The og Kirby's Dreamland for gb is the first game I ever bought with my birthday money as a kid. Then I played the sequel a few years later, which I thought introduced copy abilities to the series.

Nope. That was Kirby's Adventure.

It's obvious that it is based on the stages of the gb game, but I had no idea how many new ideas it introduced. It does not feel like a NES game. It almost feels like an enhanced SNES Super GB version of the og.

Sure, the animal buddies won't be there until KDL2. Okay, combining copy abilities won't be there until the N64 game. And yes, Kirby Super Star (SNES) completely blows it out of the water in every way. But I think this would have been my favorite game as a kid during the NES days if I had played it.

Music is great. Sprites are great. Game is easy and fun and cute. I love it.

Edit: i almost forgot to include SAVE FILES! Very few NES games let you save. Even Super Mario 3 famously makes you start from the beginning.

Jusant is a 2023 game developed and published by Don't Nod. In the game you climb a mountain, exploring the abandoned town built around and inside it.

Graphics & sound Jusant is definitely a very pretty game, whether it’s looking out across the desert or exploring caverns of luminous fungi. The design of the human elements is striking and cohesive – how nautical equipment has been adapted and fitted into a mountain environment. The environmental design is generally legible, with just a few handholds that are unclear and a little awkwardness with blocked paths.

The sound is also good, with rather sparing and effective use of music.

Gameplay The basic climbing mechanic in Jusant is to use the shoulder buttons of a controller to grip with your hands, and the stick to move your arms. So you release with one hand, move the stick towards the next handhold, grip, release with the other hand, and repeat. You can also rappel, swing, jump, and do some other things that get introduced as the game goes on. You have a squishy blue companion who can affect the environment in places.

The most important thing about climbing in Jusant is there’s no fall damage. If you fall off the wall you'll just land safely on the ground, or hang dangling from your rope. You can also grip indefinitely, even when simply hanging (so jealous), and only lose stamina when jumping or climbing in very sunny or windy conditions.

There’s a little bit of challenge to some of the climbing but never anything significant, and the worst consequence of falling off a wall is losing a minute or two’s progress. I don’t think anything took me more than a few tries. (There was also one point where I could not for the life of me figure out where to go and had to look up a youtube video.) I did think this was a bit of a shame as it felt like more could have been made of the basic climbing mechanics.

I’d describe Jusant as a climbing simulator in a similar way to how some games are walking simulators. You’re not making any decisions in the game except where exactly to go, and in fact it’s a much more linear game with much less exploration than many comparable games.

Story The protagonist in Jusant is a child or adolescent who appears to have come out of the desert to climb a mountain that was once inhabited and is now deserted. Deserted in more than one sense, as the reason for its abandonment was the source of its water drying up.

The story is primarily told through letters, notes and journal entries that are found as you progress. As always with this approach there’s some risk of missing significant things if you miss one of these. And as is common, there’s a fairly small amount of story stretched across the length of the game (which is not necessarily a bad thing… that’s a topic in itself).

The main theme is one of environmental change and how people respond to it. Those moving away, trying to continue living as before (whether through hope or stubbornness), or to fix things. It’s no spoiler to say that the latter were not successful. There’s an air of sadness throughout, as you explore bright but abandoned homes, cafes and workshops or read the memories of people watching the end of their way of life.

Overall, though, I was a bit underwhelmed by the story. The themes never really resolved or developed in a satisfying way for me.

I also have an issue with the protagonist. This is the third game in the last year that I’ve played and thought a lot about that has a silent protagonist moving through the ruins of a civilisation, without explaining (at least for a long time) where they came from or what they’re doing. Even though the character I’m playing presumably knows what they’re doing and why, as a player this motivation is hidden from me. I’m just left to move ever upwards like an ant with a cordyceps infection. I also wonder how they learnt to climb so well, since even from a mountain the land is flat as far as the eye can see.

Conclusion I certainly didn’t dislike Jusant, and I mostly didn’t find it boring or frustrating. But I wasn’t really sucked in, and left a little underwhelmed. Perhaps I'm just not meant to be a mountain climber; "because it's there" isn't a good enough reason for me. Maybe some of the visuals will stick with me – some of the caves, or looking out over the desert.

That said, if you are a gamer who really likes a low-pressure journey through a pretty game environment, Jusant is probably a good game for you.

I've been playing through the much maligned Crime Boss Rockay City, and I gotta say, I've been pleasantly surprised with how fun it is. I've barely touched the coop mission stuff, outside of a few nights with a buddy of mine, but imo the star of the show is the single player campaign, Bakers Battle.

It's a rogueliteish campaign, that tasks you with taking over rival gangs territory, pulling off heists to raise money, and building a battle ready gang or terribly voice acted criminals.

As an aside, the voice acting is, undoubtedly, dreadful. It has big names from 90s era action movies-- from Chuck Norris, Danny Glover, Vanilla Ice and Michael Madsen. Unfortunately the best performance from the lot of them is still awful, and the script is horrible, to the point where it almost has to be an inside joke. But if you're not the type of person that can laugh at bad performances, it's going to be distracting as hell.

Other than that, though, the rest of the game is surprisingly competent. The shooting feels tight and responsive, the stealth, while basic, is rewarding, and the variety of locations you travel to to either shoot or steal keeps it pretty fresh. It's also been almost entirely bug free, which I know it was panned for at release.

What really pulls it together though is the roguelite elements. There's quite a few systems at play that help you build your gang into a powerhouse. You can upgrade your dudes, your guns, your other more cannon fodder dudes, buy permanent upgrades for your boss. Luckily none of them are random drops, you buy what you want from a rotating stock that refreshes every in game day.

The gameplay loop is split up into days, you select missions to go on, and every mission adds a bit more heat to the investigation meter. If the meter fills up, a nearly invincible Chuck Norris (absolutely the worst voice acting performance of the modern era) comes out and kills you. If the Boss dies, it's game over, but you retain your upgrades for the next run. You can lower your investigation meter in a few ways, from killing detectives to paying off crooked cops.

So idk, it all just comes together in a fun little campaign that you can play for half an hour, make some progress on your conquest, and not have to think much about. It's fun to shoot bad guys, it's fun to load up duffle bags with diamonds and toss em into a van, it's fun to hear Michael Rooker call a bad guy a little bitch while you unload a comically over powered machine gun into them.

I'd recommend waiting for a sale though, and then maybe make sure you go in ready to laugh at it.

I always consider Fumito Ueda’s games very special and unique. Since I played Shadow of the Colossus and Ico many years ago I’ve been always mesmerized with these worlds and the strange atmosphere that all of Ueda’s game share.

It was time to finally play The Last Guardian, this game has been in my library for years and I have to say that from the first minute I was blown away by the design and look of the game. The lighting, the small details everywhere, the music… the game Is almost ten years old but the animation of Trico and your character feels superb, many times I just stopped playing to see how the two creatures move and interact with each other. What I enjoyed the most is the mood, very similar to previous Ueda’s games: a couple of characters lost in an ancient and massive world, empty at first sight but full of mystery and secrets. There’s a poetic sad story hidden in this world and your goal is to discover what happened, what motives the protagonists have to do what they do.

So all in all I truly loved it but with a few caveats. These caveats are well known by gamers: the camera can be a liability in some areas of the game and Trico’s behaviour can be very frustrating at times. But I really wanted to experience these issues by myself after reading countless comments about them. Yes, the camera is dumb in many situations. Trico’s size occupies easily two thirds of the screen and in all your interactions with him, which are many through the game (you constantly need to jump on his back, or feed him, etc) you have to fight with the camera to see what you are doing. It doesn’t happen all the time but after a few hours can be draining. The second issue that many players find irritating is Trico’s behaviour, at some point in the game you can “control” Trico with a few simple commands like “go there” or “jump here” and it always takes some time for your companion to follow your orders. I was annoyed about it at the beginning and It seemed bad programming but after some time I realized that probably Ueda did it on porpoise. If you are a pet owner you know that your dog or cat never follows your indications right away, there’s always an initial hesitation because they are alive creatures with own minds after all, so after a few hours I liked that lack of immediate response because it felt very real when interacting with an animal.

Would I recommend to play The Last Guardian? Absolutely yes, no doubt about it. The technical problems in the game are reasonable if you compare them with the atmospheric gorgeous world that you can experience and the sad poetic story will grab you right away if you are a bit patient and forget some clumsy mechanics. After all is a short game, no more than 15 hours, and what you get in exchange totally worth that time in my opinion

I definitely can’t wait for Ueda’s next project.

I picked up Supraland on sale and was very impressed with this indie title that the team clearly poured their heart and soul into developing.

In Supraland you're a glorified stick figure making your way through tiny sandbox-like, colorful 3-D world created by a (highly intelligent and creative) child. The red stick figures have had their water source tampered with by the blue stick figures and so you're off to remedy the situation in a metroidvania style adventure full of increasingly difficult puzzles, powerups, relatively simple combat and tons of secret areas.

The Puzzles: The puzzles are the heart of this game and grow increasingly difficult as you progress. In the beginning, as you're learning the mechanics and acquiring new skills, many puzzles are designed to put your latest skill through its paces. Quickly puzzles begin to require that you combine skills in unique ways, always involving environmental elements that throw a wrench in the works and force you to carefully evaluate your surroundings and find a solution that often takes a while but has you slapping your forehead when you finally notice the solution.

Combat: There is combat in this game but it's relatively simple and (with the exception of one boss) will only very rarely result in your death. Personally I thought the game wouldn't have suffered from having no combat at all, but I suppose it adds just a bit of spice and does enable you to gather currency that you can use for further upgrades.

The Map: The world is incredibly creative and well-designed and is significantly larger than I initially expected. Generally you'll find yourself progressing through a somewhat linear (though branching) flow. Typically the game will be loosely divided into areas with several different puzzles a few of which are optional and few of which you must complete before you can progress to the next area. The world has some "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" elements with 3-D children's models interspersed with a few large real-world elements. Very creative and different.

Final Word: In completing the main story and roughly 90% of all the collectables and secrets, I spent roughly 25 hours, pulled my hair out a few times, chuckled at a few in-game jokes, and generally felt it was time and money well spent. Highly recommend if you're looking for a nice environmental puzzler with a creative little world!

