snowblindxrd
Fun as hell game, better than Sly 1 in numerous ways even if some worlds are rougher around the edges.
However, half-star off (not really) for somehow breaking my decade-and-a-half muscle memory of 3D camera controls to the point where both inverted and normal cameras feel wrong now. I don't know how or why, but this game's camera has genuinely fucked with my head ever since I beat it.
However, half-star off (not really) for somehow breaking my decade-and-a-half muscle memory of 3D camera controls to the point where both inverted and normal cameras feel wrong now. I don't know how or why, but this game's camera has genuinely fucked with my head ever since I beat it.
TL;DR - One of, if not the best story in the series. Gameplay can be rough and might be a bit too simple for some, but it's well done for a first attempt at an RPG from a usually-action/platformer studio. Great game, not perfect.
Don't mind the Shelved marker. I plan on coming back to this game later to beat the shit out of the superboss, as is tradition with this series for me - but after 80 something hours I need a bit of a breather. I'm mildly disappointed at how easy the superboss was. I know there's a harder one but... I'm not grinding to level 99, and I'm not willing to get destroyed by enemies 20 levels higher than me.
I have so many thoughts on how incredible the story is, how wonderful Ichiban and the party is (ESPECIALLY with Party Chat, Table Talk and Bonds, genuinely a genius 3-way set of mechanics to pour so much personality into every party member without taking the main storyline off-course), how this game's story beats with humanity through its veins - but there are absolutely people who articulate the thoughts I have way better, and will do it way better again, than my dumbass running on 3 hours of sleep and an energy drink writing this at 4am because I have the day off. All I'll say is, Ichiban has absolutely earned his title as protagonist. Maybe I'll do a story version of this later when I'm not running on fumes.
So, how about Icomplain talk about something else instead? I feel, paradoxically enough, the game is both too simple and too complex under the hood. Flipped where it shouldn't be.
By too simple, I mean this in a few ways. For one, balance is all over the place. There are literally skills that trivialize the game by wiping out entire groups of lower-tier enemies, do insane damage to bosses, fully heal your team, for very lenient MP costs. One of the best skills in the entire game is a 6MP light attack where one of your party member causes head trauma to one guy - but it crits like mad and scales a little too well with who it's paired with. I wiped out an infamously tough boss, 10 levels under where I should be, because I just beat their skull in for 6MP a few times. Summons also vary wildly from absolutely broken to questioning what the point of it is outside of wiping fodder.
There are also elements like a sizable chunk of modern day RPGs - but not enough variety in those elements that aren't blunt/blade/bullet. With very few exceptions do party members get skills with inherent elements attached to their unique job, and those skills are usually incredibly weak. There are universal jobs that do have these elements attached, but it's only half of them. Only 3/4 have skills that are actually learnable. They're only AOEs with medium MP costs, and not anything special outside of the huge damage they do, basically the same attack with an elemental reskin and an animation change - and really, a too-large chunk of the enemy roster is weak to electric and only electric, which is what takes the absolute longest to get. I would've loved the unique jobs being more focused around certain elements - hell, 2 of them are based around blade and bullet in late game - but I guess I can understand why, since at that point why would you swap jobs if you can just swap team members instead?
These problems and, barring 3, there's unfortunately a lot of nothing bosses in this game. One of my favorite parts of prior games were the bosses because outside of a few outliers, they were bespoke and well designed. Sure, other enemies later down the line can use watered-down versions of their movesets, but there is no feeling like learning a Yakuza boss proper on the harder difficulties (without cheesing it with something like Tiger Dropping their max range attacks). It really forces you to think around the rules they can break and what rules you can bend. There are few of those in 7, and the next rung down the ladder from the 3 unique boss designs are "it's a normal enemy with more HP but they can also block attacks for a turn!" It's... not the greatest, honestly since these damage sponge bosses are so simplistic.
By too complex, I mean it in ways that it should not be. One of my biggest annoyances was a party member getting stuck on the smallest piece of geometry and completely whiffing because, for some reason, attacks work off hitboxes and not just flat damage. Not the biggest fan of this, because I don't think RGG's pathfinding on NPCs has literally ever been good and it definitely hits the hardest in this game seeing my party members get stuck for literally 0 reason. This has happened in boss fights where I was literally 2 good powerful hits away from a clear, only for Ichi to get stuck on a potted plant or a desk, whiff his bat swing skill, and then get instadowned. Same with both the parties and enemies moving on their own. I like it on paper and it can be rewarding at times, but most of the time it just wastes time before they teleport to the target or breaks the AI. I've had the final boss of the game interrupt a huge attack because one of my party members walked behind a wall right before it happened, making the AI break and giving me a free 4 turns... except one of the turns was bugged because of that party member's AI also being broken, doing their ability in place and wasting the turn.
It is also probably the grindiest RPG I have played in a while; it does call back to YK7's inspirations in classic RPGs, but there's a reason most of those started implementing more frequent save spots/save features in dungeons and ways to catch-up newer party members to current ones that are more interesting than "do the battle arena 10+ times". I'm personally used to it, but to say I wasn't still a bit annoyed by it was a bit of an understatement, especially when the first "recommended" grind is in a very, very late part of the game and for the average player will probably be 10-20 level ups needed to even stand a chance against the boss and get set on track for the rest of the main game. Among a list of other things like maxing jobs, which is a slog and a half, or weapon upgrading, which is an absolute nightmare in of itself unless you're doing loads of side stuff or you're completely locked into material grinding for the entire game and then some. You're gonna be hunting down very specific enemies for a long, long time unless you get very lucky. Maybe "complex" isn't the word for some of it, but rather "busy", since a lot of this is exactly that - busywork - but there are just some very strange complexities where there shouldn't be.
It is very flawed, but don't get me wrong - it's still fun, just incredibly basic. Outside of the grindy snags the game has, I was still honestly having a good time. It helps that most special attacks snatched heat action QTEs from the previous games to keep you paying attention and, honest to god a welcome surprise, timed blocking from SNES era RPGs. The variety within jobs is also great, at least once you get a lil further in the game. While a lot of them are vastly outclassed, it's still entertaining to mix and match to make dumb strategies. Musician was one of my favorites due to an ability that stacks when you have multiple in the party, and the goofy, purposefully crappy singing from each party member when using an ability. Host/Hostess was another, making entire waves of enemies drunk and fighting each other was just so dumb but so fun. Enemy types are also WILDLY varied and great to figure out with a few notable exceptions, unlike a lot of bosses - and those 3 bosses that I mentioned earlier are easily some of the best in the series. It's admittedly a bit too simple for my tastes - I am a big fan of experimentation in a lot of rpgs - but it's also just varied enough to warrant testing some things out to see what the limits of certain jobs are even if I'm not going super in depth. A good foundation to build on with Infinite Wealth. Hopefully.
With this being RGG's first attempt at an RPG, it's incredibly rough, but I can turn a bit of a blind eye to a lot of it's problems since the team clearly has love for the genre. Like I said about a previous game in the series, I'd rather the series make mistakes and find ways to iterate in their own fashion than be manufactured in such a "perfect" way that you can smell the corporate on it. A drastic shift in, well, everything would not have happened if this was the manufactured "perfect" Yakuza - it'd just be a worse, hamfisted, repeat of 0 since that game is what made the series finally break out into the greater world.Or it'd be Kiwami 2 again because that game sucks. Instead, we got a team genuinely stepping out of their comfort zone and trying something wildly different than what they've ever done with their best foot forward. Admittedly, they stumbled a bit, but that's whatever.
I would absolutely say this game's worth a playthrough. There are absolutely abrasive aspects of the game that will take some adjusting and might be deal breakers for some, but sticking with it through the rough bits only makes it better, both gameplay and story wise; as long as you're not going for 100%. In which case, good luck!
I have so many thoughts on how incredible the story is, how wonderful Ichiban and the party is (ESPECIALLY with Party Chat, Table Talk and Bonds, genuinely a genius 3-way set of mechanics to pour so much personality into every party member without taking the main storyline off-course), how this game's story beats with humanity through its veins - but there are absolutely people who articulate the thoughts I have way better, and will do it way better again, than my dumbass running on 3 hours of sleep and an energy drink writing this at 4am because I have the day off. All I'll say is, Ichiban has absolutely earned his title as protagonist. Maybe I'll do a story version of this later when I'm not running on fumes.
So, how about I
By too simple, I mean this in a few ways. For one, balance is all over the place. There are literally skills that trivialize the game by wiping out entire groups of lower-tier enemies, do insane damage to bosses, fully heal your team, for very lenient MP costs. One of the best skills in the entire game is a 6MP light attack where one of your party member causes head trauma to one guy - but it crits like mad and scales a little too well with who it's paired with. I wiped out an infamously tough boss, 10 levels under where I should be, because I just beat their skull in for 6MP a few times. Summons also vary wildly from absolutely broken to questioning what the point of it is outside of wiping fodder.
