spicedapples
28 reviews liked by spicedapples
Super Mario Bros.
1993
Bro this shit is fucked up, I cannot game like this. I sorta kinda had to cheat by save stating at the beginning of each level in world 8 because it just gets too fucked up and this is even the easier version lmao. But fuck you idc, I beat it and it counts. Eat my ass Mike Matei!
Eastward
2021
Eastward made me sad. Not because the game wanted it to but because it's missing so much of its potential. I had been excited for this game for years, I remember seeing it pop up on my Twitter feed several years before it came out. Every new image and video, every new character, every piece of music had me increasingly excited. As time went on I forgot about it and it came to my attention again when it was added to Game Pass. It was finally time to satisfy this urge and play one of my most anticipated games in a long time.
And it was boring. Almost everything in this game is boring. The combat, the exploration, the writing, the side content. Almost nothing about this game is engaging. The art is downright gorgeous and straight up alive at times and the music is phenomenal and fitting at just about every single moment, but other than that this game just doesn't work. There is very little about this game that I will remember fondly but godDAMN this game is so good artistically. I want this team to make more games but I want them to learn how to make it fun first.
And it was boring. Almost everything in this game is boring. The combat, the exploration, the writing, the side content. Almost nothing about this game is engaging. The art is downright gorgeous and straight up alive at times and the music is phenomenal and fitting at just about every single moment, but other than that this game just doesn't work. There is very little about this game that I will remember fondly but godDAMN this game is so good artistically. I want this team to make more games but I want them to learn how to make it fun first.
Eastward
2021
Overall very disappointing. The combat is clunky and annoying and the story is convoluted and kind of poorly written. The pixel art is beautiful and the animations are lovely to look at, but the game just can't hold up under the weak combat and undercooked story. The puzzle elements are usually well done, but it isn't enough to compensate.
I don't know who wants a weird farming sim within this world, but I sure don't. One playthrough was enough.
I don't know who wants a weird farming sim within this world, but I sure don't. One playthrough was enough.
Eastward
2021
This long-awaited indie adventure was one of my biggest disappointments of the year. The narrative is its biggest fault, as it strings the player along while promising answers for hours and hours without really doing much to develop its world or characters. I felt increasingly frustrated by the lack of interesting revelations to its biggest mysteries. Combined with barebones combat, insulting design, and a beautiful yet empty game world, the road Eastward is better left untaken.
Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2021/10/31/now-playing-october-2021-edition/
Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2021/10/31/now-playing-october-2021-edition/
Eastward
2021
i want to like this game so badly. the artstyle is gorgeous, the music and sound design are both incredible, and it had the best first hour of any game i played in 2022. sadly, the story cant sustain the intrigue it builds up over the course of the first hour or so, and a game supposedly about a Last of Us style journey across many different locales stops dead in its tracks by the third new space, and 70% of the main story takes place in one hub area.
character writing and dialogue is consistently strong, but the actual overall story becomes utterly incoherent by the end of the game. i genuinely did not understand the literal moment to moment events and exposition.
so much story potential sadly not put to proper use
character writing and dialogue is consistently strong, but the actual overall story becomes utterly incoherent by the end of the game. i genuinely did not understand the literal moment to moment events and exposition.
so much story potential sadly not put to proper use
Eastward
2021
Middle-ist middy middy mid mid game. It tricks both you and itself that it’s better than it really is from the top tier art and presentation (aside from asscheeks UI), but why go so hard for this? Took me three restarts since it came out just to get through it’s slog of boring combat and trope plagued story, becoming a contest of will for how long you could stand it’s vapidness 🤕
Eastward
2021
kept starting and stopping this one over months but just could not get into it. story never picked up for me.
Katamari Damacy
2004
Katamari Damacy might be the pinnacle of video games. It is all things that are complex while also being extremely simple.
Thanks to Sony, early 2000s analog controls are phenomenal, and Katamari Damacy is atop of the mountain of them. I haven’t enjoyed controls in a game this much since the first Ape Escape (for real this time.) A plethora of moves you can pull off all at the movement of two sticks, immaculate.
