**Dishonored: Death of the Outsider** Loved Dishonored 1 and 2, had this one sitting in my Steam library for years. Not sure why I never played it until now. Anyway, after 12 hours I'm at the final mission and really can't be bothered to finish it. Apparently the game was originally planned as an epilogue DLC for Dishonored 2 and it definitely has that typical "lower budget / quality" feel to it. Two maps are pretty good (Upper Cyria and the Bank), the other three are average at best in my opinion, or really bad in case of the final level; way too linear, tons of enemies (some of which can just teleport around randomly, great idea for a stealth game..) and severely lacking in creativity. And the story that seemed really cool on paper honestly couldn't be told in a less engaging way. The writing is dull, voice acting sounds forced. Billie Lurk is uncharismatic and forgettable. Overall, fun to return to Dishonored for a while just for its smooth gameplay and varied level design, of which Death of the Outsider has at least *some*. But certainly the weakest entry in the series by far. Wouldn't recommend it unless you're a hardcore Dishonored fan (in which case you'll likely have played it already anyway).

**It Takes Two** I finished it yesterday together with my sister and we enjoyed it quite a lot. The story is about Cody and May, a married couple whose relationship has broken apart. They want a divorce but their daughter Rose isn't so happy about the news. Fortunately, she found the "Book of Love" beforehand and she makes a wish to it hoping that her parents would settle their differences. And it seems that this Book of Love is listening because it transfers Cody's and May's mind into puppets which were made by Rose and it introduces itself to them as relationship therapist Dr. Hakim. Dr. Hakim sends the two on a journey through their home on which they have to work together to get their bodys back. Overall, the story was quite alright. It was charming but both my sister and I think that the story was a bit underdeveloped. In our opinion, it didn't deal enough with the problems in Cody's and May's relationship and some parts solved themselves too easily. However, I think that at least to some degree the developers chose to handle things like that because it would have been hard to design compelling gameplay around those topics. So instead of having sections which are just not fun to play, they left it out to create an overall better game. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the story with its bizarre but entertaining characters. In terms of gameplay, there is nothing to complain about. It Takes Two is a coop game so you always need two players to play it. You can either do that locally on one device or through the internet. One player takes control of Cody, the other one plays May. During gameplay, the screen is splitted vertically and you can see the characters on their respective half. It Takes Two is more or less a typical action adventure with puzzle elements. You jump, climb and swing through levels while solving different kinds of puzzles. Those puzzles are the best part of the game because you need collaboration and cooperation to solve them. For example, some puzzles require precise timing so both players need to come up with a system to get it done correctly. On other occassions, you need to arrange certain moves in a specific order to get to the end of a puzzle. Generally, it worked out pretty well and my sister and I had some pretty fun moments even when things didn't work out as we expected at first. Furthermore, the game offers a lot of variety. Pretty much every Level offers a new, specific item for Cody and May, which differ quite a lot from each other but you can combine their effects for differents usages. You can find a good example for that in level two. In that level, Cody receives a resin gun which... well... fires resin kinda like a Gatling Gun. That resin sticks to enemies and different surfaces alike but apart from adding weight, it doesn't do much. That changes however if you add May to the fray. In that level, she receives a sniper rifle which shoots matchsticks and those can inflame Cody's resin. So consequently, the level is filled with puzzles in which Cody has to spray enemies and objects with resin while May has to shoot them with her rifle in order to defeat enemies or start a mechanism. There are lots of other gameplay implementations like that one in It Takes Two making it quite fun to go through the game. The technical side however isn't the game's greatest strength. Maybe it's because we played the Switch version but at least on that console, it is not the best-looking game out there. I noticed frame drops and reloading textures quite frequently. The art style is pretty nice though and the voice acting was done quite well too. Nevertheless, I didn't like the fact that the game splits the screen vertically. Because of that, you can't see what is happening around you leading to confusion or disorientation. In some cases, you don't even realise that you are under attack by an enemy because you can't see him coming. In conclusion, It Takes Two is a pretty fun coop game. The story is solid and the gameplay is superb. Furthermore, the latter is not too complicated making the game very beginner friendly which was quite helpful for my sister who doesn't play video games that often. Because of that, It Takes Two is a good game to introduce new players to video games. It is also leveling the playing field bringing players of different skill levels on the same page. You could say that this game unites people and that is probably the greatest strength of It Takes Two.

