Super Metroid that I really admire, especially when it comes to video games of this era, is in terms of its storytelling. Most games around this time either don’t give you too much story at all, or they are all saved for cutscenes and the instruction manual, which is fine on its own, but it doesn’t give you much opportunity to really connect with the game’s world as a whole. Super Metroid, however, manages to do this flawlessly, starting off with an intro sequence that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, or about what happened in the previous two games, but they tell you enough to where you get ready to go and want to learn more. Even when you land on the planet of Zebes, you can tell that it’s gone through plenty of changes, with the first areas looking all desolate and destroyed, no doubt a result of your actions from the original game. However, after you get the Morph Ball, this beam of light shines on you from the corner of the room, and suddenly, all kinds of baddies are up and at 'em, ready to take you down, which is a really nice detail.
Everything else remains relatively normal and simple from there on out, until you end up fighting Ridley, where after you defeat him, you end up finding the capsule that the baby Metroid was sealed in… but it is now shattered, and the baby Metroid is gone. You have no clue what could’ve happened, so you end up going about the rest of your business, getting more items, fighting more guys, and breaking the game to your heart’s content, until you reach the final area of the game, where you descend down further into the core of Zebes, and that’s when the final events of the game start to kick off. Oh, and by the way, spoilers for the final act of the game are coming up, so if you haven’t played or seen through that part of the game yet (even though you have had 30 years to do so), then just skip to the final paragraph of the review.
As you enter this area, you notice that it is surprisingly… quiet. There isn’t that much going in with the environment, and the only enemies that you find in this place are Metroids and those weird ring things that shoot out from the walls. Eventually, you find more enemies later on, but they appear to be… drained of their life, disintegrating upon contact, leading you to suspect that something weird is going on here. You then find another one of these enemies, alive and well, seemingly impossible to kill as you try every single weapon on it, but nothing works. Before you can think of what to do next, all of a sudden, this GIGANTIC Metroid comes out of NOWHERE, and latches itself onto that creature, draining it of its energy, and probably scaring the shit out of whoever is playing the game at that point.
After it finishes off this creature, it then heads straight for you, starting to completely drain you of all your energy as well, with you being able to do anything about it, as you fidget around in an utter panic. However, before your health bar drops to zero, all of a sudden… it stops. It stops draining your health, and it detaches itself from you, letting out some cries, until ultimately fleeing the scene. It is then you realize that this giant Metroid that almost killed you was the baby Metroid that you got from SR388, and it had one HUGE growth spurt, but even after becoming the ruthless killer that all Metroids naturally are, it still cares deeply about Samus, and wishes to bring no more harm to her.
Once that is all over with, you once again go through the game like normal, finally reaching Mother Brain, back once again from the original game, right alongside a fight that seems like it was ripped straight from that game, with you needing to defeat her in the exact same way. However, when it seems like she is destroyed, she then rises up from her defeat once again, now rocking this brand new body. Naturally, you start to throw everything at her, but it doesn’t seem like anything is really doing all that much to her, as she fights back and then starts to charge up something. This then leads to her firing this gigantic rainbow laser beam of death at you several times, which not only starts draining away all of your health like crazy, but it also takes away all of your missiles and bombs too!
At this point, you are now stuck, unable to move, and getting continuously beat up by Mother Brain, wondering how the hell you are going to get out of this one. However, before Mother Brain can land the final blow with one more laser beam attack, the full-grown baby Metroid then suddenly barges in and starts draining Mother Brain of all her energy, causing her to start to stagger and cry out in a panic, until she is left petrified for a brief moment. The Metroid then goes towards you, latching onto you once again, but instead of draining your health again, it then starts to… heal you? No clue how the hell they are supposed to be doing that, but at this point, you’ll take it. But then, while the Metroid is starting to heal you, Mother Brain gets back up.
It then starts to fully attack the Metroid non-stop, causing it to grow weaker and changing to a much weaker shade of purple and yellow, until the Metroid then unlatches itself from you, and then goes in for one final attack. Unfortunately though, before it can land that final blow, Mother Brain gets the upper hand, killing the Metroid, and causing it to explode into dust. You may not have known him for long, but you are probably feeling pretty saddened and angry about Mother Brain killing your baby, but fear not, because from the ashes of the Metroid, you gain one final upgrade to your beam that is capable of killing Mother Brain: the Hyper Beam.