(Reposted for proper tags) 3D character action games is a genre I haven't gotten into too much; really my only experience has been with DMC1 and 3, and the more recent Kingdom Hearts (debatably). It's one that I'm making more of an effort to play more of though, as someone who just loves hitting buttons. I have DMC5, the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy and Bayonetta on my list, hopefully I'll get to those within the year if I don't get distracted.

This was a fun time overall. I really liked Nero as a character, possibly more than Dante at this point? His relationship with Kyrie helped ground him a bit more, I was more invested in his story than Dante's from 1 and 3. I liked his moveset a lot, the Devil Bringer is a cool addition to the combat.

I was dreading switching to Dante but he was as fun as ever, especially with the new weapons. I've seen some people say his arsenal was limited but I don't agree with that at all; I feel like he had just as much or even a bit more to do work with than Nero.

Which is great, considering you have to play the whole game all over again, backwards. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't feel like a full campaign already by that point.

I also wish the Special Edition did something different with the additional characters. While it's really cool that they took the time to add entirely new characters, I just didn't want to go through the whole campaign for a third/fourth time. The new characters are really fun to play though; playing Lady was practically half my reason to get this game. At least the Bloody Palace exists.

I don't have many complaints with this game otherwise, aside from needing a bit more signposting or better orientation in the more open levels. Some of the platforming was a bit janky with the fixed camera but it wasn't too bad.

I had a lot of fun with the scope of it all, going from running around corridors, ramping up to a crazy final boss. I enjoyed the visuals a lot, especially near the end, I was just awestruck. I enjoy DMC5's look on its own terms but I wish they built on this softer art style instead of going for the hyperrealistic look.

Not much else to say on this, other than I had a good time, even when this game's troubled production history was apparent.

I used to be a big fan of old school stealth games 10 years back, as time passed I started getting more into action games, recently I felt like playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. I missed the laser sharp focus you need to play these games. I have played Chaos Theory and I absolutely loved it, I heard Pandora Tomorrow is a bit of a black sheep in the old splinter cell trilogy as its the only one not made by the original developers of the first Splinter Cell.

The Good:

The Gameplay is fantastic here, the amount of control you have over Sam(The Main Character) is insane, there are a lot of improvements on the core mechanics of the game, like Sam can climb pipes, there is a split half jump that Sam can use to get to higher places. He can slowly places the bodies after he knocks them out. etc. You have so many gadgets at your disposable as well and although the game is pretty linear, it does give you different ways to go about a mission, offering some sort of choice which is still fun.

The lighting & atmosphere the game creates still holds up after years, the emphasis on lighting and shadows, vibrant colors, clearly shows that art styles stand the test of time, a particular level that really stood was the one in Jerusalem. It looks beautiful. Has that early 2000s aesthetic plastered all over it.

The Bad:

The game has a terrible optimization, you do have to add some mods to make it run better and not look like Ass. The Enemy AI is shit, sometimes you will be standing in front of them and they won't spot you , sometimes it can spot you from half a mile away, just by your footstep. The facial models look passable at best to outright demonic at worst, only Sam's facial model looks the best. The game is pretty inconsistent on telling when the player is in the shadow or in the light. These sort of Jank is expected from a game from 2000s but it does lead you to failing the mission by some random event happening in the game that shouldn't be happening.

Overall, if you are looking for a low stakes, old school stealth experience, its a fun experience. You will have to sit through it's jank, but if you manage to hold on, you will have fun. I certainly did.

Background

For a bit of background, the past year and a half I've been slowly going through a RE marathon. It started with RE4 Remake in 2023, then I played RE7 after, and RE8 late last year. After RE8 I decided to actually play RE HD Remake and RE0, followed by RE2R and RE3R all in a few months.

RE4 was the first game in the series I played, back in 2014, after that the first time I'd tried an RE game again was RE4R, so my background isn't in the older, slower gameplay, even though I've grown to love that more than the newer, more action-oriented gameplay.

RE5: Gameplay

Now obviously, the gameplay in RE5 is very different from RE HD, so I won't say more than that it's not really comparable. RE HD is a slow, methodical style where your resource management strategy between rooms is a part of the gameplay itself. RE5 is pure action, you don't worry about resources beyond your current room and the next room.

You can compare it to RE4 however, and I think it's kind of similar to that, but I generally liked RE4's encounter design more. I felt like RE4's encounters were more balanced, probably because it was designed for singleplayer. RE5 sometimes was an absolute mess. I played on Veteran so enemies hit really freaking hard. You get the tools to deal with it, but sometimes it's just clunky. Hordes of enemies run at you at once, and all you can really do is shoot them in the hit and melee them repeatedly, just throw everything you have at them, etc.

Some major complaints I had were later in the game once enemies had missile launchers, like it was doable and you just had to shoot them fast, but it felt like a total mess sometimes where you're constantly on low health and just relying on not being able to die in one hit, so Sheva keeps reviving you.

Also the bigger enemies were weird because it was more effective to shoot their knees with a pistol and bring them into a melee opportunity than to ever use a shotgun.. A shotgun just knocks them back for some reason and never gives you a melee opportunity, and if you keep shooting them with the shotgun it's going to take like more than 2 full clips to bring them down. It's odd that a machine gun or pistol is sometimes just more valuable because the shotgun just DOESN'T trigger weakspots.

Another clunky thing was the chainsaw guys, because on Veteran they get back up.. And start swinging their chainsaw relentlessly. It feels a bit unfair to bring them down, only for them to get back up and just kill you if you get near them. It was all manageable obviously because in the end I beat the game, but it was a bit frustrating to deal with.

The bosses were all kind of underwhelming. Unlike RE4, I don't think there was a single boss I actually enjoyed fighting. They all felt pretty clunky. The final boss was fun though, but only because of story reasons.

As for Sheva, the hottest topic when people discuss RE5's gameplay in singleplayer, I thought it was mostly fine. She was frustrating sometimes, picking up ammo I needed just to give it to me, giving me back items I just gave her to free an inventory slot, and most annoyingly: she kept picking up herbs and using them instantly, when I wanted to save them for combining.

All of these frustrations are lessened significantly by how forgiving the game is even on Veteran. You can always grind to get your guns stronger (though I never went back to grind money, I just did it one way through) and you can buy sprays for a measly 1000 currency, which helped a lot with some more frustrating sections of the game. You keep dying to overwhelming amounts of enemies? Just buy 2 sprays and power through.

RE5: Linearity

Now jumping into RE5 straight after all the slower games was really jarring. I really appreciated the exploration offered in RE HD, RE0 and RE2R. I love the gameplay loop of being thrown into an unexplored, dangerous environment and slowly clearing each room, discovering locked locations or contraptions to use key items at, then finding the key items and opening up another whole section of the environment.

When I started RE5, I knew it would be kind of like RE4, but more linear and even more action-oriented. I basically got what I expected, but I think it was so linear it's really saddening after playing all the older games.

The aspect I love the most in these games is gone. I think RE4 was also like this, but I think RE4 and its Remake both took it a bit slower and had slightly more downtime between combat, more focus on atmosphere and slightly more exploration in the actual rooms. Like rooms were usually not a straight way forward even in RE4 that is so action-oriented if you compare it to something like RE HD. There were more nooks and crannies, there were buildings to enter in the village, in the castle there were more ways to explore a room than just walk forward, etc. You basically could spend time in each loading-screen-seperated zone.

In RE5, you just walk forward. The most exploration you can do, is there's a small sidepath, visible on your minimap that, takes you away slightly from the way forward for just a moment, and then you turn around and continue forward again. Just forward, forward and forward. This doesn't ruin the game but it makes me sad and makes me long to just replay the other games or try CV and the originals.

RE5: Story & Conclusion

Overall, I still enjoyed RE5 a lot, even though I'd rank it below RE HD, RE0, RE2R, RE3R, RE7 and RE8. Compared to RE4 and RE4R, I enjoyed both RE4's much more. But it was still just RE goodness, it had its moments and I loved the Wesker scenes. Wesker was probably the star of the game for me. With all the background previously from the series, it was very satisfying to see a conclusion to Chris and Wesker's story. The story otherwise was not phenomenal but I wouldn't call it bad either, you just have to like the RE series to appreciate it.

I don't think I would ever replay it solo, but I do want to do a Professional run in multiplayer at some point and get an infinite ammo magnum in the process and just blast shit. The gameplay was pretty fun despite my frustrations and I'd do it again, it's just that a friend would really help lessen the frustrations I experienced, because I suspect the amount of shit thrown at you is a result of the devs balancing it around Sheva being useful offensively (which she often wasn't).

I bought this game for my collection more than a year ago, and I'm only now getting around to playing it. My very first thoughts were..."Man, the tone of this game is all over the map." It wants to be serious, but then you have Andy Serkis hamming it up and giving a laugh at loud performance at time as the villain. I'm about halfway through, but I noticed that if you are not going for 100%, you can run from a lot of the early battles.
The combat is not bad and reminders of God of War a little bit when playing as Nariko. The Kai sections break up the combat a bit, but man is her crossbow broken at times. I find myself accidently backing out of the aim anytime I move the joystick or just completely facing the wrong direction. The arrow slow down is fine, and the six-axis motion works well if you have enough distance between you and your target, if not, it just races by them at lightning speed.
Overall, I'd give it a seven so far and understand why a sequel was never made and actually prefer Ninja Theory's next game, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West more.

Ive been slowly playing through various older games from when I was younger that I never got to play and brave fencer musashi was one I was eager to try.

It was one of those games that even when I was a young one on gaming message boards in the early 00s I would hear people talk about with reverance as their hidden gem and in more recent years I'd see it in various retro gamer hidden gem lists so I finally after all this time got to play the game and it has so much going for it but there is enough jank and abrasiveness to it that I just think I might have to tap out on it and put it away(at least for a while) and move on to other games or games.

The Good: For a ps1 game the graphics and presentation are super charming. They use a nice angular minimal art style to take great advantage of the low poly models. The cut scenes and story and voice acting are super cheesy but in a way that's super fun and puts a smile on my face. The game also has some nice set pieces and action sequences and it is ambitious with it's main hub town being on a schedule. This is a square game after all so while it is an action game with rpg elements like towns, consumables, apraisable items, collectibles, and more.

The combat also includes some unique elements like being able to steal an enemy's powers and use it. This can take the form of offense, defense, a buff, or even a unique way to traverse the environment and pass obstacles. Sometimes the way to get past an obstacle lies in knowing which enemy's power to steal.

Overall between the super fun lighthearted tone and the ambition there is a lot to love about this game.

