soyka
2019
Hey I noticed you were stalking children at the public park. Is it safe to assume you're a fan of Pathologic 2?
2022
Cute lil game I guess. Kinda plays itself with how the "platforming" is just point and press a button with infinite error margin plus the puzzles and chase sequences being so funneled and lenient you couldve made them cutscenes and not lose much player agency.
Art direction and ost are top tier though, and interacting with the npcs brings a lot of charm to the world. I just wish there was more actual game "meat" to it.
The game has pretty severe issues with its frame time stability considering how short it is, but I assume itll get fixed in a later patch as is increasingly more common nowadays with new releases on pc unfortunately.
Its fine.
Art direction and ost are top tier though, and interacting with the npcs brings a lot of charm to the world. I just wish there was more actual game "meat" to it.
The game has pretty severe issues with its frame time stability considering how short it is, but I assume itll get fixed in a later patch as is increasingly more common nowadays with new releases on pc unfortunately.
Its fine.
2015
I generally enjoy the vibe of this game. The serious tone of the main story spiced with some goofy characters and substories is generally up my alley... if it was a movie or tv show. The open world and general gameplay(including combat) really didn't impress me.
The sub stories are amusing at times but feel too inconsequential for me. I'd be much more willing to go out and complete all of them if they tied in with the main story or were long enough to span the whole game. Sub stories flowing into each other would also be effective. As it stands though I just did a sub story here and there.
The combat is fine but it can't carry a long open world game like Yakuza.
The many unlockable abilities do very little to change up how you approach combat, and neither do the new enemies. Heat actions also become old quite fast.
I think many people just settle into 1 or 2 favourite styles for both kiryu and majima and dont bother with the rest. The game doesnt do a lot to make you use all your styles, generally you get by perfectly fine if you find a style for crowd control and one for big damage one on one encounters like bosses. What I used for Kiryu and Majima is, respectively, brawler & beast and breaker & slugger. I havent bothered searching out the secret styles since ive heard they're tied to very tedious side content.
Other than that my problems mostly extend to open world design in general, I simply dont enjoy standard open worlds. Traversing huge game spaces is tedious for me, and these games tend to be filled with meaningless stuff to make them look more dense than they really are, most egregious example in Y0 is the random thug encounters.
The sub stories are amusing at times but feel too inconsequential for me. I'd be much more willing to go out and complete all of them if they tied in with the main story or were long enough to span the whole game. Sub stories flowing into each other would also be effective. As it stands though I just did a sub story here and there.
The combat is fine but it can't carry a long open world game like Yakuza.
The many unlockable abilities do very little to change up how you approach combat, and neither do the new enemies. Heat actions also become old quite fast.
I think many people just settle into 1 or 2 favourite styles for both kiryu and majima and dont bother with the rest. The game doesnt do a lot to make you use all your styles, generally you get by perfectly fine if you find a style for crowd control and one for big damage one on one encounters like bosses. What I used for Kiryu and Majima is, respectively, brawler & beast and breaker & slugger. I havent bothered searching out the secret styles since ive heard they're tied to very tedious side content.
Other than that my problems mostly extend to open world design in general, I simply dont enjoy standard open worlds. Traversing huge game spaces is tedious for me, and these games tend to be filled with meaningless stuff to make them look more dense than they really are, most egregious example in Y0 is the random thug encounters.
2023
Shinji Mikami demonstrates again that he can make a very competent action game. Kamiya should take a course from him on implementing gimmicks seamlessly. Seriously.
I do have some gripes though. The licensed music is 30x better than the filler tracks, having no lock on is painful(especially when trying to grapple) and enemies that can't be touched without first calling in assists are annoying and borderline colorcode design which I hate. I also really wish one of these "rhythm-action" games would let you attack on more variable timings than just quarter and half notes to a 4/4 beat.
But overall... it's a good time. The visual style puts many recent AAA releases to shame while asking a FRACTION of their required computing power. Animations look impressively natural despite the contraints of having to be tied to a certain cadence. While not landing often for me in terms of comedy the character dynamics are quite charming in a way that isn't really seen often nowadays, especially at a higher budget. Also the licensed songs are stellar.
