While "regression" may be too harsh of a term, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Ace Combat 4 has much more in common with the heightened arcade feel of AC2 than the ambitious AC3. In fact, making a more focused game was a direct goal of the development team.

It's a shame that most of the aspects of the gameplay that I enjoyed feel like they work in spite of that arcade-y focus. There's some enjoyable stuff here still, it does a great job of maintaining that cinematic feel for the most part. Roaring through a ravine while Stonehenge fires above is a particularly memorable moment, and the increased radio chatter does a great job at making battles feel more intense. In theory, the more limited ammo count is a good idea too, forcing more resource management than before. However the mission design takes the biggest hit from the more arcade-y focus. Making score attack elements so prevalent is an interesting idea, but it often feels like padding. For a three hour long game, so much of it was spent flying in circles waiting around for the timer to run out after I had finished the objective. At the same time, the objectives themselves feel a bit tedious, as it can take destroying a ton of small value targets to get to the goal. All of this hurts the resource management as well, using all of the remaining ammo to raise the mission rank forces you to restock which is a pretty slow process. Overall the core gameplay loop is left feeling a bit unsatisfying, with too much downtime spent shooting weak ground targets, waiting for timers to expire, and flying to and from the air base to restock. While I wished AC3 had switched it up a bit more sometimes too, it definitely felt like a step above in terms of variety.

From all that, a more scaled back story may also seem like a disappointing step down from AC3, but AC4 does a great job of using its scope to the fullest. The narrator is a really great touch here, a unique way to show a conflict that feels entirely normalized to us from an entirely different angle. While it doesn't shy away from making Mobius 1 into a heroic figure in many ways, it stops short of being unnuanced worship by making Yellow 13 feel like a real equal. It doesn't reach for the same thematic heights as AC3, but the idea of finding purpose through a meaningless war is impactful as well. If there is one thing that AC3 and 4 and have in common, it's that they both do a great job of showing how the ideologies behind war begin to fray and fall apart, leaving the fighters to find their own sense of resolve. It makes me look forward to seeing what else can be done in Strangereal.

If you were to ask anyone put off by Kingdom Hearts what their reasoning is, a common one is that the setting is unappealing. There tends to be two sides of the equation, either they think Final Fantasy is lame "anime" stuff or think that Disney is too babyish. Or they just think both. Funnily enough, the setting is probably the easiest aspect of this game for me to accept. This game was a somewhat miserable experience for me though, and it falls entirely on the gameplay.

Just as a disclaimer, I played the game on Proud difficulty which probably added a good amount of time to my playthrough. However, I don't think any of the poor design issues this game has would be fixed by lower difficulties, it would just mean less petty frustration. At first, the main issue are the enemies, and the problems there start and end with the camera. While KH mostly feels fine fundamentally, the extremely limited camera makes each encounter unnecessarily punishing. This was at its worst in Agrabah, with multiple different types of projectiles constantly being fired at once that are borderline impossible to see. It doesn't help that the lock-on feels completely awful at times: With using it the camera can get stuck being yanked along by fast flying enemies and without it the auto targeting can be extremely unpredictable. The level design also makes movement frustrating early on, though this is a bit better by Hollow Bastion.

Further into game, the leaf bracer, second chance ability and aero spells make these encounters more tolerable. This doesn't mean good mind you, spamming heal every 30 seconds isn't any fun either. But the encounters at least become manageable. What remains awful are all of the bosses, and KH might have one of the worst rosters of boss fights that I've ever seen. It's difficult to even find examples to use here because there are so many bad ones. At best you get a boss like Chernabog or Captain Hook, one that is time consuming and dull but not ridiculously unfair. At worst, you get, well, bosses that are time consuming and dull and also ridiculously unfair. Dragon Maleficent, Cerberus, Ansem, and so on all take way too long to defeat, are way too punishing, and just overall miserable experiences. KH encourages defensive play to an absurd degree, sometimes only allowing 2 hits on a boss before needing to run and heal. Part of this is a proud mode problem, but the design of these bosses just feels so careless too. Many of these bosses have weakpoints limited to the head yet have very fast attacks with little to no telegraphing that can hit you while you jump up to attack. I can't think of many deaths I had that felt like genuine mistakes being punished, instead most of them felt like me getting impatient with the tedious design and trying to get an extra few hits in before healing. The boss after Maleficent Dragon is probably the most tolerable in the game, while it isn't all-time great it offers up the most carefully considered challenge. For the most part though, KH1 feels like a game filled with thoughtless fights where the only difference between life and death is getting too bored.