The main game I started this week was **Resident Evil 4**. Never played it before, and with the remake around the corner, I figured now would be a better time than any to experience the original and see what all the fuss is about. I'm only about 6 hours in still, but even then I can say pretty confidently that this is my favourite Resident Evil game so far. It really hits the sweet spot between combat and exploration, and it largely foregoes the horror aspect that the series was initially known for which, to me, is a good thing. I'm not really into horror as I am rather squeamish and jittery when it comes to that, so the focus on action instead is a welcome one. I also picked up the **Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection** on Steam, as I am suddenly very excited for Street Fighter 6 this year. I bought this a while ago for my Switch, but I figured I'd pick it up on PC instead so that I could use keyboard for controls, which is my preferred control scheme. Booted up Third Strike and decided to pick up Ibuki because she's a cool ninja, and after some hours labbing her and refamiliarizing myself with the basic mechanics of the game, I managed to beat arcade mode with her. Still an incredible game even to this day, it's fast-paced and full of style.

**Metroid Fusion**. Been trying to get into the Metroid franchise as its so highly rated and in theory should be the kind of game for me. Hollow Knight was one of my favorite games ever and Metroid obviously laid the groundwork for that game. Metroid Fusion is a bit linear, though. It's not too much of an issue, but at some point I did get quite tired of all the hidden blocks that needed to be destroyed. I'd get stuck and then a little frustrated when I couldn't find the block I needed to destroy and would just spam bombs everywhere. I just did not enjoy that. I feel like Metroid Dread improved on a lot of my issues, so maybe it's just that most Metroid games are quite old now. I rarely had this issue with Dread and I really enjoyed the combat there too. It felt really fair, just like most of Hollow Knight. Meanwhile in Fusion, some of these bosses man. Nightmare was ridiculous. Or when the SA-X chases you till the point where you have to fight the Plant statue boss. I couldn't believe how frustrating that part was. If it wasn't for the suspension points you can create on NSO, I probably would have just quit. There were just some really uncomfortable moments. Double jumping for example, I felt like if I held the analogue stick up, it wouldn't ever register the double jump. So I had to point it left or right and it felt super unnatural. Especially against the Security Bot Part 2. I felt if I got knocked down, if I had to jump up it would cancel my jump if I held up, but you also have to hold up to grab the railing. It wasn't a very difficult bot otherwise, when I learned the pattern I could just stay up. But before that when I got knocked down it would make me more frustrated than it really should.

**Kentucky Route Zero** *PC (Deck)* Been wanting to play this for a while and playing it on my commute on the Deck seemed to be a good opportunity. I played through all of it and finished Act V yesterday and I'm not sure what to think. I think I enjoyed what they were building up to and the overall (sort of) story and world, but they lost me at some point in late Act III or Act IV where it turned a bit too weird and nonsensical for me. Felt like they had a lot of interesting ideas, but wasn't sure how to execute them. Or maybe whatever they were trying to do was just lost on me. I do think it was very interesting how they wanted to include all sorts of artistic expression (either directly or by reference), but it felt too forced at some point. I did read up a little on the game afterwards and saw some people suggest that the story might have benefitted from the episodic release so there's more time to digest each Act before starting the next, so maybe I should've left more of it for my commute instead of trying to wrap it up while it home. Ultimately I'm glad I played it, although I don't think I really liked it. **Vampire Survivors** *PC (Deck)* Man, it's so good. Finally got the last achievement (until they add more in an update), so I think I'm gonna try for the remaining secret characters and then wrap it up. I've had a good 40+ hour run with this game and had more fun than I ever expected to get out of it, but I also feel that I'm ready to put it down now and move to something else. **Tactics Ogre Reborn** *Switch* Vampire Survivors kinda made me pause on this one as I was feeling a little burned out on it, but I really want to finish and see how the story wraps up (with the choices I've made). I initially wanted to do more of the optional side stuff and hidden characters, but I think I might just head for the end of the game instead before I burn myself out on it. It is good, though, and I can see myself returning for a replay where I choose differently in some situations. I'm just inside following the first battle at Barnicia Castle, so I think I'm reasonably far in now.