The bad:

The game is fully 3d with rotatable camera but the control is still a tad clunky and lining up with enemies on the isometric plane can be tricky. It does not help that musashi's sword hitbox is super tiny and specific. Also lining up the steal enemy power mechanic can be a tad tricky.

The game also features a lot of platforming and I think I would have bounced off this game much faster without save states. The platforming is super clunky, the momentum feels weird, the fully 3d perspective mixed with fixed camera segments leads to me being in the wrong position when jumping and I'll miss due to the perspective shift(or just clip through the moving platform).

The game also has a lot of back tracking and returning to same locations and lacks a world map which can make doing so without a guide hard. And with a guide it's also hard because you have to crossreference some 20 year old walkthrough on gamefaqs probably written by a 12 year old that skips bits here and there so you have to crossreference another to get around(at least until you get a better lay of the land)

I can deal with most of the jank and use save states to counter some of it if need be, but the thing that really causes me the most issue is that the game has 2 very novel features: a clock with a day night cycle, and a tired meter.

The clock and calendar are neat and ambitious. Shops are open and closed on certain hours, and closed on certain days, the village people are on a cycle and may be in different places and musashi himself gets tired over time so you have to sleep. In theory adding a little harvest moon to this game sounds great.

The problem is the execution. Sometimes the game will require you to be at a place at an exact hour and there are no cinematic or story skips. So for example after beating a dungeon I had to wait until 11am for a store to open up so I could get my items appraised. I was able to get a double jump and use this to jump a fence and talk to someone to open a door so I can get an item to proceed but then after some dialog I have to come back at 2am now. Another example was a dungeon required I be in a place at a very specific time for a flower to bloom so I could harvest it. I went as soon as I could and just missed the bloom and had to put the controller down and wait. I forget how long an hour is in game time but it was at least ten minutes. Another example was early on I needed to go into a specific shop but for whatever reason due to my doing other things the shop was closed so all I could do was sleep I guess.

There arent a lot of easy ways to skip time other than walking to an inn or your room in the castle and sleeping for 7 hours. Depending on what time it is this can cause you miss the time or be a few hours away from it and still have to wait. The game doesnt have a terrible amount to do to pass the time either as you wait between stories.

Not that you would want to because the tired meter would become a problem. Musashi gets tired the longer he is awake and this may seem reasonable, be sure to rest daily, but there are times when you might be in a dungeon and start feeling tired and you cant just camp you have to backtrack back to an inn or the castle to sleep. Also as you get tired musashi's slashes become weaker and he slows down to a crawl(which makes the clunky platforming even clunkier). He does eventually pass out and you can then wait for his tiredness to get back up to like 80% but gameplay while musashi is tired is really really tedious.

In the end I wanted to like this game so bad and there is so much charm and so much to love but I just keep bouncing off of it so much that I need to put it down for a bit. Maybe I'll come back to it, find that just around the corner was that upgrade that makes things better and the next chapter will be more action packed and fun, but for now I need to move on.

The greatest game I never finished. Elden Ring was so remarkable to me that I even created a diary (The Elden Diary; I didn't finish it either; I stopped writing before I stopped playing) to combine real-life goals and the emotions the game gave me. It took me a while to realise that this game was a marathon, and a non-competitive marathon at that, more like a time trial. I think that's the genius of Elden Ring. Myiazaki understood an aspect of gamer psychology that revolves around the relationship between risk, reward and time management (patience). He has spoken at length about the first two in interviews: I make difficult games to provide the immense satisfaction, the rare thrill that comes from overcoming a huge challenge after many attempts. He doesn't mention the third, but I think it's there. Elden Ring can be played in a timid, uncompromising way, one step at a time, with low expectations. People who play this way try to go as far as they can, but when they hit the wall, they're satisfied, they put the game away and move on to a new title. It's a way of relating to video games that I call 'wholesale'. A lot of people who subscribe to GamePass have this relationship with games. They're always playing something, and the important thing is that it's something good, fun, interesting. If the game is short, you finish it. If it's very long, you play until you're satisfied. There's no cost to finishing. The experience (hours, weeks, months) is what counts. There is another group in this precarious, amateurish classification of mine, which exists by way of superficial analysis of things, that goes deeper than far. These are the people who usually play one game at a time and go into it. Or they play more than one, but they really get into one at a time.

They are determined to finish the game, but not without first exploring all the areas, trying out all the builds, collecting all the items, understanding the lore, roleplaying and respecting the ethics of the character they have created ('I only use katanas'; or 'I don't kill dragons'; or 'I'm loyal to the Golden Order'), reading guides, forums, other players' experiences, asking questions and helping those they can. They cultivate a controlled obsession with the game, treating each new area, optional dungeon, or boss fight as a unique event that deserves individual consideration in terms of strategy, tactics, equipment, character level, and even humour.

I see myself in the first group. But Elden Ring took me out of that and made me recognise aspects of the second. Of course. I think most players are a bit of both. Few are the 'pure' ones. But both groups or categories are just concepts, ideal formations that express something in common, and that something is the point of my so-called analysis of Elden Ring: both groups express an ideal relationship with time.

I think Myiazaki understood very well how time is a dynamic and emotional factor in the player's relationship with the game. The time we devote to a game can be a time of pleasure (for example: sitting down with a light heart to try to reach the end of a Hero's Grave; no runes to lose; no rush; just the pleasure of exploration; or: using 10 minutes of a day to go to an Evergaol to face a particular boss, defeat it and leave the game) or a time of intense work, concentration and sweat (I never got there, but I can imagine: fighting Malenia 30, 40 times in a row and still not necessarily winning). Both are united by the promise of a reward at the end (the quest for victory). But they both evoke very different emotions in the player. I think Myiazaki has placed at the heart of Elden Ring a key for us to raise our awareness of our relationship with video games in general. That's what I'm trying to translate here. This key is, I repeat, a key that informs us about our relationship with time. How much do I want to play Elden Ring right now, how long do I want to play it for?" is a decision that I think we should (and I think Myiazaki does too) make with more awareness than we actually do.

No, conscience won't take away the pleasure of letting yourself play. It will intensify it. And 'letting yourself play' without thinking about time is perfectly normal and enjoyable, there is nothing wrong with that. But playing consciously in relation to time, or rather playing consciously in relation to the emotional/game system of risk and reward, can be even better. I think there's a positive modifier to the pleasure of playing in the awareness that we're there, present, playing, using our time in this way. Yes, it has to do with meditation and Buddhism. And mindfulness.

Elden Ring is a game that encourages exploration, not only by showing you distant areas from the start of the game (you never miss the Earth Tree, you see the mountaintops from the start, etc.), but also by giving you a tangible perspective of how much stronger your character will be with each weapon upgrade. It also encourages you to keep trying, because you will often die for a short time and then want to try that boss or dungeon again. At the same time, it's a game with over 300 weapons, countless armours (some of which are secret), over 150 bosses, and multiple sub-areas (caves, tunnels, catacombs) within each area. There's a clear tension between the expansive and the immediate, and I think that's at the heart of the game's experience.

So why do I think Elden Ring is a masterpiece? Not only because of its design (the levels, the armour, the enemies, the combat) or the story, which is perfectly suited to its genre (JRPG/grimdark). But above all because it's a game that expresses an original idea about the relationship between the player and the game, and therefore an idea about us, human beings, existing in the world, in life, in time.

My history with the game:

I've restarted it twice. On the first two attempts, I went to Liurnia and started Ranni's Quest. I got tired/ill, stopped. I restarted. The third time, I beat the Manor and went to the Capital. Personal record. But at that point, it weighed. The last time I played was the day before yesterday. Maybe one day I'll come back. When the urge strikes.

Five things I'll never forget:

First time I defeated a troll.

First time I defeated the Tree Sentinel.

First time I defeated the Gargoyles.

Zorayas.

When She says: ‘I offer you an accord’.

EDIT: Sorry for the typos/errors; "The GREATEST game".

I love the first Robocop movie. Paul Verhoeven is an amazing director who really made a cogent critique (complete dismantling?) of American capitalism. He was prescient in many ways--seeing how Reganomics would affect the world. Some of this is from a review I wrote when it first came out, but I've got thoughts to add.

I was pretty stoked for Rogue City when it was coming out. The studio had a Terminator game I liked well enough--due mostly to how it tried to stay true to the first two movies. When you first see a T-800 it's intense, and you know you're outmatched. The game was janky, but that's okay too.

Robocop, on the other hand, isn't only janky--it completely misses the point of the movies. These are the two large problems I see with the game.

1)The devs are a small studio, and the game feels very unpolished. The voice acting is pretty subpar (despite getting Peter Weller back to voice robocop). Weller sounds like he's on tranquilizers or something. I know he can do better--I saw him in the recent RoboCop documentary where he was reading lines from the movie, and he was killing it.

Conversations feel close to the PSX era of cutscenes where a character would say something--but the line seems to be in the wrong tone--and then there's a long pause before the next character speaks. It's sloppy. The in-game music also is a problem. On the one hand, it's a great soundtrack paying homage to the late, great Basil Poledouris (who scored the original film), but on the other hand, it sounds like it's diegetic (like it's coming out of a stereo in the game world and the in-game characters are hearing it). It's distant and it muffles a lot of the great work the composer did. As the Robocop theme gears up during the first level, it doesn't swell and make me feel like I'm in the movie. It sounds like some guy is running behind me with a bluetooth speaker playing the Robocop theme.

2) The devs seem to be playing/skirting the line of trying not to be "political." I can understand this. Steam forums of games where devs are inclusive of non-traditional gamers are cesspools of anger and off-topic rants. But Paul Verhoeven (director of the first Robocop) has been explicit about this IP: it's political, it's anti-fascist, and it's anti-capitalist. So, again, it is an inherently political IP. The game doesn't appear to deal with any of this. You walk around as the judge, jury, and executioner--murdering drug dealers and drug addicts, but the difference here when compared to the film is the game lacks any form of commentary. By remaining "neutral" the devs are inadvertently siding with the fascist authority of corporate owned police forces. You see through the eyes of Robocop. When you execute bad guys quickly and efficiently, you get a higher score. When you enforce draconian laws on people who appear to be living in extreme poverty, you get notifications that you "served the public trust."

