Paul Simonon
Registered User
- Jan 27, 2023
- 48
- 30
The last few games you beat and rate them 5
- Thread starter Ceremony
- Start date
Ceremony
blahem
- Jun 8, 2012
- 113,337
- 15,751
Paul Simonon
Registered User
- Jan 27, 2023
- 48
- 30
You’d left me with little other choice. I hope you know how upset I am to be doing this.
Unholy Diver
Registered User
The Callisto Protocol 7.5/10
Decent sci-fi survival horror, sort of a mixture of elements from Dead Space and Resident Evil, some grotesque gore and monsters, controls could feel a bit wonky at times, not bad overall, only around 10-11 hrs long, worth a spin if you enjoy outer space horror stuff
Decent sci-fi survival horror, sort of a mixture of elements from Dead Space and Resident Evil, some grotesque gore and monsters, controls could feel a bit wonky at times, not bad overall, only around 10-11 hrs long, worth a spin if you enjoy outer space horror stuff
Jovavic
Gaslight Object Project
I'm thinking I'll wait till it gets down to 35 or so, drawback of having the digital consoles is not being able to sell the game if it's lame
Unholy Diver
Registered User
Yeah that's not a bad plan, Santa brought it to me otherwise I probably would have waited for a sale
pistolpete11
Registered User
- Apr 27, 2013
- 11,594
- 10,402
Returnal - 8/10
I had a lot of fun. It is quite challenging, but I enjoy a good challenge....It is more about movement than shooting, so there is some aim assist, but the running, jumping, dashing, grappling is all very tight....It shows off the PS5 controller quite well. You could hold the left trigger half way down to aim or fully down to do an alt-fire. I thought that was going to be finicky at first, but I don't think I messed it up even once while playing. Worked very well. The haptic feedback in general was cool. Whether it was from the ship crashing in a cut scene, to shooting guns, to falling far distances, to a heartbeat, to some environmental stuff. It's more than just a rumble....The story was good. At first, it's just a spaceship crash and you're looking for a way to get off the planet, but you quickly realize something else is going on. Even after completing it, it's still pretty ambiguous, but they give you nuggets throughout in the forms of audio logs that you left behind in previous lives (which start as basic reporting on the planet, but slowly transition to what is going on in your head the further you get), a house that you can explore a few times throughout that turns it into a borderline horror game, and a few other things you find throughout the world. Some would call it too much context (
), but I think it does a good job of luring you deeper and deeper into the story, but still leaving it up to your interpretation....The guns are mostly standard (pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenade launcher). They all have different alt-fires and other perks to keep it fresh, but 2 of the guns were kind of unique. There's one that shoots little stakes and they would connect to each other with electricity and form a web. Kind of OP if you ask me because you could just run around while it's still doing damage. The other one was even more interesting. You got 3 shots and when they hit something, they would return to you, but you couldn't reload. So if you shot and missed something with nothing behind it, it would take a few seconds for it to hit the back wall and come back. Conversely, though, if you were right on top of it and don't miss, you could do a ton a damage very quickly. It was fun to use in the world, but I found it pretty pointless against the bosses.
I haven't played many roguelikes, so I don't know if these are critiques of the genre or Returnal specifically, but....There is no saving or checkpoints and if you close the game, then you start at the beginning. I get not being able to save manually at any point and I don't even have problem going back to the start when you die. But runs could take upwards of an hour. You could do a run, die, do another run, beat the boss, and then you're left with the decision to keep going for another hour+ or forfeit your gun and whatever other perks you have. I don't like playing for that long consecutively, but I got sucked into doing it a few times...Because of always returning to the very start, it also became repetitive after a while. Was starting to get a little tired of it by the end.....The difficultly at times seemed almost entirely random depending on the weapons and/or malfunctions you get. I get it's a risk/reward thing, but most of the time it was reasonable enough to clear. Other times, it was a run killer. If you had a relatively clean run and got a good gun, the bosses were almost trivial....Visually, I didn't think it was anything special. It was fine, but nothing particularly next gen about it. Demon's Souls remake, for example, looked way better IMO.
Overall a cool game that was just on the verge of overstaying it's welcome.
I had a lot of fun. It is quite challenging, but I enjoy a good challenge....It is more about movement than shooting, so there is some aim assist, but the running, jumping, dashing, grappling is all very tight....It shows off the PS5 controller quite well. You could hold the left trigger half way down to aim or fully down to do an alt-fire. I thought that was going to be finicky at first, but I don't think I messed it up even once while playing. Worked very well. The haptic feedback in general was cool. Whether it was from the ship crashing in a cut scene, to shooting guns, to falling far distances, to a heartbeat, to some environmental stuff. It's more than just a rumble....The story was good. At first, it's just a spaceship crash and you're looking for a way to get off the planet, but you quickly realize something else is going on. Even after completing it, it's still pretty ambiguous, but they give you nuggets throughout in the forms of audio logs that you left behind in previous lives (which start as basic reporting on the planet, but slowly transition to what is going on in your head the further you get), a house that you can explore a few times throughout that turns it into a borderline horror game, and a few other things you find throughout the world. Some would call it too much context (
), but I think it does a good job of luring you deeper and deeper into the story, but still leaving it up to your interpretation....The guns are mostly standard (pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenade launcher). They all have different alt-fires and other perks to keep it fresh, but 2 of the guns were kind of unique. There's one that shoots little stakes and they would connect to each other with electricity and form a web. Kind of OP if you ask me because you could just run around while it's still doing damage. The other one was even more interesting. You got 3 shots and when they hit something, they would return to you, but you couldn't reload. So if you shot and missed something with nothing behind it, it would take a few seconds for it to hit the back wall and come back. Conversely, though, if you were right on top of it and don't miss, you could do a ton a damage very quickly. It was fun to use in the world, but I found it pretty pointless against the bosses.I haven't played many roguelikes, so I don't know if these are critiques of the genre or Returnal specifically, but....There is no saving or checkpoints and if you close the game, then you start at the beginning. I get not being able to save manually at any point and I don't even have problem going back to the start when you die. But runs could take upwards of an hour. You could do a run, die, do another run, beat the boss, and then you're left with the decision to keep going for another hour+ or forfeit your gun and whatever other perks you have. I don't like playing for that long consecutively, but I got sucked into doing it a few times...Because of always returning to the very start, it also became repetitive after a while. Was starting to get a little tired of it by the end.....The difficultly at times seemed almost entirely random depending on the weapons and/or malfunctions you get. I get it's a risk/reward thing, but most of the time it was reasonable enough to clear. Other times, it was a run killer. If you had a relatively clean run and got a good gun, the bosses were almost trivial....Visually, I didn't think it was anything special. It was fine, but nothing particularly next gen about it. Demon's Souls remake, for example, looked way better IMO.