While the story is nothing special, it does work fairly well. My main gripe with it is that it feels really inconsequential for so much of the runtime. While we hear the heartless are an issue at the beginning, most of the worlds feel just like extremely cut down versions of their movies plots. Admittedly, I don't really care for most of these movies but even if I did I don't think I would find them that satisfying. Halloween Town and the 100 Acre Wood are probably the best here, they both feel really considerate of the source material while tying into the plot in small but fun ways. I hope these are the blueprint for future KH worlds.

For a game I only gave two stars, it would be a lie to say I never felt the trademark Kingdom Hearts charm shine through. The clashing elements end up making for a pretty cool aesthetic, and I was intrigued by the original story elements that are hinted at. Despite everything, it only made me want to delve into the series even more. I just want to experience those elements in a better game.

After suffering defeat two years ago, I return to Elden Ring with a fresher outlook than I had before. As a big fan of both Dark Souls 1 and Breath of the Wild, it felt wrong to write this game off fully after the bitter end of my previous 80% completed run.

I used to (derisively) call Elden Ring "Dark Souls 3-2". yet replaying Dark Souls 3 before this replay made me feel a bit guilty for saying that. The improvements Elden Ring makes are noticeable, particularly for such a massive game. The basic combat feels immensely better, with the slight movement and animation tweaks being coupled with vastly better enemy design than DS3. No longer are basic peasant enemies chaining you in 6 hit combos with superarmor, and the satisfying stagger mechanic makes aggressive play way more rewarding. More importantly, the enemy placement leaves enough room to not make fights feel too uncomfortable while still catching you off guard plenty with a few set-pieces. It doesn't really get at what I enjoy in Dark Souls 1's combat, but it works well for an open world game.

Where this combat approach brings more mixed results ends up being the boss battles. There's too many to go over them all so I'll just give some notes on what is notable:

Rennala, Radahn, and Godfrey are all excellent fights, showing where Souls spectacle and unique mechanics can meet in the middle to create incredibly memorable fights. Each of these fights lives up to the legendary status that you would expect in terms of the visuals and music while presenting their own challenges.

Placidusax, Maliketh, and Mohg all occupy a more comfortable middle ground for me. I can't say I'm blown away by these fights, but I could see why people would be sold on these.

Morgott/Margit, Red Wolf, and Rykard all felt somewhat disappointing. Fairly weak atmosphere and generic souls boss movement for the former two. For Rykard, it just feels like a gimmick that really didn't need to be done more than once being used for the third time. It's not copy pasted but I'm just kinda over it at this point.

Fire Giant, Astel, and Godskin duo are some of the worst fights they've ever made. Unimaginative, under-designed and probably the biggest examples of pure "fuck you" difficulty that this game has to offer.

Except for... Radagon and Elden Beast. These two are up there with DS2 for some of the worst final bosses I've ever seen in a From Soft game. Frustrating roll-catching and poor telegraphs for the former, holding down the sprint button for an hour for the latter, and obnoxious AOE spam for both. I rarely think about these games on a pure gameplay level but it is insane how bad these are, to override any enjoyment I could have had from the lore or atmosphere.

Speaking more broadly though, I think the overall boss design philosophy From Soft has shifted to just sort of bothers me as a whole. This isn't a gripe with difficulty or laziness, but it bothers me in a way I can only describe as feeling talked down to by the game. For a game that popularized a specific style of boss fight, Dark Souls 1 is actually fairly restrained with most of its fights. Each one comes at a pivotal point, or after a hard-fought area, or serves as a gate to test skill. Dark Souls 2 shifted more to just throwing a boss in a random room every once in a while, and Elden Ring feels like it carries this DNA much more.

It feels as if this game demands constant stimulation from me in exchange for little reward. Like if I don't see a boss health bar pop up every 30 minutes, I'll call it quits. By the time I got to the end of Leyndell and the Fell Twins boss (consisting of what was basically just two enemies) popped up, I just started laughing. Was the game this desperate to keep my attention span? That's only one example, but I don't think anyone who has played for an extended amount of time can deny that the game bombards you with bosses. As silly as it sounds, it almost devalues the concept of them.

