bro this is something special

dont be fooled by the fact that i gave this one and toree the same score because really this is something of an entire different league if you ask me

if you had come up to me one day while i was probably drawing some gay furry stuff and told me hey pal check this abandonware they dug up from the n64 repertoire i wouldve believed you

i cannot overstate enough how this is such a great modern adaptation of what the n64 collectathon games used to be into such a fun and quirky platformer

you play as titular character kiwi armed with just a jetpack a beak and a suspicious yearning for jewels and yet this is some of the most solid movement in a 3d platformer ive ever seen

now now now hold on boys this is not super mario odyssey but what i meant is the usage of its unique moveset lets you explore the entirety of the levels to such an extent that you can get to a point of the map either jumping or gliding or climbing literally you can do whatever the fuck you want and the game will let you do it

theres 8 levels and some special content but i swear theyre so mindfully put together every single one is crafted to put the full moveset of the bird into motion while also making you look for collectibles and stuff to destroy along the way

the ost and the environments really do give a weird vibe that i cannot actually put into word its like this is a forbidden land and you should not trespass but you already did so whatever plus the hub world is a stinky sewer so

that being said this was such a great time and i dont remember 3d collectathons ever being so fun but i guess i should check more stuff out because this one UGHHHHHHHHH this one was such an elite time i cant wait for the developer to put more juicy stuff out in the wild for me to consume and revere

i cant fucking believe i ended up marathoning these many resident evil games at this point i was convinced at one point i wouldve just dropped out like i did with my the legend of zelda marathon and all that so basically i was in fact kind of confused as to why i ended up playing almost every mainline resident evil and now i know why i did that . HOT AS FUCK RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE CHRIS REDFIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELD PEOPLE this man ooooooooooooooooh this hunk of a man be racing through my mind too much lately and even after finishing the game i was like damn chris umh the ultimate daddy am i right idk i think its the fact that they 100% updated his design from resident evil 7 which was quite ugly if you ask me AND his clothes like a man should not look THIS good in a turtleneck like i could see his muscles popping out of that poor sweater forreals i was dizzy im in love with this man please ruin my life and all i cant go on like this im not joking i want him to punch me in the face too this cannot continue

ethan winters is again the protagonist of the game and this actually acts as a sequel to resident evil 7 so basically if you hadnt played that game before you should do it now to actually understand whats happening or like maybe you can read an infodump of the entire plot and youre good with it go and just play it buuuuuuuuuuuut i do believe resident evil 7 is a good game so you might as well play it and thats it

so even tho this is a sequel and you would expect that this might be kinda similar in gameplay to the first game in the duology incredibly enough they completely scrapped the survival horror aspect and just went with an action horror kinda game like they literally went omg WHAT would happen if we just made resident evil 4 in first person and with some completely different game design as a whole and honestly ? they kinda snapped this game is fun as shit theres nothing more fun than re4 in the world and since this is just resident evil 7 with resident evil 4 elements its super fucking fun GOD

the story is kinda interesting too if i can say so you get abducted by none other than chris redfield mia gets shot in the guts like a livestock and rose gets taken no this is not a spoiler it happens at like 20 minutes playtime so now youre in a village and theres sexy werewolves trying to eat you up because zombies were getting kinda repetitive and you also get to know that villagers are all dead basically and the main 4 noblemen are some monsters who each reign over some part of the village and theyre all fucking freaks BUT ! they made singlehandedly the entire game every single lord of the land has so much personality and create some great chemistry between one another basically they all hate each other but they try to behave because theres the great mother that is parenting all of them or whatever

so what happens is that you will get in each of these 4 lands to kill these lords to get a SPOILER TERRITORY UP AHEAD piece of your daughter because she got mutilated and shes gonna be used as a sacrifice or something to do some kind or ritual that is connected to the resident evil 7 lore but we dont care about that to be honest

every single land acts as a big ass dungeon with some different gimmicks like the castle of lady dimitrescu (you know the 3 meters tall woman you know the one everyone went bogus on twitter its absolutely impossible for you to not know who she is) + 3 daughters and apart from being possibly the greatest part of the game it gets into stealth territory because this bigass woman is just gonna stalk you everywhere and rightfully so yknow its her house lololololol so like i think this is the highest point of the game then you get the house of the puppeteer which is escape room stuff which is fun i guess the swamp is also fun in some ways ok actually i think its the worst part of the bunch BUT i liked it anyway and the final dungeon has the sexiest character of the bunch heisenberg just making fun of you over and over again and honestly being a humiliation kink guy i can say that i edged throughout the entirety of the section thank you capcom for that so yeah

then you get into final stuff territory with you playing as daddy chris which was pretty fun but seeing him with a super form fitting skin tight turtleneck was even funner oh my god hes so hot what the fuck did they just make this design and said “definitely nobody will get wet on this” i did thank you and then you got a big ass final fight which was somehow less interesting than the fight with heisenberg like first you make me super hyped about a mecha fight and then you pretend that a fight against a floating woman with some tentacles around will make me hyped i mean sure somehow but the highest point was already reached

as a action first game they really did manage to make some very interesting boss fights with the characters having some kind of quirks or shit that makes you say omg yeah i remember that fight because it was basically me playing hide and seek with a doll and skewering her in the guts like this is not gonna be treated as gore anyway

in general i did enjoy the lore and the story and whatever theres really a lot of thought being put in this one and also to make some ties with resident evil 7 for an engaging duology the plot twists were great but what absolutely took me by surprise was the worldbuilding of the village and the relationship and characterisation of the lords honestly i wont lie i was more interested to know about their personalities than saving rose for some reason like i just wanted to get to know heisenberg in a tea date i love him hes so hot im sorry people

umh yeah so anyway gameplay wise as i was saying this is resident evil 4 first person edition and its honestly fun as fuck the survival horror philosophy was thrown out of the window now theres a ton of ammos here and there a merchant with incredible personality monsters will drop some treasures that can be sold for a lot of money that you can use to buy blueprints ammo new weapons upgrades for weapons theres an incredible amount of thought put into this PLUS you can hunt animals and use their loots to make The Duke TM cook you some stuff and increase your health or stamina or whatever so theres so much customization so much action its incredible this game feels so inebriating to play and has an incredible gameplay loop and the art direction is dauntingly different from the previous entry resident evil 7 was all about toned down colors really dark environments claustrophobic places lots of junk and disgusting black materials and rusty stuff and whatever here they pushed the campy stuff to 100 because this is like big environments flashy personalities huge explosions spectacle everything put into it and its fucking grandious to be honest

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmyeah probably one of my favourite resident evil till now possbly because how different and unique it is compared to the main series in a good way rose i love you so dearly

OH ALSO SIDE NOTE

i usually dont get scared in horror videogames idk im not that easily scared by this kind of media (movies too lets be real) but the sequence in this game where ethan is in house beneviento and gets chased by that humanoid huge baby who screams and cries and laughs and its all dark and its all warped and the soundtrack and the visuals and everything definitely gave me goose bumps what the actual fuck istg this is one of the freakiest encounters in the entirety of the series and its done so beautifully it got so much interesting sound design to make people crawl up in their bed and cry

after drakengard 3 I was really excited to try the game that started it all and I'm pretty sure that was a fucking mistake guys

as you can already see from my rating I actually enjoyed this quite a lot but I'm pretty sure the conception of a game like this can be done only by someone clinically schizophrenic and after playing every drakengard/nier apart from 2 I'm pretty sure yokotaro is the most famous patient in the psychiatric ward of Tokyo or wherever the fuck he lives roppongi kichijouji whatever you get my point

the overall synopsis of the game is there's caim who's a fucking war criminal and the lord of a land and to this point im kind of confused to why he actually fights they get to defend some seals and make a really bad job for it because they get fucking destroyed by the end of the game and nobody knows why or how because caim is just too occupied slaughtering people or dwarfs or the undead thats so fucked up to a point that I don't understand whether you can even call him the protagonist because why would you get into the shoes of a genocider but I guess the point of it all is seeing caim killing everything that breathes and being absolutely dumbfounded by his blood thirst its an incredible thing to see when every other character is asking him to stop for the love of everything worthy in life

introducing the other character of the game angelus which I was convinced was a boy because I played it with the japanese voice over and its pretty confusing understanding their gender but in the English dub they just went and put a very feminine voice so that's how I discovered it I would've just thought she was a man so since the game is called drakengard or if youre japanese drag on dragoon whatever THAT fucking means people and yeah so she is the dragon and she takes caim ability to speak in exchange for his pact with her and thats the way to make a silent protagonist if you ask me

main personality of this dragon ? she's fucking done with humanity hates life hates everything that moves and wants to just get out of this fucked up world . can you even blame her ? no this world SUCKS in the best way possible it has a medieval aesthetic there's some lands that you don't even know the names of because caim isn't doing anything burocratic noooooo he's on the field front line by himself killing all that has a brain

you also get to know a priest who cannot shut the fuck up a pedophile another pedophile who eats babies a baby the end this is the cast of this game believe it or not these other characters are kind of side y content unless you want to do ending D and forth but the priest oooooo the priest he is going to cry and talk and shout and whatever the ENTIRE game you go through idk how many missions and I mean since he's your buddy or whatever I guess he should be accustomed to caims murderous needs but nooooo every mission he's like "caim pleaaaaaaaaase some mercy for thy foes nooooo God is crying over those dead corpses" shut the FUCK UP OH GOD ARENT YOU USED TO THIS and when he's not crying he's like "caim ….. the seal has been broken" grazie a 'sto cazzo coglione what do you think

then theres caims sister who is kinda in love with caim which is already kinda weird also kinda incestuous also kinda blasphemous because she's also called the goddess and I guess she's the trope of "fragile girl grown in a castle secluded from the world" or something and she touches herself thinking about her brother can you even believe that I mean I kinda vibe with her because she wants to fuck a mass murderer I don't really wanna fuck a mass murderer but a rough man can be a good compromise that being said there's also inuart I fucking hate inuart he sucks ass like I can excuse manslaughter but rape ? SPOILER with a dead fucking body ? no ma'am . no ma'am plus he's ugly plus he's fucking disgusting I hate him like I hate everyone in this game

also this game has some serious art direction problems the models are pretty fine if you ask me but people the little portraits ? or like every single UI ever in this game ? I mean I saw some bad stuff but this is very below decent and still I love it anyway call me sick

