Forgot to add this when I played a bit ago

Really bad hit boxes + long time to kill + exploitable mobility = ...

not a shooter game, this is just something else, something bad

Using the words of some wise man (edit: LOL) "The game just doesn't do what u want it to fucking do"

Maps existing with the exploitable perks you can use (from one class) are also not any more conducive to fun playstyles, I mean in design the game is just completely devoid of necessity of gunplay, it's more so about having the jump on ur enemy. This could be annoying enough considering someone can just dance around you as the games hitbox betrays you in suit, but then on top of that they know where you are and you don't know where they are every 25 seconds... so my only competitive option is to play that one class to compete and play along with this anti-shooter bore

Another class just gets extra health on top of the anti-shooting, so i have to dance or make a mockery of fundamental gunplay even longer to try to kill them.

yeah

Snipers kinda work ig

Revisited, but not replayed.

Has fine shooting sections where you get what you get from the beginning. Sometimes you don't even get that cuz you see these action-cutscenes, followed by a noir readoffs (foreshadowing). But anyway the gameplay is pretty fine and has player input and some stakes, nothing great.

The noir is to be expected not long into things, but it just goes on and on and there's no punchline. One russian gangster's license plate reads out: VODKA, but this game isn't a joke, it's just a stereotype. It takes itself completely serious with no contrast.

Can't skip the noir stuff fast enough, the ost doesn't even change for the comic reads.

There's def some nice hints of thoughtfulness in this game though on a conceptual level, even if it's not really enough and loops through these facets- but what particularly stands out is the ambience and vibes you get inside of the buildings that really makes me look around irl and for a sec feel like I'm living in these gritty environments or situations.

I wish the game let the game speak this grit though more instead of just cycling back and pointing me towards these noir line readings by Max. The noir readings are overdone already in the main story, but then the most interesting part of the game - feeling like I'm in this grittiness - is limited mostly to these extra, on the side, noir narrations I pick up which go in detail about why I should care or things it assumed I miss. Regardless there had to be a way the player could engage with this stuff instead of just same grim ost playing with exposition over and over.

I recall them nightmare sections are later on as well, which is actually kinda what made me want to play this again, but I don't think I'll make it that far, and with how it's been going even if they were cool and that set a new trend for the story sections, it still pretty much definitely wouldn't be enough to make this great.

Edit: I'll prob finish the replay. Make it one of my when I can't think of what to do games.

Worst game I've ever played.

Takes most critical control away and just wants you to drag yourself to the same thoughtfully crafted flukeortunities over and over until it works. Even when you succeed it's like the most headscratching sensation ever, like "wait wtf just happened? how did that work?" I never felt like the game was smart, I felt maybe like I was attentive enough to sniff out the path to fluke relative early on, but I shouldn't have got my hopes up that there'd be any satisfactory control towards our goal.

All the times when I didn't know what was going on and it took me over and over really made me realize all the wasted time I avoided in fluking those stages early on.

What kind of hope is a fluke tho?

Take the control you have and never play this piece of shit.

If I wasn't using this as background activity with the music I was listening to I would have no excuse to have completed this game. At best it's tedious trial and error, and sometimes cryptic puzzles that serve one-time purpose in exhausting time. The crypticness of the puzzles can make it harder tho ofc unless you look it up (not a function of the game), otherwise slam ur head into a wall like everything else.

Very little here for me in the first like 70 minutes of my experience

Traverse rooms over and over that looks the same (dull and ugly), backtrack if you have to- in finding items or paths to get to the same type of areas, so I can get the items and find the door for next area where I do the same shit again again again, where tf am I supposed to go fuck everything looks the same (already feels like that atp)

Uncreative puzzle designs like SH2 that are there just to have to do them and have no art to them at all (requires knowledge of chemicals, very smart)

No stakes really of being attacked or necessity to worry about survival or items since u can just run past everything

Nothingburger cutscenes that amount to "Wow this is really weird" + vague nothings implying there is more mystery to be revealed

I'm prob done with this one. I bet I would've liked SH2 more on a replay, tho I still don't think that'd be all that worthwhile either ofc. That game doesn't have a nothingburger story, that's one thing going for it so far against SH3, even if the mystery feels too linear

Gameplay still is not my thing at all and too empty and repetitive. It's spooky and abominably hideous I guess for moments, even if it can't string anything together to keep my attention for long. In one scene there was a cool tune too. So that stuff holds it from being bad for me completely maybe

Edit: Alright there is a map I for some reason didn't utilize, but I think this prolongs my patience rather than adding to my fun

Kinda empty gameplay loop at the start of the game and weird stylistic juggling between an anime and a videogame that feels off

Apparently this game is just paced weird idk, but it just feels off, I think I'll bypass this one for 4 or a return to 5

Style seemed pretty Persona at least