I doubt many releases this year will be able to match the care and SOUL put into Hi-Fi Rush.
Xbox can finally claim they have a game now lol
I do have some gripes though. The licensed music is 30x better than the filler tracks, having no lock on is painful(especially when trying to grapple) and enemies that can't be touched without first calling in assists are annoying and borderline colorcode design which I hate. I also really wish one of these "rhythm-action" games would let you attack on more variable timings than just quarter and half notes to a 4/4 beat.
But overall... it's a good time. The visual style puts many recent AAA releases to shame while asking a FRACTION of their required computing power. Animations look impressively natural despite the contraints of having to be tied to a certain cadence. While not landing often for me in terms of comedy the character dynamics are quite charming in a way that isn't really seen often nowadays, especially at a higher budget. Also the licensed songs are stellar.
I doubt many releases this year will be able to match the care and SOUL put into Hi-Fi Rush.
Xbox can finally claim they have a game now lol
Couldve been a good experience with a more focused story, tighter flight controls and a combat system that isn't just tacked on for the sake of it.
2022
A step back in every single aspect of fromsoftware's previous output, feeling downright lazy and derivative. This still resulted in a game i would rather play over 99% of AAA open world vomit, and that speaks volumes about the genre.
Peak AC, it's not even funny how much better this is than ac5
2024
This review contains spoilers
A breath of fresh air for Sony's catalog this generation. A game that takes cues from many sources and makes it all it's own thing in a very compelling and polished package.
The success here mostly stems from the gameplay inspirations. The game likes throwing curveballs at you. I can't be the only one to notice the levoire sections that play like straight out of dead space. Nier is likely the biggest inspiration here, but with the expanded gunplay and more reactive combat akin to souls/MGR, Stellar Blade manages to stand on its own.
The combat opens up in a big way, requiring high awareness from you by the end of the game with 3 different meters to manage and diverse utility to spend the meter on. While you wont be launching enemies and juggling them in this game, this is far from your soulslike affair where your primary and almost only concern is parrying/dodging. Strong usage of combos and meter moves can stun lock enemies and might as well be identical in utility to air juggles in other action games. You have access to many moves, and with how most of the damage you deal/meter you gain is back loaded in combos, you have to carefully consider what opening allows for shorter or longer combos.
That is not to say defense is neglected, far from it. You have parries and dodges as well as two specific counters depending on telegraph similar to the Mikiri counter in Sekiro. What makes these options more interesting in this game is that you can commit to immediate counters after a parry/perfect dodge and spend meter to increase damage output from the counter. This opens you up to getting clipped by fairly slow followups, It's a nice way to incentivise taking risks for a more damaging punish. I'd say the only thing missing here to get the full character action game label is unlocking different weapons, but the variety on offer here does make me inclined to put it up there with them.
It's kind of a shame that both open world sections are themed the same, as the areas are relatively well put together otherwise. A design reminiscent from Nier, it avoids that "checklisty" feel many other open worlds have. Landmarks are very obvious and accepting side quests naturally makes you explore most of the relevant points on the map, minimizing pointless wandering. I do take issue with the constant use of "push the box" type puzzles. Once or twice is fine, but when I have to push a box very slowly like 5 times per map, youre starting to lose me. When you start throwing enemies at me as I push the box, Im just gonna get more annoyed especially with how long it takes to let go of the box for some reason.
There are some UX issues which drag the experience on these open world maps down. For one, I dont get why it's not possible to teleport to a checkpoint from any point on the map, so much wasted time having to run back to a nearby telephone. On top of that, some of the camps dont show up as teleport points for god knows what reason. While I generally enjoyed the open world sections, Im not gonna make a secret of the fact that I preferred the linear maps much more. The on rails and set piece driven progression of these maps makes for a better paced experience. Though the actual variance of these maps is appreciated as well, having to go through 2 open world deserts gets tiring.
Where this game truly falters is in its shitty story. The main trio speak to each other like dead fish, the sporadic attempts at banter fall completely flat with how dry the voice direction is.
