"The pain of your absence is sharp and haunting, and I would give anything not to know it; anything but never knowing you at all (which would be worse)."

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

possibly the greatest metaphor of life every time you get closer to the end of the world the game makes you embrace your death and still makes you willing to live those last seconds to the fullest

sometime ago i started outer wilds and dipped almost instantly when i got into the solar system gameplay because whatever i felt so overwhelmed that my most authentic reaction was to close the game and never touch it again

i booted it again some days ago and ended up addicted to it to the point that i would play it for hours and hours straight until i uncovered all the secrets of this stupid fucking solar system i cannot tell you how much cocaine they put in this game to get me THIS hooked honestly

outer wilds base premise is as simple as absolutely effective and wondrous . youre a space explorer from a little village in a small world you get to know its fellow inhabitants and begin to learn the characteristics of the world around you and whats incredible is the fact that all this actually acts as a tutorial for what youre gonna do for the rest of the game playing hide and seek with the kids helps you understand how to use the frequency sensor you can use a little space ship model that acts the same as your space ship you can go to the cave to help repair some parts of an inner equipment stuff that makes you accustomed to both zero gravity movement and your jetpack and how to repair your ship you can begin to use the multipurpose probe and translate some forgotten language stones and use the inside of the museum to get to know some particular stuff that you wont know until later how actually useful it is and this is only the BEGINNING of the incredible variety of stuff you get to do in this fucking game

the synopsis is this you go to the museum and the historian there introduces you to a lost civilization that disappeared some time before for some unknown reasons and also some other explorers of the space company who went missing for some other reasons and while you ask some other stuff you go get the codes to begin your trip in the outer space and when you do that a nomai statue at the entrance of the museum opens its eyes stares at you and you get back to when you wake up like it was all a dream

after this weird shit you get to finally begin this endless travel in your galaxy to discover the secrets of the nomai and where they have gone

now i will talk about some in depth not super spoiler heavy stuff and then some heavy story stuff so if you want to go completely blind stop now since i only talked about the beginning

MILD SPOILER AHEAD

as soon as you go travel and do your stuff you get to know your surroundings theres some different planets with different qualities and quirks and while you travel you understand something very grim as soon as you reach 22 minutes the sun goes supernova and will explode and gorge on every single molecule of the solar system causing your death and making you realize that youre in a neverending loop due to something out of your control you will always begin your travel again at the campfire and from there begin your exploration anew

understanding how the planets work is something so thrilling in this game i cannot even begin to tell you every single one is an incredible discovery i dont know the names in english so i will talk about them in italian sorry yall

cuore legnoso is the first planet you get to visit because its also the home of the teporiani and you will also begin to understand that this is also the only planet with some good atmospheric conditions for life to thrive and although its fairly resembling earth its actually full of geysers all around that conceal some incredible secrets too whats also cool is that some of these planets also got some satellites like cuore legnoso got sfrido where you can fine one of the stranded explorers and thats freaking fun i love these 2 planets

gemello cenere and gemello brace really push forward the concept that youll get to understand throughout the game some planets change aspect and theres some limited time events in these 22 minutes and no other planet has more drastic transformations than these 2 they basically become completely different due to the fact that most of the sand from one planet gets to the other one and whatever and yeah these two are basically interconnected and one is more of a cavern mass and the other is ruins below sands kind of vibe also love them

vuoto fragile is also kind of weird because its entirely hollow apart from the surface the center hosts a black hole that will eat whatever gets close to it and the near satellite will get some vulcano debris on it and slowly the surface of the planet will fall in the black hole in whatever other part of the galaxy also interesting

profondo gigantesco is full of tornados and islands getting thrown left to right and has a distinct thick atmosphere and has a electromagnetic core that also has some weird consequences to the entire planet

rovo oscuro is the most hostile of them all some intergalactic plant took control of a planets life and crushed it and now sits on the center of it if you enter youre gonna be welcomed by foggy environments spaces that have no sense and contrast the basic rules of space and time and some huge monstrous anglerfish floating around and giving you the worst panic attack on existence i kid you not

l’intruso floats around the galaxy and as the name implies its not really part of the solar system you can see that its orbit is actually off centered and is completely entirely frosted

believe me or not you will get to know the entirety of all these planets how their different gravities work and at some point youll begin to move so fast because youre going to travel to these places so many fucking times its gonna be implanted in your brain trust me

all these planets have some places of interest that can give you hints on some different mysteries youre gonna look for and the ship log is gonna help you with that

the ship is full of stuff like tutorials and different equipments and even this mythical ship log thats gonna give you a map of the stuff you have discovered or that you have yet to discover now my recommendation is just to go fuckinf blind and fail and die and do all your stuff until youre ready to get into some deep lore territory and also you have to understand how every planet works and how to exploit their characteristics to your advantage

the ship log got some different threads to let you know which one youre following like theres a log group for the quantum moon or a log for the eye of the universe or a log for the twin project so youre gonna know what to do next somehow i mean it can feel kind of daunting in the beginning but slowly you will get the hang of it because this game is designed to hell and back for fucking christ

before delving into spoiler territory some more stuff about the game

the fact that they managed to create a seamless miniature solar system in a game working in real time and with so many different aspects working at the same time is something i wont ever understand how they managed to do something like this is beyond me like theres some teleportations devices that work when some planets align like how do you even DO that its fucking insane what the hell

