It’s really a shame that reactions to Stellar Blade are more focused on the fanservice or the coomer reactions. You got one group of people who just focus on the fanservice and hail the game to be the savior of sexualized women in gaming, and then you got the other group who view the game in a negative light because of the first group. And you know what? I can’t even blame them because the first group is really insufferable.

I don't care in the slightest about Stellar Blade having a "sexy" protagonist. I saw a trailer for it once and was immediately interested, because of how fun and unique it looked.

But coomers saw the female Protagonist’s butt and were obnoxious about it ever since. Like come on, it’s bottom of the barrel fanservice you’re going all crazy for. Literally everything I've seen about this game online is people with underaged anime character avatars cream their pants over how this game is "destroying wokeness" or whatever. Nothing against Eve, because she is really pretty and I actually really like her, but she looks like every female character in every korean MMO ever made. It's like people going to war over white bread. Apparently, these guys are now whining about censorship, signing petitions, and making videos of themselves (they look about as you'd expect) about why their cause matters lmao. These pathetic gamerbros will never not be incredibly annoying and cringe to me.

Because Stellar Blade is just so much more. Picture all those apocalyptic gachas and their really great world-building, fantastic atmosphere but really cheap and dull (chibi) gameplay, then amp it up to AAA levels – that's the magic of Stellar Blade.

The environments are beautifully crafted and the atmospheric soundtrack is another aspect I deeply appreciate and thoroughly enjoyed in this game. There's nothing quite like losing yourself in a captivating melody as you journey through vast, lonely landscapes and cities. Just like Nier, Stellar Blade really nailed its soundtrack.

The gameplay is just so much fun and showcases an exceptional level of refinement and polish. Every movement, dodge and parry hit the mark perfectly. The more skills you unlock, the cooler and more fun the combat gets. There's never a dull moment - the gameplay remains consistently exciting and stylish from start to finish.

I found the plot to be really intriguing, and I really enjoyed uncovering plenty of secrets and snippets of lore. But what really surprised me were the sidequests. Sure, some were usual filler content, but most served to make the world feel alive and deepened the lore. Completing them was enjoyable, they never felt like a chore. So good job there.

Oh, and I'm pleasantly surprised by Eve! Initially, I expected her to be the typical "waifu" (ugh, I hate that word), merely there for visual appeal with little personality beyond conforming to generic “anime girl” tropes. Most of these tropes revolve around being “innocent”, "naive" or a "sweet flower girl." But Eve defies those expectations, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Even though Stellar Blade took huge inspiration from Nier and other apocalyptic gacha games, it's still an extremely unique and fun game that everyone should give a chance. Don't listen to the manchildren throwing tantrums or all the buzz about the “fanservice," which is honestly vastly overexaggerated due to some optional skins. Honestly, aside from the optional skins, there are absolutely no horny aspects present in the game.

There are just so many little touches to the point where you can tell the developers really cared about making this game great, and they succeeded. Stellar Blade is simply a beautiful game.

It's been a month since I beat Rise of the Ronin. I really wanted to like this game more but unfortunately after the first 10 hours of gameplay, it simply fell off. At first I was loving the combat, the open world aspects, Sakamoto Ryoma and the fact that it is set during the Bakumatsu but at some point I found myself running through the main story just to beat it.

I was very excited for the combat since you'd only fight Humanoid enemies, which are typically the best encounters in FromSoftware titles and Soulslikes in my opinion. There's a decent amount of variety with the weapons and each weapon-type has access to 3 slots of "stances" that you can customize, and will act as a rock-paper-scissor system against enemies. Meaning you get different playstyles and they'll either be effective or not effective depending on who you fight. Counterspark/Parrying is an alright mechanic but it isn't as clean as Sekiro, Stellar Blade or even Lies of P, it's kind of weird how it can also serve as an attack except it's just bad when it is used like that.