There are also elements like a sizable chunk of modern day RPGs - but not enough variety in those elements that aren't blunt/blade/bullet. With very few exceptions do party members get skills with inherent elements attached to their unique job, and those skills are usually incredibly weak. There are universal jobs that do have these elements attached, but it's only half of them. Only 3/4 have skills that are actually learnable. They're only AOEs with medium MP costs, and not anything special outside of the huge damage they do, basically the same attack with an elemental reskin and an animation change - and really, a too-large chunk of the enemy roster is weak to electric and only electric, which is what takes the absolute longest to get. I would've loved the unique jobs being more focused around certain elements - hell, 2 of them are based around blade and bullet in late game - but I guess I can understand why, since at that point why would you swap jobs if you can just swap team members instead?
These problems and, barring 3, there's unfortunately a lot of nothing bosses in this game. One of my favorite parts of prior games were the bosses because outside of a few outliers, they were bespoke and well designed. Sure, other enemies later down the line can use watered-down versions of their movesets, but there is no feeling like learning a Yakuza boss proper on the harder difficulties (without cheesing it with something like Tiger Dropping their max range attacks). It really forces you to think around the rules they can break and what rules you can bend. There are few of those in 7, and the next rung down the ladder from the 3 unique boss designs are "it's a normal enemy with more HP but they can also block attacks for a turn!" It's... not the greatest, honestly since these damage sponge bosses are so simplistic.
By too complex, I mean it in ways that it should not be. One of my biggest annoyances was a party member getting stuck on the smallest piece of geometry and completely whiffing because, for some reason, attacks work off hitboxes and not just flat damage. Not the biggest fan of this, because I don't think RGG's pathfinding on NPCs has literally ever been good and it definitely hits the hardest in this game seeing my party members get stuck for literally 0 reason. This has happened in boss fights where I was literally 2 good powerful hits away from a clear, only for Ichi to get stuck on a potted plant or a desk, whiff his bat swing skill, and then get instadowned. Same with both the parties and enemies moving on their own. I like it on paper and it can be rewarding at times, but most of the time it just wastes time before they teleport to the target or breaks the AI. I've had the final boss of the game interrupt a huge attack because one of my party members walked behind a wall right before it happened, making the AI break and giving me a free 4 turns... except one of the turns was bugged because of that party member's AI also being broken, doing their ability in place and wasting the turn.
It is also probably the grindiest RPG I have played in a while; it does call back to YK7's inspirations in classic RPGs, but there's a reason most of those started implementing more frequent save spots/save features in dungeons and ways to catch-up newer party members to current ones that are more interesting than "do the battle arena 10+ times". I'm personally used to it, but to say I wasn't still a bit annoyed by it was a bit of an understatement, especially when the first "recommended" grind is in a very, very late part of the game and for the average player will probably be 10-20 level ups needed to even stand a chance against the boss and get set on track for the rest of the main game. Among a list of other things like maxing jobs, which is a slog and a half, or weapon upgrading, which is an absolute nightmare in of itself unless you're doing loads of side stuff or you're completely locked into material grinding for the entire game and then some. You're gonna be hunting down very specific enemies for a long, long time unless you get very lucky. Maybe "complex" isn't the word for some of it, but rather "busy", since a lot of this is exactly that - busywork - but there are just some very strange complexities where there shouldn't be.
It is very flawed, but don't get me wrong - it's still fun, just incredibly basic. Outside of the grindy snags the game has, I was still honestly having a good time. It helps that most special attacks snatched heat action QTEs from the previous games to keep you paying attention and, honest to god a welcome surprise, timed blocking from SNES era RPGs. The variety within jobs is also great, at least once you get a lil further in the game. While a lot of them are vastly outclassed, it's still entertaining to mix and match to make dumb strategies. Musician was one of my favorites due to an ability that stacks when you have multiple in the party, and the goofy, purposefully crappy singing from each party member when using an ability. Host/Hostess was another, making entire waves of enemies drunk and fighting each other was just so dumb but so fun. Enemy types are also WILDLY varied and great to figure out with a few notable exceptions, unlike a lot of bosses - and those 3 bosses that I mentioned earlier are easily some of the best in the series. It's admittedly a bit too simple for my tastes - I am a big fan of experimentation in a lot of rpgs - but it's also just varied enough to warrant testing some things out to see what the limits of certain jobs are even if I'm not going super in depth. A good foundation to build on with Infinite Wealth. Hopefully.
With this being RGG's first attempt at an RPG, it's incredibly rough, but I can turn a bit of a blind eye to a lot of it's problems since the team clearly has love for the genre. Like I said about a previous game in the series, I'd rather the series make mistakes and find ways to iterate in their own fashion than be manufactured in such a "perfect" way that you can smell the corporate on it. A drastic shift in, well, everything would not have happened if this was the manufactured "perfect" Yakuza - it'd just be a worse, hamfisted, repeat of 0 since that game is what made the series finally break out into the greater world.
I would absolutely say this game's worth a playthrough. There are absolutely abrasive aspects of the game that will take some adjusting and might be deal breakers for some, but sticking with it through the rough bits only makes it better, both gameplay and story wise; as long as you're not going for 100%. In which case, good luck!
A game I only touched again because a friend wanted to see how bad it was - and somehow this got worse with co-op. I don't know if there's a more damning indictment of this game, considering just how often the co-op mechanics/puzzles function poorly or are just painfully bad.
Even RE6 was at bare minimum stupidly entertaining, having one player not even get to play the game and the absolutely horrid story even for RE standards is just frustrating. 6 really left people fighting for scraps.
Even RE6 was at bare minimum stupidly entertaining, having one player not even get to play the game and the absolutely horrid story even for RE standards is just frustrating. 6 really left people fighting for scraps.
2024
TL;DR - Helldivers 2 is damn good, but it has some light issues that still need ironing out.
Incredibly fun and definitely worth $40 - hell I've put 50 hours into it in the few weeks since launch - but even after a solution to the server issues, it's definitely still in need of a few patches.
Performance issues on PC are rampant despite being miles above recommended specs (this is not a problem on PS5), armor ratings don't function properly (the devs have acknowledged this at least), and the balance is all sorts of fucked on the higher difficulties to the point of weapon variety being completely dead on difficulties 7 through 9. At least in a random queue, you'd be lucky to see someone not running auto shotgun/shield gen pack/railgun/500kg or railcannon strike/mortar or autocannon sentry and not get booted out of the game instantly. And honestly, I can't blame some of the meta people on this one - outside of the Railgun and the Anti-Tank/Autocannon, nothing can deal with heavilly armored enemies consistently due to lacking armor damage on most weapons or even some orbitals. A LOT of those tanky fuckers spawn on higher difficulties. You can't take down 4-5 Bile Titans or Hulks + the absolute shitstorm of fodder enemies around them with a Guard Dog and an Anti-Materiel Rifle. Kicking people for running different loadouts I feel is a bit extreme, though that's a matter of community rather than a fault of the game.
I think a lot of weapons just need flat buffs to their penetration or damage, some even need more mags. While it isn't impossible to work outside of the meta on higher difficulties, the game will take every opportunity to beat you over the head with a Bug Breach or Bot Drop if you can't kill - or avoid - scouting squads or stationed enemies in your way fast enough on the higher difficulties. You will eventually run out of ammo, you will eventually mistime a dive and get rammed into a wall by a Charger, there are times where your teammates cannot help you from the 2 Hulks flaming you to death that spawned from a Bot Drop unless they can snipe it with a Railgun.
To compliment the game however, fuck it's so much fun when in it's normal bounds. I genuinely haven't gotten invested into a 4 player co-op shooter like this in years with mechanics this simple but all incredibly cohesive. Takes me back to L4D2 era, except with bugs and bots rather than zombies. (Just like L4D2, however, it is incredibly easy to burnout on.) When playing on medium difficulties at least (4-6), you can see a lot of variety able to shine through in playstyles. Tanky (as tanky as you can get with armor being broken) grenade launchers with a bottomless clip thanks to supply packs, people with an all laser loadout, featherweight dodge-build adjacent flamethrowers that wipe out swarms of fodder, people who act as medics and have a million stims, etc. I saw a guy running exclusively Eagle airstrikes who obliterated anything in sight pretty much instantly, including us sometimes.
I also love the Stratagem system. Having combos to punch in, delivery times and cooldowns to access your most powerful bug and bot deleting tools is genius against the running clock. Having not only to manage normal resources like ammo and objectives but also time hits a sweetspot in my brain.
And to compliment it even further, the super credits system is the first "premium currency" system in the past like, 10+ years to not feel like a complete scam because you can get any super credits for free and at an actually reasonable pace. I got like 1.5k within 30 hours, enough to buy the the second warbond but also a few armor sets. You can pay for them, too, but the max is $20, not $80 or $100 like a lot of games try to pull. The average armor set from the "super store" is worth $2, max. Jaw was completely on the floor when I realized this. It is the bare minimum, yes, but it's lightyears ahead of some games with their $40 car skins. The warbonds/the "battle pass", if you can even call it that since it's more like a progression tree where you cash in completed missions for new things rather than a traditional battle pass where you grind specific challenges out, will never expire as far as I'm aware too - FOMO completely out of the picture.
Great game. But definitely needs a few tune ups to get past launch pains - mostly, a lot of weapons just need outright buffs and armor needs fixed. And please god fix the performance if at all possible.
Incredibly fun and definitely worth $40 - hell I've put 50 hours into it in the few weeks since launch - but even after a solution to the server issues, it's definitely still in need of a few patches.
