brujavirtual
74 Reviews liked by brujavirtual
Persona 3 Reload
2024
Good game, but the jank of being a clearly priority B project remake shows in all aspects of it: Rather than elevating 3 to the mechanical standards of its successors, Reload is akin more to a fresh coat of paint, adding plenty of needed combat and QoL improvements but still retaining plenty of the jank of the original. Tartarus is still braindead, the pacing of all the different segments of the game are still off with a truckload of pointless empty time in the closing months of the game, most non-endgame Persona's kits and stats feel like they were decided by throwing darts at a board, making the MC feel weirdly gimped for a substantial amount of the game, and there is simply a general lack of meaningful and varied content. Social Links are also fairly underwhelming for the most part, but on the other hand I think many could appreciate their more down-to-earth-ness, and I suppose work well within the themes of this particular game.
Still, it's Persona, it's good and fun even though it definitely overstays its welcome, and I can clearly see why so many people resonate with its meditations on death, though I personally feel like it would've definitely benefitted from not having the subtlety of a sledgehammer in its storytelling. Still, again, this is Persona, a series that is ultimately made for teenagers who have not yet stopped to think about these issues, and so this type of storytelling might be a necessity. Persona 4 was that for me in my teen years, and so I won't hold 3 in any contempt either.
Ultimately Persona 3 is a game about how, when faced with the inevitability of the end of all—life, relationships, family, etc— one must treasure all the diverse bonds we craft during our lives that makes us who we are, which is why you should go and befriend at least two people who are constantly trying to scam you.
Still, it's Persona, it's good and fun even though it definitely overstays its welcome, and I can clearly see why so many people resonate with its meditations on death, though I personally feel like it would've definitely benefitted from not having the subtlety of a sledgehammer in its storytelling. Still, again, this is Persona, a series that is ultimately made for teenagers who have not yet stopped to think about these issues, and so this type of storytelling might be a necessity. Persona 4 was that for me in my teen years, and so I won't hold 3 in any contempt either.
Ultimately Persona 3 is a game about how, when faced with the inevitability of the end of all—life, relationships, family, etc— one must treasure all the diverse bonds we craft during our lives that makes us who we are, which is why you should go and befriend at least two people who are constantly trying to scam you.
Persona 3 Reload
2024
wow i love playing the same game over again in the unreal engine with a shittier ost and (arguably) worse VA cast, except i gotta pay extra for the answer for a grand total of $140.48 canada bux. bravo atlus you've done it again
Vividlope
2023
Sony PSP3 (aka Steam Deck OLED) launch title
Pokémon Violet
2022
Find it so deeply endearing that this work marred in technical limitations and an altogether rushed-ish structure is The Greatest love letter to a very genwunner philosophy, ALL without feeling egregious or pining for nostalgia. Game Freak despite everything loves its fans who can realistically Never Be Happy and makes that practically explicit from sunrise to sunset, and folds that into something new and altogether hopeful for a brighter future and earnest contextualization of its past.
Not tooo strong of one though, at least for me. Character writing is certainly the best here (or at least, toe to toe with Sun and Moon for me), especially from a moment to moment lens. Finale speaks volumes in its own way there, all so personable and defined and really have weight, presence, beautiful relations and chatter. But it also feels far too hesitant to break free of its limitations and that ends up being probably the most annoying part. Legendaries tend to be metaphorical or stand-ins for wide-spreading things in the series but this REALLY is the most "you just couldn't be serious about a heart to heart to be personable with a Pokemon huh." Still for what it's worth it swings as hard as Black/White and Sun/Moon do, just lacks the wherewithal structurally and in execution to get as high as they do. But it is nice to see people gas this up as their "finest hour" because it's not like it's wholly undeserving of that.
Mechanically it's like, we're taking our Legends Arceus prototype open world map (and bits of it structurally) and making it a Red/Blue + If It Was On Unreal Engine. Or in other words, very LARGELY hands off explore at your own pace open world and take in all the fights and sights and feel your journey of ADVENTURE, while having to reel-in that other than a couple cities the "expanse" is rather,,, illusory haha. I remember first touching this and LOSING it at how absolutely amazing the big hub town area is. I even took the classes, I was so into it all. Granted, high off an edible, but that expectation solidified, it felt so good. Unfortunately, literally nothing else in the game's areas capture or get even close to that, bar maybe the last one (which is kind of cheating really).
It is however also the comfiest Pokemon game to date. Extremely relaxing, potent quality of life implementation from top to bottom. Not a single hour feels even a bit wasted or as grindy as anyone's worst memories with this franchise. So easy to pick up and settle in, get cozy with seeing all of what's on offer here...
And as turbo-niche as talking about this game's difficulty may be, I do like how generally designed the leveling curve and fights are too. A couple were super tough checks for me even! Granted it was cuz i built my team a little awfully haha... all of them were Physical hitters ;w; Certainly some "wow that's funny" moments that feel both charming and, well, naturally hilarious. They gave one of the most important fights a literal ace-in-the-hole pokemon build that's INSTEAD sent out close to the start, while making their actual ace-in-the-hole a pokemon that's a SET-UP DESTROYER. Amazing. Well done.