When you're only fighting Humanoid enemies and bosses, if you're not introducing new and interesting movesets/patterns that are hard to deal with but instead just throw in another enemy, it removes all the fun from actually struggling and learning how to read your opponent. There is maybe one fight that actually skill checks you and it is in early game, after that all the fights that are annoying are the gank fights. I only used the support characters to help me clear the levels but I removed them as soon as I got to the boss encounters. Anyhow this game made me learn to actually appreciate beast/monster-type enemies, you know the big ones that really mess with your camera LOL. The reason why is because when you finally get to those Humanoid bosses, it feels good to fight them since all you've been fighting prior are those big monsters where you have no vision because they take up the whole screen and half of the fight is versus your camera. This is not the case here, like I said earlier you just fight humans who doesn't necessarily get stronger, you just fight an extra person or two and that doesn't make it more fun. I wanted clean one versus one swordfight battles where I have to figure out how to parry their onslaught attacks and have them beat my ass over and over again until I finally pick up on it, and each encounter should've been unique. I don't really have a favorite fight because it all just felt the same.

At this point I don't recall much from the story but the setting is cool and there were a few characters I enjoyed like Sakamoto Ryoma, Kaishu Katsu and Kogoro Katsura. It would've been nice if the MC actually talked more because they do talk BUT most of the time, they're just silent so it makes you feel disconnected.

When I first stepped into Yokohama, I was really excited to explore everything because the map was huge and there was a lot to do. I actually thought that the entire game would take place here but then I learned that there were more maps just as big and that's when I gave up on exploring and only pushed the story. It makes sense that it isn't the only area because of Kyoto and Edo but still, I wasn't willing to go through the Ubisoft loop multiple times.

Rise of the Ronin is a decent experience, however I wouldn't recommend grabbing it for full price. For the most part it has unimpressive graphics especially for a PS5 exclusive title with the frame rate dropping constantly on Performance Mode however I heard there was a patch that helped but I can't confirm because I beat the game before that went live. It does somewhat scratch that Sekiro itch but it is definitely not up there, hell I don't even think this game is that much better than Team Ninja's previous game Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

I find it extremely hillarious that Konami, and her affinity to ruin a so-loved franchise of theirs, are able to make it even worse than expected. It is abysmal the fact that they try to make the game's message so obvious in the most cringe and bland way possible, where even the game's content can't even save it.

Should I start by the game's horrible chase sequences? The horrible voice acting and the attempt at lip synching it with 'live action' cutscenes? Or the fact that the game's protagonist is unispiring and boring to the point you actually don't give a crap about what they did and if they deserve redemption or forgiveness?

I sat for almost two hours playing this, hoping there could at least be something which would make me say it's decent. Which thankfully there was and it was the monster design and how nostalgic the soundtrack felt to the ancestors of this game. But it still baffles me that Akira Yamaoka chooses to return to create such masterful pieces of music for a franchise that the company itself gives no shit about. Akira has a deep connection with Silent Hill and it's obvious... But even he can't save the cringefest that involves the rest of the team behind the creation of projects such as this.

Hollow Knight is one of those games that just gets nothing but praise from most people who play the game and for the most part, I agree, the game is fantastic, but it has a lot of flaws that hold it back from being incredible. The world is really incredible with such interesting lore, cares, and environments that rival some of the best in the game. This comes from both it's atmosphere and design which both come together to make a dark and complicated world. However, I felt as the game went on and the world opens up more and gets more complicated. This combined with the worst problem in the game, there are way too many blind jumps you need to make into enemies and spike pits, it's a really strange issue on an otherwise incredibly designed world. However, I think personally for me the aspect of the game I felt could had used more work are the bosses, there are some really incredible bosses but they all felt pretty similar with a lot of similar moves to one another and the same tactics to kill them all. There was no boss I thought was incredible, which is a bit disappointing since bosses really make Soulslikes for me personally. Overall, Hollow Knight is a fantastic game that everyone should try but one that can use a bit of tine tuning to really make the game special, I'm really hoping that Silksong is able to address these issues and make an even better game than this one.

