ashbolt
2023
If you play videogames with nothing but your eyes and ears you'll probably really like Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. If not, you'll probably find yourself amused for first half of the game.
There's this running joke with my industry friends about forcing a handful of artists to make a game and being given the best-looking walking sim you've ever seen. It's the most boring piece of shit ever, but damn, does it look good.
This is what BRC feels like. A really nice art demo. Sure, it has gameplay, and the writing is halfway decent, but it's all very shallow.
Before being a game BRC is first a tribute to Dreamcast era titles. It bleeds inspiration from Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, and most evidently, Jet Set Radio. This adds to a lot of the charm of the game, be it the modern takes on JSR's style of music, the wacky character designs, and lack of facial animations. You feel the dev's love for this era, assuming you're at least somewhat acquainted.
Though, it feels like so much time was put into paying homage to Sega's last console that they forgot to make a game. The core gameplay is skating around town tagging walls and running trick combos. Very JSR. And while the graffiti system is pretty cool, allowing you to give motion inputs for each tag, the actual trick/combo system is incredibly shallow. 3 face buttons are tied to their own trick, and that trick only changes when you're jumping or time it with the boost button. There's some depth. But when it comes down to it, and you're facing off for score (and once you get told your multiplier goes up by leaning into rails), the meta is to grind around the map and mash every face button. Say I've been jaded from Skate 3, but it gets old fast, and there really isn't any kind of combo exploration.
Same goes for the different equipment. The skateboard operates the same as the inlines which operate the same as the BMX. The game feels no different on either and which you use is purely up to preference. You'd expect some areas to be accessible only by using one of the types or something, but there isn't. They're just there to give some illusion of variety. While I understand this is an indie game and only so much can be done, it shouldn't be much to expect some kind of ride-specific interaction. Though, they do toy with the idea of characters offering some form of special interaction, but never actually go through with it, only using it to tell you that you can swap between Writers.
The "combat" is equally shallow, offering even less variety, telling you to just mash one button 2-7 times. It's aggravatingly boring, making every time you gain heat an annoying occurrence. Despite that, the enemy variety is pretty good, and despite the lacking combat, the boss fights are pretty fun. The combat is serviceable in each boss setting, but in the open world it feels very out of place and just an afterthought. This is probably due to the fact the bosses require you trick and attack, while regular combat doesn't really allow you to use the trick system in tandem. Had BRC let you use tricks as attacks or let you seamlessly use both in standard combat, maybe it'd be more enjoyable. It doesn't, though, simply breaking the flow of the game.
The story itself is fine for a while. The setting, despite lack of background, is fun and the overall premise is interesting. Somewhere in the midpoint the game pulls out a series of twists that make the story far less interesting than its original premise, and the foreshadowing for the reveal is so heavy handed you kind of figure it out way before the game tells you. Lot of details are given that hold no real bearing on the story / are just forgotten about (like Felix's mask), and character motives get hard to fully understand. Without spoiling anything, had this game kept its initial premise and kept the roles each character was given as they were, I think the overall narrative would have been much more interesting. The twist exists to try and give the game something to say, and it feels so forced that it doesn't really achieve anything.
BRC is probably close enough to JSR that it achieves what it wants to, which is to be a JSR successor, so if that's really what you care about, you'll probably have a fine time. Otherwise, it's a very room temperature title hidden behind a really pristine coat of paint.
There's this running joke with my industry friends about forcing a handful of artists to make a game and being given the best-looking walking sim you've ever seen. It's the most boring piece of shit ever, but damn, does it look good.
This is what BRC feels like. A really nice art demo. Sure, it has gameplay, and the writing is halfway decent, but it's all very shallow.
Before being a game BRC is first a tribute to Dreamcast era titles. It bleeds inspiration from Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, and most evidently, Jet Set Radio. This adds to a lot of the charm of the game, be it the modern takes on JSR's style of music, the wacky character designs, and lack of facial animations. You feel the dev's love for this era, assuming you're at least somewhat acquainted.
Though, it feels like so much time was put into paying homage to Sega's last console that they forgot to make a game. The core gameplay is skating around town tagging walls and running trick combos. Very JSR. And while the graffiti system is pretty cool, allowing you to give motion inputs for each tag, the actual trick/combo system is incredibly shallow. 3 face buttons are tied to their own trick, and that trick only changes when you're jumping or time it with the boost button. There's some depth. But when it comes down to it, and you're facing off for score (and once you get told your multiplier goes up by leaning into rails), the meta is to grind around the map and mash every face button. Say I've been jaded from Skate 3, but it gets old fast, and there really isn't any kind of combo exploration.
Same goes for the different equipment. The skateboard operates the same as the inlines which operate the same as the BMX. The game feels no different on either and which you use is purely up to preference. You'd expect some areas to be accessible only by using one of the types or something, but there isn't. They're just there to give some illusion of variety. While I understand this is an indie game and only so much can be done, it shouldn't be much to expect some kind of ride-specific interaction. Though, they do toy with the idea of characters offering some form of special interaction, but never actually go through with it, only using it to tell you that you can swap between Writers.
The "combat" is equally shallow, offering even less variety, telling you to just mash one button 2-7 times. It's aggravatingly boring, making every time you gain heat an annoying occurrence. Despite that, the enemy variety is pretty good, and despite the lacking combat, the boss fights are pretty fun. The combat is serviceable in each boss setting, but in the open world it feels very out of place and just an afterthought. This is probably due to the fact the bosses require you trick and attack, while regular combat doesn't really allow you to use the trick system in tandem. Had BRC let you use tricks as attacks or let you seamlessly use both in standard combat, maybe it'd be more enjoyable. It doesn't, though, simply breaking the flow of the game.
The story itself is fine for a while. The setting, despite lack of background, is fun and the overall premise is interesting. Somewhere in the midpoint the game pulls out a series of twists that make the story far less interesting than its original premise, and the foreshadowing for the reveal is so heavy handed you kind of figure it out way before the game tells you. Lot of details are given that hold no real bearing on the story / are just forgotten about (like Felix's mask), and character motives get hard to fully understand. Without spoiling anything, had this game kept its initial premise and kept the roles each character was given as they were, I think the overall narrative would have been much more interesting. The twist exists to try and give the game something to say, and it feels so forced that it doesn't really achieve anything.
BRC is probably close enough to JSR that it achieves what it wants to, which is to be a JSR successor, so if that's really what you care about, you'll probably have a fine time. Otherwise, it's a very room temperature title hidden behind a really pristine coat of paint.
2016
Furi is a game that is consistently a point of contention between me and my designer friends. I don't believe there is another game where everyone I know feels equally mixed about it. I have not played this game since 2021, and despite not liking it that much I have continued to think about this game since.
On one hand, Furi is a strikingly cool character-action boss-rush game. On the other, it is a half-baked bullet-hell with a narrative that wants to expand beyond the confines of its game. Quite literally, half of this game is pretty good, and the other half is pretty bad. It's almost impressive how balanced it is.
So, the good: Furi looks fantastic. The aesthetic is awesome, the music is fantastic (Toxic Avenger AND Carpenter Brut AND Waveshaper? Sign me the fuck up!), and the melee combat is detailed and polished. From the outside, if you look at the visuals, the close combat and the music, like I did before I got into the title, you'd think it's contender for best indie title ever made. Each character is teeming with personality, the narrative background is captivating, and each boss feels equally unique. So, great! Where do I sign up?
Well, you'd have to get past the other half of the game first. Each boss (save The Edge) opens in a bullet-hell segment that is ultimately very boring and undercooked. It feels a lot like an afterthought, just put into the game to give it draw, to say "Look! We're two things at once!" It's unremarkable. Each boss that leans heavy into this aspect is boring (The Song) and frustrating (The Line & The Star). Though, when you get through that, the close-combat sections are infectiously fun. It's fluid, refined, responsive. It really feels like you're a space samurai. The camera work for it is equally cool, and with the flashy visuals it's insanely fun to play with. After that, the loop repeats and you're back to swapping between playing a bullet-hell and an action title. The two modes are too antithetical to each other to really flow well between each other. Had this game focused on either or, it could have been much cooler, or at the very least more divisive.
