Almost a return to form. Plays great and the narrative is the most engaging its been since 3, for me. There's still some noticeable roughness though. Lighting engine has issues in exterior spaces. The boss fights are rather absurd difficulty spikes. And the netcode in multiplayer will hold out well enough most times, but it can unravel pretty bad as well.

But the gameplay core really is just so fine that you can brush off those issues and have fun. So I look forward to seeing how the game evolves.

[Update]: Not as optimistically as I had hoped.

A short and sweet escape room puzzle game with an interesting, though not wholly fleshed out plot around it. Having played some of the writer's later works first, I can see how this title was one the first steps in a lot of the themes Uchikoshi further develops and plays with. As it stands, it's a solid story and a good cast, just the overall effect is probably dampened by having played Ai already.

For me, personally, the best part was actually the puzzles which were a nice consistent challenge and only a couple were annoying, but not unsolvable.

A very good escape room puzzle game on top of an interesting but perhaps overly ambitious visual novel. As a sequel to 999, I feel it takes a few steps forward in some areas, and a few steps back in others.

As stated, I think this game excels with its puzzles. 98% of the challenges (of which there are a lot) felt fair but not obvious. Only a handful of steps across all 16 puzzle rooms did I resort to a guide, and I felt stupid for missing something I could have figured out every time. With that said, at a technical level this game often moves agonizingly slowly for me, especially since 999 was so snappy.

Visually, it has a similar sense of style to 999's (which I loved), but the 3D models are markedly less appealing than the old 2D sprites.

Then narratively, the story is presented in a cool way that's fun to piece together, and it's enjoyably wild. However, as someone who tends to care about characters more than plot, most of the scenarios felt a little lacking in heart to me. There are definitely great moments, but by the end I feel like I still don't know half the cast.

Upon replaying about nine years later, I've come to realize this game is a lot better than I initially gave it credit for. My initial criticisms aren't completely undone, but the strengths and details of the games are now apparent.

My biggest initial criticism was the narrative, but I think I didn't pick up on the subtle details or just wasn't in the right mindset for this kind of story at the time. I still don't entirely think the "survivor" theme is as well executed as it could be, but there's a good drama here about sacrifice, obsession, and the pursuit of mystery. The characters are better than I remembered too. Still missing that immediate charm Uncharted has and which this game is most readily compared to, but they're effective enough.

Gameplay wise, Rise taught me that Crystal Dynamics is one of the more interesting environment puzzle developers in the industry. It's not as strong here as in the next to, but it definitely was a solid start. And that thinking extends to the combat sandbox which is much more flexible that Uncharted's.

Overall, I'm much more positive about this game than I was originally, but it's still kinda jank at times.

Wasn't sure about this game at first, I tend to be non-comittal with Metroidvanias and then the first Emmi section gave me Mr. X ptsd.
but
I stuck with it on some urging from friends and they were 100% right. This game is fabulous. The gameplay, while sometimes a bit technical, is very fluid and you feel powerful and challenged. Also, Samus is a goddamn badass and these cutscenes are just 🔥🔥🔥. The cinematics director needs to make an action movie... lord almighty the choreography 😤

The exploration is quite suberb. It's generally pretty clear where you need to go except when finding a secret path is the intended challenge; the evironments are varied and set the tone of the game well; and the pacing of the progression is immensely satisfying.

Combat is great, though if you have a monkey brain like me, you will likely find some bosses a bit frustrating until you get a few attempts in. Once you understand the patterns the fights have a fun rhythm. The new counter system is the highlight for me as pulling it off is snappy, showy, and gives additional rewards. A great way to deal with basic enemies and also lets you shorten some boss fights if you find the opening during them.

Now, the EMMI's... it's kind of hilarious how the escape mechanism works. I remember hearing some discussion and frustration around this, so here's my take: It really is not intended to be relied on in the slightest. As in, if you even start the animation you should consider yourself dead. It is by design not reactable. It is almost purely luck. A good human reaction time is around 180ms, and the time you're given to react here is less than that and there's random variance in the timing. You should always try, because it's exciting on the rare occassion you get it, but play under the assumption that touching an EMMI means death.

Last critique, it is a bit of a shame that this game is stuck on the Switch. The art direction is phenomenol, but it's clearly forced to use lower fidelity assets than it could on anything else. Probably looks fine on a SWOLED but any larger screen just makes you a bit sad at the unmet potential.

Definitely the best 2D Souls-like I've played. Now it's obviously got a lot of Metroidvania elements as well, but the Souls influence is heavy and they're all adventure games anyway...

Now that aside... The single greatest element of this game is the art. It's gorgeous; it's fluid; it's unique. There's clearly a lot of passion in all of the little animations and half the fun of the game is witnessing all of it.

Gameplay-wise, this is a very technical 2D platformer. The controls are super responsive and very geared towards reaction gameplay, to the point where you can screw yourself over with accidental inputs. To put it in car terms, it controls like a race car: if you know how to drive well it rewards you, but if you can't you'll hurt yourself. I've been told it's a difficult game, but outside of the optional challenge content and a couple platforming sections, I didn't really find anything to be that hard... but I'm almost 100% sure that's because I can handle the controls. I felt like I was using years of experience playing Smash Bros. I loved it, but mileage will vary greatly.

As for the exploration side of the game, I enjoyed that a lot as well, though it did start to get more tedious the more of the map I had filled out. People who are really into manually mapping things out will have a ball here as the map itself is progressively unlocked with missable pickups. If you're not hot on that idea, it thankfully gives you just enough to get you through, but you will likely lookup a guide more than once. I got through without a guide for 87% completion and somehow managed to miss a traversal upgrade that could have sped things up, as the section of map it was in I thought was explored, but it turned out I missed a big chunk because the map doesn't reveal in high fidelity. That might sound like a negative, but I actually love that fact. It does make the game a bit more exhausting to play, though.

There's not too much more to say, this game knows what it is and doesn't try to be more than that. If any one of the aspects I've described sounds intriguing to you, give it a try: it's definitely a unique and memorable experience.

After like 47 hours with the game and a few updates, I feel like I can finally say how I feel about it... which is great. This game is exactly the kind of experience that I always wanted out of Battle Royals. It ditches the massive player count and adds a PvE element and uses a very detailed audio system to make a game that nails the bounty hunting/elimination experience. So far, it's still getting more polished over time as well.

It's got the tension and tactics of a Counter Strike type experience, with the exploration and randomness promised by a Battle Royal, but without the sweatiness of CS:GO or the complete chaos of Warzone.