I will say I find myself a bit more smarmy, sarcastic here, mostly cuz things have been hard and I sortttt of lightly pushed through with too much fervor just so a good friend of mine could get their birthday Suicune Raid present. Also cuz this gets a little too gassed up I feel >.> Not from a bad place tho! And who cares what I think there really!!! I'm glad people are having so much fun!!
Still, gives some to chew on, which puts this on an upper echelon for monster collectors in general. I think if you've been away from this series for feeling completely left out of the hyperlinear storyblook palooza, definitely give this a shot. It really is up there with the best Pokemon's put out.
PMD2 still sweeps tho
Not tooo strong of one though, at least for me. Character writing is certainly the best here (or at least, toe to toe with Sun and Moon for me), especially from a moment to moment lens. Finale speaks volumes in its own way there, all so personable and defined and really have weight, presence, beautiful relations and chatter. But it also feels far too hesitant to break free of its limitations and that ends up being probably the most annoying part. Legendaries tend to be metaphorical or stand-ins for wide-spreading things in the series but this REALLY is the most "you just couldn't be serious about a heart to heart to be personable with a Pokemon huh." Still for what it's worth it swings as hard as Black/White and Sun/Moon do, just lacks the wherewithal structurally and in execution to get as high as they do. But it is nice to see people gas this up as their "finest hour" because it's not like it's wholly undeserving of that.
Mechanically it's like, we're taking our Legends Arceus prototype open world map (and bits of it structurally) and making it a Red/Blue + If It Was On Unreal Engine. Or in other words, very LARGELY hands off explore at your own pace open world and take in all the fights and sights and feel your journey of ADVENTURE, while having to reel-in that other than a couple cities the "expanse" is rather,,, illusory haha. I remember first touching this and LOSING it at how absolutely amazing the big hub town area is. I even took the classes, I was so into it all. Granted, high off an edible, but that expectation solidified, it felt so good. Unfortunately, literally nothing else in the game's areas capture or get even close to that, bar maybe the last one (which is kind of cheating really).
It is however also the comfiest Pokemon game to date. Extremely relaxing, potent quality of life implementation from top to bottom. Not a single hour feels even a bit wasted or as grindy as anyone's worst memories with this franchise. So easy to pick up and settle in, get cozy with seeing all of what's on offer here...
And as turbo-niche as talking about this game's difficulty may be, I do like how generally designed the leveling curve and fights are too. A couple were super tough checks for me even! Granted it was cuz i built my team a little awfully haha... all of them were Physical hitters ;w; Certainly some "wow that's funny" moments that feel both charming and, well, naturally hilarious. They gave one of the most important fights a literal ace-in-the-hole pokemon build that's INSTEAD sent out close to the start, while making their actual ace-in-the-hole a pokemon that's a SET-UP DESTROYER. Amazing. Well done.
I will say I find myself a bit more smarmy, sarcastic here, mostly cuz things have been hard and I sortttt of lightly pushed through with too much fervor just so a good friend of mine could get their birthday Suicune Raid present. Also cuz this gets a little too gassed up I feel >.> Not from a bad place tho! And who cares what I think there really!!! I'm glad people are having so much fun!!
Still, gives some to chew on, which puts this on an upper echelon for monster collectors in general. I think if you've been away from this series for feeling completely left out of the hyperlinear storyblook palooza, definitely give this a shot. It really is up there with the best Pokemon's put out.
PMD2 still sweeps tho
A Short Hike
2019
I expected a simple, linear walking simulator but what I got was a small but open world offering way more activities and exploration than I could have imagined. The emotional payoff fell a little bit flat for me but this was a great experience for the couple of hours it lasts.
This review contains spoilers
Its the Portal 2 to BOTW's Portal 1. There is more of it but it feels somewhat bloated, some faults of the first (or aspects that were perceived as faults, anyways) are remedied whilst adding as many issues of its own. The first 10 hours are great and perhaps surpass the original, but then it goes on and on at a more subdued level of quality.
I loved the original Breath Of The Wild. When I played it around 2019 for the first time it felt like a game that was made specifically for me; every major aspect of it being described to me by a friend once and I could only go : "yes! yes!" at everything he said. When I played it it lived entirely to my expectations and even surpassed them. The microdungeons that kept up the pace, the ability to declare yourself ready to face the final boss at any time, the environmental physics systems organically interacting, the willingness to let you approach puzzles in any way : if you could find a way to cheese it you could.