Resident Evil 7 is such a baffling game to me. It's a game that manages to be the best Resident Evil of the modern era in some respects while also the worst modern Resident Evil in others. Whenever I think about this game and its imperfections, I always find myself with a lot more to say about it than I think I did, so I decided to replay this game and it's DLC to finally be able to get it all out in words.

If you looked at just the gameplay and presentation of RE7 you would see nothing really wrong with this game. RE7 was the first RE game to shift to a first-person perspective and I think it works surprisingly well to the point that the third person perspective hardly feels like a series staple anymore. This first-person perspective also adds to the horror element of this game, which when paired with the setting adds up to make one of the scariest RE games I've played. The setting of the Bakers secluded and condemned Louisiana estate is a really good one, each area in the estate matches to one of the Baker family and they all have a different brand of horror to go with them, making each of these main sections feel unique and interesting. The puzzles, combat, and resource management gameplay are all really good here as well and what you'd expect from an RE game. The game is also just really good looking. The way the environments are crafted both visually and in terms of details just feels so real and that adds to the eeriness of the game as a whole.

So if the gameplay, setting, horror, and the presentation of the game are this good what's holding it back you may ask? Well, that'd be the story dear reader, the story is a fucking mess. To give it one thing, the basic plot setup and the way the game starts off. Ethan, being a normal guy who gets dragged into all the game's madness because he's looking for his wife is a good setup and the motivation for him to stay and try to save her is believable. It's in the unbelievablly stupid twists the game takes and the lackluster explanations of whats going on here that this game falters. This is where I get into spoiler territory so if you want to read on just press this link (https://pastebin.com/BhaFdRAE) and it'll take you into the rest of the story section.

The last thing I want to talk about is the DLC. I hadn't played the DLC prior to this playthrough, making it some of the only modern RE content I haven't touched yet and now that I've played it I can say it's alright. Starting off with the Banned Footage, which is where the main meat of this DLC comes from, I'd say this is pretty good. This shows the story of Clancy, another one of the Bakers victims that has to endure and survive their gauntlet of challenges. The Nightmare tape sees you surviving a hoard of nearly endless molded enemies as you try to survive until dawn in a sort of tower defense like mode, the Bedroom tape is an escape room of sorts where you have to use the items and clues available to you in the room all the while avoiding making a lot of noise to avoid attracting Margurite to the room and making sure to put everything back where you found it before she comes back each time otherwise she'll realise you're trying to escape, and the 21 tape sees you playing a few sadistic rounds of blackjack against another victim in Lucas' warehouse, the winner of which is allowed to go free and the loser of which is killed gruesomely. These are all pretty fun ideas that don't outstay their welcome for the most part and are neat little additions. The fourth Banned Footage tape works as a prolouge to the main story thatb shows us from Zoe's eyes the day that things went to shit, showing how Eveline corrupted the Bakers with her gift and how Zoe manages to escape meeting the same fate as the rest of her family, even if she can't leave the estate. There's also two other DLCs that serve as epilouges in "Not a Hero" and "End of Zoe", Not a Hero focuses on Chris Redfield going after Lucas Baker who turns out was much more evil than the game initially showed and is related to the Umbrella corporation, this mode is just a really short epilouge with basic RE gameplay that only really serves to tie the events of this game into the main RE story. End of Zoe focuses on Uncle Joe Baker finding Zoe in a crystalized state and searching for a cure for her all while a swampy version of Jack Baker follows him, the mode has you using Joe's bare fists and brute strength as weapons rather than guns and feels pretty fun and satisfying in that way, it's also nice to see Zoe's story get concluded so satisfyingly and brings closure to the events of the main game as a whole. Overall I'd say this DLC is mostly worth it, it's not a lot to write home about but it's something and if you get it on sale it'll provide you with a few more hours of entertainment if you liked the base game.