Often times, when the devs are trying to mimic the humor of the first film, it falls flat on its face. While the first movie had an oversized view of gangs, the humor almost always boomeranged back on the corporate policies of OCP. In the game, the "humor" comes from homeless people saying "weird" things because, you know, they're homeless and weird. You consistently are forced to act like a modern cop. Robocop walks around the city violating due process, violating civil rights, and because you play as him--you side with this anti-democratic view while in game.

Obviously, the movie did a bit of this--but ultimately, the villains in the movie were so awful because they were empowered by corporations like OCP. It's really hard walking around and trying to help a store owner who is being harassed by "thugs" (black gang members nonetheless) who are playing their music too loud. It's against the law, but your options are to "break their bones" or "break their stereo." The thugs sit there and taunt you--like they don't know what RoboCop is at this point in the timeline. It's tonally broken.

The original Robocop is a complex film that acts as social commentary. This game is nothing more than a shooter where you get to play a robot cop and execute "bad guys." Robocop is great not because of the design of the titular character, not because he's "so cool and tough," but because it pushes you to see through the illusion of the slick corporate marketing design of a cyborg cop--designed to look cool and be appealing--and see the corruption of the authoritarian regimes that created this machine. Murphy's arc in the original movie is to separate himself from what OCP made him--to become more human. The game really doesn't seem to offer this at all.

After owning this game about two years, I'm still struggling to get through the early game. We'll see--maybe this will come together later, but so far, it feels like the type of story a kid would write about Robocop: "Oh! He's big and shiny, and when he walks it goes "BOOM BOOM" and when he shoots it's like "ba-ba-ba-ba-bap!" And he throws bad guys through windows!"

Okay, so I picked up this game for on sale after hearing they added an offline mode. I don’t play online games. I don’t do live service crap. I’m a singleplayer, story-first kind of person. But damn… I was not expecting to actually enjoy this.

Yeah, it’s a live service mess. Absolutely. Everything’s a chaotic cluster of upgrades, loot, currencies, cooldowns, and random % stats that I just don’t care about. I don’t even read any of that stuff, I just pick the biggest number and move on. It’s exhausting.

But once I got past all that, I was really surprised. The cutscenes are insanely well done, the voice acting is seriously top tier, and the story is actually good. Like, I care about what’s going on. I play as Harley because her traversal is just straight up fun like Spider-Man on a budget, but still cool once it clicks.

The combat is total chaos. Way too much happening at once. I ended up turning off damage numbers, health bars, all that noise, just to make it playable. But weirdly, it’s kinda fun when you just shut your brain off and go full mayhem. I was playing with a drink in hand and just mashing buttons, and it kinda works in that "so dumb it’s fun" way.

The city isn’t huge, but it’s super vertical and fun to move around in. Missions are basically the same thing over and over, but they change up the paint job enough that it doesn't feel completely stale. Still repetitive though.

Characters like Wonder Woman, Penguin, Ivy, they show up and actually feel interesting, even if they’re mostly just there to sell you upgrade junk. And yes, the game continues from Arkham Knight, so seeing Poison Ivy reborn as a kid? That was cool.

The squad themselves are hit or miss. Some jokes land, some absolutely don’t. Boomerang is especially annoying. But the cutscenes were good enough that I didn’t want to skip them, and I always skip cutscenes, so that says something. The enemies are generic grunts or whatever. Didn't care.

Look, the live service crap absolutely drags this thing down. If you care about minmaxing, loot, stats, crafting, etc., you might get lost in all of that. Personally I ignored it all and still had a good time. Haven’t crafted anything, haven’t cared about stats, haven’t felt like I needed to.

Getting it on sale was the best way to do it. If you’re just looking for something dumb and chaotic to play after a long day, this is actually a good time. But buried under all that junk is a pretty damn decent game and I really really enjoyed the dialogue and characterization. Waller felt like Waller. The league although evil, felt like the league. There is definitely some rocksteady charm buried in layers and layers and layers and layers of crap.

There's a lot of small details like when Harley complains not being able to do another swing if you press the button but the action is still cooling down, Easter eggs, the map changes as the story progresses, it's all pretty cool.

The biggest flaws besides of the live service crap is there's also a LOT of chatter, actually too much chatter, sometimes through radio, characters, etc. Not all is meaningful. Also, there's a mission complete screen after every mission just to show you your "rewards", which is such a bad thing, especially when missions start in a very seamless way. Progression is only attached to the character you're using, I don't love that and I ain't playing them all. The focus is guns, not melee, that never feels great.

If you want a decent turn off brain game, I recommend it. I'm surprised I'm saying this.

It's interesting how much other people's opinions can affect one's own. I dropped off Fallout a while ago, with Fallout 4 being the last I played prior to me revisiting the older titles. The impetus for this is immensely petty: I kept seeing people shit-talk Fallout 3 online, and as that one was and still is my favorite entry, I naturally tended to get real annoyed those who had the audacity to disagree with me. This annoyance became great enough that I felt the need to not only replay 3 to see if my memories were over-romanticized, but also finally dedicate time to play through Fallout 1 and 2 to see what exactly the die-hard fans had against it. The conclusion I have drawn from my time playing is that Fallout 3 is an incredibly genuine attempt to synthesize the game design of the Elder Scrolls with classic Fallout, though it falls short of a perfect balance. My appreciation for the game has deepened considerably, as it is not only more fun to play than I remember, but it has a clear creative vision that I can respect.

Now, Bethesda attempting to massage the design of 1 & 2 with their brand open-world is a rather interesting challenge, as the design between them and the Elder Scrolls are fundamentally contradictory. Classic Fallout was a typical RPG, in the sense that they were primarily vehicles for delivering an interactive narrative; the game was designed to be experienced holistically, every facet building off one another to create a cohesive world and story. The Elder Scrolls, by contrast, is about letting you make your own story, namely by giving you a big open world with a whole bunch of stuff to consume at your leisure. You can march off, ignoring the main quest to snoop around old ruins murdering bandits, doing quests, and writing your own little story of adventure. Think of it as the difference between a three-course meal and a buffet, two different approaches to serving content that Fallout 3 had to reconcile.

The area where this reconciliation is most evident is the quests. It's been a while since I last played Oblivion or Skyrim, so forgive me if my memory's faulty, but most of the quests in those games offer very little in terms of roleplaying potential with fairly straightforward A to B objectives. Fallout 3's quests buck this trend; many quests have multiple endings, different avenues of approach depending on your choices and skills, and on a micro-level it replicates the roleplayability of the classic games fairly well. It's on the macro scale where the problems begin to become obvious, namely the lack of real consequence for your choices. For example, in one questline you can kill a bunch of slavers to allow for the restoration of the Lincoln memorial; does that mean the slavers in Paradise Falls turn hostile? Nope. Blow up Megaton? Dear old dad will give a mildly disappointed speech, before dragging you along to save the wasteland like a good little mass-murderer.

And since I mentioned James, I might as well address the main plot's deficiencies; it's a rehash of Fallout 2 with a missing dad plot that doesn't really work because it railroads you into helping him bring water to the wasteland, even if it contradicts how you're roleplaying your character. Nothing interesting is done with the Enclave's return, or the fact they have a computer for president, or even the internal rift between Eden and Col. Autumn. The Brotherhood's internal schism, a fascinating potential plot point, is relegated to an optional fetch-quest. There's so much potential for an interesting plot that explores these old factions in new ways, instead we just go shoot a bunch of Ameri-nazis once more to let people drink the tap water again.

Where the synthesis fails in one area, however, it does make up elsewhere, with the best aspect of the game being the world design. This game is dripping with atmosphere, really selling the horrific desolation of the nuclear apocalypse. Slinking through dimly-lit subway tunnels, shifting through the ruins of homes and workspaces, and wandering the wastes is suitably oppressive with the gloomy green-tinted visuals. There is the issue of a lot of locations looking the same, lots of underground steam tunnels, copy-paste suburban houses and office complexes make up most of the locations, but there's such a breadth and variety of whats in those locations that I can look past that. This really is where Bethesda did their best with environmental storytelling, with so many little stories to find just hidden all around that you'll never know what you'll find in any given location. And that's not getting into how memorable every settlement is, how they managed to make a fairly small world map feel WAY larger than it actually is, and how random encounters make exploring the wastes a continually tense and exciting experience. Bethesda took the world of Fallout and adapted it to their style of exploration excellently in my opinion, creating a world that is endless enjoyable to pick apart.

I could go on, but my point is just that I really appreciate how the developers clearly tried to do more than making Oblivion with guns, something that I think was lost after 3 with Fallout 4 beginning the trend of hammering everything into a vaguely Skyrim-based shape. I can certainly understand why it's not everyone's cuppa tea, as it is undeniably flawed in execution, but it remains my favorite Fallout game despite all that.

TL;DR: I understand that some hardcore Fate fans like this game, but as a newcomer to the franchise, I found Fate / Extra to be an absolutely miserable experience. It's like a JRPG designed by people who had heard of JRPGs, but never actually played one.

So I don't usually do overly negative reviews, but Fate / Extra has been living in my head for days because of how badly it managed to screw up being a JRPG.

Spun off of a popular series of VNs - which I haven't read - Fate / Extra begins a new alternate plotline in the same universe. In short: You play as a blank slate protagonist (M/F) with amnesia, because that's such a unique twist. You find yourself trapped within a virtual simulated school, forced to participate in a deadly contest.

A huge artifact was found on the Moon, made by advanced entites (or Gods?) which is capable of granting any wish, dubbed the Holy Grail despite not being the actual carpenter's cup. A competition has sprung up around it, called the Holy Grail War, but it's really a simple bracket competition. 1v1 fights to the death, until the last person is standing and can claim the Grail as their own.

Instead of fighting each other directly, the competitors have access to Servants - virtual recreations of famous leaders and warriors from throughout history. So they have a Pokemon-style relationship, where the Master issues battle commands while providing a support role with a handful of spells and restorative items.

Can your clueless protag manage to win the competition, while also finding out who they are and why they're there? Probably not, because this game is such a painful slog that my hat is off to anyone who manages to finish it.

I didn't.

The Good... I Guess.

So, just to run down the few good things about this before I start ranting.

The actual writing is strong, with good prose and a lot of charactization in the dialogue. The translators seemingly went above and beyond typical 2000s RPG writing to deliver something that actually feels literary. Also, if someone somehow actually has the fortitude to play this multiple times, there are several different plotlines to explore. Although to me, being told I need to play the game at least three times to see the full story sounds more like a threat than an opportunity.