All the plot threads are predictable here, this isnt necessarily a bad thing but the execution here is uninteresting, mainly held back by the awful character writing again. The final reveal ended up being unintentionally hilarious. This dude Adam has spent the entire game being a lame nerd side kick with barely any personality to speak of, but now the game is trying to pull the "dear friend was actually the final boss all along" type lol. There was absolutely 0 reason given for you to care about this development, the dialog was completely embarrassing to boot.
I still want to comment on the audiovisual experience. The soundtrack is phenomenal, I know im blaspheming here for some but I actually prefer the ost in Stellar blade to most of keiichi Okabe's work on Yoko Taro's games. The mostly vocal tracks really stand out, usually this type of song is not featured in games so frequently due to how vocal tracks can often distract from actual gameplay. It takes tremendous skill to pull off vocal tracks so consistently within a game, but going for it does ensure you will stand out.
Something also has to be said for Day 1 performance. Locked 60 frames with upsampling, decently attractive models, standard baked lighting and no fear of letting the art design do the talking. The restraint and polish shown here is commendable, especially in todays reality where devs are more concerned with implementing the latest features without consideration for how it will look or run in end product. My only wish is of course a pc version, as I'd be able to clean up the image further and run at higher frame rate. Eh, guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer for the inevitable port.
The success here mostly stems from the gameplay inspirations. The game likes throwing curveballs at you. I can't be the only one to notice the levoire sections that play like straight out of dead space. Nier is likely the biggest inspiration here, but with the expanded gunplay and more reactive combat akin to souls/MGR, Stellar Blade manages to stand on its own.
The combat opens up in a big way, requiring high awareness from you by the end of the game with 3 different meters to manage and diverse utility to spend the meter on. While you wont be launching enemies and juggling them in this game, this is far from your soulslike affair where your primary and almost only concern is parrying/dodging. Strong usage of combos and meter moves can stun lock enemies and might as well be identical in utility to air juggles in other action games. You have access to many moves, and with how most of the damage you deal/meter you gain is back loaded in combos, you have to carefully consider what opening allows for shorter or longer combos.
That is not to say defense is neglected, far from it. You have parries and dodges as well as two specific counters depending on telegraph similar to the Mikiri counter in Sekiro. What makes these options more interesting in this game is that you can commit to immediate counters after a parry/perfect dodge and spend meter to increase damage output from the counter. This opens you up to getting clipped by fairly slow followups, It's a nice way to incentivise taking risks for a more damaging punish. I'd say the only thing missing here to get the full character action game label is unlocking different weapons, but the variety on offer here does make me inclined to put it up there with them.
It's kind of a shame that both open world sections are themed the same, as the areas are relatively well put together otherwise. A design reminiscent from Nier, it avoids that "checklisty" feel many other open worlds have. Landmarks are very obvious and accepting side quests naturally makes you explore most of the relevant points on the map, minimizing pointless wandering. I do take issue with the constant use of "push the box" type puzzles. Once or twice is fine, but when I have to push a box very slowly like 5 times per map, youre starting to lose me. When you start throwing enemies at me as I push the box, Im just gonna get more annoyed especially with how long it takes to let go of the box for some reason.
There are some UX issues which drag the experience on these open world maps down. For one, I dont get why it's not possible to teleport to a checkpoint from any point on the map, so much wasted time having to run back to a nearby telephone. On top of that, some of the camps dont show up as teleport points for god knows what reason. While I generally enjoyed the open world sections, Im not gonna make a secret of the fact that I preferred the linear maps much more. The on rails and set piece driven progression of these maps makes for a better paced experience. Though the actual variance of these maps is appreciated as well, having to go through 2 open world deserts gets tiring.
Where this game truly falters is in its shitty story. The main trio speak to each other like dead fish, the sporadic attempts at banter fall completely flat with how dry the voice direction is.
All the plot threads are predictable here, this isnt necessarily a bad thing but the execution here is uninteresting, mainly held back by the awful character writing again. The final reveal ended up being unintentionally hilarious. This dude Adam has spent the entire game being a lame nerd side kick with barely any personality to speak of, but now the game is trying to pull the "dear friend was actually the final boss all along" type lol. There was absolutely 0 reason given for you to care about this development, the dialog was completely embarrassing to boot.