Despite its glaring story flaws that hold it back from greatness, Resident Evil 7 is still a really fun game and a good return to form as well as innovation for the RE series. The excellent gameplay, setting, and horror elements add up to what I believe to be the most genuinely scary Resident Evil
game and without it being made and returning the series to it's roots I probably wouldn't be such a big RE fan today.

The Zoomer younger brother of Lethal Company.
Content Warning is absolutely fun but it’s length becomes very dependant on 2 things, knowledge of the games monsters and how funny your friends are. Thankfully I feel like my friends are relatively funny so we got about 4 and a half hours out of this, but I could very much imagine it being a lot shorter for others. With the added bonus of such a small price tag it’s not much of an arm twist to get people on board for an afternoon or 2. On the flip side however as Lethal Company is significantly more popular the modding community is very small in Content Warning so there isn’t much point shopping around online for new things to do.
My recommendation would be if you’ve plaid plenty of Lethal Company with your friends and need a new game to scratch that itch this might hold you over for a weekend at best.

Fear & Hunger is an incredible mixture of RPG and horror with lite roguelike elements. Your bones will be broken, limbs sawed off, spirit crushed, eyes pecked out, and life force siphoned out of you - and you will love every second of it.

This game is exceptionally punishing and unforgiving, to an almost unfair degree. Nearly every encounter can end with your untimely demise if you dare to take so much as even one wrong step, or if luck simply turns away from you. Every resource is scarce and darkness is pitch-black. But this game is not purely unfair - there is always a possibility for success, however you will need a lot of trial and error to know how to properly navigate dungeons of fear and hunger. This game is specifically designed to induce dread and suspense into the player using game mechanics, and it does not shy away from the most cruel and low ways to do it. It is designed as a macabre puzzle for you to throw yourself onto its bloodied spikes again and again, to constantly make new characters and lead them to their doom. And this is beautiful - there are very few games that can achieve THIS level of tension, even if at the expense of some convenience. Art, sound design and storytelling of the game is also very good and enhances these feelings.

There are downsides to this harshness - the game really loves to waste your time due to easy deaths and restricted saves, but I think it's forgivable, considering how strong its good qualities are.

This is a must-have for anyone interested in dark, morbid, unconventional and just weird games.

I feel crazy with this one. I keep hearing people calling it the first soulslike to rival From Software’s games, and… I just don’t see it? This still was a very mediocre experience. Yes, this is probably the only soulslike that comes close to doing things that Fromsoft are doing in their games at their level, but that says more about the priorities and quality of most other soulslikes than of Lies of P’s good qualities. Mind you, this is an okay, competently made game, with an interesting idea for a narrative, but it’s not even close to Fromsoft level. It feels like a retread of everything I have seen in From’s games, but on a smaller scale and in a less interesting way. There’s the regenerating health from Bloodborne, there’s the prosthetic arm from Sekiro, there’s modular weapons mechanic that’s reminiscent of Bloodborne, there's a gothic Victorian city from Bloodborne. But unlike those games, this game doesn’t have some kind of idea upon which everything is built. It isn't focused around parrying like Sekiro, or aggressiveness like Bloodborne, or RPG customizability like Dark Souls. It tries to do all those things a little bit, and ends up doing all of them mediocrely.

And the overall quality of the game is not on a very good level. Level design is unimaginative and too formulaic, writing and voice acting feels stiff and boring, art direction is unimpressive, combat is just okay. Final nail in the coffin of my playthrough was bosses - they are so focused on being crushingly punishing and difficult, that it stops being fun. Lies of P overall is focused on precision on the player's part way too much. It’s like this game doesn’t understand its own inspiration - where in Dark Souls hard difficulty was there to cloak players in a dreadful and suspenseful atmosphere, there it feels like the bosses are hard just for the sake of it. Like the game feels pressured to have bosses that are harder than that of its competitors, just for the sake of it. Of course, it’s good to make a game that focuses on different things than your inspiration. But this game doesn’t feel like it focuses on anything in particular, or like it has any certain vision. It feels like Lies of P game design is purely reactionary to its contemporaries in the “soulslike” genre and “git gud” culture that’s formed around them.