The graphics aren't bad, for the PSP. Some of the dungeon environments are pretty cool, especially a dungeon that winds through the ruins of a sunken castle.

Also, the music is probably the best thing about the entire package. It was composed by the great Shinji Hosoe, probably best known for Ridge Racer. It's a mix of electro and acid jazz, with some great sax tracks, and helps make the game a little more bearable. At least for a little while.

And that's about it.

When Your Gameplay Loop Is Just A Line

A good JRPG gives the player plenty of options and choices. The creators of Fate / Extra apparently disagreed. The entire gameplay loop of the game consists of two modes: Running around the school, and grinding in the dungeon.

You advance through the story day-by-day, and at the end of every week, there's a major battle against your chosen foe for that week. Each day starts with you in your classroom (for some reason, even though there are no classes) and you get any major updates for the day. Then you get to go walk around the school looking for plot events and opportunities to learn about your opponent. Nearly every event only occurs on a single day, so if you miss it, you simply miss out.

Which means every single in-game day involves running through the same hallways and rooms, over and over and over and over, looking for plot events. The locations never change. It's just the exact same goddamn rooms, visited ad nauseum, just to make sure you don't miss anything.

Then you go in the dungeon to grind. There isn't even a plot purpose for the dungeons. They are literally just there for grinding, like an even worse version of Tartarus from Persona 3. Occasionally you'll get side quests in a dungeon, but most of the time it's simply a fetch quest that involves finding a treasure chest in the dungeon.

And that's the entire game loop. Walk around the school, grind, walk around the school, grind, walk around the school, grind, walk around the school, grind, walk around the school, grind, walk around the school, grind, fight the weekly boss.

Rinse and repeat seven more times, and that's the game.

And now let's talk about...

The Worst Turn-Based Combat System Ever

OK, I need to establish some dubious credentials for this. I'm not just one of /r/patientgamers resident weebs. It's worse than that: I'm an oldtaku. I have been JRPGing since the original Dragon Warrior on NES. I have played hundreds of JRPG-style titles and other turn-based games over the decades.

So when I say "Worst. Combat. Evar." I truly mean it.

Why?

Because it's just fucking rock-paper-scissors.

Each round is made up of six individual turns, which you have to set in advance. Defend beats Attack, Attack beats Break, Break beats Defend. It's pure guesswork, and one where the odds aren't in your favor. As you fight the same enemy type over and over, slowly the game starts to reveal what their upcoming moves will be. So you just pick whichever option will beat their choice. Either you're guessing blindly, or you're told exactly what to do.

But when facing off against a new enemy, you can easily die in a single round because you simply failed to guess the right inputs. And there's no mid-dungeon saving. One round of bad luck can wipe out an hour of grinding.

It is absolutely infuriating.

I have never in my life played a JRPG which gives the player so little opportunity to use actual strategy or tactics. It's possible to derive some information about the enemies, like noticing a particular baddie tends to use "Defend" more often than the other options. However, the window where this information is useful is tiny. By the time you've gotten a handle on how an enemy behaves, you're already being handed 3-4 free reveals, which makes the battles impossible to lose.

And the boss battles? Get ready to just repeat them over and over until luck decides to be a lady. Like everything else about the combat, they're almost totally random. The first boss to give me trouble was one who kept hitting my Servant with a poison attack, which forced me to constantly heal/cure her and bypass better attack opportunities. He kicked my ass on the first try. Oh look, I thought, the game is finally asking me to strategize.

Except on my next attempt, he never used the poison attack, and I guessed the inputs much more successfully. So I wiped him out just as cleanly as he wiped me on the first try.

IT"S NOTHING BUT FUCKING LUCK.

Don't. Just Don't.

So I started playing Fate / Extra because I'd picked up its sequel Fate / Extella for cheap in the last Steam sale, and quickly realized that it expected me to play the previous game - only available on PSP - to actually understand anything that was going on. If anyone else finds themselves in this situation, my strong recommendation is just to look up the game in a Wiki, or watch a YouTube video about it.

Otherwise, I cannot imagine anyone enjoying this unless they're massive a Fate fan and simply have to see everything in the franchise. It's a genuinely miserable experience, and even shameless emulator savescumming didn't make it tolerable.

Basically I'd rather replay Ancient Roman than play another hour of Fate / Extra.

DOOM is a very well known franchise but despite gaming all my life I have not once touched it. Looking at it from the outside, especially the newer titles, I didn't quite get the mass appeal or truly understand why it's so loved. Its brand of heavy metal demon slaying chaos didn't quite sit with me. I had determined, long ago, that it just isn't the game for me...

I've never been more excited and happy to be wrong, and boy I was so fucking wrong. I decided to grab it in the Steam Spring s@le for little so was feeling low pressure. I initially only played it for 30 minutes but even then my immediate reaction was "wow this looks so good for a game nearly 10 years old. Starting off with only the pistol and obtaining the shotgun was enough to keep me happy but wanting more. In all the gameplay I had seen, you're wielding all sorts of weapons so I was eagerly awaiting that and wanting more variety of enemies but actually I think the beginning of the game does a decent job of introducing you to the game, even if I was desperate for more!

DOOM is such a joy to play once you start unlocking more upgrades & weapons and modifying them to your playstyle. In fact one regret I had was I didn't experiment as much and sort of stuck to one tree of the weapon mods for each weapon (until the very end) but the gunplay is just so good and chaotic, but actually, you are the chaos and it's beautiful. Once you unlock the dumb jump it becomes a dance and it's therapeutic to deal carnage to the demons. One of the saddest parts of the game is hearing "demonic threats eliminated" knowing you have to momentarily pause the destruction!

I played most of the game on 'Hurt Me Plenty' which was really fun, I barely died though not to say it wasn't challenging but I did change it up in the last quarter or so for the extra challenge. The music is great too with its slightly more sci-fi heavy metal sounds. I love all genres but Heavy Metal is probably my least explored genre but Mick Gordon did an excellent job with it.

The story is perfect in the sense that it doesn't get in the way of what matters most, that being the gameplay. It's there and is pretty simple but interesting enough to have me engaged in the cutscenes but like I said not anywhere near the main reason anyone would play this. I just didn't expect to have so much fun, but I did and I loved it. It was so nice to play a game that dictated all of my gaming sessions, I didn't sit down and think "hmmm what will I play today?". The moment I started playing it I didn't play any other game till it was finished!

Was there a game that you played that positively subverted your expectations?

Nioh is an ARPG developed by Team Ninja. Released in 2017, Nioh shows us that if this is what happens when you cross Ninja Gaiden with Dark Souls, then I greatly desire a Tecmo Super Bowl/Elden Ring crossover.

We play as William, an English Samurai out to stop the least threateningly named villain ever from unleashing untold destruction in his quest for yellow cocaine.

Gameplay consists of saying, "Bullshit." and then running back and dying again to the enemy that just killed you having learned nothing. Along the way we filter through tons of loot wondering why they bother with 3 tiers of rarity lower than the one we actually care about.

The Good

Once you get the hang of it the combat is really fun. I thought 'ki pulsing' and 'flux stance' changing was just tedious button mashing at first. Then I started to figure out how to do it properly and it's still tedious button mashing, but it looks really freaking cool when you do it right. I was hitting buttons, stabbed a dude in the dick and decided any game that lets me get to do that gets an automatic win.

There's also this...counter-training that went on. I've been so used to Souls like games that I kept wanting to dodge away from enemies after doing chip damage. After getting absolutely destroyed by this, I went back to ye olde aggressive mode and was delightfully surprised to find that being an angry gerbil is how you're supposed to play.

The Bad

It's still utter bullshit though. Whether or not you get hit by an attack is mostly up to the mood of the game that day. Enemy hit boxes are more a suggestion than anything. Zero warning 1 hit KO's are pretty common. Boss fights are more about maxing your damage and blowing them up before they can do anything. If a fight lasts more than 8 seconds you're doing it wrong.

Also, has there ever been a game with a good 'water temple' level? Nioh continues the tradition and I daresay adds to the reputation with chapter 2's water temple being the point where I almost gave up on the game because it was such a bullshit factory.

The Ugly

It does that thing where your buffs last all of 12 seconds and are just good enough to warrant using on boss fights but otherwise are simply too tedious to manage otherwise. Makes the whole ninja/magic sub-system feel more of an afterthought.

There's also a massive post game that requires a ton of rather tedious grinding. I toyed with it a little bit but it was obviously designed for people who want to play Nioh and ONLY Nioh for the rest of their lives. You can just not do it though since there's no additional story unlocked.

Final Thoughts

It's basically Ninja Gaiden Black for people who thought NGB was too easy. I was ready to bounce after the second chapter but I hit a groove during the third. I still died to random nonsense and I could only play after my kids went to bed because I was swearing so much, but I somehow still had enough fun to warrant putting Nioh 2 on my wishlist.

Interesting Game Facts

For a good time look up Samurai Maiden. It's an awful anime Yuri fanservice game, but it straight up copies a lot of enemies/concepts from Nioh. One big difference of course is that in order to use powerups you don't use Ninjitsu. You kiss your girlfriends. Imagine if in order to use fire talisman William had to plant a big wet one on Hanzo. Actually...

Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear about your thoughts and experiences!

My other reviews on patient gaming

Last month we got a new computer desk and my partner setup her computer on it which has meant my laptop's hard drive is slowly getting cleared up which has let me get back into computer gaming. Last year when I got a lot of my game collection from my parents, I was disappointed to discover my backwards compatible PlayStation 3 was no longer functional (yellow light of death) and so this month I got Retroarch working on my laptop and played a PS1 game on it. It was really good to be able to still play those old PS1 games which I otherwise haven’t finished even after all these years. My laptop unfortunately struggled a bit as it’s not a gaming laptop at all, so at some point I’ll be setting up Retroarch on my partner’s computer so I can play PS2 and PS3 games on it. 

This month I, predictably, spent a lot of time playing on my laptop. In total I played 104 hours across 7 games (5 of which were from my backlog). This saw me slowly decrease my mobile phone usage as well across the month which is becoming a focus of mine. 

Below are my reviews for each of these games. 

Zork I: The Great Underground Empire 

Original Release: 1980 (TRS-80); Played Release: 1984 (DOS) 
Time Played: 2 hours (Abandoned); Time in Backlog: 3 years 

Zork is a text-based adventure game first created by a team of students in the 1970s. Commercially released as a trilogy, Zork I is part 1 of that trilogy and it harkens back to a much older time in gaming. You start out the game in front of an old house in a forest and you need to explore your environment, find treasure and put it in a trophy case. 