I still want to comment on the audiovisual experience. The soundtrack is phenomenal, I know im blaspheming here for some but I actually prefer the ost in Stellar blade to most of keiichi Okabe's work on Yoko Taro's games. The mostly vocal tracks really stand out, usually this type of song is not featured in games so frequently due to how vocal tracks can often distract from actual gameplay. It takes tremendous skill to pull off vocal tracks so consistently within a game, but going for it does ensure you will stand out.
Something also has to be said for Day 1 performance. Locked 60 frames with upsampling, decently attractive models, standard baked lighting and no fear of letting the art design do the talking. The restraint and polish shown here is commendable, especially in todays reality where devs are more concerned with implementing the latest features without consideration for how it will look or run in end product. My only wish is of course a pc version, as I'd be able to clean up the image further and run at higher frame rate. Eh, guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer for the inevitable port.
2016
You get 6 inventory slots, of which a bunch get occupied with weapons and healing items. You have no item box and the game has an arbitrary limit on how many items you can place in a given room. Played like 2 hours and all the puzzles have been a variation of "put this thing in this thing" or some really forced team based "let billy hold a handle while rebecca passes a gate" type thing. Not wasting my time any further.
2014
Unlike RE0 this one actually doesnt suck. Enjoyable, scratches that puzzle exploration itch. Only issue I have really is the doors in the mansion, it asks too much memorization work to remember what kind of key each door requires since theyre visually identical. You end up wasting a lot of time trying out every door whenever you get a new key.
It also felt bizarre to me just how few enemies the game threw at me by the last third even though I was loaded with guns and ammo. I played Jill on normal mode though, maybe it's a different story on hard but im not interested in finding out.
If I had to choose a survival horror I'd probably still play silent hill over this, even if resident evil 1 admittedly has better level design than any SH. I just dont find managing a super small inventory all that fun, even 8 slots on Jill feels suffocating.
It also felt bizarre to me just how few enemies the game threw at me by the last third even though I was loaded with guns and ammo. I played Jill on normal mode though, maybe it's a different story on hard but im not interested in finding out.
If I had to choose a survival horror I'd probably still play silent hill over this, even if resident evil 1 admittedly has better level design than any SH. I just dont find managing a super small inventory all that fun, even 8 slots on Jill feels suffocating.
2018
Lacks focus on anything and ends up bland. Hated the forced rpg elements, the walkie-talkie sections, the awful camera and everything involving the insufferable smith brothers and freya. Mimir was cool I guess
2021
This conversion is in first person and it lets me run and gun, so it's infinitely better than the original as far as im concerned. I originally intended to finish the pc hd project mod first but that felt like trash to play so I naturally bounced off. Finished this one in pretty much 2 sittings, motion sickness is a foreign concept to me.
2023
This game got me up awake at 5 am listening to "cold spaghetti" from the soundtrack, meaning its a good game
2022
Pretty decent action game but with some annoying elements.
The camera is very ass sometimes and is too close to the character most of the time, camera distance adjustment would be great. Also, in a game like this where combat is 70% the focus, when the camera clips through a wall, the walls should ALWAYS go invisible. There have been way too many instances where you get pushed into a corner and the camera ends up behind a wall and you get killed cause you cant see shit.
This is not the only aspect where priorities seemed to be set aside however, there have been a few scenes where either the darkness or strong colored lighting stand in the way of motion clarity, particularly in level 3.
On a more technical level there were some noticeable issues with targetting. Having no lock on of some sort means you need to implement auto targetting and that stuff is usually never spotless and indeed it is often very annoying in sifu. You sometimes snap to a different enemy in the middle of a combo if you happened to do a move with some pushback in the middle. I also attribute issues with the Y+B finisher move not initiating while in range to the auto-targetting (could be wrong though they might be unrelated). Small nitpick but I also think default binds for back step and evade should be lb+back and lb+forward respectively, just seems more intuitive to me.