I didnt talk about the gameplay because the gameplay can be reviewed in some few lines this is a hack and slash you get to swing your swords with a lot of enemies in missions that feel like they're 40 minutes long and sometimes take 40+ minutes long you get some different weapons that can be upgraded if you use them but if youre me you're not even gonna pick them up and just use caims sword

you can fill a meter and do a big special move apart from that ? that's the fucking end of the ground gameplay then you also get some spice in the dragon mission which are fucking hideous if you ask me the dragon controls like dick and the aiming system is broken the fucking end

and thats what you're gonna do for like 15 hours more or less just swing sword swing sword swing sword special move swing sword again again again again

now this sucks but also I cannot fucking tell you how much I did not mind this ? I actually got into a trance-like state of some sort and the incredible amount of absolutely nothing you're gonna do for the entirety of the game like idle clicking like those smartphone stupid games thats what you're gonna do and everything happens while some psychotic man pushes random buttons in the soundboard and makes some repetitive ass music that smashes your eardrums till blood flows out

no actually let's talk about the music and how this is the most normal one of the bunch and after this you get a repetitive fucking mess chaos of instruments beats incredibly screwed and twisted melodies a fuckton of noise and honestly ? I fucking love this soundtrack and it absolutely encapsulates caims madness in this fucked up world like this is the first thing you hear on land incredibly enough everything is crafted to the point that it gets some incredible soundscapes that really drive the entirety of the games atmosphere home this games world is in ruin and the music wants YOU to know it this one's also fucking insane AND a favorite OH AND ALSO this one's fucking incredible if you ask me honestly this is some of the most sickeningly insane beats you will ever listen to in your entire life and honestly if you listen to the entirety of the ost you're gonna need a psychiatric expertise this one actually gives you 2 seconds of release and then delves again into madness you got 0 chill in this game I swear to fucking god I mean let's just stop but you get my point im gonna listen to the entire ost someday and add it to my videogame music playlist so yeah

and guys

that's it

now I do enjoy caim being just fucking angry I can vibe with that but the lengths he goes ? maybe im not that mentally ill yet

SPOILERISH STORY TERRITORY

this is the game that started the different ending structure of the drakenier series and I'm pretty fucking sure this was a mistake

I forgot to tell that there's mana which is the high priestess of the cult of the watchers and if you ask what the watchers are well …….

ending A is possibly the most plainly executed and one that actually gave a good conclusion to this fucked story you destroy mana and angelus becomes the seal and she uses her last breath to tell caim her name and thats pretty fucking sad if you ask me I could cry they loved each other

angelus hAs a pussy?/10 rating

ending B us inuart revives furies with some wicca stuff and he wants to bang the fuck out of her until she becomes kind of an angel and you gonna beat the shit out of her until she's dead (again) and caim gets her back

I don't condone necromancy or necrophilia But I guess a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do/10

ending C angelus becomes a cursed dragon breaks the pact with caim and so caim gets his speech back and you won't believe what groundbreaking tearjerking words he says as soon as he can speak again that's right "I am caim" and whatever he fucks angelus up real bad

300 languages and caim deCided to speak in the language of truth/10

ending D babies come down from the sky and eat people plus their mother womb shit also comes down and just vibes her pussy out everyones dead times stopped I hate this game

yokotaro what kinda aciDs did you do to think about this because I want some/10

ending E angelus and caim battle head on with the mother beast queen something baby whatever and she gets into some space time dimensional drift and you get teleported in fucking modern day 2003 Japan Tokyo ? then you get to do some rhythm game war flashbacks to the fucking drakengard 3 final boss ? then caim and angelus are killed by a fighter jet ? honestly most normal ending till now

you laugh at this joke ending until you realise this is the canon ending that flows into nier and the ashEs of the Queen are the word-disease this game is not real/10

absolutely one of a kind experience I cannot believe yokotaro got the opportunity to make a game like this because if it were me I would've laughed and shut down the project and to think this is the starting point that escalated up to nier automata what a fucking world we live in I love this game

the box art is insane so great

yeah not a lot to see here even regarding the fact that i to this day have no idea what hello charlotte is really about apart from a thematically terrifying experience altogether thank you a lot for the traumas or whatever

so as the author also says in the little description this is and feels like an experiment and i can safely say that thats what this really is theres not a lot of story elements to talk about but even though this feels like a spin off of hello charlotte 2 it has some little hints of what was to come in hello charlotte 3 so that was pretty fun to explore also theres a lot of gore for some reason yeah etherane has always been so child friendly with these stories dont you agree

most of the elements were basically lifted from hc2 which means theres not really a lot to talk about but theres definitely some weird decisions in the “puzzle” department that i didnt really enjoy because that led to a lot of bad endings OR 10 minutes spent on searching all around the house for something to happen which can get pretty frustrating if you know you know but for a game that lasts for like 30 minutes isnt to much of a problem to me even though in that regard id prefer replaying hello charlotte 1

so ugh yeah as i said nothing too groundbreaking theres some recurring character saying hi and the inclusion of charlotte being a dick anri being a princess to be rescued and £$%&$£% being there just to make things more meta feels really reminiscent of the stuff you see on hello charlotte 3

whatever this is alright if someone is actually aware and can explain this series story to me please do that because i still have no idea what the fuck theyre trying to tell me my mind is gonna explode booting the first game was a mistake

im absolutely confused at how controversial this game is on here since I loved most of the aspects that permeates this entry in the bioshock series

sure it's not the original duology or minervas den but it took the series in an interesting new direction and the argument about the "both sides are bad" on racial discourse is pretty wack i can say that at least and listening to a lot of N word in this game made me incredibly anxious but yknow since its trying to drive home the racism thing it's a good compromise and the fact that I felt really self conscious about what i was hearing was probably enhancing the wrongness of the entire thing . albeit they still spit in their faces and went ok but what if everyone was wrong ? which is a brave and controversial way of developing the whole political affair but I'm also a white guy so I dont really have any right to say much about this so yeah moving on

bioshock infinite is surely a delight in most aspects of the game and particularly enough the worldbuilding of columbia is one of the greatest parts of the game

as it happened with bioshock 1 and the introduction of rapture this is an entirely new setting that actually takes place in the clouds and is an entire new city compared to the previous one and that means an entire new story

columbia doesn't have that tight of a background and descriptions here and there to make it a worthy adversary of the great rapture but damn it looks fucking good

all my fans know im a sucker for floating islands and the fact that they are not only flying islands but also have a steam punk flare set in the 10s this game really has some of the greatest setting for a civil war type of story and absolutely suck a fun fucking way to traverse the city flying around with the hookshot using elevators or soaring airships to connect the different discrictd of columbia

every single part of the city has a really specific vibe to it and while the sound design this time didn't really enhance the whole place it sure is still a delight to get to know an entire new town with shops and details and a lot of characters around since this time its actually not a city already in decay

so yeah columbia is dope

before going into the story i gotta say that the gameplay is pretty strong and definitely highlight of the entire series FOR ME AT LEAST but let's actually say some things first

no this is not my favorite FPS mechanic in the series only having 2 weapons really adds nothing to the battleflow and most of the plasmids here (OR VIGORS I GUESS) are kind of useless I only ended up using the electro trap the fire bomb and DAMN do the fucking crows fuck ass they're probably the best ability in the game the fuck so yeah the health and adam is nerfed but you actually get a new electromagnetic shield or whatever but this can actually be countered with the fact that elizabeth will be replenishing you with stuff all the time

that being said the whole gameplay loop is still the same story beat - explore and get resources - fight weird guys and thats mostly left untouched

enemies are less memorable I gotta say but nothing can beat the fucking big daddy and littl3 sisters cmon that's peaaaaaak character design