and yknow using the jetpack and the ship can feel pretty difficult to use but traversing the deep space begins to feel easier and easier after playing for some time so you dont have to worry about that

the puzzle designs of this game also took me by surprise im not a huge puzzle guy yknow that but i was astounded by the fact that they managed to put some great puzzles that dont go into the frustration territory but actually reward you if you get to explore a bit of the surroundings or if you have explored another planet before that actually got something to do with the puzzle at hand and somehow they dont feel overwhelming theyre the environmental kind of puzzles like idk portal or shit like that but they really make you feel good about doing them because you get to piece together some stuff yourself or get to know how precisely something works like probably the greatest example is the quantum moon which is by itself a big ass puzzle level and to complete it you have to get some intel about the quantum stuff from other planets and actually experiment with quantum objects yourself thats fucking clever kudos to you designers

the art design is kinda streamlined if you ask me theres nothing really outstanding about it apart from the individual character designs which actually feel intelligent and look really nice even though teporians look pretty different from your usual design for some obvious reasons again the art style is going for the kind of not too realistic kind of cartoony vibe and somehow really work with this over realistic solar system and then again the art style there is not about the art itself but how they space and use the different models and quirks of the planets to make them feel alive and breathing like theyre living beings in this galaxy too

SFX obviously got implemented to the story like a shining jewel it would not feel the same with the incredible work put in that department water sand fire every natural element is speaking to you and still as soon as you begin to translate the words of the nomai youre struck with sad fucking piano oooooooooooOOOOOOOO youre in for an emotional ride

and the music in itself is pretty scarce and simplistic but boy when it hits IT HITS the melody you hear whenever the sun is approaching its end is some of the most haunting beautiful tragic warm whatever other adjective tune you will hear in the entirety of the game and when you connect the fact that this is the tune of the end of the galaxy it gets so much more emotional thats basically the song of “thats it bro . youre dead accept your demise and try again next time” its absolutely beautiful and the fact that you can see the sun slowly dying and exploding is so beautiful that i would just sit and stare at the end of it all while there was a spectacle of colors eating the life out of the planets you cannot escape

some other music plays out in different points like when you discover some nomai settlements or read some very bad stuff on the walls or when you travel to some special locations really the music in this game really add to the atmosphere which is already pretty rich and particular really theres no game that made me feel like this like just wandering around the galaxy and either fear the endless void or just vibe with its beauty but nothing will ever beat the somber and emotional track that plays out right at home this is possibly the most powerful music in the game and it only gets even better when you just sit there in front of the campfire and taste some marshmallows or like when you get to the sun station and you realise the incredible jump you have to make to unravel its secrets and this plays out or the tune you get to hear throughout the game that really gives you the chills because it feels like home or like this fucking theme that plays out whenever something sad to the nomai happens and particularly i think about the scene where you get to the escape pod 3 in rovo oscuro and you find them just dead floating around looking miserable and the log turns into nomai grave and THAT THEME PLAYS and one of the most beautiful one of all the theme that plays when you get the last piece of the puzzle that is a remix of the theme of the sun exploding and thats pretty breathtaking if you ask me

last but not least the UI design in this game is absolutely incredible from the simple buttons you have to press to the detailed yet easy to use ship log to the different ingame aspects that reflect what youre doing like the light sticks (i dont know how to call them) of the ship lighting in the direction youre doing or your jetpack giving you some tridimensional arrows to tell you where youre going and what movement youre doing or like the different objects youre gonna use or even something so stupid as the nomai speech reading thats something that you will do for the entirety of the game and its pretty interesting how the nomai got this written form that develops in spirals or like even the fact that youre gonna use some scrolls or some plates to read what they are saying this game really is incredible what the fuck

and the fact that you make yourself this game you can take your time you can explore what you want in what order you want thats absolutely top notch game design no achievements no rewards no objects no new abilities no linear exploration NOTHING its just you the space around you and your neverending curiosity to discover whats happening to you and the world around you

ok anyway HEAVY SPOILER TERRITORY

getting to slowly understand the nomai whereabouts is absolutely terrifying and beautiful at the same time like theres this distant civilization that got a reading somewhere in the galaxy of an object that for them is like a god a supernatural being they really begin to do everything in their power to get closer to this thing that they also hypothesize it could not even care about them like it could be a random object that randomly sent a wave in their direction and they thought it was a message from a messiah or something like thats a banger incipit and all of this you get to know by reading their scrolls around the worlds

a thing that really got to me is when you see murals about how the nomai found a species of non intelligent beings in cuore legnoso and how theyre actually gonna develop into the teporians making you REALLY understand how distant in time these beings really are and slowly you will also get to discover and understand and also use their different constructions and devices since theyve been in this galaxy for a long time they actually left some many different scrolls around the planets even some villages and even constructed some hi tech stuff for the purpose of finding this fucking eye and yknow whats really incredible ?

