God, I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall for any kid who walked into that shaving minigame not knowing what was about to happen. Like, one moment you’re humiliating your cat friend so his bullies will give you a key, the next you’re fucking skinning him alive, down past the muscle, down to the bone. Somebody got nightmares from that. Somebody repressed that memory.

Other than that, though… genuinely exhausting. There’s truly nothing like desperately searching around for some form of forward progress, going back into rooms to hope you just missed an interactable and haven’t glitched into a softlock, all while you are constantly stopped and started by the same cutscenes playing over and over every time you try to go from one room to another. Every time you initially enter an area you are immediately beset by some interminable bit with the wacky side characters completely unrelated to anything and doing nothing but show that this game thinks it’s funnier than it is. Tries so hard to be zany and kooky that the resulting barrage is just so draining: like your kid not wanting to watch anything other than Chicken Little, like having lemon meringue pie every night far past the point where you get sick of it. I like the construction of the game itself — the puzzles are fairly standard kid fare delivered with enough flavour to feel fresh, and the fact that rooms and keys are randomized each playthrough is a super fascinating way to give the game replayability — the animation is consistently pretty good, and there’s a shocking amount of side-content and minigames you can interface with. It’s cold comfort, however, when this game’s general vibe slowly makes those strengths intolerable: how charmless it becomes the fifth time the game pretends it just crashed, how annoying it is to run into another minigame, go through it… only to realize that it doesn’t give you anything you need to progress. I could see this being charming in a much smaller dose — I know I was bemused when I tried and failed to play it last year — but it slowly, steeply loses its luster the longer you go. Makes you wall-eyed. Rots your brain. Too much of this? Not good!

there's much to love in the lack of intrusion, the shared satellite camera that often feels a little too close or a little too distant, and its clumsy affections. holding hands, calling someone's name, and gently navigating in tandem aren't the height of mechanical showmanship, and they shouldn't be. I wouldn't change a thing about yorda's absent minded wandering, the childlike swordplay, or its shy tactility. it's all beautiful. it's all lovely. by using simple gestural language and an intimate, interpretive mode of storytelling it conjures an entryway into something deeply personal, like a great towering dream

outcrops overlooking lake ontario, steel mills billowing smoke and flame, hidden islands on the edge of mall parking lots, absolute stillness, and the perpetual amateur fumbling innate to having a ridiculous body. it would never translate even if I tried, but it really doesn't have to

A good game that unfortunately carries the baggage of being inconsistent. While certain moments throughout the story honestly has some of my favorite moments in the series thus far, there is just as many dull ones as well. This game in particular loves to draw out its sequences way longer than they should be and at times it felt like I was dragging my way through it. I think the overarching narrative is what really kept me invested, as you go on this journey to bring back everyone together again after what happened in the ending of the previous entry.

I didn’t realize how much I actually liked Class VII until you slowly progress throughout the story bringing back everyone and seeing how much they cherished one another. It was nice to see how that was executed into the story and it playing its own role in this ongoing battle. And not only that, the side characters that had their own role were actually worthwhile for the most part. Past dynamics between several characters was so interesting to me and if there wasn’t one there was ones that were established in the present as well. Which I can’t help but compare this by taking similar plot elements from Sky SC, but I’m not going to discredit its ambitions.

Gameplay is more or less the same with the addition of upgrading your orbments slots, which allows you to use more advanced quartz to be able to use stronger arts. Save data transfer didn’t do a whole lot besides like a few items to your benefit at the start. Otherwise you’re set back to a level lower than you possibly were at the end of the previous game, which is just whatever. Don’t really have much to say about that.

Withstanding the mundane parts of the game, there are ones that definitely stick out that leaves a positive outlook on this game for me. That entire intermission on that ship I was fully engaged and mesmerized on getting to know the characters we will eventually have to face later down the road. Yesterdays enemies are now todays allies for the time being. It’s a formula Trails is known for at this point and it never fails.

You can’t talk about this game without a certain gambling addict that still owes you that 50 mira coin, but for brevity sake my god their whole storyline and learning their backstory behind their motives was one that I will definitely remember. Especially what happens in the finale and oh man I can go on a tangent on that as well.

That final dungeon in the finale was awesome and seeing how everyone by your side is wanting to put an end to everything was just a treat to witness. Once you reach the end you’re hit with ankle breaker after ankle breaker that just left me in shock. With one that I did NOT foresee coming in the slightest yet made total sense and then the credits roll… or at least you think they did.

You see, you could say this game ended 3 times. There is the finale, divertissement, and then the epilogue. While I did actually love the divertissement considering what happens there, the epilogue was something that a lot of people complain about and I can see why. It’s long for no apparent reason and feels like Cold Steel 1 all over again. I kind of understand the intent behind it, but just end the game already. Yes it was still a little emotional seeing everyone saying their goodbyes when all was said and done but yea I don’t know how I feel about that part. Plus the fact that there is an extremely important scene locked behind New Game Plus which blows. Really odd thing to do.

Cold Steel II music is unsurprisingly really good and I just don’t need to say anything.

Like do I really need to explain any further?

Cold Steel II is a very flawed entry with its own ambitions and whether or not it lands on everything is something I’m not confident on agreeing with, yet what I will say though is that even through its highs and lows there is still a good game in there that I can’t help but cherish ever so slightly.

“I can’t go any farther now…but you can…so keep going forward…relentlessly, without looking back…”

Can you Double Jump in this Game? No.

All I heard of Outriders was that it looked like mid western slop much like many games. I expected to play it for an hour maybe then uninstall in, but I trucked on through for almost 27 hours because of that first hour (and the gameplay felt good).