Other than that the combat design is a bit confused, im not sure why having both the parry and the evade was necessary, most of the time evading is simply the better and more consistent option. I think the defense in this game is comparable to God Hand, where you also get 3 defensive options with dodging, backroll and sidestep but in that game all of them serve a clearly defined role and dont confuse a player at the start by offering options which dont show any immediately discernible difference in end result.
Also I feel gating off moves behind a skill tree in this game was a bad move, since they reset on death. You often dont get the chance to get used to actually having the move and before you finally start using it more, you get reset. The focus attacks and situational moves are fine though.
Finally im not so sure about the overall structure of the game. It IS unique, but they deliberately chose something that will appeal to a very select few autists like me and is not all that beneficial to the overall experience. Most people will feel enough satisfaction getting beaten up once and finally passing a level, Sifu however strongly recommends replaying the levels many times to get a low amount of deaths so you dont "soft-lock" yourself in later levels. This will no doubt alienate a lot of players, and that would be fine if what was gained instead was worthwhile but I'm not conviced that trade off was worth it in this case.
Overall I think the game was fun and will satisfy any craving for a punishing action game experience. The mechanics are engaging and sound for the most part, the aesthetics have a strong identity, The animations have that all important snap and are extremely satisfying every time you perform them and the soundtrack is solid, albeit more subdued than it should be. I recommend 👍
The camera is very ass sometimes and is too close to the character most of the time, camera distance adjustment would be great. Also, in a game like this where combat is 70% the focus, when the camera clips through a wall, the walls should ALWAYS go invisible. There have been way too many instances where you get pushed into a corner and the camera ends up behind a wall and you get killed cause you cant see shit.
This is not the only aspect where priorities seemed to be set aside however, there have been a few scenes where either the darkness or strong colored lighting stand in the way of motion clarity, particularly in level 3.
On a more technical level there were some noticeable issues with targetting. Having no lock on of some sort means you need to implement auto targetting and that stuff is usually never spotless and indeed it is often very annoying in sifu. You sometimes snap to a different enemy in the middle of a combo if you happened to do a move with some pushback in the middle. I also attribute issues with the Y+B finisher move not initiating while in range to the auto-targetting (could be wrong though they might be unrelated). Small nitpick but I also think default binds for back step and evade should be lb+back and lb+forward respectively, just seems more intuitive to me.
Other than that the combat design is a bit confused, im not sure why having both the parry and the evade was necessary, most of the time evading is simply the better and more consistent option. I think the defense in this game is comparable to God Hand, where you also get 3 defensive options with dodging, backroll and sidestep but in that game all of them serve a clearly defined role and dont confuse a player at the start by offering options which dont show any immediately discernible difference in end result.
Also I feel gating off moves behind a skill tree in this game was a bad move, since they reset on death. You often dont get the chance to get used to actually having the move and before you finally start using it more, you get reset. The focus attacks and situational moves are fine though.
Finally im not so sure about the overall structure of the game. It IS unique, but they deliberately chose something that will appeal to a very select few autists like me and is not all that beneficial to the overall experience. Most people will feel enough satisfaction getting beaten up once and finally passing a level, Sifu however strongly recommends replaying the levels many times to get a low amount of deaths so you dont "soft-lock" yourself in later levels. This will no doubt alienate a lot of players, and that would be fine if what was gained instead was worthwhile but I'm not conviced that trade off was worth it in this case.
Overall I think the game was fun and will satisfy any craving for a punishing action game experience. The mechanics are engaging and sound for the most part, the aesthetics have a strong identity, The animations have that all important snap and are extremely satisfying every time you perform them and the soundtrack is solid, albeit more subdued than it should be. I recommend 👍
its just not worth it dudes, maybe try emulating the game cause the pc version is unplayable. Aside from huge amounts fiddling to even get past the opening cinematic and fix the resolution and fps, in order to avoid instant crashes on chapter 9 you have to go into compatibility mode which results in memory leak for some reason. I was giving the game way too many passes already, chapter 9 was the last drop in the bucket.
Here's my main advice: If you want more twin peaks, just rewatch the show.
Here's my main advice: If you want more twin peaks, just rewatch the show.