the nomai wanted to send a probe through an orbital cannon into space to actually get to find this eye but since its an infinitesimal chance to find it in the outer space but to actually do that they actually created the twin project to send the result of the probe back in time of 22 minutes to reuse it an indefinite amount of time so to find this object in the outer space but the power that would take to use this device amounts to the power of a supernova and what the nomai wanted to do is actually cause a supernova so they tried to make the sun explode but were unsuccessful and then died out before the project could be set in motion and thats where you get back to the players time and now the 22 minutes rule all of the sudden makes sense because when the supernova happens the consciousness of the player is sent back in time for another probe to be shot out and as i was saying yknow whats incredible ? the fact that whenever you wake up you see the cannon in profondo gigantesco shoot the probe THIS IS FUCKING INCREDIBKE PH MY GOFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

due to the connection to the statues of memories the player and another guy are the only one that can actually remember what the shit happens in this time loop and thats also the reason for the player to understand how to stop this from happening and what better way to actually find the eye of the universe oh yes baby

DISCLAIMER if you arrived here you probably have finished the game or else youre fucking stupid so im not gonna talk about all the other plot points because it would take so much fucking time to tell you how massive this games story actually is but the segment in the quantum moon where you talk with solanum using plates due to language barrier is probably one of my favourite stuff in the universe and anyway every single thing of this game is incredible exploring the ghost cities the laboratories get to piece together clues to get to the eye UGH i love this

after exploring the twin project and the core of profondo gigantesco you will get all the stuff to actually make the right thing to close this incredible game thats right getting jumpscared in rovo oscuro by the anglerfish

after getting there and finding what remains of the vessel with which the nomai got into this galaxy you put back the battery to where it belongs and input the coordinates of the eye of the universe and let the vessel take the reins

you finally get to see the eye of the universe which is nothing more nothing less than a huge as fuck mass of quantum energy that actually looks like a black hole and thats the thing that the nomai actually chased after just an unemotional aseptic huge piece of molecules and thats it they died for this because they were convinced it was some kind of ungodly being wandering around the universe just giving important signals to space races for some whatever reason

i cannot understand how they managed to create such a powerful segment in the videogame media and just then followed it with some of the most haunting segment ever

you get to see your friends again or better the quantum version of your friends again and also understand that its not only your star that is dying every single star in the universe is dying and everything is going back to 0 and actually this is something you can see if you zoom in the sky during your playthrough theres an explorer you encounter that tells you he saw 2 supernovas in one day and if you actually look for yourself the sky is FULL of supernovas so thats whats gonna happen youre gonna search for your friends and regroup the band for the last time playing the jingle you know too fucking well from your countless loops and then you create a big bang giving rise to another univers

the fucking end

after the credits you can see that 14 billion years later a solar system similar with the one youre living in is thriving and new life forms are idling in front of a campsite

i dont know what happened in me but i just started uncontrollably crying after finishing this game i swear it was like experiencing something so grand and so incredibly profound that the only thing i could do was contemplate stuff and cry about it this is just how powerful the message of this game is im not joking this is so much more than a solar system simulator and a puzzle game and a flight simulator this is a larger than life tale with messages that resonate with every human being something like hope or lack thereof struggle or relief in front of your death the concept of time and space and what it means to break it how important it is to cherish life and not be sad about it ending because thats just what happens in this vast universe

this could be one of the greatest games of all times for themes alone the legacy of the nomai and the meaning they gave to a life towards something that was actually meaningless really hurts me to talk about and i cannot stress enough how everyone should push through this game and complete it blind you wont regret it

this made me actually less afraid of death said another comments and i can really relate to that

talking about how powerful this game is would not even give it 1/100 of the justice it deserves and what you really need to do is get it boot it up and experience it first hand this is an experience like no other i have ever had and im pretty sure this review didnt really put into words how monumental this game really is but i sure know in my heart what the truth is and the truth is life is meaningless i would love to have 4 eyes

SIDENOTES OR AFTERTHOUGHTS

I think its really cool the developers thought of other endings that are influenced by what you actually do and do not do in the game if you get the core our of the twin project you will not be connected anymore to the memory mask which means if you wait for the sun to explode you will be dead for good this time game over ending BUT if you instead get out of the galaxy because there's no loop you will get the isolation ending

you can even break space time with the scout and the black and white hole warps or you can jump into the black hole in the twin project when the sun explodes and talk to yourself in the next loop (and the character actually looks beefy take that suit off pardner) or even removing the warp core and bringing it to solanum on the quantum moon and just live there as a quantum being forever I swear to fucking god the developers of this game thought of EVERYTHING

I JUST FOUND OUT THE THEME THAT PLAYS OUT DURING THE 14 BILLION YEARS LATER SCENE IS THE SAME THAT PLAYS OUT WHEN THE SUN COMES UP IN CUORE LEGNOSO NOOOOOOOOO

its also interesting to say that for the most part of the game i skimmed through the ghost matter tutorials so i didnt know i needed to use my scout but i wanted to rely on nomai because they usually have the answer for everything but nowhere do they talk about ghost matter and then i realised that 1) they tell you about ghost matter in the first 5 minutes of the game and 2) the nomai could not tell me of the ghost matter because THEY WERE FUCKING KILLED BY THE GHOST MATTER IM SO STUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID

just found out theres a meditate option to skip to the next loop and i just discovered it WHERE THE FUCK IS IT

the fact that theres laws of physics theres planets doing their thing theres spacetime paradoxes how can you even create something so beautiful and something that feels so alive

recently i had to process a loss in my family and as childish as it may sound like im really glad i got to play something like this that helped me an atheist to actually make some sense of life loss and love and i think i will take the messages of this game with me forever

