TedKaczynski
2009
This review contains spoilers
The first God of War game is a very good action adventure game with a story that is interesting and Kratos is an interesting character that is a good anti-hero type. To me he works very well as a character that is very angry and self-serving, not caring what he has to do or who has to kill to reach his goals but he does have some deeper motivations with a tragic backstory that helps to make him a compelling character.
The technical side of the game is good for how old it is, the environments look very nice and have a grand scale to them and important characters have nice looking models, as do most of the enemies but unnamed npcs that aren't enemies can look kind of rough and dated. The music also fits very well, with it being very epic sounding and providing a nice background to everything going on, its not something I would listen to outside of playing the game but it is very fitting and sets the mood well.
Most levels are designed well and flow together very nicely, I never really got lost or stuck, only the desert area can be a little annoying but it wasn't too difficult to navigate. Most of the puzzles in the game were what I would consider a good level of complexity for this type of game, where it wasn't extremely obvious every time but you also didn't have to sit and think about it or have to look up what to do. The secrets are the same way as the puzzles where they're not right out in the open and extremely easy to find but as long as you're thorough and checking every room closely then you should be able to find all the upgrades and get enough red orbs to upgrade all your weapons and abilities. The cinematic camera does a good job of helping to bring attention to the important things in the rooms for puzzles, as well as kind of hiding secret chests and areas in rooms by having it angled a certain way so you can't really see, but overall it does a good job following Kratos around and it almost never caused me any issues.
The meat of the game is the combat though and I do really enjoy the system in these games. It is fluid and feels good and responsive most of the time, the only thing that could feel wonky in my opinion is the about half a second of recovery frames after you finish a dodge roll where Kratos can't move or attack, other than that though it is simple and maybe lacks some complexity of other games of this type but it is fun and that's the most important thing. One negative about the combat is that I felt like late game the enemies become better able to break out of combos and start to dodge or block a lot of your attacks which can slow down combat. You have your basic combos with your blades of chaos that you start with but as you progress you'll get magic abilities from the greek gods as well as a secondary sword and all these weapons and abilities can be upgraded to give you even more moves and combos with them. The flashiness of the combat is also very fun with kratos having lots of special kill animations and most enemies having special QTE kill sequences that are very brutal and fun to watch. The enemy variety I also found to be good, with lots of different creatures from Greek mythology and they all had their own styles and gimmicks to them.
The technical side of the game is good for how old it is, the environments look very nice and have a grand scale to them and important characters have nice looking models, as do most of the enemies but unnamed npcs that aren't enemies can look kind of rough and dated. The music also fits very well, with it being very epic sounding and providing a nice background to everything going on, its not something I would listen to outside of playing the game but it is very fitting and sets the mood well.
Most levels are designed well and flow together very nicely, I never really got lost or stuck, only the desert area can be a little annoying but it wasn't too difficult to navigate. Most of the puzzles in the game were what I would consider a good level of complexity for this type of game, where it wasn't extremely obvious every time but you also didn't have to sit and think about it or have to look up what to do. The secrets are the same way as the puzzles where they're not right out in the open and extremely easy to find but as long as you're thorough and checking every room closely then you should be able to find all the upgrades and get enough red orbs to upgrade all your weapons and abilities. The cinematic camera does a good job of helping to bring attention to the important things in the rooms for puzzles, as well as kind of hiding secret chests and areas in rooms by having it angled a certain way so you can't really see, but overall it does a good job following Kratos around and it almost never caused me any issues.
The meat of the game is the combat though and I do really enjoy the system in these games. It is fluid and feels good and responsive most of the time, the only thing that could feel wonky in my opinion is the about half a second of recovery frames after you finish a dodge roll where Kratos can't move or attack, other than that though it is simple and maybe lacks some complexity of other games of this type but it is fun and that's the most important thing. One negative about the combat is that I felt like late game the enemies become better able to break out of combos and start to dodge or block a lot of your attacks which can slow down combat. You have your basic combos with your blades of chaos that you start with but as you progress you'll get magic abilities from the greek gods as well as a secondary sword and all these weapons and abilities can be upgraded to give you even more moves and combos with them. The flashiness of the combat is also very fun with kratos having lots of special kill animations and most enemies having special QTE kill sequences that are very brutal and fun to watch. The enemy variety I also found to be good, with lots of different creatures from Greek mythology and they all had their own styles and gimmicks to them.