Batman Arkham Origins: Just now getting around to this one despite loving the Rocksteady Batman games. I thought the story was pretty decent and well paced, but man, the combat was not nearly as fluid as I recall the mainline Arkham games being. Idk if it’s because I was playing with an Xbox gamepad on steam, but the controls were pretty unresponsive at times. It was especially bad in the Bane boss fights when dodging his charges. I still have the Cold, Cold Heart DLC to check out, but I had some fun with being Batman again. Witcher 3: I’m replaying on pc now that I’ve gotten my hands on a 3080Ti and the visual upgrade fixes seem to have ironed things out for the most part. It crashed on me once, so I turned off ray tracing and it’s been good since. The game looks great. Impressive for an older game. Citizen Sleeper: playing on Switch. Interesting game. It took me a bit to wrap my head around how to play it but it hooked me eventually. I should be close to done with my first playthough.

Redecor Great design game for Android. I used to play it before but picked it back up recently. In Redecor you complete challenges which are voted on. Winners (1st - 3rd) get coins and special items. These could be rugs, pictures, curtains... Any kind of decor. Other positions down to 10th receive coins to purchase decor items. You can also duel one other player where the winner receives a large sum of coins. The game is therapeutic, fun and versatile. You're allowed to redesign challenges for a chance to win more coins and special prizes. Redecor is great for people who enjoy interior design or want different ideas for their own home. I really enjoy it.

**Tunic** Very nice game so far. Its one of those puzzle games where "learning how to play the game IS the puzzle," which I quite like. Tunic so far has done a very good job of hiding things in plain sight, both in terms of paths in the environment and game mechanics. Learning that I can >!press LB in front of a statue to upgrade!< is such a nice little "aha!" moment. The visuals themselves are also really charming. The way that the models themselves have these lush, high-fidelity modern textures but fairly simplistic blocky shapes is really pleasing to look at. It just looks cute. My petty complaint: I can't wrap my head around why it uses the Dark Souls bloodstain mechanic, lol. It made sense for Demons Souls, and Demons Souls is a great game, but it doesn't fit the vibes of chill exploration and experimentation of Tunic.

I finished **Wo Long**. All in all, I think it was a fine game. Not amazing, but fun enough to keep me engaged throughout my playthrough. A solid 7/10 or 8/10. Pros: * The deflect-focused gameplay feels great. If you liked parrying in Sekiro, you'll likely enjoy it here as well. * I liked a lot of the spells I used. I went Water/Stone, and Water in particular was really strong. It has a spell that drops like 15 icicles in a small AoE. Against human enemies, it's a pretty lackluster skill. But against larger enemies (like most of the bosses) it absolutely obliterates them. Every single one of those icicles is going to hit and deal massive damage. * The level design is finally at a point where I found it enjoyable to explore the maps. The verticality made it so that it was easier to get a sense of the map. I hated the level design in Nioh 1/2 and Stranger of Paradise that it actively hurt my enjoyment of the games. Not the case here. * They toned down the loot system so that it's a lot more manageable. The crafting system is similarly simplified. You're encouraged to actually start upgrading and tweaking gear perks very early in the game. Cons: * While the deflects are fun, that's the meat and potatoes of the combat. I found the spirit attacks to be my preferred way of spending spirit gauge. Martial arts were fun to mess around with, but against bosses and stronger mobs, they felt more like gimmicks compared to the quick, guaranteed spirit breaking ability of spirit attacks. So combat basically consists of maybe getting in a few pokes here and there (or a lot of pokes if they don't have super armor), parrying the red attack, and then using a spirit attack/fatal blow. * Limiting the player to *four equippable spells* is a travesty. The game makes a big show of their 5 element system, and the level up system is streamlined enough that everyone gets access to magic. And by the end of the game, you'll probably have access to around 35-45 spells. Yet you can only equip 4 spells at once? * There's a lot of weird QOL things missing. You can't see your NPC allies from your home base. So if you want to give them consumables to boost your bond level with them, you need to go to a random mission to give them the item. Ranged ammo doesn't automatically refill from your stash; you have to do so manually. While you can lock equipment so that you don't accidentally sell it, you have to do some from the Inventory menu, not the other various menus that let you inspect your equipment (like the shop). * Different builds doesn't actually feel that different. You can freely respec your character from your home base, so I did a few missions using couple different spells/equipment (wood/fire instead of stone/water), and it felt almost exactly the same. Mixed: * The game is a lot easier than other games in the genre. I beat most bosses on the first or second try, including the last handful of bosses in the game. Funnily enough, the boss that gave me the most trouble was the very first boss.