One of the most common issues I've seen people have is with the amount of repeated bosses. This is part of the problem for me as well, but I don't think it's the core of it. Breath of the Wild has even less variety, but the bosses are not the primary focus of the gameplay loop, rather they are additions to the exploration cycle. Hinoxes carry weapons that require some finesse to get, Lynels deny areas from the player, Stone Taluses blend into the environment, and so on. Limited boss movesets in ER would have felt more acceptable if they had felt more rewarding in the gameplay loop. It's hard to say many of these bosses are poorly designed, but with nothing risked it feels like nothing was gained. The counterargument would always be that these are all optional, yet saying that about the primary reward for engaging with the exploration feels a bit silly. It's funny that bosses reappearing as normal enemies, a maligned aspect of Dark Souls 1 that was done due to time constraints, is now such a commonly accepted part of the experience.

Unfortunately, this is an effect that ends up bleeding over into the main bosses for me as well. It's not so bad when you have to fight a couple magma wyrms, but fighting Mohg twice? Fighting a shitty Godfrey clone on the first trip to Leyndell? In a way, these moments play off expectations like a lot of great Souls fights do, yet I can hardly call them successful in that way. For the former, it just feels bizarre to put a fake Mohg in there, I can't really give much reason else why I hate it other than the fact that you can end up doing them "out of order". For Godfrey, I understand a bit more but it feels like such a pointless spoiler still. I guess the purpose is to illustrate the player's journey, yet this feels like a shallow reason to me still.

Part of why it does feel so shallow is that it feeds into one of the aspects of this game that I like the least: it feels like the closest they have gotten to a pure power fantasy. That's not such a bad thing, but it's just not really what I want out of these games. Dark Souls 1 had plenty of triumphant moments, but also many bittersweet or outright depressing ones as well. I don't feel a great tragedy upon killing Gideon Ofnir, I feel like I'm killing some asshole who looked down on me all game. Is it satisfying? Sure. But would I rather have had to fight, say, Melina? Absolutely. Sekiro does this exact thing multiple times as well.

The actual exploration of Elden Ring alternates between showing some real, tantalizing appeal and some of the same issues as the bosses poking through. It's easy to get lost in the stunning vistas or to find unique points of interest that can sometimes hide whole new areas, yet for every well executed trick there's at least one that doesn't stick the landing. Teleporting the player to a vista of a later area is a fine trick at first, but feels like it falls back into that constant stimulation from before. I was very letdown seeing that the game just kinda willingly spoils Leyndell and Farum Azula if you find easily accessible teleporters.

These are more minor issues, yet they add up when it feels that each region is a bit lacking for bespoke game design elements. Credit where credit is due, the atmosphere is absolutely nailed in most areas. The blood-red Caelid swamps, the eerie calm of Liurnia's glistening lakes, and the rolling hills of tarnished gold that make up the Altus plateau are all fantastically realized. It can be argued that the structures and dungeons that make up these areas make up the meat of the experience, yet it also makes them only feel the more disappointing when there is such little meaningful difference in what you end up doing in each region. I think this ends up being missed potential more than anything, I wish the game asked me to think on my feet a little more to get through a situation. Maybe this is just where the Souls formula stretches too thin for me though. Despite the harsh death mechanics still existing, the abundance of Graces makes it hard for me to feel too much risk is being weighed. When losing runes is the only risk carried by haphazardly exploring, the tension just drains for me somewhat.

To give credit once again, the Legacy Dungeons all stand in direct contrast to these issues. Each one is a striking monument plopped straight into the middle of the world, with some of the most memorable environments in the game. While I wish some were a bit less linear, it's easy to appreciate both the sheer scale and airtight level design put into Stormveil or Leyndell. Maybe this is unfair though, but I feel that they show the cracks in Elden Ring's overall design philosophy more than anything. In a game with a vast world as its appeal, with the promise of breaking free of the limited level design of previous Souls games, the more throwback areas are the best parts of the game. Maybe for a lot of people having both is part of the appeal, but for me it just feels like they split the difference.

After all this I think the biggest reason I feel disconnected from Elden Ring is because more than other Souls games it feels the most about "Stuff". I don't mean this as some sort of scathing dunk, it just feels like so much of the core appeal lies in finding that next thing and being rewarded for it. There's always the promise of another boss, or another little dungeon, or another new vista, and on paper it's obvious why this appeals to so many people. Having the From Soft magic distilled into a bunch of small alright moments has obviously been a slam dunk. But so many small alright moments can't match up to one great moment to me, and that's where I feel Elden Ring falls short.