The story is the other gripe I commonly hear echoed with this game. Furi very clearly wants to have this deep and expansive narrative, giving massive lore dumps between boss fights as you traverse these very nice looking environments. A lot of the monologues are context to each boss, who they are to you, what you are to them, but it's all done so vaguely you don't really get a sense for what the world actually is. The game speaks of all these past altercations, wars, and worlds but never gets to show us outside of that or even what those events were. No lore books, descriptions, or even an outside wiki to give us more insight into what anything is. It's beyond interesting and we just have to guess, which is really unfortunate.
What's more unfortunate is that these environments you traverse. They're very nicely crafted, and look equally distinct, but they're just that. A single path from A to B so you can get this exposition dump. Furi is so focused on just being a boss rush that when it isn't boss rushing you it forgets about the narrative it wants to tell (that it is CURRENTLY TELLING YOU). These in-between zones could have been more open, and through that let us find bits of the lore to complete this story that it wants to tell, but they don't. There was very much an opportunity here to expand and it was overlooked, seemingly to not retract from the boss rushing. Furi does all of this monologuing to make you care about the boss you're about to throw down on, but with how little you're given it's hard to care at all. The narrative, much like the bullet-hell, is an afterthought tossed in to check a box. I'd like this game more if it didn't have any at all, because then I wouldn't be met with the unsatisfying nothingness that is the captivating concept of a world they've made. Cool ideas are planted but nothing grows from that. The story is really just a bunch of cool ideas.
What Furi needs is a sequel. The world has so much setup to it and no give. There is clearly a story that wants to be told, there is so much to it, but there's nothing outside what you're told. The melee combat is great, but the overall gameplay is detracted by the bullet-hell mode. Furi needs a title that will lean into its positives, having strong melee combat, cool visuals, and good music while having a structure that lets its narrative grow.
Furi had a lot of potential. It does a lot right. It also does a lot wrong. It's aggravating. I want to like this game, but it's ultimately unsatisfying. It is the perfect 5/10. Perfectly balancing it's bad with good. The perfectly mixed game. Is it worth your time? Maybe. You will find something to like, but you won't be able to like all of it.
On one hand, Furi is a strikingly cool character-action boss-rush game. On the other, it is a half-baked bullet-hell with a narrative that wants to expand beyond the confines of its game. Quite literally, half of this game is pretty good, and the other half is pretty bad. It's almost impressive how balanced it is.
So, the good: Furi looks fantastic. The aesthetic is awesome, the music is fantastic (Toxic Avenger AND Carpenter Brut AND Waveshaper? Sign me the fuck up!), and the melee combat is detailed and polished. From the outside, if you look at the visuals, the close combat and the music, like I did before I got into the title, you'd think it's contender for best indie title ever made. Each character is teeming with personality, the narrative background is captivating, and each boss feels equally unique. So, great! Where do I sign up?
Well, you'd have to get past the other half of the game first. Each boss (save The Edge) opens in a bullet-hell segment that is ultimately very boring and undercooked. It feels a lot like an afterthought, just put into the game to give it draw, to say "Look! We're two things at once!" It's unremarkable. Each boss that leans heavy into this aspect is boring (The Song) and frustrating (The Line & The Star). Though, when you get through that, the close-combat sections are infectiously fun. It's fluid, refined, responsive. It really feels like you're a space samurai. The camera work for it is equally cool, and with the flashy visuals it's insanely fun to play with. After that, the loop repeats and you're back to swapping between playing a bullet-hell and an action title. The two modes are too antithetical to each other to really flow well between each other. Had this game focused on either or, it could have been much cooler, or at the very least more divisive.
The story is the other gripe I commonly hear echoed with this game. Furi very clearly wants to have this deep and expansive narrative, giving massive lore dumps between boss fights as you traverse these very nice looking environments. A lot of the monologues are context to each boss, who they are to you, what you are to them, but it's all done so vaguely you don't really get a sense for what the world actually is. The game speaks of all these past altercations, wars, and worlds but never gets to show us outside of that or even what those events were. No lore books, descriptions, or even an outside wiki to give us more insight into what anything is. It's beyond interesting and we just have to guess, which is really unfortunate.
What's more unfortunate is that these environments you traverse. They're very nicely crafted, and look equally distinct, but they're just that. A single path from A to B so you can get this exposition dump. Furi is so focused on just being a boss rush that when it isn't boss rushing you it forgets about the narrative it wants to tell (that it is CURRENTLY TELLING YOU). These in-between zones could have been more open, and through that let us find bits of the lore to complete this story that it wants to tell, but they don't. There was very much an opportunity here to expand and it was overlooked, seemingly to not retract from the boss rushing. Furi does all of this monologuing to make you care about the boss you're about to throw down on, but with how little you're given it's hard to care at all. The narrative, much like the bullet-hell, is an afterthought tossed in to check a box. I'd like this game more if it didn't have any at all, because then I wouldn't be met with the unsatisfying nothingness that is the captivating concept of a world they've made. Cool ideas are planted but nothing grows from that. The story is really just a bunch of cool ideas.
What Furi needs is a sequel. The world has so much setup to it and no give. There is clearly a story that wants to be told, there is so much to it, but there's nothing outside what you're told. The melee combat is great, but the overall gameplay is detracted by the bullet-hell mode. Furi needs a title that will lean into its positives, having strong melee combat, cool visuals, and good music while having a structure that lets its narrative grow.
Furi had a lot of potential. It does a lot right. It also does a lot wrong. It's aggravating. I want to like this game, but it's ultimately unsatisfying. It is the perfect 5/10. Perfectly balancing it's bad with good. The perfectly mixed game. Is it worth your time? Maybe. You will find something to like, but you won't be able to like all of it.
2024
Helldivers 2 is one of those hidden-gem bargain-bin type games you buy on a whim and enjoy it thoroughly for the first 30 some hours. It's one of those games that hits every box for that game you have been dying to play but haven't found.
Helldivers 2 is one of those games that has insane potential.
But that's all Helldivers 2 really is. Potential. Despite how much fun I had when it released, I struggle now to bother opening the game. This mostly has to do with this game's overall lack of content.
Well, ok, there is a lot of content in this game, with dozens of planets with unique environments and a nice variety of missions and loadouts, but that variety only goes so far. A lot of the joy I got from this game initially was from the mystery of it all, be it discovering new enemy types or using a new loadout. But after a while, that novelty wears off. You find your favorite gun and strategem loadout and run with it every match. Each enemy starts to feel very plain and predictable, with the ramping difficulty just being "you die in one hit."
"But they're adding new content," you say. "They keep adding stuff!" This is true, however this feed of content comes through an insatiably slow drip feed, a consequence of the live service model. The developers clearly had a lot of this content ready by launch and deliberately chose to withhold it. On one hand, I find this commendable; It's the perfect way of keeping up the novelty of "newness" I mentioned earlier, and continues to give players shit to experiment with. Yet, that rollout is painfully slow. Moreso that each new rollout is seemingly mediocre, especially with the Patriot, the first and last big drop the game made. The wait between each drop and it's contents is just not enough to warrant that wait.
While the core combat of this game is very solid, the enemies lack a good amount of variety. Sure, there is variety, but each enemy type boils down to 3 types of enemies + a boss, with each subtype of enemy just varying in size and power. It all feels super samey after a while and thus becomes hard to be completely engaging. Honestly, if this game needs more of anything it's enemy variety. There is a fantastic chunk of player weaponry and supports, that I could really care less about the latest battlepass because I've already crafted my perfect loadout. The more enemies that get added, the more fun the game gets. Most of this game is just destroying waves of bugs and machines, and it's very fun, so more variety on the enemy side would do wonders for replayability.
Really, where Helldivers 2 falls flat is just in variety. It's the one thing it lacks. Despite how engaging the combat is and the enemy design may be, running the same missions that require a lot of slow walking against the same 3 enemies gets old.
This game needs vehicles or something, walking from point to point is insanely boring on lower difficulties and almost frustrating on higher difficulties. The player does not move fast enough or have anywhere near enough stamina to warrant running across a massive map. Sure, from a design perspective you look at this and this and think, "Well, it gives the player a choice to get into combat," which is a fair point, however each main objective is already packed with combat, and most of the time the players goal isn't to kill, but to go to a point. If any team is really going for the objective, they're better off just running past the enemies and dealing with them later. It's a bit antithetical. The reward for destroying waves (outside of outposts/hives) is simply not enough to warrant spending your ammo on enemies between points.
