TheGandyMan
2022
Tunic is an incredible fusion of all the best bits of Dark Souls and 2D Zelda. It feels great to play start to finish, and has a lovely art style. Its usage of a made-up language for most of the text is clever and brings a sense of mystery and discovery that permeates the game, and the instruction booklet that you fill out as you play fits the style perfectly and is a great way to feed the player information.
The combat is refined and fun. The progression is well-paced so that you feel yourself getting more powerful as you easily destroy enemies that used to give you problems, and you unlock more options to play around with as you grow comfortable with your abilities. The game does get difficult, primarily in the boss fights, but much like Dark Souls it never feels unfair. I really enjoyed the puzzle aspects, although I did cheat a few times.
An unfortunate consequence of most of the text being unreadable is that the story is harder to understand. I found that I understood enough to know what I need to be doing, but I still don't really understand much of the lore or why things are the way they are.
The combat is refined and fun. The progression is well-paced so that you feel yourself getting more powerful as you easily destroy enemies that used to give you problems, and you unlock more options to play around with as you grow comfortable with your abilities. The game does get difficult, primarily in the boss fights, but much like Dark Souls it never feels unfair. I really enjoyed the puzzle aspects, although I did cheat a few times.
An unfortunate consequence of most of the text being unreadable is that the story is harder to understand. I found that I understood enough to know what I need to be doing, but I still don't really understand much of the lore or why things are the way they are.
This review contains spoilers
I played on hard difficulty with simulation driving. I completed the main story, all the races, and the Faster, Baby! DLC.
This game is really bad. Going in, the main thing I heard about the game was that the missions are repetitive and man, that is a fucking understatement. Essentially, our goal is to kill the big bad mobster, but to do that we have to take care of each of his underbosses, and to get at each of them we have to take care of the people under them and so on, until it gets to we have to do a series of EXTREMELY repetitive tasks in order to get at the lowest level boss. Every task is basically go up to a place and there's bad guys there. There is essentially no variation on this. This shit reminded me of Assassin's Creed 1. The main story missions feel like throwaway filler side quests in an open world game. And then I checked out one of the side quests and it was even more side-quest-y (go find me 3 of this kind of car). Once you've done enough shitty filler missions, you go fight through a bunch of guys to kill whatever boss and then repeat the whole process. After the prologue, there's only a few levels that feel like any thought at all was put into them. And at its core, it's just a mediocre third person shooter. The shooting felt frustrating more often than it felt fun.
The story really fits the gameplay in that it is also terrible. We start with an interesting prologue that sets up our protagonist's motivation for revenge, and we end with enacting said revenge, having become the biggest mob boss in town, and then getting to choose if we stay and replace what we destroyed, or leave and put all this behind us. That's all good, but for the middle 18 hours there's basically nothing. Like Assassin's Creed 1, it's just a loop of "we gotta kill this guy but first we gotta do all these tasks", and after you go through that a few times you get a BIG GUY to kill but none of these people are characters that matter, they're just levels. And Marcano, the big bad boss, doesn't really seem to care or fight back at any point. We don't get any interaction with him since the prologue. The game fails to make me care about any of the characters or any of the plot. Even in an emotional scene where I've had to kill one of my underbosses because they turned against me because I didn't give them any districts, I do not care. Way too much of this game is people talking about shit I couldn't care less about.
Our protagonist, Lincoln Clay, is not interesting. Most of his loved ones got killed by Marcano and so he's getting revenge by killing Marcano (which requires killing a LOT of other people first). And that's basically it. Lincoln's never remorseful about all the people he's killing on his quest. He never grapples with whether he's worse than his enemies. And I don't really care about him. He's a pretty bad guy.
Every time I play a game like this it baffles me how a developer could possibly think this is good. At least AC1 was the first in the series. They improved that shit right away. This is Mafia THREE and so much of it feels like a shitty first draft. Like ya okay he works his way through dismantling Marcano's organization racket by racket. That's a good idea, but we can't just be doing the same shit over and over. Let's go back to the writer's room and try to come up with some interesting things to happen in the game please.
