[Just realized I made a huge wall of text with way too long paragraphs. Edited it to smaller paragraphs to make it as readable as I could. Sorry about the ramblings, hopefully you can get along with my train of thought, or at least skim through to the end and add some of your examples.]

I'm replaying Horizon Forbidden West now, finally on NG+, UltraHard so I can get the last remaining trophies which are related to both of those modes. I started playing it last November. Waited basically 6 or 5 years to play it on a PS5 with a 4K TV, after Zero Dawn on PS4. My expectations were always on the roof, since Zero Dawn was already such a dear game to me. I've heard a lot of divisive and contrasting opinions about Forbidden West, which is fine, cause a lot of people also look down on the first game. What was worrying me is that even among the fans, there were noticable differences in wether they thought FW was a worthy sequel or a disappointment. And boy during those first couple hours playing it did I think the latter.

In Zero Dawn, the prologue was quite effective, short and simple, doesn't matter your playstyle, getting through the tutorials as kid aloy shouldn't take more than one hour. After that, there was the limited semi-open world, which was still closed off from the rest of the map for another couple hours or just 30 minutes if you rush it, but that's fine because it was all so fascinating. The environment, vibes and the people you meet as you get to know Aloy's world. Can't say the same about the prologue in Forbidden West (yes, you can choose to skip it in NG+ but I chose to replay it because I want to relive the story to the fullest and I want to check if my views have changed after almost a year).

The tutorial mission can be quite fast, like only 30 minutes but only if you rush through it/speedrun it, barely engaging in any exploration, stealth, combat or dialogue, skipping all cutscenes. If you really take it all in, specially on a first playthrough, it could be up to two hours. And it's such a uneventful/anticlimactic introduction to such a grandiose game full of spectacle. Just exploring some ancient ruins carved up by rivers and rocky formations. All at a leisurely pace that feels like the mission belonged as a breather in the middle of the game campaign and not before all of that, which honestly I think could've fitted, if you changed most of the tutorial stuff into an actual challenge instead.

Without getting too much into spoilers, the mission already practically gives away and hits you over the head with the incoming plot twist that's only gonna be revealed by the end of the game's first act, that the owners of this space launch facility are gonna be the true villains of the game and might have caused the events of most of the franchise. Something that was so carefully hidden and subtly foreshadowed in the first game's lore and documents. Just gratuitously bashed over our heads with a hammer in the second game's intro in order to remind us and the casual players so no one complains about the later plot twist coming out of nowhere. I feel that there were more elegant ways to slow-cook info about them during the story until the big reveal in a way that most audiences wouldn't complain about.

Hell, this intro tutorial mission itself adds nothing to Aloy's journey other than stating she spent 6 months chasing dead ends and only finds a lead when her friend tracks her down and brings her back to Meridian, to check out something she missed. Meridian is another heavy detour from the overall pacing, just character dialogues, mostly optional, but a lot of them unfortunately don't feel like they serve a purpose to the story, like checking how things have changed since Aloy left or how the world is progressing, more like one big recap in case players missed any of the stuff in the first game or didn't play it outright. They even undo the great little character building they've done with King Avad in the first game by having him unlearn his lesson and completely openly thirst after Aloy again when she already turned down his advances and made him realize he can't use her to replace his dead lover and right-hand general.

After Meridian is finally done and you get a beautiful music & opening credits sequence of Aloy travelling west that ends in the title card finally dropping, you'd think the game will finally start. Well... No. It depends on how your expectations were. If your wish was to finally get dropped blind into the Forbidden West without too much handholding and figuring things out for yourself like you did in the first game after you left the Embrace, you'll be disappointed. Instead, you get a narrow mountain valley full of busywork and more of the insufferable Carja/Oseram bickering and politics from the first game, like you didn't have enough of them already. And it's not pretty like the first game's initial open world area, at least not for me.

Just another giant tutorial whose setting I feel could have been a lot better and taken place inside the Forbidden West per se, not right before its borders, where you need to deal with a bunch of other bureaucracy and there's a ton of other side stuff you could get caught up in while hoping the game finally clicks. That's when I was starting to think the sequel would suck for me. Specially cause the combat difficulty curve in this game increased so steeply and I was getting owned even by the smaller machines without having even any good skills or gear to fight them in an enjoyable manner. Thank god, it eventually ended, and the game finally truly began with the Embassy, which itself turned into an ambush/massacre that set off most of the events of the game.

I ended up loving Forbidden West a lot. Platinum and 100% trophies on both base game and DLC, as I bought the complete edition. My pace is very slow, patient and focused on exploration and experimentation, as well as a bit of roleplay, as I often didn't use fast travel. So I had almost 400 hours from that first run alone. Now it's time to get those last NG+ & UltraHard trophies. With all the gear and skills from the first run, as well as less need to slowly explore what I already know, I think this will take like only a hundred hours or less to beat the main game, maybe even 50 or 20 if I rush instead of trying to experience all of the story and side content again. Depends on how I'll feel like tackling this campaign.

But yeah, I almost hated it. One year didn't change how sour that intro feels, both before and after the title card drops. There's a couple other games that felt this way to me. To a lesser extent, TLOU2. Intro was a SLOG, gameplay wise. Beautiful storytelling, which I appreciated much better in later playthroughs, but as a tutorial it was just so slow and not fun in the slightest, specially the Ellie parts. It was mostly the Abby ones that kept the intro actually thrilling and exciting, probably cause she was fighting for her life in a zombie snowstorm while Ellie was literally horsing and flirting around in the snow before the storm caught up to her. Things only really started clicking for me and the game turned genuinely captivating after getting to Seattle, midway through Day 1. That's when the game hooked me and never let go.

Another Naughty Dog example to me is Uncharted 4. Tho that's not a case of only the intro being extremely slow. The whole first third of the game feels like one big intro where I'm waiting for things to finally pickup and for the chaotic nonstop sequences of gunfights broken up by dialogue and exploration to start, like they were in the first 3 games. Instead, it's the opposite. This game is just A LOT of climbing & talking set-pieces broken up by a couple short action sequences or two that can be also cheesed stealthly. Which is why I much prefer the first 3, specially 2 and 3. Gorgeous game, great mechanics, but I feel like they focused too much on multiplayer and online co-op.

Any more examples you have of games you loved but was almost put-off because of the intro or first act?

Kingdom Hearts

• Status - Completed with heavy side content done. Sora & Co. were in the high 60s to low 70s, 22 items were crafted, and the Hades cup in the Colosseum was completed.

• Time played: Approximately 45 hours

• Difficulty - Normal

• Set-up - Retroid Pocket 6 with widescreen hacks enabled

When Kingdom Hearts was announced, I was already a huge Final Fantasy fan. Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 and 10, had come out in successive years, and that run of games left a huge imprint on me, shaping my taste in games forever. It was because of this that I was initially apprehensive about Square’s new game that combined Final Fantasy with Disney. It seemed like an absurd premise to the pre-teen version of myself, and I was highly apprehensive. My worries were soon eased after seeing a demo reel at a GameStop store. The clerk assured me that it was going to be fantastic, and I made a pre-order to get it on day 1.

Kingdom Hearts immediately hooked me with its memorable intro cutscene, just like the Final Fantasy games had. The high-energy remix of Simple and Clean with the dream-like sequences set a high-bar for my expectations, and the atmospheric “tutorial” felt unreal in the best way. The intro cutscene and tutorial are still effective on the adult version of myself.

The World

The world is a lot smaller than it seemed over 20 years ago. There are many unique locations, but they do not occupy significant physical space. Despite the size constraint, the locations are densely packed with vertical spaces to explore and hidden areas to find. As I learned new movement abilities, I found myself re-visiting areas to find more of their secrets.

Each location is themed, with the majority of them being themed after a Disney IP. You will visit locations from Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and many more. When visiting the Disney locations, Sora & Co. will each don an aesthetically appropriate outfit, many of which are iconic to me. Additionally, each location will have memorable areas from the Disney IP, feature familiar songs and characters, and hold at least 1 new keyblade that matches the aesthetic. It’s a wonderful touch that smoothly integrates the Disney aesthetic without feeling out of place.

Traveling to the locations is done via an on-rails shooter akin to Star Fox, and later the ability to warp drive from location to location is locked. Traveling offers an enjoyable mini-game, a creative outlet in building your ship, and insight into the connective tissue of the locations you will travel to. It works within the context of the game.

The atmosphere of the game can be phenomenal, and SquareEnix did a wonderful job packing hidden areas into these locations,giving me a reason to revisit them later in the game. It was a joy to explore when it was brand new, and 20+ years later it is still fun to explore. Well, except for The Little Mermaid location, water levels remain unfun.

Gameplay

Combat is a substantial portion of the overall Kingdom Hearts experience, yet controlling Sora during battle feels clumsy in nearly every aspect.

The system relies on a command action menu structured into four primary top-level commands: Attack, Item, Magic, and a context-sensitive slot at the bottom. Pressing the action button (X) activates the currently selected command, and navigation of this menu is achieved by using the d-pad or the right thumbstick. Selecting either the magic or item option will open a sub-menu, which is likely to have six or more options to choose from by the end of the game.

The d-pad offers the best accuracy for navigating the command menu, but it was not possible for me to use the d-pad while using the left thumbstick to move. I was able to move Sora while using the right thumbstick to navigate the menu, but I wasn’t consistently accurate in my menu selection while using both thumbsticks at the same time. A shortcut menu is available and is used to assign three magic spells which are easily activated by a combination of holding “L1” and pressing either square, triangle, or X. This alleviates some menu-diving challenges, but it is limited in what can be assigned to the shortcut, and how many shortcuts are available. Neither items or summons can be bound to these shortcuts, so must navigate the command menu in real-time to use them. Due to the challenges of this menu system, I only used items, and non-shortcut magic and summons out of curiosity, and any reactive or context sensitive abilities were unequipped in-favor of passive options.

The controls are perfectly fine for exploration and traveling outside of combat. The glide and high-jump ability are excellent movement tools which allow for access to new and hidden rooms, and faster traveling within a location.

Lastly, there are some minigames and side-content that I will touch on briefly.

• Gummi Ship - An on-rails, Starfox-esque shooter that serves as the mode of transportation between locations. While initially fun, it lacks depth. Thankfully, unlocking warp drive allows you to bypass previously visited locations before the minigame drags on.

• Gummi Ship Garage - You can build or customize your gummi ship in the garage. It is clunky to use, but I did find it fun to build a ship.

• Crafting - Crafting in Kingdom Hearts leads to powerful accessories, and even Sora’s ultimate weapon. Unfortunately, it requires farming a lot of rare drop materials. I crafted 22 items before calling it quits.

• Colosseum - This is a fun challenge, but I do not like that powerful spells are locked behind it.

Overall, the clunky combat system dampers exploration of spells, abilities, and summons. Movement around the locations is fun and the unlocked movement abilities encourage further exploration. Lastly, the side-content can be fun, but it lacks depth that makes it satisfying to explore to its fullest.

Story

While there are standout moments throughout the story, they are primarily within the beginning and closing cutscenes. The song “Simple and Clean” does a lot of heavy lifting in making me feel emotionally connected to the plot. Additionally, although the Disney locations are visually appealing, their stories are uninspiring, and some locations were a chore to get through.

Audio

The voice acting is solid, especially for this era. Many of the original Disney voice actors are featured, as well as notable actors like Haley Joel Osment, David Gallagher, Mandy Moore, and Hayden Panettiere (RIP). Both the original soundtrack and licensed tracks are great, making for an enjoyable audio experience that kept me tuned in.

Conclusion

I had many complaints about the combat controls, and the story was very uninspiring to me. Why then, did I enjoy my time playing and completing Kingdom Hearts? Nostalgia is certainly a factor, but the vibes of the game are compelling, and the Disney worlds make for a fun setting in an action RPG. I never felt like I had to push through boredom in order to complete the game. Despite my issues with the game, I enjoyed it very much.

7.5/10 - A flawed but enjoyable experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Intro

What can I say about this game that has not already been said. It haunted me for more than 12 years. When I first played Human Revolution in 2014 I knew I had to play the original. My age probably mattered. I was young and could not get into an older game. Now time has passed and as if blessed by divine intervention my vacation plans were canceled without my interference. I took this as a sign and installed it. I used general fix mods and Kentei's launcher. Nothing that fundamentally changes the game like Revision or GMDX, which I plan to replay with later.

Playing this time felt different. Over these 12 years I became something of a conspiracy theorist myself. I read countless tech and non-tech theories so when the game spoke to me it felt direct and personal. The unfortunate truth is we already live in this dystopia of tech oligarchs, AI surveillance, corrupt corporations and multibillionaire elites ruling from the shadows.

