katrinavalentina
By far and aways FromSoft's best game. Dodges almost all the souls problems by remaking combat and making progression more linear. Sad to see the best of souls be cut - the cooperative elements - but the gains far outweigh the losses. The new combat system allows for harder bosses without movesets which feel unfair, unlike DS3 and Elden Ring.
2020
goated game. soyjacked at the "line of flight" drop. you guys just don't fw adorno hard enough. crashed before i could see the end
seriously though, i do find myself kinda frustrated at concepts of post-irony/metamodernism/new sincerity or whatever. people are tired of "postmodernity" (something i have my own critiques of, even as i hate jameson for popularising the term but w/e) and feel we can simply move beyond, take a new step forwards, without really understanding what "postmodernism" tried to do; "postmodernism" becomes a mood, a vibe, an era, not anything actualised outside of a vague gesticulation. this game, however, is not a very good look at that. I just wish actually understanding foucault + derrida was required before you read fisher, because I think a look at the deployment of hyper-confessional and overwhelmingly sincere art of the 202X's would be interesting - something not really found here except as a handwave to thoughts and books picked up from crit theory 101.
seriously though, i do find myself kinda frustrated at concepts of post-irony/metamodernism/new sincerity or whatever. people are tired of "postmodernity" (something i have my own critiques of, even as i hate jameson for popularising the term but w/e) and feel we can simply move beyond, take a new step forwards, without really understanding what "postmodernism" tried to do; "postmodernism" becomes a mood, a vibe, an era, not anything actualised outside of a vague gesticulation. this game, however, is not a very good look at that. I just wish actually understanding foucault + derrida was required before you read fisher, because I think a look at the deployment of hyper-confessional and overwhelmingly sincere art of the 202X's would be interesting - something not really found here except as a handwave to thoughts and books picked up from crit theory 101.
Not a massive of the taditional CRPG genre, but this really does it for me. The party interactions, the roleplaying opportunities, the interconnecting systems; I'm about 45 hours in (restarted twice) and only gotten to the start of the third act (of five, and I think the first two are on the shorter sides). There's also some excellent voice acting, making what would be a usually quite generic band of companions ooze personality. The writing does fall short of fantastic sometimes, and at times it feels a little clunky, but I think that's to be quite expected with this many interlocking systems. My main caveat has to be that you are going to be worse at this game than you think - the harder modes are meant for people who are intimatley familiar with Pathfinder. The ability to personalise it really helps in this regard.