genuinely one of the most impressive games on the PS1 in terms of presentation. everything from the animations, music, naturalistic voice acting, settings, and so on comes together so well. a true feast for the senses. it feels so uncommon to play a game where the main characters are at each others necks like this which made for an interesting dynamic.

i even enjoyed the combat system which at a glance seemed to be more difficult than it ended up. going for most of the content in the game (i collected the rare weapons, did backtracking for optional puzzles, fought the superboss, upgraded all weapons and spells except for Revive and one handed knives, etc.) had me so overpowered that i didn't have to think much about any of the later game encounters and i could just smack or blast things with whatever spell and they'd die within two rounds usually.

the animations and loading in combat are a bit slow and i could see how playing this on actual hardware would be a bit of a slog but being able to fast forward on duckstation got around it.

absolutely deserves to be more popular than it is. can't wait to dive into the Shadow Hearts games eventually too.

Relieved to finally start finishing the fight. Never touched a Halo game all my life so the chance to binge the entire saga via the Master Chief Collection on Game Pass with Ren (my trusty fellow Chief) was too good to pass up. As a remake, 343 have done a brilliant job at sprucing up the original game, adding in a gluttony of new textures and retooling the sound mix to such a degree that improves the feel of the gunplay itself. Bungie's influential design is felt throughout but Combat Evolved is hardly a masterpiece for a newcomer like me with zero nostalgia. Of the ten levels, over half of those had significant stretches that felt tedious or frustratingly obtuse, including a couple of missions that are just nightmares in backtracking and repetition. Thank god for full co-op support because I would've felt insane going through this alone. I'm excited to play the sequels as it's a heck of a good time, but I can't say I loved every moment.