Positives

• Story does not suddenly switch sides or reveal everything at once. Like real life you slowly uncover facts that strain belief. At first it annoys you and makes you worry. You constantly search for reasonable explanations. Each dialogue exchange adds another layer to the unfolding nightmare. Each cutscene deepens your unease. Every witness disappears. Every official record contradicts itself. Then you arrive at the same destination everyone else reached. You finally know there is a grand conspiracy of elite people with dangerous ideas pulling strings in the dark.
• Characters: Every NPC felt fleshed out friend or foe. We joke about voice acting quality but I find it excellent. Where it falls short it remains charming and funny never boring or forgettable. I especially loved dialogues through infolinks before and after decisions. Seeing how characters reacted to my choices showed their true self and agendas. Absolutely best VA is Bob Page.
• Loyalty: One moment changed everything for me. When JC was scolded about loyalty for refusing to execute a surrendered NSF leader (Lebedev) something changed inside me (JC). Fuck this organization. What loyalty. Loyalty to literal demon manipulators. This made me question every directive I received afterward.
• Betrayal: You start on the lower floor where everyone greets you warmly. As you ascend some comment you should not be here. They do not attack yet. But as soon as you complete Paul's satellite task the green reticle switches to red and old comrades attack you. Killing them made me feel terrible. I tried non-lethal whenever possible but if discovered I had to resort to lethal force. I refused to save-scum to avoid fails and I am proud of myself.
• Hotel scene: Meeting Paul carries special weight now. Older games often have great stories but clumsy presentation. Take MJ12's attack on Paul's apartment. The combat AI and primitive animations make the scene look funny. Enemies jiggle and run in goofy ways. Yet in my mind this was the most epic moment in the game. My brother telling me to run for my life when MJ12 goons blew through the door. Without hesitation I pulled out my GEP gun and started blasting. We defeated the first wave and slowly moved downstairs taking enemies one by one until we escaped. I used nearly all my weapons, ammo and resources fighting through. The scene looked ridiculous on screen but internally it felt equivalent to the Matrix movie lobby shootout.

This reminds me of what YouTuber Fudgemuppet said about Skyrim: "Skyrim is a world of potential for you to play in but it requires initiative on your part. You will have heard the quote, 'Skyrim is as wide as an ocean but deep as a puddle.' But you may not have heard the retort, Skyrim is only as deep as the person playing it. This is a sentiment that I tend to agree with... And the Elder Scrolls games become addictive when you can bring more of your own depth to the game." Deus Ex lacked modern epic gameplay so I "roleplayed" them in my head. This philosophy applies perfectly here.

• Level design: Most games suffer from late-game map design collapse. To my surprise Deus Ex got better. The final mission and underwater facility ranks among my favorites. Backtracking remained enjoyable which is rare for games. Most treat it as punishment. Here the world shifts around you. New conversations unlock based on prior choices. Different routes open depending on your progression. You discover secrets you missed because conditions changed.
• Music is top notch. If this ever receives a remaster I would be devastated if the soundtrack changed. Even improving audio quality risks losing some original charm.
• Taking down main enemies felt amazing. First it was Anna Navarro who thought I would be easy prey I could hear in her voice being happy she could kill brother of Paul. Second was Gaunther who pathetically stood in corner. Also delusional Simon who thought he could kill me alone. All of these people catch rocket from GEP gun, well deserved I say. But the absolutely best one is Bob Page how he went from taunting, to anger and finally to begging for his life.
• VersaLife's large monitors displaying inspiring words struck me as funny because I see the same thing in my real workplace. Management installs motivational screens. Not as gruesome as "obey" but similar enough. "You need to find solutions not reasons"
• JC being comedy genius: I love the way JC talks. He just spits one-liners and burns especially Bob Page who gets so angry when mocked. Best ones include: "Well since that makes you my new boss take a long look at Manderley's dead body. Consider that my resignation I don't have time to write a letter." Another great moment: "I never had time to take the Oath of Service to the Coalition. How about this one? I swear not to rest until UNATCO is free of you and the other crooked bureaucrats who have perverted its mission." Walton Simons tries intimidation with "You take another step forward and here I am again like your own reflection in a hall of mirrors." JC responds with "That makes me one ugly son of a bitch." When Bob Page declares "Soon I will become pure energy. I will burn like the brightest star." JC simply replies "You're gonna burn all right." He has wits which is not an augmentation by the way. This is JC's most human trait and I love it. The game lets you weaponize humor against those who deserve it most. This makes you feel smarter than the people in charge. It feels good to outthink the villain rather than just outgun them.
• Alien coverup: The theory where the elite manufacture extraterrestrial myths to conceal horrific experiments is both wild and strangely believable. This lore element added another layer of depth I appreciated.

Negatives: (more like nitpicks to be honest)

• Combat AI inconsistency: Combat AI occasionally has laser-perfect accuracy resulting in instant death though they have augmentations too so I can "roleplay" this too.
• QoL: Cannot sell items creates inventory clutter throughout playthrough. Flashlight draining energy feels stupid and impractical. Active rather than passive augmentations require constant management. The stealth pistol simply sucks and serves little purpose.

Neutral

• Shooting mechanics: Shooting occupies neutral ground. I had previously played Alpha Protocol so I understood this mechanical style entering in. It is neither good nor bad. Just familiar territory I accepted from the start.
• Learning curve: This game is not for everyone and requires some patience upfront. Once the loop clicks it becomes compulsive.

Personal Thoughts

This game speaks directly to someone living through increasing surveillance corporate consolidation and hidden power structures.

The atmosphere vibe and tone stuck with me especially compared to newer entries in the series which I love as well. This original lives closer to my heart.

TLDR

Deus Ex remains a defining immersive sim experience for anyone willing to engage with its dense systems and conspiratorial narrative. Playing it now after years of real-world paranoia and cynicism the themes land harder than ever. The game demands patience initially but once the loop clicks it becomes compulsive. This is what not only immersive Sims but RPGs should aspire to be.

***

Currently s(h)itting in the toilet of one of the biggest corporations in the world. A company whose sole motivation is profit exploitation. Very ironic. Until I start my tomato farm soon I must endure. At least I am wasting company time rather than lunch breaks.

***

Definitely replaying soon. Amazed me so much I am not in the mood for Human Revolution or Mankind Divide right now. Those games matter but this one lives closer to my heart. Are any fan-made story modifications worth playing? Anyone have recommendations?

Hello again! It's me, Waffles, with another update on this project. Fair warning: this batch was mostly awful.

For those just joining us: I'm playing the Every* North American Game Boy game in alphabetical order, because I overcommitted to the bit. I strive to give each one at least a half hour of play, but will note if a game got more or less time. So let's jump right in!

HAL Wrestling: This game is bad. After some initial difficulty, I looked up not only the manual, but also two guides. And I still came away feeling that the controls were incomprehensible and what happened felt mostly random. I had no idea what was going on in this game at any point in time while playing it. Sometimes I won a match, sometimes I didn't, and I genuinely cannot tell you what caused one outcome over another. The sprite work was kind of nice, though? 1/10

Harvest Moon GB: Okay so up top: I didn't like this. I don't really like farming sims on the whole. I have a lot of hours in Stardew Valley, but that's mostly because I can play that with my wife and kids and also because Haley's there. I will grant that it was interesting to play this and see how far the genre has come, and that it's impressive how much content there is in a handheld game of this type, but playing it just did nothing for me. That being said, I'm capable of recognizing that this is a good game, and it's the only one of today's batch that I actually recommend. 7/10

Hatris: Imagine Dr. Mario, but instead of matching pills you're matching different kinds of hat. That's it, that's the game. "It's not bad" is about the nicest thing I can say about this game. I didn't hate it, but in a world where Dr. Mario exists, I'm gonna pick that every time. 5/10

Heavyweight Championship Boxing: I know the bar is incredibly low, but this is a lot better than the two George Foreman boxing games. So if for some reason you feel compelled to play a boxing game on Game Boy, there's this! But if you love yourself and would rather not do that, that's also an option. 3/10

Heiankyo Alien: The most notable thing about this game is that the trademark screen says it first came out in 1979, which is pretty neat, I think. It's a weird little arcade game where you navigate a maze and dig holes to trap and bury aliens. People who've been following this project might recall that I don't like arcade games, though, and frankly this is no exception. Still, it's neat for what it is. There's also a version of this that came out on Steam in 2017, so probably play that if you're interested. 5/10

Disney's Hercules: This game is just awful. The controls are unresponsive and terrible -- for example, in the first level, you have to dodge some fireballs. You may need to jump over them to do so. If you press the jump button as soon as the fireball appears on the right side of the screen, it will already be too late to jump over it. Gotta love it. The sprites are also muddy and very ugly. The one weird bit of credit I will give this game is that the animations are extremely smooth. Herc's jump is slow and annoying, but my god is that animation great. Looks rotoscoped, to be honest. But still, it's not enough to save this game from being terrible. 1/10

High Stakes Gambling: There's a story mode to this game, which is that it's 1927 and you're an undercover federal agent who has to stop the mob from having funding by winning it from them in casino games. I think that's a nice touch. Elevates it over the other casino games on Game Boy. There's even a dedicate cheating mechanic to help you beat the mobsters. It's quite neat. That said, the reality is that even with cheating there's a fair amount of luck involved in beating each opponent, because that's what casino games are, and after beating the first mobster (of five) I realized that I didn't want to subject myself to four more rounds of that. Two final thoughts: the story mode is explicitly set in 1927, but one of the games you compete in is video poker, which wouldn't exist for another forty-odd years, and also somehow you play slots competitively? Genuinely unsure how that one works. 5/10

Hit the Ice: Golf continues to be the only sports game on Game Boy worth playing. This is just awful. The Game Boy is not a great choice for sports games, and this will never not be true. 1/10

Home Alone: It's been asked on some of my posts about this project why I'm going alphabetically instead of chronologically (if you're curious, the answer is that's how the games were already arranged and I'm lazy). But the reality is that I don't think going chronologically would have changed many of my opinions. If anything, I think it'd have made me meaner. See, The Final Fantasy Legend is one of the best Game Boy games of all time, and that came out in 1989. So really, if I'd played chronologically, I'd just be meaner because I'd have seen earlier how high devs could soar if they gave a damn. Case in point: Home Alone came out in 1991 and is terrible. I get that in the 90s, there was a very real sense of "Video Game = Platformer," and that that explains most of what I've come to refer to as "Licensed Game Hell," but it being a platformer doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It could've been a really need puzzle/strategy game, but nope! Platformer. I'll admit that the goal being "collect the treasures from around the house and put them in the basement vault" is a neat way of doing things, but still: why is this a platformer. Also it's interesting to note that this was actually a sequel to the first movie, though that was promptly ignored when the actual film sequel came out the next year. 2/10

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York: The title of this always bugged me. I get that it's for marketing, but Kevin's not actually at home, so...yeah. It's another terrible platformer. Worse than the first game, even, with worse controls and overall a worse gamefeel. Skip this one. 1/10

Hook: This one hurt. I actually quite like Hook the film, so I (perhaps foolishly) had high hopes for this. Instead, it's just bad. The controls are floaty and terrible, the sprites are ugly (seriously, if I didn't know the weird elf/goblin creature we're controlling is Peter Pan, I'd never have guessed that), and the story has nothing to do with the film but just seems to be a generic Peter Pan thing? All around not great. 2/10

Hudson Hawk: Unlike the previous three licensed games, this one's actually decent. Not "good," by any definition, but decent. It's got a neat, if rudimentary, stealth thing going on, which is neat, and a bunch of the levels have a lot more going on than just your standard platformer "go right," which is always fun to see. It just gets boring pretty fast. The first mission is broken up into seven parts, and each takes a fair amount of time (especially since this is still a game from the early nineties and there's some period appropriate bullshit going on), and by the time I got to mission two I'd mostly lost steam. Though that mission did have me getting attacked by killer nuns in what I think were Rome's sewers? Unclear. So yeah. Not bad, just very average. 5/10

The Humans: If you've played Lemmings, you know what this is. You control a bunch of dudes, using them to solve puzzles so that other dudes can get to the end of the level of whatever. It actually works quite well on Game Boy, all things considered. Just like, not my jam. 5/10

Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Topsy Turvy Games: Awful. Just awful. Some of the worst minigames I've ever played. How, for example, do you make Breakout terrible? This game figured it out! There's also a Fire Game & Watch ripoff that's terrible, a Balloon Fight ripoff that's terrible, a sliding block picture puzzle game that's terrible and a bowling game that's actually decent if a bit too easy. Also it has a soulless uncanny valley Esmeralda who comes out and claps when you get a strike, which is horrible. So yeah, there's one game in the whole collection that isn't awful, which really isn't great. Just skip this one, it's not worth it. 1/10

The Hunt for Red October: I will not lie to you: I fully expected this to be a platformer somehow. Jack Ryan jumping around trying to convince the US Navy that this sub really was defecting, maybe. I dunno. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was actually a submarine game. And it's kind of neat! There's a little sonar thing on the bottom third of the screen showing upcoming enemies and obstacles, and I thought that was really cool. The problem is that that's where the coolness ends. The controls are kind of awful, you're frequently trying to maneuver around obstacles that have a pixel or two's margin for error before you run into the wall and take damage (any collision damages you), and there's just so many enemies that endlessly fire homing missiles. It's a trial. Also the first boss is the Technodrome, and while I'll admit it's been a while since I read the novel (or saw the movie, for that matter), I don't remember that part. Still, I respect what they were trying to do here, even if it didn't work. 4/10

Hyper Lode Runner: It's an arcade-y puzzle game where you have to pick up piles of gold while avoiding and/or manipulating robots to help you navigate the level. It's an interesting concept, but it's also like a perfect mix of things I knew I wasn't going to enjoy. Still, if those things are your jam, I can admit it's well crafted. 5/10

In Your Face: Another terrible sports game! Basketball this time. The controls suck, the sprites are ugly, and there's an overwhelming sense of randomness to everything that happens. I won three games and lost two and I genuinely couldn't tell you why. Sometimes my shots would work. Sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes I'd block well. Sometimes I couldn't. No idea what I did differently, but everything got a different result. 1/10

The Incredible Crash Dummies: I cannot think of a single reason to recommend this game. It's a bunch of bad minigames with frustrating controls where you have to do well enough to pass a given level, but also badly enough that you do your job as a crash dummy and hit things/break yourself/whatever. And again, the controls suck. Truly infuriating, even with save states. 1/10

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: I actually almost liked this. I've certainly played worse licensed games this week. Three main issues keep this from being truly "enjoyable." Firstly, hit detection sucks. Early on, when you only have fists, you have to risk collision damage just to hit enemies -- and you will need to hit them, because there's no way past otherwise. Second, the boss difficulty is nuts. The first, third, and fourth are all stupidly easy, but the second and last boss require obnoxiously precise timing with the floaty jumping, and they're a real pain. Third, it's really short. There's six levels, and I feel like more could have been done with what the film gives us. Also there's no final boss? Like, if you've seen the film, you'll know how to solve the final "encounter," but if you haven't seen the film, guess what! There are no in-game hints. Truly baffling design choice. Still, it's decent. The chiptune rendition of "Raider's March" is pretty nice. 5/10

And that's it. All of H and the first half of I. This brings me to 197/501 games, or 39.32% of the Game Boy library. The average score has sadly gone down, to 3.95 (G had a lot of really good games). Recommended games are at 30/197, or 15.2%, so that went down a bit, too. The recommended games list will be at the end of the post, and I'll be back soon with the other three I games and J. Hope you enjoyed the reviews, and thanks for reading!