You then unload plenty of shots from your own rainbow laser, right into Mother Brain’s dumbass face, until it ultimately crumbles to the ground, ending your mission, and leading you to quickly escaping from the planet. This entire sequence of events, from where you find the destroyed capsule all the way up to when you kill Mother Brain, is executed flawlessly. It is such a simple sequence of events, but they are presented to the player so naturally, without any real pauses in the gameplay, allowing you to fully get absorbed in these moments, which make them all the more surprising, jarring, heart-breaking, and satisfying. Of course, you probably already knew about all this, and you may not think it is such a big deal, as did I when I went into this game, but even when I knew all of what was going to happen, it still made it so that those emotions were rushing through me by the end, and if a game manages to do that even when you already knew it was coming, then that deserves only the highest regards.
Overall, while it still isn’t my favorite game in the entire series, or even my favorite 2D Metroid for that matter, I can’t help but fully admit that Super Metroid, on its own, is almost completely flawless, giving a natural evolution for this series that excels it to new heights, and providing so much fun throughout all that it offers, whether it be through gameplay, presentation, story, or otherwise. I absolutely recommend it for anyone, those who are big fans of the Metroid series, or if you are someone that is wanting to get into the series yourself, because it is not only a perfect starting point for newcomers, but also a title that has held up masterfully after all this time, and it is clear why it is still so prevalent in plenty of gaming communities to this day. Although, I will say one thing, for those of you who are planning on playing this at some point… make sure to save the aliens. You may not know what I am talking about, but trust me, you will want to remember that, so that you won’t get shunned by your peers for doing something wrong.
Game #492
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t go onto sell as well as its predecessors, but it would go onto garner universal praise from fans, die-hard or otherwise, and critics alike, with it now considered to be not only one of, if not THE best Metroid game of all time, but also one of the greatest video games ever made. Many have sung its praises over the years in many ways, it would get plenty of mods later down the road supporting replayability, it would become a favorite amongst speedrunners, and it would help go onto establishing an entire sub-genre of video games as a whole. As for myself though, I wouldn’t jump onto the Super Metroid bandwagon for quite some time, despite watching plenty of videos about it that would praise the game and go into great detail about why it was considered a masterpiece. When I eventually did decide to give the game a fair shot, I immediately understood why, as it is an incredible game, and absolutely deserves the reputation it has garnered over the years. While it may not be my personal favorite Metroid game, it is clear when playing the game that the devs put plenty of love, detail, and care into this game, making it one of the best games you could ever play not only from this era, but from any era.
The story continues on from where Metroid II ended off, where Samus Aran, now with a baby Metroid in her possession, brings it to a team of scientists at the Ceres research station to conduct further study on the specimen, but shortly after she leaves, the station is attacked by Ridley, back in the flesh after his defeat in the original game, killing everyone inside and stealing the baby Metroid, and fleeing back to the planet Zebes, so it is up to Samus to travel to Zebes once again, get back the baby Metroid, and uncover what is really going on here. It is a fairly simple premise, one that is easy to understand for new players, but also complex enough to create intrigue for those that are wanting to learn more about this game and its universe, making it very pleasing to experience and ponder about.
The graphics are absolutely phenomenal, not only bringing Samus to the 16-bit era in the perfect way, but also creating plenty of iconic locations, enemy designs, and atmosphere that still holds up tremendously well almost 30 years later, the music is wonderful, creating a perfect balance of being moody, setting the tone for many of the environments you travel in, yet still being filled with plenty of life, while also being tense and action–packed when it needs to, the control is perfect, feeling like the perfect evolution for how Samus should control in one of these games, while giving plenty of new things to mess around with right from the get-go that give you more versatility than ever, and the gameplay is pretty similar to the last two titles in the series, but now it has been made to be a lot more exciting, approachable, and memorable.
The game is a 2D action-adventure game, where you take control of Samus Aran once again, go through the depths of the planet Zebes once again, this time with much more detail, life, and secrets to find, defeat plenty of creatures, big or small, that inhabit the planet and want you dead as you go deeper and deeper into the planet, gather plenty of upgrades to Samus’s arsenal to make her into the ultimate warrior, such as with health upgrades, beam power ups, or regular power ups that give you new abilities, and take on plenty of bosses, both new and old, that will provide a challenge to those unprepared for what is to come. It has all the same elements that the previous two games had, not really introducing anything that majorly different for the series at the time, but there is one thing that it does manage to do above all else: perfect the formula.