Overall a cool game that was just on the verge of overstaying it's welcome.
Commander Clueless
Hiya, hiya. Pleased to meetcha.
- Sep 10, 2008
- 15,521
- 3,421
Marvel's Midnight Suns (PC)
Finally rolled credits on this beauty after 85 hours. I played the absolute snot out of it.
Fantastic game.
The combat is incredible...the combination of XCOM/Slay the Spire/Into the Breach is just a ton of fun to play. The deckbuilding is simple but so fun to play around with.
The social aspect is only okay, and I think many people will find it tiresome. Me, however - I quite enjoyed it.
Some of the extra AAA add-ons like gathering reagents and several different currencies and premium skins, blah blah blah....felt like adding things just to check off a list. It doesn't really detract from the game, but it doesn't add anything either.
All in all, I can't recommend this game enough....with the caveats above and if you like the style of combat described.
Finally rolled credits on this beauty after 85 hours. I played the absolute snot out of it.
Fantastic game.
The combat is incredible...the combination of XCOM/Slay the Spire/Into the Breach is just a ton of fun to play. The deckbuilding is simple but so fun to play around with.
The social aspect is only okay, and I think many people will find it tiresome. Me, however - I quite enjoyed it.
Some of the extra AAA add-ons like gathering reagents and several different currencies and premium skins, blah blah blah....felt like adding things just to check off a list. It doesn't really detract from the game, but it doesn't add anything either.
All in all, I can't recommend this game enough....with the caveats above and if you like the style of combat described.
flyersnorth
Registered User
- Oct 7, 2019
- 4,435
- 6,848
I've been stoked about this for a while! The social stuff and Marvel link aren't my bag, but I can look past it if the combat is satisfying, which it seems to be!
Question for you - would you say this game has a lot of replayability? Are you itching to play it again, or is one run through enough for you?
SimGrindcore
Registered User
Cyberpunk 2077 - 8.5/10
Overall, I really enjoyed my 169 hours in Night City. As a completionist I have cleared all the map from NCPD gigs, side gigs, cyberpsychos and side quests. I have to say I think there are too many NCPD gigs for my taste as it felt like a chore at some point. I loved the atmosphere of Night City, especially at night. I loved V's relationship with Jackie, Johnny, Panam and Judy. I played 4 different endings and I recommend choosing Rogue's path for 3rd act. I feel it's the canon ending and it closes Johnny Silverhand ark.
The game was running smoothly on my Xbox one X. The game crashed maybe 10 times in my playthrough, but never really lost any progress. I had framerate drops when I didn't reset the game after maybe 4-5 days, only "closing" the Xbox in sleep mode.
I think Cyberpunk is a game worth trying since it was fixed from it's poor launching state.
My V was a badass and a fashion icon!
Overall, I really enjoyed my 169 hours in Night City. As a completionist I have cleared all the map from NCPD gigs, side gigs, cyberpsychos and side quests. I have to say I think there are too many NCPD gigs for my taste as it felt like a chore at some point. I loved the atmosphere of Night City, especially at night. I loved V's relationship with Jackie, Johnny, Panam and Judy. I played 4 different endings and I recommend choosing Rogue's path for 3rd act. I feel it's the canon ending and it closes Johnny Silverhand ark.
The game was running smoothly on my Xbox one X. The game crashed maybe 10 times in my playthrough, but never really lost any progress. I had framerate drops when I didn't reset the game after maybe 4-5 days, only "closing" the Xbox in sleep mode.
I think Cyberpunk is a game worth trying since it was fixed from it's poor launching state.
My V was a badass and a fashion icon!
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No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
Super Mario 64
I’ve beat it when it first came out, but my son is really into watching me play old games (especially this and Mario Kart 64). And I’ve gotta say that Mario 64 still absolutely holds up. Easy 10/10, though getting all 120 stars with him so he can see Yoshi is going to be a chore. There are still a couple areas where the controls are a tad clunky, but the game was a 3D platforming experiment that took many other studios a decade to catch up to.
I’ve beat it when it first came out, but my son is really into watching me play old games (especially this and Mario Kart 64). And I’ve gotta say that Mario 64 still absolutely holds up. Easy 10/10, though getting all 120 stars with him so he can see Yoshi is going to be a chore. There are still a couple areas where the controls are a tad clunky, but the game was a 3D platforming experiment that took many other studios a decade to catch up to.
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
I still have the N64 cartridge and the N64 in our basement, but just on the Switch to facilitate his attention span. Just a couple circuits here in Mario Kart 64 then a couple of stars there in Mario 64 and then likely swapping over to SNES Online and playing Yoshi’s Island for a few levels is his pattern of interest.