Performance issues on PC are rampant despite being miles above recommended specs (this is not a problem on PS5), armor ratings don't function properly (the devs have acknowledged this at least), and the balance is all sorts of fucked on the higher difficulties to the point of weapon variety being completely dead on difficulties 7 through 9. At least in a random queue, you'd be lucky to see someone not running auto shotgun/shield gen pack/railgun/500kg or railcannon strike/mortar or autocannon sentry and not get booted out of the game instantly. And honestly, I can't blame some of the meta people on this one - outside of the Railgun and the Anti-Tank/Autocannon, nothing can deal with heavilly armored enemies consistently due to lacking armor damage on most weapons or even some orbitals. A LOT of those tanky fuckers spawn on higher difficulties. You can't take down 4-5 Bile Titans or Hulks + the absolute shitstorm of fodder enemies around them with a Guard Dog and an Anti-Materiel Rifle. Kicking people for running different loadouts I feel is a bit extreme, though that's a matter of community rather than a fault of the game.
I think a lot of weapons just need flat buffs to their penetration or damage, some even need more mags. While it isn't impossible to work outside of the meta on higher difficulties, the game will take every opportunity to beat you over the head with a Bug Breach or Bot Drop if you can't kill - or avoid - scouting squads or stationed enemies in your way fast enough on the higher difficulties. You will eventually run out of ammo, you will eventually mistime a dive and get rammed into a wall by a Charger, there are times where your teammates cannot help you from the 2 Hulks flaming you to death that spawned from a Bot Drop unless they can snipe it with a Railgun.
To compliment the game however, fuck it's so much fun when in it's normal bounds. I genuinely haven't gotten invested into a 4 player co-op shooter like this in years with mechanics this simple but all incredibly cohesive. Takes me back to L4D2 era, except with bugs and bots rather than zombies. (Just like L4D2, however, it is incredibly easy to burnout on.) When playing on medium difficulties at least (4-6), you can see a lot of variety able to shine through in playstyles. Tanky (as tanky as you can get with armor being broken) grenade launchers with a bottomless clip thanks to supply packs, people with an all laser loadout, featherweight dodge-build adjacent flamethrowers that wipe out swarms of fodder, people who act as medics and have a million stims, etc. I saw a guy running exclusively Eagle airstrikes who obliterated anything in sight pretty much instantly, including us sometimes.
I also love the Stratagem system. Having combos to punch in, delivery times and cooldowns to access your most powerful bug and bot deleting tools is genius against the running clock. Having not only to manage normal resources like ammo and objectives but also time hits a sweetspot in my brain.
And to compliment it even further, the super credits system is the first "premium currency" system in the past like, 10+ years to not feel like a complete scam because you can get any super credits for free and at an actually reasonable pace. I got like 1.5k within 30 hours, enough to buy the the second warbond but also a few armor sets. You can pay for them, too, but the max is $20, not $80 or $100 like a lot of games try to pull. The average armor set from the "super store" is worth $2, max. Jaw was completely on the floor when I realized this. It is the bare minimum, yes, but it's lightyears ahead of some games with their $40 car skins. The warbonds/the "battle pass", if you can even call it that since it's more like a progression tree where you cash in completed missions for new things rather than a traditional battle pass where you grind specific challenges out, will never expire as far as I'm aware too - FOMO completely out of the picture.
Great game. But definitely needs a few tune ups to get past launch pains - mostly, a lot of weapons just need outright buffs and armor needs fixed. And please god fix the performance if at all possible.
There's a game I feel like I might enjoy in here somewhere, but I have been so unwillingly and deeply spoiled on this game that I don't feel like I can even enjoy soaking anything about it in because I've already seen or heard it in advance. In detail.
Being spoiled on multiple lead-ups to different plot-twists from super-fans who can't keep their mouths shut is absolutely a first, especially for such a story-focused game.
Being spoiled on multiple lead-ups to different plot-twists from super-fans who can't keep their mouths shut is absolutely a first, especially for such a story-focused game.
I'll shit on this game's actual gameplay parts all day long but Springtrap is probably one of the best slasher designs ever made so who can really say if this game's bad
(it's pretty middle of the road but there are aspects I really do love about this game, namely the atmosphere being a natural progression of the fizzling candle that FNAF1's already was and really anything revolving around Springtrap - fucking PHENOMENAL body horror and cruel irony even if it was just stumbled into by accident)
(it's pretty middle of the road but there are aspects I really do love about this game, namely the atmosphere being a natural progression of the fizzling candle that FNAF1's already was and really anything revolving around Springtrap - fucking PHENOMENAL body horror and cruel irony even if it was just stumbled into by accident)
2001
TL;DR - A truly phenomenal horror game that I think does deserve the merit it has - but the main thing that prevents me from giving it a 9 or a 10 is because I've indirectly experienced this game through the entire genre for as long as I can remember, to no fault of its own.
All my big problems with this game are not from the game itself, but the impact its "inspired" copies have left on the genre, more a matter of circumstance than anything actually wrong with the game itself.
Silent Hill 2 is amazing, genuinely great - I feel as if the top liked reviews on this site say it better than I ever could about how this is a touching, emotional, sympathetic and real game. I don't think it's perfect, no piece is, but they're mostly smaller things and matters of taste that I would be happy giving this a 9. But there's an unfortunate side effect of this game - there's some people who truly think this is all horror can be, and still misinterpret the game entirely.
This game is not the Tell-Tale Heart (which isn't even fucking horror? at most it's a gothic thriller but primarily it was Edgar flexing how good of a poet he was). A lot of people completely misinterpret this game for being about guilt, and nothing else but guilt. Guilt is without any debate an emotion ever-present throughout the game - but it's not all-consuming, and not even the emotion in the spotlight for 80% of the game. This game is about so much more than just guilt. Yet, we have the last 20 years of horror games "inspired by Silent Hill" seemingly ridden from front to back with nothing except guilt, even later games in this very same series with Origins and onward. (Please god, let F be an exception.)
I've played a lot of these games, and a lot of them miss the fucking point of this very game.
None of these games are Silent Hill 2 to the point of complete imitation, not even close. Well, one of them is closer than most but they're only similar in a vibe that's only replicated from deeply tinted rose glasses, near unrecognizable from it's original form unless you're familiar with it yourself. Unfortunately I am due to my love of the genre. I wasn't feeling this game about half way through because I started connecting dots that this game was gonna end like the many, many "inspired" versions I've played in spite of it's genuinely great writing, and I put it down from 9/25 to today, 10/5. I groaned and rolled my eyes at some parts early in because I genuinely believed it was going to go the route of it's many imitators. Of course, I'm glad that I eventually saw it through and was proven immediately wrong, but I've also felt this game's impact through years and years of playing mid and horrible horror games - just, not any of the actual impactful, important moments. None of the sympathy, none of the honesty, none of the (admittedly very little) nuance. It's consistent that a lot of these games that list Silent Hill as inspiration, they don't mean Silent Hill as a series. They mean 2, not any of 2's routes outside of In Water, and the depressing overtone cranked to 11 with nothing that actually makes Silent Hill 2 good. It's like they read a plot summary of it and didn't actually experience it, or trying to remember moments from long-faded memories.
I know, I know, Backloggd review spends more time ranting about something that isn't the game rather than the game itself, but it is something I can't avoid while playing this game. It is great, won't catch me saying otherwise, but it's absolutely my own personal experience holding me back from giving this what it probably deserves because I've already felt it second-hand too many times. This game is amazing and it should be respected, but not so amazing that it should be recreated 99 times over, with a hundredth coming soon made by the same team that have made 10 versions of this game but done in every single wrong way possible. Art may be iterative, but there's a difference between iteration and half-assing a misinterpretation with a new filter on it - a misinterpretation that has been shoved through so much harsh and real criticism that it's a wonder that they keep doing it.
I can't really be mad at the game itself or Team Silent. They did amazingly and made a horror game that will always shine with both newcomers and veterans of the overall horror genre. But I've seen moments of this game, over, and over, and over. I can't help but be sick of the little things I've seen shamelessly and incorrectly ripped so many times over by the time I finally reached this game, despite a dramatically better execution. Maybe I'm being unreasonable. I don't know. My feelings on this game are too mixed to give it any higher and it's not any fault of its own.
Ironically, in a piece where a major part of it is letting go and moving on, a lot of people can't let this game rest in peace.
Also I know I'm being 100% pedantic here, but fuck you this is not psychological horror. Just because it deals with people's mental states and monsters made out of those mental states does not automatically mean it is psychological horror. I'd say this is more lovecraftian horror - less gaslighting for an ulterior motive, questioning what's real, influences compelling you to bend certain ways; more eldritch spirits wanting to kill you for reasons beyond your comprehension, just using the mental state as a set of side effects so it can kill you even faster. Silent Hill 1 literally shows that this town is basically a eldritch judgmental entity that preys on people because of the rituals in that game.
All my big problems with this game are not from the game itself, but the impact its "inspired" copies have left on the genre, more a matter of circumstance than anything actually wrong with the game itself.
Silent Hill 2 is amazing, genuinely great - I feel as if the top liked reviews on this site say it better than I ever could about how this is a touching, emotional, sympathetic and real game. I don't think it's perfect, no piece is, but they're mostly smaller things and matters of taste that I would be happy giving this a 9. But there's an unfortunate side effect of this game - there's some people who truly think this is all horror can be, and still misinterpret the game entirely.