As I mentioned earlier, Samus is now more capable then she has ever been before, not only having the same basic abilities and powers that she could get from the previous game, but she is now also able to aim in eight separate directions, she can crouch, and she even now has a wall jump, where you can continuously scale up a wall if you press the right sequence of buttons, allowing you to ultimately make the game YOUR BITCH. It is the perfect way to naturally evolve not just Samus and her capabilities, but also how the game plays, because when compared to the original game and Metroid II, this is just perfect in every way. Not only that, but the arsenal of weapons that she can acquire throughout the game is just as helpful as before, with classics like the Missiles, the Morph Ball, the Hi-Jump boots, the Screw Attack, and the various beam powers making a return, and each of them are incredibly helpful in plenty of situations.
Not only that, but there is also a good amount of new power ups for you to mess around with in the game as you go about finding them. There’s the Speed Booster, which allows Samus to run extremely fast and make her an unstoppable bullet train, the Shine Spark, which allows you to fire yourself through hard structures while using the Speed Booster, the Grapple Beam, which can be used to latch onto certain surfaces and swing around all over the place to reach new areas or more goodies, and the X-Ray Scope, which allows you to scan nearby areas to see if you can find any hidden passageways, power ups, or otherwise. Most of these new additions would become staples in the series in the coming years, and all of them are extremely useful and wonderful to test out in plenty of locations… with the exception of the X-Ray Scope, which I barely used at all, but hey, it is there for newcomers, so that is good.
And speaking of newcomers, like I mentioned before, this game is much more approachable when compared to the previous two titles, not just in terms of what it provides the player, but also in terms of design. In the first two Metroid games, there was always the possibility of getting lost or confused while traveling through these corridors, because not only did you not have any way to track where you were in the game, but also because a lot of the hallways look almost identical to each other, meaning you could think you are in a whole new area, but instead are stuck back-tracking when you didn’t want to so that.
Thankfully, with Super Metroid, not only do you now have a map which can track where you have been, making it a lot easier to decide where you want to go next, but every single area in the game, big or small, now has a distinct look and design to it, making it so that you will always have new things to discover, and even if you haven’t fully explored one area due to a lack of tools needed to do so, you can always find your way back in order to do so later. With that being said though, even though you do have a map, it doesn’t automatically point out every single thing to you, encouraging you to explore around more and see where more items and secrets can be hidden, which is always a great thing to have when it comes to any video game.
One last admirable quality about Super Metroid that I really admire, especially when it comes to video games of this era, is in terms of its storytelling. Most games around this time either don’t give you too much story at all, or they are all saved for cutscenes and the instruction manual, which is fine on its own, but it doesn’t give you much opportunity to really connect with the game’s world as a whole. Super Metroid, however, manages to do this flawlessly, starting off with an intro sequence that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, or about what happened in the previous two games, but they tell you enough to where you get ready to go and want to learn more. Even when you land on the planet of Zebes, you can tell that it’s gone through plenty of changes, with the first areas looking all desolate and destroyed, no doubt a result of your actions from the original game. However, after you get the Morph Ball, this beam of light shines on you from the corner of the room, and suddenly, all kinds of baddies are up and at 'em, ready to take you down, which is a really nice detail.
Everything else remains relatively normal and simple from there on out, until you end up fighting Ridley, where after you defeat him, you end up finding the capsule that the baby Metroid was sealed in… but it is now shattered, and the baby Metroid is gone. You have no clue what could’ve happened, so you end up going about the rest of your business, getting more items, fighting more guys, and breaking the game to your heart’s content, until you reach the final area of the game, where you descend down further into the core of Zebes, and that’s when the final events of the game start to kick off. Oh, and by the way, spoilers for the final act of the game are coming up, so if you haven’t played or seen through that part of the game yet (even though you have had 30 years to do so), then just skip to the final paragraph of the review.
As you enter this area, you notice that it is surprisingly… quiet. There isn’t that much going in with the environment, and the only enemies that you find in this place are Metroids and those weird ring things that shoot out from the walls. Eventually, you find more enemies later on, but they appear to be… drained of their life, disintegrating upon contact, leading you to suspect that something weird is going on here. You then find another one of these enemies, alive and well, seemingly impossible to kill as you try every single weapon on it, but nothing works. Before you can think of what to do next, all of a sudden, this GIGANTIC Metroid comes out of NOWHERE, and latches itself onto that creature, draining it of its energy, and probably scaring the shit out of whoever is playing the game at that point.