Being a dad is really difficult, you guys.
Yeah, I had Switch Online Expansion for a while, and will probably re-activate it at some point. Due to the craziness of the N64 controller though, I found those games weird to play without the controller. Luckily, I was eventually able to find one of the wireless ones they've released on a Nintendo.com drop. Out of the consoles I grew up with, it has to have the most unique controller of all-time. The gamecube has some oddities, but can easily be mapped to modern controllers (it just looks weird, but basically has the same button lay-out as any modern controller).
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
haha, I managed to hold off on the Genesis, SNES and NES controllers. N64 doesn't fell right without that 3 pronged animal they decided was the next generation of controller.
Commander Clueless
Hiya, hiya. Pleased to meetcha.
- Sep 10, 2008
- 15,521
- 3,421
Story wise, there's not really any variation on endings, etc.
However, in terms of combat, I would say there is definitely some replayability. Even in the amount of time I put in, there are multiple specialties for the main character to play with, and I feel like several of my companions went severely underutilized.
Personally, yes I am itching to play again, but I could easily see how many people would be one and done.
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Much smaller game than I remember, and of course, action replay makes it an utter breeze. Still a fun short romp, though.
7/10
7/10
Doing the review here because it's basically just me and @SJSharks72 having a public DM chat in the dedicated thread.
Fire Emblem Engage: 7/10
Pros: The visuals and gameplay are at the highest level in the series. I haven't gotten to hard or maddening difficulty yet but I will say it's not the most challenging Fire Emblem game, but it's up there with the most enjoyable on terms of the sheer fun of battle. The things I have in my cons would have lowered the score a lot more if it weren't for the fact that the game is truly fun to play and a pleasure to look at as a long time fan of the series.
The soundtrack isn't as strong as Three Houses but there are some really good tracks.
Minor quibbles and issues that aren't a big deal:
The Somniel streamlines the monotony of the Academy monthly tasks type progression of Three Houses that was enjoyable for one run but became tedious on repeat playthroughs. The character boosting activities at the Somniel are almost entirely skippable here which is nice. But I would've hoped that instead of more of the exact same with the social hub, they'd make the optional content at least a bit more fun to waste time on.
The character design just didn't land for me in this one. The outfits are good. But the eyes just make everyone look too similar and bland.
Like I said, I haven't played advanced difficulties but the emblem rings that let you power up your characters by allying them with ghosts of fire emblem game's past make your characters a little too strong which can trivialize any challenge. Even with the turn limit limitations. Same goes for allowing players to do too many skirmishes and overlevel themselves way beyond the difficulty of any given story battle. It leaves it to the player to determine when more level grinding is needed and when it's too much.
Cons:
It's really just one but it's a big one for me. TL;DR: the story is bad, the character writing is bad, and the world building writing is virtually non-existent. If this game came out in the 90s, it would be fine, but for this era of gaming and especially compared to its predecessor, the bare minimum effort to put together the most generic and unremarkable Fire Emblem story imaginable was pretty much offensive to me by the time I got to the end.
Rant mode:
I understand there were a lot more years between Fates and Three Houses and Three Houses was a direct response to how much criticism they got for how badly Fates was written. But I couldn't imagine that the successor to Three Houses would somehow have lazier writing than 3H's maligned predecessor. Fates has a bad story. I don't think anyone can argue otherwise. But at least it tried to develop its characters. At least it tried to build out its world between the two competing nations and their varied cultures. At least it tried with virtually everything that Engage didn't.
And then Three Houses came along and put out a story that admittedly wouldn't win any prizes but at least it fleshed out its world with historical backstory, presented a line between real history and folklore/mythology that got blurred with the passing of time, sociopolitical strife and tensions, class disparity based on Fodlan society's over-inflated emphasis on magical hereditary traits (in one line, people are born with one or two magical traits considered to be blessings from the goddess, usually hereditary but usually being born with one opens the door for your family ascending to nobility) and the socioeconomic ramifications that has on the whole continent, wide-spread impact of a pseudo-theocracy governing the continent's nations, all as backdrop for fleshed out characters with unique beliefs, moral codes, and motivations who typically undergo measurable character growth and development. None of it was pulitzer prize winning material, but at least a lot of effort and care was expended to create a deep and diverse narrative for the player to enjoy. It helped drive the battles with purpose and made the world of Fodlan feel real.
By comparison, there's almost none of that in Engage. Instead the story focuses on "you" as a Divine dragon/human hybrid who has to stop an evil divine dragon with the help of rings of power that house the ghosts of past fire emblem heroes. The depth of the world of Elyos caps out at the most basic descriptions of its four nations to offset the fact that each nation really just serves as destinations for you as the protagonist to collect more of these MacGuffin rings until you have what you need to kill the underdeveloped big bad. There's a little more to it as to the relationships of these dragons, but not much, and the best of it is marginally compelling. And even that description might be generous. Each chapter boils down to mediocre to awful passages based around the same basic formula for each stop/chapter of your journey
I put in spoiler tags for anyone who wants to play and cares if I spoil this awful writing for them but I swear virtually everything aside from support conversations filters into this same repetitive and ridiculous formula until you beat the game. And even those support conversations, it would be a compliment to call them half-baked. Like I don't need the game to be dating/social Sim to the degree of Three Houses but the drop off in effort with the writing is honestly baffling considering how much acclaim 3H got.
In sum, from a design and gameplay perspective, it's a fantastic Fire Emblem game. From a writing perspective, the only time they didn't do the bare minimum is when they did less than the bare minimum. This may be the most generous 7/10 out of anything I've ever reviewed. I don't feel like I wasted my money but I don't feel like the devs put in the time and effort to make a worthy follow up to Three Houses either.
