Zen
1999
This game is boring. sure it was groundbreaking and influential during the time, but idc about the legacy it sucks now.
The combat is terrible which, to be fair, doesn't really matter because it's a stealth game. The openness of the game seems cool on the surface, but in reality most parts of the maps just look the same which discourages exploration.
I read online that the higher difficulties are more fun and supposedly very different. Nah not really. The higher difficulties play pretty much like: let's check every room (which look the same) to find the extra values whilst I do these tedious additional objectives.
The most liked review for this game compares this to leonardo da vinci and michelangelo what the fuck are gamers man. its either low standards or rose-tinted nostalgia
The combat is terrible which, to be fair, doesn't really matter because it's a stealth game. The openness of the game seems cool on the surface, but in reality most parts of the maps just look the same which discourages exploration.
I read online that the higher difficulties are more fun and supposedly very different. Nah not really. The higher difficulties play pretty much like: let's check every room (which look the same) to find the extra values whilst I do these tedious additional objectives.
The most liked review for this game compares this to leonardo da vinci and michelangelo what the fuck are gamers man. its either low standards or rose-tinted nostalgia
2018
The game where you dodge, attack, dodge, attack, dodge, attack, then remember you have one other move you can do, then dodge and attack again.
Do definitely play this if simple two button dodging and attacking gameplay is extremely exciting and stimulating to you. Oh and the music and artstyle is nice.
Do definitely play this if simple two button dodging and attacking gameplay is extremely exciting and stimulating to you. Oh and the music and artstyle is nice.
2001
I played this because I want to play Gothic 2 (which is regarded as a great RPG) but I had to play this one first. People still hail the first as a great RPG so I wasn't too worried.
(+)
- The game has great pacing. There's no waypoints encouraging you to explore directions given by NPCs. This in combination with the fact that you can't kill virtually anyone because of how weak you are, gives off a great first impressions, because you have to genuinely think about where to go and think "okay what CAN I kill".
- Small handcrafted open world. You're actually rewarded for exploring random areas with items that can help you become less of a bitch to normal enemies.
- Likeable characters. There are three factions and they're all equally interesting with characters that always have something new to say.
(-)
- Okay, so I gave a 2.5, because everything I say applies to the first HALF of the game, the second half goes downhill and quests start to become fetch quests.
- The formula for the second half is "go to this guy to get something, ok before you can get this thing do this quest that requires you to go back and forth the map 5 times" x10. And by the second half, you've already explored everything the map has to offer. It gets boring FAST, and suddenly, something that was so exciting to explore in the first half has turned tedious.
- Useless skills: no use for some RPG stats at all, e.g. picklocking, lockpicking, sneak.
- Terrible combat (I didn't do a magic playthough, although the magic does seem more fun from what I've done). It's standing on a spot swinging a sword until your enemy is dead. I could handle this combat in the first half because of how great the setting was, but once it got stale, the combat turned painful.
- Although the AI is surprisingly great at times, when it's not it's downright terrible. Friendly AI will attack you for attacking the enemy.
- The plot is ehhh okay, definitely not as good as the actual characters or setting. Wish the factions were more fleshed out and although there are women in this game, you cannot communicate with any of them at all.
Overall, this game is like finding a diamond and getting really really really excited, so much so that you keep staring at the gem. But you stared at it for so long that you begin to see all the cracks, and suddenly you realise that the shit is rhinestone. Though nothings gonna take away the moment of bliss you had for the time you thought it was a diamond, but nothings gonna change that it's not. Let's just hope Gothic 2 improves in consistency.
TL;DR: really good first half, terrible TEDIOUS second half.
(+)
- The game has great pacing. There's no waypoints encouraging you to explore directions given by NPCs. This in combination with the fact that you can't kill virtually anyone because of how weak you are, gives off a great first impressions, because you have to genuinely think about where to go and think "okay what CAN I kill".
- Small handcrafted open world. You're actually rewarded for exploring random areas with items that can help you become less of a bitch to normal enemies.
- Likeable characters. There are three factions and they're all equally interesting with characters that always have something new to say.
(-)
- Okay, so I gave a 2.5, because everything I say applies to the first HALF of the game, the second half goes downhill and quests start to become fetch quests.
- The formula for the second half is "go to this guy to get something, ok before you can get this thing do this quest that requires you to go back and forth the map 5 times" x10. And by the second half, you've already explored everything the map has to offer. It gets boring FAST, and suddenly, something that was so exciting to explore in the first half has turned tedious.
- Useless skills: no use for some RPG stats at all, e.g. picklocking, lockpicking, sneak.
- Terrible combat (I didn't do a magic playthough, although the magic does seem more fun from what I've done). It's standing on a spot swinging a sword until your enemy is dead. I could handle this combat in the first half because of how great the setting was, but once it got stale, the combat turned painful.
- Although the AI is surprisingly great at times, when it's not it's downright terrible. Friendly AI will attack you for attacking the enemy.
- The plot is ehhh okay, definitely not as good as the actual characters or setting. Wish the factions were more fleshed out and although there are women in this game, you cannot communicate with any of them at all.
Overall, this game is like finding a diamond and getting really really really excited, so much so that you keep staring at the gem. But you stared at it for so long that you begin to see all the cracks, and suddenly you realise that the shit is rhinestone. Though nothings gonna take away the moment of bliss you had for the time you thought it was a diamond, but nothings gonna change that it's not. Let's just hope Gothic 2 improves in consistency.
TL;DR: really good first half, terrible TEDIOUS second half.
2019
I bought this game because it was well received by both veterans of the series and critics. After finishing the Leon's side of the game, I personally find the game overrated. As a sidenote, I consider myself a newcomer to the series.