After it finishes off this creature, it then heads straight for you, starting to completely drain you of all your energy as well, with you being able to do anything about it, as you fidget around in an utter panic. However, before your health bar drops to zero, all of a sudden… it stops. It stops draining your health, and it detaches itself from you, letting out some cries, until ultimately fleeing the scene. It is then you realize that this giant Metroid that almost killed you was the baby Metroid that you got from SR388, and it had one HUGE growth spurt, but even after becoming the ruthless killer that all Metroids naturally are, it still cares deeply about Samus, and wishes to bring no more harm to her.
Once that is all over with, you once again go through the game like normal, finally reaching Mother Brain, back once again from the original game, right alongside a fight that seems like it was ripped straight from that game, with you needing to defeat her in the exact same way. However, when it seems like she is destroyed, she then rises up from her defeat once again, now rocking this brand new body. Naturally, you start to throw everything at her, but it doesn’t seem like anything is really doing all that much to her, as she fights back and then starts to charge up something. This then leads to her firing this gigantic rainbow laser beam of death at you several times, which not only starts draining away all of your health like crazy, but it also takes away all of your missiles and bombs too!
At this point, you are now stuck, unable to move, and getting continuously beat up by Mother Brain, wondering how the hell you are going to get out of this one. However, before Mother Brain can land the final blow with one more laser beam attack, the full-grown baby Metroid then suddenly barges in and starts draining Mother Brain of all her energy, causing her to start to stagger and cry out in a panic, until she is left petrified for a brief moment. The Metroid then goes towards you, latching onto you once again, but instead of draining your health again, it then starts to… heal you? No clue how the hell they are supposed to be doing that, but at this point, you’ll take it. But then, while the Metroid is starting to heal you, Mother Brain gets back up.
It then starts to fully attack the Metroid non-stop, causing it to grow weaker and changing to a much weaker shade of purple and yellow, until the Metroid then unlatches itself from you, and then goes in for one final attack. Unfortunately though, before it can land that final blow, Mother Brain gets the upper hand, killing the Metroid, and causing it to explode into dust. You may not have known him for long, but you are probably feeling pretty saddened and angry about Mother Brain killing your baby, but fear not, because from the ashes of the Metroid, you gain one final upgrade to your beam that is capable of killing Mother Brain: the Hyper Beam.
You then unload plenty of shots from your own rainbow laser, right into Mother Brain’s dumbass face, until it ultimately crumbles to the ground, ending your mission, and leading you to quickly escaping from the planet. This entire sequence of events, from where you find the destroyed capsule all the way up to when you kill Mother Brain, is executed flawlessly. It is such a simple sequence of events, but they are presented to the player so naturally, without any real pauses in the gameplay, allowing you to fully get absorbed in these moments, which make them all the more surprising, jarring, heart-breaking, and satisfying. Of course, you probably already knew about all this, and you may not think it is such a big deal, as did I when I went into this game, but even when I knew all of what was going to happen, it still made it so that those emotions were rushing through me by the end, and if a game manages to do that even when you already knew it was coming, then that deserves only the highest regards.
Overall, while it still isn’t my favorite game in the entire series, or even my favorite 2D Metroid for that matter, I can’t help but fully admit that Super Metroid, on its own, is almost completely flawless, giving a natural evolution for this series that excels it to new heights, and providing so much fun throughout all that it offers, whether it be through gameplay, presentation, story, or otherwise. I absolutely recommend it for anyone, those who are big fans of the Metroid series, or if you are someone that is wanting to get into the series yourself, because it is not only a perfect starting point for newcomers, but also a title that has held up masterfully after all this time, and it is clear why it is still so prevalent in plenty of gaming communities to this day. Although, I will say one thing, for those of you who are planning on playing this at some point… make sure to save the aliens. You may not know what I am talking about, but trust me, you will want to remember that, so that you won’t get shunned by your peers for doing something wrong.