I do love the songbird a lot he's my little meow meow I love him so fucking much

story wise it's still a great one booker is way more charismatic a character than the one in the first or second game and thats mostly because he can fucking talk yknow and the Italian voice actor made me pretty horny im so sorry sometimes italian voice actors have rights every time he talked I wet my pants this needed to be said

sure he's not like the deepest character in the story because elizabeth is fucking there and WE'LL GET IT he's strong as fuck (horny face) can beat people with his bare hands (horny face) and can probably fuck good (horny face) and yeah whatever he's also some degree of traumatised or shit I can't talk about him yet because it can get into spoiler territory

elizabeth is a delight mindfully written and its incredible to see her grow from a rapunzel ripoff (it is actually kind of weird that she seems like a snow white after being incarcerated for 20 years or something but since she doesn't know the injustices of the world I can give her that) to a troubled and fierce dominatrix after watching the world going fucking chaos and how actually wicked the human mind can be

sure it's kind of cliche and shut but I really enjoyed her as a character and most of all her interactions with booker even though kind of weird like its me and the bestie and then I hate that bitch booker and then again me and the bestie so yeah she's troubled I already said that

so talking story SPOILER TERRITORY the fact that the civil war stuff actually is the backdrop for a tale of multiverse and different versions of columbia was starting to get pretty confusing pretty fast and I'm sure I didn't get all the facets of that part of the plot since it also progressively gets weirder and weirder like elizabeth is actually the daughter of the guy and then no its actually not and then boom plottwist it's actually the daughter of the guy but in another dimension where booker actually becomes the priest and then booker kills the priest and then the elizabeths kill the booker to kill the priest listen it gets fucked

now even though it becomes convoluted real fast I really enjoyed this development since they were always teasing this kind of plotline since elizabeth First shows you how she can "create" new dimensions and bring stuff from those dimensions to the current one and shit

it's probably way easier than it actually pretends to be since it's just an entire loop that keeps repeating until booker decides to kill himself so that the loop stops and you get teased with an ending that is like "ok but is anna/elizabeth ACTUALLY alive in this dimension so that they can live happily together" and the game just ends

the whole finale is arguably pretty chaotic but cinematic as shit and when you randomly go back to rapture I passed my pants this cannot be real leave me alone

so yeah umh I'm sorry I really enjoyed this game I couldn't hate it even though this site was tricking me into hating it but THATS MY OPINIOOOOOON maybe at one point I'll realise this game is actually shit but that's on me don't touch me

yknow what I'm pretty excited for burial at sea and since this game takes place in 1912something and bioshock 1 takes place in 1958something and after the rapture tease in the finale of the game I'm so fucking ready for this one I want more of booker and elizabeth action

also when you think that they're dad and daughter it makes sense that they didn't get into romance territory it would make everything crumble even though they both didn't know their past ok actually yknow what I wont even get into this topic

so yeah good game cope and seethe

at one point after finishing the game I realized they could never get to Paris and just started crying why did this game half assed convoluted story made me emotional im sorry

sexy fweged recommended this to me as part of this list thanks dude

umh its been a good nights sleep and i still have no idea of what i have played on this day and age and honestly its been a wild ride at this point maybe its ok to not understand anything in this series of games maybe thats just the whole point

im currently going through episode 3 but i wanted to make this review before i get too much into that so that my opinion doesnt get too twisted and convoluted and biased or whatever so here we are

this is still an rpgmaker game as we know and love/despise but they decided to completely delete those number based puzzles that i fucking hate what the fuck honestly like 8 digits passwords ? whats wrong with you anyway theres none of that here thank the gods and the rpg elements are somehow restricted to random encounters that made me fucking jump from my seat every time because theyre just so sudden and unpredictable and got a weird SFX anyway thing is i never even dared to battle these people or how the game says SOCIALISE with them i couldnt give a single fuck about that i got social anxiety do you think id be willingly putting myself into that spot ? no and honestly i think thats the point ? like i didnt try ok but whats even the point of fucking with these bullies/study stressed/mutilated people so yeah thats where the rpg elements end the rest is like talk with person X or get item Y and thats possibly it

now the story umh . this is gonna be wild so SPOILER WARNING ok that being said charlotte is still living together with the oracle in her head that for some reasons is starting to act up so the best thing to do is checking on your cute housemates and seeing what theyre up to theres still felix doing some experiments stuff but he for some reasons distanced himself from charlotte because idk hes scared of the oracle i would be too tbh did you see that hes like a mass of eyes and raw meat disgusting also he saw charlotte melting in chunks of meat id be scared too then theres the LOML bennett hes so cute i love him too much (its because hes traumatised) then like huxley that i realised is a man . embarrassing and then aiden hes cute

now after these already established characters charlotte meets a guy whos getting beaten up and refers to himself as the god of this world and is called C and whatever hes a psycho hes a madman i just know that and then she meets anri who is kind of a bitch tbh and is just leeching off of chalotte but shes her bestie so i cant argue with that

anyway these 2 new characters aside everyone else has a fucking hole in their faces what the fuck like a spiral yknow i dont know what are the implications here but i guess thats gon be because either charlotte thinks theyre nobodies or they deadass have a hole in theyre faces

whatever most of the game takes place either in the school or in charlottes mind while she sleeps where she has real ass convos with the oracle going on and on about how theyre now the same being and its getting really homoerotic here if i can say so and also sometimes talks with the umbrella man who to this moment i have no idea who he is but its implied that he took charlottes fathers form and thats fucked up daddy issues and all

the days go by like this like talk with housemates > go to school > get home and talk with the oracle and thats basically how the main plot unfolds for like 7 days until like the magcats (have no idea what theyre supposed to be) in the garden that she was feeding end up dying and get eaten by worms and shes all traumatised and psychotic and honestly i would be too like imagine feeding a cat and finding him dead because you didnt know the food you were giving him was poisonous guys i would cry for weeks I would need therapy for a year so yeah i really felt her that would be my highest connection with the character

also for some reasons when she feels sick she pukes ink which is ? weird but theyre all like oh yeah you got X disease im sorry its incurable good luck and youre like umh ok like what is this disease cant you explain it to me anyway at first it reminded me of the tale of the ink princess that is also present here btw the oracle tells you about the continuation of the story and its like oh ink princess and paper princess had lesbian sex and i was like oh . period like they ended up getting so close that paper princess got entirely soaked with ink and she was indiscernible from ink princess and thats apparently a metaphor for love ? am i misinterpreting something anyway yeah

and also side note at one point another radioactive costume fella gives you bennetts memory cube and guys . thats so fucking sad oh my god its about him getting tested in labs for an eye disease (as in eyes that grow in parts of your body like organs and such yeah i know unexpected and gross) anyway huxley gets him away from the labs and happy ending but that was fucked up im so sorry

anyway where were we ok charlotte gets neurotic and C is like oh i know a place and they flee from school and get into the outside world which is like post apocaliptic and dead and full of insect people trying to express capitalistic ideals just like that and youre like ok v funny then you get into a suicide forest or something like a mass grave and C is like why dont you come with me and we turn into gods and not give a fuck anymore about this world and you can either accept (bad ? ending you both end up dying in the real world but trascend into a higher plane and idle as gods ? love that for them) or refuse and get arrested and sentenced to a trial

she gets out and bullies are like arent you a queer little shit and they cut her hair i was BAWLING thats so humiliating oh my god charlotte im so sorry and then she gets home with her hair all fucked up and then cuts them in a way they dont look like a fucking mess and shes still cute even with her new hair so ? goals

also I have no idea if charlotte is trans but if she is good for them… goof for them

then go to sleep and read some more memories honestly ? i have no idea what these memories are they feel like delusions and i still have no idea if this world is real or charlotte is just so mentally ill and schizophrenic to make up everything around her but maybe ep 3 got the answers im seeking

anyway THE TRIAL time you get there you got to choose one person to save and the results can be 1 charlotte gets executed 2 C gets executed 3 both charlotte and C get executed

number 1 black ending anri cries (first display of affection i saw her make) and charlotte gets into a very metaphysical convo with the oracle and they procede to have very hot and homosexual hugs and as her consciousness fades away they just get into another ink princess infodump and charlotte tells felix how she thinks ink princess ended up being the happiest person in the world the end i have no idea if this is supposed to be a metaphor for charlotte but honestly i dont know anything about this game

number 2 grey ending charlotte runs and tries to save C that is actually not a god (shocker) and when charlotte realises it she tries to call out to him and run to save him but its too late so she gets ANGRY AS FUCK and just eats the entire world and warps and twists into a new oracle in her anger and after all that she just cries like that then umbrella man which i still dont know why is eveywhere at any time but anyway he gives charlotte a copy of Cs soul and so shes like omg great but then get into like ooooh i will eat your name and all whatever that means and umbrella man finally refers to himself as charles so charlotte gets into a metaphysical plane and watches over every single timeline but nobody will remember about her and gets into 4th wall territory saying that everyone will forget about her but you (seth/the player) will not