Now for some positives. The game looks pretty good, but there's a lot of pop-in to the point that it's consistently distracting. The radio is nothing but bangers. The simulation driving is great, and the races are fun, so much so that I did them all, and I rarely do optional content when I dislike a game this much. I accidentally did the Faster, Baby! DLC story (the DLC missions are presented as main story missions) and that was good. It was right after a major milestone in the game, so I was hopeful that only the first part of the game was garbage and the rest of the game would be good like that mission. Oh how wrong I was.
Overall this game is incredibly disappointing. There's a fair amount of potential in it. I could imagine a game where the way you take down the mob, choosing which rackets to take down and which underbosses to give them to, and the mob striking back at you in different ways depending on your decisions is all very interesting and strategic, but that isn't this game. This game is bad.
This game is really bad. Going in, the main thing I heard about the game was that the missions are repetitive and man, that is a fucking understatement. Essentially, our goal is to kill the big bad mobster, but to do that we have to take care of each of his underbosses, and to get at each of them we have to take care of the people under them and so on, until it gets to we have to do a series of EXTREMELY repetitive tasks in order to get at the lowest level boss. Every task is basically go up to a place and there's bad guys there. There is essentially no variation on this. This shit reminded me of Assassin's Creed 1. The main story missions feel like throwaway filler side quests in an open world game. And then I checked out one of the side quests and it was even more side-quest-y (go find me 3 of this kind of car). Once you've done enough shitty filler missions, you go fight through a bunch of guys to kill whatever boss and then repeat the whole process. After the prologue, there's only a few levels that feel like any thought at all was put into them. And at its core, it's just a mediocre third person shooter. The shooting felt frustrating more often than it felt fun.
The story really fits the gameplay in that it is also terrible. We start with an interesting prologue that sets up our protagonist's motivation for revenge, and we end with enacting said revenge, having become the biggest mob boss in town, and then getting to choose if we stay and replace what we destroyed, or leave and put all this behind us. That's all good, but for the middle 18 hours there's basically nothing. Like Assassin's Creed 1, it's just a loop of "we gotta kill this guy but first we gotta do all these tasks", and after you go through that a few times you get a BIG GUY to kill but none of these people are characters that matter, they're just levels. And Marcano, the big bad boss, doesn't really seem to care or fight back at any point. We don't get any interaction with him since the prologue. The game fails to make me care about any of the characters or any of the plot. Even in an emotional scene where I've had to kill one of my underbosses because they turned against me because I didn't give them any districts, I do not care. Way too much of this game is people talking about shit I couldn't care less about.
Our protagonist, Lincoln Clay, is not interesting. Most of his loved ones got killed by Marcano and so he's getting revenge by killing Marcano (which requires killing a LOT of other people first). And that's basically it. Lincoln's never remorseful about all the people he's killing on his quest. He never grapples with whether he's worse than his enemies. And I don't really care about him. He's a pretty bad guy.
Every time I play a game like this it baffles me how a developer could possibly think this is good. At least AC1 was the first in the series. They improved that shit right away. This is Mafia THREE and so much of it feels like a shitty first draft. Like ya okay he works his way through dismantling Marcano's organization racket by racket. That's a good idea, but we can't just be doing the same shit over and over. Let's go back to the writer's room and try to come up with some interesting things to happen in the game please.
Now for some positives. The game looks pretty good, but there's a lot of pop-in to the point that it's consistently distracting. The radio is nothing but bangers. The simulation driving is great, and the races are fun, so much so that I did them all, and I rarely do optional content when I dislike a game this much. I accidentally did the Faster, Baby! DLC story (the DLC missions are presented as main story missions) and that was good. It was right after a major milestone in the game, so I was hopeful that only the first part of the game was garbage and the rest of the game would be good like that mission. Oh how wrong I was.
Overall this game is incredibly disappointing. There's a fair amount of potential in it. I could imagine a game where the way you take down the mob, choosing which rackets to take down and which underbosses to give them to, and the mob striking back at you in different ways depending on your decisions is all very interesting and strategic, but that isn't this game. This game is bad.