An unbelievably, beautifully sounding game. From the text sound effects to the final credits song, there is no piece of music in this game that wasn’t crafted with love. Intimate love. Straight up sex to the ears brother.
Probably the funniest story in any game, rivaled by only Undertale, with a heartwarming message to wrap things up at the end. After every level you complete you're interrupted by cutscenes of a family talking about outer space slowly being pieced back together, by you. The young girl constantly says, “Oh! I feel it! I feel the cosmos!” and it’s both the cutest and funniest thing ever. I love it. I just love it.
The king has some of the best dialogue in gaming history, too. Namco should hold their fists high in celebration of what I think might be the best game ever made.
There’s so much to say about this game, but I want you to go play it yourself. Let this review be a guide into another dimension of gaming. Writing this review made my eyes water, because you just don’t play games like this anymore. Games aren’t made with the same kind of passion and creativity, and it’s really something to behold.
During my play through, my PS2 crashed at “Make a Star 7” and I hadn’t saved since the first level. So I immediately went back and did all that shit again, no hesitation, and enjoyed every second of it. If that’s not enough to get a perfect score, then I don’t know what is. 10/10.
Thanks to Sony, early 2000s analog controls are phenomenal, and Katamari Damacy is atop of the mountain of them. I haven’t enjoyed controls in a game this much since the first Ape Escape (for real this time.) A plethora of moves you can pull off all at the movement of two sticks, immaculate.
An unbelievably, beautifully sounding game. From the text sound effects to the final credits song, there is no piece of music in this game that wasn’t crafted with love. Intimate love. Straight up sex to the ears brother.
Probably the funniest story in any game, rivaled by only Undertale, with a heartwarming message to wrap things up at the end. After every level you complete you're interrupted by cutscenes of a family talking about outer space slowly being pieced back together, by you. The young girl constantly says, “Oh! I feel it! I feel the cosmos!” and it’s both the cutest and funniest thing ever. I love it. I just love it.
The king has some of the best dialogue in gaming history, too. Namco should hold their fists high in celebration of what I think might be the best game ever made.
There’s so much to say about this game, but I want you to go play it yourself. Let this review be a guide into another dimension of gaming. Writing this review made my eyes water, because you just don’t play games like this anymore. Games aren’t made with the same kind of passion and creativity, and it’s really something to behold.
During my play through, my PS2 crashed at “Make a Star 7” and I hadn’t saved since the first level. So I immediately went back and did all that shit again, no hesitation, and enjoyed every second of it. If that’s not enough to get a perfect score, then I don’t know what is. 10/10.
Armored core 6 is a return to form with a spread of features from older generations of armored core to create a “return to form-ish” game, announcing the return of the flagship franchise. So going forward, I could review armored core 6 as its own but it feels personally redundant to not compare it to past games since it draws a lot of core features, story elements and other smaller notes to its personal symphony. I hold the theory that this game is a balancing act, to bring in older fans again and create a new audience, although that is obvious, stating such is important to the next point. Armored Core 6 is a countermeasure to the identity crisis of the core feeling and visual style of the last three generations. Sprouting from the last entry in the generation three game, Armored Core: The Last Raven, the following games tried fairly different core, generation four is a complete coin flip to generation 5, stating this, Armored Core 6 is a means to take the best of the last 3 generations, and to a minor extend, the first two.
The setting is completely stunning, the sense of scale that had me wondering what else is out there, in a larger sense, Rubicon, the planet you drop shells and batteries into, is only a dot on the canvas, something the franchise hasn't done. In fact, this is outright the first generation to mainly feature a fictional planet, allowing visual diversity of the missions, while allowing less restrictions on world-building. This boosts the scale and the stakes of the story, even if the story as a whole is nothing new, it's just how it is presented and propped. You cannot get the full picture, or the true painting unless you complete the game multiple times, something I will fully praise. I felt as if past entries and FromSoftware games in general have always underused their new game plus feature, not really having any incentive to continue playing other than the sense of challenge and possibly pursuing the other endings. Armored Core Four Answer would be the only other game that does this slightly, having branching paths and encouraging getting all the endings with “alt” missions upon reaching New Game Plus. So I do find it odd that there's a chance that FromSoftware games can do this, but never have, mainly because the format of Armored Core works the best for it. The story is nothing new but still great in its own rights.