(-)
- The game is not-so survival: I played this on 'Standard' difficulty and ammo/health items are in abundance removing all survival aspects. Even though I shot down every zombie I saw missing plenty of bullets, I never felt punished for being sloppy because I had a lot ammo left for all my guns. I'd argue that this is more of an action game, especially after you leave the police station.
- The game is not-so horror: of course, horror is subjective and what may not scare me may scare you. However, with an abundance of bullets and enemies barely being a threat, it was hard for me to feel scared or any horror despite playing in a dark room with loud headphone volume. Tyrant/Mr. X could've spiced up the horror, but again even they didn't feel like a threat as you can easily run past or if you get hit, there's so many health items available that it doesn't even matter. The game's great sound design is wasted if I know nothing will actually happen to me.
- The bosses are repetitive: it's either shoot until it dies or shoot the eyes that pop up. Every boss is like this.
- You're not really encouraged to explore and find out things on your own in this game. The game's map makes me feel like I'm cheating because it let's me know when I'm done with a room and also lets me know if I missed any items. It pretty much holds your hand and the game turns into a "okay this place is done checks map okay haven't been there let's just run there now". I'm not encouraged to find things on my own.
(+)
- Level design is great, especially in the police station where I love how everything is connected.
- You're not gonna get some amazing story, but despite that I liked the characters and the brief (very brief) relationship between Ada and Leon.
Overall: I just feel indifferent towards the entire experience of playing this game. I don't care enough to play Claire's part and frankly, I feel scammed because critics made this seem like a must play horror experience. It isn't.
(-)
- The game is not-so survival: I played this on 'Standard' difficulty and ammo/health items are in abundance removing all survival aspects. Even though I shot down every zombie I saw missing plenty of bullets, I never felt punished for being sloppy because I had a lot ammo left for all my guns. I'd argue that this is more of an action game, especially after you leave the police station.
- The game is not-so horror: of course, horror is subjective and what may not scare me may scare you. However, with an abundance of bullets and enemies barely being a threat, it was hard for me to feel scared or any horror despite playing in a dark room with loud headphone volume. Tyrant/Mr. X could've spiced up the horror, but again even they didn't feel like a threat as you can easily run past or if you get hit, there's so many health items available that it doesn't even matter. The game's great sound design is wasted if I know nothing will actually happen to me.
- The bosses are repetitive: it's either shoot until it dies or shoot the eyes that pop up. Every boss is like this.
- You're not really encouraged to explore and find out things on your own in this game. The game's map makes me feel like I'm cheating because it let's me know when I'm done with a room and also lets me know if I missed any items. It pretty much holds your hand and the game turns into a "okay this place is done checks map okay haven't been there let's just run there now". I'm not encouraged to find things on my own.
(+)
- Level design is great, especially in the police station where I love how everything is connected.
- You're not gonna get some amazing story, but despite that I liked the characters and the brief (very brief) relationship between Ada and Leon.
Overall: I just feel indifferent towards the entire experience of playing this game. I don't care enough to play Claire's part and frankly, I feel scammed because critics made this seem like a must play horror experience. It isn't.
(-)
- The writing in this game sounds like it was written by a year 7 student doing creative writing. Gamers who've never read a book should be impressed.
- There's a lot of filler dialogue too, e.g. constant flashbacks even though the thing that they're flashbacking to happened literally 2 minutes ago.
- The 'free time' portions of the games are pretty boring too as they don't flesh out the characters or have fun scenarios.
- I played this game dub and for the most part the voice acting was good except for the main character who sounds like the burger foot lettuce guy.
(+)
However if you can handle going through the dialogue and the constant filler, then the cases are pretty fun to investigate and the plot is still somewhat interesting. Though it must be said that I played this game with a friend and I don't know if I'd be able to handle the writing if I played this by myself.
- The writing in this game sounds like it was written by a year 7 student doing creative writing. Gamers who've never read a book should be impressed.
- There's a lot of filler dialogue too, e.g. constant flashbacks even though the thing that they're flashbacking to happened literally 2 minutes ago.
- The 'free time' portions of the games are pretty boring too as they don't flesh out the characters or have fun scenarios.
- I played this game dub and for the most part the voice acting was good except for the main character who sounds like the burger foot lettuce guy.
(+)
However if you can handle going through the dialogue and the constant filler, then the cases are pretty fun to investigate and the plot is still somewhat interesting. Though it must be said that I played this game with a friend and I don't know if I'd be able to handle the writing if I played this by myself.
2001
The presentation in this game is absolutely beautiful and I could imagine when first releasing this game visually/aesthetically would've been breathtaking for many. I definitely understand why people love this game.
For me, this game gets lost in its own sauce. The gameplay is bottlenecking the aesthetics affecting the overall experience. Things are designed to be long and tedious and killing enemies is just mashing the square button. I know that this is an 'artsy' game, and I can see it, it's absolutely stunning in its presentation but I feel like in order for a video game to be 'artsy' it should at least make use of it being a video game. In that I mean in most of the game I'm just watching my character go back and forth from places, not much is interactable. I feel like this this is a movie experience, not a video game experience. There's not enough to make me care, just enough to make me wish I cared.
In a nutshell: ICO: Lost in the Sauce Edition.
For me, this game gets lost in its own sauce. The gameplay is bottlenecking the aesthetics affecting the overall experience. Things are designed to be long and tedious and killing enemies is just mashing the square button. I know that this is an 'artsy' game, and I can see it, it's absolutely stunning in its presentation but I feel like in order for a video game to be 'artsy' it should at least make use of it being a video game. In that I mean in most of the game I'm just watching my character go back and forth from places, not much is interactable. I feel like this this is a movie experience, not a video game experience. There's not enough to make me care, just enough to make me wish I cared.
In a nutshell: ICO: Lost in the Sauce Edition.