Ok, so that's what I dislike about Helldivers 2. So what is there to like? A lot, actually.
The main draw I noticed from a lot of people is how this game treats live service. Not in a "permeant battle pass" way or "lacking predatory microtransactions" way, but in a "you actively matter" way. Sure, the other 2 are nice bonuses, but this games main appeal is in its narrative. Unlike most other live service slopfests like Destiny 2, the story progresses as you play. As in, each battle you fight counts towards said planets liberation and ultimately helps with the war. It's sick! Not often does a game let you feel this involved with what's happening. When you play, you actively contribute, and it's a pretty good motivator for wanting to keep playing. At the same time, that's all it is. Even when the playerbase completely pushed back the Automatons, they got no real reward in return, just locking themselves out of that gamemode until the devs decided to issue a new order. It's just a novelty. It's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing else outside of that. No real narrative is happening, no real reward for clearing each planet. Just a "Yeah guys! We did it!" Regardless, this way of writing the story has formed an insane community and brought people together in ways every GaS wishes it could.
The worldbuilding is great. Super Earth is comically super fascist and insanely funny to listen to. It's parody so strong it's openly comedic while still being decently critical. Very rare can a game center its world around such an unserious idea without diminishing its tone. Sure, it's very Starship Troopers with the stylization of Halo, but it's good. It's hard to get bored of, each NPC and lorebit has its own share of obscenity to it and it never stops getting boring, the writers are constantly coming up with insane ideas in each order log that continues to be a decent parody. It's fun to roll with, and that makes getting into the mindset that much better, and thus has created such a strong community because they can all get behind the absurdity of it all.
The combat itself is very smooth. Guns feel good, movement is pretty solid, and shooting a flamethrower has never been cooler. Helldivers absolutely nails its power fantasy. Overall, the whole game is a feat in user experience. Explosions are rightfully awesome, ripping through hoards is sick, and dropping through a Bile Titan with a respawn pod is one of the coolest things ever. Despite lacking camera movement, Helldivers 2 is beyond cinematic and just watching the game unfold is a joy. This game wants you to feel awesome, and you fucking will. The core gameplay is incredibly refined.
Though, this polished core has one fault. Helldivers 2 begs you to play with others. Playing solo is either insanely boring or near impossible. The difficulty doesn't scale with your squad. Either you find 3 other friends to get into this game with, or you play with incompetent randoms. If you know what you're doing, you can make 2 people work between 6-7, and with 3 you can probably get through 8-9, but the best experience is with the full 4, and the game makes sure you know that, giving you more respawns per player with the difficulty staying nearly the same, along with each person only being allowed 1 modifier buff. Playing solo is just not an option, and any game like this should allow for its core game mode to be both feasible and fun for solo players.
Overall, Helldivers 2 is very fun, at least for a while. Despite being very polished it has a few stand out imperfections that do impact my overall enjoyment. There needs to be more variety, more unique interactions. Traversal needs to be more enjoyable, combat needs to have a better motivator outside of "survive," and solo play needs to be manageable. If you can get past that, there is a very good 7/10 to be had with your friends.
Helldivers 2 has a lot of potential at its core, it just needs more, and that more needs to be delivered faster than it currently is.
Helldivers 2 is one of those games that has insane potential.
But that's all Helldivers 2 really is. Potential. Despite how much fun I had when it released, I struggle now to bother opening the game. This mostly has to do with this game's overall lack of content.
Well, ok, there is a lot of content in this game, with dozens of planets with unique environments and a nice variety of missions and loadouts, but that variety only goes so far. A lot of the joy I got from this game initially was from the mystery of it all, be it discovering new enemy types or using a new loadout. But after a while, that novelty wears off. You find your favorite gun and strategem loadout and run with it every match. Each enemy starts to feel very plain and predictable, with the ramping difficulty just being "you die in one hit."
"But they're adding new content," you say. "They keep adding stuff!" This is true, however this feed of content comes through an insatiably slow drip feed, a consequence of the live service model. The developers clearly had a lot of this content ready by launch and deliberately chose to withhold it. On one hand, I find this commendable; It's the perfect way of keeping up the novelty of "newness" I mentioned earlier, and continues to give players shit to experiment with. Yet, that rollout is painfully slow. Moreso that each new rollout is seemingly mediocre, especially with the Patriot, the first and last big drop the game made. The wait between each drop and it's contents is just not enough to warrant that wait.
While the core combat of this game is very solid, the enemies lack a good amount of variety. Sure, there is variety, but each enemy type boils down to 3 types of enemies + a boss, with each subtype of enemy just varying in size and power. It all feels super samey after a while and thus becomes hard to be completely engaging. Honestly, if this game needs more of anything it's enemy variety. There is a fantastic chunk of player weaponry and supports, that I could really care less about the latest battlepass because I've already crafted my perfect loadout. The more enemies that get added, the more fun the game gets. Most of this game is just destroying waves of bugs and machines, and it's very fun, so more variety on the enemy side would do wonders for replayability.
Really, where Helldivers 2 falls flat is just in variety. It's the one thing it lacks. Despite how engaging the combat is and the enemy design may be, running the same missions that require a lot of slow walking against the same 3 enemies gets old.
This game needs vehicles or something, walking from point to point is insanely boring on lower difficulties and almost frustrating on higher difficulties. The player does not move fast enough or have anywhere near enough stamina to warrant running across a massive map. Sure, from a design perspective you look at this and this and think, "Well, it gives the player a choice to get into combat," which is a fair point, however each main objective is already packed with combat, and most of the time the players goal isn't to kill, but to go to a point. If any team is really going for the objective, they're better off just running past the enemies and dealing with them later. It's a bit antithetical. The reward for destroying waves (outside of outposts/hives) is simply not enough to warrant spending your ammo on enemies between points.
Ok, so that's what I dislike about Helldivers 2. So what is there to like? A lot, actually.
The main draw I noticed from a lot of people is how this game treats live service. Not in a "permeant battle pass" way or "lacking predatory microtransactions" way, but in a "you actively matter" way. Sure, the other 2 are nice bonuses, but this games main appeal is in its narrative. Unlike most other live service slopfests like Destiny 2, the story progresses as you play. As in, each battle you fight counts towards said planets liberation and ultimately helps with the war. It's sick! Not often does a game let you feel this involved with what's happening. When you play, you actively contribute, and it's a pretty good motivator for wanting to keep playing. At the same time, that's all it is. Even when the playerbase completely pushed back the Automatons, they got no real reward in return, just locking themselves out of that gamemode until the devs decided to issue a new order. It's just a novelty. It's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing else outside of that. No real narrative is happening, no real reward for clearing each planet. Just a "Yeah guys! We did it!" Regardless, this way of writing the story has formed an insane community and brought people together in ways every GaS wishes it could.
The worldbuilding is great. Super Earth is comically super fascist and insanely funny to listen to. It's parody so strong it's openly comedic while still being decently critical. Very rare can a game center its world around such an unserious idea without diminishing its tone. Sure, it's very Starship Troopers with the stylization of Halo, but it's good. It's hard to get bored of, each NPC and lorebit has its own share of obscenity to it and it never stops getting boring, the writers are constantly coming up with insane ideas in each order log that continues to be a decent parody. It's fun to roll with, and that makes getting into the mindset that much better, and thus has created such a strong community because they can all get behind the absurdity of it all.
The combat itself is very smooth. Guns feel good, movement is pretty solid, and shooting a flamethrower has never been cooler. Helldivers absolutely nails its power fantasy. Overall, the whole game is a feat in user experience. Explosions are rightfully awesome, ripping through hoards is sick, and dropping through a Bile Titan with a respawn pod is one of the coolest things ever. Despite lacking camera movement, Helldivers 2 is beyond cinematic and just watching the game unfold is a joy. This game wants you to feel awesome, and you fucking will. The core gameplay is incredibly refined.