This game is not the Tell-Tale Heart (which isn't even fucking horror? at most it's a gothic thriller but primarily it was Edgar flexing how good of a poet he was). A lot of people completely misinterpret this game for being about guilt, and nothing else but guilt. Guilt is without any debate an emotion ever-present throughout the game - but it's not all-consuming, and not even the emotion in the spotlight for 80% of the game. This game is about so much more than just guilt. Yet, we have the last 20 years of horror games "inspired by Silent Hill" seemingly ridden from front to back with nothing except guilt, even later games in this very same series with Origins and onward. (Please god, let F be an exception.)
I've played a lot of these games, and a lot of them miss the fucking point of this very game.
None of these games are Silent Hill 2 to the point of complete imitation, not even close. Well, one of them is closer than most but they're only similar in a vibe that's only replicated from deeply tinted rose glasses, near unrecognizable from it's original form unless you're familiar with it yourself. Unfortunately I am due to my love of the genre. I wasn't feeling this game about half way through because I started connecting dots that this game was gonna end like the many, many "inspired" versions I've played in spite of it's genuinely great writing, and I put it down from 9/25 to today, 10/5. I groaned and rolled my eyes at some parts early in because I genuinely believed it was going to go the route of it's many imitators. Of course, I'm glad that I eventually saw it through and was proven immediately wrong, but I've also felt this game's impact through years and years of playing mid and horrible horror games - just, not any of the actual impactful, important moments. None of the sympathy, none of the honesty, none of the (admittedly very little) nuance. It's consistent that a lot of these games that list Silent Hill as inspiration, they don't mean Silent Hill as a series. They mean 2, not any of 2's routes outside of In Water, and the depressing overtone cranked to 11 with nothing that actually makes Silent Hill 2 good. It's like they read a plot summary of it and didn't actually experience it, or trying to remember moments from long-faded memories.
I know, I know, Backloggd review spends more time ranting about something that isn't the game rather than the game itself, but it is something I can't avoid while playing this game. It is great, won't catch me saying otherwise, but it's absolutely my own personal experience holding me back from giving this what it probably deserves because I've already felt it second-hand too many times. This game is amazing and it should be respected, but not so amazing that it should be recreated 99 times over, with a hundredth coming soon made by the same team that have made 10 versions of this game but done in every single wrong way possible. Art may be iterative, but there's a difference between iteration and half-assing a misinterpretation with a new filter on it - a misinterpretation that has been shoved through so much harsh and real criticism that it's a wonder that they keep doing it.
I can't really be mad at the game itself or Team Silent. They did amazingly and made a horror game that will always shine with both newcomers and veterans of the overall horror genre. But I've seen moments of this game, over, and over, and over. I can't help but be sick of the little things I've seen shamelessly and incorrectly ripped so many times over by the time I finally reached this game, despite a dramatically better execution. Maybe I'm being unreasonable. I don't know. My feelings on this game are too mixed to give it any higher and it's not any fault of its own.
Ironically, in a piece where a major part of it is letting go and moving on, a lot of people can't let this game rest in peace.
Also I know I'm being 100% pedantic here, but fuck you this is not psychological horror. Just because it deals with people's mental states and monsters made out of those mental states does not automatically mean it is psychological horror. I'd say this is more lovecraftian horror - less gaslighting for an ulterior motive, questioning what's real, influences compelling you to bend certain ways; more eldritch spirits wanting to kill you for reasons beyond your comprehension, just using the mental state as a set of side effects so it can kill you even faster. Silent Hill 1 literally shows that this town is basically a eldritch judgmental entity that preys on people because of the rituals in that game.
(Edit: A warning, there's a few spoilers in the comments from a discussion. Don't look at 'em if you don't wanna get spoiled.)
I wish I could articulate my thoughts on this game properly but as of writing I'm exhausted and have a splitting headache, so I'll just bulletpoint my thoughts which hopefully makes this easier. Still gonna be a long one.
TL;DR - I love this game even if I don't see eye-to-eye with it in a few spots and I'm absolutely excited to see what this game ends up creating in the future. Whether or not AC6's expansion ends up being DLC like FromSoft's more recent titles or a standalone new game like AC tradition is yet to be seen, but gen 6.5 is absolutely gonna kick ass regardless.
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+ Game controls like a god damn dream. This is how I thought Armored Core was gonna feel before I played an older gen one. Easily the smoothest feeling game in the series. It might be really hard to go back to an older gen AC after this.
+ Sound design is amazing and communicates a lot to the player. Hollow thunks to signify kills, the warning beeps of a powerful weapon about to fire, charge-ups that feel threatening to hear, phenomenal sounds of high power shots ringing out through the air, the absolutely violent clanks of metal - of the swords tearing through the shield of an MT, of rockets exploding right in an AC's face, of a brutal kick that sent the enemy into stagger, of the Pilebunker driving it's explosive stake into metal. Absolutely beautiful. Someone's gonna try to play this game blindfolded eventually because of how well the game communicates what's going on (most of the time).
+ 90% of the AC parts look fantastic, which makes customization a blast. I do hope we get some more parts akin to older gen parts in the inevitable expansion like every other AC game ever, but most of these are amazing designs. I don't think I've seen an atrocious AC that wasn't just one completely covered in rust.
+ Speaking of customization, holy shit they opened it WAY the fuck up. Not only are there more color options than I've ever seen in AC, but decals are an absolute game changer. You can make any emblem, any pattern, any recreation- or hell, any color scheme you want with enough effort.
+ Overall, I just really adore the look of this game. Pure eyecandy without being hell on computer requirements. The atmosphere of Rubicon is impeccably oppressive and every landscape is beautiful, in such vastly different ways which I unfortunately can't really divulge on without major spoilers.
+ Story is fantastic and makes me wonder why the hell FromSoft doesn't set their stories like this more often. I love their works set in the aftermath of some big historical drama and their works set in the backdrops of living job-to-job with older ACs, but AC6 is amazing set in the midst of it. It's very easily some of From's best narrative work in my opinion - an incredibly compelling character drama about identity, choice, purpose and freedom, all without showing a single face. I would be lying if I said I didn't tear up a few times.
+ Of course, without characters, what is a story? There's a shitload of great ones here - Michigan, Snail, Chatty, Carla, Ayre, Handler Walter - but there's only one who can fly high enough to be above them all. A one V.IV Rusty, who literally steals every single scene he's in and by far and away my favorite character. Love you, buddy.
+ The Ending 1 and 2 final chapters are probably some of my favorite moments in anything by FromSoft. Thematically perfect, emotionally gutwrenching, mechanically amazing. Easily my favorite parts of the entire game.
+ People dislike the soundtrack of this game???? This shit bangs. Definitely a few weaker tracks, but ain't bad at all.
+ I don't think there's a single boss I hate in this game. Genuinely, I think all of the bosses in this game are at worst mediocre but quick and at best some of FromSoft's finest - there's a few weaker ones among the pack but I don't think any of them are atrociously bad.
+ Melee weapons in this game are fucking fantastic. I was so disappointed with prior games melees being limited to laser swords and parry blades but man is it a feast of good melee weapons in this one. Whips, lances, batons, daggers, swords, projectile swords, and my favorite...
+ Pilebunker. My god this thing is amazing.
+ Weapon racks add so, so much more variety to a playstyle. It is genuinely crazy that I haven't seen this mechanic used in any previous AC game.
+ Giving some of the more neglected part types like reverse joints, quad-legs and tank treads more utility in the form of better jumping, hovering and drifting respectively I think is absolutely genius. I personally still don't care for tank treads but they're still incredibly useful in the right situations.
+ Making Overboost universal is another change I think is really damn great, especially since Assault Boost came in handy way more often than it's older incarnation. I do think it's a lil finicky trying to fly up/down with it but it's overall a great choice imo.
+ This one's a personal plus. Whoever at FromSoft made normal boosting on the ground not take fuel anymore, you deserve the fucking world. Having the ability to go full throttle without having to not only waste your fuel gauge but hold down circle for extended periods of time makes the pacing of levels nice, quick and tight.
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= I'm of two minds with Stagger. On the one hand, I think it works really well conceptually as a replacement to the Heat system of old - accumulate too much damage during a short period of time, you get punished for it. Heat used to be a minor hindrance at worst since you could just slap on a good radiator on any type of AC and never overheat, Stagger is unavoidable and devestating. HOWEVER, I think stagger - at least as of 9/16/2023 - has a bit too hard of a lean towards the way of a close-ranged burst damage playstyle due to some new mechanics like ricochet and reloading. It's not a DPS check like I've seen some reviews say around here, but I do think From needs to adjust it a bit to make it more reasonable for other playstyles that might not have the pure burst damage and impact of something like double shotguns or missiles. But that's another, bigger problem I'll get into later.
= NG+ and NG++ could've had more slight alterations to make the 2nd and 3rd playthroughs much less one-note. I don't think they should've "smoothed the difficulty curve" or whatever, but I feel like they should've raised the bottom line a lil further for at least NG+ because the repetition with little to no challenge outside of very few new missions caused a bit of burn out by the end. I don't need instant gratification to just skip immediately to the end, but even a little more resistance to counteract my fully decked out AC during the main missions would've made it a lot less mindless to push through to NG++'s ending when I'm playing most of the same missions for the 3rd time.