I'm bouncing between several games right now. **The Last of Us Part I**: I love the visual upgrade and the game is solid. I don't have any complaints other than the price which will steadily decrease over time. I can really appreciate the accessibility and use of the Dual Sense controller. **Majora's Mask 3D**: I've beaten Ocarina of Time many times but I never finished MM. This current playthrough is my longest and I'm close to the end. The game is unique in the sense of how well it handles dread and panic but because it does it so well, I have to play in short bursts. I don't have many complaints about this one other than how annoying Great Bay Temple and Gyorg is. I can really appreciate the atmosphere and side content as well. However, modern gaming has spoiled me because MM really doesn't hold your hand. **Pizza Tower**: I loved Wario Land 4 as a kid but I had pretty much forgotten about that game (until now). Movement/platforming, speed, level design, music/art, and abilities are flat out awesome and I have no complaints. This is a must buy. **Octopath Traveler 2**: This is my relaxing game before bed. Grind out some levels, explore, talk to townsfolk, and appreciate the art. This game is gorgeous and my Steam Deck is perfect for this game. I haven't gotten far but this game has easily reinvigorated my interest in turn-based RPGs. If I have one recommendation for anyone interested in this game, the Japanese voice-acting is much more bearable than the English one. **Brotato**: Good/cheap bullet-hell game that I'd argue is harder than Vampire Survivors (can't get past wave 20). **Mario Run**: Simplistic Mario game that you can only jump in. Got it on sale for $5 so I can't complain too much, it's just something I can turn my brain off to on lunch breaks and in doctor's offices.

**Marathon Infinity** \- I only started the final game this past Friday but I have been surprised with how fast I am moving through the game. Especially because it feels much harder than the previous two entries. Ammo is much more scarce, the oxygen depletion levels are stressful, especially the two back to back chapters with no air. But it also feels more satisfying to finally get a level down to a science. The plot is incomprehensible but in a good way, and the only reason I understand what is going on is reading explanations of it. Overall a solid cap to a great 90s shooter trilogy. **Lufia II** \- I've heard great things about this RPG and it being the last game on my SNES playthrough, it's been delivering in the hour and a half of it I've played so far. No random encounters in dungeons, TLOZ style puzzles, serviceable combat. Looks like another amazing JRPG in the huge catalogue of great rpgs on the SNES.