I didn't have any problems with the weapon durability system and I thought it incentivised getting creative with the various systems to efficiently dispatch the various monsters. Nor did I have all that many issues that series veterans had with the weaker plot and lack of big dungeons; in all honesty that was a selling point for me personally. My first Zelda was Ocarina of Time 3D which I never finished as a kid, I dropped the game after the magic lens dungeon because something else caught my eye and when I came back to finish it my card reader had broken and I didnt have enough money at the time to fix it. I also played some of Oracle of Seasons and maybe Link's Awakening? I wasn't really grabbed by either of those. All design decisions are inherently alienating to someone, but I am not blind to the fact that the design decisions of BOTW were welcoming to me but alienating to others.
There is part of me that wonders if I would have loved TOTK more if I hadn't done 3 full runs (all shrines) of BOTW. As much as there are many new systems and locations and quests and all the things you would expect from a new entry, it is at the end of the day the same map. This does have its benefits from returning players in that going back to areas from the first game and seeing them change is always great : Tarrey Town in particular. It does however somewhat dampen my enthusiasm for exploration, paradoxically because there is also a lot more of it to do with the addition of the Sky Islands and the Depths.
If my Steam library is to be believed, I have 900 hours on Garry's Mod from when I played it religiously as a teen and let me just say, the first few hours playing with the various systems of constructing vehicles was akin to getting new toys for christmas, fond memories of thruster boosted bathtubs around GM_Construct. Unfortunately as I seem to have discovered is the case of most of this game, its burns brighter but burns itself out sooner. This might have worked in its favour if it werent for the expectation and obligation of expanding the game overall meant everything felt a bit more exhausting than it ever had in BOTW. Indeed, having the previous map as base, 6 years of dev time and a 70 dollar pricetag did make it obvious that this would be the case but I hope one day we get a sequel that tightens the game as opposed to overextends it.
The first 20 times you do a combat challenge dungeon or find a crazy new enemy in the overworld its new and refreshing, but not by the 50th time. Its the Elden Ring issue, repetition inherently dampens the mystery, the awe of exploration and discovery. This was also somewhat true in BOTW but didnt feel anywhere near on the level of TOTK.
I didnt have a problem with the Great Plateau in BOTW, I didnt think it was overlong at all but I definitely felt that in TOTK. When I finally got to the overworld it made me wonder : "Is there no paraglider in this game? Maybe they want you to really use the new vehicle stuff to overcome the terrain" and I'm not saying that would have made a better game but I am genuinely curious how TOTK would have turned out if your Paraglider was straight up removed (it wouldnt have worked because of the Sky Islands and the wind dungeon but still these could have been changed).
Another element that might have been excised to improve the game imo was autobuild, which I got very early on but almost entirely removed the fun of the game, you make one or two or three general purpose builds and you never have to think about clever vehicles again outside of shrines. They cost resources to make but it just adds a small unwelcome grind to proceedings really.
I quite like the MrHudson sign sidequests. In general I quite like the setting which includes some of my favourite themes : the PostPostApocalypse. The people of this world are dealing with aggressive armies of demons but are nevertheless rebuilding, using the various new zonai tech to their advantage, a kind of industrial revolution.
The theming is cool, I like the Zen motif of the shrines and Rauru. The ancient hylians have a Mesoamerican thing going on in their design but this is mostly just aesthetics and not used for anything particularly interesting that I found.
This game is so dense and there are so many things to discuss that I think I could go on forever : the champions kind of break the challenge of the game, the voice acting and story continue to be kinda bad, the dungeons are a bit more elaborate and better but thats honestly a negative to me personally, horses are even more useless now, I was annoyed at the final ganondorf fight despite not dying to him at all the combat controls have always been kind of shit and the joycons are terrible so asking me to do two perfect dodges to even touch this Kikuchiyo looking mfer tested my patience; I got a bit annoyed at that fight (more than I have in a while and I did a soul level 1 run of DS1 on that very switch).
At the end of the day the best decision BOTW did was to make fighting Ganon at any point possible. That is still technically the case in TOTK but after I was "done" with the game and finished the 4 main quest and wanted the game to end before I started to dislike it, the game threw me a whole ass sequence of quests that dragged on and started to drain my goodwill and the boss annoying me was the icing on the cake.
A lot of games don't know when to finish. A lot of games in fact do not finish at all like arcade games and the like. New Game+s, HighScores, etc these are all elements to marry two concepts : 1) Unlike other media, Videogames are a lot of the times not dropped by players at "the end" of the game especially in earlier times, rather when the player is "done". Not to say these two necessarily always clash but its definitely something that must be kept in mind when designing a game that isnt a relatively short or cinematic linear game. 2) Games need endings to bring closure and structure to its narrative and mechanical difficulty curve.
The Structure of BOTW was genius in this respect because a 100% obsessive and someone who just wanted to play for 10 hours could both enjoy the game and declare it done so long as they could defeat Ganon. Again, this is still somewhat the case in TOTK but the game doesnt really tell you. The number 1 reason I'll dislike a game is that I will be "done" with it when it has started to outstay its welcome and it simply will NOT end. If a game can speed along to its conclusion when I have reached this point it will look at a great review, if it does not, well, I am liable to either hate it or even drop it (I have never beaten Aria of Sorrow for this very reason, I reached my "done" point near the end and when Soma turns into dracula and youre asked to do some bullshit I just didnt care enough to conclude it). I'll admit I am generally a rather impatient person, but if you've read this far you're probably aware of the fact that this is just my personal perspective at the end of the day.