Fire Emblem Engage: 7/10
Pros: The visuals and gameplay are at the highest level in the series. I haven't gotten to hard or maddening difficulty yet but I will say it's not the most challenging Fire Emblem game, but it's up there with the most enjoyable on terms of the sheer fun of battle. The things I have in my cons would have lowered the score a lot more if it weren't for the fact that the game is truly fun to play and a pleasure to look at as a long time fan of the series.
The soundtrack isn't as strong as Three Houses but there are some really good tracks.
Minor quibbles and issues that aren't a big deal:
The Somniel streamlines the monotony of the Academy monthly tasks type progression of Three Houses that was enjoyable for one run but became tedious on repeat playthroughs. The character boosting activities at the Somniel are almost entirely skippable here which is nice. But I would've hoped that instead of more of the exact same with the social hub, they'd make the optional content at least a bit more fun to waste time on.
The character design just didn't land for me in this one. The outfits are good. But the eyes just make everyone look too similar and bland.
Like I said, I haven't played advanced difficulties but the emblem rings that let you power up your characters by allying them with ghosts of fire emblem game's past make your characters a little too strong which can trivialize any challenge. Even with the turn limit limitations. Same goes for allowing players to do too many skirmishes and overlevel themselves way beyond the difficulty of any given story battle. It leaves it to the player to determine when more level grinding is needed and when it's too much.
Cons:
It's really just one but it's a big one for me. TL;DR: the story is bad, the character writing is bad, and the world building writing is virtually non-existent. If this game came out in the 90s, it would be fine, but for this era of gaming and especially compared to its predecessor, the bare minimum effort to put together the most generic and unremarkable Fire Emblem story imaginable was pretty much offensive to me by the time I got to the end.
Rant mode:
I understand there were a lot more years between Fates and Three Houses and Three Houses was a direct response to how much criticism they got for how badly Fates was written. But I couldn't imagine that the successor to Three Houses would somehow have lazier writing than 3H's maligned predecessor. Fates has a bad story. I don't think anyone can argue otherwise. But at least it tried to develop its characters. At least it tried to build out its world between the two competing nations and their varied cultures. At least it tried with virtually everything that Engage didn't.
And then Three Houses came along and put out a story that admittedly wouldn't win any prizes but at least it fleshed out its world with historical backstory, presented a line between real history and folklore/mythology that got blurred with the passing of time, sociopolitical strife and tensions, class disparity based on Fodlan society's over-inflated emphasis on magical hereditary traits (in one line, people are born with one or two magical traits considered to be blessings from the goddess, usually hereditary but usually being born with one opens the door for your family ascending to nobility) and the socioeconomic ramifications that has on the whole continent, wide-spread impact of a pseudo-theocracy governing the continent's nations, all as backdrop for fleshed out characters with unique beliefs, moral codes, and motivations who typically undergo measurable character growth and development. None of it was pulitzer prize winning material, but at least a lot of effort and care was expended to create a deep and diverse narrative for the player to enjoy. It helped drive the battles with purpose and made the world of Fodlan feel real.
By comparison, there's almost none of that in Engage. Instead the story focuses on "you" as a Divine dragon/human hybrid who has to stop an evil divine dragon with the help of rings of power that house the ghosts of past fire emblem heroes. The depth of the world of Elyos caps out at the most basic descriptions of its four nations to offset the fact that each nation really just serves as destinations for you as the protagonist to collect more of these MacGuffin rings until you have what you need to kill the underdeveloped big bad. There's a little more to it as to the relationships of these dragons, but not much, and the best of it is marginally compelling. And even that description might be generous. Each chapter boils down to mediocre to awful passages based around the same basic formula for each stop/chapter of your journey
1. You get to a place where a ring might be and you have to fight the battle or sometimes two battles to get it 2. Some cheesy writing will make it so a villain you faced 1-3 chapters before will have the shocking revelation that fighting for the evil dragon is bad and now they want to fight for the good dragon (you) for the good of mankind. I swear this shit happened with almost every named villain from chapter like 5 all the way to the end of the game. I was legitimately surprised that there wasn't some secret final battle where you recruited the main villain to fight for your side against idk, ghosts or demons. 2 or 3 villains turning heel and joining the good guys is fine. Almost all of them is atrocious writing.
I put in spoiler tags for anyone who wants to play and cares if I spoil this awful writing for them but I swear virtually everything aside from support conversations filters into this same repetitive and ridiculous formula until you beat the game. And even those support conversations, it would be a compliment to call them half-baked. Like I don't need the game to be dating/social Sim to the degree of Three Houses but the drop off in effort with the writing is honestly baffling considering how much acclaim 3H got.
In sum, from a design and gameplay perspective, it's a fantastic Fire Emblem game. From a writing perspective, the only time they didn't do the bare minimum is when they did less than the bare minimum. This may be the most generous 7/10 out of anything I've ever reviewed. I don't feel like I wasted my money but I don't feel like the devs put in the time and effort to make a worthy follow up to Three Houses either.
Shareefruck
Registered User
Tactics Ogre Reborn - 4.5 or 5.0 (Brilliant, maybe a Masterpiece)
Just finished all the different paths/post-game content for this. Thoroughly love it, though there are definitely things I can see rubbing people the wrong way on first impression and things about it that people will consider flaws that I'll probably disagree with.
Matsuno, Yoshida, and Sakimoto are my favorite creative trio in videogames-- Matsuno's among my favorite storytellers/writers, Yoshida's my favorite artist, and Sakimoto can hold his own with any all-time great composer. They're traditionally very weak when it comes to mechanical balancing/accessibility, but their games are wonderful despite this, mainly on the strength of their satisfyingly tactile look and feel, depth, elegance, tastefulness, and style. Tactics Ogre Reborn is one of the rare instances where that weakness of theirs doesn't really come into play, though (I really like the balancing/difficulty curve), and as a result, it may just be their magnum opus.