2023
This game is what a remake should be like instead of just a graphics update like so many other remakes. It takes a great base from the original, which for me is one of the best games I've ever played, and fixes up a lot of the clunkiness from the original release. The smoother and improved movement, shooting controls and knife combat feels so much better and more intuitive. The only downside to this is that the game isn't as scary or tense since it is much easier to do everything, although I will say the developers tried to mitigate this by making the enemies move quicker and come from unexpected angles more often.
The game looks absolutely beautiful, with all the environments and character models looking very nice. Shadows and lighting look very nice and the environments are very detailed. Sound quality is also top notch with all the sound effects from guns and all the various horrors you see during the game fitting right in and helping to sell the experience. The only other minor gripe I have about this game is that the new voice cast is mostly good overall but a couple key characters had voices I found to be somewhat grating with the worst offender being Ada, who made me want to mute the audio everytime she started talking but Leon, Ashley, Hunnigan and the Merchant I found to be very good for the most part but I still prefer the voices from the original game overall.
I really enjoy the changes to the story and I found it to be a much smoother experience overall because of these changes. Story beats felt much more smoother flowing from one to the next overall and there was nice bits of added backstory to help explain character motivations better than they did in the original and also while I would have preferred they didn't get rid of the U3 boss fight from Leon's story, I will say that it helped to shorten the part of the game on the island, which I always thought was the weakest part of the original game with parts of it feeling like a slog to get through sometimes.
Overall I really loved this game and even though I still love the original more probably because of nostalgia, this is the definitive Resident Evil 4 experience in my opinion.
The game looks absolutely beautiful, with all the environments and character models looking very nice. Shadows and lighting look very nice and the environments are very detailed. Sound quality is also top notch with all the sound effects from guns and all the various horrors you see during the game fitting right in and helping to sell the experience. The only other minor gripe I have about this game is that the new voice cast is mostly good overall but a couple key characters had voices I found to be somewhat grating with the worst offender being Ada, who made me want to mute the audio everytime she started talking but Leon, Ashley, Hunnigan and the Merchant I found to be very good for the most part but I still prefer the voices from the original game overall.
I really enjoy the changes to the story and I found it to be a much smoother experience overall because of these changes. Story beats felt much more smoother flowing from one to the next overall and there was nice bits of added backstory to help explain character motivations better than they did in the original and also while I would have preferred they didn't get rid of the U3 boss fight from Leon's story, I will say that it helped to shorten the part of the game on the island, which I always thought was the weakest part of the original game with parts of it feeling like a slog to get through sometimes.
Overall I really loved this game and even though I still love the original more probably because of nostalgia, this is the definitive Resident Evil 4 experience in my opinion.
This review contains spoilers
Gameplay is extremely similar to the first Spider-Man game by Insomniac and this is more like a long dlc than a full game.
The new powers Miles has with his electric venom abilities are fun and help spice up combat although he has a lot less gadgets than Peter did in the first game. Also a lot of the side activities are just copy pasted from the first game and mostly just kind of boring.
The enemy types are mostly similar to the first game although there are some new types but I mostly found fighting these new guys to be tedious or annoying and the new enemy groups have so many bright colors on the screen in addition to the effects from your electricity abilities it can make it kind of hard to see the dodge prompt around your head for the spidey sense.
The story for this game is what really brought it down for me. Every character around Miles is so bland and annoying that it made it hard to go for any of them other than Miles sometimes, the main villain is cartoonishly evil and was extremely obvious from the first moment he's introduced. The other main antagonist, Miles friend Phin, is so dumb and mary sue-ish that it made every scene involving her and every dialogue she was involved with a chore to sit through. I will add though that I felt like the boss fights in this game were a definite improvement from the first game and I enjoyed them much more, also no forced stealth sequences playing as somebody other than Spider-Man is a good thing.