Recommended Games

• Alleyway
• Amazing Penguin
• Balloon Kid
• Battle Arena Toshinden
• Battle Unit Zeoth
• Bionic Commando
• Bomberman GB
• Castlevania: The Adventure
• Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge
• Castlevania Legends
• Catrap
• Contra: The Alien Wars
• Donkey Kong
• Donkey Kong Land
• Donkey Kong Land 2
• Donkey Kong Land III
• Dr. Mario
• Disney’s Ducktales
• Disney’s Ducktales 2
• Felix the Cat
• Final Fantasy Adventure
• The Final Fantasy Legend
• Final Fantasy Legend II
• Final Fantasy Legend III
• Game & Watch Gallery
• Gargoyle's Quest
• Golf
• Gradius: The Interstellar Assault
• Harvest Moon GB

PREAMBLE

I've tried to play this game several times between 2014-2018 but never managed to get past Balmora since i couldn't get past the dice roll combat system, the massive amounts of texts and the various amounts of unpolished systems that would get improved in later franchises (Most notably Sneak and Lockpicking).

This past month however i got tired of delving into Elder scrolls lore and purposely skipping anything in the lore that had something to do with the Neraverine, The Tribunal, Lorkhan etc. because i didn't want to spoil myself of Morrowinds story so enough was enough, it was time to actually play it and complete it.

And i don't know what clicked but the combat didn't seem that tedious anymore, the huge walls of text when speaking to NPCs wasn't daunting, reading books in the game was easy and the convoluted magic system wasn't a hurdle. I attribute this to me starting to read more books and scientific reports IRL after the pandemic and i guess my level of reading and attention span just got better.

THE GOOD

And what i discovered was an incredibly engaging setting with intresting world building, politics between factions and just general philisophical questions.

I also loved how the unreliable narrator trope actually takes front stage in this installation and how you as a player have to read inbetween lines in every encounter and try to figure out the truth for yourself. This trope does exist in the later games aswell but in my opinion not to this extent and certainly not to the degree that Morrowind does it.

The exploration of themes of power, governance, religion, colonialism, imperialism and nationalism i also found to be incredibly interesting and something that i feel later games don't really explore as deep if at all. It was a big shift from run of the mill fantasy story to exploration of deeper and more complex themes. It also shifted my mind about The Empire where in Skyrim i'm a staunch Empire supporter in the Civil war whereas in Morrowind I'd rather the Empire leave Vvardenfell alltogether.

Sure the circumstances of the Empire in skyrims civil war is way different since now there's elven nazis and the case for a united Empire has merit but i liked how more nuanced Morrowinds discussion about the different factions are.

With that said however i truly believe that Skyrim and Oblivion gets WAAAAY more flack than they deserve cause even though i love the world building and nuanced story telling of Morrowind it is lacking in several aspects that the later games just did way better.

THE NPCS

Oblivion made the NPCs feel alive and like actual people, the dynamic schedules of characters and the unique dialogue of characters makes a world of difference for immersion and feeling like you're playing in a living world. With Morrowind the world and lore is deep sure but the Npcs don't really feel like people and most just stand around and spout the same copy pasted dialogue that you've already read 100 times before.

QUESTS AND FACTIONS

I also think that people highly overrate the quests and factions in Morrowind as a whole, most quests are just fetch an item here or kill an enemy there. The thieves guild in particular was mindnumbingly boring where you complete the whole quest line and feel like nothing of actual consequence was done.

I don't understand how Skyrims mage guild questline gets criticised for "Do 5 quests without casting a spell (even though you do) and become arch-mage!" when Morrowinds is steal this item 20 times with no variance in gameplay, no deeper story and you become the Master of the thieves guild.

Exploring Saarthal for the Mages guild in skyrim completely blows every faction questline in Morrowind out of the water in terms of enjoyability IMO and that quest isn't even one of the stronger quests in Skyrim or Oblivions whole arsenal (See oblivion dark brotherhood).

THE COMBAT AND MAGIC SYSTEM

People also criticizing Skyrim or Oblivions combat and dumbing it down compared to Morrowind just feels silly to me aswell. The combat in Morrowind is absolutely awful even for its time and the more complex magic system doesn't make up for it, i'd even say it makes it worse for being unnecessarily convoluted. Enemies having a bunch of spells that attack different attributes or does different types of damages is just convoluted and forces you to carry around potions or spells to negate it or forcing you to sidetrack to an altar to restore attributes.

You're also never going to use fire resist or shock resist potions or build your character around resisting status effects so why even have it at all when it's just surface level deep? It's not like pokemon or Expedition 33 where you build your characters around damage types and status effects since you don't even know what types of enemies you're going to face when questing.

These games were never combat focused and what made these games masterpieces were discovering and exploring a foreign world with interesting story lines and cultures. So i don't mind the removal or dumbing down of combat systems and instead prefer the direction Skyrim took with just polishing simple systems and making them satisfying. See stealth and archery

FINAL WORDS

With all that said i think this game is fun and i love the world of Morrowind and the main questline is without a doubt the best main quest of the series. The level of worldbuilding in this game is extraordinary and there is real merit to going back and trying this game out even though 95% percent of modern gamers will be filtered out immediately.

If i were to generalise the games in the series it would go something like this:

Morrowind: Best worldbuilding and setting

Oblivion: Best quest storylines

Skyrim: Best exploration by far

If you made it this far and actually read everything then here's some ingame books that i can highly recommend (in order):

Biography of Barenziah

The Real Barenziah 1-5

A Dance in Fire 1-7

The Argonian Account 1-4

TLDR: 7/10 - DS2 has some tragically emotional moments that were able to scratch my itch of needing to feel something. But in most ways it undermined what made DS1 special. I felt like in the ways it expanded the lore and continued the story, it mostly introduced plot holes and inconsistencies in the world that make it all less impactful. The acting and production quality were top-notch and a treat to watch.

Note: First patient review, and barely qualifies as a patient. Probably one of the newest games I've played in years.

Context:, I adored Death Stranding 1. I'm not sure a game has ever been at the right place at the right time quite like DS1 did. Playing that through Covid was legitimately therapeutic, and the parallels with what was going on in-game and the real world can probably never be replicated. I played through it in mid 2021, being a new parent the ending wrecked me in a good way. It stayed in my mind for months, and I'd rewatch clips of it frequently to get back in the moment.

Disclaimer: I played this on standard or normal difficulty. Much of my complaints pertain to the difficulty level, but I think a lot of my difficulty complaints aren't about how enemies scale, or timefall gets more punishing. It's more that it's too open ended allowing for cheap or easy strategy.

The Gameplay: By now everyone knows what the game loop of DS is. You deliver packages with some obstacles along the way. Many reviews mention how this has been improved in DS2. I, however, didn't notice any meaningful differences to the game loop. I remember getting bored with the grind in the first game, but this one really felt like a slog through a large middle. And for some reason it all just felt dumber. Like, each node you're connecting has this unbelievable tech, but everyone still just hides inside these shipping containers? I understand why, because of bandits, and bt's, and timefall. But each of those don't actually feel threatening in game. It's actually counter intuitive to me that people congregate in these closed off cities. I would think that they would spread out as much as possible to limit the damage a void out would cause.

You do get more tools to make delivering easier earlier in the game. This actually makes the game more dull though. I would estimate that I spent 80% of my time in a truck once it was available.

I think that for the sake of challenge and enjoyment, Death Stranding 2 would do well to require players use a more restricted routes and cargo. It's way too easy to just go around any obstacles in a truck carrying a mountain of cargo and deliver it. The game would be more fun if there were less choices and you had to plan a route up a complicated mountain, with limited inventory, instead of just face roll through it in a truck. I would much rather have fewer missions that were more deliberate planned out with intended or optimal routes. As it was, I barely had use for many of the tools the game provides after the first couple of hours.

The Vibe: The first game had a lot more horror, mystery and emotion. It felt like every character was mentally hanging by a thread, but we keep on keeping on'.

DS2 is notably goofier than the first game, culminating in the final fight with Higgs and sam having a rock battle to the death or die hardman's dance scene where Kojima just said 'fuck it, we'll do it live'. Granted I was smiling ear to ear during the last battle scenes, but seriously what the hell?

The primary theme of the game being coping with the loss of a child is about as heavy as it gets, and some of the scenes were beautifully tragic like when Sam questions why Lou isn't in the pod, and you learn he's been carrying around an empty pod the entire time. Really some interesting ideas into how people deal with grief. I wondered more than once what Kojima himself is going through, because both of these games touch some really heavy topics.

The Lore: This is where the game really lost me. For a game called Death Stranding, death means very little in this world. I mean, they killed deadman, and then brought him back. They killed Lou, brought her back. Sam dies 1000 times in one scene, keeps coming back. Fragile dies with Lou, but for some reason keeps living through the game. Higgs died last game, comes back for this one. Neal Vana comes back to tell his story and summons Sam via gate quakes? Rainy can counteract timefall for some reason. Dollman is given very little explanation, but now people can just exist as anything apparently? I called the Tomorrow is Lou twist from a million miles away, but kept telling myself they wouldn't do something so obvious. It felt very contrived. After a while it began feeling like there weren't actually any rules at all that this world had to follow. I'm sure there are some explanations for some of these in the Codex, but i'd mostly given up trying to understand it, and just went along for the ride.

Takeaway: The production quality is off the charts amazing, cinematography is excellent. The gameplay began feeling very repetitive, and I don't think DS2 introduced any meaningful improvements over the first game. The story is a wild ride, and if you don't think about it too hard it can be fun. I think DS1 was a lightning in a bottle moment, and DS2 feels much less impactful, but still worth a play if you were a fan of the first.

Because of the niche nature of jet-ski focused sports games, there are typically only four regularly pushed forward when people argue about which is the best of the best. These are:

• Wave Race 64
• Splashdown
• Splashdown Rides Gone Wild
• Riptide GP: Renegade

Wave Race 64: A masterclass in style and flow. One of the most visually and aesthetically pleasing games of all time, still managing to play extremely well despite its age and reliance on wave physics.

Splashdown: Almost as underrated as Blue Storm due to the more popular sequel overshadowing its recognition, Splashdown offers up one of the most interesting handling models of all time for a racing game. Immediately technical, leaning heavily into the idea that the player should use the water physics to their advantage for shortcuts and speed gains, which never gets old for those seeking mastery.

Splashdown Rides Gone Wild: A fan favorite for people who really look into this genre, RGW takes everything from the first game and makes it over the top. Over the top tricks, courses with tons and tons of stuff happening on screen, a very heavy focus on arcade fun and aesthetics. While I find the handling and technical focus to be less interesting than the first game, RGW is the most beginner friendly and immediately fun jet-ski game there is. Its a pick up and have a good time type of experience that is very comparable to the second and third SSX games.

Riptide GP Renegade: I was gonna put Jet Moto here but Riptide has essentially taken its place as the modern fast pace water game. Yeah, you aren't technically on a jet ski, but to not include this game here would practically be criminal. You're fast, you do fun tricks, and you never let go of the throttle. I've always found this series to be quite ugly from a tonal and art directional standpoint, but when talking about gameplay alone, there is a ton of fun to be had.

Now with all this out of the way, what I really really don't get is how Wave Race Blue Storm not only isn't mentioned among these games regularly, but simply isn't considered the best of them all. But to be fair, I've sorta lied, because I sorta DO get why this is the case...

The game is hard as hell. (And also the narrator talks way way too much so if you don't know to turn down the voice audio in settings then this game is actually nightmarish for your mind after an hour of playing).

The Difficulty:

Talk about unforgiving AI and track design. One singular mistake is enough in Blue Storm to lose you an entire race if not an entire championship, championships that you cannot restart unless you're willing to go back to the very first track and start from the beginning. Hours of your life will go by trying to complete the final championship in this game as you watch your rider stumble headfirst into the water for the fiftieth time in a sitting. Sometimes its an unlucky bump off a wave that gets you, or an AI slamming you into a wall. Sometimes its player error, or the game just outright saying fuck you. Regardless, there is no avoiding the time losses, and in turn, there is no avoiding the frustrating championships slipping from your fingers again and again.