This review contains spoilers
I played this by accident, thinking it was a main story quest rather than DLC. It's pretty good. It actually has a story where things happen and an antagonist who both Lincoln and I want dead and who interacts with Lincoln multiple times in the story. It has good characters. It has levels that are fun and not repetitive. When I thought this was a part of the base game, it gave me hope that this was the direction the rest of the game was headed. It makes the base game feel worse by reminding you what a decent game is meant to be like. I considered playing the other DLCs, but now that I've beat the game, the idea of never launching that shit again is too tempting.
2019
I played on Standard difficulty as Claire, then Leon.
This game nails survival horror. It brings back everything that made the first game great and nothing that made the first game bad. The remake looks incredible. The combat is very good. My only complaint about the combat is that it can be awkward to dodge boss attacks. I'm not a big horror fan, although I am slowly getting more into it, and this game has made believe that video games are the best medium for horror. I'm very excited to continue playing through this series.
The rest of this review only concerns the second run (after you beat the game, you can play through it again as the other character).
I'm not usually interested in playing a game a second time immediately after beating it. I only played through RE1 once. After looking online, it seemed like many people believed doing both runs in RE2 is necessary to consider the game "beaten". There are many differences between the runs, and you have to do both to unlock the true ending so I decided to do both for this game. For the most part, I enjoyed the second run. It's mostly the same places but the enemies therein and the path you take are different. The story is also different, but it can feel awkward. At times I can see where Leon's story and Claire's story match up and it feels like they are happening together. At others it's impossible for both stories to be happening together. The true ending is fine, but nothing to write home about. All in all, I would prefer they either committed more to the second run, making it clear that it's a core part of the game and making the plot actually line up with the first run, or just not have the second run and put more content into the first. Luckily the game is good enough that playing it again is still a lot of fun.
This game nails survival horror. It brings back everything that made the first game great and nothing that made the first game bad. The remake looks incredible. The combat is very good. My only complaint about the combat is that it can be awkward to dodge boss attacks. I'm not a big horror fan, although I am slowly getting more into it, and this game has made believe that video games are the best medium for horror. I'm very excited to continue playing through this series.
The rest of this review only concerns the second run (after you beat the game, you can play through it again as the other character).
I'm not usually interested in playing a game a second time immediately after beating it. I only played through RE1 once. After looking online, it seemed like many people believed doing both runs in RE2 is necessary to consider the game "beaten". There are many differences between the runs, and you have to do both to unlock the true ending so I decided to do both for this game. For the most part, I enjoyed the second run. It's mostly the same places but the enemies therein and the path you take are different. The story is also different, but it can feel awkward. At times I can see where Leon's story and Claire's story match up and it feels like they are happening together. At others it's impossible for both stories to be happening together. The true ending is fine, but nothing to write home about. All in all, I would prefer they either committed more to the second run, making it clear that it's a core part of the game and making the plot actually line up with the first run, or just not have the second run and put more content into the first. Luckily the game is good enough that playing it again is still a lot of fun.
This is a cute little game with a lovely story that looks great.
While there are some levels I really like, most of them are more tasks than puzzles. This would contribute to the game's relaxing vibe by only occasionally actually challenging you, if it weren't for the fact that the controls are awful.
The mouse is completely normal until you pick up a piece. It then becomes significantly more sensitive (and there's acceleration). Also, it's left click to pick up, left click to rotate, and then hold left click to place. Holding left click to place is incredibly unintuitive. It should just be left click to place and scroll wheel to rotate. These two problems (mostly the sensitivity) combine to make the whole game feel like I'm fighting the controls. It baffles me how something so fundamental and easy could get messed up like this. What is supposed to be a relaxing experience becomes frustrating because placing LEGO pieces is so awkward.
Despite the core mechanics of the game feeling awkward, I enjoyed the game. It made me feel smart like any good puzzle game should, and it certainly succeeds at looking great and telling a nice, heartwarming, albeit simple story. I don't think it's worth $20 though.
While there are some levels I really like, most of them are more tasks than puzzles. This would contribute to the game's relaxing vibe by only occasionally actually challenging you, if it weren't for the fact that the controls are awful.