The new powers Miles has with his electric venom abilities are fun and help spice up combat although he has a lot less gadgets than Peter did in the first game. Also a lot of the side activities are just copy pasted from the first game and mostly just kind of boring.
The enemy types are mostly similar to the first game although there are some new types but I mostly found fighting these new guys to be tedious or annoying and the new enemy groups have so many bright colors on the screen in addition to the effects from your electricity abilities it can make it kind of hard to see the dodge prompt around your head for the spidey sense.
The story for this game is what really brought it down for me. Every character around Miles is so bland and annoying that it made it hard to go for any of them other than Miles sometimes, the main villain is cartoonishly evil and was extremely obvious from the first moment he's introduced. The other main antagonist, Miles friend Phin, is so dumb and mary sue-ish that it made every scene involving her and every dialogue she was involved with a chore to sit through. I will add though that I felt like the boss fights in this game were a definite improvement from the first game and I enjoyed them much more, also no forced stealth sequences playing as somebody other than Spider-Man is a good thing.
Somewhat fun game for the first couple hours but after that got it got boring. Very easy and very short, fun to see the different roles for peach that change up the gameplay and most are fun other than the mermaid, pastry chef and detective, which I found to be slow and tedious to play.
Overall, game is alright but would definitely be improved with more abilities for the different peach forms and an increase in difficulty. I did like the boss fights and felt that they were all varied and a nice challenge in comparison to the rest of the game.
Somewhat poor performance with lots of fps drops and lag on loading screens which was odd, though I didn't have any of that occur during gameplay at least.
Overall, game is alright but would definitely be improved with more abilities for the different peach forms and an increase in difficulty. I did like the boss fights and felt that they were all varied and a nice challenge in comparison to the rest of the game.
Somewhat poor performance with lots of fps drops and lag on loading screens which was odd, though I didn't have any of that occur during gameplay at least.
Resident Evil 4 is one of my favorite games of all time and this pc port of the PS2 version of the game is well done.
The HD edition touched up the graphics of the game, which was already one of the more visually impressive gamecube games of the time. Character models, especially Leon and Ashley, look very good and the environments are somewhat varied for a horror type game, most things are grey and brown but it helps make areas that do have color really stand out and be more memorable.
The best part of the game that sells the horror aspect in my opinion is the sound, I played with a headset on and having the villagers and cultists constantly whispering things or yelling stuff out when you're unable to see where they are can be very creepy. The lack of background music also can add to the unease when you're playing the game.
The main gameplay loop mostly involves a good amount of combat encounters and exploring rooms and semi-open areas. The controls can feel very clunky at the start and taking a little getting used to since they are tank controls, this does add to the horror element because you don't move super fluidly and so enemies appearing behind you or on your flank can easily surprise you. Fully exploring each area is usually rewarded pretty well, with lots of hidden treasures and ammo and health pickups. The game also rewards playing well if you're generally accurate with your shots and use environmental hazards to kill groups of enemies, helping you to conserve precious ammo and keeping yourself healthy. There is some enemy variety, with most being basic types but they can be equipped with different weapons to help combat encounters feeling fresh and not repetitive. You also can find and buy a large assortment of different guns and grenades and the guns can all their attributes upgraded multiple times, with some even being able to have attachments such as a grip or a scope. Some small puzzles that are mostly easy to figure out and help to break up the shooting and exploring you mostly do, the boss fights are fun and varied with each having their own weakpoints that are usually easy enough to figure out.
My biggest annoyance with the game after getting used to the controls again is the odd difficulty curve that I feel the game has. At the start you find lots of ammo and healing items, but after about the halfway point the game gets very stingy with ammo. You fight large groups of enemies in the early game and basically at all points in the game and most enemies you fight can take about the same amount of damage all game so it just feels weird to just randomly change the rate at which you find ammo. Even though I have beaten this game multiple times on both the GameCube and the PS2, it still always throws me off how the game just slows the rate of how much ammo you find/get.