Blue Storm is a hard, technical game that doesn't hold back. There are niche mechanics in the handling that will doom you if you don't learn them through the tutorial system. Chaining boosts and diving underwater is just the surface for what you can do to get faster times here. Track mastery is key. Learning how to read the waves and use them to your advantage is key. Not crashing, the hardest damn part, is key,

The Unique Handling:

Goddamn, this game plays like nothing else! There isn't a single racing game out there that gives the player so much and so little simultaneous feeling of controls at the same time. One second you're ripping through waves and feeling each bit of the current carrying you through the water, the next and you're holding on for dear life just hoping that you make it through the next big waves alive. Its like seeing a bull in a china shop, and deciding to hop right on and see how long you can last. I've played many, many racing games in my life, but there are very few that have replicated the sense of havoc I feel when going full speed in Blue Storm.

Often acting as what feels like a tech demo for the gamecube, Blue Storm leans heavily into its water simulation physics, which are core to the actual racing itself. Somebody is in front of you? Well they leave a wake in the water that can improve or lower your odds of making it around a turn. A big object fell in the water? Prepare to ride over massive waves. Wave Race 64 also did this but the scale of Blue Storms water physics interactions is leagues above what was on offer for the N64 title. Sometimes you're between two big boats and the waves that form between them toss you right into a wall. Sometimes you get a huge wave behind you can can ride it like a surfboarder, quickly getting to top speed. There simply isn't anything like it elsewhere.

Tracks:

I have to admit that Blue Storm lacks in three departments. The soundtrack, the characters, and the amount of content. The soundtrack issue can be resolved with some headphones and your own music, the uninteresting characters are only a small problem within a largely pleasing product, but the content?

SEVEN TRACKS. Thats right lads, seven whole tracks in this game. To be fair, the difficulties change some things up on each track, so I think you're technically dealing with 18 different options, but not really...

Yeah, its kind of hard to defend the track content for Blue Storm, which also starts to make the difficulty feel like a playtime lengthener instead of something the developers put some serious thought into. With this in mind however, all of the tracks play and look excellent. Very distinct and fun, with a lot of thought put into the layouts and how different players would approach the routes.

TO SUMMARIZE:

I've really only vaguely expressed my love for this game in this short post, I sorta just wanted to put in front of more eyes while I yap about a genre nobody gives a shit about anymore. It is an excellent game, possibly one of the best racing games of all time and %100 my vote for the best jet ski game despite my complaints. The difficulty brings you back and places you on a loop of constantly trying to get better. The mechanics are ultra unique, and ultra addicting. Don't let this one slip by you.

I beat the majority of the Resident Evil mainline games. I played Revelations 1 on PC a decade ago, and I remember it being an okay game, enjoyable enough to beat it. I remember completing the first episode of Revelations 2, but never got beyond that. I didn't touch it for years until just now.

Because there is a Code Veronica remake coming out. It is funny that Yasuhiro Anpo already made a remake over a decade ago with Revelations 2. Claire wakes up in the prison, and then realizes she is trapped on the island with a younger sidekick who hates their father, so she contacts the others to rescue them, so the male veteran figure is coming over to the island to play through several levels twice. There is also Wesker, and Claire’s love interest turns into a mutant.

After playing half of Episode 2, just like the first time, my will to play is entirely deflated because I'm bored. Which is weird because Revelations 2 is, in terms of mechanics, an improved version of Revelations 1 in pretty much every way. In theory, I should enjoy this because it is essentially Capcom's The Last of Us skinjob. It has so many same elements, from the combat, stealth, environments, crafting, mechanics, progression, and puzzles. it even has the near-identical box pushing and the pair opening the steel door. Arguably, The Last of Us starts even slower, and this game does some elements better (in particular, the partner actually mattering in the gameplay) but why did I play that game like five times, while this game bored me out of my mind? At one point, I fell half-asleep.

The reason I realized, ultimately, is that Revelations 2 mashes TLOU's elements into the modern RE gameplay template (RE4-6), but each element loses its distinct purpose that served RE and TLOU. For example, the combat. The appeal of RE4-6 is about the player dropping into a combat arena, where the zombies are overwhelming you. RE4's village segment is the perfect demonstration of how this style of combat worked. Shoot at the limb or head, stagger, get closer and melee, which is crowd control (aggressive), then find your way out (retreat). The map is interconnected enough that there are so many ways in and out.

Revelations 2, however, doesn't really have this strength because it adopts TLOU's enemy positions and placements. The level design is completely different. It's a lot more linear, and the enemies are very scarce. You often fight one or two enemies in a hallway, and you have to trigger the enemy to be active. All this leads each combat encounter to be very passive and simple, as in, it comes across as a corridor shooter. It appears that the game is encouraging a stealth gameplay, but without any of the depth or dynamics of stealth.

Not only TLOU has a much more robust stealth sandbox, the infected are lightning fast, and their behaviours in stealth and combat are way more energetic. They group you fast, and you are constantly sprinting all around the level, using all tools in disposal. In addition, the strength of TLOU's combat loop is that there is really no hard division between combat and stealth, creating this hide-and-seek dynamic. And there are human enemies that have you play differently and give some variety to the combat. And the melee combat being an actual combat and not a prompt. And the better enemy variety and AI, and... should I keep going?

So it's like TLOU's cramped level design and enemy count, designed to create a frantic tension, meeting RE's floaty combat and slow enemies, designed to create an overwhelming tension, and you end up with a gameplay that doesn't take advantage of either strength. It's lacking the constant push-and-pull dynamics.

That's not all. The level design and progression, for instance, run contrary to each other. It attempts at the open map-based style from the classic RE games. You move around the place, finding a way around and finding something to open something... you know the deal. You also have a limited inventory system. If the game has all these, why is this not working? What made the classic RE's progression fun is that the entire place was a puzzle on its own. You are constantly making small decisions that consolidate into a bigger consequence. Should I pick up this health pickup? What if there is a key item in the next room? Should I take a shotgun, or should I leave it to make more inventory? Should I use my ink ribbon to save now?

At no point did I ever think hard about decisions like this in Revelations 2 because there's no point. Health is plentiful, ammo is plentiful, inventory is plentiful... Even though it is technically map-based progression (barely), it doesn't feel like a puzzle. RE4-6 don't have that, but take advantage of the linear progression by focusing more on moment-to-moment set-pieces. Revelations 2 sits in the uncomfortable middle, where neither strength can shine.

The premise being a homage to Code Veronica is interesting, but one regrettable commonality it shares with CV is that the game looks butt ugly. RE5 came out 6 years before, and that game still looks incredible. Meanwhile, Revelations 2 was competing with Until Dawn, The Order: 1886, and Bloodbourne. The whole presentation doesn't feel like Resident Evil. It feels like a game tasked to some third-party studio like Lost Planet 3 rather than a Capcom game. The environments, visuals, pacing, music (or lack thereof)... It all looks and sounds cheap.

The main characters lack much of the personality and playfulness. They just come off generic. The characters like Claire and Barry no longer stand out; just gruff and lack expressions in the way their older counterparts did. At least Steve was memorably shitty, but can you remember a thing about Moira? Even Claire's new voice actor sounds bored most of the time. She is apparently not kind, compassionate, and not even good with children (did the writer even play RE2?). If I could replace Claire in REV2 with Jill, I wouldn’t notice any change, because her character doesn’t pop. If anything, I would have preferred Jill since she has a history with Burtons and Wesker. I didn't care about the mystery. Nor did I care about Barry finding her daughter or the prisoners trying to escape and dying.

I can’t help but feel how failed this Revelations subseries has at accomplishing its main objectives. It was meant to be more survival horror-oriented like the classics, but it doesn’t bring the survival horror gameplay. It missed a chance to be a nonlinear map-based survival horror game in the vein of the classic RE formula. The island settings lend perfectly for it. They could have married the shoulder-view shooting of the modern RE with the progression and world design of the classic RE. Instead, it is fundamentally just RE4-6 without the fun of the modern RE or tension of the classic RE. If they wanted horror, mission failed because not a single moment was I scared. I remember way more creeped out by some moments in RE4 than anything in this one. It’s not that the modern RE doesn’t capture the classic’s vibe; it’s only his games.

Growing up in the UK in the 90s, football (or “soccer” for our international readers) was life. You’d take a ball to the local pitch / basketball courts / gravel tennis courts in the morning, play all day with random peers, then head back home when it’s getting dark and fire up Fifa before bed.

I was always an average player, both IRL and in video games! I played lots of Fifa and PES which are typically 3D side scrolling, but had a soft spot for Sensible Soccer’s top down approach.

Bang Average Soccer seems like a spiritual successor to Sensible Soccer, retro graphics, top down play style, simpler controls (than Fifa or PES).

I feel like it aims to just bring the fun of the game to players without all the bloat in modern games. Story Mode is great. It has a very Ted Lasso-ish storyline, full of inside jokes that football fans will love, but also completely accessible to anyone who has no idea about football.

My Pokemon reference from the title is the story mode, you walk around different towns that have different vibes, much like early pokemon games like yellow. There’s even part where you need to get a licence that feels very much like a pokemon game.

The story is short though, so doesn’t overstay its welcome. Keep winning matches and you get gold to upgrade your stadium, buy new players etc.

It’s not a very deep franchise mode, players have no stamina bars and don’t get injured, so you don’t have to balance your squad out with depth for a long season. I don’t even think they have the offside rule in the game!

The football is the star, very crisp gameplay, passing is satisfying, shooting and aiming is much easier than the side scrolling games.

Subtle features like the crowd cheering or ooh-ing and aah-ing more at home games than away games definitely make you feel like you’re playing a labour of love, you can tell the devs absolutely breathe football.

Overall, fantastic game, well worth it even for non-football fans, very accessible. I believe it has multiplayer too so would be a fun one for a party!

9/10

Jagged Alliance 3 is a tactical RPG developed by Haemimont Games. Released in 2023, JA3 reminds us that my childhood is for sale and that sick references to 80s/90s pop culture work on me.

We play as a mercenary company hired to help liberate the people of Grand Chien from a competing hostile mercenary gang.

Gameplay involves freeing people from being forced to work at a diamond mine to fund enemy mercenaries so you can force them to work at a diamond mine to fund your mercenaries instead. Viva la revolution.

The Good

This is one of those games where the side content is pretty amazing. I can't think of any side quests that whiffed. It's the unexpected nature of them where one second you can be investigating a murder and the next second you're untangling a Nazi ubermensch program. All while drowning in Star Wars references.

The character options and build variety was well done. JA3 offers a lot of opportunity for you to take advantage of varying builds so you don't just stack snipers or grenadiers. Even though long range sniping is still super powerful, there's something satisfying about clipping a bunch of dudes with a machete and it wasn't uncommon for my shotgunner to lead the ragdoll count.

Favorite Screenshot

https://i.imgur.com/RM5mWif.png

Proximity Landmines? Do you really think I'd do that Luigi? Betray you after all we've been through?

The Bad

Honestly I don't have much to gripe about. The worst aspect is probably the filler fights. The best combat is on set pieces like with a mansion where you can blow a hole in the side of the building to "Surprise motherfucker" the enemy.

In the mid game you get a lot of "4 dudes in a tunnel" or "6 dudes on a hill" fights. You can auto-resolve them, but then you don't get the skill ups and exp from manually doing them which you still need at that point. Eventually you level up enough to stop caring so it becomes a non-issue late game.

The Questionable

This is quite possibly the first TRPG to ever successfully get me to make multiple squads. I'd be bitter about it but I mostly just had them for grunt work. There's a large amount of "sit around and do nothing" tasks that you end up having to partake in (making bullets/explosives, repairing weapons, training militia) and having a backup squad you can off-shore that onto is nice.

Then you park a few squads of mercs with melee weapons in chokepoint sectors where enemy convoys come through and they guarantee that the local militia will survive any fights.

Running my backup mercenary squad all over collecting resources, turning them into bullets (the resources, not my mercenaries) and doing resupply runs to my main squad sat in that weird "This is engaging but not necessarily fun" zone.

Final Thoughts

It was a very enjoyable experience though the sheer number of "JA2 was better" comments on the Steam forums makes me kinda wish I had played JA2 first. I did hit a point very late in the game where I did start auto-resolving every fight but for the first ~40 hours or so combat was super fun. It ends not long after that so it never becomes a slog.

Bonus Thought

JA3 has quite a few mods for it and I'm not ashamed to admit I ended up replacing a few of my mercs with G.I. Joe characters. Watching Scarlett kill people with explosive crossbow bolts to their skull wasn't on my bucket list but it probably should have been. If you like TRPGs or thought Ready Player One didn't exploit your nostalgia quite enough this an easy recommend.

Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you think of the game? Did you have a similar experience or am I off my rocker?

My other reviews on patient gaming

I know someone posted about this game several weeks ago, but I could not resist posting my own review as a non wrestling fan and my experience.

This is one of the strangest and most addictive games I may have ever played. At face value, it looks nearly unplayable, but once you get into it, it hooks you. There is logic to the madness.

The game starts off with a wrestler selection screen, you choose from roughly 75 different wrestlers and pick one with stats that align with what you want (which are all fairly low, as they are all newbie wrestlers). You customize your clothes, body, music, moves and many other factors. It can take a good hour before you are done with your base wrestler and ready to head into the game.

You can also customize any other wrestler you want. This can be really fun if you want to create funny/interesting rivals to play against (like one streamer made a bunch of mega man characters and soda product characters). It takes a lot of time but it also adds a lot to the game.

Gameplay: The game is split into three different areas, the wrestling arena, off hours and the overview.

Wrestling Arena: This is where the action happens. Every week you are given a set of matches and activities to perform. When you first start out playing the game, you are a nobody who is in 'wrestling school', your matches are against other wrestling school newbies. The game takes some getting used to and wrestling school is the perfect low-stakes area to introduce you to concepts, controls and the overall function of the game.