clearly this is my fav ending i love despair umhhh

number 3 white ending c tells charlotte hes not a true god etc etc we already know so charlotte unites with the oracle and becomes a god again and has a mental breakdown about the fact that she hurt everyone and such so umbrella man goes omg why cant we just make a meditation journey so you learn how not to hurt people and she goes oh word the end

after all these endings tho umbrella man talks with YOU and goes like oh i can make charlotte oblivious about your existence and you can continue to watch her story unfold so you can accept or refuse the real end (im p sure that the real ending would be the accept the deal one and has some consequence for the next game)

anyway
why did i talk about the whole story wow

umh
embarassing

whatever the thing that completely lured me in this time was the art direction that got ....... so much better guys this game is unreal i swear the art style the different expressions the amount of character sprites and all this is just an elite experience in that way its just incredible every single character and illustration is made with pure talent this is just incredible and honestly the fact that the character portraits are not confined into a little scare makes it even more interesting watching them full body its just ughhhh I love this game

the story is fine I still dont know where this is going but when youre there ? its a fucking ride it has so much raw emotion and mysticism that feels both very real and very dreamlike to the point that I still dont know if charlotte is just making pretend or shes mentally ill (top theory) or the world is actually like that but whatever

ost is cool and I still want them to push it further I know they're still got something in them actually . do the creators compose the music maybe its just sampled stuff ok well anyway I dont care its still cool

in general I feel like this is a big step up from the first game not only in an individual prospect but also in an artistic development kind of way this is just better in every conceivable way possible and still it feels like something else entirely from the first game the artwork is more polished and more convoluted ranging from cute characters to disgusting fucking saya no uta type beat meat monsters the setting is in some ways the same one as the first game but gets even more dystopian and weird progressing from childish and silly landscapes to pure grief and terror

and still beyond all this I find that the psychological aspect of this games shines through like nothing else I've ever played it conveyed dissociation abuse suicidal patterns and never really felt that cringe or tumblrcore like it was handled with absolute care and if you think that this is in some way autobiographical you understand why this feels so in touch with reality and yet also like a fantasy tale of deep trauma and

in its playful use of symbolism and deep psychological insight this feels like an experience from another world that still talks about stuff that we all go through once in a lifetime and i cant be happier to see little game devs publishing artistically questionable but still much needed works of art and anyway

very cool cant wait for hello charlotte 3 to completely fuck my psyche up like nothing else in the entire world im sosososo ready

bennett are you free on Saturday if you wanna hang out im free on Saturday the day that im free

can't believe a game about gods has the most raw human emotion put into it its just incredible

I want to hold charlotte my little baby i love her shes just ughhh why is trauma a thing

the cover art is sick af like what the hell I also like the cover art for HC3 a lot also can't wait to play delirium and heavens gate and see what the fuck they are because to this day I have no idea where this series is heading to

i want a magcat theyre cute af

I will never shut up about how much this artstyle fucks is sooooooo good and since I'm already playing HC3 I can say this is the superior one imo like I do enjoy hc3 art style but this one is just phenomenal

"We are fine here. We shall greet the morning... together."

there's actually nothing that feels like majoras mask in the entire world this game takes the entire video game media destroys it and rebuilds it from the bottom UP and all this absolutely unapologetically towards anyone that wants to put their hands on this masterpiece

you know when i like a zelda game when i end up getting all the fucking heart pieces something that i DESPISE like who likes collecting stuff and not play the main quest ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, me when i booted up majora thats who

sexy mutyumu recommended this to me as part of this list thanks dude

now before talking games I gotta say that I played the 3ds with the project restoration patch so this is a review about my first experience ever of majoras mask with these conditions aka QoL improvements N64 restored elements and updated graphics that means this is NOT a review for the vanilla version of the game since I would probably be more critical about that

that being said this game is absolutely insane taking advantage of the strict time loop you're gonna have to deal with and the countless different side quests that are gonna present themselves to you with possibly the best overworld ever made in the entire zelda franchise youre in for a treat my man

being the direct sequel of ocarina of time the bar is already pretty high like what do you think team nintendo managed to do in something like a year from the release of the first game to make a completely different game that can be compared to possibly one of the most influential games of all times ? exactly an even better experience I didnt think that would be possible but ocarina of time is shying in front of the incredible might of this release while that game played really safe following the roots of the series being basically a 3D a link to the past instead majoras mask takes everything that came before revolts it upside down and creates something completely new from scratch thats absolutely crazy

sure this game goes really hard on the asset reuse most of the characters or even background fellas from the first game come back with new names a new light and arguably a more complex and interesting place in the game and most of the ost from ocarina went completely untouched with some tracks that either recontextualise this soundtrack OR creates something new from this pool and honestly the new additions add so much to the game you won't believe

apart from that most of the stuff is new clocktown and termina are brand new places and most of the enemies are new and of course the top notch dungeon designs that are gonna probably gonna go down in history as the best of the best zelda dungeons ever created im ngl so thats a good balance

I went into this game thinking it would've been the most horror zelda franchise in the series because people said so and because ben drowned exists and while I did not shit my pants or anything I can say for certain that the game creates such a big sense of tension and dread that goes beyond the game itself it stretches out of the screen and envelopes you like YOU are the one running out of time I won't lie the very first three days are a treat and I was honestly biting my nails at the inexorable passing of time that shit was cray cray don't touch me dont talk to me

after getting the whole incipit of the game youre left with the main gameplay loop you need to explore termina to find some dungeons and go on with the main story and the thing is the main story is probably the second best part of the game because the first thing for me was … I know its weird but they were the side quests

while I genuinely think this game has the tightest loop and most interesting dungeons in the entire series the main focus for me was clocktower and termina as a whole like most of my time wasnt even spending doing the main quest since yeah i sure wanted to get majoras mask back or whatever but the sheer amount of personality everything else in this game has is honestly groundbreaking

see in this game everyone goes on with their schedule until the end of the third day and in really specific parts of the day you can encounter some kind of store or character or challenge that will give you either hearts or some more items more on that later and actually get to know all these characters and quirks is probably the best part of the entire experience I just loved going around and seeing clocktower going from the lively festive atmosphere of the first day to the incredible desolation of the third day and the very little schedule quirks of any given time

I wont lie the side quests of this game are probably the best I've ever seen in the entire gaming genre it's absolutely mind blowing I spent most of the time just working on side quests and leaving the dungeons to rot until I was done with the side quests available until that moment and i have to say this experience is deeply entwined with the stuff youre gonna see in that side content

i honestly cannot think about majoras mask as a whole now without thinking about the romani side quest or the kafei and anju side quest theyre integral part of the story for me and thats what really brings this game to life every single person in this town is terrorised and grieving at the thought of the world ending of the entire town being swiped from existence and the fact that all their friends are gonna drop dead at one specific point of the playthrough until link rewinds time with the ocarina

i generally dislike side quests in videogames or just really dont care about them as a whole and that can give you a clue about actually how much of a masterpiece this is not only are the minigames side quests just fun as a whole and also grant useful objects or some more masks for some more quests or even heart piece they also have a real depth to the overall story of the game like doing the romani quest and helping the sisters with their alien abduction problem is goofy as shit and i get it but the fact that it brings some of the most incredibly warm scenes you can get from this really sad games with just a super warm hug from cremia or just listening to the girls talking about their day to day life and how they dont want them to end due to the moon crash and shit and this all escalates during the final day when cremia actually grants romanis desire to drink the “modified drink” from the near farm which is basically just alcohol so she can get inebriated and sleep soundly in cremias bed together waiting for the end when i ACTUALLY realised this i was bawling this game doesnt explicitly make you suffer but it leaves some hints here and there that people are suffering and are terrified by the events that are evolving and they cant do anything but accept their soon demise

its terrible dont @ me

another integral part in the game is definitely the kafeis quest and its also the most fulfilling to complete since its basically just a really precise sequence of events that you need to complete with the punctuality of a swiss watch and stuff but its also the most dreadful one to see to the end your work being put in realising kafeis promise to anju to marry is just incredible you feel all that the characters are feeling you care for them and when you see them actually get back together after 3 days of grief and they actually decide to see the dawn together after what they went through youre just left with nothing but somber music the two lovers sharing a hug and some time together and like 6 minutes in the clock for you to rewind the time and begin anew

when i tell you that this quest actually killed me mentally i was an absolute trainwreck at the end of it i could not for the life of me believe what i watched and i just kept staring at the game for like 20 minutes before actually getting back to it i wont lie when i tell you that the pinnacle of majoras mask narrative is hidden behind these series of side quests because i genuinely cannot divide the main quest and kafeis quest they complete one another so well that if actually someone finishes majoras mask without witnessing this masterpiece im gonna throw tables

these of course are not the only subtexts in the entire game because its full of TRAGEDY theres nothing good happening in this game everyone is grieving and you can see that in something like the mummified father and daughter or the afterbirth depression of the two zora people or literally everyone dying in this fucking game theres nothing happy happening im literally so sorry yall