Game #492
Grand Theft Auto V
2013
Grand Theft Auto V's map is big and highly detailed. The sky is really beautiful and the world is gorgeous. When playing, I could feel how massive the game is, it always felt like there was always something to do or a new place to go to, I still feel like I haven't even seen the full map yet. These feelings are something only a company with no hesitation to crunch the dev team like Rockstar could achieve, but the façade falls off when you try to look into what the world really has to offer. The open-world is split in three:
-Driving around and murdering people
-Side missions and activities
-Scripted events
This is what's there to do in Los Santos and the surrounding areas. Driving around and running over people is fun when it's the mean to an end, the end usually being starting a mission or going to some place. If your whole purpose is to recklessly drive around town you'll get bored in a few minutes as the driving is “realistic”, although it's not actually realistic driving. Cars don't crash in real life as they do here, realism is the excuse they give for having cumbersome driving. Look, no matter how hard the guys over at Rockstar try, a true realistic driving simulation simply does not work when realistic driving is not the core of the experience, and it definitely isn't for a GTA game. After all, Auto is just ⅓ of Grand Theft Auto. The other stuff is minor content which might lead to some interesting or even funny situations, but just exist to have the world bloated with side missions that feel like filler episodes of a larger TV show and side activities that feel like they don't belong here. I mean, when someone says the words Grand Theft Auto, tennis and golf aren't the things that come to mind, right?
The scripted events usually happen while driving somewhere in the middle of the way so it's up to you if you want to go over and get yourself into whatever is going on, which most likely is someone getting robbed or in some cases you might get a unique event depending on the character you're playing as. I remember driving around the north coast and finding a couple of guys who were pulling a Goodfellas on the daughter of some mafia boss who later paid me some great cash for saving her. I wouldn't mind playing this game again some time in the future just to see what new stuff I can find, but as I've been saying, apart from small situations like these, I don't think there's really much else that is rewarding enough.
The world is empty, is what I'm trying to get to. Quite pretty and impressive when looked from afar, but empty when looked closely. The city serves the one and only purpose of giving context to the main story, and everything else is a distraction to make the player feel like the game is huge when in reality there's not much to it. One thing I'll give it is that, even if it's not something meaningful in the long run, navigating its architecture is quite good, maybe even just a little bit fun. Running away from the cops on rooftops, driving a bike downhill in Mountain Chiliad and parachuting from above the clouds to fall on the pool of a mansion are just examples of what can be done with such freedom of movement. I really like doing this sort of stuff, getting lost in the world and messing around is pretty fun. The world is big and there's like a shit ton of mechanics for the player to express itself, even more on the online, so it's easy to understand why a game like this has so many online roleplaying servers.
Still, all of this is just a mere distraction from the main content, and I found more enjoyment in doing all of this with a friend on a private online game. But enough talk already, let's talk about more interesting stuff.
The side content, the open-world and the main story aren't that disconnected at all. All three are about doing whatever you want without giving a fuck about anything. Grand Theft Auto V pictures a world where everyone is an egotistical douchebag who only looks after themselves and life and death are treated like they hold no meaning. Early in the game there's a mission where you torture someone and potentially ruin their life, only to later turn out this wasn't the right guy, and nobody gives a crap about this whole situation. This thing that I just described is basically the whole game. You can watch someone get crushed into pieces in an airplane turbine and all Michael has to say is “whoops”. I've read around people say GTA V is sexist, in that every woman is portrayed as a disgusting and pathetic person, but this isn't exclusive to women as every person you ever meet in this game is either that, a crazy psycho, a selfish idiot or anything in-between.
Out of the main trio, Michael is the real main character of the game I'd say, as he's the only one who has any kind of actual development. Franklin is a dude who has no direction and has no greater goals in mind, who exists to help the other two in whatever they're doing, and whatever Franklin achieves is by pure chance. A bit later after starting the game he's gifted a mansion from Hollywood Hills for whatever reason. Trevor is a guy whose only personality trait is that he's bat-shit insane. That's it. The game disguises its poorly-written characters under minutes-long conversations while driving to make them look like they have more going on and, more specifically, to make them look cool. GTA V wants to look cool. Why is there a mission where you assault an actor to take their costume and steal a 007-esque car from a movie set? Because it looks cool. Why does Trevor torture some random worker in the most horrible way possible? Because it looks cool. Why does Michael beats the fuck out of the contract negotiator of an underpaid actor and threatens the same actor? Because it looks cool. It wants to make the player feel like they're cool. This is the most straight-out-of-2013 game made, probably ever.