Though, this polished core has one fault. Helldivers 2 begs you to play with others. Playing solo is either insanely boring or near impossible. The difficulty doesn't scale with your squad. Either you find 3 other friends to get into this game with, or you play with incompetent randoms. If you know what you're doing, you can make 2 people work between 6-7, and with 3 you can probably get through 8-9, but the best experience is with the full 4, and the game makes sure you know that, giving you more respawns per player with the difficulty staying nearly the same, along with each person only being allowed 1 modifier buff. Playing solo is just not an option, and any game like this should allow for its core game mode to be both feasible and fun for solo players.
Overall, Helldivers 2 is very fun, at least for a while. Despite being very polished it has a few stand out imperfections that do impact my overall enjoyment. There needs to be more variety, more unique interactions. Traversal needs to be more enjoyable, combat needs to have a better motivator outside of "survive," and solo play needs to be manageable. If you can get past that, there is a very good 7/10 to be had with your friends.
Helldivers 2 has a lot of potential at its core, it just needs more, and that more needs to be delivered faster than it currently is.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon should not exist. It's too perfect.
A series long forgotten by the masses and apart of a genre untouched for decades, it only makes sense that after Fromsoftware's third and biggest slam dunk in a row, Elden Ring, they would go off and make another Armored Core title.
If there is one thing that remains consistent with my favorite games, its giant robots. Metal Gear, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Titanfall, are all games that feature such. The issue, however, is that these giant robots are simply set pieces (sans Titanfall). Fires of Rubicon defies this, by letting you be the giant fucking robot, with total customization to boot.
Everything about this game bleeds pure action. Unlike the Souls genre, Armored Core does not ask you to sit and wait to I-Frame out of every move. Instead, you are pressing 6 buttons every frame, frantically dodging and weaving between intense storms of bullets and rockets, while returning your own fire, all at the same time. It's beyond exhilarating. In no other game would I have fathomed having my own personally customized gundam, fit with custom decals and it's own name. The number of builds are truly limitless and you can approach any boss any way you like, assuming you're good enough.
What makes Armored Core fun is that it is brutally hard. Not exactly soulsbourne hard, but it's tough. It's a bullethell with hitscan sized rounds, moving at a million miles an hour. It's a type of hard I haven't experienced in so long. I've become so used to Fromsofts formulaic "wait for it" difficulty that rides on making one perfectly timed hit that the idea of telling me to throw anything and everything at my enemy seems foreign. Boss's come at you with equally hectic attacks, from barrages of missiles to tracking laser drones to bullshit shielding. Losing is still fun, you always feel like you're engaging with the game, rather than waiting to get back to the point where you were.
So the combat is good. That's probably what most of you care about. If it is, stop now and go play it, no more words can describe how fun it is. It simply has to be experienced. But, there is more to AC6.
AC6 brings with it a fantastic and visually stunning story. Words do not express how good Rubicon-3 looks, and how equally cool it is to see your AC in all these exotic landscaping shots.
The narrative is branching, and it's good. The characters do everything the game needs you them to do, being very likeable or openly infuriating. Except, every character is equally likeable and dislikeable. It all works into this narrative about picking sides. As an independent mercenary, you end up seeing every side of the war, and are given the choice to pick based off your own true feelings. It's as engaging as it should be. You truly do start to feel like Raven, and the story feels like your own, rather than the same story everyone else witnessed.
However, this is where the one pain point comes from. AC6 has chosen to adapt NieR: Replicants way of storytelling, causing you to play through the campaign 3 times to see every ending. Though, it isn't as bad as it sounds. By the end of your first run, you barely get any time to play with your kitted out AC, and I found myself immediately jumping into NG+ to just play more. What's more exciting, is that with NG+ (and NG++) comes more content. New weapons, armor, missions, and a new ending become available to you in each run, leaving the experience to be refreshing. Despite replaying the same 20 some missions, they never get stale. The game is just that fun.
Never before have I played a game with such a comprehensive mecha system, and never before have I seen a non-human character creator this customizable. The game is outright fun, and the story is surprisingly meaningful. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon might be the ultimate videogame, and I highly recommend you play it if you're even on the fence.
Fromsoftware yet again proves that only they can fly high enough.
A series long forgotten by the masses and apart of a genre untouched for decades, it only makes sense that after Fromsoftware's third and biggest slam dunk in a row, Elden Ring, they would go off and make another Armored Core title.
If there is one thing that remains consistent with my favorite games, its giant robots. Metal Gear, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Titanfall, are all games that feature such. The issue, however, is that these giant robots are simply set pieces (sans Titanfall). Fires of Rubicon defies this, by letting you be the giant fucking robot, with total customization to boot.
Everything about this game bleeds pure action. Unlike the Souls genre, Armored Core does not ask you to sit and wait to I-Frame out of every move. Instead, you are pressing 6 buttons every frame, frantically dodging and weaving between intense storms of bullets and rockets, while returning your own fire, all at the same time. It's beyond exhilarating. In no other game would I have fathomed having my own personally customized gundam, fit with custom decals and it's own name. The number of builds are truly limitless and you can approach any boss any way you like, assuming you're good enough.
What makes Armored Core fun is that it is brutally hard. Not exactly soulsbourne hard, but it's tough. It's a bullethell with hitscan sized rounds, moving at a million miles an hour. It's a type of hard I haven't experienced in so long. I've become so used to Fromsofts formulaic "wait for it" difficulty that rides on making one perfectly timed hit that the idea of telling me to throw anything and everything at my enemy seems foreign. Boss's come at you with equally hectic attacks, from barrages of missiles to tracking laser drones to bullshit shielding. Losing is still fun, you always feel like you're engaging with the game, rather than waiting to get back to the point where you were.
So the combat is good. That's probably what most of you care about. If it is, stop now and go play it, no more words can describe how fun it is. It simply has to be experienced. But, there is more to AC6.
AC6 brings with it a fantastic and visually stunning story. Words do not express how good Rubicon-3 looks, and how equally cool it is to see your AC in all these exotic landscaping shots.
The narrative is branching, and it's good. The characters do everything the game needs you them to do, being very likeable or openly infuriating. Except, every character is equally likeable and dislikeable. It all works into this narrative about picking sides. As an independent mercenary, you end up seeing every side of the war, and are given the choice to pick based off your own true feelings. It's as engaging as it should be. You truly do start to feel like Raven, and the story feels like your own, rather than the same story everyone else witnessed.
However, this is where the one pain point comes from. AC6 has chosen to adapt NieR: Replicants way of storytelling, causing you to play through the campaign 3 times to see every ending. Though, it isn't as bad as it sounds. By the end of your first run, you barely get any time to play with your kitted out AC, and I found myself immediately jumping into NG+ to just play more. What's more exciting, is that with NG+ (and NG++) comes more content. New weapons, armor, missions, and a new ending become available to you in each run, leaving the experience to be refreshing. Despite replaying the same 20 some missions, they never get stale. The game is just that fun.
Never before have I played a game with such a comprehensive mecha system, and never before have I seen a non-human character creator this customizable. The game is outright fun, and the story is surprisingly meaningful. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon might be the ultimate videogame, and I highly recommend you play it if you're even on the fence.
Fromsoftware yet again proves that only they can fly high enough.
The praise this game gets confuses me. Breath of the Wild itself was nothing particularly earthshattering, and this game is just Breath of the Wild again. The problem is that what made BOTW novel is not anymore. We've seen this type of expansive open world before. It's not impressive anymore.
Of course, more land was added, but what was added is half as much of what was worth exploring in BOTW. The skylands mostly exist for dungeons and chests, nothing more or less. There isn't enough landmass up there aside from the tutorial zone for it to feel like a whole new second map. The underground zone too is stagnant, introducing an annoying gimmick with an intense difficulty spike that makes exploring it a pain.
I understand that the new building system is technically impressive. I'm a game designer, I see this. However, just because something is impressive does not make it good. The fusing system itself does allow for a bunch of interesting puzzles, but it's the same gimmick reused for every single puzzle. Eventually, this mechanic too has its novelty wear off, and unless you have a degree in engineering or loved Banjo Kazooie Nuts 'n' Bolts too much, you won't be getting a lot out of it. Yes, it is impressive what it can do and that it functions at all, and the possibilities available to players is commendable. It is a feat in design that a lot of these puzzles have more than one solution. Yet the game does not force you to create anything super outside the box. While I said most puzzles have more than one solution, it is made very clear that there is 1 "right" way and every other solution is a player either a: intentionally breaking the game or b: not understanding the signs. Nowhere are you challenged to make an army of inter-continental strike drones. You can, and those who know how will, but this will never cross the mind of the average player. Had this game pushed the bounds of what this system could do perhaps I could find more praise for it. But they don't, it exists as simply a gimmick to justify the long development time and to show off a shiny new tech thing.