Tears of The Kingdom is a great game buried in a shell of bloat that didnt quite stick the landing despite still being a good game that I enjoyed for longer than most these days.
I loved the original Breath Of The Wild. When I played it around 2019 for the first time it felt like a game that was made specifically for me; every major aspect of it being described to me by a friend once and I could only go : "yes! yes!" at everything he said. When I played it it lived entirely to my expectations and even surpassed them. The microdungeons that kept up the pace, the ability to declare yourself ready to face the final boss at any time, the environmental physics systems organically interacting, the willingness to let you approach puzzles in any way : if you could find a way to cheese it you could.
I didn't have any problems with the weapon durability system and I thought it incentivised getting creative with the various systems to efficiently dispatch the various monsters. Nor did I have all that many issues that series veterans had with the weaker plot and lack of big dungeons; in all honesty that was a selling point for me personally. My first Zelda was Ocarina of Time 3D which I never finished as a kid, I dropped the game after the magic lens dungeon because something else caught my eye and when I came back to finish it my card reader had broken and I didnt have enough money at the time to fix it. I also played some of Oracle of Seasons and maybe Link's Awakening? I wasn't really grabbed by either of those. All design decisions are inherently alienating to someone, but I am not blind to the fact that the design decisions of BOTW were welcoming to me but alienating to others.
There is part of me that wonders if I would have loved TOTK more if I hadn't done 3 full runs (all shrines) of BOTW. As much as there are many new systems and locations and quests and all the things you would expect from a new entry, it is at the end of the day the same map. This does have its benefits from returning players in that going back to areas from the first game and seeing them change is always great : Tarrey Town in particular. It does however somewhat dampen my enthusiasm for exploration, paradoxically because there is also a lot more of it to do with the addition of the Sky Islands and the Depths.
If my Steam library is to be believed, I have 900 hours on Garry's Mod from when I played it religiously as a teen and let me just say, the first few hours playing with the various systems of constructing vehicles was akin to getting new toys for christmas, fond memories of thruster boosted bathtubs around GM_Construct. Unfortunately as I seem to have discovered is the case of most of this game, its burns brighter but burns itself out sooner. This might have worked in its favour if it werent for the expectation and obligation of expanding the game overall meant everything felt a bit more exhausting than it ever had in BOTW. Indeed, having the previous map as base, 6 years of dev time and a 70 dollar pricetag did make it obvious that this would be the case but I hope one day we get a sequel that tightens the game as opposed to overextends it.
The first 20 times you do a combat challenge dungeon or find a crazy new enemy in the overworld its new and refreshing, but not by the 50th time. Its the Elden Ring issue, repetition inherently dampens the mystery, the awe of exploration and discovery. This was also somewhat true in BOTW but didnt feel anywhere near on the level of TOTK.
I didnt have a problem with the Great Plateau in BOTW, I didnt think it was overlong at all but I definitely felt that in TOTK. When I finally got to the overworld it made me wonder : "Is there no paraglider in this game? Maybe they want you to really use the new vehicle stuff to overcome the terrain" and I'm not saying that would have made a better game but I am genuinely curious how TOTK would have turned out if your Paraglider was straight up removed (it wouldnt have worked because of the Sky Islands and the wind dungeon but still these could have been changed).
Another element that might have been excised to improve the game imo was autobuild, which I got very early on but almost entirely removed the fun of the game, you make one or two or three general purpose builds and you never have to think about clever vehicles again outside of shrines. They cost resources to make but it just adds a small unwelcome grind to proceedings really.
I quite like the MrHudson sign sidequests. In general I quite like the setting which includes some of my favourite themes : the PostPostApocalypse. The people of this world are dealing with aggressive armies of demons but are nevertheless rebuilding, using the various new zonai tech to their advantage, a kind of industrial revolution.
The theming is cool, I like the Zen motif of the shrines and Rauru. The ancient hylians have a Mesoamerican thing going on in their design but this is mostly just aesthetics and not used for anything particularly interesting that I found.
This game is so dense and there are so many things to discuss that I think I could go on forever : the champions kind of break the challenge of the game, the voice acting and story continue to be kinda bad, the dungeons are a bit more elaborate and better but thats honestly a negative to me personally, horses are even more useless now, I was annoyed at the final ganondorf fight despite not dying to him at all the combat controls have always been kind of shit and the joycons are terrible so asking me to do two perfect dodges to even touch this Kikuchiyo looking mfer tested my patience; I got a bit annoyed at that fight (more than I have in a while and I did a soul level 1 run of DS1 on that very switch).
