56 reviews liked by eclair


I'm not mad. I have no anger. This is just fucking sad.

DmC: Devil May Cry is not a bad game, and that is its biggest downfall, as it remains far from a good game. I went into this hoping to at least get some ironic laughs while playing through it in a VC. And we absolutely did. It was great, making fun of Donte's models, the stale animations, some of the stupidest writing in a AAA game.

But then we stopped laughing. It stopped being fun.

This game is trying to push the envelope. It's trying to truly redefine what Devil May Cry will be. And yet it tries nothing. Absolutely nothing. There ARE original ideas, but the execution fails to create anything deep. Yeah, the Angel and Devil system is cool, but it hinders combo creativity when one of many angel/demon enemies appear and require you to use only one or two weapons. The grapple system is cool, but there is nothing else to them, nor is the areal combat interesting in the slightest.

Hell, I'll even go out on a whim and say that Vergil could have been an interesting character. He's always dealing with problems from the background, using others to achieve his greater goal while sitting in relative safety. Him being a coward deep down, culminating with him desiring to control others for his goals instead of joining them in freedom, could have been interesting. Hell, it could even justify his piss-easy boss, as he was never really fighting like Dante was. But not only is he, like every other major character, bland at best, but he also never establishes why he doesn't trust humans, or why he even wants to control them in the first place. He is a twist villain who exists solely to have an "equal" as the final boss. Because that's what Devil May Cry 3 did, and everyone liked it then, so why try to create something original when you can reuse ideas from older games without thinking about why those original ideas worked?

Dante is just lame in this game. It's not even that he makes jokes likely written by a 7th grader who just discovered porn, he's just so fucking dull. He has his very sparring funny lines, but that's it. He's not even cringy. He's just boring. Kat is just the token girl, and gets little characterization when she's not being useful. Mundus is probably the "best" character in this game, and only because he actually manages to have a fucking stage presence. He feels like an actual character instead of some college students the director found at the last minute.

The gameplay itself is... fine. Absolutely fine. Hell, I can consider it good or better than the other games in some areas. For example, I like having all weapons be available at all times without a menu. No need to only carry two at a time, just select a toggle, maybe press a direction on the D-pad, and bam. But what does this mean when the combat provides no new weapons in the second half? Or hell, no interesting challenges? The game has a really cool idea where the world itself shifts to impede Dante's quest, taunting him, and having the potential to create unique battle scenarios. But this game almost never takes any advantage of it. Nearly every battle is on flat, unmoving ground. Verticality doesn't exist, you will never find an enemy above you attacking from a range that you can grapple to because there is no land above to begin with. Wanna know what also doesn't exist? Enemy variety. The game rarely introduces a new minor enemy. Combine the repeats with the uncreative level design, and you have a recipe for battles blending in. The combat itself though is fine. It's just DMC3, but with slower, less fun enemies, and low challenge. I had my fun with it in the first half, but they never throw any fun new gimmicks into the game to keep the variety high. It is completely passable, and that's it.

The best part of this game is probably the soundtrack. It's not even that amazing, but it is at least a shining piece of bronze in the pile of tin foil. Not much I would listen to outside the game, but it's different from the mainline games in a way that provides genuine positive uniqueness instead of trying and failing to imitate the original.


This game is not bad. From an objective standpoint. A robot will give this game a 6/10. But I'm not a robot. I really started getting sick of this game by the 2/3rds point. I stopped caring about style or score because I realized I am never coming back to this game. The gameplay is fine. It can be mildly fun. But there is nothing else going for this game. The script fails to even be funny bad at its most tryhard, it's just one of the worst AAA scripts I've seen. I love games that try so hard and fail so hard. This game does neither. It barely tries and it barely fails. I feel like this game needed a sequel badly, something to cook on the few good ideas from here. But am I glad that we just got DMC5 instead? Absolutely. This game doesn't deserve heaven or hell. It deserves to rot in limbo.

4/10. There are some parts that are good, but the painful sub-mediocrity of everything else drags it down.

As a sidenote, a lot of people judge the game poorly on how it's an insult to the old games. Honestly, I don't care about how the old games relate to this. I didn't make any mind of Inafune because I didn't need to. This game is trying to be new, I'll judge it as if it's new.

Also thanks for the code, Josh

This review contains spoilers

(Thank you to Cold_Comfort for basically buying me this game and to ConeCvltist for editing this)

The human mind is not something most can really comprehend. Its ability give life to the inanimate, to birth languages & actions, and to remember is something that most of us take for granted. Despite our own lack of understanding of ourselves, humanity has pushed on: we’ve explored space, made interplanetary discoveries, and created technological wonders. Gestalts & Replikas are shot out into the vast emptiness of space to explore the furthest ends of the galaxy for thousands of cycles. If they succeed, they get to rejoice in their successful expedition, but if they fail, they will have to accept the natural forces that fate has pushed upon them. And yet, the mind still goes unquestioned.

How does one deal with the acceptance of their death? It's recommended to have your Replika assist you in the swift process of death, but what if they too, fail? Would the human mind persist and prosper? It's an unlikely situation but the persistence of the mind has proven to be strong within the exploration of the infinite universes, and the creation of the complex yet refined Replikas. Our natural instinct to reject death would have the human grow older and older with every passing cycle, crying out for someone for comfort while staring into the cold face of death, their wails creating a beautiful symphony, one that contorts the perception of reality around themselves, corrupting the minds who can't take its wonderful composition, and creating twisted masses and amalgamations of flesh left to writhe where they shouldn't. A song that cries out for someone to fulfill a long forgotten promise, to dance to a long forgotten song. They project their memories onto others in desperate search for someone. The infinite vastness of space quickly becomes claustrophobic in the confines of memory, leaving those who haven't succumbed to the memory's symphonic nature cursed to relive the same day

over

and

over

again.

