Played through The Telltale Definitive Series. Absolutely worse than the first two in almost every way. The point and click elements were worse, the world and characters looked worse despite clearly having better graphical fidelity over all, Clementine has become an insufferable bitch in the time between the last game and this one. No matter what choices you made in season 2 she is like this. Her choices at the end of the game are completely determined by the flashback sequences and not at all with how you treat her or help her throughout the game, which seems insanely stupid. I never cared about Kate, or David, or Tripp or Gabe like I cared about Kenny, Lee, and Clem in the first two games. Javi is a pretty cool character though.

masterclass in how to screw up a time-tested gameplay formula that at this point probably should've been failproof for capcom

the overall pacing is bad - it's a 12 hour game that should only be around half its runtime

level design is wonky - you're either constantly backtracking from location to location or you're moving around an entire facility with no real way to get from point A to B concisely. it's an ordeal to grab one item needed for progression (in a game series about resource management and planning routes effectively!). comparing the maps in this to the RE1 mansion or the RE2 police station is such a stark contrast

for some reason the game gives you way too many bullets and resources? the way enemy placement is laid out encourages you to use them too. by the time you've explored a map once, you've killed all the zombies and then you're just running around empty corridors with no tension or need to plan ahead with your loadout - again, bad pacing. you can argue this can happen in the other classic REs but their level design guarantees youre not really visiting those same places over and over and over again. CV wants to be an action game but without all the mechanics to make that actually work

and even with that abundance of resources they never seem to be in the place where you actually need them - like, before boss fights?? i've seen more than one post here from people saying they had to restart the game completely because they ran out of healing items or explosive arrows or what have you (it all comes back to bad pacing...). to be fair - this can be mitigated by just rotating your saves but if it comes down to it that often that feels like bad game design on the devs' part

steve fucking sucks ass

the art direction overall isn't... great? it's softer and lends itself to being a lot less, idk, spooky, but i think there are individual parts of the game that are pretty cool - the victorian stylings of ashford residence, the cabin on the island, etc. and before it sunk in just how fucking long this game was, some of the backtracking felt almost comfy - like a walking sim pure vibes game.

and then i beat the tyrant on the plane and claire went to antarctica. and then after another hour the perspective shifts and theres a whole other half to the game. okay jesus christ

plot's bombastic and ridiculous but it's a different bombastic and ridiculous than other titles - and i do think a lot of it is genuinely really fun because of it. alexia and alfred are goofy weirdos, the first meeting with neo wesker is fun, it's INSANELY contrived in a way that works in its favor because of how goofy RE is as a series already so all the plot beats are just seeing how quirky the writers can get with it

this game would probably benefit from a remake like a lot of code veronica defenders say - but i don't see why capcom would feel the want or need to when the source material just isn't quite there. better to move on to revamping one of the best-selling games in the series in RE5 rather than a complete overhaul of a game that most folks don't really care about - and for good reason

I had to see this one with my own two eyes for some twisted and self hurting reason, and boy was everyone right about how baffling and grueling of a self absorbed mess this one is. To me, YIIK represents the apex of the indie scene's obssession with the egocentric tortured artist narrative that has been the go-to window dressing for many of the critical darlings of the last decade, mostly due to how badly it fails on the execution of said concept.

Andrew Allanson makes his case for Alex's incredible lack of charisma and likeability by implying that those were intented attributes deliberately written to present an unlikely protagonist that defies the expectations of videogame conventions and serves to tell a "meaningful and thought provoking" narrative, but I do have to question if Andrew understands that you can write unredeemable pieces of shit and still have them be compelling people to follow, not unlike the characters from the inumerous prestigious novels and movies he so eagerly name drops as influences. The voice behind Alex's obnoxious and verbose inner thoughts and social interactions permeates most of YIIK's world and people, bloating the whole experience with an onslaught of solipsistic musings that would make your teen self cringe and inner world exposition dumps that would make Kojima blush, and a group of characters lacking in so much chemistry and entertaining banter that fill the game's dead air with loud meaningless conversations that made me appreciate how much of an art what Persona does is.

Tying it all up, you have one of the most unpleasant combat systems I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing in an rpg. A third of the way through I had to turn on Story Mode and Assist Mode while fast forwarding as much as I could, and I shudder to think of the people who subjected themselves to the rest of the game without resorting to any of those settings. There are design choices made here where I struggle to believe that someone made them without deliberately trying to make this combat system a living hell to wrestle with for 20 hours. Andrew infamously stated that if people aren't able to appreciate his game, then "games aren't art, but toys for children", an idea that I find very insincere when he himself has brushed aside the strengths of the medium as mere tools in service of his literary interests and fails to recognize the gameplay value of the many games he apes from and that already disprove his perception of the audience.

I have seen comparisons made between YIIK and The Room, and while YIIK's team has immensely more talent than whatever Tommy Wiseau has, I do see where that's coming from. You aren't so much in it to experience the art presented to you, as much as you are to see the psychosis of the artist behind it, and YIIK does have its poignant and head turning moments that reach Pathologic levels of antagonism towards the player that reveal some kind of accidental genius behind its aggresively mediocre facade. Not only does the world of YIIK unironically revolve around Alex by the end of the game, he implicates you in his self importance and passes onto you his responsibilities and obligations to be a better person, and I find the audacity and nerve to do that...kinda brilliant??, more so deserving of the pretentious "Postmodern RPG" moniker than the Earthbound/Mother 3 gimped 4th wall breaks or the doubt seered into me each time the loading screen tip "videogames are not a waste of time" popped up.

And dont get me wrong, thinking that YIIK is some misunderstood masterpiece of game design or secretely a arthouse cult classic in the making. Judging by Andrew's defensive posture when talking about the game's reception and the passive aggressiveness he slides into the game's updates, much of the artistic merit that can be inferred from YIIK is most likely just a pure casualty of someone trying to aspire to his influences and falling way short of the mark, and suggesting that most of it was intentional would be implying that someone could have the talent to consciously write and design as badly as YIIK was. But Andrew made art here, not the kind of art he wanted to make, but art nonetheless, and I do find more value in this relentlessly life draining game than most indie artsy fartsy games out there. I play YIIK and I see a sincere attempt at creating something unique and different, scrambling ideas from every piece of fiction the creator cherishes and throwing it at the wall to see what sticks, not having the self awareness to realize its own mediocrity or how misplaced and misguised many of those ideas might be, and I can definitely sympathize and relate to that.

PS: The Iwata "tribute" is the most unintentionally hilarious bit in the whole game. You have the power of videogames to make anything you want, and you put the man in a fucking tombstone.