At the end of the day the best decision BOTW did was to make fighting Ganon at any point possible. That is still technically the case in TOTK but after I was "done" with the game and finished the 4 main quest and wanted the game to end before I started to dislike it, the game threw me a whole ass sequence of quests that dragged on and started to drain my goodwill and the boss annoying me was the icing on the cake.
A lot of games don't know when to finish. A lot of games in fact do not finish at all like arcade games and the like. New Game+s, HighScores, etc these are all elements to marry two concepts : 1) Unlike other media, Videogames are a lot of the times not dropped by players at "the end" of the game especially in earlier times, rather when the player is "done". Not to say these two necessarily always clash but its definitely something that must be kept in mind when designing a game that isnt a relatively short or cinematic linear game. 2) Games need endings to bring closure and structure to its narrative and mechanical difficulty curve.
The Structure of BOTW was genius in this respect because a 100% obsessive and someone who just wanted to play for 10 hours could both enjoy the game and declare it done so long as they could defeat Ganon. Again, this is still somewhat the case in TOTK but the game doesnt really tell you. The number 1 reason I'll dislike a game is that I will be "done" with it when it has started to outstay its welcome and it simply will NOT end. If a game can speed along to its conclusion when I have reached this point it will look at a great review, if it does not, well, I am liable to either hate it or even drop it (I have never beaten Aria of Sorrow for this very reason, I reached my "done" point near the end and when Soma turns into dracula and youre asked to do some bullshit I just didnt care enough to conclude it). I'll admit I am generally a rather impatient person, but if you've read this far you're probably aware of the fact that this is just my personal perspective at the end of the day.
Tears of The Kingdom is a great game buried in a shell of bloat that didnt quite stick the landing despite still being a good game that I enjoyed for longer than most these days.
Control
2019
Played through it again because I never got round to the DLC and had sold my PS4 copy. Grabbed the Ultimate Edition off PS+.
I enjoyed it before, and it's still decent, but this time I was hit much harder with how the game's biggest letdown is it being a shooter.
You read notes about stuff like employees boringly cataloguing 100 boxes of individual human teeth, or consulting incantations to calm a stapler that's tearing up the staff room, but all you get to do is shoot red dudes and float around. Pressing square to cleanse things, without even an appropriate mini game or something to jazz it up. The game borrows heavily from SCP shit, but fails to get that a lot of the draw with that stuff is the weird containment procedures and rituals in dealing with them. Control is every SCP story ending with "Agents drew their guns and put the subject down".
I genuinely wish the gameplay was about dealing with anomalies by using a big tome you had to lug about to consult what procedures to use. Discovering new ones from hands on experience and adding to the data. Unique interactions instead of just walking into rooms and enemies spawn in so you start firing. It's a shame because the environmental design is immaculate in places, and as such feels wasted on mindless floating and dashing.
Also every object that isn't concrete sounds like milk bottles clinking together when you bump into them. It's daft. Maybe that's an AWE or something too.
I enjoyed it before, and it's still decent, but this time I was hit much harder with how the game's biggest letdown is it being a shooter.
You read notes about stuff like employees boringly cataloguing 100 boxes of individual human teeth, or consulting incantations to calm a stapler that's tearing up the staff room, but all you get to do is shoot red dudes and float around. Pressing square to cleanse things, without even an appropriate mini game or something to jazz it up. The game borrows heavily from SCP shit, but fails to get that a lot of the draw with that stuff is the weird containment procedures and rituals in dealing with them. Control is every SCP story ending with "Agents drew their guns and put the subject down".
I genuinely wish the gameplay was about dealing with anomalies by using a big tome you had to lug about to consult what procedures to use. Discovering new ones from hands on experience and adding to the data. Unique interactions instead of just walking into rooms and enemies spawn in so you start firing. It's a shame because the environmental design is immaculate in places, and as such feels wasted on mindless floating and dashing.
Also every object that isn't concrete sounds like milk bottles clinking together when you bump into them. It's daft. Maybe that's an AWE or something too.
Watch Dogs 2
2016
Possible unironic best Ubisoft game they've made in recent memory.
I never understood the hate for Watch_Dogs. I mean, I remember hearing reviews of the original, and I was perplexed by the hate. A lot of people expected the hacking to be way more intricate instead of "press button, gates pop up, dead cops!", and I get that, but I'm glad that WD1 and WD2 kept up the arcade feel. It just makes the game flow better, even if it's not this huge puzzle-oriented enigma the whole time.
Regardless, Watch Dogs 2 really just does everything better than 1. It's less ultra-serious and has a lot more cohesive themes than whatever the people were thinking when they made WD1. It's this fun little romp in which you go around stealthily killing enemies, and if they catch you, you unload on their faces with a variety of weapons. If you're really talented, you can combine both for a hell of a playthrough, or you can play true pacifist and let the machine just malfunction on everyone's dead body.
The story is really the runaway here, with something from Ubisoft that doesn't take itself too seriously, but focuses on fun themes and plots centered on rebelling against corporate overlords and basically sending them calling cards while you raid their facilities with a team. It's uh...eerily similar to some other game people love on this site. Which, makes it pretty awesome to play through and enjoy bonding as you break San Francisco (a wonderful location choice) with your elite hacks, I guess.