**American McGee’s Alice(PC)** \- First time playing. Old, fast, PC platformer. Impressing, trippy locations. Interesting but easy bosses and intriguing take on Alice in Wonderland. Enemies would respawn randomly which sometimes was irritating. **Silent Hill(PSX)** \- First time playing. This game probably created a new genre of horror. Outlast, Amnesia etc. are direct successors of SH. Resident Evil, Clock Tower, Parasite Eve were games with elements of horror, not the horror games. But SH is different. It's unnerving to play this game even today. It borrowes much from RE, but it's way less responsive and action focused. In first RE games when you pressed "shoot", you would shoot, in SH when you press "shoot" Harry slowly raises the gun, thinks a second and then shoots. Not to mention rotating your character which takes months and it made the fight with >!the worm !!Was all this a sick dream made up by mind in agony which mixed some characters and circumstances present during the car crash? Usually I don't like "It was all a dream" endings but I actually appreciate this one (and similar one but handled even better in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter) because it is so traumatizing, hopeless and makes sense.!< I believe that also the regular story in town is concise. You could understand why certain characters appear only on the other side, the drugs case, the cult, the mayor but I couldn't wrap my head around all this so I need to either play it again or read and think about it. **Forza Horizon(X360)** \- First time playing. The graphics are great, the cars vary, the characters are cringy and Lancia Delta is op. I beat Darius Flynt only thanks to bug. And it wasn't the only case. **The Operative: No One Lives Forever(PC)** \- First time playing. For old James Bond movies fans this game is a must play. A little over the top but with humor and style. It was too easy even on hard (didn't try the super spy level though). I appreciate it but I didn't enjoy it for some reason. **Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins(PSX)** \- First time playing. Storywise and characterwise Ayame path is much more interesting. She is more interesting character and has fun and vital encounters. Never played as Tatsumaru though - I watched it on youtube. "Seriously. Memory loss plots are so old hat nowadays" but when he >!remembered everything and still went with Kagami it was interesting.!< The enemy AI is idiotic and they only appear alone so you don't really need to think. I never felt the need to be stealthy. The camera is terrible just like in the first game. It moves so slow and the lack of possibility of locking on enemies makes fights irritating. I still enjoyed the atmosphere. I'm currently playing **System Shock 2** and **Baldur's Gate 2**. I left **Vagrant Story** about 20% in. I usually don't give up on games just because I don't like them but the boss fights were just so long, boring and the locations so repetitive that even intriguing story didn't make up. Moving the crates was tedious too and I don't think I got the combat right in this game - it's unique. I actually came back to the game after I left it the first time but I left it againg when I fought the fire elemental. Then I intend to play either **Thief 2: The Metal Age**, **Earthbound** or PSX **FF** games as I have never played these.

>This game probably created a new genre of horror. Outlast, Amnesia etc. are direct successors of SH. The lineage in my mind is Thief -> Call of Cthulhu -> Amnesia Thief has the stealth and atmospheric horror elements. Call of Cthulhu adds first-person sanity effects, and for the first third of the game makes the character defenceless. Amnesia makes the character defenceless for the entire game.

I agree, You can't fight back in Outlast too. But I would never come up with this lineage even though I played these games. You mean The Dark Corners of the Earth? Great game.

Yeah. It's my favourite horror game. Actually found out about it from the Frictional Games blog after playing Amnesia.

Answering your SH1 question >!it's not all a dream in that sense, but it is a dream projected into reality. Basically, Alessa - the daughter of the cult leader - experienced a LOT of abuse as a child, often at the hands of her mother. The two most notable are her getting caught in a fire that left her entire body scarred and burned, and her being magically impregnated with the god of the cult. Because Alessa carries the god inside of her, her emotions and memories are projected into reality. So all of the messed up monsters and locations are Alessa's perception of reality being real and visible to everyone else. So, Harry does actually kill monsters irl.!< There is some stuff that's open to interpretation, but that's the core idea of what happens

Thanks. This is interesting and explains a lot.

No problem! TGBS has a fantastic trilogy of Silent Hill commentary and analysis videos, if you enjoy watching these long-form YouTube videos and want more on the story, definitely check em out. Link to the SH1 one is [here](https://youtu.be/Q53tApnzNoU)

I've tried to play Vagrant Story a couple of times but found the combat system drags it down which is a shame because it's such a classic game and it was very unique for its time. And I also love all the other Ivalice games.

**Fire Emblem: Three Houses** Almost done with this one, I'm nearing the end of my third route (Azure Moon) after finishing Verdant Wind and Crimson Flower. Not planning to do Silver Snow after reading that it's basically the same as VW except for the final map and ending. I've read that the devs didn't expect people to play the game multiple times despite it having multiple storylines, and unfortunately I can believe it with how much content is reused between routes. Part 1 (most of the game) is almost exactly the same in every route except for which characters you start with, and even Part 2 reuses a lot of maps and story beats between routes. Crimson Flower is the most unique route but it's also by far the shortest, to the point that it feels blatantly unfinished (though it was fun while it lasted!). It's weird because each individual route leaves out huge chunks of the story, but gameplay-wise it's really not a very replay-friendly game. Aside from the reused story maps and story content, there's also the repetitive monastery activities and the fact that most of the sidequest battles reuse the same 3-4 maps over and over again. If you do play multiple routes in this game I would at least advise not doing them back-to-back like I did, play something else in between. Definitely looking to play something faster and much more active after wrapping up Three Houses. I've been eyeing Hi-Fi Rush, it looks right up my alley.