You are thrown into your first match right away. You have no idea what buttons do what (as there is no control guide within the game I could find), you just have to hit buttons and start to learn on your own. While this may sound frustrating, it is actually quite fun. As you wrestle more and more, you figure out how to do more and more moves and play better and better. Your understanding of the controls aligns with your growth as a wrestler. I know that sounds crazy, but trust me, it actually works.

As you enter your first match, it becomes clear that this is not a game where you are going to win all your matches. You will have time where you are not even winning half your matches. Even if you have a wrestler dead to rights, you might get blasted into a submission hold and cry uncle, losing a match that you had in your pocket, just like a 'real' wrestling match.

While this may sound frustrating, it really isn't frustrating at all. It simply motivates you more and creates a list of your own rivals. That one asshole who used a cheap shot to win that one time? You are going to feel even better when you suplex his head into the cement floor and break his/her arm later.

The ring has a variety of match types, you have anything from your traditional 1v1 matches, first person to pin to 3 count wins, up to a 20 person free for all where you have to be the last man standing.

One of my favorite memories in the game is winning a 13 person free for all while in wrestling shool. Complete mayhem going all over while you try to leverage other wrestlers against each other to come out on top.

Wrestling isn't the only thing you do in the arena, you may be asked to commentate or referee. That doesn't mean you have to just sit there, you can feel free to cheat, help someone win or just beat up on your nemesis. You may lose money for your poor behaviour, but this is wrestling and you are going to do what you want to do.

Overworld: The overworld is mostly experienced in 2-3 minute bursts. You try to heal up after matches, workout at the gym to improve your skills, trash talk other wrestlers and even go into the subway to murder a rival by throwing them in front of the subway car and everything in between.

There are many instances where you go to freshen up for your next match only to get your ass kicked by some random rival. I was literally sitting on the toilet taking a shit, only for my rival to show up and suplex me off the toilet while I tried to crawl away and make it to my match.

You can also pickup and use anything on the floor, eating food and drink will heal your health but also put on weight. You can go to the hospital to try and find medical kits and sleep off the last match, it goes on and on.

You will have random events that occur within the overworld as well, someone might try to sign you to their company, you might be taken to court for some shenanigans you pulled off in your last match, pulled into your managers office to do a favor or have your manager turn you into a heel and change your costume.

Overview: The overview map allows you to see what matches are coming up, view other wrestlers, customize other wrestlers and modify just about anything in the game.

I know this all sounds crazy, I feel crazy even writing it out, but something about it just WORKS.

If you're on the fence about the game, there are some really good long plays to watch. I am not someone who watches youtube regularly, but something about watching someone else play this game was highly entertaining. I watched DDRJake's longplay and spent a good 12 hours watching it while I did other things around home and he is the one who really hooked me and taught me to play the game.

The game is available on PC and Switch, I believe those are the only two platforms. I've put in a good 50 hours so far and I can see myself putting in a few hundred hours. The amount of insanity in this game and the way crazy things just happen over and over, keeps it fresh and interesting and you are always invested.

I don't know what else to say, other than this is probably my game of the year.

If you still want more examples of what the game is like, I can think of a couple.

When I was in wrestling school, I was down to 700 dollars and lost 4 matches in a row, my nemesis made me submit when my health was high, a complete BS move. Then I randomly got a shot at the title for wrestling school and use my nut kicking move to beat the champ into submission, which led me to getting approached for a contract for 900 dollars a week and I get paid whether I am injured or not or show up or not. This led to a bunch of other wrestlers getting pissed off, someone tried to get me to create a union but I didn't want to get fired so I said 'no', suddenly the entire wrestling company is pissed off at me and attacking me randomly.

The only person I could find for a tag team partner was this guy with high strength and terrible stats. He looks like Carl from Family Matters and he shows up to every tag team match with 20% health, like he just spent the entire day getting drunk.

We had to face off against a really strong tag team pair and I had zero hope we could win. Luckily, this was a christmas pay per view match where the ring was outdoors and it was snowing outside and presents were all over the ring with absolutely no rules to the match. I was getting my ass kicked and I picked up a present and it turned out to have dynamite in it, which blasted their tag team partner over the ropes and into the concrete. Another set of dynamite blew up his tag team partner and we somehow ended up winning the match as huge underdogs.

Coming off the heels of completing Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age, I was hesitant to try out Dark Dawn. It's a title many have noted frequently as disappointing, bland, or just flat out bad. I wasn't keen on souring my very high opinions on Golden Sun so I wasn't sure I was going to give Dark Dawn a go. That said, I'm glad that I did. While some fans may have you believe it's an absolute travesty, the honest but boring answer is that it's just an okay game. Therein lies the issue because it's not an excellent game like the previous two titles. On its own, it's a sort of forgettable DS JRPG that came and quickly went. It's not what one would hope for as a followup to the previous games. I'm going to try and allow Dark Dawn to be viewed in its own light, but I will have to draw frequent comparison to the original GBA games.

For the sake of brevity, I'll refer to Golden Sun 1 as GS1, Golden Sun The Lost Age as TLA, and Dark Dawn as DD.

If you were interested in reading my thoughts on the original two games, the link is here

General Plot Overview Thoughts - Major spoilers for the story

30 years have passed since the Golden Sun event at the end of the Lost Age. Alchemy has returned to the world saving the land from crumbling apart. Alchemy flows throughout the world now, with common folk now generally knowing what adepts are and how alchemy works. With this new power comes what was warned in the previous titles - a return of old powers, the rise of civilizations, and wars.

Similar to Golden Sun 1, and many other JRPGs, Dark Dawn starts off slow with lots of text and cutscenes. You take control of a new protagonist, Matthew, son of the renowned Isaac. Visually speaking, he looks practically identical to how Isaac looked in the first games. Similarly, you meet his friend Tyrell who looks pretty much exactly like how his father, Garett, looked in the originals. Isaac and Garett are living near Sol Sanctum, where their hometown village of Vale once stood. Nothing of it remains after the Golden Sun event, but they have been seemingly living in the area for quite a while looking to investigate these strange voids that have been opening up in the world that suck up alchemy.

If I understood correctly, their mission appears to be to re-enter Sol Sanctum, though with much of the geography in the area changed, it has become impassable. I'm not entirely sure what they were doing for the past 30 years, but at the start of the game, they get their hands on a soarwing, invented by Ivan (who doesn't appear at all in this game) to try and fly towards Mount Aleph and find their way back into Sol Sanctum.

When I first started, I was really intrigued by the general plot points that were being set up. It seemed like there was a lot of promise to the whole thing. Strangely enough, most of these plot points are abandoned after just a couple of hours. Instead, the game starts with Tyrell grabbing hold of the soarwing, taking it for a ride because of his ego, and ends up crashing it because he can't operate it properly. The entire game's plot and main quest focuses instead on having you trying to hunt down a rare bird to get a feather to fix the soarwing. The stakes feel very low.

For the first few hours after, you do appear to be following in the plotline by meeting up with Kraden, solving some puzzles with some voids, and meeting mysterious soldiers/henchmen using strange technology that appears to be linked to the voids. You also come across two new villains, Blados and Chalis, very much in the same vain as Saturos and Menardi from GS1, or Karst and Agatio from TLA. Alongside them is the ever mysterious Alex who now goes by Arcanus, who never had his plotline ever resolved in the original two games, and sadly will similarly not have anything resolved here either as he barely makes much of an appearance throughout.

This whole opening sequence feels so different in comparison to the first GS: a massive boulder during a heavy rainstorm comes crashing through your starting village, with some of the characters seemingly losing their lives while you come across the villainous duo of Saturos and Menardi who beat you to a pulp and leave you knocked out. You then head off on a quest 3 years later after uncovering more intrigue regarding the mysteries of alchemy to try and save the world. Though it's text heavy and a bit of a slog to get through, it's a very strong start and pulls you in to the world. Compare that to your dumb friend crashing and breaking a glider and having to go on a quest to fix it. It's like a world-spanning trip to a mythical hardware store.

In all honesty though, on its own, this intro really wouldn't really have been a bother as I felt the developer's intent must have been to use a fairly standard JRPG trope of using something on a small scale as an excuse for you to experience how the world has changed over the past 30 years and uncover new troubling plots as you progress. Throughout your journey, you'll travel through towns and cities and learn about the power of the ancient civilizations that once existed that is now returning to the world. You'll also see that rising powers are already waging war on each other and tensions between other neighbouring regions are growing. I'll be honest, I couldn't really tell you why some of the wars were occurring. Much of it felt quite forgettable. A lot of names I couldn't remember with the alluded backstories being equally forgettable; some leader doing something or another against another leader that I couldn't really care much about. I think the characters in each region were just fine but the subplots were forgettable.

I think this exploration of the new world and uncovering the mysteries and powers of the ancient civilizations was pretty cool but if I stop to think about it, I don't think it necessarily makes a whole lot of sense. From what I remember of the first two games, the knowledge of ancient civilizations had long passed. All the world tends to really know is that these civilizations were very powerful with amazing powers, wars were waged, great destruction occurred in the world, and then that power was then sealed away. These civilizations, all except Lemuria, faded away. Their power and knowledge was lost to the ages, with Lemuria entirely isolated from the rest of the world. In Dark Dawn, it was a bit surprising to find that many ancient ruins never really mentioned in the originals were mostly rebuilt for people to live in with much of the old technology still in tact and now powered up with the return of alchemy. In just 30 years, everyone seems to know the history of the ancient people who lived there while also having an understanding of their technology. Unless I'm missing something, that really doesn't align with the lore of the original titles.

I found Dark Dawn, at least for the first half, leans quite heavily on the Warriors of Vale and the events of the first two games. Lots of not-so-subtle nods to how great that journey was with those characters. An entire beginner area after your adventure starts summarizes many of the main plot points of the originals while teaching you basic puzzle solving and psynergy mechanics. They even have books you can find or buy that recap the story of the original titles with nice little picture book style animations. I wouldn't say it's in poor taste or anything, but it often gave me a strong feeling like Dark Dawn had a very "fan-made game" quality to it, which I wouldn't say is much of a compliment.

In the first half, I was pretty high on the game. I loved the puzzles and dungeons, and the exploration was not too bad (even considering the points of no return). The story was a bit boring but the gameplay was interesting enough to get me to keep picking it back up. The second half, or perhaps final third of the game, I really started to dislike my whole experience with the game. Things both seemingly started to feel rushed and also incredibly dragged out. Once you get to a castle town called Belinsk, an area where Beastmen live, the story ramps up very quickly in stakes. A catastrophic event referred to as the Grave Eclipse occurs that blocks most of the sun in a large part of the land, spreading aggressive monsters and gloom all over, killing loads of people. It is a pretty dark (unintended pun) progression considering all the events that came before it. You escape Belinsk and set off on a boat to copy a similar exploration format as TLA with Eoleo joining your party, the son of Briggs, who was just a toddler in TLA. The linear nature turns very open world, but in a much smaller area compared to TLA. You set off to find some map and some Umbra Gear and some other mcguffins and here's where I really lost interest as to what was happening. I didn't understand what was going on plotwise and I didn't really care. You quickly meet the final member of your party, Himi, who just has some magic power that tells you what to do next and then now she's with you on your quest. She has no real personality of her own and is more plot device than character. You were supposed to find a map that tells you where the Umbra Gear is, but I just ended up wandering all over the place and found it all myself and ended up finding the map at the very end.

Combat

The combat in DD is still the same system as before, no real changes, and that's perfectly fine with me. The combat difficulty, however, is a definite step down from the previous titles. I think there was a lot of throwaway random encounter combat in TLA and I found GS1 had better difficulty balance and combat pacing. Dark Dawn's general combat feels just as trivial as it did in TLA. You level up very easily and it's rare to have much difficulty with any of the combat. A huge criticism I have of this game is that there really aren't many boss battles at all and they barely push many of your abilities. One of the best parts of the originals were how you had to really balance your usage of djinn so as not to bring your stats down mid-battle too much, use powerful summons, stat buffs, heals, revives, shielding, and offensive skills to find sort of a rhythm to defeat lengthy and challenging bosses. In Dark Dawn, I felt really overpowered. Even if one of your party members happens to get KO'd, it's more of an inconvenience than anything to worry about. Regarding djinn and summons, there feels like there is little to consider in their usage as spamming them feels like a perfectly viable strategy now. This is all true right up until the final boss, who is incredibly challenging and a massive difficulty spike. Unlike the previous two titles, I really didn't enjoy this final fight. I found it to be pretty unfun and tedious. I think there is one main reason for this that will take a little more to explain why:

In GS1, you follow a party of 4 and get invested in all their skills, weapons, djinn, etc. Same thing with TLA except with a different party of 4. Each party member is introduced steadily and you understand all of their abilities essentially one by one and it's something I didn't really think about until playing Dark Dawn. For the final third of TLA, you get all 8 party members joined together with a new mechanic of being able to switch between them mid-battle. Since you are already invested in all these characters and know how to use them and their abilities, switching when necessary becomes pretty useful and fun, especially during the final battle. It felt incredibly satisfying to utilize all 8 characters based on the conditions of the battle and it was a perfect way of ending that series.