= I personally think the 3rd Ending (fuck you I'm not calling it true ending, calling it the "true" ending I feel undermines both it and the other 2 endings) lacks something that makes the other two so compelling. I still think it's a strong ending overall, definitely having a similar impact like the other two, and proposes some interesting topics - but it's just missing something that makes me think it gets overshadowed by it's predecessors. Can't put my finger on what spice is missing, honestly. Maybe I'm just missing something central to it, maybe I didn't process it correctly due to the burnout, I don't know. I just feel it's overshadowed by FoR and especially LoR.
= I feel like the part selection, especially with legs, is a lil small in variety compared to older titles. It's not too bad, considering they had to tighten up the AC roster for the sake of the narrative, but I miss stuff like the non-tank hover legs and hyper-light quad legs. I also think while a lot of the parts look good, there are a few that also look the same/incredibly similar and don't carry the wide variety that older games have in appearance. This is more of a nitpick than anything but still.
= Hard lock is much appreciated conceptually, one of my biggest complaints about some of the older AC games was that with enough enemies it becomes incredibly challenging to fight multiple rooms full of them due to the lock on going through walls, but man is it finicky as hell sometimes. I don't mean in the "wtf I have to disengage my hardlock sometimes???" kinda way, I mean "sometimes the hardlock will randomly decide your pilebunker whiffs from 5ft due to your enemy being stunned a few inches below/above you" kinda way.
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- Weapon balancing is atrocious in my opinion. There's a lot of good energy guns - and as apparent from anybody who's touched this game shotguns are broken (I'd rather have them be strong like this and counterable by shields/long range over them being Pretty Bad but usable in previous gens) - but a grand majority of the kinetic guns outside of a handful have very strange falloff stats, ricochet too easily, and have really pathetic ammo clip counts. Why do ARs have less rounds in a clip than SMGs, and why do Linear Rifles only have a few extra meters effectiveness over ARs???? I've heard this problem is less existent in PvP, but that doesn't stop long range weapons, especially long range kinetic guns, from being kinda shit in this game. Explosive main weapons (barring the missile launchers) are also really bad outside of a handful of situations against bosses.
- While the bios and personalities of the Arena are much welcomed back after I dearly missed them in Nexus, I feel the Arena was really weak in this game. Part of it is the limited roster, part of it was how even the S-Rank were all kinda pushovers in comparison to their story counterparts, part of it was a lot of the opponents were just in a cube as their arena which didn't really provide any interesting challenge. The only AC fight I really had trouble on was G4, but that's because he had a Zimmerman and a metric ton of explosives ready for my light-build.
- Personal opinion, but I really miss the radar of the older gens. The compass is fine but I miss just seeing red blips appear on the radar to track down enemies more accurately. It works, I just prefer the radar.
- Hover tank sucks. Wow, hover tank sucks. I genuinely think every part in the game has a use outside of hover tank. I feel bad for hover tank fans.
I think while this game has it's major flaws and things I'm really mixed on, AC6 is mostly an incredibly high quality game, probably my personal GOTY, and will serve as a great base to make some damn good games in the future. Both a completely exhausting game the best ways possible and frustrating in some not-so-favorable ways. Welcome back, Raven.
I wish I could articulate my thoughts on this game properly but as of writing I'm exhausted and have a splitting headache, so I'll just bulletpoint my thoughts which hopefully makes this easier. Still gonna be a long one.
TL;DR - I love this game even if I don't see eye-to-eye with it in a few spots and I'm absolutely excited to see what this game ends up creating in the future. Whether or not AC6's expansion ends up being DLC like FromSoft's more recent titles or a standalone new game like AC tradition is yet to be seen, but gen 6.5 is absolutely gonna kick ass regardless.
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+ Game controls like a god damn dream. This is how I thought Armored Core was gonna feel before I played an older gen one. Easily the smoothest feeling game in the series. It might be really hard to go back to an older gen AC after this.
+ Sound design is amazing and communicates a lot to the player. Hollow thunks to signify kills, the warning beeps of a powerful weapon about to fire, charge-ups that feel threatening to hear, phenomenal sounds of high power shots ringing out through the air, the absolutely violent clanks of metal - of the swords tearing through the shield of an MT, of rockets exploding right in an AC's face, of a brutal kick that sent the enemy into stagger, of the Pilebunker driving it's explosive stake into metal. Absolutely beautiful. Someone's gonna try to play this game blindfolded eventually because of how well the game communicates what's going on (most of the time).
+ 90% of the AC parts look fantastic, which makes customization a blast. I do hope we get some more parts akin to older gen parts in the inevitable expansion like every other AC game ever, but most of these are amazing designs. I don't think I've seen an atrocious AC that wasn't just one completely covered in rust.
+ Speaking of customization, holy shit they opened it WAY the fuck up. Not only are there more color options than I've ever seen in AC, but decals are an absolute game changer. You can make any emblem, any pattern, any recreation- or hell, any color scheme you want with enough effort.
+ Overall, I just really adore the look of this game. Pure eyecandy without being hell on computer requirements. The atmosphere of Rubicon is impeccably oppressive and every landscape is beautiful, in such vastly different ways which I unfortunately can't really divulge on without major spoilers.
+ Story is fantastic and makes me wonder why the hell FromSoft doesn't set their stories like this more often. I love their works set in the aftermath of some big historical drama and their works set in the backdrops of living job-to-job with older ACs, but AC6 is amazing set in the midst of it. It's very easily some of From's best narrative work in my opinion - an incredibly compelling character drama about identity, choice, purpose and freedom, all without showing a single face. I would be lying if I said I didn't tear up a few times.
+ Of course, without characters, what is a story? There's a shitload of great ones here - Michigan, Snail, Chatty, Carla, Ayre, Handler Walter - but there's only one who can fly high enough to be above them all. A one V.IV Rusty, who literally steals every single scene he's in and by far and away my favorite character. Love you, buddy.
+ The Ending 1 and 2 final chapters are probably some of my favorite moments in anything by FromSoft. Thematically perfect, emotionally gutwrenching, mechanically amazing. Easily my favorite parts of the entire game.
+ People dislike the soundtrack of this game???? This shit bangs. Definitely a few weaker tracks, but ain't bad at all.
+ I don't think there's a single boss I hate in this game. Genuinely, I think all of the bosses in this game are at worst mediocre but quick and at best some of FromSoft's finest - there's a few weaker ones among the pack but I don't think any of them are atrociously bad.
+ Melee weapons in this game are fucking fantastic. I was so disappointed with prior games melees being limited to laser swords and parry blades but man is it a feast of good melee weapons in this one. Whips, lances, batons, daggers, swords, projectile swords, and my favorite...
+ Pilebunker. My god this thing is amazing.
+ Weapon racks add so, so much more variety to a playstyle. It is genuinely crazy that I haven't seen this mechanic used in any previous AC game.
+ Giving some of the more neglected part types like reverse joints, quad-legs and tank treads more utility in the form of better jumping, hovering and drifting respectively I think is absolutely genius. I personally still don't care for tank treads but they're still incredibly useful in the right situations.
+ Making Overboost universal is another change I think is really damn great, especially since Assault Boost came in handy way more often than it's older incarnation. I do think it's a lil finicky trying to fly up/down with it but it's overall a great choice imo.
+ This one's a personal plus. Whoever at FromSoft made normal boosting on the ground not take fuel anymore, you deserve the fucking world. Having the ability to go full throttle without having to not only waste your fuel gauge but hold down circle for extended periods of time makes the pacing of levels nice, quick and tight.
---------
= I'm of two minds with Stagger. On the one hand, I think it works really well conceptually as a replacement to the Heat system of old - accumulate too much damage during a short period of time, you get punished for it. Heat used to be a minor hindrance at worst since you could just slap on a good radiator on any type of AC and never overheat, Stagger is unavoidable and devestating. HOWEVER, I think stagger - at least as of 9/16/2023 - has a bit too hard of a lean towards the way of a close-ranged burst damage playstyle due to some new mechanics like ricochet and reloading. It's not a DPS check like I've seen some reviews say around here, but I do think From needs to adjust it a bit to make it more reasonable for other playstyles that might not have the pure burst damage and impact of something like double shotguns or missiles. But that's another, bigger problem I'll get into later.
= NG+ and NG++ could've had more slight alterations to make the 2nd and 3rd playthroughs much less one-note. I don't think they should've "smoothed the difficulty curve" or whatever, but I feel like they should've raised the bottom line a lil further for at least NG+ because the repetition with little to no challenge outside of very few new missions caused a bit of burn out by the end. I don't need instant gratification to just skip immediately to the end, but even a little more resistance to counteract my fully decked out AC during the main missions would've made it a lot less mindless to push through to NG++'s ending when I'm playing most of the same missions for the 3rd time.
= I personally think the 3rd Ending (fuck you I'm not calling it true ending, calling it the "true" ending I feel undermines both it and the other 2 endings) lacks something that makes the other two so compelling. I still think it's a strong ending overall, definitely having a similar impact like the other two, and proposes some interesting topics - but it's just missing something that makes me think it gets overshadowed by it's predecessors. Can't put my finger on what spice is missing, honestly. Maybe I'm just missing something central to it, maybe I didn't process it correctly due to the burnout, I don't know. I just feel it's overshadowed by FoR and especially LoR.
