Overall pretty nice, I like the atmosphere and the vibes of cruising across the ocean with a massive ship. The sound design also perfectly captured that feeling.

Spiritfarer sends a powerful message about letting go, coping with death and spending your last moments with a loved one. Hits different. The artstyle is also very pretty.

But it dragged on a bit towards the end. I wish there was more incentive to take care of your passengers (other than completing quests), because I kinda neglected them in the last few hours lol. Feeding them just felt like a waste of time.

Man, I love indie games. Only an indie game would be as unapologetically bold as Tunic. Tunic starts out as a cute topdown adventure game, with a neat manual and foreign language mechanic, but gets absolutely fucking insane as the game progress.

However, that boldness also means it won't be for everyone. I was just a bit too impatient for some of the later puzzles, so I got some hints from a guide. I wish it wasn't necessary, but I probably would have been to frustrated to continue otherwise. That's just the price you have to pay for being as unique as Tunic. Still worth it.

"I'm just an old killer...hired to do some wet work."

Inevitable that the game was polarising, it is divisive for the same reasons as MGS3 being a success: the games exist as reactions to one another. If MGS3 capitalises on James Bond pastiche and the thrill of the stealth, MGS4 is a tired old man existing in a world where the iconography prior is reduced to nothing. It is clearly such a late-period film the same way Scorsese operates in The Irishman or Eastwood's reflections in Unforgiven only without an absolutely condemnation of its protagonist. An immensely sad (yet ultimately hopeful) work about a bunch of old western men attempting to find a home and purpose in a world which is not only moving past them but ultimately also shedding the skin of valor and excitement of the nature of war.

Perhaps it all clicked when as opposed to do the heavy stealth and strategy required for MGS3, I enter the field regurgitating the same series of actions with ease in order to profit and buy...more bullets. There is no more libidinal quality to violence, just scrapping by to pull myself to the next day.