First off, the port is an absolute labor of love, and how dear the work itself is to them is obvious with how much care they put into every re-release of it. It's rare to see a classic ACTUALLY address its flaws and attempt to perfect itself over time (especially despite being limited in mass appeal/budget) rather than arbitrarily add out of place filler bonus content or change what it is for the sake of novelty or some misguided sense of modernity. The voice acting is surprisingly fantastic (was skeptical going in, but it's consistently solid and charming-- one performance even gives me slight Charles Grodin/James Spader vibes), the updated visuals look great to me (contrary to complaints about lazy filters), and the quality of life improvements/mechanical streamlining of the game is just about perfect. They managed to simplify everything convoluted about it and completely remove its tedious grind (at least for the required parts of the game) without sacrificing any of the charm/challenge. Its secrets and hidden details are still old-game obtuse, but in a way that I appreciate and think is a good thing, personally (I want modern games to be more old-game obtuse with their secrets).
My favorite VA is for Nybeth-- Probably the most charismatic videogame mad scientist character I've come across (gets lots of great development in a Neutral route optional quest).
Tonally, it's not going to be for everyone. It's very information overload (expecting you to remember a ton of names, places, and factions right off the bat), there is almost zero levity, subject matter can get pretty brutal/bleak, it expects you to constantly read up on lore, and it's the type of storytelling that's very dispassionate, impersonal, ideas-driven, and doesn't really give a rats ass about keeping you hooked or ingratiating you to its characters so that you "root" for them (it's very Matsuno in that he has a surgical talent for delivering just the information you need and no more). If you don't care for the things that are tasteful, sharp, and incisive about its delivery/phrasing, or if you don't care about reading between the lines, the progression and base plot can feel monotonous and less than engaging. Personally, I feel that that's more of a player problem than a game problem, and I'm endeared by how uncompromising it is in that regard rather than put off by it.
Visually, it's one of my all time favorites. The sprite art, UI, world map, character portraits, backgrounds, icons, theatrical staging/framing, and presentation are all beautiful. Lots of tiny character animations that I can't believe are in a game this old (even the original SNES-era version holds up very well visually). Would I prefer more fully redone high resolution pixel art? Possibly, could go either way, but the criticism is blown out of proportion. Compared to other examples of sprite upscaling, it's one of the better attempts, IMO-- especially looks flawless on a smaller screen.
Maybe a weird example, but just look at how densely considered and ornate/cute/well drawn this simple shop looks. It's perfect, and charms the hell out of me.
Mechanically, the game seems deceptively simple/traditionalist on the surface, but there's a ton of depth, variability, and attention to detail to everything. Every class is viable and can be used in a number of clever and strategic ways, status effects and enemy recruitment is actually fun and useful to deploy and pay attention to, and even the card system is a welcome addition that adds an element of risk/reward to it. If you look in the guide, there are also a ton of tiny unexpected features and details that you would never expect (breakable obstacles, using larger units as stepping stones, alignments/loyalty ratings, etc.). The game can get very challenging and appear grueling if you try to brute-force it, but there's always a strategic solution that doesn't require grinding. The A.I. is fine, but not amazing or anything. I've heard some people complain about randomness being a factor, but I don't understand that. Randomness is a very small part of the game. It's not like Into the Breach where you can reliably predict every outcome-- you just make the smartest choices you can so that the tide of the battle favors you.
The story initially feels less elegant, carefully developed, and attention-grabbing than Final Fantasy Tactics, it's similarly information overload (throwing a ton of names/places/factions to keep in mind right away), and the mindsets of certain characters can misleadingly come across as poorly written initially, but once you read all the in-menu supplementary material, discover all the missable cutscenes/possible story paths, connect all the dots, and interpret all the details, it ends up being nearly as thematically powerful and quite a bit more rich, dynamic, and complete than FFT (where FFT feels like a Shakespearean work of art, Tactics Ogre feels more like a historical tome). One character exemplified this in particular-- On one path, he seemed formulaic and cookie cutter but serviceable in a strictly one-dimensional kind of way, on the second path, he seemed self-contradictory and stupidly written, but then once I saw all three paths, I realized how thoughtful, fascinating, and interestingly written his psychology is, which fittingly describes the game in a nutshell. There are countless characters/moments that are very "I thought this was a one-off throwaway thing, but there's more to it than I expected-- it was just hidden away in some corner." Definitely more of a post-game/replay appreciation type of game rather than a first-playthrough appreciation game, IMO.
The game is also incredible when it comes to meaningful choices, decisions, and variables that can affect things, as well as just being jam-packed with missable details, rare events, and possibilities. Tons of characters can be recruited depending on the choices you make, most can permanently die or abandon you if they disagree with your choices, and a number of different things can appear in your ending based on that. Lots of tiny little things that they did not need to consider but did, like enemies having different dialogue if they die in a different order or at the same time as related enemies. There's even a part of the game that does the "I'll go alone and unarmed" thing, and different sequences play out depending on whether you enter from the front/back, what units you include in your formation, or whether your character is equipped with anything-- It doesn't amount to much, but the attention to detail is very charming. And all of those details are voiced, too. The premise of the post-game DLC sounds like it shouldn't work and is the type of thing I'd normally hate (time-travel shenanigans to justify exploring hypotheticals and undoing negative outcomes), but it's handled with such grace that I feel that it does work and enhance the overall experience (I don't know what was intended, but instead of feeling like childishly immature denial like other time travel things, it feels more like a non-literal psychological fever dream of regret to me). Overall, Tactics Ogre Reborn is more content than anyone can ask for, and you're likely to constantly discover new things even after hundreds of hours.