I think the only place this game falls apart is some lame sidequests like tiny collectible puzzles and "races", Ubi's favorite ways to pad out their games. The combat just feels okay too, almost like Ubi's other third-person games that I'm not sold on, like The Division.
Overall, a great game that shows what Ubisoft can do when they're not focused on making 9 sequels to their successful franchises. A shame WD might be dead thanks to their latest endeavor, because this game was truly underrated and one of my favorite games they've made.
I never understood the hate for Watch_Dogs. I mean, I remember hearing reviews of the original, and I was perplexed by the hate. A lot of people expected the hacking to be way more intricate instead of "press button, gates pop up, dead cops!", and I get that, but I'm glad that WD1 and WD2 kept up the arcade feel. It just makes the game flow better, even if it's not this huge puzzle-oriented enigma the whole time.
Regardless, Watch Dogs 2 really just does everything better than 1. It's less ultra-serious and has a lot more cohesive themes than whatever the people were thinking when they made WD1. It's this fun little romp in which you go around stealthily killing enemies, and if they catch you, you unload on their faces with a variety of weapons. If you're really talented, you can combine both for a hell of a playthrough, or you can play true pacifist and let the machine just malfunction on everyone's dead body.
The story is really the runaway here, with something from Ubisoft that doesn't take itself too seriously, but focuses on fun themes and plots centered on rebelling against corporate overlords and basically sending them calling cards while you raid their facilities with a team. It's uh...eerily similar to some other game people love on this site. Which, makes it pretty awesome to play through and enjoy bonding as you break San Francisco (a wonderful location choice) with your elite hacks, I guess.
I think the only place this game falls apart is some lame sidequests like tiny collectible puzzles and "races", Ubi's favorite ways to pad out their games. The combat just feels okay too, almost like Ubi's other third-person games that I'm not sold on, like The Division.
Overall, a great game that shows what Ubisoft can do when they're not focused on making 9 sequels to their successful franchises. A shame WD might be dead thanks to their latest endeavor, because this game was truly underrated and one of my favorite games they've made.
Persona 3 Reload
2024
Persona 3 Portable has always had my favourite story and characters of any Persona game, but unfortunately the various ways in which it's aged poorly have prevented me from naming it my favourite Persona game. After the remake was announced I was cautiously optimistic, with my excitement only growing with each new trailer. This is the third game I've ever been so excited about that I preordered it.
I'm going to start with the flaws because there are not many. The lack of FeMC is really disappointing, I thought that some of the music tracks are better in their original incarnation, and I think there are a few moments where the second-person narration is a bit more effective. That's it. Those are the only flaws I can think of as of writing.
I was a little nervous about the new voice cast, but I'm glad to say that they all knocked it out of the park. Although there are a few performances from Portable that I prefer, the new cast are great. The real star of the show for me was Zeno Robinson, who was able to turn Junpei from a character who I actively disliked in the original version of the game into one of my favourites. The fully-voiced Social Links were great too.
The reworks to combat and Tartarus have turned it from a chore I hate completing into something I regularly journeyed into for fun. The combat feels like the best the series has had so far, with Theurgy making me frequently adjust my strategies so that I could unlock the attacks.
The music is great too. Although a few songs are better in Portable, the new songs are some of my favourite in the franchise. I've been listening to Full Moon Full Life on repeat and I think it might be my favourite Persona intro?
Finally, the story of Persona 3 Reload is just as great as it was in the original, and arguably even better. The new Link Episodes were really good, both preventing the SEES boys from feeling out-of-focus and exploring different aspects of them to the Female Protagonist's Social Links. The expanded sequences with Strega make them feel more fleshed out. I was sobbing for basically the entire ending.
In short, this is easily my favourite game in the Persona franchise and one of my favourites ever. A 10/10 genuinely feels too low. I highly recommend it.
I'm going to start with the flaws because there are not many. The lack of FeMC is really disappointing, I thought that some of the music tracks are better in their original incarnation, and I think there are a few moments where the second-person narration is a bit more effective. That's it. Those are the only flaws I can think of as of writing.
I was a little nervous about the new voice cast, but I'm glad to say that they all knocked it out of the park. Although there are a few performances from Portable that I prefer, the new cast are great. The real star of the show for me was Zeno Robinson, who was able to turn Junpei from a character who I actively disliked in the original version of the game into one of my favourites. The fully-voiced Social Links were great too.
The reworks to combat and Tartarus have turned it from a chore I hate completing into something I regularly journeyed into for fun. The combat feels like the best the series has had so far, with Theurgy making me frequently adjust my strategies so that I could unlock the attacks.
The music is great too. Although a few songs are better in Portable, the new songs are some of my favourite in the franchise. I've been listening to Full Moon Full Life on repeat and I think it might be my favourite Persona intro?