I haven't been this conflicted on a game in a while. On one side of the coin, Rebirth continues to do what I loved about Remake. This world gets to be fleshed out and fully realized with this generation's tech and budget, seeing all of these locations and sights on a more personal and intimate scale than anything the original PS1 title could ever hope to accomplish; what was once an abstraction through a big region map you rampaged around by foot or vehicle is now something you feel the journey of by the literal scale of your party's bodies. Every inch of this world, its biomes and its cities, are places you learn to navigate and remember the layouts of. Every story beat that makes you travel to new locations feels earned, and there's so many moments throughout the story that taking a moment to look back on how far you've come feels unbelievably grand. What I cared more about than the world of FF7 was the characters and Rebirth still more than delivers on that front. As controversial as this trilogy has already become in regards to changes and additions it makes (which, we'll get there), the way that the team at Square have re-interpreted this cast and brought them to life works so incredibly well that it's hard not to think that the next time I go back to replay that original PS1 game, I'm going to be hearing the voices of this version's cast, thinking about how they interacted with the world and play off of each other. Essentially everyone has a moment to really grow and expand their personalities and backgrounds with more detail and time than the original ever could have, and in turn it makes this party not just a group of pretty designs and surface level personalities, but a group of well defined believable people. Countless additional moments big and small across the entire game continue to flesh out the world and characters and save for a handful of segments, I thought they were all smartly integrated in adding onto the original story.

Rebirth also takes a bit of time to refine some of Remake's gameplay edges. The menus are initially incredibly overwhelming after not having touched Remake in a few years, but after enough time I appreciate that there's not only more personality in showing the actual character models compared to static portraits over a blue background, but also how much more informative a lot of those initially overwhelming menus actually are compared to Remake. The annoying upgrade system from Remake was slightly revamped with an entire new menu that's more reminescent of the sphere grids from other Final Fantasy games, with my only real complaint being that I wish I could zoom out the view more. Weapon upgrades were simplified to essentially being swappable like materia is including an auto-upgrade option that takes out some of the tinkering if you don't really want to bother with the fine minutiae, especially with how many weapons you end up getting over the course of the game. Combat feels faster paced overall thanks to Synergy Skills, a smart inclusion that at least with the parties I tended to use, resolved a lot of the annoyances Remake had with particular enemy types. While we still don't have a dedicated jump button (the Jump materia doesn't count; thing has a different purpose anyways), a lot of Synergy Skills with most party members tend to either give you a ranged move or send you into the air with proper player agency. There's also a massive quality of life addition in giving every party member unlockable abilities through that sphere grid menu that gives you free elemental abilities without any materia and MP needed, at the expense of less damage. It resolves the issue of being stuck with party members that aren't as well equipped who just need to fulfill the pressure conditions of different enemies across the board and keeps things moving along. There was the occasional frustrating moment or enemy that felt annoying to deal with, but nothing that felt like it was a core flaw with the game design itself. It's more of Remake but more fleshed out; if you liked that game's combat, you will like Rebirth's.

But now I have to talk about the open world, and that's where the overwhelming majority of my issues with Rebirth come into play. Open world games have always been a tough sell for me because I am self-admittedly impatient with very little attention span. Rebirth took me almost 2 months to finish with 76 hours of total playtime. I have definitely played longer games like Persona 5 in less time than that, and to put a long story short I think it's just because Rebirth doesn't respect your time whatsoever. I would go from loving every linear main story segment, stuff that properly moved things along into new territory and things I hadn't seen before, to dreading the moment I would have to step back into open world territory at the end of those segments. There was a period of time during the first third of the game or so that I really had to sit there and debate if I wanted to boot up the PS5 to keep playing because I was so sick of doing Chadley's Chores(tm), running around for Ubisoft towers so I could be given waypoints on the map to fight a group of monsters for Chadley to gain intel on, hold up on the D-Pad for my chocobo to slowly sniff dig sites that Chadley helped locate for you, play Simon Says for lowering the difficulty of summon fights so Chadley can praise you, play more of the godforsaken card game for the hundredth time, finish the tens if not hundreds of VR fights by talking to Chadley who I'm about ready to strangle by that point, and then collecting protorelics on a game-wide hunt for them which Chadley will also talk you to death over finding.

Besides how much I hope Chadley gets fucking popped like a balloon at the start of the third remake game so I never have to see or hear him again, I just... thoroughly do not understand what makes the actual moment to moment gameplay of this open world so awe-inspiring to people. Again, open world games are a tough sell to me; I kind of infamously don't care very much for the open worlds of Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom because I think they get tedious and repetitive, and still kind of filled with a lot of empty nothing. Simultaneously for those games though, I can at least respect them, more in BOTW's case because some of that emptiness was the point in both world building, tone and atmosphere, and pacing. It's also how much player agency and control those two games in particular give you, with rarely a moment that the player doesn't have full control over where they're going, what they're finding, and how they're doing it. Ubisoft towers and checklists aren't anything new, it's that Rebirth makes those tasks so exceedingly mundane and stretched out, pushed to such a degree that it's frankly incredible how dedicated it is to wasting your time. So many animations that are pushed to their limit making you wait around for things to happen that just continually add up, watching Chadley and his own AI creation fucking bicker at each other as your reward for finishing those checklist fights, so many back and forths for things that just don't reward you meaningfully, either in the end result or even the journey that got you there.