Outriders starts out with a Colony ship that left earth like 80 years ago because, well, Earth was basically ruined because humans cant stop fighting so they select humans got to leave to a new planet they found. You finally land there and I thought it was some fun Sci-Fi. Beautiful alien planet and the Outriders being a group that explores this new planet. It all goes to shit once you find the probe that tells if the planet is cool or not because your group get infected with these mushrooms and a Anomaly Storm literally eviscerates some of your party. You try to get the Leader guy to stop the landing party (you are just a small recon party) because this is not safe for humans, but uhhh, there basically is no choice, humans gotta land here. You get put in Cryo for 30 years and when you come back out, surprise!, humans are fighting each other because they literally cannot stop being fuckers. Turned this beautiful valley you landed in into a WW1 Trench war zone. They cant leave because the Anomaly Storms keep them in place and it also fried all electronics. They cant get resources from the Flores (the ship they came in on) so everyone is basically in the same situation as back on Earth, shit and hell.

This game feels very nihilistic, cause while there may be hope of getting these resources to help people, nothing ever really changes and it just sticks on humans always wanting death wars. SPOILERS FOR THE END:---------------------- In fact, the humans that were left behind on Earth repaired the first space ship that destroyed in orbit and gave it a better engine and got to the new planet first (and way faster than you). They landed, met the natives who used strange powers to keep the Anomaly Storms in control and went "hmmm, strange powers, I want those for myself". Then the guy in charge enslaves them all, and when they sacrifice their beautiful naivety to become bloodhungry brutal "savages" (a literal transformation from their powers) to fight back, he does a genocide and saves a few for his internment camp. So humans came to this planet early and killed the only things keeping the planet liveable and ruined it for themselves (again). There are a couple of minor things, but there isn't really a good outcome, at least not in base game, don't really want to buy the expansion cause I got what I wanted out of this
SPOILER END.

So the story is nihilistic, but the mystery is what kept me going, and it was fine (revealed above). The sci-fi probably isn't mind blowing or new, but it was fine enough for me.

I've also notice that AAA budget is just a nice thing, because goddamn its nice to look at expensive landscapes. The first main area of this game is, like I said earlier, WW1 Trench Warzones, with some variances. The second is a jungle that eventually has alien architecture, and the last place is a desert (that I think looks surprisingly not boring!). I think there are a lot of cool looking areas in this game.

But lets get to the real thing here, the gameplay. Its cover shooter kiiiind of like Gears of War, but way less reliant on actual cover. Like in Gears, you feel that oomph of sliding into cover, and everything feels heavy like it should in that game. This game I rarely ever went into cover just because it didnt feel good and I didnt really need to. This is also the Developer who made Gears of War Judgement, so there is some connection there.

The guns felt good, I mainly sticked with assault rifles and LMG's and god the sound design was great. It really felt like i was chugging bullets and I would get lost in that sound. You also get power depending on your class. Im pretty all classes heal off their powers, dont know if they work different or not; but mine had to mark enemies with my powers then kill them to heal. One of my abilities just healed on use and that shit was essential.

The crafting in this game was also so extremely easy to understand and that rules. Every equipment has 3 stats like "ability leech, weapon power bonus, etc", but you dont really need to pay attention to those (maybe end game?). Equipment Epic and above have 2 Mod slots (and the Mods have tiers 1-3). If you dismantle something with a mod (everything rare and up does), you get that mod forever and can put it one whatever you want. I found a mod that just did a shit tone of damage on a cooldown of 3 seconds and I put that on every weapon. The mods felt cool and powerful and I liked the power fantasy of that.

Another dope thing this game does is the cosmetic system. Once you get an item for the first time, you unlock its skin and can swap any other same equipment it to it visually for no charge.

Overall, better than I expected with a intriguing nihilistic Sc-Fi story and satisfying shooting and looting.

It's solid! The concept of having a game that combines sidescrolling action and simulation godgame playstyles actually works really well to give the impression that you are restoring a ravaged wild land to become a fully lived continent. My only gripe about the game really is that both gameplay styles are quite basic in the grand scheme of things. The action scenes are pretty short, simple, and easy (though maybe that's for the better given how big the hitboxes for everything is), and the god game sections don't have very many options as to how you can build your society. You only have the options to perform miracles to do things that primarily involve terraforming or the option to expand the civilization towards a place. Given the fact there are also spawners to capture and enemies to shoot, the sim sections really feel more like an RTS than a citybuilder. Sure, at the time of this games release there were already more fleshed out sidescrollers and simulation games on the SNES, but only here will you get something that lets you do both and that's cool. I'm really surprised that nobody has made a spiritual followup to this game that adds more depth to both gamemodes because this game serves as a really good groundwork for the (literal) worldbuilding possibilities that this particular genre mashup can create. Maybe someone has already made something like that already and I just don't know about it though. Regardless, it's definitely a solid entry in the SNES library and worth giving a shot!


i was not expecting the 20th century fox jingle in the credits though, sasuga yuzo koshiro

It's almost surprising how many different genres of racing game you can find on the 360. This is the 2nd of the Moto Gp series to be released on the 360, and is an officially licensed product. Like a lot of these official licensed racers, it's not particularly forgiving on the beginner. I mean i'm sure moto racing is super challenging in real life, but I was basically falling off at every corner, and as a video game that is no fun! With that in mind, you can see this is definitely aimed at the more experienced and skilled players, and I'm sure fans of Moto Gp will get some enjoyment out of this. But it's a real kick in the face to new players when the training is extremely poorly executed and difficult to understand. Unless you have nostalgia for this year or moto gp, or love simulation racing games, this is probably one to avoid.