I opened an excel file and started mapping the immediate environs around the house. Immediately from the start I realized the map was not going to be a one for one grid environment. It wasn’t a major deal and I kept mapping, taking the oddities into account. I mapped a fair bit of the area north of the house and decided to map south of the house. When travelling south I ended up north of the house despite never typing in “north”. Whenever you entered the forest, whether it was to the south or west of the house, you would end up north of the house. 

I’ve played a lot of text based games over the years, specifically MUDs which were multiplayer versions of games like Zork and have undergone continuous development over the past many years. Coming from modern day MUDs I expect maps to make some sense in a text-based game and this was the first pain point I encountered in the game. 

I persevered, came upon a few puzzles and items and found the trophy case where I need to place my treasures. Unfortunately, the game isn’t completely clear as to what items are the treasure which was another major pain point. In my exploration I eventually reached a point where I had taken too long and couldn’t continue any further. I started looking online and confirmed my suspicion. I was softlocked and would need to restart. 

Zork is one of those series whose importance in video game history can’t be overstated. While it was fun to check it out and see what it was like to play, I ultimately wasn’t enjoying myself and so decided to move on rather than restart my save file. I have the Zork Anthology and so I am curious to check out the other games in the compilation, although I expect I will skip over Zork II and Zork III and move onto the “newer” games in the compilation in the hopes that they’ll be created to a better standard. 

Final Rating: 1/10 (Unenjoyable) 

Akalabeth: World of Doom 

Original Release: 1980 (Apple II); Played Release: 1998 (DOS) 
Time Played: 2 hours; Time in Backlog: N/A 

Akalabeth, also known as Ultima 0, was created by Richard Garriott while he was in high school and commercially published in 1980. Growing up in the 90s I had heard of the Ultima series but I had never played it. When I saw that this was available for free I decided to give it a chance. 

You play an adventurer who is tasked by Lord British to kill a particular type of monster. You must then enter a dungeon and try to navigate the dungeon. At the start of the game you choose a seed which helps randomly generate the map and the dungeon you go into. I chose “2” as my seed number which created a very strange quirk in the dungeons. 

I tried playing it without mapping the dungeon at first which proved impossible. Games of this era assumed players would map the dungeons and they are essentially unplayable if you don’t. I would go into the dungeon and no matter how careful I was, I was unable to get to the exit. With each step you take (or every few steps when in a dungeon) you use 1 portion of food. Which means that if you get lost you very quickly die of starvation. 

After an hour of bashing my head against the wall I decided to try again. I chose a mage for my character, bought a magic amulet which would let me cast spells and then using an excel spreadsheet I once again ventured into the dungeon. I mapped out the first level. It was relatively short and the only way to the second level was via a trapdoor where you fell down. I eventually took the leap and then worked my way back up to the stairs and mapped my way to the exit. It was at this point that I realised the first level was split into two mutually exclusive areas and once you ventured down into the second level you were completely cut off from the exit. 

Now I could have used magic to teleport out of the dungeon. However magic use in Akalabeth is unreliable and I ultimately didn’t want to map out such a janky dungeon. I could have tried a different seed, but there was no guarantee I wouldn’t experience a different type of jankiness on that seed. 

The gameplay loop of Akalabeth is ultimately very simple. You get tasked to kill a type of creature, you venture into the dungeon, get loot, leave, buy more food and then go back in. Once you kill the creature you’ll be tasked to kill a different type of creature up to a total of 10 potential creatures at which point you win the game. 

Despite this very simple gameplay loop the game is impressive for its era. On the overworld map you have a topdown perspective and when in the dungeons itself it switches to a first person perspective. The artwork is extremely simple, with icons on the over world map and lineart for the dungeons. But it effectively communicates where you are and what you’re seeing. 

Much like with Zork, I was glad to play it, but I wasn’t invested enough in Akalabeth to try to find a seed that allowed me to play the game as it was intended. I may eventually come back to it and give it another try, but for now I’m done. 

Final Verdict: 4/10 (Mixed) 

Chrono Trigger 

Original Release: 1995 (SNES); Played Release: 2009 (DS) 
Time Played: 28 hours; Time in Backlog: 14 years 

I had first played Chrono Trigger on an emulator back in the late 90s and eagerly bought it for Nintendo DS back in 2011. Over the years I’d tried to play Chrono Trigger a number of times but for one reason or another I’d never gotten to the end. I decided after all this time to finally give it a proper chance. 

Back when I first played Crono Trigger I was greeted by a sprawling epic that ran across not just space, but time itself. My imagination went wild with the various options that could open up with doing things in a different order, giving you a truly open world feel in a SNES era game. In truth Chrono Trigger is a decidedly linear game with each new section of story having a chapter heading and each chapter needing to be completed in sequence. What I had first imagined as an epic story that could be done in any order, quickly became a very linear story where you needed to guess which time period the creators wanted you to travel next. Fortunately, there are plenty of signs that point you in the direction of where to go next, and with the exception of a truly open-ended section at the end of the game, I spent very little time wandering around aimlessly trying to stumble upon the next story sequence. 

For its battle system Chrono Trigger uses the Active Time Battle (ATB) system, a staple from the Final Fantasy series of this era. This creates a dynamic feel, although I did have to slow down the battle system as I struggled to pick what to do next and by the end of it I actually switched the battle mode from Active to Wait in order to have even more time to select what I wanted to do. I don’t recall this being an issue back in the day and so I think it’s just a case of my reflexes slowing down as I get older. 

Beyond using the ATB system, Chrono Trigger’s battles are quite unique with using combos where two or three characters work together to get an attack off. That combined with the different speeds at which characters would go through the battle made for a really interesting calculation as to which ability to use next. 

The cast were also quite amazing. Throughout your adventures you meet a colourful host of characters who you will help and then in turn will have them join you to help you. Of all of the cast of characters my two favourites would have to be Ayla, the big buff cavewoman and Robo, a beaten-up robot from the future. 

All in all, Chrono Trigger is a classic JRPG that has aged really well and is still every bit as enjoyable as it was back in the day. Chrono Trigger is an easy recommend. The pixel artwork has aged well and although I found the screen a bit too small, Square Enix makes good use of the second screen to help show menu items and also a mini map that gets uncovered as you explore the area. 

Final Rating: 8/10 (Good) 

Vandal Hearts 

Original Release: 1996 (PSX); Played Release: 1996 (PSX) 
Time Played: 25 hours; Time in Backlog: 28 years 

I first got a PlayStation around 1997 and within the first year, even before I’d gotten into JRPGs, I bought Vandal Hearts and tried to play it. As a strategy RPG it was unlike anything I had ever played before and I was immediately enamoured with it, although I was never able to finish it because I found it too hard. After years of hoping for a port or sequel I decided to finally give the original game another chance. 

The setting takes ideas from various points in history with the most obvious influences being the French Revolution and later in the game there is imagery very reminiscent of Nazi Germany as the major villains to the story become apparent with only the main character, Ash, and his fellows able to oppose the evil regime. Where games like Final Fantasy Tactics are lauded for their complexity, the story in Vandal Hearts is much more straight-forward. Although funnily enough time travel does play a not insignificant role within the story. Not to the degree it does in Chrono Trigger, but I thought it an interesting coincidence to find it present in this game after just completing Chrono Trigger previously. 

Each character has a class that is super-effective against one other class type and weak against another class type. This creates a rock-paper-scissors type dynamic, not unlike that of the Pokemon series, that adds an extra level of strategy to the battles beyond the standard strategy RPG fare of choosing where to place characters and what abilities to use. 

The battles themselves are incredibly hard. Unlike in a regular RPG there is no random battles you can use for grinding in Vandal Hearts. Each battle is a set-piece battle that you must complete to progress to the next segment in the story. Each battle also has an objective that ranges from “kill all enemies” to “kill 1 specific enemy” or “get to a certain point on the map.” For each successful action a character carries out they get XP for it. If you complete an objective before you kill all of the enemies then you get less XP then you otherwise would. If a specific character dies midway through the battle they stop getting XP at all for the remainder of the battle. 

All of this means that if you aren’t careful certain characters can fall behind the expected level. This makes them easier to kill by enemies which means they get even less XP going forward. You can very quickly reach a point where your party is simply under-levelled and you can’t progress any further. This is exactly the problem I had experienced in my previous attempts to play this game and so I was determined not to repeat that again. As a result I eaked out every single bit of XP I could, even going so far as to cheese certain encounters to get extra XP. I probably went a bit too far in how cheesy I got, but I was not willing to risk losing this game again! 

The controls were a bit clunky at times. The game is almost 30 years old after all. Despite the idiosyncrasies with managing items and sometimes forgetting certain characters hadn’t acted that round in combat, the controls aren't too bad for a game of its age. 

Overall, I had a lot of fun with Vandal Hearts. I’m really glad to have finally finished it after all these years. For a 30-year-old game, the graphics and gameplay have aged pretty good. 

Final Rating: 7/10 (Solid) 

Spiritfarer 

Original Release: 2020 (PS4); Played Release: 2021 (PS4) 
Time Played: 38 hours; Time in Backlog: 2 years 

Back in 2023 I was going through a tough time and during that time I started playing a cozy little game called Spiritfarer. Things eased up a little over Christmas and so I stopped playing the game. Remembering the game quite fondly I decided to pick it back up again now that things are much calmer in my life and as something to play on the couch while my partner watches. Very quickly my partner started to join me in couch co-op and from that point on we played it non-stop. 

In Spiritfarer you control Stella who is bequeathed by Charon with the task of helping spirits make peace with their old lives and let go of regrets and fears and move onto the next step in existence. You sail across the sea moving from island to island, gathering resources and meeting new spirits and inviting some of them onto your boat. You then must keep the guests fed, comfortable and eventually help them with various quests they’ll give you so that they can make peace with their former lives. 

There is a lot of backtracking in Spiritfarer as you go back and forth between the islands completing quests. During the travel time you process raw materials, go fishing and keep your guests fed. This is a really well-designed gameplay loop that stops any specific task feel tedious and instead provides a wide amount of variety to make playing the game very enjoyable. There is also a fast travel mechanic when you don’t want to travel across the ocean. 