Finally, the story of Persona 3 Reload is just as great as it was in the original, and arguably even better. The new Link Episodes were really good, both preventing the SEES boys from feeling out-of-focus and exploring different aspects of them to the Female Protagonist's Social Links. The expanded sequences with Strega make them feel more fleshed out. I was sobbing for basically the entire ending.
In short, this is easily my favourite game in the Persona franchise and one of my favourites ever. A 10/10 genuinely feels too low. I highly recommend it.
Putting quotes on screen like:
"War is delightful to those who have not yet experienced it."
"Whoever stands by a just cause cannot possibly be called a terrorist."
-and then making a game purely about trying to make the spectacle of war FUN while shooting masses of middle-eastern stereotypes as they run mindlessly at you. Shut the FUCK up.
There's an allusion to self-awareness through these, but if it's not blatant from the gameplay and the narrative and the metanarrative and the developers' intent and the legacy of these games and the military funding and everything else, it's immediately shattered when you die and get the quote:
"Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share."
Why even try to include any of the other desperately misplaced statements on terrorism, the horrors of war, what evil must be done in the name of freedom. Nobody making - let alone playing these games gives a damn how America has perpetuated the use of the word "terrorist" to justify racism and genocide and push conservatism to fund the military and place more trust in the government. Everybody making and playing these games is here because it's a gun game. You point and click and don't think about it. People from other countries aren't people, they're an object, an NPC, an aesthetic. Don't listen to what they're saying, don't think about who they are outside of conflict, just point and click like a good dog.
Moral repugnance aside, I'm not even entertained by this game. The setpieces and spectacle really aren't special, partially due to my having played literally any game that's come out since and being unenthused by shooters at large, but I can still pull examples from before Call of Duty that are leagues ahead of this mechanically. I'm not having fun with the military formations and the gunfeel in the ways they clearly want me to, and nothing will ever top having played Metro and Machinegames' library.
"War is delightful to those who have not yet experienced it."
"Whoever stands by a just cause cannot possibly be called a terrorist."
-and then making a game purely about trying to make the spectacle of war FUN while shooting masses of middle-eastern stereotypes as they run mindlessly at you. Shut the FUCK up.
There's an allusion to self-awareness through these, but if it's not blatant from the gameplay and the narrative and the metanarrative and the developers' intent and the legacy of these games and the military funding and everything else, it's immediately shattered when you die and get the quote:
"Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share."
Why even try to include any of the other desperately misplaced statements on terrorism, the horrors of war, what evil must be done in the name of freedom. Nobody making - let alone playing these games gives a damn how America has perpetuated the use of the word "terrorist" to justify racism and genocide and push conservatism to fund the military and place more trust in the government. Everybody making and playing these games is here because it's a gun game. You point and click and don't think about it. People from other countries aren't people, they're an object, an NPC, an aesthetic. Don't listen to what they're saying, don't think about who they are outside of conflict, just point and click like a good dog.
Moral repugnance aside, I'm not even entertained by this game. The setpieces and spectacle really aren't special, partially due to my having played literally any game that's come out since and being unenthused by shooters at large, but I can still pull examples from before Call of Duty that are leagues ahead of this mechanically. I'm not having fun with the military formations and the gunfeel in the ways they clearly want me to, and nothing will ever top having played Metro and Machinegames' library.
I'm a big apologist for the first couple WWII Call of Duty games (United Offensive not as much), but this one does a whole lot less for me. There's good moments like the nuke scene and parts of All Ghillied Up, but unfortunately a lot more is there for shock value alone. This is definitely the game where the series went from Steven Spielberg to Michael Bay and the quality suffers for it. Incoherent plot, messy themes, lots of Bush-era jingoism. Really unfortunate how much of a product of its time this one is when others in the series - both before and after - have aged much more gracefully.
Persona 3 Reload
2024
I was gonna write up a whole blog post about this, but upon reflection I don't have a whole lot to say. It's a good remake, one that updates the source material so it feels like it hasn't aged a day, but keeps the core of the original intact. For ex, cutting out transphobic jokes, and adding more opportunities to bond with your team, are both much appreciated changes.
That being said there's some things that I feel got lost in translation. For one, a couple of the original's animated cutscenes are now in engine, and every time that happened they were just much blander, which was disappointing. That's my one concrete criticism.
Beyond that, I don't like new tartarus as much as old tartarus. It feels like there's too much going on, like the game is pulling away from its dungeon crawler roots, and it just makes it a little tough to completely chill out while exploring like I did in the original. Plus your teammates talk a LOT more, which went from endearing to annoying after about 30 hours of it.
The other criticism I have is just about the general feeling of the game. Persona 3 is now a modern game, one that bends over backwards to make things nice and convenient for you. Social Links seem more stable, it's harder to get locked into things, etc. And that's not a bad thing, but I think there's a little lost when you move a game that used to be somewhat hostile to players into a more welcoming direction, especially a game with themes and tone like Persona 3. It feels like the balance between social sim and wish fulfillment sim has been tipped even further towards the latter. I appreciate that they seem to have made it impossible to 100% the game in one run though, you have to actually choose which relationships to foster.