Remember our promise. Keep our promise. Make our promise.

You writhe beneath my skin
Born of ailing flesh and love
My thoughts, consumed by your sorrow.

Waking nightmares plague me, endless
A slow rotting miracle plucked from time,
You are all that I love, everything I fear
And all the entanglement festering between

For want of fair chances,
I stared into your abyss
As I've done for many before

And in return, you tore out my heart,
Impaled my eyes with your scarlet terror
Invaded the privacy of solitude,
And plunged your iron claws into my very soul.

You interrupt my nights.
My days, occupied by you
You are inescapable, yet...

For all your malignance,
Burrowed under flesh
and boiling blood,

I refuse
to let
go




Signalis bores its hooks into my skull, carving grooves into my brain where my psychoses pool. There’s something to be said for its reliance on the narrative language of anime and survival horror, but whether it’s derivative or iterative is a moot point. These beats that ring familiar are sores that Signalis splits open with a sadist’s pleasure. I could sit here and rattle off references, the obvious calls that permeate the body of the work, but where does that get you? Where does that get any of us, other than a cognizant “if you know you know” stranglehold? The language of Signalis isn’t concerned with simply being “Space Resident Evil”, or “Utena by way of Evangelion”. Much like the doomed Penrose, the referential nature of Signalis is, in itself, a repetitious time loop. It is not a work of references, it is its references.

I bolt awake, and Signalis presses on the nerve center that kick started my love of horror. 2008, in front of a bombed-out Gamecube, Jill Valentine tinkers though a puzzle box called the Spenser mansion. 2022, I bumblefuck through the escape room that is Sierpinski S-23.

Another restless night, another stab into my brain. 2012, my first pangs of personalized gender misanthropy at the hands of Asuka Langley Sohryu and Rei Ayanami, the brilliant shine of sapphic love reflected by Utena and Anthy. A decade later, the hate has faded and its place remains remorse for the past, regret for the now as the signature flashes of light and text flicker, as LSTR-512 and Ariane waltz in their final moments.

Again, interrupted sleep prevails. October, last year, the clattering of keys clicked out a cacophonous rhythm as I parse out a write up for Illbleed, a game that set ablaze the dying candle that was my love for gaming, for horror as a whole. Now, after a global rotation, I return to Signalis in the same spot, a love for writing, for fear, for gaming, for love itself, rekindled after a seasonal stagnation.

To try to put definitive words to Signalis seems contradictory to the way the game is delivered, indirect and symbolic in a way anathemic to thematic deduction. In it, I saw the spark of life relight my passion, and I enacted swift death to the tyrant, critical analysis. I could brandish lofty terms, of this having flawless gameplay, immersive writing, a memorable soundtrack, or any other terms I would gladly throw around about games that I will forget in a week. It’s not perfect. I don’t want it to be perfect: It’s for me. I don’t need it to be anything more than what it means to me, and what it means is that I think I love games again.

I awaken once more from broken sleep.

It’s 2014. I’m sitting with someone who, at the time, was my closest friend. We’re huddled around a laptop deep into the night, burning through works that would come to reflect what matters to me in games.

It’s tonight. I’m on call with someone I love. I’m huddled over a keyboard, burning through a write-up of a work that redefines what matters to me in games.

Play Signalis. You probably won’t get what I got out of it. That’s a good thing; it means there’s going to be something else out there that gives you the same feelings that this gave me. For now, I can push you to try a game I view as my personal perfection.

sticky balls, blowing winds and holes for the gang? Putt Party bout to make me act up

haven't played but from what I've heard this game reminds me of this

It feels like an insult to the artform that that a game this horrifically irresponsible with its message from a studio this creatively bankrupt ever got any of the spotlight or generally favorable reviews that it did.

Somehow every review I write on this ends up
hampered by issues in clarity,
issues of both creative phrasing and,
technically, meaningful content.

For certain, my critique on the game is simple;
on any grounds, the writing and story are harmful,
routinely espousing the most toxic of views towards victims.

Clearly, Bloober Team relies on shock tactics to earn clout, an
underhanded attempt to earn viral attention through harmful
notions and rhetoric. I'm not writing in clearest terms, and
that could be chalked up to being tired of thinking about this
shit for cunts.

This review contains spoilers

When I was very young, I was a fan of the PHILIPS "Screwdriver" CD-I. My Favorite game was TETRIS CD-I, I once lost Nintendo Club Membership many years ago and since then I worship PHILIPS. I recall on a very dark day, the CD-YIES power was cut. Tetnis bloks bled hyper-realistic blood. When the CD-I came, I didn't realize that Tetris was a real boy. From the commercial, I forgot that the music was such a bop. Wario was standing ominously in the alleyways of Detroit. "What a game!" And in Detriot, there once was robotic jesus robocop who liked canada

final rating: 0.5/5
made me cry :'(

A true adventure, and an incredible framework for personal stories and legends to be created. The breadth of this game let me breathe and love every second of it (except when my weapons break which is poopy, but still 5/5)