With this games announcement we were promised a much heavier story focus. We got slightly more story than BOTW. What we got was quite decent honestly, but it was the same egghunt from before to find all these things. This time, you just couldn't skip the intro story segment. What they gave us simply didn't carry the weight it should.
The intense amount of continuity errors are annoying too. The game hints to why this may be, but it simply does not make sense. This game likes the idea of being a direct sequel while also being too caught up in trying to rewrite it's own history. Where are the Divine Beasts? Where are the Guardians? Where is the fucking Shrine of Resurrection? Things vital to BOTW have vanished without a trace and the game refuses to explain itself. It should have, anyone who played BOTW would have noticed all of this immediately. There needs to be a reason for the sudden disappearance, and I sure would have liked to see it totally explained than just hoping I will take "time travel shenanigans" as an answer.
Tears of the Kingdom looks at what Breath of the Wild did well and misunderstands why it did well. The open world was good because it was so vast and nothing like any game had had before. Now, we have the same open world with minor variance, causing less desire to explore, and the marvel of such a vast world is now lost since it was done before. Of course, following up something like BOTW would prove to be a monolithic task regardless. Instead of improving the things BOTW did wrong, like the dungeons and puzzles, to try and succeed it's predecessor, it simply creates new things that solve nothing. Tears of the Kingdom prays its rehashed world with new zones will be enough to entice the player for the same hundreds of hours we all dumped into BOTW.
This game will forever be shadowed by it's predecessor. Not because the task was too big, but because they did not focus on the right things. Perhaps if Breath of the Wild never released, this game would be far better. Instead, it is a expansion in disguise as a $70 videogame. Shameless.
Just like Polyphia, just because something is hard to do does not immediately justify a perfect score. In a vacuum, the new system is very good, but the game simply does not allow for it to be as good as it can be, and in an attempt to perfect this feat in physics engineering and simulation, Nintendo seemingly forgot about the other aspects that make a Zelda game a Zelda game.
Of course, more land was added, but what was added is half as much of what was worth exploring in BOTW. The skylands mostly exist for dungeons and chests, nothing more or less. There isn't enough landmass up there aside from the tutorial zone for it to feel like a whole new second map. The underground zone too is stagnant, introducing an annoying gimmick with an intense difficulty spike that makes exploring it a pain.
I understand that the new building system is technically impressive. I'm a game designer, I see this. However, just because something is impressive does not make it good. The fusing system itself does allow for a bunch of interesting puzzles, but it's the same gimmick reused for every single puzzle. Eventually, this mechanic too has its novelty wear off, and unless you have a degree in engineering or loved Banjo Kazooie Nuts 'n' Bolts too much, you won't be getting a lot out of it. Yes, it is impressive what it can do and that it functions at all, and the possibilities available to players is commendable. It is a feat in design that a lot of these puzzles have more than one solution. Yet the game does not force you to create anything super outside the box. While I said most puzzles have more than one solution, it is made very clear that there is 1 "right" way and every other solution is a player either a: intentionally breaking the game or b: not understanding the signs. Nowhere are you challenged to make an army of inter-continental strike drones. You can, and those who know how will, but this will never cross the mind of the average player. Had this game pushed the bounds of what this system could do perhaps I could find more praise for it. But they don't, it exists as simply a gimmick to justify the long development time and to show off a shiny new tech thing.
With this games announcement we were promised a much heavier story focus. We got slightly more story than BOTW. What we got was quite decent honestly, but it was the same egghunt from before to find all these things. This time, you just couldn't skip the intro story segment. What they gave us simply didn't carry the weight it should.
The intense amount of continuity errors are annoying too. The game hints to why this may be, but it simply does not make sense. This game likes the idea of being a direct sequel while also being too caught up in trying to rewrite it's own history. Where are the Divine Beasts? Where are the Guardians? Where is the fucking Shrine of Resurrection? Things vital to BOTW have vanished without a trace and the game refuses to explain itself. It should have, anyone who played BOTW would have noticed all of this immediately. There needs to be a reason for the sudden disappearance, and I sure would have liked to see it totally explained than just hoping I will take "time travel shenanigans" as an answer.
Tears of the Kingdom looks at what Breath of the Wild did well and misunderstands why it did well. The open world was good because it was so vast and nothing like any game had had before. Now, we have the same open world with minor variance, causing less desire to explore, and the marvel of such a vast world is now lost since it was done before. Of course, following up something like BOTW would prove to be a monolithic task regardless. Instead of improving the things BOTW did wrong, like the dungeons and puzzles, to try and succeed it's predecessor, it simply creates new things that solve nothing. Tears of the Kingdom prays its rehashed world with new zones will be enough to entice the player for the same hundreds of hours we all dumped into BOTW.
This game will forever be shadowed by it's predecessor. Not because the task was too big, but because they did not focus on the right things. Perhaps if Breath of the Wild never released, this game would be far better. Instead, it is a expansion in disguise as a $70 videogame. Shameless.
Just like Polyphia, just because something is hard to do does not immediately justify a perfect score. In a vacuum, the new system is very good, but the game simply does not allow for it to be as good as it can be, and in an attempt to perfect this feat in physics engineering and simulation, Nintendo seemingly forgot about the other aspects that make a Zelda game a Zelda game.
2024
For a lot of my time being aware of Persona as a series my friends who love it have begged me to play Persona 3: Portable specifically, claiming it to be A: the game I would like the most and B: possibly the best the series has to offer. Around the time Portable came to Steam, rumors of a remake were floating around, so naturally, I waited.
Reload eventually does come around. It looks good, sounds good, the combat is modernized, and it's even on Gamepass. No reason to not touch it.
Persona 3 is a bold attempt at creating the most realistic possible environment for the average 16-year-old JRPG protagonist. In some ways, it works. In many, its formula wears thin. Yet the story and message is compelling enough to justify pulling through it. Reload, however, does very little to improve the base game, only damaging its presentation and trivializing whatever challenge existed.
Ultimately, I feel that this game is too fucking long. Not frequently am I against long games, and neither is ~60 hours criminally long, but the way P3 is structured with its life-sim gameplay loop makes the game drone on for what feels like forever. The first few months I found this system quite novel, and as a college student with nearly not enough spare time on their hands I appreciated the whole "make the best of the time you have" notion. Yet, around November-December (late game) the system begins to wear extremely - you simply run out of things to do. At this point you simply do not have a need for any of the day-to-day facilities / activities. Money is not an issue, and all of your social skills are maxed out, so the only thing really of value are the Social Links.
The problem with the Social Links was, at this point, I had completed all the links I cared about. Sure, I could have skipped the day, but with such a heavy emphasis on completing the links, I felt a need to attempt at enduring the Moon and Magician links. At this point I’m not engaging with the story anymore. I have no active interest in these stories, all I want is the reward that comes with them. Obviously, this will vary from player to player, but it feels antithetical to have a message about valuing each person in your life and then encouraging the player to engage with characters they have no value for.
Granted, this is a very small handful of social links. Many of them are very likeable and interesting. The Star, The Sun, and the Hierophant, for instance, are all relatively compelling (the sun especially) and are worth reading. The character progression felt natural, and the messages they wanted to send were good. The issue is that at some point it’s too much reading. I stop caring because I just finally fused Thanatos last night in Tartarus and want to get to evening ASAP so I can actually use him.
Had the runtime been cut by 10-20 hours, I feel this loop would have gone a lot better. I liked it at first quite a bit, but it overstays it’s welcome by a lot. The story itself does not warrant a runtime this long, because unlike most RPG’s most of this games runtime isn’t directly advancing the plot. I’d much prefer a 60 hour game like Xenoblade Chronicles where those 60 hours are traversing new environments, rather than 60 hours of simulating my life with a side of ripping up demons with my entourage of Sick Mythology Ghosts.