= I feel like the part selection, especially with legs, is a lil small in variety compared to older titles. It's not too bad, considering they had to tighten up the AC roster for the sake of the narrative, but I miss stuff like the non-tank hover legs and hyper-light quad legs. I also think while a lot of the parts look good, there are a few that also look the same/incredibly similar and don't carry the wide variety that older games have in appearance. This is more of a nitpick than anything but still.
= Hard lock is much appreciated conceptually, one of my biggest complaints about some of the older AC games was that with enough enemies it becomes incredibly challenging to fight multiple rooms full of them due to the lock on going through walls, but man is it finicky as hell sometimes. I don't mean in the "wtf I have to disengage my hardlock sometimes???" kinda way, I mean "sometimes the hardlock will randomly decide your pilebunker whiffs from 5ft due to your enemy being stunned a few inches below/above you" kinda way.
---------
- Weapon balancing is atrocious in my opinion. There's a lot of good energy guns - and as apparent from anybody who's touched this game shotguns are broken (I'd rather have them be strong like this and counterable by shields/long range over them being Pretty Bad but usable in previous gens) - but a grand majority of the kinetic guns outside of a handful have very strange falloff stats, ricochet too easily, and have really pathetic ammo clip counts. Why do ARs have less rounds in a clip than SMGs, and why do Linear Rifles only have a few extra meters effectiveness over ARs???? I've heard this problem is less existent in PvP, but that doesn't stop long range weapons, especially long range kinetic guns, from being kinda shit in this game. Explosive main weapons (barring the missile launchers) are also really bad outside of a handful of situations against bosses.
- While the bios and personalities of the Arena are much welcomed back after I dearly missed them in Nexus, I feel the Arena was really weak in this game. Part of it is the limited roster, part of it was how even the S-Rank were all kinda pushovers in comparison to their story counterparts, part of it was a lot of the opponents were just in a cube as their arena which didn't really provide any interesting challenge. The only AC fight I really had trouble on was G4, but that's because he had a Zimmerman and a metric ton of explosives ready for my light-build.
- Personal opinion, but I really miss the radar of the older gens. The compass is fine but I miss just seeing red blips appear on the radar to track down enemies more accurately. It works, I just prefer the radar.
- Hover tank sucks. Wow, hover tank sucks. I genuinely think every part in the game has a use outside of hover tank. I feel bad for hover tank fans.
I think while this game has it's major flaws and things I'm really mixed on, AC6 is mostly an incredibly high quality game, probably my personal GOTY, and will serve as a great base to make some damn good games in the future. Both a completely exhausting game the best ways possible and frustrating in some not-so-favorable ways. Welcome back, Raven.
2004
I can definitely understand why this is the black sheep of the franchise. It's an okay game in a series of incredible ones. I'll shotgun my thoughts.
- The addition of analog controls is much appreciated, but also oh my god they feel so alien after playing with the default controls for so long. Two out of 4 face buttons and the dpad being disabled, for some reason the left stick still activates extensions unless you rebind and is really sensitive to activating, the right stick having strafe instead of the left which shouldn't be an issue but is one for some reason, everything being backloaded onto the shoulder and triggers. It just doesn't feel as good as sticking with the tank controls I've used for 2 games now, at least in my opinion. Thank god for control rebinding. A properly rebound analog setup works like a dream, but still.
- The game is significantly slower than it's predecessors, which is fine, but I feel like it's slower pace doesn't help it. It just feels like AC3 in half speed with the thruster and movement changes exaggerating the issue. I personally don't like the thruster change like a lot of people coming from AC3/AC3:SL but I think it's a necessity due to how in a lot of builds in AC3 you could just fly forever with tapping the thruster without consequence. The real problem is it's also stacked on top of a general movement change where every set of legs is slower moving compared to their AC3 counterparts. This wouldn't be a problem if the thruster change wasn't like that.
- I don't care too much for some of how some of the parts are rebalanced and the fact that Human Plus/OP-Intensify traits are in the game but not given to the player even as separate optional parts I think is really, really dumb. I'm fine with them removing OP-I/H+ but some traits like moving with cannons is like, why not bring this back as a standalone optional part??? And then they give the strongest OP-I traits to enemies while you never get the chance to?????
- I'm actually kinda a fan of tuning. Having the ability to adjust items prevents the problem in AC3/SL where certain parts look good on paper but are completely useless compared to much cheaper parts that do it's job better. Tuning helps comfort this problem and helps squeeze some extra use out of parts you like aesthetically.
- The story's pretty aggressively okay and definitely way, way further in the background than the last 2 games. Then the last 3 missions hit which are absolutely amazing. The ending is phenomenal and the cutscenes are a treat. Probably my favorite part of the game.
- Whoever decided the blur should be so aggressive, constant and should affect the HUD needs to have their head checked.
Nexus is okay. It's not bad but it has iffy changes I really don't see eye to eye with. I hear Last Raven is MUCH better, with this game basically being a warm up - but after being mildly disappointed by Silent Line outside of its boss fights I'm not gonna hold LR up to a super high expectation. I'll probably going to loop back around to it after another non-AC game and a playthrough of 6 - I can't wait any longer.
- The addition of analog controls is much appreciated, but also oh my god they feel so alien after playing with the default controls for so long. Two out of 4 face buttons and the dpad being disabled, for some reason the left stick still activates extensions unless you rebind and is really sensitive to activating, the right stick having strafe instead of the left which shouldn't be an issue but is one for some reason, everything being backloaded onto the shoulder and triggers. It just doesn't feel as good as sticking with the tank controls I've used for 2 games now, at least in my opinion. Thank god for control rebinding. A properly rebound analog setup works like a dream, but still.
- The game is significantly slower than it's predecessors, which is fine, but I feel like it's slower pace doesn't help it. It just feels like AC3 in half speed with the thruster and movement changes exaggerating the issue. I personally don't like the thruster change like a lot of people coming from AC3/AC3:SL but I think it's a necessity due to how in a lot of builds in AC3 you could just fly forever with tapping the thruster without consequence. The real problem is it's also stacked on top of a general movement change where every set of legs is slower moving compared to their AC3 counterparts. This wouldn't be a problem if the thruster change wasn't like that.
- I don't care too much for some of how some of the parts are rebalanced and the fact that Human Plus/OP-Intensify traits are in the game but not given to the player even as separate optional parts I think is really, really dumb. I'm fine with them removing OP-I/H+ but some traits like moving with cannons is like, why not bring this back as a standalone optional part??? And then they give the strongest OP-I traits to enemies while you never get the chance to?????
- I'm actually kinda a fan of tuning. Having the ability to adjust items prevents the problem in AC3/SL where certain parts look good on paper but are completely useless compared to much cheaper parts that do it's job better. Tuning helps comfort this problem and helps squeeze some extra use out of parts you like aesthetically.
- The story's pretty aggressively okay and definitely way, way further in the background than the last 2 games. Then the last 3 missions hit which are absolutely amazing. The ending is phenomenal and the cutscenes are a treat. Probably my favorite part of the game.
- Whoever decided the blur should be so aggressive, constant and should affect the HUD needs to have their head checked.
Nexus is okay. It's not bad but it has iffy changes I really don't see eye to eye with. I hear Last Raven is MUCH better, with this game basically being a warm up - but after being mildly disappointed by Silent Line outside of its boss fights I'm not gonna hold LR up to a super high expectation. I'll probably going to loop back around to it after another non-AC game and a playthrough of 6 - I can't wait any longer.
2002
This is my first AC game, so a fair warning for my potentially dogshit takes down further in the review.
I absolutely have my problems with this game, mostly due to spotty information prep in pre-missions (I don't need to know hyperspecifics like ambushes, but more lines like "there have been signs an AC activity in the area" would be nice, could even be a fakeout), a few hitbox issues and other issues I'll get into later, but what a game Armored Core 3 is.
The story, while sparse and minimal, is pretty compelling to see unfold. I won't go into detail because spoilers but it reminds me of, well, how it feels to watch big events unfold in real life. Doing your job, some more action packed than others, but all-in-all just standing by the wayside as shit goes down. Of course since this is a video game, you're the one to put the end to an major historical event, but even then AC3 made me feel ways I haven't felt in a while. It also has some biting criticism of both PMCs and corporations as a nice bonus.
Atmosphere and environmental design is great, simultaneously beautiful and soul crushing. The District 1 and 3 areas are probably my favorite - put some hints of some cyberpunk alongside the killer mecha designs of AC, and you have an image that'll be in my head for a while, but the rest of the game is no slouch. There's so many standout locations in AC3; the reservoir, the forest, the labs, the mines, so many good locations.
Speaking of killer AC designs. I think there's only one AC part that looks goofy as hell, the VEN or the radar head, but literally other piece is phenomenal. All killer designs, any AC combo (that doesn't have the VEN head) looks kickass. I definitely spent way too much time customizing my ACs while listening to this banger of a main menu theme.
Controlling the game can be a little unwieldly at first due to tank controls. I'll be the first to admit that I would definitely prefer analog controls, but once you get the hang of moving around it's borderline addictive. There's a reason I 100%'d this game, my god it's so much fun to play. Fighting other ACs outside of a select handful (Ace and Exile can eat my ass) is challenging with any build but so fun to engage with.