so umh actually after all this i can actually talk about the main quest

while i was saying that termina is probably my favorite part of the entire game every single domain is brimming with details and life and its just a sight to behold and traverse like ocarina of time had very simple design philosophy but here they just blew it out of proportions making all the domains very interesting to see and very clear to distinguish and since theyre all connected to termina in some ways you can also see the termina itself changing biomes and having elements of these other domains

like i wont lie theyre all so fun to traverse and explore which is a damn good upgrade from ocarina because most of the stuff you were gonna see wasnt this interesting to explore also due to hyrule field being just 100 KMs of absolutely fucking nothing and here they just made termina so full of stuff the different lands are gorgeous the goron village is so fucking great and the mountain paths are beautiful the zora domain is super relaxing and wide and really gives the illusion that its open ocean and the swamp is a swamp and the desert is a desert but they made with a twist adding the palace and the castle its just gorgeous gorgeous stuff

and this would probably not be as fun to traverse if it werent for the masks

now this game heavily relies on the mechanic of masks which most of them just have some kind of quirks like the rabbit ears making you run faster (essential) and the great fairy mask detecting fairies in dungeons and shit but the true highlights are the different races masks that transform link into that race can i actually say race i have no idea if i can say this talking about zelda but anyway the zora mask allows you to swin the shit out of the ocean and do some boomerang attacks the goron mask makes you roll al throughout the lands of termina
and the deku mask being the reason why this game traumatised me lets go so in general i LOVE the fucking mask mechanics and they add a lot to the actual gameflow and a lot of variety and personalization and its just UGHHHHHH so fun to collect all the masks and getting the fierce deity mask that can absolutely break the final boss i was just spamming A im not joking here yall

so that to say that its a joy to control link in this one but it would not be that great if it werent for the FUCKING DUNGEONS UGHHHHHHHH so basically theres only 4 dungeons here but theyre probably the best in the series and while getting to these dungeons theres some degree of puzzling and shit the true dungeons are just a work of art im not gonna lie the forest dungeon is so fucking good as a first sight of whats to come in the rest of the game the snowhead dungeon is absolutely fucking crazy because it develops in verticality unlike most of the zelda dungeons ive seen till this moment the great bay temple was actually my least favorite one but still just a masterpiece maybe i just hate water dungeons as a whole and UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH the stone tower temple is something else absolutely buck wild execution and puzzle solutions its just WOOOOOOOW and then you also get that bomb OST playing in the background NAAAAAAAAH im sorry this game is great im in love with it

so ugh i think i said everything i wanted to say but rest assured that this is not the only time i will infodump about majoras mask in my life i think the final part of the game is the strongest conclusion ive seen in the entire zelda franchise till now and while i fucking hate those final minigames for the 4 heart pieces (i want the guy who made the zora trial fucking shit his pants on new years eve forreals) but it was worth it because i annihilated majora in 1 minute and the finale is the greatest payoff to a game like this and im still left in tears every time i see the last frame of the game if you know you know

theres absolutely nothing that i can add for this game because everyone already knows its great everyone knows how much of a trauma it is to live this game and seeing skull kid or kafei or romani again in your life literally afghanistan war flashbacks and shit like that absolutely incredible execution to one of the best stories and worldbuilding ive ever seen in my life

please please please please please if you have to play only one zelda game in your life please play this one (ok maybe after ocarina of time but PLEASEEEEEEE)

do yall also just think about link having somber flashbacks of ocarina of time zelda giving him the ocarina and making him learn zeldas lullaby or is it just me that scene just lives in my head rent free

i actually played this fucking game so much time ago but a friend of mine said ughhh achtualyl you cannot say you finished the game before finishing the post game thats like an integral part of the main story and I was like OK WHAT THE FUCK OK and got burned out because this is legit a 100 hours game do you think in that span of time I would not get burned out + i forgot some of the stuff in the main story sorryyyyy teehee

played a lot of mainline dragon quest games in my life and I can confidently say that IX is my favorite one of the bunch and V and VIII coming closer to the top like it has all the legacy best elements with the added QoL and mechanics of the newest generation of videogames this ones great

now this one i cannot really say where it sits in the top and i wont even ask you to entertain the thought of making one due to the fact that I love all my babies a damn lot and I wont decide one over the other (IX is perfect im sorry im gonna pick that one kisses)

so umh I genuinely don't know where to begin reviewing this game because its basically so fucking big a game I have no real idea what to say

let's just go over the gameplay so we can get this shit out of the way and the TLDR of all this is gonna be this is genuinely one of the greatest JRPGs in terms of accessibility difficulty overall fun gameplay incredible personalisation tons and tons of content and variety in game flow and execution

as a textbook RPG I'm surprised at how good the battle system and general sense of pacing is like the main combat is as basic as it gets but it has so much shit put into it and never really feels bloated instead it's a perfect tool for both novices of the series and hard-core fans to explore a lot of strategizing customizing and battling with different characters and tactics and a shit ton of skills equipments spells attacks skill trees there's something for everybody lets just say that - gia gunn and seeing how expansive the overall game feels I can understand how the combat too benefits from that

also I realised at half my playthrough that i could switch characters IN BATTLE and I'm still pissed off by that like how much stupider can you get I pushed through the entire game convinced that I it wasn't possible to change almost dead characters and now you tell me I actually can BS this is basically final fantasy X type of gameplay and no tutorial actually explained it to me thats wild

apart from the usual dragon quest flare during the battles you got some more stuff like powers that activate randomly and combo stuff that really give a nuance to this game compared to the others and honestly I really like those even tho it's kind of a random thing and if you want a specific power you need to wait like 9+ turns for them to activate but they're such ace moves that it's understandable they work like that

and yknow thats it but the general flow of the gameplay is actually pretty damn tight seeing that you can actually do a lot of shit in battle I ended up going head first into enemies because fighting them was just THAT addicting

exploring the overworld is also a big mechanic of the game and the fact that you have to forage and find treasures for equipment or to create stuff in the furnace really makes the game even more expansive than it already is since everywhere you're gonna find some loot to enhance your general party stats to the point that most of the OP equipments are gonna be found just by exploring and crafting or doing some special side quests

oh yeah ! side quests suck ! as they always did in any game ever in the history of videogames so im not gonna shit on them this is like the standard for the industry so who am I to judge

sooooooo I think I talked about everything in this department so

art direction it is

when I first looked at these characters and NPCs general art style I was like damn this is actually the final iteration of toriyamas style like you can't get a better understanding of his shapes and design ethics than this

the world is filled with some incredible people apart from the main protagonists which we will get there don't worry we are left with a world feeling alive and breathing and all this with so many flawless details all around every single town in the game is absolutely unmatched they give off some particular vibes since they're always based on some culture and shit and it's just so good to traverse them and seeing the different architecture and dressing style and culture it's just so so good and this doesn't only apply to town even the overworld is filled to the brim with so much incredible scenery that every single frame of your playthrough can be confused as an impressionist painting im not joking there's something about the lighting the colors and everything that feels so profoundly evocative dragon quest was always dreamlike but this shit is off the charts

so yeah but what really takes the cake for me are the enemies and specifically the enemy rendition in perfect HD graphics I always had a thing for dragon quest monster designs (not a huge fan of the countless recolors tho that shit sucks ass) and seeing them come to life in such an animated and artistic masterpiece is honestly incredible and I loved the fact that in the beginning of the battle you find them in the classic pose before they shift to the idle animation I almost cried at how devotedly they used the source material and recreated something genuinely breathtaking like look at the gryphon (he's pretty hot) or the spitzfire or the professaurus (he's pretty hot) and many many many more that honestly I'm embarrassed to say this but there's some monsters I'd fuck this is the furry gene acting up

that being said yeah the first dragon quest iteration into the next gen consoles really gave us some of the most jaw dropping graphics ever and I'm not gonna lie and i need to show this game to people that say no I only play games with hyperrealistic graphics umh sure hetero but look at this

in general its really a fun time but the only downsides here is the ost now as much as I know they completely rehauled the music in the definitive version giving it an orchestral rearrangement now these songs are really beautiful nothing to say but it just feels like a dragon quest series medley at a theatre there's not a whole lot of new cuts here and there and the ones that they added are either annoying or passable sure dragon quest music as a whole is still pretty beautiful but I wanted some more into the game BUT they also gave me the greatest boss battle theme ever with that trombone going PRRRUHHUH I basically played the game waiting for that ost

that being said its time for SPOILER TERRITORY with characters and story

so first and foremost I love this cast and its probably gonna be one of my favorite rooster of characters not only in the dragon quest canon but also in the videogame landscape in general they're all so deeply written and they feel alive and breathing and they have some of the sweetest interactions ever in the universe thank you

the protagonist isn't really gonna be the deeper character in the game but they really augment the whole feeling and background with him being actually the song of the king there or whatever and it has to be said that his father is actually pretty fucking hot not gonna lie

being a silent protagonist of course you're not gonna get a lot out of him apart from the hilarious "no" options throughout the game and some one sided interactions between characters but he's still gay

and he also has some of the most fun character building in the entire party he's so versatile you can tackle him either as a physical fighter or a magical healer you can do whatever you want with him deadass