Armored Core 6’s game-play can be described as an album of FromSoftware’s favorite features, sewed together into a new format. I wouldn't say it's the best, elements surrounding combat encounters would water down an otherwise purely un-distilled gold syrup. The speed of bullets are slower than previous generations, but that is only minor, and brings up a new way of approaching combat. The camera can be the absolute worst thing in combat, with the tandem of the lock on system, it enrages me. Overall, and despite the flaws I still enjoyed my combat encounters, there are just these things that chain it.
The audio work, oh the audio work, there is nothing like this. The audio is such a masterwork in both quality and implementation into the game that playing Armored Core 6 without sound would be, quite possibly, the worst downgrade the player could experience. I cannot say much more, each sound and blip is perfect, does the job with grace.
I think I can recommend playing this game. From the perspective of a veteran of the franchise there are features and new choices I do not agree with but I can understand why they were made in the first place, mostly. Whether new or heading back in, I can firmly say that this is the most solid entry into the franchise.
The setting is completely stunning, the sense of scale that had me wondering what else is out there, in a larger sense, Rubicon, the planet you drop shells and batteries into, is only a dot on the canvas, something the franchise hasn't done. In fact, this is outright the first generation to mainly feature a fictional planet, allowing visual diversity of the missions, while allowing less restrictions on world-building. This boosts the scale and the stakes of the story, even if the story as a whole is nothing new, it's just how it is presented and propped. You cannot get the full picture, or the true painting unless you complete the game multiple times, something I will fully praise. I felt as if past entries and FromSoftware games in general have always underused their new game plus feature, not really having any incentive to continue playing other than the sense of challenge and possibly pursuing the other endings. Armored Core Four Answer would be the only other game that does this slightly, having branching paths and encouraging getting all the endings with “alt” missions upon reaching New Game Plus. So I do find it odd that there's a chance that FromSoftware games can do this, but never have, mainly because the format of Armored Core works the best for it. The story is nothing new but still great in its own rights.
Armored Core 6’s game-play can be described as an album of FromSoftware’s favorite features, sewed together into a new format. I wouldn't say it's the best, elements surrounding combat encounters would water down an otherwise purely un-distilled gold syrup. The speed of bullets are slower than previous generations, but that is only minor, and brings up a new way of approaching combat. The camera can be the absolute worst thing in combat, with the tandem of the lock on system, it enrages me. Overall, and despite the flaws I still enjoyed my combat encounters, there are just these things that chain it.
The audio work, oh the audio work, there is nothing like this. The audio is such a masterwork in both quality and implementation into the game that playing Armored Core 6 without sound would be, quite possibly, the worst downgrade the player could experience. I cannot say much more, each sound and blip is perfect, does the job with grace.
I think I can recommend playing this game. From the perspective of a veteran of the franchise there are features and new choices I do not agree with but I can understand why they were made in the first place, mostly. Whether new or heading back in, I can firmly say that this is the most solid entry into the franchise.
This review contains spoilers
9/15/2023- This entry will start at a later point in the game, 10 hours in to be exact, but for Tears of the Kingdom, that isn’t a long time. I went through the sky island tutorial, and it was set up for the whole conflict, being built up for ages, or that’s what’s been told to me, the player. The people of Hyrule versus the sealed evil wizard Ganondorf. The combat so far has been just right, its dense and you’re allowed to do a lot with it, it’s just that there isn’t a level of complexity to it, I haven’t played any other Zelda game, well completed one, so I can’t compare. The landscape is beautiful in a vast and empty sense, I also feel like this has been talked about before in many pieces of review-based media so I won’t harp on about it, what I will harp on about is the odd frame rate moments. Many times, within my journey through Hyrule, the grass and flags flying in the wind will lag and lower the FPS but the area around the flag is normal. It’s like an anomaly, weird event only I, the player, can view. I am introduced to the fuse system and the ultra-hand system; I am a fan of the fuse system. If that was the only gimmick in the game that would be great, got my mileage already. The ultra hand is alright, it’s clever and I used it mainly to create larger versions of a plank to walk across dangerous areas. Story-wise I think I’ll say that its interesting but just that, doesn’t engage me other than stringing me along to areas where I learn more about these people who live there and solving their problems, like what I did today. Reached Rito Village, helped Tulin with some monsters and now I’m babysitting him until I finish, he’s useful so that helps.