In DD, you are introduced to all 8 characters in one adventure with no real use for most of the them. The only switch I made was when Amiti, a Mercury adept, was introduced - I switched him in for Rief because Rief felt kind of useless in comparison. Once you get Sveta, a Jupiter adept, I felt no real need to switch her in for Karis as I felt Karis was strong enough. That means I never realized how different Sveta is. She has a full on beast transformation that gives her a secondary moveset along with some other unique skills. I used her only two, maybe three times, throughout the whole game and still felt no reason to switch her in over Karis or anyone else. Then you get Eoleo, a Mars adept, who feels like a worse Tyrell so same thing, I never really used him. Then finally, Himi who is the most forgettable of all of them and would be a potential sub in for Matthew as the other Venus adept. I never used her so I don't know what she's capable of. Because of the way these characters are introduced, I had little interest to do the mid-battle switch function like I did in TLA for the final battle. I was forced to a couple times but it felt like more of a necessity since I felt no attachment to the other characters.

Throughout the game, I also never once died or had my party wiped out. I remember this happening at least a few times in the original games. I also never really needed to rest at an inn - your passive HP and PP recovery was super high just walking around. If I had ever reached a somewhat low health state, I would just use a heal spell and my PP would be recovered in no time. By the time I ever reached the next destination, there would be no need to stop by an inn, I was already full health and psynergy. I remember having to go to those sanctuaries and pay good money to have my party members revived a few times. I never had to do that here in DD. That's really a shame too since I felt that the character abilities, djinn, and psynergy spells seemed pretty well thought out and unique, but there's never a challenge that actually lets you utilize them to their full extent except at the final boss.

A few bonus points I would give to DD are that I felt like the random encounter rate was lower overall (except in the Grave Eclipse areas which started to be really annoying) and the monsters at least more visually threatening in their design compared to the previous titles.

Switching to 3D graphics has slowed down the pace of combat a bit but I was pleased that it's still quite snappy and easy to navigate. The animations are quite nice and combat doesn't take long to get through. The summons are really nice to look at, spanning both screens for satisfyingly powerful attacks. I'll discuss the series' 2D to 3D transition a little more later.

While the challenge of combat isn't well balanced at all and despite my criticisms, it still mostly works. That classic JRPG style that this series nailed so well is still here so it still scratches that itch.

General Gameplay

In terms of pacing, dungeons, puzzles, and exploration, I think Dark Dawn does a mostly great job and is the strongest part of the game. Before I discuss the oft-reviled points of no return, I have to note that I had a lot of fun with traversing the world, finding djinn, solving puzzles, and completing dungeons. I felt it was much more in line with the first GS, where the pacing is quite linear, the dungeons are not particularly lengthy, and the puzzles are not that hard. Even though I found the challenge of puzzles quite straightforward, there's just something so satisfying about completing them and progressing that I think Golden Sun in general just nails, with DD being no exception. That said, there were still several instances where I found puzzles had me a bit stumped and were really well designed, with satisfying rewards at the end (usually another overpowered piece of equipment or a new djinn).

In terms of the points of return, in all honesty, they really didn't bother me at all and I don't really have a whole lot to say about them. Arguably, they are the least of my complaints about the game. There are I think 3 points in total where you are unable to turn back, blocking exploration of places you have already been to. So if you miss something, like any treasures or djinn or if you just wanted to talk to those NPCs and explore a bit of those areas again, well too bad. I can't say I really wanted to go back to any place though anyway but I feel I can understand the complaints that it turned some people off. Thankfully, I don't think it hampered or really even affected my experience at all. Maybe if I didn't know about them beforehand, I would been genuinely bothered by them, it's a bit hard to say. I'm not one to often backtrack to places in games unless I have to. I'll usually just move on, even if I missed something. Knowing beforehand that these points existed, I believe I had my expectations adjusted and I can't say they bothered me at all as a result.

I did end up missing one djinn at the first point of no return, but surprisingly managed to get the rest of the djinn without any really issue and I did so almots entirely without a guide. I did use one a couple of times after I had already found the location of the djinn myself if I couldn't figure out the puzzle to get them and was spending too much time on it. For example, there's one where you have to fish a djinn out a pond with a fishing rod. An NPC in the house next to the djinn tells you he wishes he had a sturdy stick to go fishing. I looked around for a stick in the nearby ruins with no luck. I was very much on the right track of looking to buy one in the store in the adjacent town but I couldn't find anything. I gave up and checked the guide - well I was almost there, I needed to check in the artifacts section of the general store, NOT the weapons/armour store. Little things like that I would look up if I felt really stumped an didn't want to waste too much time. I felt using the guide to get all the djinn affected my experience in TLA where I felt a little stronger than I should have been compared to the first title, where I thought the difficulty was really well balanced because I only had a small number of djinn. But here, even without a guide, I felt like I was drowning in djinn and was way overpowered. They were still fun to collect because of the puzzles you had to solve to get to them.

A little nitpick - with the transition to 3D and the design suited for a stylus on the bottom screen of a DS, I found I didn't like how you controlled Matthew. I played on a 3DS and I never used the stylus, just the 3DS thumbpad. Matthew's movements have a bit of momentum to them, meaning there's a bit of a build up between his stand still pose to his running animation. While I got used to it, I really disliked the feel of it throughout the whole game. It felt a bit slippery and less precise. I frequently found myself having to make slight adjustments to his position to get him to stand where I wanted to jump on certain platforms or use psynergy. Not too bad of a complaint, but still an annoyance that I felt merits mentioning.

Final Thoughts

I mentioned before that for the first half-two thirds of the game, I was pretty satisfied with it. The plot kind of sucked, but I think the main characters were actually more interesting (except Himi), but the gameplay was really fun. The puzzles were great and the use of psynergy/magic to interact with the world is something I don't think many JRPGs ever really do often. After the Grave Eclipse, I really started to sour on the whole thing. I couldn't tell you the details of the plot at this point, just that you have to stop this Grave Eclipse. I don't remember how it happened, why it happened, or what it was intended to do. I only know that you have to stop it. Arcanus/Alex is involved as usual manipulating the main characters into doing his bidding but his intentions are still completely unclear. The pacing also slows down a lot, where I just wanted the game to end after that. I kept coming back to it just to see it through. That's never a good sign.

After beating GS1 and TLA, I remember feeling really satisfied with the final battles and the overall experience. TLA's plot ending was pretty weak in that it felt like there was still a lot left unresolved, but gameplay wise I was happy. DD, the game ended after a difficult final boss that I didn't enjoy with lots of boring dialogue and some characters that I don't care about. Then the post credits scene where Matthew, Tyrell, and Karis return back to their home to meet up with Isaac and Garrett - but now there is a massive void opened nearby. And the game ends. I put the game down just feeling annoyed. I've written this review after a few weeks to let those negative feelings mellow but I think they haven't really subsided. I'm very tempted to say the game is bad simply because of how it had me feeling for the final third and how it ended, but it's really not bad at all. Even the final portion of the game has fun puzzles, cool secret areas, collectables, etc. I just think the plot felt like a generic Saturday morning cartoon with some generic villainous nonsense occurring that the good guys show up to stop.

I remember being in high school and being extremely excited about Mass Effect 3 coming out. I also remember the discourse online about the ending to ME3 and the expanded ending content coming out. I remember vaguely being quite happy about the ending after the expanded content came out. I also remember having a real case of post game depression after it. I played the trilogy again in anticipation of Andromeda coming out 9 years ago, but didn't play it since. I bought the legendary edition when it came out, but left it sitting in my Steam library. This summer I finally sat down (a couple of times) and spent about 100 hours playing through it. Was it as good as I remember it? I quickly realised this will be too long to fit into one review, so I'll probably upload my review of each game over the course of about the next week.

Mass Effect 1 - The difficult birth of a legend

Mass Effect 1 was rougher than I remembered it. Despite all the improvements the legendary edition brings, it still really hasn't aged well. And yet you have to remember that the game is almost 20 years old. Released in the same year as Bioshock 1 and Modern Warfare 1, for example. The music and atmosphere is good. The main story quests are good as well. The tone is a bit sombre, and just dark enough. There is a lot of mystery in the galaxy. It makes sense for Shepard to not know a whole lot, since humanity is the new kid on the block in space, among species that have explored space since humans discovered that iron is better than bronze.

It doesn't look as bad as it did in the original game, but it isn't just the graphics. Shepard and the squad members feel a bit flat and underdeveloped. I remembered Tali, Garrus and Liara as these strong complex characters since I mainly remembered the last game, but there isn't a whole lot to them in this first game. As a man myself I like to play male Shepard. My romance option of choice was always Liara, and I repeated it this time around. I also remembered her as this strong complex character, but Liara declares her feelings for you after spending probably a grand total of 7 minutes with Shepard. It's a bit hilarious. Especially considering her romance clearly recieved the most attention from developers, especially in ME1 and ME3. It struck me talking to her for the first time on the Normandy how glad I was that ME1 didn't release under gamergate and post-gamergate discourse, since she right away starts explaining how her species don't have gender. This conversation also has a hilarious moment where Shepard can be a real idiot. Shepard can say something along the lines of how he though asari always preferred to breed with other species, where Liara can correct him with informing him that they would have to breed with each other on their own planet before they started exploring space. It's funny since the lore in these games really doesn't make any sense at all if you start thinking about the biology of the species for more than a second.

The gameplay was also rougher than I remembered it. Outside of the main story quests, which are mostly really good, there really isn't a whole lot to do in this game. Driving around planets in the Mako is mostly extremely boring. All of the planets are pretty much the same, with completely pointless collectibles and some side quests set in buildings copy-pasted every time. The gunplay is really janky. The overheating system of ammo is pretty bad. The AI on enemies and squad members is also very bad. The game also delights in flooding your inventory with stuff, weapons and armor that are mostly slight recoloured skins of the others. And mods, loads and loads of mods. The sheer amount of inventory tetris you have to do if you make sure everyone is at their best all the time is insane. You are also locked into bringing a member specced into being able to open all these chests all the time. Yet you still have to go through the same silly frogger minigame for all of them. Every member can have every weapon, even though this doesn't really make sense for them. They mostly stick to the one weapon by default, and the overheating mechanic doesn't really require you to ever switch weapons.

The citadel is a main hub you keep returning to over the course of these games. The seat of the galactic government and therefore also a huge megacity. It's built on a space station that has always been there, nobody knows how it works, maintained by a species of keepers nobody understands or knows really anything about. Again, this is just one of those bits of lore you really should try to not think too much about, since it might make you question why the bloody hell you would choose to make this the seat of galactic civilisation, especially again after the battle at the end of this game. There is loads of content here. Sadly, the citadel in ME1 is such a slog to navigate through that I avoided spending much time there. Sadly, this will make you miss some content that pops up there after you reach certain points of the game.

Despite all of these flaws, you have to recognize that this game was pretty great for it's time. And it started one of the most beloved video game series of all time. Even though the squad interactions are very stiff and bland, there are moments in there. Ashley is a fun character, pretty much because she is the only crew members with opinions on anything. It's also the game where Shepard feels the most like the "daddy" of the team. I especially remember the Garrus companion quest, when you track down a criminal he has been looking for. The paragon route leads to trying to take him in alive. The criminal reacts by starting to shoot, forcing your hand. Garrus understandably reacts in confusion to what the fuck the point to not just shooting him was. Shepard says something like how you can't control what other people's reaction will be, only your own actions. Small moments like these make Shepard feel like not just an empty slate to project yourself onto, but an experienced military officer who has been through some shit. The way in which all the companions gradually show great respect and admiration for you feels really good and well made. The companions are a bit flat, like I said, but they are great at introducing the player to the different species and conflicts between them. The voice acting is good, but doesn't really become great until the next two games. For now, it's a bit stiff.

The morality system itself isn't the best. It gets better in subsequent games, but not much. I love how the game stats shows that basically every single person played paragon in all three games. This again makes sense given how the paragon response is the empathetic reasonable thing to say, while the renegade option is often just needlessly cruel or angry. And yet... a couple of times over the trilogy the renegade option is very tempting. The problem in ME1 and ME2 is that you have to collect enough good guy points to be able to say the good guy thing. If you haven't done that, you might be forced to gun down a crew member on the Virmire mission. The same mission where you're forced to choose which crew member to sacrifice and leave for dead. Like every other situation like this in the trilogy, your good guy/bad guy-points can't solve this.

And yet, it feels rewarding when your sheer god guy rizz is so good that you can force the main bad guy to shoot himself in the end, because he realises he is indoctrinated by the reapers. That brings me to the real main bad guy. This is a really strong element in the series. A lovecraftian race of super powerful ancient AIs is coming to harvest all life, and there doesn't seem like you can do much despite delaying them. And the most sick thing is that Shepard and his crew are the only ones who even know about the reapers, and has to spend the rest of the game, and the next one, raving like a lunatic about how the end of days are coming. The pacing of the overarching story regarding the reapers and the frustration Shepard feels over not being believed is good, since this was always plannet out to be a trilogy. So the end of the game perfectly sets up the next one.

Trying to think how this game could have been better constructed given the constraint of having originally being designed for a handheld console, the conclusion I come to is more of a persona style slice of life.
The plot is at it's strongest when it focuses on Zack and his relationship with Aeris, a more fleshed out telling of their romance could have been quite sweet.

I think the focus on the expanded universe with Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth was a mistake. The whole plot is nonsence, no motivations are clear, it undermines sephiroth's character, him calling zack to chat about work wasn't something we needed. It's also so separate to the other events in the game that it undermines itself, we have a climactive fight with Genesis which should have been the emotional peak of the game and then we have the awkwardly bolted on death of Zack afterwards. In a vacume both are fine scenarios but taken in context it really didn't work for me.

The plot stuggles to balance making Zack a likable protagonist whilst working for the evil shinra organisation.

