i have no idea how a studio can so thoroughly NAIL making roguelike progression gripping. and twice, to boot! having the first one be so well crafted could still have been lightning in a bottle, but nailing it twice with quite a lot of shake-ups just confirms Supergiant know exactly what they are doing

getting this in Early Access was a must for me, as getting through the EA period for the first one was one of my favorite relationships I developed with a game

also, how the fuck do they do Early Access so well too? THAT's the real witchcraft

lovely and soothing game that kept my girlfriend and i calm and distracted through the grueling 4-hour wait for our cat to exit major surgery.

i'm definitely not planning on finishing it after that, but it still holds a very special place in my catalog and it is a genuinely well crafted zen-like experience

everybody's fine now btw

this was a shorter, tonally diluted, less intricate and more action-heavy version of the wonderful RE2 remake. someone said it felt like DLC for RE2, and that's the absolute best take

I had the mental comfort of not purchasing it (perfect game pass candidate btw) so the shortness was actually an advantage for my busy schedule.

all in all, it's pretty great for what it is, bombastic, silly horror with that unique Resident Evil touch that I've quickly grown to love

it took a while for me to get into the groove of this game, but when it clicked it became one of my favorite gaming experiences in recent memory.

i despised the inventory management in the first couple hours but grew to absolutely love the strategic choices it brings. the map is wonderful, tightly interconnected, sprawling and beautifully stupid - that police station completely defies logic.

the mix of a brilliant story structure and ridiculous writing and scenarios is something that never gets old for me in Japanese games, and RE2 is a perfect example of that.

can't wait to play the rest of the games, i'm thoroughly hooked <3

i had a blast playing this game, which was very surprising to me considering I wrote it off as kind of a laughing stock from 2014, with its gimmicky letterboxing (mandatory at the time iirc) and not-quite-RE levels of goofiness.

but the combat has that great mix of frantic and precise actions that make survival horror such an enthralling genre, and the story is so serious and silly at the same time that you can just hear the writers giggling.

as a side note, 2 years ago I would've said I'm definitely not a fan of survival action-horror games. but as i got older and started getting comfortable with playing games on easier difficulties, I found myself really enjoying stuff I wouldn't have touched before. it's all about finding your own fun, which is as hard to internalize as it is basic.

i absolutely loved my first 7-8 hours of playtime (despite its story checking literally all my peeves to the point of just skipping every scene after the first hour or so)

the fast and fluid controls, the flawless decision-making-to-execution curve, the wonderful flow of the levels, the accent on solving efficiency like a puzzle, with enough leeway in precision to make it enjoyable and zen, everything is chef's kiss

but i sharply lost interest at about the 9-10 hour mark. really no idea why, but i just couldn't bring myself to play it any more. just had my fill i guess. i think the main culprit is the lack of variation in environments and the fact that this type of gameplay loop just has an expiration date if you're not actually into honest to goodness competitive speedrunning (which i am not).

just hope i remember to finish it or at least pick it back up at some point, because the first impressions were absolutely amazing (despite the atrocious story)

even though CDPR's reputation as a business is gone for good in my eyes, the amazing storytelling chops of their writers are as clear as ever with this gem of a game and Phantom Liberty. really glad I didn't skip it entirely after the 2020 heartbreak (when I narrowly avoided a PS4 pre-order and felt so betrayed, I removed the game from my radar entirely)

the (new) gameplay is silky smooth, the world is absolutely amazing, the first person camera and real-time cutscenes (THAT YOU CAN FAST FORWARD <3) were more effective in sucking the player in than I could have anticipated and the characters - especially V, surprisingly - are amazingly well-rounded.

3 well-managed years can do a lot for a game and for a company. so you know, CDPR is dead, long live CDPR

another convoluted and deliciously meta story from Remedy that is a blast to play.
the gameplay is well executed but pretty boilerplate, which is to be expected from them at this point, but the meat of the story is superb.

although the writing had a lot of memorable and beautiful moments, there was a minor annoyance for me in Saga and Alan frequently reiterating plot points. i get that it's meant to be a safeguard against the frustrations of a tangled and potentially vague story, but they overdid it a little

either way, a game that's great fun to play and a story that's great fun to untangle

also, kudos for the credits song <3 <3 <3

this is definitely an amazing remake for a rock-solid gameplay experience from 2008.

the 2008 part REALLY shows, especially for someone who hasn't played the original. the gameplay is equal parts genius and annoying as hell and everything from the story structure to the encounters feels completely "video-game-y" in a very 2008 kind of way - with rare but glaring highlights like animatronic whack-a-mole bosses and insta-death traps in tight corners.

don't get me wrong, it was still exciting and wonderful to play through (for the most part) just like a pulpy and insubstantial sci-fi series, but the strange mix of outdated (game and encounter design) and cutting edge (polish and QoL) was almost uncanny at times, throwing my expectations all over the place in a sometimes unpleasant and frustrating way.

but hey, i'm not that big of a survival action fan and i still enjoyed most of my time with this very polished game, so ultimately it's a big thumbs up from me

solid metroidvania with slow, methodical combat. i found the setting much more interesting than the mechanics.

personally, i have little patience for metroidvanias in concept. what makes my favorites work are either an amazing world worth backtracking through (Blasphemous or Hollow Knight) or a satisfying flow of movement and combat to keep my attention (Ori or Hollow Knight again).

Grime had the unique position that its rocky, murky, heavy atmosphere+world was so well tied thematically to its rocky, murky, heavy movement+combat that it made the whole more than the sum of its parts.

only for a while.
my lack of patience won out in the end, but i still recommend it and i'm very glad i checked it out

such a gem within a gem within a gem.

it really shows that Jeppe Carlsen (the game director) has serious bona fides in both the puzzle/experience field (limbo and inside were still the high water marks for the genre, at least before Cocoon) AND in the very gameplay-oriented field of minimalist indie games (140 and THOTH!)

the gameplay-first philosophy of this game as opposed to Inside for example means that solving puzzles feels more like advancing the plot, rather than solving the roadblocks in the path of the story, because the story IS the puzzles.

playing this game felt like being the on-stage volunteer for the most spectacular magic trick you've ever seen

it's hilarious how good this game is. how was i supposed to expect that a pinnochio themed bloodborne+sekiro knockoff was going to be one of my favorite games that came out in recent years?

i've never seen a game that does this great of a job in instructing you how to play it the way it was meant to be played. all the frustrations directly led to valuable lessons and adaptations that made me feel i was getting stronger as a player, not just a character.

fast, punishing and very captivating throughout, though i wouldn't necessarily recommend it as someone's first soulslike game

initially i had too little patience to get comfortable with all the bosses with totally different 2nd phases, which made me shelf the game. now, after finishing my 4th playthrough, i can thankfully say i'm so incredibly glad i came back to it. i played this more than elden ring by this point and i'm sure this isn't the end of the line for this game in my library.

an amazingly polished game that i'm very happy is getting the recognition it deserves.