Builds are another factor I love a lot, but sometimes the design can be a little aggressive in how it wants you to change your build. Maybe it's my prior experience with FromSoft's later works conflicting with the very different style of AC, but sometimes it felt like the game was less encouraging you to try a different build to give you breathing room and more saying "lol use these parts or die", especially in late game.
It definitely does a better job of encouraging a different build than something like Souls does - one of my biggest issues with Souls as a series was how limited respecs were and how shit certain builds can feel in comparison to just running STR/DEX even if those builds are actually good strategies, AC3 by comparison feels amazing all round outside of 3-4 hyper niche weapons - but I think AC3 can sometimes lean too hard in the opposite direction where it's encouragement becomes more like enforcement. Being encouraged in the right direction to use a different build or different parts for different environments - a heavy build to give you more breathing room, to use a lighter build with a longer range gun to avoid getting shot entirely, swapping parts for certain defensive traits, hover legs to make water levels your playground, etc? Completely fine with that, I'm glad these exist. Only being able to win a (non-Massive enemy) fight with an incredibly light build with exclusively nothing but a strong, heavy weapon slapped on it because heavy ACs are too slow - or with a heavy AC's multiple hyper-powerful weapons because there is literally no other way that you could do enough damage in time before you'd deleted with a light AC, and even then only barely scraping out a win? With some of the missions having only enough room for one strategy and not the other, not so much. I'm not saying "oh the game should be a piece of cake for anything to beat" but sometimes it feels like a mission is built around a specific set of parts with no room for experimentation.
This isn't as big of an issue as I'm making it out to be, it really only is a few missions at late game and a select couple of arena fights that I think have this enforcement issue that admittedly might only be in my head, but I worry that future games in my AC backlog (Silent Line, Nexus, Last Raven, 4 and For Answer) might take those missions I have a problem with and stretch that out to a full game. Cautiously optimistic though that they're more akin to most of AC3's best missions where it's much more freeflow but nudges you to experiment.
Outside of my handful of complaints, I really did enjoy the game a lot, would go so far to say that I loved it. It scratched an itch I didn't even know I had, and I'm looking forward to playing other games in the series.
I absolutely have my problems with this game, mostly due to spotty information prep in pre-missions (I don't need to know hyperspecifics like ambushes, but more lines like "there have been signs an AC activity in the area" would be nice, could even be a fakeout), a few hitbox issues and other issues I'll get into later, but what a game Armored Core 3 is.
The story, while sparse and minimal, is pretty compelling to see unfold. I won't go into detail because spoilers but it reminds me of, well, how it feels to watch big events unfold in real life. Doing your job, some more action packed than others, but all-in-all just standing by the wayside as shit goes down. Of course since this is a video game, you're the one to put the end to an major historical event, but even then AC3 made me feel ways I haven't felt in a while. It also has some biting criticism of both PMCs and corporations as a nice bonus.
Atmosphere and environmental design is great, simultaneously beautiful and soul crushing. The District 1 and 3 areas are probably my favorite - put some hints of some cyberpunk alongside the killer mecha designs of AC, and you have an image that'll be in my head for a while, but the rest of the game is no slouch. There's so many standout locations in AC3; the reservoir, the forest, the labs, the mines, so many good locations.
Speaking of killer AC designs. I think there's only one AC part that looks goofy as hell, the VEN or the radar head, but literally other piece is phenomenal. All killer designs, any AC combo (that doesn't have the VEN head) looks kickass. I definitely spent way too much time customizing my ACs while listening to this banger of a main menu theme.
Controlling the game can be a little unwieldly at first due to tank controls. I'll be the first to admit that I would definitely prefer analog controls, but once you get the hang of moving around it's borderline addictive. There's a reason I 100%'d this game, my god it's so much fun to play. Fighting other ACs outside of a select handful (Ace and Exile can eat my ass) is challenging with any build but so fun to engage with.
Builds are another factor I love a lot, but sometimes the design can be a little aggressive in how it wants you to change your build. Maybe it's my prior experience with FromSoft's later works conflicting with the very different style of AC, but sometimes it felt like the game was less encouraging you to try a different build to give you breathing room and more saying "lol use these parts or die", especially in late game.
It definitely does a better job of encouraging a different build than something like Souls does - one of my biggest issues with Souls as a series was how limited respecs were and how shit certain builds can feel in comparison to just running STR/DEX even if those builds are actually good strategies, AC3 by comparison feels amazing all round outside of 3-4 hyper niche weapons - but I think AC3 can sometimes lean too hard in the opposite direction where it's encouragement becomes more like enforcement. Being encouraged in the right direction to use a different build or different parts for different environments - a heavy build to give you more breathing room, to use a lighter build with a longer range gun to avoid getting shot entirely, swapping parts for certain defensive traits, hover legs to make water levels your playground, etc? Completely fine with that, I'm glad these exist. Only being able to win a (non-Massive enemy) fight with an incredibly light build with exclusively nothing but a strong, heavy weapon slapped on it because heavy ACs are too slow - or with a heavy AC's multiple hyper-powerful weapons because there is literally no other way that you could do enough damage in time before you'd deleted with a light AC, and even then only barely scraping out a win? With some of the missions having only enough room for one strategy and not the other, not so much. I'm not saying "oh the game should be a piece of cake for anything to beat" but sometimes it feels like a mission is built around a specific set of parts with no room for experimentation.
This isn't as big of an issue as I'm making it out to be, it really only is a few missions at late game and a select couple of arena fights that I think have this enforcement issue that admittedly might only be in my head, but I worry that future games in my AC backlog (Silent Line, Nexus, Last Raven, 4 and For Answer) might take those missions I have a problem with and stretch that out to a full game. Cautiously optimistic though that they're more akin to most of AC3's best missions where it's much more freeflow but nudges you to experiment.
Outside of my handful of complaints, I really did enjoy the game a lot, would go so far to say that I loved it. It scratched an itch I didn't even know I had, and I'm looking forward to playing other games in the series.
1997
TL;DR - It's Final Fantasy 7. You know the rest.
I have an interesting relationship with the FF series. For about 11 years, no matter how much I wanted to get into the series, there was a cycle. A cycle where something I would try out one of the games, get a good chunk in, and then something would go catastrophically wrong every time. Corrupted saves, non-functional physical versions, entire consoles eating shit, emulators freaking out, there was a point where I was so determined to start that I bought the mobile version of multiple entries only for it to not work at all.
I had tried every mainline entry (barring 11 and now 16) but to no luck. Even 7R had it's issues crashing my PS4, which to this day I do not understand. Then comes along Strangers of Paradise - a game so good it apparently broke the cycle, because basically nothing went wrong during the playthrough and it seems like I can actually play these games now without some unknown entity of the universe fucking with me.
FF7 was always the one I was eager to try out the most, ever since I saw Cloud use Omnislash against Sephiroth as a kid back in the early days of Youtube. It's always been in the back of my mind a little, and knowing it was the golden child of FF kinda fast-tracked me onto it. The golden child of any series always ends up being a love it or hate it for me due to high expectations - and wow, is this one a LOVE it. While not perfect, I completely understand why this game was such a hallmark. I'll rapid fire my points for this since I'm really tired as of writing.
The aesthetic, the sci-fantasy of high-tech being side by side with magic, has always been one of my weakest points when it comes to setting. I will always lap that shit up, and I don't think a game has done it as strongly as FF7 has mixed in with it's theming of "fuck corporations". Midgar is absolutely soul-crushing even today. The rest of the world feels pretty lively in color, but once Meteor appears that sense of dread returns. It's phenomenal.
The gameplay, the materia system is absolutely genius, and so is ATB. Materia in particular make every character barring two into a jack-of-all-trades, ones that can serve any role as long as you put in the energy to make them work. I never expected to get so engrossed in this system that I was having fun with normal mob battles just trying out dumb combos. There's also a lot of exploration and extra things to do that help flesh out parts of the world, which is much appreciated. Though, some of it hasn't aged the best even if it only takes an hour or so to do. (I lost to Ruby Weapon a few times and I think that fight was a lil dumb even for old RPG superboss standards.)
The story, oh my god the story. I don't think I can do it justice. It has it's problems, mostly from very obvious '97 era translation not being perfect, but it's still incredibly engaging, full of love and definitely full of character. It's not like it's perfect, my biggest complaint is probably some characters getting left in the dust progression wise compared to others but to say "no development" like some reviews here is just wrong. Final Fantasy 7 still holds up thematically, learning to live both during and after tragedies of all sorts, to this day. It speaks to my soul like very, very few games, let alone general media, have. And in my opinion, and it's definitely up there as far as game stories go purely for being so deeply human and yet so incredibly surreal. Cloud and Tifa's entire arc made any grievances I had with this game worth it, and the entire game was capped off with a fantastic ending.
What a phenomenal game. But, what else was I expecting? It's FF7. You've probably heard this exact review echoed a million times, but the echoes exist for a reason - it really, truly is that good.
I have an interesting relationship with the FF series. For about 11 years, no matter how much I wanted to get into the series, there was a cycle. A cycle where something I would try out one of the games, get a good chunk in, and then something would go catastrophically wrong every time. Corrupted saves, non-functional physical versions, entire consoles eating shit, emulators freaking out, there was a point where I was so determined to start that I bought the mobile version of multiple entries only for it to not work at all.