I feel awful for anyone who is a completionist because you genuinely, truly have to be a masochist to get everything for that platinum. You aren't just doing everything, you have to attain mastery of everything including the countless number of gimmicks and minigames that Rebirth offers. It might be worse however for people like me, who wanted to at least get a majority of the side content done to see what most of the game had to offer. You aren't just not rewarded for not fully finishing stuff like the protorelic quest, you're given a middle finger by the very last hours of the game when you discover the last side quest is actually one that demands that you perfect every Gold Saucer minigame. Or when you discover that the protorelic quest doesn't just end after completing all regions, you actually get a Brand New Fuck You Zone whose level requirement is the highest level in the game, over twenty levels beyond what you would be at by the endgame. Oh you don't want to do that? Fuck you, you get nothing for all that time you spent doing this game-wide questline. Completing Queen's Blood wasn't much better even if it's actually doable on your first playthrough, you get an alright cutscene or two, a shiny title for yourself and an extra card as your reward which you won't be using because you already finished everything by that point.

There's a cynical part of me that has to wonder if all of this bloat was because this is a triple-A game release in this current generation costing $70 dollars. Was it a value proposition? "Look at this game with over a hundred hours worth of content?" Is this what people actually want? I had said already with Remake that I think it's a great 45 hour game that could have been excellent if it was like 5-10 hours shorter, with tighter pacing and less bloat. I have no idea what spurred on Square Enix to double down on it and create what I think is just a good game that could have been great if it was 30-40 hours shorter. I shouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility that I'm complaining about "optional content" because I'm not a tool. Rebirth is a game that begs and pleads with you to engage with it, and doing so felt like being pricked by needles slowly and agonizingly, because there was the very real chance that it was going to be worth it by the end. The side quests mostly were. The pure junk food with Chadley and the open world were not. I wish I could have those tens of hours back so I could've focused on the main story and helped tighten the pacing of it. I know this is game I am not going to replay for years, and if I ever do, I am actively skipping that content with the post-game knowledge to do so.

The only other thing I have to end my piece on is a light look ahead to the future regarding Rebirth's ending, and without spoiling it. I'll just say that Remake's ending I was sold on, and loved that it very intentionally was going in a new direction akin to something like the Evangelion Rebuilds, even if I felt bad for new players who hadn't played the original that they were going to be thrown for a loop. I am far less sold on Rebirth's ending, and my worries for that final third entry have skyrocketed now because of how messy it was. There's too many unknowns that have raised the stakes for Square to nail the landing, and there's a very real possibility that they're going to miss which would truly be a shame for the insane amount of work and effort on display thus far to be retroactively dismissed if they can't nail the finale. I pray they can to make all of this worth something more.

A very silly novelty that kind of wears thin after an hour or so. The comparisons to Lethal Company are obvious, but I think the true appeal is actually more in line with a Jackbox game. A lot of the fun and entertainment will come from how much your friends can improv and make up goofy shit on the fly even in the face of direct danger, which is a very different appeal from Lethal Company’s more trial and error goal focused rogue-lite appeal. Content Warning’s peak of comedy comes from the end result of your misadventures in that Jackbox fashion, getting a conclusion that everybody gets to laugh about and share on a Discord server to be forever memorialized, whereas Lethal Company is more laughing at your friends’ misery and terror as an onlooker who just suffered the same fate moments ago.

My problem with Content Warning is more just the longevity of it is clearly a lot shorter than its inspirations. The later game upgrades and unlockables don’t have enough of an appeal to keep pushing on for the money that nets you them, even if it is nice that the money economy is a lot more forgiving on player deaths and screwups. Content Warning feels like recording a haunted house with your friends, while Lethal Company feels like walking into the IKEA SCP with your friends and making the best of a bad situation. Different appeals and goals, but one of them has more of a lasting impression than the other does.

For $20 dollars for those who upgraded from the PS4 version? Yeah I dunno. Square's always been pretty bad with their DLC prices and this does feel too short even if you go out of your way to do the side content. I feel like I also would've appreciated Intermission a lot more if I played it right after finishing the base game but with my luck, I held off until beyond the last minute when Rebirth is now out and I'm in a hurry to catch up so the combat system and locations aren't quite as fresh in my mind. Some fights feel a bit overtuned and punish you for not quite getting how to build Yuffie and Sonon to be their most effective right at the very end of the game. I might have more appreciation for the updated mechanics and play style if I ever go back to replay Remake itself, but as it stands it's just fine.

I have a lot more appreciation for Intermission story-wise; Yuffie never really was a favorite of mine because aloof loud rambunctious characters aren't my thing as well as her limited role within the story of the original FF7 due to technically being an optional party member. Intermission (and very likely Rebirth from the looks of things) aims to fix this by incorporating her into the main plot events much earlier. Her personality is still aloof as ever, but there's more depth and background added beneath the poppy attitude alongside the addition of Sonon. There's some very good interplay with the war between Wutai and Shinra as well as implied bad blood between a split branch of Avalanche and Wutai, and watching Yuffie having to face the reality of the situation at hand and realizing that it's not as surface-level as she initially believed is one of the best parts of telling this new story with the opportunity that the remake trilogy is giving with this cast and world. I do think a certain reveal right at the very end will throw people off who haven't played some of the spin-off entries in FF7's universe and not quite get all the fuss that it builds up, but knowing Nomura and the overall vision with what Remake is going for, I don't really mind and am just here for the ride.