Some minor nitpicks I have. First, the optional dungeons, while sometimes containing the occasional great story moment and sometimes packed with useful obtainables, are gruelingly repetitive and uninteresting, basically just climbing hundreds of floors, some of which don't even have much of a pay-off. Second, there are a couple choices that are badly translated or have no logical reasoning. One is a matter of life and death where the choice just straight up appears to have no logical reasoning (I know how to get the desired outcome, but can't make sense of why, story-wise). Another, you choose between "Of course!" and "How could I not?", which logically mean the same thing. I also caught an incorrect voice line where the wrong voice actor (playing a character with the same name) voices a line when the character is off-screen, only for the correct one to replace them in the next sentence. Not much else bothers me, personally.
When Final Fantasy Tactics Reborn gets released, hopefully getting this same treatment, it's going to be difficult to decide which one I like better (FFT's story and writing is still more concise, beautiful, meaningfully progressing with every encounter, and it has a superior/flawless ending). But at the moment, this probably takes the cake, IMO.
Favorite Games:
1. Kentucky Route Zero
2. Disco Elysium
3. Celeste
4. Into the Breach: Advanced Edition
5. Inside
6. Tactics Ogre Reborn
7. Downwell
8. Sekiro (tentatively based on small sample)
9. Bloodborne (tentatively based on small sample)
10. Super Metroid
11. Hollow Knight
12. Portal 1
13. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (iOS)
14. Tunic
T15. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike/Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Just finished all the different paths/post-game content for this. Thoroughly love it, though there are definitely things I can see rubbing people the wrong way on first impression and things about it that people will consider flaws that I'll probably disagree with.
Matsuno, Yoshida, and Sakimoto are my favorite creative trio in videogames-- Matsuno's among my favorite storytellers/writers, Yoshida's my favorite artist, and Sakimoto can hold his own with any all-time great composer. They're traditionally very weak when it comes to mechanical balancing/accessibility, but their games are wonderful despite this, mainly on the strength of their satisfyingly tactile look and feel, depth, elegance, tastefulness, and style. Tactics Ogre Reborn is one of the rare instances where that weakness of theirs doesn't really come into play, though (I really like the balancing/difficulty curve), and as a result, it may just be their magnum opus.
First off, the port is an absolute labor of love, and how dear the work itself is to them is obvious with how much care they put into every re-release of it. It's rare to see a classic ACTUALLY address its flaws and attempt to perfect itself over time (especially despite being limited in mass appeal/budget) rather than arbitrarily add out of place filler bonus content or change what it is for the sake of novelty or some misguided sense of modernity. The voice acting is surprisingly fantastic (was skeptical going in, but it's consistently solid and charming-- one performance even gives me slight Charles Grodin/James Spader vibes), the updated visuals look great to me (contrary to complaints about lazy filters), and the quality of life improvements/mechanical streamlining of the game is just about perfect. They managed to simplify everything convoluted about it and completely remove its tedious grind (at least for the required parts of the game) without sacrificing any of the charm/challenge. Its secrets and hidden details are still old-game obtuse, but in a way that I appreciate and think is a good thing, personally (I want modern games to be more old-game obtuse with their secrets).
My favorite VA is for Nybeth-- Probably the most charismatic videogame mad scientist character I've come across (gets lots of great development in a Neutral route optional quest).
Tonally, it's not going to be for everyone. It's very information overload (expecting you to remember a ton of names, places, and factions right off the bat), there is almost zero levity, subject matter can get pretty brutal/bleak, it expects you to constantly read up on lore, and it's the type of storytelling that's very dispassionate, impersonal, ideas-driven, and doesn't really give a rats ass about keeping you hooked or ingratiating you to its characters so that you "root" for them (it's very Matsuno in that he has a surgical talent for delivering just the information you need and no more). If you don't care for the things that are tasteful, sharp, and incisive about its delivery/phrasing, or if you don't care about reading between the lines, the progression and base plot can feel monotonous and less than engaging. Personally, I feel that that's more of a player problem than a game problem, and I'm endeared by how uncompromising it is in that regard rather than put off by it.
Visually, it's one of my all time favorites. The sprite art, UI, world map, character portraits, backgrounds, icons, theatrical staging/framing, and presentation are all beautiful. Lots of tiny character animations that I can't believe are in a game this old (even the original SNES-era version holds up very well visually). Would I prefer more fully redone high resolution pixel art? Possibly, could go either way, but the criticism is blown out of proportion. Compared to other examples of sprite upscaling, it's one of the better attempts, IMO-- especially looks flawless on a smaller screen.
Maybe a weird example, but just look at how densely considered and ornate/cute/well drawn this simple shop looks. It's perfect, and charms the hell out of me.
Mechanically, the game seems deceptively simple/traditionalist on the surface, but there's a ton of depth, variability, and attention to detail to everything. Every class is viable and can be used in a number of clever and strategic ways, status effects and enemy recruitment is actually fun and useful to deploy and pay attention to, and even the card system is a welcome addition that adds an element of risk/reward to it. If you look in the guide, there are also a ton of tiny unexpected features and details that you would never expect (breakable obstacles, using larger units as stepping stones, alignments/loyalty ratings, etc.). The game can get very challenging and appear grueling if you try to brute-force it, but there's always a strategic solution that doesn't require grinding. The A.I. is fine, but not amazing or anything. I've heard some people complain about randomness being a factor, but I don't understand that. Randomness is a very small part of the game. It's not like Into the Breach where you can reliably predict every outcome-- you just make the smartest choices you can so that the tide of the battle favors you.