The actual gameplay, the turn-based JoJo’s inspired combat, is a fun as a turn-based RPG will get in my opinion. I’m not a big fan of turn-based games, say it’s Pokemon trauma or simply that it’s a dull medium, but I liked the way this game did it. Again, in the early hours it was fun attempting to figure out the best way to stun the enemy in front of me with my limited ability set and seeing how I could chain moves together. Eventually though, much like the LifeSim gameplay, it too gets stale. By endgame you are more than reasonably strong, and have enough Personas in your arsenal to consistently topple any enemy in front of you. The challenge doesn’t scale well with the player’s own strength. Rather, the system itself can’t scale with the player, because the way this game creates difficulty is by having enemies that simply break the rules of the game, either attacking more than once a round (Reaper) or having access to every element in the game at once to consistently buttfuck your team. It doesn’t exactly feel like a challenge, just that you are getting screwed. This is really the only way to make difficulty because the new systems in place, being Theurgy and the lack of Tactics, makes you unbelievably strong. While I understand the removal of Tactics, Theurgy does nothing but make the game trivial. You should not have access to a move that will one-shot both the final boss and the Reaper (the normal superboss). Not before NG+, at the very least. Endgame personas like Alice, Messiah, and Helel are already so powerful there is simply not a need for something like Armageddon to exist. Nothing justifies its existence.
The story Persona 3 offers is the actual reason I wanted to play this game, and aside from the day-to-day formula fucking up the pacing, I liked it a lot. There is a lot this game wants to say, and many of the themes hit very close to home. Some of the ideas are relatively simple, like valuing the people in your life and putting trust in them, while others are more thought-provoking, such as asking the player what they want to actually do with their time and, later, life. I think these ideas only hit as hard due to the gameplay – had I not been making dozens of connections with seemingly random NPC’s and plotting out how I use my day to get the most out of it I don’t think these ideas would have been driven home so hard.
However, those are the points the gameplay tells. The actual story tells something much more moving and personal. The main cast of P3, SEES, is a substandard group of teens who, for the most part, have been consistently dealt the worst cards possible in life. Each one of them has something that haunts them and thus an equal reason to be in the fight. It's a lot about losing and learning to work through that loss. That through each other we all find purpose and meaning, and that's more than enough to keep going. The emotional apex of P3 revolves around these characters choosing to stand against impossible odds for the sake of each other, staring the literal human version of death in the eyes and crying "I want to live." It's very much about the struggle of being. It's hits home in ways I can't describe. It's very powerful. But in the moment, watching this unfold, I barely cared.
Why? The games pacing. With how long it actually takes to get to that point, I had emotionally checked out. It wasn't that I was never invested, because I found Aragaki's arc very emotional and impactful, and mostly because during that midpoint the game's story moved. By the time I had reached the end, the game stretched itself so thin I was just waiting for it to be done. When the wheels on Persona 3 spin, it drives its point way in. But the moment it starts to slow, it loses all of its impact and never gets it back.
SEES themselves are relatively enjoyable and have distinct ideals/motives and personalities. Their writing is good, believable, and you get to witness their arcs transform them very smoothly and believably, save for Aigis and Mitsuru. It feels rare to see a main cast this big and have them all be so notably diverse. Fuck, it’s rare to have a character that is literally a Normal Dog and have them be equally as nuanced as every other human without saying a literal fucking word. It’s impressive.
Here’s a critique that’s Reload specific.
This game FUCKED with the art direction and tone of the original. Colors in Reload are far more saturated than they should be, starkly contrasting with the games relatively darker tone. The original game’s color palette consisted of a lot of darks. It’s much harder to convey the weight of trying to stop the world from ending as a group of teens when the living room is plastered bright greens and blues rather than the dark greens and greys of the original. I shouldn’t have to open the settings menu and turn the brightness slider down 3+ notches to achieve a fitting tone.
The artstyle itself also got terribly generic. P3’s artstyle was pretty damn distinct when it came out, and the emotion expressed in each sprite was unparalleled. Reload released with an artstyle that is a slightly updated version of what Persona 5 has been preaching, and the charm the original once held is completely lost. This itself doesn’t detract much, the art is still good, but it’s a shame to see P3 stripped of it’s original identity in turn for something that looks like everything else.
Something about the lack of FEMC and Epilogue can go here too.
Persona 3’s greatest sin is simply that it is too long. A lot of my enjoyment was retracted by this games length. And as a remake, it doesn't do much to improve it's predecessor. Otherwise, it’s alright. A lot of the things this game hopes to achieve I truly believe were done better in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Xenoblade Chronicles.
If this is the best Persona has to offer, I don’t think I’m interested in what else it has in store.
Reload eventually does come around. It looks good, sounds good, the combat is modernized, and it's even on Gamepass. No reason to not touch it.
Persona 3 is a bold attempt at creating the most realistic possible environment for the average 16-year-old JRPG protagonist. In some ways, it works. In many, its formula wears thin. Yet the story and message is compelling enough to justify pulling through it. Reload, however, does very little to improve the base game, only damaging its presentation and trivializing whatever challenge existed.
Ultimately, I feel that this game is too fucking long. Not frequently am I against long games, and neither is ~60 hours criminally long, but the way P3 is structured with its life-sim gameplay loop makes the game drone on for what feels like forever. The first few months I found this system quite novel, and as a college student with nearly not enough spare time on their hands I appreciated the whole "make the best of the time you have" notion. Yet, around November-December (late game) the system begins to wear extremely - you simply run out of things to do. At this point you simply do not have a need for any of the day-to-day facilities / activities. Money is not an issue, and all of your social skills are maxed out, so the only thing really of value are the Social Links.
The problem with the Social Links was, at this point, I had completed all the links I cared about. Sure, I could have skipped the day, but with such a heavy emphasis on completing the links, I felt a need to attempt at enduring the Moon and Magician links. At this point I’m not engaging with the story anymore. I have no active interest in these stories, all I want is the reward that comes with them. Obviously, this will vary from player to player, but it feels antithetical to have a message about valuing each person in your life and then encouraging the player to engage with characters they have no value for.
Granted, this is a very small handful of social links. Many of them are very likeable and interesting. The Star, The Sun, and the Hierophant, for instance, are all relatively compelling (the sun especially) and are worth reading. The character progression felt natural, and the messages they wanted to send were good. The issue is that at some point it’s too much reading. I stop caring because I just finally fused Thanatos last night in Tartarus and want to get to evening ASAP so I can actually use him.
Had the runtime been cut by 10-20 hours, I feel this loop would have gone a lot better. I liked it at first quite a bit, but it overstays it’s welcome by a lot. The story itself does not warrant a runtime this long, because unlike most RPG’s most of this games runtime isn’t directly advancing the plot. I’d much prefer a 60 hour game like Xenoblade Chronicles where those 60 hours are traversing new environments, rather than 60 hours of simulating my life with a side of ripping up demons with my entourage of Sick Mythology Ghosts.
The actual gameplay, the turn-based JoJo’s inspired combat, is a fun as a turn-based RPG will get in my opinion. I’m not a big fan of turn-based games, say it’s Pokemon trauma or simply that it’s a dull medium, but I liked the way this game did it. Again, in the early hours it was fun attempting to figure out the best way to stun the enemy in front of me with my limited ability set and seeing how I could chain moves together. Eventually though, much like the LifeSim gameplay, it too gets stale. By endgame you are more than reasonably strong, and have enough Personas in your arsenal to consistently topple any enemy in front of you. The challenge doesn’t scale well with the player’s own strength. Rather, the system itself can’t scale with the player, because the way this game creates difficulty is by having enemies that simply break the rules of the game, either attacking more than once a round (Reaper) or having access to every element in the game at once to consistently buttfuck your team. It doesn’t exactly feel like a challenge, just that you are getting screwed. This is really the only way to make difficulty because the new systems in place, being Theurgy and the lack of Tactics, makes you unbelievably strong. While I understand the removal of Tactics, Theurgy does nothing but make the game trivial. You should not have access to a move that will one-shot both the final boss and the Reaper (the normal superboss). Not before NG+, at the very least. Endgame personas like Alice, Messiah, and Helel are already so powerful there is simply not a need for something like Armageddon to exist. Nothing justifies its existence.