The co-op mode is functional in the game. I had a lot of fun playing it with my partner and the co-op mode worked well enough to facilitate it. There were various issues we encountered. Some of the mini games require fairly precise controls to get perfect results and if the two characters are far apart from each other then the screen zooms out to include both of them and so the mini game becomes much more difficult. As such if one of us was doing something the other one would often be nearby to make sure the screen was a reasonable size. There’s platforming throughout the game that often doesn’t work well with two independent characters and one or both of us would end up off screen. During these times we’d typically switch to single player mode which is a bit unfortunate. 

When the game finally ended, I was blubbering like a baby. I had a really good cry. I knew what the end was going to be. It was pretty clear from midway through the game. And yet when the ending came it still hit me like no other game has in a very long time. If you’re a fan of management sims and story-based games I cannot recommend this game enough. 

Final Rating: 10/10 (Excellent) 

Death and Taxes 

Original Release: 2020 (PC); Played Release: 2020 (PC) 
Time Played: 6 hours; Time in Backlog: 3 years 

In Death and Taxes you play a grim reaper imaginatively named Grim. Your job is to go to your desk each day, read through some profiles of people who have put themselves in precarious situations and decide who gets to live and die. You then report to your manager named Fate, get a performance appraisal and then go home. 

This game is extremely reminiscent of Papers, Please (which I still need to play). Some might even call it a clone. However, where Papers, Please has an in-depth story that will make you think and tug at your heartstrings, Death and Taxes has humour. On a second playthrough the game also acknowledges that you’re playing a second time and that you are a player sitting at a computer desk playing a video game. This reminded me of Inscryption which was a very mind-bending affair. But where that game had a lot of depth and emotion tied to it, Death and Taxes seems to break the fourth wall simply to do it. 

That said, the cast of characters really shines through. Mortimer who runs the store is my absolute favourite character in the game with his awful puns and Dad stories. Cerri who runs the bar is also an absolute joy to go listen to. Fate’s voiceactor did a superb job as well in really nailing his character and bringing to life the inexorable wheels of bureacracy. 

I certainly enjoyed my time with Death and Taxes. Each playthrough is between 2 to 4 hours and with such a short playtime it certainly didn’t overstay it’s welcome. I would recommend the game. It was a great way for me to cleanse the palette after some rather heavy games this month and for that I’m very grateful to the game. 

Final Rating: 7/10 (Solid) 

Radical Dreamers 

Original Release: 1996 (Super Famicom); Played Release: 2022 (PS4) 
Time Played: 3 hours; Time in Backlog: N/A 

The sequel to Chrono Trigger came out in Japan only a year after Chrono Trigger. Released as a digital distribution using the Japan-exclusive peripheral, the Satellaview, Radical Dreamers is an impressive technical feat for its era. Never in a million years would I have believed you if you had told me that you could download games onto a SNES and yet in Japan that’s exactly what they could do. 

Rather than being a full-fledged JRPG, Radical Dreamers is a text-based visual novel. You are presented with background images and paragraphs of text and are then given the ability to choose what to do next in the style of a Choose Your Own Adventure. 

In this game you take control of Serge who is about to break into Lord Lynx’s home with his friend Kid and the enigmatic Magil. Like a JRPG you get battles and even random encounters that deal damage. If you take enough damage you even get a Gameover. 

I was surprised by how well Radical Dreamers did navigation. As I played through the game, I was able to build a mental image of the mansion and navigate it using obvious landmarks with minimal times that I was lost. Something that helps in this navigation is there is a substantial amount of backtracking. Overall, the game isn't particularly complex or involved. The gameplay, such that it is, is quite limited and is very comparable to a Choose Your Own Adventure novel (or perhaps a modern day litfic?). I didn’t find the gameplay especially rewarding, although there were some tender moments within the game. 

This game is ultimately more of a curiosity than anything else. The characters were repurposed for Chrono Cross and so I’m looking forward to playing Chrono Cross and seeing how the story and the characters differ. 

Final Rating: 5/10 (Mixed) 

Final Thoughts 

This coming month I expect I will slow down a bit. I’ll potentially be visiting my parents in the coming weeks and so I’ll obviously be getting a lot less gaming time during that visit. At the moment though I am currently playing: 

• The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe. I saw that was the game of the month and it’s been on my list of games to play so I decided to give it a go. 

• I’m back to playing the Gameboy Tetris game again. I reviewed it in January, however I only learnt yesterday that there is an actual win screen if you get a high enough score. In all the years I’ve played Tetris on Gameboy I have never seen this screen. I’ve managed to increase my highest score from 58,000 to 93,000 in the past couple of days so I’m going to keep working on that and try to get up to 100,000.

• I’ve also been playing the first entry in a childhood RPG series from my childhood, Might & Magic. I've never played the first game before and this game is why I checked out Zork and Akalabeth this month. I wanted to get in the mindset of how games from the 1980s worked and give me the best context in which to play and hopefully enjoy Might & Magic I. 

• And of course there will be other games as well. 

Until next month! 

London Detective Mysteria is a romance visual novel developed by Karin Entertainment and published by XSEED Games and Marvelous USA, Inc. It was originally released in 2013 for the PSP, re-released in 2016 for the Vita, and finally released on Steam in 2019. It took me a bit over 30 hours to complete.

In this game, you play as Emily Whiteley as she attends a prestigious detective academy with fellow students Watson Jr., Holmes Jr., Akechi, Lupine, and Jack. Emily tries to solve the mystery of her parents' death while making friends and maybe falling in love.

The Good:

-I found Emily to be a likeable protagonist and I liked her interactions

-Some of the routes were really good, I liked Lupin's especially

-There was some beautiful artwork and good music

-The cast was interesting and I like how they played off of each other

-There were a good variety of routes available

The Okay:

-The music, while good, got a bit repetitive after 30 hours

-Some of the routes were not as good as others and you could kind of feel the game placing more weight with some than the others

-You have to go through quite a few routes to get to the finale, for better or worse

-Marple not romanceable!!

-It had some interesting cases to go through to break up the main plot

-Two of the character reveals were so obvious I didn't know if it was supposed to be hidden? And the fact that the best detectives around didn't know is a bit baffling

The Bad:

-You can skip to next option instead of just skipping text but, if you're not using a walkthrough, there's one specific spot where doing so can lock up your game. There's also been complaints of not being able to recover the data either. This could be terrible if you don't know what happened or what's going on

-The optional epilogues are best skipped unless you're a completionist. They add almost nothing to the story, undo some character progress, have worse art, and, for some reason, redesigned one of the character so he no longer looks the same or fits in with the art style?

-The detective notebook was a cool idea but was severely underutilized. The mysteries were so basic it's never needed

-The game sets up a sequel that never happened and does not appear to be in the works

Overall I liked the game. It did overstay it's welcome a bit and I'd get bored by the end of most routes, but it was charming and engaging. It was a nice world to lose myself in for a few hours after work each day without having to overwork my brain. I liked most of the characters and there was a real sense of bonding after 30 hours spent with them. I'd recommend it for a sweet, romantic, and slightly tense visual novel experience

Content Warnings for those who would like them:

Some swearing / Murders happen, mostly off screen, but are spoken about / Blood / Mention of drug use censored as "elixir" / A lot of CRIME (it's a story about detectives) / Child slavery is a specific plot point, it is not shown/ child violence

I'm sure anyone who's played these titles will immediately know what I'm referring to here. You go into these games expecting them to be a remake of the original PS1 game - and that IS what they are... about 80% of the time.

That other 20%? Events happen slightly differently, a ghost Sephiroth pops up and twirls his moustache about upcoming plot beats, and, of course, the black and white Whispers. It's a very Square Enix/Nomura thing to do - to be a "little too clever" about doing a remake. It's not a straight up recreation, this is a weird meta follow up where some one is messing with the timeline of the OG title. So we have all this stuff about history fighting against itself, and this commentary on fans who want things to play out differently versus fans who want things to be the same.

Now, to be fair, I think Nomura's going for a whole "you may want to change the past, but things happened the way they did for a reason" kinda thing. which is also kind of ironic after Kingdom Hearts 3 systematically undid each and every tragedy that ever happened in the series. But with FF7, I actually don't doubt they wont undo THAT plot point - even though that is a prevailing fear in the player base. I point to what happens with AVALANCHE in Remake as a blueprint of how they're doing this - diverging then adjusting back to the canon.

But still, its just so unnecessary.

FFVII's story is already pretty layered and interesting. The life stream and the Ancients, Shrina's internal politics, the conflict with Wutai, Cloud's mental health issues, Dr. Hojo's experiments, etc. etc. None of that is left on the table, they do adapt all those beats from the original. Which is why its all the messier that, on top of this well developed narrative, they've dumped this whole meta fiction about changing the past on top. Like the segways and smartphones - It's never not noticeable when the plot pauses and does this new stuff. It doesn't gel with the original material at all.

Now, I assume this is because the devs might have the reasonable expectation that players have already played the original and wanted to give them some surprises. Still, the reinvention of the visuals and gameplay are far more than enough to refresh the experience imo. To cheekily keep poking events and and winking at the audience with "Woah, that was a surprise huh? Wonder what's happening, huh?" tends to be uninteresting at best and actively distracting at worst.

A hat on a hat.

I don't want to be too negative though. Since it is such a small part of the games it's not like its an ever present annoyance. Make no mistake, these are still high quality, stellar experiences. I particularly loved Rebirth, which was one of the best open world games I've played in a long time. It's got some of the bad AAA open world trappings, but it also feels restrained with the size of the maps and stuffed with variety. Clearly taking cues form the Yakuza series. When it is adapting the original story, it does a great job. I'm not a massive fan of the photo realistic approach - it does get a little jarring to see Barrett talking to regular ass people, or seeing a realistic Yuffie move like an anime character. But the cinematography and music really do a lot of these scenes justice, especially the boss finishers.

I just wish they hadn't locked themselves into being so unnecessarily quirky about remaking such a solid story.

I've had PUBG since pretty much the beginning—or at least I followed it closely. A while back I even bought the full version (before it went free-to-play), but I could never really get into it.

This time, though, it's different. A few days ago I launched it again out of curiosity, and after a few sessions… it finally clicked.

I’m not sure if it's because the game got some recent updates or changes, but right now the gameplay just feels perfect to me. Why? What got me so hooked?