I had tried every mainline entry (barring 11 and now 16) but to no luck. Even 7R had it's issues crashing my PS4, which to this day I do not understand. Then comes along Strangers of Paradise - a game so good it apparently broke the cycle, because basically nothing went wrong during the playthrough and it seems like I can actually play these games now without some unknown entity of the universe fucking with me.
FF7 was always the one I was eager to try out the most, ever since I saw Cloud use Omnislash against Sephiroth as a kid back in the early days of Youtube. It's always been in the back of my mind a little, and knowing it was the golden child of FF kinda fast-tracked me onto it. The golden child of any series always ends up being a love it or hate it for me due to high expectations - and wow, is this one a LOVE it. While not perfect, I completely understand why this game was such a hallmark. I'll rapid fire my points for this since I'm really tired as of writing.
The aesthetic, the sci-fantasy of high-tech being side by side with magic, has always been one of my weakest points when it comes to setting. I will always lap that shit up, and I don't think a game has done it as strongly as FF7 has mixed in with it's theming of "fuck corporations". Midgar is absolutely soul-crushing even today. The rest of the world feels pretty lively in color, but once Meteor appears that sense of dread returns. It's phenomenal.
The gameplay, the materia system is absolutely genius, and so is ATB. Materia in particular make every character barring two into a jack-of-all-trades, ones that can serve any role as long as you put in the energy to make them work. I never expected to get so engrossed in this system that I was having fun with normal mob battles just trying out dumb combos. There's also a lot of exploration and extra things to do that help flesh out parts of the world, which is much appreciated. Though, some of it hasn't aged the best even if it only takes an hour or so to do. (I lost to Ruby Weapon a few times and I think that fight was a lil dumb even for old RPG superboss standards.)
The story, oh my god the story. I don't think I can do it justice. It has it's problems, mostly from very obvious '97 era translation not being perfect, but it's still incredibly engaging, full of love and definitely full of character. It's not like it's perfect, my biggest complaint is probably some characters getting left in the dust progression wise compared to others but to say "no development" like some reviews here is just wrong. Final Fantasy 7 still holds up thematically, learning to live both during and after tragedies of all sorts, to this day. It speaks to my soul like very, very few games, let alone general media, have. And in my opinion, and it's definitely up there as far as game stories go purely for being so deeply human and yet so incredibly surreal. Cloud and Tifa's entire arc made any grievances I had with this game worth it, and the entire game was capped off with a fantastic ending.
What a phenomenal game. But, what else was I expecting? It's FF7. You've probably heard this exact review echoed a million times, but the echoes exist for a reason - it really, truly is that good.
2022
I think the second half of this game made my opinion go from "above average game with amazing art direction" to "disappointingly frustrating game with amazing art direction", which is a sentiment echoed in a lot of reviews here. I'll keep it brief.
Genuinely the atmosphere is PERFECT. Having rain fall up, the blood moon being not blood red but a very slight tint of it, the streets completely quiet, the fog rolling in as uncanny creatures crawl their way down Shibuya was genuinely phenomenal. It felt amazing. The yokai introduction and the Spectre quests were fun and unique, the gameplay was fine for a while. Then everything falls apart around late chapter 3 - early chapter 4. Story dips from above average to below, gameplay loop stagnates HARD, enemy design becomes less unique, literally everything except the atmosphere and aesthetic design just dips so hard.
I would love to see Tango give this kind of game another shot in a sequel since I definitely smell some Bethesda corporate meddling, but as it is Ghostwire just feels frustratingly disappointing because I can see what this game COULD have been, clear as day. While it's still okay and definitely still playable, that disappointment really turned me away from the game.
I can't deny that this game actually made me feel strongly in terms of atmosphere in ways that only good horror and immersive sims have, however. It definitely gets bumped up a bit because of that, because as much as I was disappointed with the second half, the atmosphere is genuinely up there.
Also, the idea of items giving you a small max health increase that stacks up quick is a genius solution to item hoarding and I think more games should think about incorporating that.
Genuinely the atmosphere is PERFECT. Having rain fall up, the blood moon being not blood red but a very slight tint of it, the streets completely quiet, the fog rolling in as uncanny creatures crawl their way down Shibuya was genuinely phenomenal. It felt amazing. The yokai introduction and the Spectre quests were fun and unique, the gameplay was fine for a while. Then everything falls apart around late chapter 3 - early chapter 4. Story dips from above average to below, gameplay loop stagnates HARD, enemy design becomes less unique, literally everything except the atmosphere and aesthetic design just dips so hard.
I would love to see Tango give this kind of game another shot in a sequel since I definitely smell some Bethesda corporate meddling, but as it is Ghostwire just feels frustratingly disappointing because I can see what this game COULD have been, clear as day. While it's still okay and definitely still playable, that disappointment really turned me away from the game.
I can't deny that this game actually made me feel strongly in terms of atmosphere in ways that only good horror and immersive sims have, however. It definitely gets bumped up a bit because of that, because as much as I was disappointed with the second half, the atmosphere is genuinely up there.
Also, the idea of items giving you a small max health increase that stacks up quick is a genius solution to item hoarding and I think more games should think about incorporating that.
Complete left field hitter for me, has probably breached my top 25 games within 8 hours of gameplay.
What the fuck kinda performance-enhancing drugs did Team Ninja get put on to make this absolute monster of a game?
What the fuck kinda performance-enhancing drugs did Team Ninja get put on to make this absolute monster of a game?
how do you make an hour and a half dlc not only make an already insufferable character double down on their insufferableness but also make the gameplay significantly more tedious, boring and broken than the main game
and then put a sequel hook at the end as if this didn't put the player through 2 hours of some of the worst and buggiest character action gameplay I've played in a long while
there were multiple times where a lot of Vergil's moves would not function as if the animation was unable to complete despite nothing stopping the hitbox, most notably:
- Demon's combo starter wouldn't get out of the startup frames, meaning I was unable to break enemy shields or use demon mode on the ground
- Angel's projectile would get stuck in place
- Rapid Slash barely moved and didn't register hits at random
- Launcher would randomly break, making any press of the B button cause Vergil to stutter instead of launch
Or an honestly more egregious example, multiple times after being hit by ANY ENEMY where I would lose the ability to jump, permenantly, at seemingly random - all of these requiring a restart from checkpoint
I paid $2 for this and I still feel ripped off
and then put a sequel hook at the end as if this didn't put the player through 2 hours of some of the worst and buggiest character action gameplay I've played in a long while
there were multiple times where a lot of Vergil's moves would not function as if the animation was unable to complete despite nothing stopping the hitbox, most notably:
- Demon's combo starter wouldn't get out of the startup frames, meaning I was unable to break enemy shields or use demon mode on the ground
- Angel's projectile would get stuck in place
- Rapid Slash barely moved and didn't register hits at random
- Launcher would randomly break, making any press of the B button cause Vergil to stutter instead of launch
Or an honestly more egregious example, multiple times after being hit by ANY ENEMY where I would lose the ability to jump, permenantly, at seemingly random - all of these requiring a restart from checkpoint
I paid $2 for this and I still feel ripped off
2013
As much as I have to begrudgingly thank this game for giving DMC5 certain ideas that would blossom into great mechanics, enemies, bosses, etc. later on, I also gotta say: fuck this game.
Just, outright. Think of any glaring problem with a game from the 7th gen - mechanically, in presentation, narratively, thematically, in interviews - and it's probably either in this game or is brought up in other reviews here. This isn't just a bad DMC game, but a bad game in general; the dated tone even for 2013, the lacking gameplay feel, the shallow (shallow =/= simple, this however happens to be both) general story, the honestly disgusting character writing, the tedious enemy and boss design, even the concept of Capcom asking Ninja Theory to make an "Americanized DMC" - even when DMC was one of their most distinctly "American" franchises to begin with - because DMC4 didn't make incredible bank (see: Resident Evil-level, since DMC4 sold 5mill which is not bad at all!). This is an absolute snapshot of what the medium was like back then, and it isn't a pretty one.
edit: okay this game's sole good aspect is the combichrist music, "what the fuck is wrong with you people" has been stuck in my head since I finished, but that is the ONE inch I will give this game and even then that song is not in the best place in game
Just, outright. Think of any glaring problem with a game from the 7th gen - mechanically, in presentation, narratively, thematically, in interviews - and it's probably either in this game or is brought up in other reviews here. This isn't just a bad DMC game, but a bad game in general; the dated tone even for 2013, the lacking gameplay feel, the shallow (shallow =/= simple, this however happens to be both) general story, the honestly disgusting character writing, the tedious enemy and boss design, even the concept of Capcom asking Ninja Theory to make an "Americanized DMC" - even when DMC was one of their most distinctly "American" franchises to begin with - because DMC4 didn't make incredible bank (see: Resident Evil-level, since DMC4 sold 5mill which is not bad at all!). This is an absolute snapshot of what the medium was like back then, and it isn't a pretty one.
edit: okay this game's sole good aspect is the combichrist music, "what the fuck is wrong with you people" has been stuck in my head since I finished, but that is the ONE inch I will give this game and even then that song is not in the best place in game