By the time I finished writing this I feel like maybe I’m focused too much on comparisons to From’s games and being too reductive, but I think this game justifies it - it's just too derivative and too stale. I find nothing of note to say about its positive qualities except that it’s just a competent videogame.

Started this way back in August but it took me forever to finally finish it clearly. Over 100 hours poured in puts it among the longest games I’ve played, though I guess I’m kinda glad I went so slowly given Larian would add another new patch whenever I decided to turn it back on

It’s been a while since I’ve played through the Divinity games, but given how great Original Sin 2 was I’m not surprised that this is as highly acclaimed as it is also. BG3’s a very impressive RPG in design and presentation, managing to maintain the level of depth traditional to this style of top-down CRPGs, but with immense AAA production values to match which for the genre sets it apart from everything else in that regard. I’ll admit I’m not really familiar with tabletop D&D and its rules (nor have I played the first two Baldur’s Gate games yet), but as a standalone experience I wasn’t lost and it’s amazing what they pulled off here. The closest I guess I can compare it to is like a more ambitious Dragon Age: Origins, which is awesome

There is just so much here, you’ll probably spend dozens of hours in the first act and its opening areas alone cause of how dense with content it is. Basically all of it (while being mostly optional) is worth doing which made it very easy to sink a lot of time into, and given the game’s many different quest variations and choices you’d likely get a lot of replayability out of it too. Graphically it looks fantastic, but what Larian really shows off is how dialogue is done with unique cutscenes instead of text boxes, using full mocap for literally every single NPC you can talk to. Given how BG3 is no less massive in scale, that’s a pretty remarkable advancement from their previous games

The main story itself is good, and the stakes with trying to remove the tadpoles in your head keeps it compelling. But I will say narratively I think it peaks with Act 2, as Act 3 gets a bit less focused to me and wasn’t really a fan of how rushed parts of the ending felt. I did like the epilogue and how it wraps everything up but as far as I know, that part wasn’t even in the game at launch and had to be added with a patch

The characters and their performances are largely top notch though. Some of your companions are more fleshed out than others (Shadowheart and Astarion were my favorites), but for the most part they’re all memorable and their personal quests do a good job developing them throughout. Personalization for your main character is strong too, though will probably depend on whether you choose a custom background or an origin. I made the perhaps ill advised decision to do my first playthrough as “The Dark Urge” which is considered an evil path, but I found it really interesting to roleplay as someone trying to be good despite that. It adds a very cool amount of connection to your character and the story, and really liked how varied your dialogue options are so you can still shape how you respond to your own actions and past. It seemed to affect quite a lot especially in Act 3 too so can’t say how much is changed without it, but would recommend for sure. Whenever I decide to replay I’ll try going full evil next though >:)

Combat is of course turn based with the standard fantasy classes you’d expect to choose from, and since this is D&D based all actions and skill checks are done with dice rolls. The RNG tied to this can be annoying (will not deny I have a long list of quicksaves), but I enjoyed its usage in gameplay and decision making. Will say combat can get really slow at times though, why they never have a way to speed up turns in these games is beyond me, you’ll frequently fight numerous enemies at once and having to sit through every single move they make gets a bit tedious at times. I also felt like a lot of the loot/equipment you find was a bit unrewarding, I ended up using armor and weapons I found in Act 1 for most of the entire game cause I didn’t really have much reason to switch them out. But that may just be a D&D thing with progression, especially since the level cap is 12