erik is probably my second fav one of the bunch he's a thief he's had it rough and he's basically a homosexual runaway after people actually got his sister or whatever now since he's traumatized and shit he actually shows little to no emotions but the little interactions he has they always deliver and sometimes he can be pretty fucking funny nonetheless

as a first party member it's clear he's the love interest im not gonna make any argument on that this is set in stone and I don't care one fucking bit now go away

his part of the story with his sister backstory and the loss of memory shit is interesting but never really left a big impact on me as much as I wanted to there's characters with some deeper storybeats and character development but I still love him a whole lot and always put him in the slutty outfit

serena and veronica are probably the characters who have the most focused story of the bunch they're the heroines of the game and its interesting that they actually split them in 2 different people so that one could be the over religious christian holy pure girl who always puts other in the first place and talks in formal japanese even when she's on the brink of death and veronica instead is the absolute peak characterisation in any way shape or form she's not only the most incredible comic relief character out of the bunch has some of the most fun punchlines I've ever witnessed in dragon quest she got cursed to be in a baby form and that makes it 100% funnier and she always packed some of the most heart wrenching lines and story developments out of all the characters in the entire game im not gonna lie

i have it ingrained in my fucking mind when you camp out in the open and serena goes to veronica and she says "sister when our leaves fall from the great yggdrasil do you think they're gonna fall together ?" and veronica says "don't say stupid stuff like this . but I hope they do" and then they get back to sleep together in serenity guys

no im not joking this moment was possibly the hardest hitting moment in the entire game beside the rab crying in front of the grave scene I was a complete fucking mess after this cutscene I cried for like 10-15 whole minutes because this was possibly the most bittersweet exchange in the entire game and when you also add the fact that they're both one of the most well written characters in the game you really get a glimpse of veronica actually being the big sis of the two even though usually its serena who's the one that looks like the wiser one (mentally and obviously physically in this moment)

like the bond these two share is so fucking deep I cannot even write about it without tearing up and the whole serena trauma arc after the sacrifice of veronica when she actually SAVED all her fucking friends and left her sister alone even though she said she wouldn't is probably the most depressing plot moment of the bunch I just cannot think of other stuff that hit this hard not even the mermaid storyline not even rab storyline nothing came close to serena cutting her own hair and inheriting most of veronica powers and moving on thats so fucking powerful

a pity they shit in the face of this beautiful writing epilogue with act 3 but we are gonna get there !!!!!!!!

so yeah I love veronica and serena they're my sweet little babies that I love very dearly and apart from this they also were fucking essential in battle serena is the ultimate healer of the bunch and can give some pretty drastic buffs to the party and veronica is the ultimate magic user using her fire magic to obliterate everything in front of them I'm sorry I love these girls too much

sylvando is an interesting case since I thought he was gonna be an incredibly homophobic character but instead he's actually a really good trope of gay guy and they treated him with a lot of care and respect and I was NOT expecting that its just so fucking good a character he's funny he's interesting he has a lot of depth and he's basically a huge metaphor of queerness and coming out and shit like that and I gotta say I really loved that

I'm not that huge of a fan of how japanese people treat gay characters but this time they outdid themselves like he's not just a queer walking trope character just for the sake of having a recurrent deprecatory and homophobic trope but he's actually a guy with a lot of facets apart from being queer and thats not ALL there is to him this is such great writing and the little talk with his father about him being a circus clown and his father accepting it was just heartwarming enough for me I love the guy

plus his father is pretty hot im sorry

and he's also a jack of all trades in the battles he can use like every single weapon ever and every single skill ever so that's fun

rab is an interesting case in the fact that I love the guy too damn fucking much but of course he's gonna be in the bottom of the characters list because old guy etc etc BUT his story of sorrow and sadness due to the loss of his daughter and her husband ? or son and his wife ? I told you I don't remember the story anyway yeah there's some really sad storybeats regarding him and I loved all of them plus the old dirty guy trope makes me always laugh idk

he's a mage and that means he can do a lot of stuff with his hands but since he's more of a versatile type of mage he doesn't really shines in any given skill but yknow he's useful sometimes I like him

jade is my girl I want her to kick me in the balls and call me slurs she has a little bit of backstory that makes some of her relationship to eleven clearer but ultimately I wanted the writing to give more focus to her character as a whole and not only the oh yeah she's the one who saved eleven as a baby because story and shit like that but STILL incredibly good character and a femme fatale to boot

and in battle she's also a fucking dmg queen and when you get her to higher levels she's basically a staple for metal slime grinding with erik

hendrik and jasper have a homosexual relationship and it's pretty funny how that's the entire motive for jasper being evil like "I just wanted to be like you then I realised I wanted to fuck you in the ass and then helped mordegon" ok internalised homophobia pop off so whatever they're both hot and they both care for each other and that's basically their entire plotline ngl

hendrik is super hot and i want to suck his dick so you might imagine my absolute awe at the fact that in act2 he's gonna join you like what the hell who even thought about giving me this heavy meat right in front of me like hendrik is one of those characters that make me quote tiffany new york pollard "I know his dick is big I know it I know is big oh god my heart hurts" so there's that

the bad guy to good guy change was kind of expected but I was not expecting him to join the party more power to me I guess I will just start playing this game with only one hand he's still one of the tankiest ones in the entire party and his longswords swing even harder than his longsword if you know what I mean

and he's just eleven but buff and no magic in the battle department so yeah there's that

jasper is a good villain and is also pretty fucking hot when he gets all naked and sweaty and mordegon is also an interesting villain in the series since this time its not gonna be an intergalactic demon conqueror thing because THATS FOR THE ACT3 WOWOWO

ok story

I enjoy this story but I think it has some ups and downs definitely

act1 makes a huge fucking impact in exploring the world and making new friends here and there and I'm a fan of basically every single story beat (albeit sometimes kind of side questy like most of the stuff youre gonna do here is padding in the different cities but it's FINE) a huge highlight for me is the little prince of that kingdom with the horse racers what was his name ok faris I want to fuck faris pretty hard so this was a huge highlight for me sorryyyyyyy teehee the mermaid quest is also pretty good in the fact that it made me mentally unstable and cautious of this game and also the winter witch quest is kind of fun like look at her ice britney spears

the final part of the act1 with mordegon destroying yggdrasil actually made me lose all my hair since I wants expecting this kind of climax in the middle of the story I was absolutely destroyed by this and the beautiful animated cutscene me when the whole world is destroyed: dayum kinda beautiful innit

so they all get scattered and it's time for extra stories

I'm not a fan of these extra stories !!! the end

sylvando one is a fucking chore eriks is ok and actually makes some sense to the amnesia shit because i wouldve been like huh ???? jades sexist as hell she is still pretty hot but idk if I wanted to see that and rab actually made me bawl so yeah nothing new

act2 is pretty interesting and also has some ups and downs particularly because youre gonna revisit the same exact places you did in act1 and see how they changed while also looking for your friends now I'm not against this because the scenery changes according to the new environment but its still a chore to go around places you already visited but whatever now there's hendrik following you so I can have some eyecandy at least and yeah this all takes a damn good spike in the story as soon as you find out veronica is dead and everything fucking crumbles and serena gets depressed and does the sakura move that shit actually HIT emotionally and also on a gameplay standpoint because at this point their gonna be like omg mordegon you bloody pooping proper

so kill mordegon

the end everyone's happy

good fucking story UNTIL act3

now I'm not a huge fan of act3 it takes everything that made act2 beautiful and spits in its face and says OK actually let's redo all that but with veronica alive which is fun

now I'm not against this kind of treatment because it made me see an alternate universe of things and watch some little changes in interactions throughout the different cities but it's YET AGAIN another act2 I cannot go on like this honestly I have the very based belief that this part of the game was basically put for the people who really love this game and want an endless variety of stuff to do

revisit old towns and go do according dungeons and see what differs from act2 some more trials here and there infinite side quests a lot more customization and levelling up and grinding to do and possibly the most BS final battle in the entire universe this is basically just made for dq11 ultra fans and even though I'm not one of them I ended up playing and finishing it anyway lmao

now I mean I'm not so much against this because I see it as extra stuff but if people tell me "dq11 is ALSO act3" I have to disagree this honestly all feel like a padding for those more 40 hours into the game and giving a honestly fun what-if scenario but apart from that nothing too hype if I have to be honest

still the serenica incident is a nice touch to the whole lore and I was convinced of the fact that erdwin was actually the guy from dragon quest 3 and I was like oh ok that's cool this is a sequel then you get to the finale and this is actually a prequel to dq3 because I confused erdwin with erdrick and how the fuck is this game a prequel If environments are definitely more technologically advanced than dq3 but I digress

whatever its cool and the ending made me teary eyed ngl

then you get the ending scene which is the beginning of dq3 and I fucking scream to hell and back what a nice way to finish this game i still got shivers what the fuck this was the sealing deal of how this game is actually just a love letter to the entire series I can't stress this enough

so uh good game one of the finest dq out there if it weren't for the fact that they're all good

veronica I love you so much

deeeeeeefinitely better than the first one in a lot of ways but i still have my gripes with it and no its not about the fact that theres not even one character in this game that i would fuck