Overall still one of the best games ever made even with those small issues.
The HD edition touched up the graphics of the game, which was already one of the more visually impressive gamecube games of the time. Character models, especially Leon and Ashley, look very good and the environments are somewhat varied for a horror type game, most things are grey and brown but it helps make areas that do have color really stand out and be more memorable.
The best part of the game that sells the horror aspect in my opinion is the sound, I played with a headset on and having the villagers and cultists constantly whispering things or yelling stuff out when you're unable to see where they are can be very creepy. The lack of background music also can add to the unease when you're playing the game.
The main gameplay loop mostly involves a good amount of combat encounters and exploring rooms and semi-open areas. The controls can feel very clunky at the start and taking a little getting used to since they are tank controls, this does add to the horror element because you don't move super fluidly and so enemies appearing behind you or on your flank can easily surprise you. Fully exploring each area is usually rewarded pretty well, with lots of hidden treasures and ammo and health pickups. The game also rewards playing well if you're generally accurate with your shots and use environmental hazards to kill groups of enemies, helping you to conserve precious ammo and keeping yourself healthy. There is some enemy variety, with most being basic types but they can be equipped with different weapons to help combat encounters feeling fresh and not repetitive. You also can find and buy a large assortment of different guns and grenades and the guns can all their attributes upgraded multiple times, with some even being able to have attachments such as a grip or a scope. Some small puzzles that are mostly easy to figure out and help to break up the shooting and exploring you mostly do, the boss fights are fun and varied with each having their own weakpoints that are usually easy enough to figure out.
My biggest annoyance with the game after getting used to the controls again is the odd difficulty curve that I feel the game has. At the start you find lots of ammo and healing items, but after about the halfway point the game gets very stingy with ammo. You fight large groups of enemies in the early game and basically at all points in the game and most enemies you fight can take about the same amount of damage all game so it just feels weird to just randomly change the rate at which you find ammo. Even though I have beaten this game multiple times on both the GameCube and the PS2, it still always throws me off how the game just slows the rate of how much ammo you find/get.
Overall still one of the best games ever made even with those small issues.
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories continues the story from the first game with Sora, Donald and Goofy entering Castle Oblivion to save Sora's friend and they encounter the newly introduced villains in the form of Organization XIII.
Chain of Memories changes the combat system from the original, swapping from it being a real-time battle system that was more typical of an action adventure game with rpg leveling mechanics and changes this to a card-based system, where you still fight in real-time and your combos look the same as the first game but what moves and magic you can use is determined by the cards you have in your deck. Each card corresponds to different actions, such as normal swings with your keyblade and also having magic, summons and items tied to cards as well. To me this system change is my biggest issue with the game overall, the change to a card system doesn't work in my opinion and for me made the game only worth playing for the story. The card elements rely very heavily on RNG mechanics and makes building a deck difficult without massive amounts of grinding.
Level design is also very bland with the game recycling almost every area from the first game but made to look worse because every area is made up of separate rooms, with them all being square shaped and the interiors being slightly varied. This leads to a very samey feeling no matter what area you're in because of lots of reused enemies and rooms that begin to all look the same.
The game controls well with everything feeling responsive and the graphical quality is fine for it being a remaster of a Playstation 2 game. The voice acting for Sora and the main party and antagonists is very good but some of the side characters performances can be a bit uneven.
Overall I hate the card combat system and it makes everything about the game worse for me, the game becomes a chore to play and while the story is fine and I did really like some of the new characters introduced, its not enough in my opinion to carry the boring and monotonous combat and level design.
Chain of Memories changes the combat system from the original, swapping from it being a real-time battle system that was more typical of an action adventure game with rpg leveling mechanics and changes this to a card-based system, where you still fight in real-time and your combos look the same as the first game but what moves and magic you can use is determined by the cards you have in your deck. Each card corresponds to different actions, such as normal swings with your keyblade and also having magic, summons and items tied to cards as well. To me this system change is my biggest issue with the game overall, the change to a card system doesn't work in my opinion and for me made the game only worth playing for the story. The card elements rely very heavily on RNG mechanics and makes building a deck difficult without massive amounts of grinding.