The story Persona 3 offers is the actual reason I wanted to play this game, and aside from the day-to-day formula fucking up the pacing, I liked it a lot. There is a lot this game wants to say, and many of the themes hit very close to home. Some of the ideas are relatively simple, like valuing the people in your life and putting trust in them, while others are more thought-provoking, such as asking the player what they want to actually do with their time and, later, life. I think these ideas only hit as hard due to the gameplay – had I not been making dozens of connections with seemingly random NPC’s and plotting out how I use my day to get the most out of it I don’t think these ideas would have been driven home so hard.
However, those are the points the gameplay tells. The actual story tells something much more moving and personal. The main cast of P3, SEES, is a substandard group of teens who, for the most part, have been consistently dealt the worst cards possible in life. Each one of them has something that haunts them and thus an equal reason to be in the fight. It's a lot about losing and learning to work through that loss. That through each other we all find purpose and meaning, and that's more than enough to keep going. The emotional apex of P3 revolves around these characters choosing to stand against impossible odds for the sake of each other, staring the literal human version of death in the eyes and crying "I want to live." It's very much about the struggle of being. It's hits home in ways I can't describe. It's very powerful. But in the moment, watching this unfold, I barely cared.
Why? The games pacing. With how long it actually takes to get to that point, I had emotionally checked out. It wasn't that I was never invested, because I found Aragaki's arc very emotional and impactful, and mostly because during that midpoint the game's story moved. By the time I had reached the end, the game stretched itself so thin I was just waiting for it to be done. When the wheels on Persona 3 spin, it drives its point way in. But the moment it starts to slow, it loses all of its impact and never gets it back.
SEES themselves are relatively enjoyable and have distinct ideals/motives and personalities. Their writing is good, believable, and you get to witness their arcs transform them very smoothly and believably, save for Aigis and Mitsuru. It feels rare to see a main cast this big and have them all be so notably diverse. Fuck, it’s rare to have a character that is literally a Normal Dog and have them be equally as nuanced as every other human without saying a literal fucking word. It’s impressive.
Here’s a critique that’s Reload specific.
This game FUCKED with the art direction and tone of the original. Colors in Reload are far more saturated than they should be, starkly contrasting with the games relatively darker tone. The original game’s color palette consisted of a lot of darks. It’s much harder to convey the weight of trying to stop the world from ending as a group of teens when the living room is plastered bright greens and blues rather than the dark greens and greys of the original. I shouldn’t have to open the settings menu and turn the brightness slider down 3+ notches to achieve a fitting tone.
The artstyle itself also got terribly generic. P3’s artstyle was pretty damn distinct when it came out, and the emotion expressed in each sprite was unparalleled. Reload released with an artstyle that is a slightly updated version of what Persona 5 has been preaching, and the charm the original once held is completely lost. This itself doesn’t detract much, the art is still good, but it’s a shame to see P3 stripped of it’s original identity in turn for something that looks like everything else.
Something about the lack of FEMC and Epilogue can go here too.
Persona 3’s greatest sin is simply that it is too long. A lot of my enjoyment was retracted by this games length. And as a remake, it doesn't do much to improve it's predecessor. Otherwise, it’s alright. A lot of the things this game hopes to achieve I truly believe were done better in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Xenoblade Chronicles.
If this is the best Persona has to offer, I don’t think I’m interested in what else it has in store.
It truly says something when I say this game physically pains me to play.
This is like if Ubisoft knew how to make a good Assassin's Creed game.
Master Collection port sucks, but the actual game is quite fantastic. I'll spare you the words and just tell you to play it.
2019
Death Stranding is my favorite game of all time. However, I firmly believe this game is not for everyone and is also not perfect.
At it's core, Death Stranding is a game about delivering packages and bringing people together. It's a social-exploration game. But, it's also a horror game, a 3rd person war shooter, and a stealth-action game. Death Stranding is Kojima's attempt at creating something new, and also making every game Konami didn't let him finish, to both the games benefit and detriment.
Ultimately, most of the time Death Stranding feels like Kojima picked up the bones of PT/Silent Hills and MGSV and a third mysterious new game and tried to make it all work. Isolated, each of these elements work. When the game introduces itself, it's this survival horror game where Sam must deliver packages and face The Horrors of the abyss. And it's really cool. But then 1/3 in, the game goes "Well now you're literally in WW1. Go crazy." and suddenly the focus is about being a weird MGS, and abandons the horror elements by letting you fight the horrors very effectively. Then 1/3 later the game decides to be it's own thing and let's itself be Death Stranding. All with this underlying gameplay about connecting others. Alone, each of these portions work quite well. However, playing the game out feels quite jarring. The game tells you "Avoid BT's, don't shoot people" then later you're told "Actively kill BT's, shoot people." In the latter half I found myself missing the mystery and general horror of the BTs, and the actual threat they faced. Yet, I still found myself heavily enjoying the game overall. The point is, when this game chooses to be itself, it is very good, but most of the time it is remnants of something else and feels half-baked.
This all works for Kojima's meta narrative, which is about him leaving Konami and starting over. He sets up a game that puts you through what could have been Silent Hills, back through something vaguely Metal Gear, and then shows you something entirely new. So I get why he did it. But I don't entirely think he should have, since the actual story tells this underlying narrative quite well.
Regardless, there are other things outside of the core gameplay that are worth touching on.
The games overall presentation is very, very solid. Yes, it's very movie-game, but it works out quite well. Since most of the game has you walking, the presentation is very important, so going for the Generic Sony Movie Game route works well since you always have something nice to look at. The licensed music choices are very solid, the atmosphere is fantastic, and the overall world looks very good and is insanely engaging to traverse. Which is good, because most of this game is traversal.
The story, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. While MGS2 and 3 are very well written critiques of war and culture, Death Stranding comes to be far more personal. This isn't the pitfall though. The pitfall is how it's written. Most of the worldbuilding is sent through major exposition dumps from DefiningCharacterTrait-Man and the dumps are so heavy in load it becomes hard to process what's being said to you, and most of the time it feels like Kojima doesn't even know what he's talking about. I have a very intimate understanding of this game and I still can't concretely tell you what the fuck an "Extinction Entity" is, because I don't think Kojima does either. Most of these exposition dumps don't even need to be in the game. The whole point of the Death Stranding (the event) is that nobody properly knows what it is, and so having a character explain jargon to you makes the game more confusing and kills the overall mystery and tone. And if something isn't explained to you by mouth, you'll have to read pages and pages of shit via the in-game logs.
This isn't to say the writing is bad, because it isn't. For the first time I firmly believe Kojima has written a good female character. Really, most of the characters are very well rounded. Sure, there are a few ExpositionDump-Man's, but Sam, Higgs, and Fragile are all very interesting, likeable, and well written. When this game chooses to show you things rather than just outright tell, it does so very well, and is very memorable. All 3 of those characters arcs are very interesting to watch play out. Sam, as the main character, gets the most notable growth and the game shows this change in a very kosher way through BB. BB and Sam's dynamic is very fun, I'll probably touch on that later.
Though, other character don't exactly get much time to fully flesh out. For instance, Mama (yes, that's literally her name), has an arc, that is mildly interesting, but the game halts itself to focus on it and feels somewhat forced, and doesn't add much to the overarching story. There's also Mads Mikkelson's character, who's role is half as important as the game wants you to think, who feels weirdly forced into the narrative. While he is integral to the plot, his presence feels very out of left field and the game has to develop his character very quickly to make him work as a central character. It becomes hard to understand why he's doing the things he's doing, but I also give his character a pass because he's cool as shit and is very fun to see in action, and once you get past his rough introduction he becomes a very solid component to the story.
The pacing is also pretty bad, the game will go for multiple hour stretches telling you nothing then dump 30 minute cutscenes back to back, but that isn't super important to me because that's the shit I came for.
There are other things worth mentioning, the Kojima-isms, the inventory management, the symbolism, but as of writing this its 4:00AM and I have better things to do. I'll probably edit this review later, but I think I've talked about everything worth talking about.
This game is special to me, it's very different, its very fun, but it's also very polarizing and very rough. It's probably a 7/10 objectively, but as the saying goes, a 7/10 can be better than any 10/10 you've played.