It's a good extra story chapter or two that's worthwhile to play, but mostly if it came with your copy with Intergrade on PC or PS5. If you upgraded from the PS4 version, the regular $20 dollar asking price is steep as per Square Enix usual and I don't know quite how essential it really is at that point. Wait for a sale if you're stuck in that position.

Very happy that we're back to pretty solid groundwork here after how bad the last two Chapter 4 seasons were, but I also don't think this first version of the new map is as good as what Chapter 4 started with. There's not enough distinct points of interests on this new map and the biomes feel very samey, especially when at some point they melted away a part of the snow area only serving to further make the map feel more bland visually. Making the train a focal point is incredibly strange when it really doesn't add much outside of some obnoxious weekly quests that Epic would later replace because of how frustrating they were. Thankfully I can at least expect the map to only get better from here with more variety on later seasons.

Talking about Chapter 5's first season can't really be limited to just Battle Royale changes though because this new chapter (or just overall upcoming year) marks the point of Epic trying even harder to expand Fortnite to something beyond just a shooter and something more expansive, playing more into the "metaverse" idea that they've been marketing harder towards. I have more extensive thoughts for each gamemode but honestly the most I can say for them overall is that they're pretty basic starts that I expected a fair bit more of for how much they were trying to push them as entire new "games" inside of Fortnite. They aren't. At least not yet. Time will only tell how much of this endeavor is going to pay off or not, but Epic really needs to step it up if it's ever going to. Festival is my favorite of the three modes, but there's absolutely a personal bias for how much I like Guitar Hero/Rock Band as well as how much Harmonix has publicly stated their future plans for the mode (namely actual proper guitar controller support), unlike Lego Fortnite or Rocket Racing which I have very little idea of where their primary goals or roadmap really looks like.

The shop was a mess this whole season because of how much having to support Lego Fortnite skin comparability butchered what Epic could have available. Good for my wallet, probably not great for the thousands of players who were used to the pretty regular rotation of old and new skins that were normally available. The TMNT pass had a really cool Shredder skin that I sadly gave into, but I feel gross for paying that much for it alongside the rest of the skins that were overpriced in the shop for the crossover. All cosmetics for the new gamemodes are even worse in pricing and I will genuinely be in shock if Epic keeps them like that next season.

A pretty good start for another year of the game. I'm probably placing more faith in later seasons doing more interesting things than I probably should be, but here's hoping that we get something as good as the MEGA season from Chapter 4 maybe.

Single-serve horror. TV Dinner gaming. Utterly expendable.

The buildup is perfunctory, the aesthetics dull, and the 'gut-punch' ending resembles an awkward slap. The only shock is purely text-based, so LPers make videos about it without hesitation or thought. And it's just that: a well-oiled machine good for making chunks of change. Some years ago a game with similar sensibilities was released with the same result, and somehow received even greater acclaim.

It was called Doki Doki Literature Club.

Saw the trailer for this on PlayStation's YouTube channel and gave it a fair shake since it was free!

I dig using games themselves as a kind of meaningful essay format to display and exemplify your points about design and really show the player a better idea of what is being discussed. I especially like this as a more intimate way to try to connect with someone via direct interfacing with mechanics and ideas.

I dug how this played with examples from different games and the creator wasn't afraid to just like call out very explicit specific examples from games though I kinda felt the whole point fell apart in the end by just kinda being like "this is all just to say that Shadow of the Colossus is the best" and it's like yeah but I felt like it kinda deflated a lot of the work and buildup that it was working with beforehand and all to take constant little jabs at fairly interesting games. I also feel like claiming that "that's where the industry peaked" is an insanely reductive statement but opinions!

I heavily disagreed with the entire FF16 point and felt like it could be a bit reductive with how it was engaging with and critiquing some of the games it was but that could also be some of my own implicit biases speaking.

I will say enemies within this are so hard to see given the visual style. I dig the aesthetics but at points it genuinely hurt my eyes to play through it was so difficult to look at at points and the options left a bit to be desired.

An interesting study/experiment even if I feel like it falls a little flat. Interested to see more things like this cause it's really an interesting way to do something like this!

Embarrassingly bad netcode and collision detection issues only serve as icing to a cake that hasn't baked for long enough. There just isn't enough depth here to actually encourage dedicated playtime outside of the easy battle pass XP that it rewards with few ways of meaningfully competing and outmaneuvering other players outside of getting lucky if they happen to screw up. Unlike LEGO Fortnite and Fortnite Festival which at least have the groundwork for something more interesting to potentially come in their futures, Rocket Racing is lacking something that could meaningfully keep the mode going long-term unless something changes fundamentally at its core. Whether that's adding items or something, I don't really know, but I just can't see myself wanting to actively play this for fun outside of an easy daily or two for the foreseeable future if something doesn't change soon.