Again, it's a good remake, one with the original atmosphere fully intact (once you bring the default brightness down 3 or 4 pips), and it's one that to 90% of people I would recommend over the original. But even if this had all of the content that'd ever been released for persona 3, I don't think I'd call this the definitive best version.
That being said there's some things that I feel got lost in translation. For one, a couple of the original's animated cutscenes are now in engine, and every time that happened they were just much blander, which was disappointing. That's my one concrete criticism.
Beyond that, I don't like new tartarus as much as old tartarus. It feels like there's too much going on, like the game is pulling away from its dungeon crawler roots, and it just makes it a little tough to completely chill out while exploring like I did in the original. Plus your teammates talk a LOT more, which went from endearing to annoying after about 30 hours of it.
The other criticism I have is just about the general feeling of the game. Persona 3 is now a modern game, one that bends over backwards to make things nice and convenient for you. Social Links seem more stable, it's harder to get locked into things, etc. And that's not a bad thing, but I think there's a little lost when you move a game that used to be somewhat hostile to players into a more welcoming direction, especially a game with themes and tone like Persona 3. It feels like the balance between social sim and wish fulfillment sim has been tipped even further towards the latter. I appreciate that they seem to have made it impossible to 100% the game in one run though, you have to actually choose which relationships to foster.
Again, it's a good remake, one with the original atmosphere fully intact (once you bring the default brightness down 3 or 4 pips), and it's one that to 90% of people I would recommend over the original. But even if this had all of the content that'd ever been released for persona 3, I don't think I'd call this the definitive best version.
Very influential game, and was interesting to look back on what games used to be like. There are very creative choices, such as weapons like the needler. The enemy AI and open world were revolutionary at the time, and have somewhat held up. The gunplay is basic, but enjoyable. My biggest problem with this game is the map and level design, as in the later parts of the game they drag on. Many of the areas are the exact same, and the game can become a chore to get through. The final level's escape scene was grueling, as the vehicle controls were terrible and every time the Warthog crashed, I misclicked and got into the side or gunner seat instead of the driver. It's a nitpick, but it significantly dampered my excitement of the end. If you're like me, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT binge play this game, you'll get burnt out. I believe the best way to play is in bursts, as there is still enjoyment to be found. I am disapointed by this game, as I expected a classic, and it may be for others but absolutely isn't for me. I wanted to like it, but there was so much that ruined it for me. Lots of people grew up with this game, and I believe if I did as well I'd love it. If you've read this whole thing and are a Halo fan, are the other games any better? Halo 2 and Reach are the only ones I'd play afterword, but I'm so burnt out on shooters and this game left such a poor taste I'm not gonna for a WHILE. have a good day:D
Drowning In Problems
2014
I'm certain there is SOMETHING here, conceptually at least. If only this idea was executed by someone who wasn't such a massive prick.
Early in the game you have to make friends just to get rid of them to move on, and I'm sure something else was meant by it, but it feels like Notch admitting to using other people to get ahead. Fitting for a person who became rich after making one of the most popular games of all time, only to spit in the faces of those who got him where he is today.
Edit: Honestly don't bother with this, its a waste of time and there's no point giving any attention to the ass who made it.
Early in the game you have to make friends just to get rid of them to move on, and I'm sure something else was meant by it, but it feels like Notch admitting to using other people to get ahead. Fitting for a person who became rich after making one of the most popular games of all time, only to spit in the faces of those who got him where he is today.
Edit: Honestly don't bother with this, its a waste of time and there's no point giving any attention to the ass who made it.
Persona 3 Reload
2024
We are forever cursed to wonder what a definitive version of Persona 3 would look like. To echo the sentiment of everyone: the decision to not include the female protagonist from P3P or other additional content from P3 FES was bizarre, and it's a decision that haunts an otherwise incredible remake.
I finished Persona 3 FES on PS2 a few years ago, and warts and all, I found it to be a really profound experience. I'm really happy more people will get to experience this narrative, and I hope they find it to be even half as cathartic as I did.
It's a game centered around death that makes the case our lives are beautiful because they end, and that the day-to-day moments where we find small joys and connections amount to something in total we have no words for.
If you enjoyed P4G or P5R, definitely give this one a chance. And while you're at it, maybe play FES and P3P too. Perhaps it's fitting we now have three versions of 3.
I finished Persona 3 FES on PS2 a few years ago, and warts and all, I found it to be a really profound experience. I'm really happy more people will get to experience this narrative, and I hope they find it to be even half as cathartic as I did.
It's a game centered around death that makes the case our lives are beautiful because they end, and that the day-to-day moments where we find small joys and connections amount to something in total we have no words for.
If you enjoyed P4G or P5R, definitely give this one a chance. And while you're at it, maybe play FES and P3P too. Perhaps it's fitting we now have three versions of 3.