I reached the second-to-last boss and tapped out due to multiple things about it that pissed me off.

I found the beginning of the game to be frustrating. Once I had all three weapons unlocked and their respective traversal mechanics set I found myself enjoying it more.

There were still a lot of things I hated or found irritating - like its obsession with locking you in rooms to fight waves of enemies. Or how the first three main story bosses are bizarrely inconsistent in difficulty - the skellieman in the sand area I found annoying, the three phase fight in another area I loathed every second of, and then the rapier lady was a complete joke.

I also got annoyed at having 32/33 cherubs and not having any idea which one it was and I had zero desire to run through a checklist to figure out which one.

The final boss I fought I thought was just dreadful. An unskippable dialogue sequence every time you fight him followed by a first phase that might as well not exist for how boring and unchallenging it is. Another long, unskippable dialogue sequence followed by a boss fight that is so unlike the rest of the game's difficulty and pacing that you barely have time to punish or react to anything. He becomes incredibly tanky and outputs so much damage that it feels like a slog - and worse because if you fuck up and die it's back to phase 1.

If he did slightly less damage, had slightly less health, and more importantly, didn't waste my goddamn time with unskippable bullshit I might have pushed thru to the end but I ultimately decided 15 hours was good enough and I'd gotten my fill.

edit: also why can I only choose between "bar" and "numbers" for damage feedback but not both at the same time???

Great aesthetics and music tho. Probably my favorite part.

Sometimes I want a fast food kinda open world game, and Spider-Man lucks out by having incredibly fun traversal and a good story.

The biggest weakness of the game is its overreliance on Ubisoft-tier collectible trash. I liked the backpacks, I liked most of the science stations, hell I even didn't mind the pigeon hunt or their take on the Ubi tower.

But once Taskmaster showed up and vomited really dull drone, bomb, and stealth challenges onto the map and I realzied I'd have to dredge thru those to fight him again... when they added a third and fourth set of bases... when they added dozens more crimes... I gave up on the idea of collectibles.

The combat is a fine spin on the Arkham formula but you only have a dodge to rely on instead of counters. The various gadgets are all pretty useful in one way or another.

The boss fights are all decidedly "eh". There's no real interesting mechanics or spin on things, you just web em up or stun em with a throwable. I will give it props for daring to have a Rhino boss fight that isn't "make him run into a wall lmao".

Some of the weaker missions were the much discussed and maligned MJ and Miles missions. They aren't terrible but they aren't good either. The second-to-last MJ level where you can call in Spidey to take out enemies in your path was the most interesting and fun because , y'know, they actually had neat marriage of story and mechanics as opposed to "do the thing the game requires or go back a checkpoint".

The story was pretty good. The Peter/Otto relationship was well crafted. I liked that Mr Negative was the baddie for most of it as I always appreciate when they use some newer or lesser known guys (tho looking at his wiki article the game version is waaaaaay more interesting and pathos-infused). And one of the final scenes got me choked up

I'm down for the sequel tho I'm not getting it anywhere close to launch as 20 hours was more than enough times in the spidey-mines for me

In a year jam-packed with kamige - Resident Evil 4 Remake, Baldur's Gate 3 to name a couple - I think this one took the GOTY trophy for me.

A decade after the last entry in the series, a decade mostly spent refining, expanding, and sometimes narrowing the Souls formula, FROM proves they haven't lost their touch with big ol' robot game.

One major point that should be made if you're thinking about playing it but havent is that it has a similar progression to Nier, specifically that you play the game once, play the same story with a few changes and a different endgame again, and then a third time with a lot of changes. The story is not complete beating it once, there will be a lot of hanging threads that are only resolved in future playthroughs.

The time invested isn't that bad either - the 41 hour count I have is for all 3 playthrus + fucking around with paints and decals + grinding missions for some of the collectables I couldn't easily find. The first playthru was at the 24 hour mark, and I was sub-40 at the final mission of the final playthru.

They trimmed down part variety - tons of bipedal legs, a handful of reverse joints, a couple tetrapods, and a couple tank treads - but everything feels more useful and like it has a purpose. Some of the weapons get redundant (there is virtually no reason to use any of the shotguns that isn't the Zimmerman) but they actually made melee good. But you can't dual wield melee (tho I get it, it would 100% trivialize the game).

It also might have the worst falloff of difficulty in any FROM game. For a while you'll be switching your build a lot to match the mission. And then you'll hit on a combination that's basically perfect and it'll take you till the finale of NG++. This then goes away if you want to do the S-Rank grind but not everyone will.

The score isn't my favorite in the series - I think Verdict Day still holds a very special place in my heart - but the muted synths have a very nice analog/Carpenter-esque feel that I adore. The final boss themes for routes A & B are great, 'Contact With You' might be one of my favorite AC tracks ever now, and a certain endgame boss theme has the Hoshino-san vocals everyone loves.

I found the story engaging - albeit I had it pegged at the end of chapter 1 and was basically being proven right again and again. I think the "true"/final ending was a bit underwhelming but I think I'd need some lore writeups to understand it. "Liberator of Rubicon" was probably my favorite of the the three endings just for all the great climaxes and the final boss.

AC6 also has what might be my favorite gimmick fight in a FROM game and it clears just for the sound design alone.

Speaking of bosses they're all decently challenging at first but again - hit that build right and they can barely do anything. The infamous Balteus I nearly managed to chain-stagger into a one-cycle kill.

This is the main problem I have with the game: the FCS stagger system kind of removes a lot of thought from builds and prioritizes going as unga as possible. You don't need tactics when you can stun most bosses instantly.

My final verdict is pilebunker go boom and make the robots fly real good