SomeWilliam
2023
This game ruined my Christmas
2023
Perfect combination of gameplay and brevity that makes this puzzler feel like it's playing itself while still being rewarding. So good it almost makes me forget about the vast number of similarly styled isometric cutesy animal-protaganist games I feel I've been playing for the last three years.
2005
An obvious all-timer. Such a masterpiece in pacing
Love everything about this game except for playing it
whoever invented save-states deserves the nobel peace prize
1994
A great game that really highlights how much better the games it inspired are
2023
A game that takes a baffling long time to get going. The rhythm focused combat feels prescriptive and oppressive and the sheer quantity of repetitive, uninspired platforming serves almost no purpose than to withhold the action in this rhythm-action game, until just over halfway through when the game starts to have fun with its soundtrack and starts delivering a potent combination of satisfying combat and banging tunes.
2016
The Bloodbornification of Dark Souls = the Blandification of Dark Souls. Can't help but feel this game sets out to be the spiritual sequel to the PlayStation exclusive than its namesake series in an attempt to have its cake and eat it too.
Particularly Dark Souls III retains almost none of the atmosphere from its predecessor partly due to the removal of its labyrinthine, interconnected map design - exploring in this game is essentially reduced to clearing out a map and painstakingly breaking every barrel and peeking over every crack in a wall to see if something was missed, and if it has been rarely is it of any intrigue.
Basically this game is an exemplar of the issue I have with a lot of more modern games where more powerful hardware equals bigger, busier maps which very rarely equates to better game design.
Still though the sheer rush of adrenaline and endorphin from landing the final blow of a game-ending boss still hasn't been beaten by any other game series, and the combat is as frustrating and tedious and addictive as ever so it can't all be bad.
Particularly Dark Souls III retains almost none of the atmosphere from its predecessor partly due to the removal of its labyrinthine, interconnected map design - exploring in this game is essentially reduced to clearing out a map and painstakingly breaking every barrel and peeking over every crack in a wall to see if something was missed, and if it has been rarely is it of any intrigue.
Basically this game is an exemplar of the issue I have with a lot of more modern games where more powerful hardware equals bigger, busier maps which very rarely equates to better game design.
Still though the sheer rush of adrenaline and endorphin from landing the final blow of a game-ending boss still hasn't been beaten by any other game series, and the combat is as frustrating and tedious and addictive as ever so it can't all be bad.
1989
Almost refreshing to just brute force your way through a 45 minute Mario game.
not a game I should have looked up on HowLongToBeat revealing how dumb I am
masterpiece in atmosphere and tedium
2022
The people who criticize the art style of this game are the most boring people on earth
2012
A labyrinthine and hostile world, opaque and cryptic story, clumsy movement, slow combat and unforgiving save systems...
The dark souls of puzzle gaming?
The dark souls of puzzle gaming?
2022
no doubt one of the standouts of the genre - but suffers greatly in the second half with a clumsy shift of the difficulty curve with a combination of character hobbling and overly obfuscated puzzles that bordered on tedious in the late game. everything else was pretty dead-on though
2020
all my teams both real & virtual find new ways to hurt me :(