so i was not a fan of faith chapter 1 and for what its worth it i still think it is a nice addition in the horror indie genre niche of sorts its not the greatest thing ever created but its a passable experience and for how short it is its definitely worth checking out and since i already got my hands on the collection might as well play the other installments in the series

since this is somehow a direct continuation of the story of the first one youre gonna expect some of the elements to be refined and its like that for the most part theres still some great use of the rotoscopic animations and genuinely still feel pretty scary when coming out of nowhere even if after the 5th one the magic is gonna vanish pretty soon i can take at least a couple of 120 fps animated people melting into blood or black tar but apart from those scenes theres a pretty great sense of tension and some of my favorite scares here dont even have those animations included (cherry on top is the long ass paragraph getting uncanny and distorted the more you read it if you know you know i love that scene) and theres some better understanding and advantage of the medium in this one that wasnt all that present in the original installment and it actually managed some good gasps out of me and again since i already got accustomed to the formula of the rotoscopic animations its funny to see that what actually GOT me were scenes that had nothing to do with it

so as much i can compliment the author(s?) for the effort to rejuvenate a formula that got tiring super quick i still have a lot of gripes for this game NO I DONT WANT TO READ ALL THOSE FUCKING PAPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERS I DONT KNOW HOW TO READ DO YOU GET IT ?????????? why is a game about atmospheric horror and visual scares forcing me to go through deep lore of a story that i dont know nothing about apart from “a priest is doing exorcises in fucking nowhere” and while yes some of them are interesting and do give a lot of murder mystery horror type of vibe to the game do we reaaaaaaaally need 20 of them like the game is already tedious to begin with why would you do that to me and this is not even the worst part because WHO thought it was a good idea to expand on the terrible boss battles of the first game adding like 5 more boss battles that range from disgusting to frustrating to unbearable to anticlimactic to .

god im so angry at this shit it couldve been way better without all this drivel littering the runtime from start to finish its not like theyre not allowed to experiment with prose or battles but was it necessary to do it 10 times in a row ignoring the fact that the protagonist moves slower than a queue at the supermarket and has the moveset of an early 80s fighting game what am i SUPPOSED to do

so umh the art style is still the same and im still not a fan the synthesised voices that quickly grew tiring after 10 minutes and then the tiring transformed into ear bleeding which is always a good thing and lemme be clear the industrial 8 bit soundtrack isnt helping its case in any way shape or form

not a bad game but i expected to see better improvements and less jank i still had a lot of fun exploring this fucked universe and places that are not either a forest or a house trashing them for some more welcoming settinsg <3 a cemetery with the spirits of sexually unsatisfied victiorians an abandoned church which somehow reminded me of the Cv LT T chu RCH HS from silent hill 3 (hmmmm guess where the final battle will take place in i wonder i have no clue) and heroine syringes littered sewers literally the most welcoming places on earth im so glad this game is about happy themes like faith and religion that definitely dont make my skin crawl every time i hear them

do i want to start the chapter 3 already no i dont but do i want to know if grey priest gets in blue priests pants ??? oooooooooooh steamy

i definitely didnt expect to cry like crazy at 10 minutes of ori and the blind forest but apparently this game managed to amaze me even in that aspect and not only that i got to the ending while every 30 minutes having a crying fit which is very me i may admit

ori surpassed my expectations in so many aspects i sincerely wouldve never expected it . i mean i knew it was a good game because everyone had been talking about it for at least 3 years after its release nonstop and again now that the sequel is out (now meaning 2020 whatever) but i didnt expect it to be such a metaphysical experience it made me feel things i havent felt in a while (depression and last time was probably a week ago)

im talking about the plot of ori at the end of the review because if not im going to stand here crying like a bitch now and never finish this review

in video game terms ori is a metroidvania-like or whatever you may call it . i am the whore of metroidvanias as soon as i hear metroidvania i get a mind bending erection just like that tachycardia and so on . that being said ori (the first game at least (yes i'm already playing the second one because i need another dose of bittersweet trauma)) i didn't perceive it as a real metroidvania or at least the gameplay loop of pick up a skill > open a new path > pick up another skill and such is typically metroidvania but it's much more linear than that (although there are certain areas that aren't connected to the main story lets say so at least in that regard the exploration is quite extensive)

now let's get the weak point of this experience out of the way right away the combat in ori (again the first one because in the second one they have updated and improved it and honestly I love it to death but the fact remains that in the first one it's a bit like that) is not the best and i couldnt even explain precisely how it works there are kind of fires with auto aim or whatever i have no idea i didnt particularly like it or particularly hate it but it has to be said that at least the developers tried to differentiate the battle system a little bit with in game improvement charts that at least give you a sense of progress but still it remains a little shitty sorry and especially the boss battles (if you can call them that) are bad as fuck and even this will be something that will be improved in the second game (love the bosses there) but since ori is more of a platformer than an action game i dont really see that as a big ass flaw .

now after the weak point let's talk about the strong point the movement mechanics of this game are out of this world i swear holy shit it's amazing in the beginning like every metroidvania the most you can do is jump and do some other shit but as soon as you start getting more and more power ups the movement is possibly one of the best ive ever experienced in a fucking video game and im not kidding between triple jump the dash the bombs the bash (main mechanic of the game and one of my favorite platforming mechanics of any video game ever im sorry) you can do anything and get anywhere in this fucking beautiful gorgeous awesome world and this whole thing will culminate in my favorite parts of the game that a lot of people hated and honestly I can understand why but I loved them madly aka the sequences where you have to run away from the crazy absurd evil owl or you have to get out of the dungeon where you have taken an element of the forest that ends up exploding and flooding everything with fire water ice kind of like the ending of every metroid when the planet or space station or whatever is exploding and you have to run away like crazy but the reason why a lot of people hate these parts is kind of related to how the save system in ori works ie you have to use some energy to manually save progress (which sometimes resulted in me forgetting that the saving in this game is manual and then in a death that wiped out a few minutes of progress but whatever i actually hate this game) so at these points the save is disabled and you have to do like 3 minutes of crazy platforming that if you die bring you back to where you started so here everyone hates them but they might be my favorite parts of the whole game I mean I don't know all the frenzy of the moment the amazing OSTs that pick up and explode in all their orchestral might and the raw power of these moments idk they simply gave me chills every single time this game is amazing and I just love it with all my being but lets talk about another aspect that I loved madly

the art direction of this video game really leaves you breathless . any place within the forest of [name of the forest i can't remember ok i checked its nibel] is designed and structured in a way so breathtakingly competent that every single setting and enemy and particle effect and animation and background and foreground and graphic and lighting effect and anything is just so dies

along with the art direction there is to say that the audiovisual compartment doesnt stop there because the sheer might of the music and sfx .......... oof guys the OST in this game is something out of this world already the game by itself is incredibly emotional and all but every single track pulls at your heartstrings like nothing else really . most of it is new age instrumental stuff but they are composed with so much tenderness and beauty that even scenes which by themselves would be tear-jerking when you add to them these osts they just make you tear your hair out scream cry vomit anything and probably if I listened to them now which i havent yet because the wound of this game is still pretty open i would feel bad but really bad but really really bad goodbye vabbuon appost

I think it's unfortunately time to talk about the story because honestly there's an amazing story behind it (not the most amazingly intricate story in the universe lets just say that but the mere concept of it all… wow) and definitely one of the most emotionally charged ive ever seen lmao (+ the ost puts a lot of emotional stress on you basically you either cry or you cry theres not a lot of room for alternatives but still . HEAVY SPOILER WARNING because this will be an infodump of the story and a list of all the times I cried (profusely)

ori is the last leaf and guardian of the spirit tree of the forest of nibel which is slowly dying and he is looked after by naru who is a ... something I don't understand like a forest creature ok thats it and they grow up together and form a family (you already know where this is going) then the forest starts to die and there is no more food and naru out of selflessness and love for ori starves in order to leave food for ori and when ori tries to save her she is already dead . honestly ? developers you suck this happened after 10 minutes from the start of the game and I was already a broken human being I couldnt see what was going on because tears were flooding my eyesight now then ori sets out and explores nibel then he finds sein who is the light of the spirit tree which has also been separated from the tree by a malevolent owl beast something called kuro (which is black and encompasses darkness very innovative i know) who is initially very cryptic and in the trope of "this bitch is bad and ugly and very evil" but then when you get to her nest on Mt. Something there is a great flashback where you realize what really happened (alarm for another crying fit) the ceremony of light (which was supposed to summon ori) had accidentally killed the 3 babies of the evil bird (JWKFJSKSKW OH MY GOD I HOPE THAT EVERYONE WHO GOT HERE HAS PLAYED THE GAME BUT IF YOU DIDN'T YOU CANT IMAGINE HOW MISERABLE THE ENTIRE CUTSCENE MADE ME IM SHAKING) okay back to us kuro is angry and attacks the tree trying to defend her last child (still an egg) stealing sein and leaving the forest to rot but ori manages to gather all the elements (used to revive the tree) and when you're almost done with your journey kuro almost kills ori then naru (WHO IS NOW ALIVE YAY and reanimated by gumo I don't have time to talk about gumo you know who gumo is if youve played the game which you should have) cradles him for the first time after her death and for the apparent last time in front of kuro who seeing narus maternal affection for ori is moved (me too bitch) thinking of her children and realizing that she has become the monster she saw the spirit tree as so she sacrifices herself to return sein (another hysterical cry) and then the balance returns to nibel the little family is together again but now there is a new addition ..... the little owl in the egg that kuro left behind… sorry im too emotional and they take care of her like shes their little daughter and honestly that was the last straw i finished the game in 5 hours at 100% (I don't know if I unconsciously speed ran the game or im just I don't know incredibly good at metroidvanias likeeeeeeeeee but either way it is what it is) i can say I cried for at least 1-2 hours of the game its just that kind of emotional ride and im so sorry for the people who are my friends and who will get an infodump of the reasons for why this game made me cry my eyes out all this time