The story initially feels less elegant, carefully developed, and attention-grabbing than Final Fantasy Tactics, it's similarly information overload (throwing a ton of names/places/factions to keep in mind right away), and the mindsets of certain characters can misleadingly come across as poorly written initially, but once you read all the in-menu supplementary material, discover all the missable cutscenes/possible story paths, connect all the dots, and interpret all the details, it ends up being nearly as thematically powerful and quite a bit more rich, dynamic, and complete than FFT (where FFT feels like a Shakespearean work of art, Tactics Ogre feels more like a historical tome). One character exemplified this in particular-- On one path, he seemed formulaic and cookie cutter but serviceable in a strictly one-dimensional kind of way, on the second path, he seemed self-contradictory and stupidly written, but then once I saw all three paths, I realized how thoughtful, fascinating, and interestingly written his psychology is, which fittingly describes the game in a nutshell. There are countless characters/moments that are very "I thought this was a one-off throwaway thing, but there's more to it than I expected-- it was just hidden away in some corner." Definitely more of a post-game/replay appreciation type of game rather than a first-playthrough appreciation game, IMO.
The game is also incredible when it comes to meaningful choices, decisions, and variables that can affect things, as well as just being jam-packed with missable details, rare events, and possibilities. Tons of characters can be recruited depending on the choices you make, most can permanently die or abandon you if they disagree with your choices, and a number of different things can appear in your ending based on that. Lots of tiny little things that they did not need to consider but did, like enemies having different dialogue if they die in a different order or at the same time as related enemies. There's even a part of the game that does the "I'll go alone and unarmed" thing, and different sequences play out depending on whether you enter from the front/back, what units you include in your formation, or whether your character is equipped with anything-- It doesn't amount to much, but the attention to detail is very charming. And all of those details are voiced, too. The premise of the post-game DLC sounds like it shouldn't work and is the type of thing I'd normally hate (time-travel shenanigans to justify exploring hypotheticals and undoing negative outcomes), but it's handled with such grace that I feel that it does work and enhance the overall experience (I don't know what was intended, but instead of feeling like childishly immature denial like other time travel things, it feels more like a non-literal psychological fever dream of regret to me). Overall, Tactics Ogre Reborn is more content than anyone can ask for, and you're likely to constantly discover new things even after hundreds of hours.
Some minor nitpicks I have. First, the optional dungeons, while sometimes containing the occasional great story moment and sometimes packed with useful obtainables, are gruelingly repetitive and uninteresting, basically just climbing hundreds of floors, some of which don't even have much of a pay-off. Second, there are a couple choices that are badly translated or have no logical reasoning. One is a matter of life and death where the choice just straight up appears to have no logical reasoning (I know how to get the desired outcome, but can't make sense of why, story-wise). Another, you choose between "Of course!" and "How could I not?", which logically mean the same thing. I also caught an incorrect voice line where the wrong voice actor (playing a character with the same name) voices a line when the character is off-screen, only for the correct one to replace them in the next sentence. Not much else bothers me, personally.
When Final Fantasy Tactics Reborn gets released, hopefully getting this same treatment, it's going to be difficult to decide which one I like better (FFT's story and writing is still more concise, beautiful, meaningfully progressing with every encounter, and it has a superior/flawless ending). But at the moment, this probably takes the cake, IMO.
Favorite Games:
1. Kentucky Route Zero
2. Disco Elysium
3. Celeste
4. Into the Breach: Advanced Edition
5. Inside
6. Tactics Ogre Reborn
7. Downwell
8. Sekiro (tentatively based on small sample)
9. Bloodborne (tentatively based on small sample)
10. Super Metroid
11. Hollow Knight
12. Portal 1
13. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (iOS)
14. Tunic
T15. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike/Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Last edited:
X66
114-110
- Aug 18, 2008
- 13,578
- 7,445
Just beat hi-fi rush the other day, hard to find time to play games these days with kids lol.
BUT, the game is absolutely incredible, truly feels like a special experience. 5/5 no doubt.
I'm also playing the cracked version of Street Fighter 6 here and there, no review on that until the game is out fully lol.
Totally out of my control, but I played Hades before I played Returnal and I feel that impacted how much I liked Returnal because of it.
Still a great game, but I was spoiled after Hades on the rouge-lite genre.
BUT, the game is absolutely incredible, truly feels like a special experience. 5/5 no doubt.
I'm also playing the cracked version of Street Fighter 6 here and there, no review on that until the game is out fully lol.
Totally out of my control, but I played Hades before I played Returnal and I feel that impacted how much I liked Returnal because of it.
Still a great game, but I was spoiled after Hades on the rouge-lite genre.
Shareefruck
Registered User
X66
114-110
- Aug 18, 2008
- 13,578
- 7,445
Honestly so far it’s awesome.
The drive Rush mechanic has a lot of potential, basically there are barely any plus frame normals in this game unless you do drive rush, so that’ll take a lot of time to get used to.
3rd strike was awesome but I loved sf4 too. Sf5 on the other hand…just horrible until the end of its lifecycle when it improved(I wasn’t playing however)
Ceremony
blahem
- Jun 8, 2012
- 113,337
- 15,751
2009. You remember 2009. Grey, gritty films in which Batman ran around shouting I'm Batman! then punching people who said It's Batman! were all the rage. Grey, gritty video games were all the rage. I was trying very hard to not kill myself due to a prolonged period of emotional blackmail. The time was ripe then for a grey, gritty video game in which you played as Batman, walking into rooms and punching people after they'd announced It's Batman!