The mouse is completely normal until you pick up a piece. It then becomes significantly more sensitive (and there's acceleration). Also, it's left click to pick up, left click to rotate, and then hold left click to place. Holding left click to place is incredibly unintuitive. It should just be left click to place and scroll wheel to rotate. These two problems (mostly the sensitivity) combine to make the whole game feel like I'm fighting the controls. It baffles me how something so fundamental and easy could get messed up like this. What is supposed to be a relaxing experience becomes frustrating because placing LEGO pieces is so awkward.
Despite the core mechanics of the game feeling awkward, I enjoyed the game. It made me feel smart like any good puzzle game should, and it certainly succeeds at looking great and telling a nice, heartwarming, albeit simple story. I don't think it's worth $20 though.
2021
I cried.
2019
This game is very cute. It nails the style it's going for. The sounds the kids make when they're running around or biking really fast are fantastic. The music and incredible art style bolster the style which permeates all facets of the game.
The story is fine, but way too slow. The game is much too long. It feels like a 3-4 hour cute little indie game but it lasts 8 hours.
The gameplay is fine, but not nearly good enough to justify how repetitive it is. The combat is fine, but not great. There are some interesting ideas incorporating co-op mechanics such as high-fiving to heal and the two character's abilities interacting. It kind of falls flat, though. We usually just separately beat the shit out of the enemies except when a boss required us to combine our powers. It Takes Two, one of my favorite games, does a much better job at co-op combat. The puzzles are fine, but nothing to write home about. They rarely made me feel smart, and a few times made me feel annoyed. At one point, we couldn't figure out what to do, and then I somehow walked through the fence we were trying to get through, as though there were a gap in the fence that we couldn't see, but then neither of us find the hole or figure out how it happened. I still don't know if it was a glitch or what. There's too much walking/biking around. I wish biking were more interesting.
All of the gameplay mechanics feel like they would do a good enough job at supporting a story driven game, and the story feels like it would be good enough for a gameplay driven game. This combination results in a game that is frequently slow and boring.
The story is fine, but way too slow. The game is much too long. It feels like a 3-4 hour cute little indie game but it lasts 8 hours.
The gameplay is fine, but not nearly good enough to justify how repetitive it is. The combat is fine, but not great. There are some interesting ideas incorporating co-op mechanics such as high-fiving to heal and the two character's abilities interacting. It kind of falls flat, though. We usually just separately beat the shit out of the enemies except when a boss required us to combine our powers. It Takes Two, one of my favorite games, does a much better job at co-op combat. The puzzles are fine, but nothing to write home about. They rarely made me feel smart, and a few times made me feel annoyed. At one point, we couldn't figure out what to do, and then I somehow walked through the fence we were trying to get through, as though there were a gap in the fence that we couldn't see, but then neither of us find the hole or figure out how it happened. I still don't know if it was a glitch or what. There's too much walking/biking around. I wish biking were more interesting.
All of the gameplay mechanics feel like they would do a good enough job at supporting a story driven game, and the story feels like it would be good enough for a gameplay driven game. This combination results in a game that is frequently slow and boring.
2024
Good little puzzle game. Not much content, but it's free. The puzzles are clever variations on the classic maze, incorporating other kinds of puzzles. If you like puzzles that puzzle, this puzzle of puzzle puzzles puzzles.
2020
It's a lot of fun, but the free version doesn't have much content and the paid version is a subscription. I'd happily pay $30 for this game, but I'm not going to pay these chumps every month.
2018
For the King is pretty good. I only ever played 3 or 4 player co-op (mods required for >3 players). Managing where you go and what you do is interesting. You have your money, health, focus, time-sensitive quests, and rising chaos all fighting for your attention, making your choices interesting and important.
The combat falls a little flat for me. If you're lucky, you have a weapon that has multiple good abilities, but too often you have a weapon that only really has one good ability, and so combat just becomes spamming that one ability. Having abilities tied to weapons is an interesting idea, but it feels bad when you have a weapon you like that does interesting things, and then you come across a weapon that's significantly better, but also significantly less interesting. We never got especially far, and I don't anticipate finishing this game.