GTA V believes the world is full of freaks and has no salvation, so all you can do is have fun while the world is rotting all around you. Nobody has good intentions because why would anyone even care about anything in this God-forsaken world? GTA V is the embodiment in videogame form of THIS image. The writing is childish, it feels like it was written by a group of depressed teenagers who skimmed over the Wikipedia articles about nihilism and cynicism. But you guys wanna know what GTA V is actually about? Grand Theft Auto V is about finding meaning to your life. This is the level we're at. And of course the characters find the meaning to their lives in crime. Heists and murder more specifically. I always believed GTA, since San Andreas, treated the criminal life as something that is never good to aspire to and that these games weren't just a glorification of crime as a way of life. Although I'll admit my favourite GTA is Vice City, a game that thinks Scarface is just cool looking mafia guy Antonio Fontono gets da big money. In Vice City, Tommy Vercetti wants to rise to the top, no matter how many people he needs to take out in the way, with not many moral conflicts and little to no hesitation to pull the trigger.
But Grand Theft Auto V on the other hand has Michael conflicted on if he should leave this life of crime and start taking care of his family while he does a lot of missions where they kill an absurd amount of cops, private military forces and street thugs just for money or whatever selfish reasons. A moral conflict as deep as a puddle. Later on in the game he gets the opportunity to be a movie producer, something he's really enthusiastic about since he keeps saying he's “a movie guy”, but still doesn't give up on robbing the biggest bank in L.A. And by the way, now that I mention heists and movies, GTA V is an homage to heist films. In a way it's a really, really dumbed down reinterpretation of Heat. And I mean that literally, they even straight up recreate Heat’s first robbery in one mission. It's similar to Vice City in that they both are inspired by crime movies in premise but not in spirit. Scarface and Heat end with a message about how criminal life is never a good thing, but VC and GTA V have the exact opposite message. However, GTA V differs from VC in that it tries to give Michael, the only character with something resembling an arc, some sort of moral conflict about his family, although he doesn't care or think about how the things he does affect his family, he doesn't really care about anyone, he just says everything’s going to be okay and go on with the mass murders. This conflict is ultimately pointless.
After losing his family and later having them come back, after being at the verge of death more than twice, after almost getting his family killed, all he does is putting the bad guy inside of a car trunk and throwing the car off a cliff to blow it up. If problems come to you, all you have to do is to kill the problems, no need to try and be a better person. Extra points if it looks cool when you do it. The game ends and nobody has learned a single lesson from all this.
-Driving around and murdering people
-Side missions and activities
-Scripted events
This is what's there to do in Los Santos and the surrounding areas. Driving around and running over people is fun when it's the mean to an end, the end usually being starting a mission or going to some place. If your whole purpose is to recklessly drive around town you'll get bored in a few minutes as the driving is “realistic”, although it's not actually realistic driving. Cars don't crash in real life as they do here, realism is the excuse they give for having cumbersome driving. Look, no matter how hard the guys over at Rockstar try, a true realistic driving simulation simply does not work when realistic driving is not the core of the experience, and it definitely isn't for a GTA game. After all, Auto is just ⅓ of Grand Theft Auto. The other stuff is minor content which might lead to some interesting or even funny situations, but just exist to have the world bloated with side missions that feel like filler episodes of a larger TV show and side activities that feel like they don't belong here. I mean, when someone says the words Grand Theft Auto, tennis and golf aren't the things that come to mind, right?
The scripted events usually happen while driving somewhere in the middle of the way so it's up to you if you want to go over and get yourself into whatever is going on, which most likely is someone getting robbed or in some cases you might get a unique event depending on the character you're playing as. I remember driving around the north coast and finding a couple of guys who were pulling a Goodfellas on the daughter of some mafia boss who later paid me some great cash for saving her. I wouldn't mind playing this game again some time in the future just to see what new stuff I can find, but as I've been saying, apart from small situations like these, I don't think there's really much else that is rewarding enough.
The world is empty, is what I'm trying to get to. Quite pretty and impressive when looked from afar, but empty when looked closely. The city serves the one and only purpose of giving context to the main story, and everything else is a distraction to make the player feel like the game is huge when in reality there's not much to it. One thing I'll give it is that, even if it's not something meaningful in the long run, navigating its architecture is quite good, maybe even just a little bit fun. Running away from the cops on rooftops, driving a bike downhill in Mountain Chiliad and parachuting from above the clouds to fall on the pool of a mansion are just examples of what can be done with such freedom of movement. I really like doing this sort of stuff, getting lost in the world and messing around is pretty fun. The world is big and there's like a shit ton of mechanics for the player to express itself, even more on the online, so it's easy to understand why a game like this has so many online roleplaying servers.