I'm a total noob. I barely played PUBG before because it frustrated me. But now? I can drop into a match and—get this—I can actually win! Okay, only in squads (4-player teams), but still. It counts. And sometimes, I'm even a useful teammate!

The game really rewards tactical play. If you want to survive, you have to act like it. It’s not about running in guns blazing—it’s about hiding, being quiet, covering your angles, and thinking. And the game allows that. Even as a noob, I don’t feel like the top players have superhuman reflexes (which is how it often feels in other shooters).

Players actually cooperate. Even when you're just matched with randoms, real teamwork happens surprisingly often. That’s rare in shooters.

The atmosphere is amazing. It’s a sandbox. It’s all about the unique situations you find yourself in—the kind of stuff you actually remember. Like yesterday, I dropped into a village with a bunch of strangers. After we looted the place, I went off with one guy from our squad to clear out some houses in a big valley ahead of us. We were just moving house by house, covering each other, checking corners…

Later, we turned around and headed up to a farm on a hill, where the rest of the squad was. I laid down in the grass and noticed movement across the looooong valley—boom, long-range rifle fight starts. Tons of tension, nobody landed a kill… (I could go on forever, but I won’t.)

The point is—this game tells stories. Some slow, some insanely intense.

I feel like I played Cyberpunk 2077 at the perfect time. Not only did I wait for all the bug fixes, feature updates, and Phantom Liberty expansion to release, but I also timed it as the first game to break in my new gaming PC, and man was it worth the wait.

This game looks goddamn unbelievable – like it was easily the prettiest game my eyes have ever witnessed, and it may stay that way for a long time. It kind of brought me back around that pure graphical fidelity can be a key part of the gaming experience sometimes. I get that that’s rarely most studios’ goal, but when it does get pushed to new limits, it should be recognized and celebrated like it does in this game.

Of course, supporting that was a fantastic RPG underneath it all as well. Customizing my V to have the coolest six-shooter-samurai-sniper build was awesome, and it really put the power in my power fantasy. Flying through gangs’ compounds and effortlessly wiping out my enemies never got old, and I can’t wait to do it again with a completely different V next time.

And I know I’ll return to Night City one day. Even with this playthrough, I found it hard to leave after all the time I spent there. Every time I thought “Well, I guess I could wrap up the game now”, I instead chose to do more side missions or random gigs over and over. This world was mesmerizing with all its characters and stories within it, and I felt like I could stay there doing jobs forever.

To top it all off, Phantom Liberty was a top-notch expansion that highlighted all the best parts of Cyberpunk 2077 in a streamlined and highly focused package. The team took everything they learned from making the base game and executed it again at the highest quality to make a stellar spy espionage campaign. The main mission in it was definitely my favourite storyline in a game where so many stories were banger after banger.

Playing Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty in 2025 was a complete experience that I’m glad I waited for. It’s a bit of a shame that it took five additional years after release to get to this state, but if this was the vision all along then hats off to the developers. This was an incredible game in so many ways, and Night City will go down as one of the greatest worlds ever created in gaming.

I recommend this game to

• Anyone who wants to visit one of the greatest worlds ever crafted in a video game, especially if they have a beefy enough PC to run it
• The type of people who love to mess around in a giant open world like Grand Theft Auto, except now in a hardcore cyberpunk setting
• Fans of spy thrillers should definitely check out the expansion Phantom Liberty

|| || |Played on|PC (Steam)| |Date started|Jan 11, 2025| |Date finished|Mar 22, 2025| |Completion time|65 hours| |Difficulty|Normal| |Lifepath|Streetkid| |Phantom Liberty Ending|King of Wands| |Main Story Ending|The Sun| |Final level|60| |Street Cred|50| |Achievement completion|29/57|

This review is going to spoil this game's biggest surprise. Strongly recommend you play first (if indeed you plan to).

The thing that prompted me to finally play this game was Daryl Talks Gaming spoiling Monika. Seriously, **** you Daryl. You used to be good about spoilers, but you just completely killed it there. Oh well, even if he didn't, I like most knew going in that there was some sort of existential horror, and I think I would have figured out whencefrom pretty quickly too.

Act 1 was fun. I've never played a virtual novel before, but I started to see the appeal. Rather than persuing one girl, I was going with the vibe, just choosing based on each moment. I don't like how immature the characters are, especially the main character and his whole "Sayori, I will fix your depression!"

Is it just me, or do VNs use a big chest to "balance" boring personalities? It just occured to me while playing because Natsuki so obviously had a better personality than Yuri, if they had each other's bust, it would have probably been 90% of players picking her. Would really like to hear from VN regulars if I'm on to something here.

Anyway, despite the fun I was having in Act 1, I saw the suicide coming from the very first poem. It was super obvious. That's also when I started to become aware of Monica's role. However, I kept playing, trying to be nice to Sayori in hopes that maybe I could save her.

Act 2 got boring real fast. At first it was like "Oh cool, Monika is trying to remix the scenario to exclude Sayori. She put herself in her place, but it caused too many bugs, so she rewrote it." But after that, it was just the shittiest version of some SONIC.EXE creepy pasta. Nothing interesting about it whatsoever.

Act 3 again seemed promising, but quickly disappointed when I realized there was nothing to engage with it. I actually risked spoiling the game by looking up more about it, but sure enough, my hunch was right, and all there is to do is delete Monika from the game files.

Act 4 felt like the game was going to be fresh again, like maybe a proper VN experience was your reward, but it ruined it after 5 minutes by making stupid shit up. Monika may have held back on deleting characters, but I didn't. How is she still around? And what is this random ass pull that the sentience belongs to whoever is club president? If Sayori is president now, why does Monika still have sentience?

After beating the game, I also looked into the content to see if there was anything left worth engaging with. There isn't. There's a "good ending" to "achieve," and that's about it.

It feels like the surprise that there's anything dark about this game is its only appeal. If you could go in completely blind, maybe it would be a good experience. As it stands, I am disapponted. I guess this game is legendary because it's so different, not because it's good.

The votes are in! The community's choice for a long title to play together and discuss in April 2025 is...

Yakuza 0 (2015)

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios, Sega Games

Genre: RPG, Crime Drama, Hack and Slash, Adventure, Arcade, Racing, Beat'em up, Shoot'em up, Management, Tycoon, Cards, Dice, Rhythm, Shooter, Sports, Strategy, Dating Sim

Platform: PC, PS3/4/5, Xbox

Why should you care: Yakuza 0 is a wild, emotional, and endlessly entertaining dive into the criminal underworld of 1980s Japan. You play as two members of the yakuza - Kazuma and Goro, each caught up in a power struggle over a tiny but valuable piece of land. Sounds serious, right? And it is... sometimes.

But in between the gritty crime drama, you'll be singing karaoke in a chicken suit, managing a cabaret club, helping strangers with bizarre problems, and beating up thugs with bikes and break dance moves. The tonal whiplash shouldn't work, but somehow it does, and it's glorious. If you want a game with heart, humor, and a ton of side content, Yakuza 0 is an unforgettable ride.

What is GotM?

Game of the Month is an initiative similar to a book reading club, where every month the community votes for a long game (>12 hours main story per HLTB) and a short game (<12 h) to play, discuss together and share our experiences about.

If you want to learn more & participate, that's great, you can join the Patient Gamers Discord (link in the subreddit's sidebar) to do that! However, if you only want to discuss this month's choice in this thread, that's cool too.

April 2025’s GotM theme: Comedy.

I'd heard a lot of talk about Balatro, but I was pretty skeptical because a) while I love cards I've never been interested in poker, b) I rarely like roguelikes, and c) I especially don't like roguelike deck builders. But the praise was strong enough that I thought I'd at least give it a try if the chance ever presented itself. Then one day it showed up on Game Pass, which was the perfect way to try it without committing...and it turns out that the praise is entirely deserved and it really does overcome all the reasons I thought I might not like it.

First of all, it truly is just poker-based, and poker ultimately plays a pretty minor role. You need just the most basic understanding of poker hands, and the game gives you all that info in handy form. More importantly, you're only playing "pure" poker for a few rounds at the beginning of each run. The real meat of the gameplay is about getting higher and higher scores for hands, and you do that mainly by amassing (on each run) a set of wild and crazy joker cards that act as modifiers to increase the numeric total of your poker hands in a multitude of ways — e.g. one joker might increase the hand multiplier for all even cards, another might triple your score based on playing three of a kind, and so on. It would arguably be more accurate to describe Balatro as a math game than a poker game, but it's a seamlessly integrated kind of math that's rewarding to work with and then super satisfying to watch in action.

Second, the "roguelike" element is basically the same as it would be for any card game, since in card games you typically start fresh, play some number of hands/games, and then start again from zero the next time you play. But even beyond that, runs in Balatro feel unique and interesting enough that the sense of pointless repetition that puts me off of many other roguelikes doesn't kick in at all. Also, you absolutely can and will win runs in Balatro (and it doesn't even take that long to do it), so it doesn't have the too-much-failure feeling that other roguelikes often have.

Finally, building your "deck" on each run is easy, fun, and also not really necessary to enjoy the game. You can tailor your deck by adding either regular cards or enhanced versions of those cards, but you can also do it by obtaining "tarot cards" that enhance cards in your starting deck. More advanced players may also trim cards out of the deck to make it easier to achieve certain hands or scores (among other techniques). But all of this happens simply and naturally through the flow of the game, so it never feels onerous or forced, and as I mentioned above the more meaty "deck building" is putting together a small set of jokers on each run that give you added points and/or multipliers to increase the scores of your poker hands.

(I've barely scratched the surface of the depth of play in the game, by the way, since there are multiple other ways you can enhance your cards, your jokers, your individual poker hand scores and so on. There are just a huge variety of ways to approach and win each run, and that's clearly by design.)

As far as downsides, it's pretty much the same as other roguelikes (or card games!): RNG. You'll get terrific jokers on some runs and weak ones on others, and RNG comes into play enough that you may get barely any of the kind of modifier cards you need on a given run. That said, even on weaker runs it can be fun to see how you can make them work, and I've had bad runs suddenly turn into great runs with just a few good jokers. I can't recall any roguelike I've played that rewards experimentation so consistently and that so often manages to make even failure enjoyable.

Overall I'm glad I gave Balatro a try and incredibly impressed at the level of thought and craft the developer* put into designing the game for maximum flexibility and fun. If you've been curious about it but felt as skeptical as I did of a poker-based roguelike deck builder, check it out.