The combat falls a little flat for me. If you're lucky, you have a weapon that has multiple good abilities, but too often you have a weapon that only really has one good ability, and so combat just becomes spamming that one ability. Having abilities tied to weapons is an interesting idea, but it feels bad when you have a weapon you like that does interesting things, and then you come across a weapon that's significantly better, but also significantly less interesting. We never got especially far, and I don't anticipate finishing this game.
2024
Great game. I'm usually not huge on rogue-likes. This is the first since Hades that I've really loved. It's just really clean and satisfying. There are lots of different ways to juice yourself up that interact really well and intuitively. There's lots of potential for crazy combos that feel really good to pull off. My one complaint is that it can get repetitive. I'm at a point where it's substantially less enjoyable unless I happen to get a cool joker that allows me to do a new strategy.
2011
This review contains spoilers
Normal difficulty. Good ending.
Significantly better than the first game. It still doesn't look great, but the first game was one of the dullest looking games ever so in comparison this game is beautiful. The controls feel clunky. Cole really likes to attach to things. It's amazing considering the system Sly Cooper has for that is miles better. They went backward for some reason. The combat is fine but not great. The missile is way too good. The final fight is lame as shit, especially compared to the first game. The story is fine.
I'm not big on karma systems, but I especially don't like this one. You're very heavily motivated to stick to one path, so it's really just a way to have a somewhat different second playthrough (something I don't at all care about). It's not, nor does it feel like it's trying to be, effective at presenting moral dilemmas. The last choice would be an exception to this if it weren't for the fact that in order to choose the option that the game has decided is the bad one when you've been doing a good playthrough (and vice versa I'd imagine) is to abandon the mission and go grind your karma down to the evil side.
I found the movement to be kinda bad for the first half, and then really good once I got the upgraded thrusters and the ice pushy uppy. I would've liked to have those the whole game.
Significantly better than the first game. It still doesn't look great, but the first game was one of the dullest looking games ever so in comparison this game is beautiful. The controls feel clunky. Cole really likes to attach to things. It's amazing considering the system Sly Cooper has for that is miles better. They went backward for some reason. The combat is fine but not great. The missile is way too good. The final fight is lame as shit, especially compared to the first game. The story is fine.
I'm not big on karma systems, but I especially don't like this one. You're very heavily motivated to stick to one path, so it's really just a way to have a somewhat different second playthrough (something I don't at all care about). It's not, nor does it feel like it's trying to be, effective at presenting moral dilemmas. The last choice would be an exception to this if it weren't for the fact that in order to choose the option that the game has decided is the bad one when you've been doing a good playthrough (and vice versa I'd imagine) is to abandon the mission and go grind your karma down to the evil side.
I found the movement to be kinda bad for the first half, and then really good once I got the upgraded thrusters and the ice pushy uppy. I would've liked to have those the whole game.
2021
Lots of fun. Good balance of arcade and sim for me. Lots of different types of racing.
2012
This review contains spoilers
A combat-focused platformer with mediocre combat and mediocre platforming.
As a big fan of the Sly series, I wanted to check out the other big PS2 platformers. I didn't like Jak 1, but surely with how many sequels it has had (including a movie and a game just 3 years ago), Ratchet and Clank will be AT THE VERY LEAST somewhat comparable to Sly 1 in terms of quality.
It is not.
The platforming is whatever. It feels a little clunky, but it does the job (unlike Jak's awful double jump). The platforming isn't really the focus. For this game to be good the combat needs to be fun, and it isn't. The arsenal of weapons is a good idea, but a really bad execution. Switching weapons requires you to stop moving. Aiming requires you to stop moving. When you're not aiming, the auto-aim is bad. Any combat that actually presents a challenge feels like a battle against the controls rather than the enemies.
Luckily most of the game is pretty easy, and when it's easy, it's fun. But when it's hard, it's terrible. If I'm getting swarmed by enemies I want to switch to the flamethrower but I can't because then I'll stop running away from them and they'll hit me. Or I want to melee attack them but then my second attack auto-targets some guy on the left so then the guys on the right hit me. Or all of the enemies are flying so only a few weapons are effective against them and if you didn't enter this part with full ammo on those weapons, you're out of luck. And then the checkpoints are way too few, so if you die you have to play alllllll that shit over again. The boss fight in particular is infuriating. Every death you have to play the easy first two phases again and sit through platforming sections whose only purpose is to waste your time.
