hvssain
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professional amateur
professional amateur
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2 Years of Service
Being part of the Backloggd community for 2 years
075
Total Games Played
000
Played in 2024
014
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I love Arkane's games, but in an effort to make the immersive sim subgenre more accessible, this felt like a step back. Still, some good ideas and charming aesthetic choices here.
What a perfect little experience. This game packages the gameplay features and design of your favourite childhood Zelda game (for me, Minish Cap) with a mature storyline and endearing package.
Gorgeous visuals, an interesting world, tight gameplay, and some of the best music I've heard in a game bar none. The backtracking was annoying and I would've appreciated a map, but by half way through I got used to it. I was left wanting more by the end, but ultimately satisfied with what I got.
Gorgeous visuals, an interesting world, tight gameplay, and some of the best music I've heard in a game bar none. The backtracking was annoying and I would've appreciated a map, but by half way through I got used to it. I was left wanting more by the end, but ultimately satisfied with what I got.
Just barely misses perfection
This is a 4-4.5 star game, objectively. Gorgeous visuals, a simple story with heart, stunning music, and tight, clever gameplay all work together to create a challenging experience but one that immerses you in a sense of wonder. But at some point, the challenge overwhelms the wonder.
I'm not a veteran of platformers but I'm not a rookie either, growing up on Super Mario, Megaman Zero as a kid, Super Meat Boy as a teen, Celeste as an adult, etc. But some areas, from the gravity sections onward, were not intuitive or the puzzle solutions telegraphed well--or they got so difficult that the only enjoyment I got was purely a mixture of cerebral finessing and a sigh of relief. Enjoyable, but not joyful, not the sense of wonder and cleverness that induced so much greening for the game's first three quarters.
Mount Haru in particular was joyless for me and that feather ass avian motherfucker killed me so many times with no opportunity to save that I simply changed the difficulty to easy to finish the game. There were a few times in the game where climactic momentum was stalled because of that. Who knows, maybe I just suck but even on a normal playthrough I felt that there wasn't quite something right with the level design, sometimes.
I still appreciate my time with this game, especially its first three quarters, and I'm definitely playing the sequel...once my carpal tunnel subsides and my hands stop sweating.
This is a 4-4.5 star game, objectively. Gorgeous visuals, a simple story with heart, stunning music, and tight, clever gameplay all work together to create a challenging experience but one that immerses you in a sense of wonder. But at some point, the challenge overwhelms the wonder.
I'm not a veteran of platformers but I'm not a rookie either, growing up on Super Mario, Megaman Zero as a kid, Super Meat Boy as a teen, Celeste as an adult, etc. But some areas, from the gravity sections onward, were not intuitive or the puzzle solutions telegraphed well--or they got so difficult that the only enjoyment I got was purely a mixture of cerebral finessing and a sigh of relief. Enjoyable, but not joyful, not the sense of wonder and cleverness that induced so much greening for the game's first three quarters.
Mount Haru in particular was joyless for me and that feather ass avian motherfucker killed me so many times with no opportunity to save that I simply changed the difficulty to easy to finish the game. There were a few times in the game where climactic momentum was stalled because of that. Who knows, maybe I just suck but even on a normal playthrough I felt that there wasn't quite something right with the level design, sometimes.
I still appreciate my time with this game, especially its first three quarters, and I'm definitely playing the sequel...once my carpal tunnel subsides and my hands stop sweating.