I'm not going to give this like a half star and say it's demon spawn from the depths of this industry or something like that. I think there's a reason why so many people immediately latched onto this thing because there's the potential of this thing being another survival game with a unique hook that could last for hours upon hours while standing out from the likes of your typical Minecraft, Valheim, ARK, etc kinda games. But I don't think that product is fully here yet, and I'm wary of whether or not Pocketpair will capitalize on their ridiculous massive success with this thing. Craftopia hasn't been abandoned necessarily but it's been in early access for 3 years now with no clear signs of leaving anytime soon, and this is another title on top of that one.

I'm also not going to dismiss this game because of concerns about generative AI; I don't like generative AI assets one bit and the CEO of the company being a moron is concerning, but there aren't any signs of actual assets made by AI being in the game itself. This feels like a product made by proper human hands, just without a care for trying to actually hide the blatant subjects that it's ripping off. Nobody is being fooled by the Pokemon here, and I think Pocketpair was fully aware of it and fully played into it as a selling point, and I think it worked in their favor.

But I'm going to refund the game because while I see the ground works of what could be something much more extensive and potentially special, it's only if Pocketpair can actually prove they weren't in over their heads with this. I would rather play something like Valheim for now with the more extensive progression and building mechanics that game has, let alone the sheer amount of polish that has over this. There's something about the game and knowing at least some of the previous history behind the company that makes me wary about giving into the hype of yet another early access game this early on that made me feel kind of weird and icky after a few hours of playing, that I probably should've spent the $26 bucks on something like Prince of Persia instead and let this one settle on where it's going before I really get invested. I'm not completely passing on this one, but I'm giving it like a good 6 months or so before I consider eyeing it up again.

I appreciate ambition and veering off in a different direction for a specific vision, especially one that to this day makes itself stand apart from even other entries in its franchise. I just don't think it was for me.

There's a clear obvious intent that GTA IV was meant to be different bold new direction for the series, not only to jump into a new generation of consoles but to restart from first base after the new highs and ambition that San Andreas had set. Unlike its predecessor which was concerned about the sheer scale of its content and variety, creating something unabashedly charming and actively engaging at every moment, IV is concerned about realism and being grounded. So many of its overhauled systems and structure are geared towards setting an oppressive tone, a different kind of immersion that's not based on "how do we make sure the player cannot possibly be bored at any second" but really making sure the player's firmly in the shoes of what sets Niko apart from every other protagonist in the series and the circumstances that led him to Liberty City. San Andreas wanted the player to not just be CJ but actively transform him into a power fantasy, something you earn over time with every activity you did as you gained control over every part of San Andreas you set foot in. Niko doesn't get to have that power fantasy even as he reaches towards the end of his journey, because every action you take are in the favor of those seemingly in control of that power, which in itself is also torn down to shreds as you quickly learn just how truly miserable and lacking that power of theirs actually is. The closest comparison here might actually be GTA 3, whom not only shares the same location (albeit mostly in name and a very general surface level similarity) but also an initially similar love for its crime lords and mafia gangs duking it out between each other as you change between sides as a yes man before taking matters into your own hands. But unlike 3, the crime lords and mafia gangs you're working for are nearly all drugged out of their minds, in far beyond over their heads for what they're actually dealing with, in a needless desperate hopeless cycle of petty killings just to maintain a status quo that all gets shattered in the end anyways. Claude, Tommy and CJ all get what they wanted in the end for the insane climb to power they go on. Niko only digs himself deeper into a hole that takes away everything from him for his selfish desires.

It's all a nihilistic self-defeating prophecy and vision that Rockstar does faithfully commit to from start to finish. But it's not a vision for me, over a decade after its release with so much other media with unique ideas and spins on cycles of violence, revenge, the falsehood of an "American dream", and just general nihilism. It's Rockstar's satire and edge at its most extreme to an unpleasant degree, and while I get on a surface level that it's why GTA IV is considered the best and darkest story in the series, it's also mind numbing to the core. For a game so deeply focused on wanting to create something "real", so many of its characters feel like South Park stereotypes being played up to their extremes. A lot of them you're not meant to like, only working with as a means to an end, but there's also others that you're just supposed to be indifferent or even like which is all the more baffling when body image obsessed definitely not gay Brucie's calling you as you drive around town asking to go to the strip club to go stare at tits like the real men you both are, or Little Jacob who essentially amounts to an always high on something that asks to go eat out at Burger King stereotype that eventually just serves as a convenient arms dealer to Niko that conveniently shows up towards the end of the game.

I've never liked the excuse of "it was just the times!" because in most cases for media I've seen it used for, I could equally argue that it was rotten from the beginning and it's especially true for just how much of a weird issue GTA IV seems to have against LGBTQ+ people. It's shockingly common for characters to just suddenly bring up how much they don't want to be gay or homosexual, to such a degree where it's used as a negative stigma, a point of comparison for an idea of something someone shouldn't be. A corrupt government officer wonders how Niko could think he's working for the FIB, "those homosexuals." Manny complains about how he's presented on live television by his cameraman's work, "making me look gay, like a transsexual." The only excuse GTA IV has for itself on the way it continually uses a group of poorly represented minorities as a stereotype not to be, is when it introduces Florian/Bernie, the most over the top extreme textbook definition of a gay man who lusts for a man running for city mayor that also happens to be cheating on his wife while using "family values" as his campaign selling point. Niko gets to call him a slur only to then say right at the very end what a good friend Bernie is even if the man he loves is a hypocrite and should do better. Great fucking representation Rockstar, A+ work right there. "It was just the times!" is an excuse that does not fly in my book for this game because Rockstar managed to go three whole mainline GTA games without needing to kick down towards a group of people like this, and because it frankly just reeks of that weird feeling South Park gives off whenever people try to defend the targets it uses for bad taste humor. GTA IV doesn't make everyone a "target", I know it because I just played through the fucking game. There's characters it represents with a genuine honesty that stick with you, like Little Jacob's Jamaican background and incredibly strong accent that never dares to reach for a "can you translate that for me" joke, earning my respect despite how much I don't think he's that interesting of a character story-wise. I shouldn't have to give the game a free pass because it came out in the mid to late 2000s because I have played games in that era and console generation that didn't need to talk down and poorly misrepresent something I feel personally strongly about, let alone games in its own series and the same developer.