9/23/2023- The Gerudo valley and the area, well the road I took, felt a lot more fun, a lot more fun, I got to sneak through the canyon, which has this sort of combat gimmick where the heat and cold in certain areas had you swap from a fused weapon that does ice damage to heat damage, its very simple but implemented enough to where I found great joy in it. The Gerudo valley as an area, rather than the canyon to it (one of many ways you reach it, but the intended route if you go by central Hyrule) is fun, I found great irony in Riju going “ah the monsters that roam the storm are dangerous” while I never found them hard at all, for two reasons. I would like to think that this was intentional that the lizalfos drop elements based fusion weapon parts, then you reach the valley in its prime and encounter these new monsters (they remind me of those weird mummy monsters I saw in the Ocarina of Time promotions) and they’re a breeze to fight. Slow, no weapons and no range, hit them once or twice with a fire-based attack and it does the job. Zelda combat is easy, but the enemies aren’t idiots, these guys were still easy. Making it into Gerudo town and for a main kingdom the main town is small, maybe there’s a large city I haven’t found yet, I don’t know, maybe I will know, Ill let you know when I know. Wandering around I spot a mating, a breeding class, the gerudo take, thank goodness the town was taken over my monsters, I don’t want to know what strange and deranged opinions the Gerudo give to their children on men, based on what happens when a gerudo male is born. Given a mission to defend the town once im in the vault, after being called a “voe” hope that’s not a slur. Defending the time is boring, but I enjoyed it, jumping around, sprinting from place to place and making go “I need more stamina”. The current thoughts right now, is that Tears of the Kingdom has great mechanics, setting and puzzles but never seemed to engage me in the world and story, I want to but have no desire to.
10/2/2023- I have had three play sessions without logging my journal experience here so inshallah I will make it up here, albeit a shortened version but maybe not! Finishing off the quest in Gerudo Valley was fun, for the most part. The lightning temple is by far the most fun temple I have gone through, I loved the puzzles and it felt good solving them, they interconnected. The boss for that temple, Queen Gibdo, was a cool design but the first encounter and first half of the final showdown wasn’t that fun for me, the second half where it began to become more of a puzzle-lite boss was great, I also had a mirror shield on hand, great times. Beating that bug bastard was hard though, for me at least, took me around 4 tries to beat when the Wind Temple boss only took me one. This only made me notice how I run out of arrows, almost always. It pisses me off how I can’t use wood to make arrows, I must scavenge and pillage Ganon’s forces for five arrows. This game has a lot of good things going for it but a lot of flaws or opportunities to make the game better that just isn’t there. Moving on, I reached a few temples and gained some blessings, I am starting to enjoy the temples way more. Buying arrows in the Zora domain made me notice how FUCKED the market in Hyrule is, sixty rupees for 15 arrows, how worthless are these literal jewels? I do find these marks of currency everywhere, under rocks and in the middle of nowhere, so there’s probably a lot of them scattered all over, lowering the value. Other than that, we see Sidon again, glad he’s moving on in his life, moving up. The quest is good, kind of, the solutions to the puzzle that leads to the temple is so stupid but at this point I just started shooting and throwing and flying through, yeah it worked, its not that fun. The mini story arc between Sidon and Yona is nice, I enjoy how it faces how brash Sidon is, despite all the good he does, feels like he isn’t making the smartest choice, and now that he’s about to become king, his actions will have more weight. He also has baggage, untold baggage. Reskins of the Likes appeared again and attacked the group, I did not enjoy this fight, at all. After a bit I got the groove of the battle and won, after two tries, still didn’t like it. Boss fights are not the strong suit in this game, maybe it will get better. I keep flipping back and forth with how I feel about the combat system, sometimes I really enjoy it and otherwise I feel like clawing at my face with how basic yet annoying it can feel, from inputs to feedback. Link feels like Jello and the enemies like sponges. The first temple is short, or I think that’s the temple, regardless, I am glad that the main idea is getting to the center, and there’s a lot of methods, I just made a wooden plank bridge to traverse the cave side. Now into the floating islands, they’re fun, I like the idea of bubble puzzles, but I know I will never use these bubbles again, which sucks. The construction flux (two!) was a fun fight, makes me wish that there was more boss variety in temples, feels like I’ve fought dozens of these guys already. I then picked up a sage’s will. The temple boss’s fight was lots of fun beating him the first time, I enjoyed this fight way more than the last two, ranking this temple, out of the three, the best one. Link grabs Sidon’s family jewels and we are fucking on our way to the Goron, last stop before I make last preparations for Ganon.