Level design is also very bland with the game recycling almost every area from the first game but made to look worse because every area is made up of separate rooms, with them all being square shaped and the interiors being slightly varied. This leads to a very samey feeling no matter what area you're in because of lots of reused enemies and rooms that begin to all look the same.
The game controls well with everything feeling responsive and the graphical quality is fine for it being a remaster of a Playstation 2 game. The voice acting for Sora and the main party and antagonists is very good but some of the side characters performances can be a bit uneven.
Overall I hate the card combat system and it makes everything about the game worse for me, the game becomes a chore to play and while the story is fine and I did really like some of the new characters introduced, its not enough in my opinion to carry the boring and monotonous combat and level design.
Overall this was a disappointing game for me. I'm a huge fan of the original Phoenix Wright trilogy and enjoy the gameplay loop of the ace attorney games, but for me this one missed the mark. They introduce some new mechanics to the trial with the introduction of the jury mechanic for most trials and lots of cross-examinations having multiple witnesses on the stand.
For me I found these to be a bad addition that slowed up trials and ruined the flow of the court sequences. Additionally there were multiple instances of the dialogue coming across kind of clunky and slowing progression, such as multiple instances where characters would learn of some new fact for the case then seemingly have forgotten it moments later and being surprised when they hear about it again. Another aspect of the old games that I found to be a let down in this one were the characters, with most of them being just annoying and feeling like a chore to interact with.
There are nice QOL features added in with this game though, such as the ability to bring up the past bunch of dialogue in case you missed something, the ability to go to any location from anywhere instead of being limited to 3 options like in the Phoenix Wright trilogy, and your partner usually notifying you if you haven't been to an area in awhile as a hint that you probably need to go there to either talk to somebody or investigate some part of the location to advance.
To me the setting doesn't work as well as the modern day setting of the other games and also a lot of the twists in this game were either very predictable or at least realized much quicker than the characters in game would figure them out, which made the game feel like it was really dragging in points because you're just going through a bunch of dialogue waiting for the characters in game to catch up and realize what you the player have already figured out.
This is probably a good game if you're new to the series but in my opinion, if you've played one of the other ace attorney games before then you're better off just playing either the Phoenix Wright trilogy or the Apollo Justice Trilogy, as they have much smoother writing and more interesting and memorable characters and cases.
For me I found these to be a bad addition that slowed up trials and ruined the flow of the court sequences. Additionally there were multiple instances of the dialogue coming across kind of clunky and slowing progression, such as multiple instances where characters would learn of some new fact for the case then seemingly have forgotten it moments later and being surprised when they hear about it again. Another aspect of the old games that I found to be a let down in this one were the characters, with most of them being just annoying and feeling like a chore to interact with.
There are nice QOL features added in with this game though, such as the ability to bring up the past bunch of dialogue in case you missed something, the ability to go to any location from anywhere instead of being limited to 3 options like in the Phoenix Wright trilogy, and your partner usually notifying you if you haven't been to an area in awhile as a hint that you probably need to go there to either talk to somebody or investigate some part of the location to advance.
To me the setting doesn't work as well as the modern day setting of the other games and also a lot of the twists in this game were either very predictable or at least realized much quicker than the characters in game would figure them out, which made the game feel like it was really dragging in points because you're just going through a bunch of dialogue waiting for the characters in game to catch up and realize what you the player have already figured out.
This is probably a good game if you're new to the series but in my opinion, if you've played one of the other ace attorney games before then you're better off just playing either the Phoenix Wright trilogy or the Apollo Justice Trilogy, as they have much smoother writing and more interesting and memorable characters and cases.
Pretty fun game, combat is basically an improved version of the Batman Arkham games and traversal through the city is a very fun time. The story was kind of meh though and the horrible MJ and Miles stealth levels really hurt the overall experience. Also has the bad inclusion of Ubisoft style side content where it just really feels like time wasters that are very repetitive and begin to feel like a chore to do.
2005
Pure kino