anyhow that was very long and i dont know why i really got a problem with getting the essential information in these reviews lately but anyway ori is really good and “remember those who are gone so may they live forever” is possibly the most distressing thing ive ever read in a game like why would you do that to me

ori is so cute guys im just gonna cry my eyes out again just like that

sometime ago i played links awakening dx and i really wasnt impressed with it sure i had played a lot of zelda games and never finished them and truthfully i wasnt really enjoying them as much as i wanted to so i thought it was a really charming game but never finished it

boy did my fucking opinion change not only of the original but of this incredible remake daaaaaaaamn

links awakening feels true to the classic games and of course it is for a game that came right after the brilliant a link to the past a game too ahead of time for its own good and coming up with a rightful sequel to such a colossus of a game wouldve been really hard if it wasnt for nintendo fucking doing it again just constantly raising the bar its unreal

due to its predecessor being the game that it is you would think that they would exploit its success for this one but instead they cut every tie from what came before with a completely new world but with the same link

and what a fucking world

before going deep into the game i gotta say that this remake is jaw dropping i saw people not being a fan of the toylike art style but i honestly think this is such a great complementary style to the already incredible island of koholint it makes it feel like its a diorama in a snow globe a world sealed and confined in an alternate space and if you know the lore deets you know how much i loved this kind of style for this game in particular

every single character is brimming with details in its model every single part of the world is filled with hd gorgeous models that are both incredibly realistic and cartoonish the animations are splendid and really shine if you put a 60 fps patch like its just incredible art back to back to back and even though i really understand the complaints about the art style since its an important detour from the original ones art style but just leave nostalgia back and take this game at face value . its cute its really good im sorry theres no argument to be made here the enemies look so fucking amazing and the bosses are even better the overworld is beautiful and again the characters are great so whatever if you wanna be rude be rude to zelda II not to this

that being said other elements of the remake are some good QoL needed here and there and i think some stuff got tweaked and streamlined but im not really sure since i didnt finish the original lmao i also got stuck for days on the mushroom quest

that being said the remake is pretty good if you dont like it i dont care just play the original maybe i WILL be playing the entirety of the original someday so that i can really have a complete opinion of this game with the knowledge of both versions but for the very “first” complete experience i had with this story it was pretty incredible nothing to say about this

so enough of the remake the game itself

link gets on a shipwreck and finds himself in the island of koholint where theres people that never appeared in the game before nobody knows what hyrule is everyone talks like they know some things they dont want to say to link theres a giant bird fish god thing and everyone is scared of him apart from link and youre absolutely alone if it werent for the very first person to talk to you . cute girl marin my fucking BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

also theres super mario characters and enemies around and you can find kirby in a dungeon MMMMMMMMM THATS WEIRD

so whatever the prologue is basically this and as you might already realise this is just a story element to give you a motive to go in dungeons get the instruments and awaken the fish bird thing

the story is pretty straightforward but what really gives this game such a great personality are the characters and the little interactions they have with link first and foremost marin who is both the very first guide for link in this unknown world and also a place that feels like home for him

cute nothing terrible will ever happen amirite

characters are quirky funny and have some really great chemistry with both the other characters and the world itself koholint is brimming with joy and life and youre gonna fight to protect this peace

syke

gameplay is the usual zelda gist you get keys to dungeons with honestly pretty weird quests like the quests in links awakening are really out there with pacing and gameplay loop and shit like that you can go 5 hours with only side quests or only dungeons it has a strange sense of pace but i really like it nonetheless like alttp was just dungeons after dungeons so whatever

ok whatever dungeons are really cool even though maybe the main criticism for me will be that theyre kind of samey somehow ??? in progression and structure but again this is still a gameboy color game with a coat of paint on top of it so i wont demand too much stuff for it like even alttp dungeons were way more interesting but its FIIIIIIIIIIIINE its fine ok i love this game so whatever get in the dungeon take the dungeon item do puzzles and get the instrument rinse and repeat now yeah this is always the same in zelda game and yeah dungeons usually arents my fav part of these experiences and just so you know this game also has a bomb overworld filled with secrets here and there and its always such a great thing to get a new dungeon item and be able to traverse new parts of the overworld and get to places that were closed before so yeah this is great and also probably has one of my fav roster of items and rocs feather is peak i dont care

so yeah whatever this is classic zelda what the fuck do you want me to say

now the music here is incredible dont get me started the arrangements are absolutely top notch and theres not a single fucking bad this is one of the very first songs you will listen to just tell me you dont want to tear your hair out cmon i will wait and theres also something so beautiful about the town theme it has such a great sense of comfort of joy it just feels like home

also another fav one is tal tal heights absolutely gorgeous music i love videogames why are they so good i honestly dont even know anymore

so whatever after the meat of the game we need to get to the meat of the story

SPOILER ALERT

boy the ending got me . the fucking dread the enemies feel every time you say youre gonna awaken the bird fish thing has ground since theyre basically asking you to not destroy their world but you have to do it or else you cant go home and youre gonna get hints here and there that what youre gonna do is gonna destroy the whole world NPCs are already accepting their fate the owl is speaking in riddles but is trying to give you an explanation the writings you find in the overworld will tell you that the awakening of the big fishy fish whale is gonna bring a lot of grief and still you do it you go there play the instruments battle the ganon phantoms which is a staple now and talk with the big fish

he says its all a dream and now everything makes sense the way characters talked the out of context elements from other nintendo games the enemies trying to defend their existence it was all to let you know that what youre doing will delete everything

left with nothing else to do you just get to the ending scene while the island crumbles in front of you with marin and everyone else disappearing into nothingness just for you to remember them after everythings ended

the credits roll and youre left with a mental anguish and just cannot do anything else but cry i was OVERFLOWING OH GOD THIS GAMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE watching links sad face on the raft really got to me and then looking the seagull in the sky leaving place to the image of marin like she wished for the fish divinity thing like WHO THE FUCK UHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH I HATE THIS GAME

like why would you make me suicidal im just asking that

links awakening is such a nice game and not only it is one of the most fun games in the franchise but also has a unique story to boot with an incredible existential crisis as soon as you finish the game and the fact that the developers could create such a gem of a game with this absolute banger of a storyline is pretty insane kudos to you and i said i hated the GBC but i think i need to rethink everything now

at the end of the day what remains of what we feel are the memories we take with us . marin i miss you every day

please dont forget this song - or me

this is an odd one and when i say that i mean that it gives off such different vibes from the other games in the series i dont even know what to tell you about it

basically this is a free game distributed with the intention of being a tycoon something i have no idea what these games are called strategic economy games ? anyway you are the promoter of freddys pizzeria and you gotta buy stuff decorate the room and play some minigames here and there but in reality this is a facade and the real game is a classic fnaf experience reenacting some kind of fnaf3 gameflow and you also have no time goal you just need to go through your tasks and finish the shit off

now i was really surprised at the degree of customization in this but the tycoon stuff was really not my thing and i was convinced there were more animatronics to acquire for the night defense phase but in reality theres like 3-4 so not really that big of a cast if you ask me but anyway the night segments were kind of tricky due to these new mechanics and the fact that i could not understand how ventilation + animatronic movements + task management worked so i died A LOT not as much as fnaf3 for some reasons but im fine now

after the day time and after the night time you will be able to either toss or salvage some destructed animatronics in the fucking garbage and you may or may not save them before they jump in front of your face and make you lose the money you were due

ideally you should get all of them to see the true ending or whatever but since i did that apart for the challenging aspect of the night segments its not really worth it tbh and when you dont like the day segments and you dont enjoy the night segments that much anyway youre left with a really interesting installment with some questionable choices here and there

the finale that made people jump from buildings to hype that shit up was actually pretty ok . im not huge on the lore of this series i genuinely do not fucking care about infodump thats not even present in the games or easter eggs or shit like that and maybe because of that the ending had less of an impact on me . yknow it was cool but idk who this guy is what hes talking about and why hes doing what hes doing so im literally walking in the dark here

that being said nice little free game and its kinda weird how much effort was put into this and how story heavy this allegedly is for a kind of aprils fool installment