10/17/23- FINAL TEMPLE HERE WE COME! The last temple was fun albeit the journey getting there was a bit obtuse but otherwise it was fun. I also did all the tears and learned the location of the master sword. For one I really want to learn more about the past Hyrule rather than the post upheaval Hyrule, looks like there’s more to it than what’s happening right now. Then the light dragon is possibly the most annoying feature brought into this game, why can it not be in one section, I get the point is to explore the map but by the time you could reach the light dragon, you have explored most, if not all the map already, its reductive.
10/28/2023- FINAL ENTRY- FINAL THOUGHTS- Before this entry, maybe like a few days before or on the 17th, I was really in the mindset of thinking that I wouldn’t enjoy this game at all, in any regard. That only turned out to be true, kind of. I thought the second half of the game is fantastic, not well paced, I don’t think this game is well paced at all. It feels padded out at times. I also didn’t enjoy the combat a lot, The feeling when you time a dodge right and get the flurry rush gave me a great feeling, but I cannot help but feel like the combat is stiff, along with the lock on camera being very unhelpful with me in the middle of battle. The story is alright, I really enjoyed the past Hyrule segments but most of the present region areas have just alright to nothing of stories, but the story is ok. The added mechanics are great, they have their moments, but I don’t feel like it being the central gameplay focus is justified by any means. I didn’t care for the side content; I did most of it to unlock features but never felt engaged in any of it.
This game is fun, but I personally cannot recommend the time-sink.
9/23/2023- The Gerudo valley and the area, well the road I took, felt a lot more fun, a lot more fun, I got to sneak through the canyon, which has this sort of combat gimmick where the heat and cold in certain areas had you swap from a fused weapon that does ice damage to heat damage, its very simple but implemented enough to where I found great joy in it. The Gerudo valley as an area, rather than the canyon to it (one of many ways you reach it, but the intended route if you go by central Hyrule) is fun, I found great irony in Riju going “ah the monsters that roam the storm are dangerous” while I never found them hard at all, for two reasons. I would like to think that this was intentional that the lizalfos drop elements based fusion weapon parts, then you reach the valley in its prime and encounter these new monsters (they remind me of those weird mummy monsters I saw in the Ocarina of Time promotions) and they’re a breeze to fight. Slow, no weapons and no range, hit them once or twice with a fire-based attack and it does the job. Zelda combat is easy, but the enemies aren’t idiots, these guys were still easy. Making it into Gerudo town and for a main kingdom the main town is small, maybe there’s a large city I haven’t found yet, I don’t know, maybe I will know, Ill let you know when I know. Wandering around I spot a mating, a breeding class, the gerudo take, thank goodness the town was taken over my monsters, I don’t want to know what strange and deranged opinions the Gerudo give to their children on men, based on what happens when a gerudo male is born. Given a mission to defend the town once im in the vault, after being called a “voe” hope that’s not a slur. Defending the time is boring, but I enjoyed it, jumping around, sprinting from place to place and making go “I need more stamina”. The current thoughts right now, is that Tears of the Kingdom has great mechanics, setting and puzzles but never seemed to engage me in the world and story, I want to but have no desire to.