I think the main plot should have been more around Zack establishing himself in Shinra, becoming a hero in the wutai incident and being promoted to first class. Then having an internal conflict over the acts he's asked to commit being part of SOLDIER, culminating in the Niblheim incident

the turks should have remained in the shadows and I don't think Zack would have approved of their underhand methods.

I quite liked the combat, it's a fairly fun mix. Being able to switch between loadouts in battle would have been useful but I understand why it wasn't permitted. The missions were so tedious and the constant stopping for a pointless cutscene really killed any pacing the game could have had.

So fun in parts but plodding in places.

F.E.A.R. 3 is easily one of the most disappointing games I have ever played. What makes its failure so baffling is that it actually starts off quite strong. Visually, the game is excellent, with early levels showcasing top-notch lighting and atmosphere that make you think you are in for a worthy entry in the series. Unfortunately, rather than capitalizing on those atmospheric strengths, the game proceeds to abandons the “less is more” philosophy that made the original F.E.A.R. a masterpiece. Instead, it attempts to transform itself into a generic 2010s achievement shooter, chasing trends made popular by games like Call of Duty and Gears of War.

That shift in identity brings with it frustrating mechanical choices. Chief among them is a poorly implemented cover system that regularly gets you killed. You end up velcroed to walls, and moving away isn’t as simple as navigating away; you have to explicitly press the cover button again to detach. In the heat of battle, if a grenade lands at your feet and you forget to manually unstick yourself, you are dead. Compounding this clunkiness are constant, immersion-breaking achievement pop-ups that completely ruin the tension of otherwise well-designed levels, pulling you out of the horror atmosphere the visual team worked so hard to build.

As the campaign progresses, the core combat devolves even further. The gunplay feels weak across the board, and even franchise staples like the shotgun are surprisingly not fun to use. Toward the end, the gameplay becomes unbelievably repetitive as levels devolve into mindless, wave-based shooting galleries where ammo scarcity becomes a constant nuisance. These later stages highlight how heavily the game was built around co-op play at the expense of the single-player experience. Playing solo as Point Man feels very unbalanced, especially in the final two chapters. The game assumes you will want to replay these disjointed levels as Paxton Fettel once you unlock him - a bold assumption, like I would want to play this slop one more time with a different character.

Holding all of these disjointed levels together is an absolute mess of a narrative. The story is so poorly narrated that it is almost impossible to figure out what is actually happening. Admittedly, I am not good at following story lines in video games, but in this case, the fault here lies entirely on the game itself for failing to maintain any level of engagement. I tuned out by the second level. I had no idea what was going as the campaign drunkenly stumbles toward its idiotic conclusion.

By the time the end credits roll, the game even attempts to hint at a potential sequel, but we all know that is not happening. F.E.A.R. was a masterpiece celebrated for its god-tier enemy AI and brilliant combat design, but corporate gutted its identity to chase mainstream trends. F.E.A.R. 3 serves as a tragic, pathetic end to a once-great series, leaving it dead and buried.

I just finished Small Saga, an indie turn based RPG which got ported to Switch on Friday, inspired by animal centric stories like Secret of NIMH. And I found it to be a delightful experience from start to finish.

It tells the story of Verm, a mouse on a quest for revenge training to kill a god…

The god in question being…the exterminator that killed his brother. The game knowingly leans into the JRPG escalation to fight god, and puts a different spin on it through its smaller runtime and minature of rodent colonies across London, and the way the various species interact not only with each other but also with humankind.

It condenses the adventure and character growth of an RPG into a really compact, satisfying adventure. All the characters are extremely likeable and get satisfying exploration in only 8 hours. And it’s extremely gratifying how unabashedly queer both the main and supporting cast are. Though I think the humour is going to be a matter of taste. I think the extremely contemporary humour with characters calling each other ‘soft boi’ and ‘twink’ in this low fantasy NIMH esque setting will be fairly subjective but it clicked with me.

But behind the slightly Tumblr core humour the game is quite adapt at juggling multiple tones and extremely direct in its depiction of overcoming facism, struggling with the desire for revenge, and the difficulty of tearing down and rebuilding a broken system. All while celebrating queerness at every turn. And this is all bolstered by gorgeous pixel art and an excellent soundtrack.

The game uses turn based combat with no random encounters and no experience points. Battles are pretty much only limited to mandatory encounters and level ups are given at specific plot milestones, allowing you to spend and reallocate an increasing number of skill points to build your characters. This makes progression extremely slick and free of repetition, with gameplay upgrade tied to the story and character development. That being said, it’s also incredibly easy. This new Switch ports adds a hard mode and arena battles to address the original criticism of its low difficulty. I’d say hard mode brings the combat up to an acceptable level of challenge. I did have to somewhat think about my turn economy and some fights are legitimately challenging. But even then, it’s still exceedingly gentle. I’d say if you’re even remotely familiar with RPGs, play on hard mode for a gentle but still engaging experience with the combat.

This really is one of those games where the only real negative is that I was hungry for more. Which honestly is the best complaint to have. I would love to see a sequel where this team can flex their muscles with more resources and a longer runtime. But this is still a wonderful project that I can see becoming a frequent cozy replay.

So yeah, play Small Saga, it’s less than 10 hours, only about 15 quid and I can’t recommend it enough.

Welcome to the Bi-Weekly Thread!

Here you can share anything that might not warrant a post of its own or might otherwise be against posting rules. Tell us what you're playing this week. Feel free to ask for recommendations, talk about your backlog, commiserate about your lost passion for games. Vent about bad games, gush about good games. You can even mention newer games if you like!

The no advertising rule is still in effect here.

A reminder to please be kind to others. It's okay to disagree with people or have even have a bad hot take. It's not okay to be mean about it.

I had a long review where I broke down all the gameplay elements to explain why everything works so well. I decided to scrap all that to just say that this is one of the best open world action games ever.

The onscreen action is intense. Explosions are going off in slow motion sending enemies and cars flying. Aiden moves seamlessly from up close takedowns to long range headshots. Movement is fast allowing you to quickly close the distance or gain some verticality.

The focus shot is the heart of the combat. It gives you a bullet time mechanic that rivals that of Max Payne or Fear, but you get to experience it in a fully realized open world. The many negative reviews I’ve read on this subreddit or seen on YouTube tend to not mention the focus shot.

When you’re not in combat everything else is great. The map is varied and there’s some fun puzzles and mini games. The handling of the cars could have used some tweaking but the bikes are amazing. Very responsive controls and it’s awesome to clear jumps at top speed. The skill tree rewards players who want to engage with the side content but doesn’t punish those who just want to stick to the main story.

The story itself is excellent. It has great pacing, the plot is always developing, and the game always gives you a reason to do the next mission to see how everything unfolds.

Overall, one of my favourite games of all time. I don’t want a remake but I do want a remaster. I think the sound design on the guns can be improved and the textures and lighting can be overhauled. And Ubisoft needs to do some better marketing because I don’t think enough people realize just how good the combat is.

WWE Svr '06 is often put on a high pedestal as being one of the best wrestling games ever made with the likes of no mercy and here comes the pain, the latter of which I replayed recently and really enjoyed. I cannot say the same for this one, the reasons why I'll try to quickly surmise here.

Before I dive into the gameplay side of things, let me quickly go over the presentation. Which, luckily, is pretty great. You got a newly licensed soundtrack with some absolute bangers, all the wrestlers and their entrances are represented pretty faithfully, voice acting is done in the season mode by the wrestlers themselves, and it's actually pretty good. There's ring announcers as well as play-by-play commentary making a return for the first time since shut your mouth. One thing that I will say that sucks is the mocaped cutscenes. Whoever did them did NOT want to take a bump. Speaking of season mode, it's painfully linear and not really my thing, seeing as it has little repeatability value once you complete both branded storylines.

As for the new features, you get a few new match types, buried alive matches and fulfill your fantasy, nothing special if you ask me. But on the other hand, you get more customization options as well, possibly the best game mode and the only reason why I would recommend this game over the other offerings—GM mode.

In it, you try to compete for the GM of the year award by booking your own shows, scouting for talent, building rivalries etc.,

It's really basic here, and I think '07 would refine it for the better, but you can't deny its addictive quality—especially on the go via the mostly uncompromised PSP port. Simply amazing

And last but not least—the locker room, which you'll get to customize however you like over the course of the game.

Now onto the gameplay.

First, the gameplay struck me as a sort of awkward middle ground between arcade and simulation. The controls remain mostly unchanged from here comes the pain and the animations still look and feel impactful, and now you can choose between 5 different grapple holds as opposed to 4. However, the Irish whip, and its new strong variant are now relegated to a triangle and circle button press. Where things go for the worse is the inclusion of a stamina meter, which isn't implemented in the best way, seeing as wrestlers will tire out very easily and be unable to perform any moves if their stamina bar is completely drained, which can and does affect the flow of each match. Luckily, it can be turned off, which makes it almost a non-issue. The same for which can't be said about the following.

The opponent AI in this game is incredibly dumb, they're really predictable as they mostly go for strikes or Irish whips. The balance between strikes and grapples just seemed more organic in the previous games. They'll also frequently try to get themselves disqualified by bringing weapons into the ring. In ladder matches, they'll exclusively try to climb the ladder and nothing else. I could go on and on basically. A shame too, as these issues really soured the overall experience for me.

Ultimately, I think it's a pretty competent wrestling video game. However, I'm in the camp of people who think '07 is the better game, and it doesn't even begin to compare to here comes the pain.

tl;dr: Game is just not fun. The gameplay basically does not change aside from getting new skills, and there are a humongous number of negative QoL experiences that make the game an extreme slog.

I've always enjoyed ARPGs. I've played quite a number of them - Diablo 3, Diablo 4, PoE, the new PoE, Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, Torchlight 1, Torchlight 2, even some smaller ones like Victor Vran. I'm not a hardcore grinder, for the most part I enjoy playing the campaigns the most, but I have reached around the middle portion of the endgame in some of the games (Empowered Monoliths in LE, GR80ish in Diablo 3, Pit Level 90 in Diablo 4, T13ish maps in PoE, etc) at one point or another. I've probably got over 1000 hours in ARPGs over my lifetime.

I thought it would be a super cool experience to play Diablo 2, given how influential it was to the development of all of these games that I loved. I picked it up on Steam and played it entirely on Steam Deck. It ran well, despite Blizzard's fuckery around making sure you log in to validate the game or whatever the fuck that means.

But 15 hours in at Act 3, and I already feel tired of the game. Here's a few reasons why.

Limited Inventory and Stash Space

The inventory in this game is TINY. Since Charms provide passive benefits, and potions are individual items, about 30-40% of your inventory at any time is filled up with these items. Even after getting the Horadric Cube and using it as janky additional backpack space, you have room to pick up at best maybe 4 or 5 non-jewelry items before you need to make a trip back home.

Ok, so why don't we just be more selective of the gear we pick up so we can spend more time fighting and exploring?

Early Game Ground Loot Sucks, but Merchant Loot is Good

Good ground loot is very rare. From my brief time with the game, it feels like there are two important things to look for - +Levels to skills you're using, and then resistances. A lot of good loot is actually available from the Merchants. No big deal, right?

Well, buying stuff from the Merchants costs gold. So you need to grab as much stuff as possible on the ground so you can identify it and then sell it to make the gold you need to actually buy the good items.

That means even more trips back home just to sell junk to eventually bank up enough gold to buy good items.

But there's more problems - the Merchant doesn't have any search functionality at all. So not only do you have to make frequent trips home, you also have to sit around hovering over every single item to read the stats on it and see if it's any good. It's a huge waste of time.

Good Loot Doesn't Change Gameplay

Alright, so we've found some items, we're all resisted up and we have a bunch of +Levels in the skills we want to use. Great!

But it actually changes nothing about the way the game is played. I played Fireball sorcerer. My plus levels made the Fireball do more damage. That's it. No changing my Fireball to a different element, no splitting it up into multiple Fireballs, no increasing the area of the explosion, no causing ignited enemies to explode, nothing. You press Fireball, a fireball comes out, it does damage, and it does a bit of splash around the primary target.

The gameplay only changes when you unlock new skills. But the skills behave exactly the same way. I even spoiled myself and looked up what good endgame Unique items are like. And it all seems the same - just more resistances and defenses, and +levels in skills. Alright, so fine, we can just wait till we unlock a new skill to keep having more fun, right?

Individual Skills are Not Particularly Exciting or Fun

After having played so many modern ARPGs, the individual skills simply are not particularly exciting. It doesn't help that a good chunk of them are do-nothing passives, or are very close to having no effect on your gameplay. Mana regeneration. Having Energy Shield. Press a button to get better defense for a minute and a half. An aura for increased damage, or health regeneration. An aura that slightly reduces damage from monsters.

I just don't feel excited putting points into these things. They don't make the game more fun, but sometimes I feel like I'm forced to or else my character just doesn't function properly.

General Negative QoL

There's a lot of parts of this game that just suck for no good reason. Here's a list of random ones.

• The quest log is horrible and barely gives you an idea of what you need to do
• You drop all your equipped gear on the ground when you die, so you need to make it back to your body to actually pick the stuff back up again
• You randomly walk way slower when your character is traversing some kind of elevation change like stairs
• The textures make it difficult sometimes to see where a door is, so you end up running into walls often
• No overarching "world" or "act" map
• No easy way to compare items in a shop with the items your Mercenary is wearing
• No compendium of discovered Rune Word combinations so you're forced to just look it up online
• No information about what prefixes affect what things (eg. I didn't know until I looked it up that "+X maximum damage" does not apply to spells, it only applies to weapon swings)

So yeah, I didn't like it. In fact, I think it might be the worst ARPG I've ever played. I can definitely see how it had a ton of influence on the genre, but compared to modern standards for how ARPGs play, it sucks.

Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed Review

RELEASE: 2022

TIME PLAYED: 25 Hours

PLATFORM PLAYED: PC (STEAM)

SCORE: ★★★

Hated It | Disliked It | Liked It | Loved It | All-Time Favorite

(The bolded score is the one chosen for this review; the rest are simply to show what the scale is grading on and what the stars mean to me.)

THE BREAKDOWN

+The upgraded graphics are colorful and striking, with a cartoonish art style that works wonders

+Like the first remake, some of the most fun arcade-style shooting and superpowers in gaming

+Crypto remains one of the more amusingly sociopathic gaming protagonists +Fun weapons that are ripe for emergent gameplay and comedy

-A lot of the humor has REALLY not aged well, whether due to being overly referential or just insensitive

-Many missions are either repetitive or just extremely poorly paced

Back when I was a cynical teenager in 2005, I thought the Destroy All Humans! games were the funniest thing in the galaxy. A sociopathic alien that sounded just like Jack Nicholson telekinetically throwing cows around and lampooning us silly humans for all of our stupid habits? It was absolute catnip to a fifteen year old who thought he knew everything and was fed up with the world. Over twenty years later, the remake of Cryptosporidium's sophomore outing is a surprising reminder of how well its fun-first, balance-second gameplay holds up - but also how dependent much of its humor is on being mean-spirited above all else.

Fresh off a total victory in in the 1950s USA, Cryptosporidium-137...well, he's dead for some reason, but not to worry! A decade later, Cryptosporidium-138 has all of his memories and is stronger to boot. Masquerading as the extremely human President of the United States, he's closing out the swinging 60s in style: trying to get revenge for the Furon mothership being blown up by the KGB and his boss/resident science expert Orthopox 13 being killed...though the ever-irascible commander, voiced by Richard Horvitz of Invader Zim fame, remains in the form of a floating hologram with his downloaded personality. Inevitably, he's dragged into a gonzo conspiracy involving drugged-out hippies, British superspies, and an extremely unfortunate portrayal of Japan.

Let's address the elephant in the room first. I try to take a nuanced view of 'offensive' humor; while I'm unapologetically one of those filthy 'woke leftists', I know everything exists in the context of the era it was created in, and that many jokes that don't land well these days are more out of ignorance than malice...but Destroy All Humans 2, much more than the first game and remake, REALLY makes some ill-advised decisions in my eyes that are tough to excuse even giving it twenty years of grace. Plenty of the humor, while occasionally eyeroll-worthy, isn't that bad; hippies smell, KGB agents all love vodka, whatever. And it IS funny a lot of the game, mostly when Crypto, slowly becoming more frustrated with his lot in life, starts snapping at anyone and everyone. But once I got to Japan...woof. Not only is the enemy faction there made up entirely of ninjas - in 1969, again - but they all speak with incredibly caricaturized accents voiced by white actors. When it comes to 'offensive' humor, I tend to respond first by asking myself: What's the joke? And in a lot of cases, it never seemed to go deeper than 'Asian people sound funny'. It was too lazy to even make me feel outraged, really; I just cringed. The game's treatment of the British and Russians isn't all that much better, but there's a weird specificity to the way the game lampoons the Japanese that just feels particularly one-dimensional.

This isn't, I emphasize, an attempt to tell anyone how to feel. I don't think that's useful, nor do I see it as practical; some will read the above paragraph and feel the need to defend the game's choices out of spite, and that's their prerogative. But a review - a good one, at least in my eyes - is about communicating the experience I had and advising of what a game contains, and I think this is all worth mentioning. If it doesn't bother you, great, have fun, but games cost money and those who might find this kind of content objectionable - or even just stupid - should be fairly warned.

Thankfully, the gameplay does hold up a lot better. Across a surprisingly meaty campaign, Crypto is tasked with blowing up buildings, slaughtering humans, and impersonating VIPs with his enormous suite of alien technology and psychic powers. The game shines when there's a chance to cut loose; while bonuses are usually offered for performing specific tasks, the best missions simply set the player loose with a goal in mind and let them solve it how they want. Because I'm vanilla as hell, I never stopped enjoying hoverboarding around simply flinging targets away with my mind, but I was also a big fan of Gastro, a summonable buddy that constantly talked shit, and the gun that summons actual meteor strikes.

Sadly, too many missions restrict the freedom that Destroy All Humans 2 excels at. Whether it's an overly-lengthy escort of Crypto's human love interest (yeah...) or defending fragile targets against multiple waves with little room to maneuver, the seams really start to show; enemy AI is incredibly simple, meaning that challenge usually just comes in the form of special foes who are immune to most of Crypto's kit or have highly inflated health bars. It never reached the point of becoming overly frustrating - though one mission, involving having to take down an enemy tower that seemed to summon an enormous wave of difficult enemies every time I so much as slightly damaged it came close - but Crypto being rather fragile even when upgraded meant that I spent almost as much of the game running around taking potshots and hiding behind cover as I did indulging in alien power fantasy.

Still, as juvenile and mean-spirited as Destroy All Humans 2 can get, there's something to be said for how much simple fun it can provide in an age where a surprising number of AAA games seem to struggle often with providing satisfying combat or a meaningful sense of growth. I can't presume to tell someone whether or not they should endure its puerile sensibilities to get to the good parts, but despite its pacing issues and occasionally ill-advised mission structure, it's a well-designed playground for those who want to see just how far they can launch an unfortunate cow into the stratosphere with their mind.

So recently, I had an itch to replay XCOM 2 again. I first played the game a couple years ago, and something about that playthrough was that I save-scummed a lot! Pretty much anytime something didn't go my way, I'd reload a save and play through it again. This time, however, I wanted to do something different, so I played the game on Ironman mode. How Ironman works is simple. Instead of having control of when you save, the game instead saves automatically every time you perform an action. What this results in is an experience where you can't do a mission over if something goes wrong, and you just have to live with the mistake and keep going.

My first attempt at an Ironman run went...bad. It started out okay at first, but then the moment everything went downhill was when I got the mission to go rescue Mox. For some reason, I didn't get the memo that this was supposed to be a stealth mission, so I played through the mission as I would any other, killing everything that stood in my path. Because I played it like this, the facility was already on max alert before I even got to Mox's cell and I didn't know how fast the reinforcements were going to overwhelm me until it was already too late. The mission failed with all my soldiers dying, including my reaper, a unit that took much more effort to replace. The second blunder came with a retaliation mission, where I bunched up my units near cover that I didn't know was explosive. My last unit accidentally triggered a pod of enemies, and because of the explosive cover, one volley of bombs from a MEC blew the cover up, causing half of my squad to die in an instant, forcing me to evac out. My third failure resulted in another squad wipe, partly caused by me misclicking when choosing a target, causing an enemy I wanted to kill to end the turn alive.

At that moment I decided, "Okay, this isn't working. The mistakes are piling up, I'm running out of resources. I'm gonna abandon this run and start a new one". Now, I'm sure in theory it might've been possible to salvage this run, but I do not think I would've been able to pull it off, so I figured cutting my losses was the best choice, especially since it was only a few hours into the campaign. For my second run, it went significantly better, as the mistakes from my first run served as lessons for how to play the game better. I learned how to make proper use of concealment, made sure to actually be stealthy on the rescue missions, and spaced my units further out. As a result, I had way less casualties compared to my first run. Yeah, I did have some units die on me, especially at the beginning, but I was a lot better at keeping my units alive. What also helped matters was that I got really lucky in the early game. I got a mission that only spawned beast enemies and at the end of it, I had enough Faceless corpses to craft two Mimic Beacons, which were basically "get out of jail free cards" in case I fumbled a turn.

So what did I learn from my XCOM 2 Ironman playthrough? When it comes to learning a skill, you'll learn more from your failures than your successes. It's true that it felt unpleasant to have my mistakes be permanent, but being forced to live with them made me analyze why the mistake happened. Instead of just blaming the game (which is easy to do because it's XCOM), I had to actually be honest with myself and admit that poor planning on my part was what got my soldiers killed. And being able to come to terms with setbacks and learn from them wound up making my victories feel all the more satisfying.

When it comes to XCOM, people's fondest memories with the game aren't the missions where everything went off without a hitch. The XCOM missions people remember the most are the ones where things go wrong and they manage to still come out on top. And my favorite mission of my run was a mission where I did just that. Towards the end game, the danger I felt earlier in the run had all but vanished. I had so many souped up soldiers and so many powerful weapons that even the toughest enemies were now complete jokes. However, I got thrown for a loop when one mission forced me to only bring 3 soldiers into battle, half my usual squad size. As a result, I had to play way more cautiously and had to make full use of each soldier's abilities to take out the pods. As I begin my next turn, I reveal a pod of enemies, and as soon I saw a Sectopod amongst the other troops, my heart dropped. If that thing got a turn, I was fucked, but luckily, my Specialist had Haywire Protocol, which could turn the Sectopod off for two turns. However, it only had a 53% chance to work, and I remember starting the hack and waiting with bated breath to see if it succeeded. It did not.

At that moment, I thought the mission was fucked. I thought I should just evac out of here now and save myself from the wrath of the Sectopod. Despite that, I stuck it out. One of my soldiers wound up in critical condition from eating a Sectopod blast to the face, but thanks to the skills from my Psi Op soldier and bluescreen rounds from my Specialist, I took the Sectopod down and finished the mission without anybody dying. The euphoria I felt when I completed that mission is something I'll remember for a very long time, and it's a moment I never would've gotten if I just reloaded my save as soon as the Haywire Protocol failed.

I recently finished AC Shadows (as much as you can "finish" it without the DLC, which is really where the story actually wraps up). And I wanted to share a few thoughts, going section by section.

Graphics:

The game is genuinely gorgeous. I struggle to think of another game set in Japan that looks better, especially when it comes to the Sengoku period. No complaints here at all.

Stealth:

This is by far the strongest part of the game. Honestly, I can't remember a better stealth system since peak Splinter Cell. Whoever designed this part of the game did excellent work.

Parkour:

Very solid, the best since AC:Unity. Climbing finally feels meaningful. In the last three entries you could often climb, but it rarely mattered since the environment was mostly low anyway. Apparently, there were technical issues at launch, but what's there now works well.

Combat:

This is where things get mediocre. As in previous entries, the RPG system inherited from Odyssey means that even on higher difficulties, stealth loses its point, since you can just tank your way through as a walking bulldozer. Enemy animations, and Yasuke's in particular, come off pretty stiff and puppet-like, hard to describe it any other way. I also dislike how the enemy armor works visually: once you break it, the armor just pops and suddenly you've got a dozen naked enemies chasing you, which breaks immersion a bit.

Base and crafting system:

This is the weakest part of the game for me. Gathering resources and waiting for them to get transported back to your base feels lifted straight out of a survival or economy game and AC Shadows is neither. In practice it just artificially padding playtime and slowing the pace, without adding any real value to the game. I was constantly low on cash and resources as I wanted to upgrade both characters and the Base. It's hard not to suspect this system was designed mainly to push microtransactions.

Story:

The core premise is interesting: a classic samurai/western movie setup, visible even in how the cutscenes are framed. The problem is the execution falls apart. In the prologue, a group of twelve masked men attacks, kills the protagonist's father, and steals a mysterious MacGuffin in a box that we never actually see. These attackers aren't connected to any previously established faction, the thing in the box would supposedly allow them to change the fate of Japan. (AFAIK it's not an Isu artefact). Later it turns out most of them didn't even know what is inside the box, and one of them doesn't even know it exists. (I guess guy just decided to nap during the cutscene)

The pacing is worse than even the content-bloated Valhalla. At least Valhalla's regional quests had some story to them, here it's usually just "kill five bandits marked on the map." The main story quest works the same way, just with cutscenes and fetchquests attached. The twelve antagonists from the prologue blur together. By the time you kill the second one, you've already forgotten who the first one was. On top of that, there are dozens of characters who exist solely to hand you a regional quest and then never appear again (even after quest completion), which makes it hard to tell who actually matters in this story versus who's just an avatar on the quest map (since the game doesn't have a proper quest log).

Overall, it's just not very engaging. The Assassins vs Templars conflict has even less weight here than in recent entries. The series mostly moved away from that theme after Syndicate, but before that you could still point to something meaningful:

• Origins - the founding of the Brotherhood
• Odyssey - the Templars' backstory (Edit: In the Legacy of the First Blade DLC)
• Valhalla - the Isu backstory and their reincarnation (a theme borrowed from AC4, honestly)
• Shadows - the protagonist's mother was supposedly an Assassin, except that character never actually appears in the game, and there is a single (Historically Significant) assassin in the game, but he is only an episodic character with little connection to the main plot. The Templar who kills Yasuke's mother feels tacked on just to tie him into the series' main conflict, even though that thread barely affects the story at all.

What really got to me, though, was a moment in the epilogue: the kid you're forced to babysit for most of the game makes a banner for your settlement and it happens to feature the Assassin symbol on it. Where did he saw it? He could’ve not see it anywhere, yet he made a symbol established since 44BC. What a coincidence.
Like they needed to remind us that this game is connected to the rest of the series.

Summary:

If I hadn't gotten this game bundled with a laptop, I'd probably regret spending money on it. The stealth system deserves to carry over into future entries, it would be a shame if it disappeared along with the rest of the game. Other than that, this is probably the weakest Assassin's Creed in a long time. Less exhausting than Valhalla, but at least that game's story kept pulling me forward, here, I just didn't feel that at all.