Beyond all that though and a bit less grim and upsetting, GTA IV does take new spins on the gameplay formula, and it's the part where I understand that I'm probably in a minority in for just not liking as much as its predecessor. I like game-y video games, and San Andreas fulfilled that want to a T, whereas GTA IV ends up taking away a lot of the sillier stuff like dancing rhythm games, playing dress up all the way to hair styles, working out and exercising to raise up stats; since IV wants to treat Niko as a character of his own and not something that the player gets to evolve, the formula has somewhat stepped back to the basics that GTA 3 actually started with. IV is almost entirely mission focused with only a small number of distractions and side things to go after, the majority of which I quickly grew tired of because they don't change no matter when or where you do them, and sometimes who you do them with. Bowling is a meme and all, but I don't even think it was that bad compared to having to constantly bring people to the pool table or the bar to raise up their friendship meters because otherwise they angrily text and call Niko about how crappy of a friend he is while you're in the middle of driving a truck filled with explosives to some gang you have to take out. Again, cool for the grounded realism! I see the vision there! And again, I just don't think it's for me.

A lot has been said about how vehicles control in IV. I understand the intent behind wanting to make the vehicles heavier, visibly weightier when they sway around off the ground and leaning to the sides when you make sharp turns at fast speeds, because Rockstar wanted to make driving a challenge after how admittedly easy San Andreas made driving around the city at stupid fast speeds and still nailing corners was. Driving around in essentially New York City in modern times should be tougher, and there's an element of satisfaction and tension when you are either chasing someone or are being chased by someone when every screw up means spinning out, watching everything get badly destroyed and bent out of shape, and just barely getting the gas moving again. But I also think the comparisons that vehicles in GTA IV feel like boats or sliding a wet bar of soap along the ground to be too accurate; the realism factor stops really being "real" and actually fun to play when vehicles can't make turns when going above 10 miles per hour, and frankly less skillful compared to all the stuff that San Andreas had a whole in-game driving school to teach you about how its physics worked. Going fast in that game felt exhilarating yet still meaningfully challenging because nice cars that could go fast weren't common and badly damaging them could seriously screw you over when the AI in that game could also drive incredibly fast. The vehicle physics are so undertuned here that even the AI seems to struggle with how cars are supposed to move around; if you even grasp the basic timings of when to slow down around corners and accelerate again, you'll be able to outrun all of the AI drivers in IV because none of them seem to know how to nail it down unless they are intentionally scripted to drive a certain way like in missions. I wouldn't even have an issue with how cars are generally slower period in this game compared to San Andreas if it wasn't for just how bad steering feels in this game and how much it cripples the experience in a series that involves driving cars so heavily.

Combat is an area that does feels meaningfully improved over its predecessors and is maybe the aspect I liked the most out of IV? Rockstar definitely took the criticisms of the PS2 era games to heart here because combat feels brutal and snappy, firefights come and go in that "realistic" instant when headshots always mean an instant kill, people stumble and scream out when shooting and getting shot at, and weapons feel and sound devastatingly impactful; the joke pea shooters of San Andreas are long gone here. The lock-on aiming for console/controllers was also improved to have an actual interactive skill element to it, now letting you try to aim for specific body parts for different reactions instead of being stuck always locked onto the chest unless you were at point blank range like San Andreas was. The snapping can be an annoyance, mainly whenever it just refuses to lock onto new opponents when they come into view unless you let go and hold the left trigger again or when Niko randomly snaps onto something completely separate from what you were just running towards or looking at. It's overall an improvement on what San Andreas set up, even if it fully makes sense why GTA V would later completely step away from the system and opt for more generic free aim with forgiving aim assist.

Rockstar deserves credit for being this bold with a mainstream AAA blockbuster release with a vision that wasn't only just making things prettier and more detailed for a more powerful generation of hardware, but also trying to reinvent the tone and direction the story they told went in a manner that I'm honestly shocked didn't spark more controversy with a general audience as well as fans of the series. It's a game that feels upset with the world but indifferent, not angry enough to change it and instead just continue going with the status quo no matter how terrible and oppressive it may be. It's the start of Rockstar spending countless hours building up insane technology that impresses to this day (even if the atrocious PC port still does not) and paying attention to little details few would probably notice until repeat playthroughs, and also where I think Rockstar's notorious satirical edge really began to show itself. I just also think it's too rough around the edges for me coming after an entry that was so purposefully endearing and charming at its core, happy that it was able to have fun with itself rather than wanting to say something and coming up short instead.