In Arkham Asylum you play as... Batman, who arrives at the Asylum after having captured Joker again. Only something about it was too easy, and he doesn't seem too bothered by his reincarceration. Batman is an intelligent guy. What could go wrong taking the city's most notorious villain into an isolated island prison full of the city's next most notorious villains, as well as a seemingly endless supply of goons recently transferred from another prison? Everything, of course. What follows is Batman kicking, punching and sneaking his way through those goons as he tries to stop Joker's plan to poison Gotham's water supply. They even took the story from the films, but now that I think about it I don't understand why an island in the middle of some water is so crucial to the water of the whole city.
When it was released originally, Arkham Asylum was a revelation. Here's a third person action game with flowing combat based on timing and skill. Enemies pop up and you press the attack and counter buttons in time with their attacks and you can take down a whole room in one giant flowing combo. Between those there are stealth-based sections, where the enemies are armed and you can't afford to let them see you. I never actually played this when it was first released so I can't speak to how revelatory it was at the time, but despite the flaws I'll come to it's undeniable that when Arkham Asylum works, it's very satisfying. When you get a combo right and you get used to the rhythm of the combat, you feel like Batman. Despite being a comic book setting there's still something visceral about the combat which translates well through the medium.
The problem with that is it's not always flowing. It doesn't always work. Sometimes enemies will stand next to you and do nothing. Sometimes they'll sprint from one side of a room to another to hit you and mess up your flow, hitting you while you're in the middle of another action which spoils your combo. Or maybe one of the guys with knives will show up and because you need to press a different button to get his guard down, you'll target the guy next to him to make space and you'll hit the wrong person and you'll take damage and the combo will end. That's annoying, and one thing I can say about playing this in 2023 is that I know there's a sequel. I know there's a game where the formula is more refined and less annoying than this, and I'm not playing that, I'm playing something worse. The targeting problem isn't really something that you get used to as the game goes on, because to increase the stakes and difficulty all it can do is throw more enemies at you, making the chances of annoying interruptions greater.
I played the PS3 version of this in 2014 and the stealth sections were much more prominent in my mind than they are here. They're very much telegraphed when they appear. You enter a room with stone gargoyles high up on the walls which you can glide between. There are a number of environmental tools you can use to take down enemies, and gadgets which you can unlock as you progress. Even though there are ultimately several ways to take people out, the opportunities to use them often feel contrived and awkward. Isolating an enemy to take them out without someone seeing you and shooting is possible but often takes much longer than just swooping down and spamming the square button to knock them out. Much like the combat, you get the feeling that these are mechanics which can be refined and made more enjoyable, but it's just not the case here.
Reading about this game and the topic of Arkham Asylum in Batman media is quite overwhelming. There's tons of this stuff. Comics, books, TV, films, games, the amount of depictions of the location and the various characters is huge. There are lots of little references to various Batman characters which you can interact with, but if you're unfamiliar with them like me they won't mean much. With that said, the main story here is a bit... inconsequential. It had little bearing on the gameplay either. Outside of the punchy or stealthy bits you'll pop up in a room and need to find someone. Turn on detective mode, find a trace of who you're looking for then follow a linear path until the next bit of plot happens. Even as I was playing I couldn't really tell you what was going on.
While the map of the Asylum is technically open world - three distinct areas with buildings which you enter at various points - there's really no incentive or opportunity to explore until you've reached the endgame. This in itself is fine while you're playing, but afterwards you realise the game ends up feeling constrained. There are some minor collectibles dotted around, but by the time you're at the endgame you'll have unlocked all of Batman's abilities so there's little benefit unless you're a completionist. When you're searching for things you'll also have detective mode on the whole time meaning the entire world is just a digital-style blue with red bits for enemies. In what's an iconic location, there isn't really much to see.
With this in mind it probably says a lot that the most memorable sections are fever dreams inspired by Scarecrow's fear gas. You move around fragments of walls and buildings while avoiding the giant Scarecrow's gaze and fighting the inner demons he manifests out of the ground. It's a great couple of sections which almost say something about Batman the character, but even then not really. Come to think of it, the villains are probably the most memorable characters in the game. You can probably say that about most superhero fiction. Scarecrow's sections are good, Joker's voice acting from Mark Hammill is fantastic. But without a real sense of location of consequence to tie them altogether, the atmosphere ends up a little flat. I know Batman is... well, Batman, but there's very little said about him, and it's hard to care about him much as a result.
Part of the reason there's little to see is the gritty grey grittiness I mentioned at the start. You forget just how dull colour palettes were in the first few years of the 7th generation of consoles. Everything in this game is some shade of grey, brown or green. The whole thing takes place at night. In the rain. The Asylum is a techno-gothic nightmare that's falling apart. It's built on a rock in the middle of the ocean. I think part of my problem with the map is that everything looks the same, so there's no sense of progression from the start of the game to the end. Interiors are all identical too. Even the enemies suffer from this. There were times where I was punched by guys who I couldn't see because they were camouflaged against the wall they were stood next to. I'm not joking.
If you really like the combat and the stealth there are unlockable Challenge Rooms you can go into, trying to set a high score in the combat rooms and take out goons in specific ways in the stealth rooms. These only really matter if you're into completionism so naturally I drove myself insane. Think of the issues I had with combat. Now imagine that but with more enemies than normal, in a confined space, and a camera that's constantly moving around as you swoop boot-first from face to face while trying to keep a combo going. Don't be like me.
It's a bit surreal to think this game is nearly fourteen years old, but I think it still holds up. If you're into Batman you'll love it. If you have no strong feelings about Batman but like video games you'll probably like it. If you have no interest in Batman and played Wii Sports once you might like this on a lower difficulty setting. I know I can't wait to see how close to madness I come when I'm playing Arkham City.
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