Besides that the only notable problem for me was performance, which could be better… It’s definitely been improved with all the patches, but at release you could tell it still needed much more polish and even now it’s not exactly stable. I’ve actually played this both on PC (Steam Deck) and PS5, though both weren’t ideal for different reasons. On Steam Deck it ran fine for most of Act 1 and Act 2 at 30FPS, and with FSR 2.2 (this wasn’t added til later tbf) it looks pretty great now also. Act 3 really starts to push it though, it’s the most impressive part of the game on a technical level given how packed the area is with so many NPCs, but clearly the least optimized as I had near constant FPS drops and more noticeable bugs like frequent animation lags or quests being easier to sequence break. That said, those with much better hardware for PC probably won’t have as much of an issue

PS5 in comparison runs as it should, even Act 3 mostly holds 60 FPS in performance mode from what I’ve played which is great. This would be the obvious way to play BG3, if not for the insane amount of crashes I’ve had on it that crippled the port for me. I haven’t played something that crashed this often since Cyberpunk at launch, past a point I couldn’t even open my saves anymore without getting kicked off and some of them even started saying they were corrupted somehow, rendering it basically unplayable on there (thankfully there’s cross save support). This is still not fixed in my case and not sure if it’s just my PS5 or something to do with the game on console, but regardless wouldn’t advise buying it on there. Some don’t seem to have as much of a struggle with it though so YMMV on that I suppose

Despite the gripes (and extreme annoyance at the PS5 version), I really enjoyed BG3 and was sad to see it end after all the time I spent on it. More than anything though I’m glad it’s such a massive success for Larian, despite their positives isometric CRPGs are usually seen as having niche appeal so it’s cool to finally have one break out into mainstream like this has. Hopefully bodes well for the genre going forward

I was scared when this game was first announced, how could they remake such an amazing game and not fuck something up?
Well, they didn't. It's just as good as the original. I don't think it's better, but that they are pretty much equal and that both serve their purpose, which is the best outcome I think. (Edit: I just remembered how Ashley functioned in the original... the remake is definitely the better game)

It's absolutely worth playing both versions of the game :)

Since I liked Signalis so much I wanted to play through the franchise it was heavily inspired by :3

I'm amazed that a game that old with dialogue and voice acting that awkward could scare me this much. The atmosphere in this game really is something else and I felt so uneasy so many times. Oddly enough, no area scared me more than the school (I also took the longest there because of that fact).

It got its fair amount of issues, like the gameplay probably feeling too dated for most people (although I blame the framerate more than the actual gameplay mechanics), voice acting being really rough most of the time and the puzzles can be really cryptic. But despite all of these things I still think this is a must play for sillies like me who love survival horror games :3

It's a very unique game in my opinion and I think you get used to the controls fairly quickly, so go play it! :>

Enjoy your vacation in Silent Hill


My Results Screen

We haven't gotten too far in, but this just feels like a really watered down Lethal Company in nearly every single aspect. The environments, while a cool idea, are so bland and boring that everything meshes together into a labyrinth of pure headaches. I'm sure it was on purpose, but it's not much fun to deal with when everything is so grey. In Lethal Company I can at least have fun exploring the depths of the mansion map or go to Embrion during eclipse for shits and giggles to keep things fresh, this doesn't really have anything to keep it from getting stale. One thing this does have over Lethal Company would be the emote system, which is something that the former desperately needs outside of modding at this point. I know I shouldn't be comparing this too much to Lethal Company, but I couldn't help but do so the entire time we played. Maybe it'll get better as we play more, if we do.

I got this hidden gem from GameStop for 15 bucks. I took it home, and I was blown away. Some people seem to dislike the gameplay, but I don’t really see that problem. The strategy of trying to command a team in the heat of battle is a fun loop, and I was never really bored with it. The story holds on, And never let you go. This is one of three games that got me to cry. But the game isn’t perfect. Some of the platforming could’ve been shortened. Luckily, that takes up such a small portion, that it doesn’t really affect the score.