Hogwarts Legacy is quite an odd title, because in theory I like all the elements that the game comprises of, and I had a lot of fun in the first 20 or so hours but then something just snapped and I didn't really see myself wanting to play any more.

The environments are beautifully crafted with the Hogwarts Castle being exceptionally well done. I enjoyed the combat, the story and I think the initial exploration was nicely done. There's definitely love for the universe in this title. The game started running into more issues once the wider world opened up, and it just sadly became a bit of a chore. It's a tiny bit repetitive and the more time I spent in the open world the more I realized that I want to be in the actual castle more than anything else. Once I realized that a bunch of omissions like proper focus on the actual school life became more apparent and the magic was lost for me.

What if ninja gaiden was vivisected and remade into a lame port?

Ninja gaiden sigma is everything i despise in a port it understands very little about what makes the original a concise challenging experience but what's make it bad compared to the original? well its quite simple.
sigma instead of choosing to elevate the already excellent and tight foundation of ninja gaiden black instead goes back on its design choices and throws it in the fucking dumpster the game destroys 90% of the bosses alma awakend literally lacks her back hitbox and spirit doku's AI was completely butchered he seems to spasm out whenever he gets close.

The art direction and OST have taken a massive hit as well. tairon went from looking like a vaguely middle eastern village to looking like fucking london lmao the first chapter level is now set in autumn for some strange reason they also removed the waterfall in that area because ?? Tairon under alert also suffers a strange art direction choice as the skybox is bright as hell for some reason in black it was a nice early sunrise look showing the passage of time in a authentic way, and it seems they knew this as the very next chapter has the correct skybox albeit a lot darker.

They somehow managed to fuck up the excellent pacing of black as well for some reason they decided to throw in random Rachel chapters during the game in an extremely awkward manner I'll be brief on Rachel as there's not a ton to say about her (and it seems the developers thought this as they gave her half a move set) but frankly her inclusion here fucking blows Rachel in the story is a joke character one who jobs endlessly to basic bitch enemies and just sort of exists the new chapters don't help with this as the story placement of them is extremely boring and brief much like her character.

The pacing in the ryu levels is also butchered quite a bit in a very strange decision the entire game just lacks puzzles for some unknown reason the only puzzle I noticed left was the monk safe and that was a simple counting puzzle there's no pyramid puzzle nothing its gone for absolutely no reason other then they thought casuals would get filtered by them (they're right).

Now you would think that at the very least the new additions would be very welcome to ninja gaiden right? wrong. The new weapon the dragon claw and tiger fang is an absolute joke of a weapon the recovery on it is extremely poor and it seems like the game doesn't know how to handle it because you end up whiffing a ton of hits for absolutely no reason now this might be a master collection issue (as that port alone has thousands of them) but it seems like it's also in sigma as they fixed nothing about the game in the master collection.

One of the new additions/QOL is also quick heals now you would probably think that this is a welcome change? absolutely not quick heals undermines the entire point of potions and elixirs, They could turn the entire tide of a fight in a single move and you were encouraged to consume them in small amounts as the game barely gave you any and if you consumed them foolheartedly you would have to restock and that would cut into your essence supply that you would be better off spending on weapon upgrades it was a very well designed system and it was a good balancing act but now because the game also gives you an abundance of elixirs (gates of hell literally has a elixir after every room) you end up with more then enough essence to spend on upgrades and occasionally restocking this undermines the entire balancing act.

Also shout out to the composer completely butchering his tracks here they sound way too quiet and lack any punch the original OST had oh and they didn't bother changing the FMV music so you can hear the original alma awakened track before it transitions to that absolute dumpster fire of a remix.

It is absolutely incredible that team ninja even considers this version a replacement for the original two due in no part to them completely losing the masters for black and vanilla and its frankly an insult that this version was even considered acceptable by anyone could itagaki have saved this port? maybe but lets not deal in hypotheticals in the end sigma is an absolute mess and a extreme downgrade from the classic title.

I think if I had to really pinpoint which game best represents the shallow melodrama, clusterfuck of plot threads and ideas, bad character writing dumbed down gameplay and lack of care or attention given to its mechanics of cold steel i think IV fits the bill in every aspect.

Nothing about this game feels cohesive every one of its ideas and executions feel stale and messy the experience is marred constantly with the same issues every cold steel game seems to have and i'm not sure if they're even aware of what they're doing half the time as it seems like CSIV looses track of what it's trying to be halfway through although at times it seems like not even they knew what they wanted to be.

In general if you want an idea of what exactly is wrong with cold steel's direction look no further then the pantagruel scene big setpiece with all these characters from better games mingling with the CS cast which then results in the same 5 villains repeated ad nauseum since fucking SC getting in a zoom call with the cast while they're all angry at them which then culminates in a series of piss easy filler boss fights that ends on a deus ex machina with a character that was thought to have died in the previous entry coming to save them out of nowhere.

I really don't think i can say much as anything else would just be repeating the obvious fuck cold steel lmao

Ragnarok showed signs that they might have learned from their mistakes in 2018 though despite this ragnarok is a far worse off product and doubles down on a lot of the mistakes 2018 made while introducing new ones.


Ultimately ragnarok is a dreadfully slow badly paced handholding experience with bad camera controls characters that never shut up plot holes in an already unstable plotline with reddit tier humour and jokes that never land (any game with prozd in it is reddit sorry i don't write the rules) plot threads that clearly were meant for a whole trilogy are unceremoniously shafted freya's character arc especially good lord so much for raining down every agony possible lmao. 0.5/10
(PS nobody shuts the fuck up in this game don't play it if you don't like NPCS who constantly prod you about trivial puzzles)

TDLR: just play new vegas if you want a 3D fallout lmao runs better and isn't written by total hacks.

I know its popular to shit on bethesda's fallout but with a start like this they honestly deserve the circlejerking when Fallout 3 is a shallow meandering mess that both misunderstands the top down game and somehow makes them viewed better in retrospective.

Don't get me wrong though there is stuff to like in 3 but its badgered to death by the games poor attempts at roleplaying and story you're either comically evil or reincarnated vault dweller jesus come to save the wasteland from the evil enclave none of the roleplaying matters eitherway because the ending is identical with a different flavor it could be argued that this applies to new vegas as well but the tones of those endings are all completely different and imply different outcomes for the wasteland while 3's ending boils down to you either poisoned the water or didn't (pre broken steel this ending was also way worse as you'd be forced to die.)

But overall replaying this has just cemented how much better new vegas is overall its the popular reddit circlejerk about how much NV does everything but it is truthful for once everything 3 tried was done better in New Vegas both roleplaying and story.

(PS all the DLC's are ass don't bother mothership zeta is the fucking worst)