10/2/2023- I have had three play sessions without logging my journal experience here so inshallah I will make it up here, albeit a shortened version but maybe not! Finishing off the quest in Gerudo Valley was fun, for the most part. The lightning temple is by far the most fun temple I have gone through, I loved the puzzles and it felt good solving them, they interconnected. The boss for that temple, Queen Gibdo, was a cool design but the first encounter and first half of the final showdown wasn’t that fun for me, the second half where it began to become more of a puzzle-lite boss was great, I also had a mirror shield on hand, great times. Beating that bug bastard was hard though, for me at least, took me around 4 tries to beat when the Wind Temple boss only took me one. This only made me notice how I run out of arrows, almost always. It pisses me off how I can’t use wood to make arrows, I must scavenge and pillage Ganon’s forces for five arrows. This game has a lot of good things going for it but a lot of flaws or opportunities to make the game better that just isn’t there. Moving on, I reached a few temples and gained some blessings, I am starting to enjoy the temples way more. Buying arrows in the Zora domain made me notice how FUCKED the market in Hyrule is, sixty rupees for 15 arrows, how worthless are these literal jewels? I do find these marks of currency everywhere, under rocks and in the middle of nowhere, so there’s probably a lot of them scattered all over, lowering the value. Other than that, we see Sidon again, glad he’s moving on in his life, moving up. The quest is good, kind of, the solutions to the puzzle that leads to the temple is so stupid but at this point I just started shooting and throwing and flying through, yeah it worked, its not that fun. The mini story arc between Sidon and Yona is nice, I enjoy how it faces how brash Sidon is, despite all the good he does, feels like he isn’t making the smartest choice, and now that he’s about to become king, his actions will have more weight. He also has baggage, untold baggage. Reskins of the Likes appeared again and attacked the group, I did not enjoy this fight, at all. After a bit I got the groove of the battle and won, after two tries, still didn’t like it. Boss fights are not the strong suit in this game, maybe it will get better. I keep flipping back and forth with how I feel about the combat system, sometimes I really enjoy it and otherwise I feel like clawing at my face with how basic yet annoying it can feel, from inputs to feedback. Link feels like Jello and the enemies like sponges. The first temple is short, or I think that’s the temple, regardless, I am glad that the main idea is getting to the center, and there’s a lot of methods, I just made a wooden plank bridge to traverse the cave side. Now into the floating islands, they’re fun, I like the idea of bubble puzzles, but I know I will never use these bubbles again, which sucks. The construction flux (two!) was a fun fight, makes me wish that there was more boss variety in temples, feels like I’ve fought dozens of these guys already. I then picked up a sage’s will. The temple boss’s fight was lots of fun beating him the first time, I enjoyed this fight way more than the last two, ranking this temple, out of the three, the best one. Link grabs Sidon’s family jewels and we are fucking on our way to the Goron, last stop before I make last preparations for Ganon.
10/17/23- FINAL TEMPLE HERE WE COME! The last temple was fun albeit the journey getting there was a bit obtuse but otherwise it was fun. I also did all the tears and learned the location of the master sword. For one I really want to learn more about the past Hyrule rather than the post upheaval Hyrule, looks like there’s more to it than what’s happening right now. Then the light dragon is possibly the most annoying feature brought into this game, why can it not be in one section, I get the point is to explore the map but by the time you could reach the light dragon, you have explored most, if not all the map already, its reductive.
10/28/2023- FINAL ENTRY- FINAL THOUGHTS- Before this entry, maybe like a few days before or on the 17th, I was really in the mindset of thinking that I wouldn’t enjoy this game at all, in any regard. That only turned out to be true, kind of. I thought the second half of the game is fantastic, not well paced, I don’t think this game is well paced at all. It feels padded out at times. I also didn’t enjoy the combat a lot, The feeling when you time a dodge right and get the flurry rush gave me a great feeling, but I cannot help but feel like the combat is stiff, along with the lock on camera being very unhelpful with me in the middle of battle. The story is alright, I really enjoyed the past Hyrule segments but most of the present region areas have just alright to nothing of stories, but the story is ok. The added mechanics are great, they have their moments, but I don’t feel like it being the central gameplay focus is justified by any means. I didn’t care for the side content; I did most of it to unlock features but never felt engaged in any of it.
This game is fun, but I personally cannot recommend the time-sink.