I'm hoping the next entries in the series are better. It seems like it would be a simple fix to bind the weapon wheel to L2 and use the right stick to navigate it so you can move at the same time. There's also no reason to keep me from moving while I'm aiming.
I understand it's unfair to criticize the developers for all these faults since I have the hindsight of another 22 years of games, but it doesn't change the fact that this game isn't very good.
The story is serviceable. Ratchet is selfish, not caring about saving worlds, only wanting to find the guy who slighted him. He's then meant to change and save the world, Han Solo style, but he only does it because now it's HIS world that's under attack. That's still selfish.
This game has a lot of problems, but it did manage to be fun most of the time, which is why I like it more than Jak 1 and why I'm still interested in continuing the series.
As a big fan of the Sly series, I wanted to check out the other big PS2 platformers. I didn't like Jak 1, but surely with how many sequels it has had (including a movie and a game just 3 years ago), Ratchet and Clank will be AT THE VERY LEAST somewhat comparable to Sly 1 in terms of quality.
It is not.
The platforming is whatever. It feels a little clunky, but it does the job (unlike Jak's awful double jump). The platforming isn't really the focus. For this game to be good the combat needs to be fun, and it isn't. The arsenal of weapons is a good idea, but a really bad execution. Switching weapons requires you to stop moving. Aiming requires you to stop moving. When you're not aiming, the auto-aim is bad. Any combat that actually presents a challenge feels like a battle against the controls rather than the enemies.
Luckily most of the game is pretty easy, and when it's easy, it's fun. But when it's hard, it's terrible. If I'm getting swarmed by enemies I want to switch to the flamethrower but I can't because then I'll stop running away from them and they'll hit me. Or I want to melee attack them but then my second attack auto-targets some guy on the left so then the guys on the right hit me. Or all of the enemies are flying so only a few weapons are effective against them and if you didn't enter this part with full ammo on those weapons, you're out of luck. And then the checkpoints are way too few, so if you die you have to play alllllll that shit over again. The boss fight in particular is infuriating. Every death you have to play the easy first two phases again and sit through platforming sections whose only purpose is to waste your time.
I'm hoping the next entries in the series are better. It seems like it would be a simple fix to bind the weapon wheel to L2 and use the right stick to navigate it so you can move at the same time. There's also no reason to keep me from moving while I'm aiming.
I understand it's unfair to criticize the developers for all these faults since I have the hindsight of another 22 years of games, but it doesn't change the fact that this game isn't very good.
The story is serviceable. Ratchet is selfish, not caring about saving worlds, only wanting to find the guy who slighted him. He's then meant to change and save the world, Han Solo style, but he only does it because now it's HIS world that's under attack. That's still selfish.
This game has a lot of problems, but it did manage to be fun most of the time, which is why I like it more than Jak 1 and why I'm still interested in continuing the series.
Big improvements to the first game. The game freezes when switching weapons, and there's a way to aim and move although it's kinda janky. I had a lot more fun playing this. I like the weapon upgrades and how much more health you get.
It didn't solve everything though. The game is still pretty infuriating when it's hard. The checkpoint density is still way too low. The final boss sucked less than RaC 1's. If it had taken me two more attempts, I would've needed to go farm more bolts.
The story is a little better I guess. It's more interesting, but also ratchet and clank (titular) are pretty static. Still nothing to write home about.
But the series is going in a good direction and I'm excited to play UYA.
It didn't solve everything though. The game is still pretty infuriating when it's hard. The checkpoint density is still way too low. The final boss sucked less than RaC 1's. If it had taken me two more attempts, I would've needed to go farm more bolts.
The story is a little better I guess. It's more interesting, but also ratchet and clank (titular) are pretty static. Still nothing to write home about.
But the series is going in a good direction and I'm excited to play UYA.