In short, if you like MGS and want to play this because Kojima made MGS, you will either like it or not. If you like MGS for the narrative, you'll probably like this a lot. If you like MGS for its gameplay, then you probably won't like this as much.
At it's core, Death Stranding is a game about delivering packages and bringing people together. It's a social-exploration game. But, it's also a horror game, a 3rd person war shooter, and a stealth-action game. Death Stranding is Kojima's attempt at creating something new, and also making every game Konami didn't let him finish, to both the games benefit and detriment.
Ultimately, most of the time Death Stranding feels like Kojima picked up the bones of PT/Silent Hills and MGSV and a third mysterious new game and tried to make it all work. Isolated, each of these elements work. When the game introduces itself, it's this survival horror game where Sam must deliver packages and face The Horrors of the abyss. And it's really cool. But then 1/3 in, the game goes "Well now you're literally in WW1. Go crazy." and suddenly the focus is about being a weird MGS, and abandons the horror elements by letting you fight the horrors very effectively. Then 1/3 later the game decides to be it's own thing and let's itself be Death Stranding. All with this underlying gameplay about connecting others. Alone, each of these portions work quite well. However, playing the game out feels quite jarring. The game tells you "Avoid BT's, don't shoot people" then later you're told "Actively kill BT's, shoot people." In the latter half I found myself missing the mystery and general horror of the BTs, and the actual threat they faced. Yet, I still found myself heavily enjoying the game overall. The point is, when this game chooses to be itself, it is very good, but most of the time it is remnants of something else and feels half-baked.
This all works for Kojima's meta narrative, which is about him leaving Konami and starting over. He sets up a game that puts you through what could have been Silent Hills, back through something vaguely Metal Gear, and then shows you something entirely new. So I get why he did it. But I don't entirely think he should have, since the actual story tells this underlying narrative quite well.
Regardless, there are other things outside of the core gameplay that are worth touching on.
The games overall presentation is very, very solid. Yes, it's very movie-game, but it works out quite well. Since most of the game has you walking, the presentation is very important, so going for the Generic Sony Movie Game route works well since you always have something nice to look at. The licensed music choices are very solid, the atmosphere is fantastic, and the overall world looks very good and is insanely engaging to traverse. Which is good, because most of this game is traversal.
The story, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. While MGS2 and 3 are very well written critiques of war and culture, Death Stranding comes to be far more personal. This isn't the pitfall though. The pitfall is how it's written. Most of the worldbuilding is sent through major exposition dumps from DefiningCharacterTrait-Man and the dumps are so heavy in load it becomes hard to process what's being said to you, and most of the time it feels like Kojima doesn't even know what he's talking about. I have a very intimate understanding of this game and I still can't concretely tell you what the fuck an "Extinction Entity" is, because I don't think Kojima does either. Most of these exposition dumps don't even need to be in the game. The whole point of the Death Stranding (the event) is that nobody properly knows what it is, and so having a character explain jargon to you makes the game more confusing and kills the overall mystery and tone. And if something isn't explained to you by mouth, you'll have to read pages and pages of shit via the in-game logs.
This isn't to say the writing is bad, because it isn't. For the first time I firmly believe Kojima has written a good female character. Really, most of the characters are very well rounded. Sure, there are a few ExpositionDump-Man's, but Sam, Higgs, and Fragile are all very interesting, likeable, and well written. When this game chooses to show you things rather than just outright tell, it does so very well, and is very memorable. All 3 of those characters arcs are very interesting to watch play out. Sam, as the main character, gets the most notable growth and the game shows this change in a very kosher way through BB. BB and Sam's dynamic is very fun, I'll probably touch on that later.
Though, other character don't exactly get much time to fully flesh out. For instance, Mama (yes, that's literally her name), has an arc, that is mildly interesting, but the game halts itself to focus on it and feels somewhat forced, and doesn't add much to the overarching story. There's also Mads Mikkelson's character, who's role is half as important as the game wants you to think, who feels weirdly forced into the narrative. While he is integral to the plot, his presence feels very out of left field and the game has to develop his character very quickly to make him work as a central character. It becomes hard to understand why he's doing the things he's doing, but I also give his character a pass because he's cool as shit and is very fun to see in action, and once you get past his rough introduction he becomes a very solid component to the story.
The pacing is also pretty bad, the game will go for multiple hour stretches telling you nothing then dump 30 minute cutscenes back to back, but that isn't super important to me because that's the shit I came for.
There are other things worth mentioning, the Kojima-isms, the inventory management, the symbolism, but as of writing this its 4:00AM and I have better things to do. I'll probably edit this review later, but I think I've talked about everything worth talking about.
This game is special to me, it's very different, its very fun, but it's also very polarizing and very rough. It's probably a 7/10 objectively, but as the saying goes, a 7/10 can be better than any 10/10 you've played.
In short, if you like MGS and want to play this because Kojima made MGS, you will either like it or not. If you like MGS for the narrative, you'll probably like this a lot. If you like MGS for its gameplay, then you probably won't like this as much.
2020
this review is regarding the state of the game around early 2023, when i had last played. ive heard it has since changed quite a bit since then so this review may be out of date.
for the first 20-some hours, phasmophobia is a very fun game. the shock value this game gives is very intense and very fun to experience.
however, after those 20 hours, it runs out of things to show you. eventually the scares wear out and the puzzles required to beat each mission have their fun optimized out of them and each mission feels quite similar to the games detriment.
the loop at its core is fundamentally flawed and this game needs something else to it to make it truly replayable.
despite that i do believe you can get your moneys worth out of this game, its fun for the time it lasts and i certainly see myself revisiting this title later on.
for the first 20-some hours, phasmophobia is a very fun game. the shock value this game gives is very intense and very fun to experience.
however, after those 20 hours, it runs out of things to show you. eventually the scares wear out and the puzzles required to beat each mission have their fun optimized out of them and each mission feels quite similar to the games detriment.
the loop at its core is fundamentally flawed and this game needs something else to it to make it truly replayable.
despite that i do believe you can get your moneys worth out of this game, its fun for the time it lasts and i certainly see myself revisiting this title later on.
i liked this game when it came out because i had never played a zelda game before. since then i've touched up on a few titles. comparatively, this game is very shallow in its dungeons and puzzles, which is a good portion of what made zelda what it is.
however, the open world this game holds is a triumph in its own right. where this game lacks in mechanical depth it somewhat makes up for with an insanely vast open world in a scale i dont think ive seen previously. exploring in this game is very fun, and the non linear spine of the game is cool in only how bold of a choice it was to make.
a players freedom of choice is something i believe is very important to this medium, and this game certainly allows for complete freedom to play however. yet, it lacks the bones this series is known for, and doing anything required to progress the story turns out to be very shallow.
however, the open world this game holds is a triumph in its own right. where this game lacks in mechanical depth it somewhat makes up for with an insanely vast open world in a scale i dont think ive seen previously. exploring in this game is very fun, and the non linear spine of the game is cool in only how bold of a choice it was to make.
a players freedom of choice is something i believe is very important to this medium, and this game certainly allows for complete freedom to play however. yet, it lacks the bones this series is known for, and doing anything required to progress the story turns out to be very shallow.
2016
i beat this game ages ago, so i dont really have anything specific to say.
its pretty a par for the course yakuza game, the only outstanding gripe i had with it is that some bosses feel near impossible to beat without being stacked on heals.
regardless. the story is good, the side missions are still very fun, and majima antics are at an all time high. do reccomend
its pretty a par for the course yakuza game, the only outstanding gripe i had with it is that some bosses feel near impossible to beat without being stacked on heals.
regardless. the story is good, the side missions are still very fun, and majima antics are at an all time high. do reccomend
2019
the game was fun for the duration me and my friends play it, but the amount of coordination it took was genuinely infuriating. its hard, but in a way that feels almost detrimental to the game. my loadout had been restricted to what the game deemed decent and using anything off meta resulted in a near immediate fail. the balancing is not good.
the concept is really cool, but if youre not playing with a group of seal team members you will probably not get very far.
the concept is really cool, but if youre not playing with a group of seal team members you will probably not get very far.
2020
im not a big fan of arena shooters. i fully get the appeal, but this game feels very bland after a while, and something feels fundamentally off. i cant finger a specific example, but something about the core gameplay loop feels off. also the platforming is genuinely terrible.