Still, all of this is just a mere distraction from the main content, and I found more enjoyment in doing all of this with a friend on a private online game. But enough talk already, let's talk about more interesting stuff.
The side content, the open-world and the main story aren't that disconnected at all. All three are about doing whatever you want without giving a fuck about anything. Grand Theft Auto V pictures a world where everyone is an egotistical douchebag who only looks after themselves and life and death are treated like they hold no meaning. Early in the game there's a mission where you torture someone and potentially ruin their life, only to later turn out this wasn't the right guy, and nobody gives a crap about this whole situation. This thing that I just described is basically the whole game. You can watch someone get crushed into pieces in an airplane turbine and all Michael has to say is “whoops”. I've read around people say GTA V is sexist, in that every woman is portrayed as a disgusting and pathetic person, but this isn't exclusive to women as every person you ever meet in this game is either that, a crazy psycho, a selfish idiot or anything in-between.
Out of the main trio, Michael is the real main character of the game I'd say, as he's the only one who has any kind of actual development. Franklin is a dude who has no direction and has no greater goals in mind, who exists to help the other two in whatever they're doing, and whatever Franklin achieves is by pure chance. A bit later after starting the game he's gifted a mansion from Hollywood Hills for whatever reason. Trevor is a guy whose only personality trait is that he's bat-shit insane. That's it. The game disguises its poorly-written characters under minutes-long conversations while driving to make them look like they have more going on and, more specifically, to make them look cool. GTA V wants to look cool. Why is there a mission where you assault an actor to take their costume and steal a 007-esque car from a movie set? Because it looks cool. Why does Trevor torture some random worker in the most horrible way possible? Because it looks cool. Why does Michael beats the fuck out of the contract negotiator of an underpaid actor and threatens the same actor? Because it looks cool. It wants to make the player feel like they're cool. This is the most straight-out-of-2013 game made, probably ever.
GTA V believes the world is full of freaks and has no salvation, so all you can do is have fun while the world is rotting all around you. Nobody has good intentions because why would anyone even care about anything in this God-forsaken world? GTA V is the embodiment in videogame form of THIS image. The writing is childish, it feels like it was written by a group of depressed teenagers who skimmed over the Wikipedia articles about nihilism and cynicism. But you guys wanna know what GTA V is actually about? Grand Theft Auto V is about finding meaning to your life. This is the level we're at. And of course the characters find the meaning to their lives in crime. Heists and murder more specifically. I always believed GTA, since San Andreas, treated the criminal life as something that is never good to aspire to and that these games weren't just a glorification of crime as a way of life. Although I'll admit my favourite GTA is Vice City, a game that thinks Scarface is just cool looking mafia guy Antonio Fontono gets da big money. In Vice City, Tommy Vercetti wants to rise to the top, no matter how many people he needs to take out in the way, with not many moral conflicts and little to no hesitation to pull the trigger.
But Grand Theft Auto V on the other hand has Michael conflicted on if he should leave this life of crime and start taking care of his family while he does a lot of missions where they kill an absurd amount of cops, private military forces and street thugs just for money or whatever selfish reasons. A moral conflict as deep as a puddle. Later on in the game he gets the opportunity to be a movie producer, something he's really enthusiastic about since he keeps saying he's “a movie guy”, but still doesn't give up on robbing the biggest bank in L.A. And by the way, now that I mention heists and movies, GTA V is an homage to heist films. In a way it's a really, really dumbed down reinterpretation of Heat. And I mean that literally, they even straight up recreate Heat’s first robbery in one mission. It's similar to Vice City in that they both are inspired by crime movies in premise but not in spirit. Scarface and Heat end with a message about how criminal life is never a good thing, but VC and GTA V have the exact opposite message. However, GTA V differs from VC in that it tries to give Michael, the only character with something resembling an arc, some sort of moral conflict about his family, although he doesn't care or think about how the things he does affect his family, he doesn't really care about anyone, he just says everything’s going to be okay and go on with the mass murders. This conflict is ultimately pointless.
After losing his family and later having them come back, after being at the verge of death more than twice, after almost getting his family killed, all he does is putting the bad guy inside of a car trunk and throwing the car off a cliff to blow it up. If problems come to you, all you have to do is to kill the problems, no need to try and be a better person. Extra points if it looks cool when you do it. The game ends and nobody has learned a single lesson from all this.