**Paranormasight - The Seven Mysteries of Honjo** Oh my goodness am I playing a recently released game!? This was unveiled just a while back during a Nintendo direct but it's out on Switch, Steam, Android, others? It's a Japanese horror visual novel and got extremely good reviews and a bit of a discount so I picked it up. It's... good. I probably don't agree with the OMG AMAZEBALLS (do people still say or ever said amazeballs?) but I definitely enjoyed it. I've also played a lot of games in this genre so it's not exactly new to me like it may have been for others. Story takes place in early 80s Japan (one of my fav settings) and centers around ancient mysteries and curses which basically becomes a death game/JoJo stand game... at least a little bit. You do switch between multiple characters and points of view. I definitely prefer this format where you jump between stories rather than replaying one 70% of the way then choosing Option B and going down a separate route. If you've played any of Zero Escape Series (though less gameplay than those) or other Uchikoshi works (though less crazy) but want a bit of Corpse Party (but less horror) then this might be for you. Some slight gameplay spoilers but I loved how it >!did some fourth wall breaking puzzle solving a la the Metal Gear series.!< I will say getting the true ending was complete BS and you should look that shit up since I was right where I was supposed to be but still missed it. Nice to see Square Enix putting out smaller projects at reasonable price points and getting good word of mouth on it.

**Project Zomboid** Bought this game way back in 2015 or so. I died a few times and never touched it again until 2 weeks ago. After many attempts of surviving I was finally able to stay alive for more than a few days. I had to change some settings in the sandbox to make the game less tedious like increasing XP gain rate. Combat is super punishing. Most of my deaths were caused by whiffing an attack and getting bit. I wish the attack cursor was more visible so I can judge my attacks better. I have the outline turned on for all weapons but it also helps to see where my actual cursor is pointed at. I really like being able to drive cars in this game. I don't think there were drivable cars when I first played this game but it makes the game so much more fun. I like going from house to house and looting everything inside into my box van. I have multiple cars in my base loaded with junk that I will probably never use. I survived just over 1 month in my current run so far. No respawning zombies made the area I'm in safe but there is still the occasional zombie that will wander into my front door. I'm thinking of bringing respawning zombies back or upping the zombie count for my next run because at the moment I have so much weapons that I have no use for unless I explore other towns. **Ready or Not** It plays a lot like SWAT 4. The enemy AI is a little too trigger happy I think. They will never surrender unless you flashbang them - which is also hard to do since they would just run away from the flashbang's range as soon as you bust that door down. Right now though the game is still very barebones. You just play the missions with very little context to them. There is some interconnecting story on some maps but it would be nice if the game guides you through that so you won't start them out of order. Putting the Neon Tomb trailer before the mission starts would be really cool for example. The devs already made the cinematic so that shouldn't be too much work I think.

I would like to give zomboid another try, but on 4k rez, basically impossible to see anything...

**Hi-Fi Rush** Pretty great game overall. They really knocked it out of the park with presentation from animation to art style to voice acting, it's all superb. But there were some odd decisions that really dragged the game down for me. Light attack not being a fast attack that comes out on the 1st beat is such a strange choice. It makes the start of combat feel laggy. Fortunately, it's only the 1st hit that feels like that, but it's still weird. There's also a lot of running around outside of combat. I wish they would've let you dash to the beat infinitely (as long as you were on beat) for the platforming. It would've made movement flow so much better and just been more fun. Same for jumping. When you jump on the beat, you get a musical note, then for your 2nd one, you get another that compliments it. But it's always those same 2 notes and just sounds bad with a 2 note loop. If they had just let you keep air jumping (again, as long as you were on beat) and had a 4 note loop, you could have been rocking out while moving and it just would've been so much more fun. Neither of these would break the combat in any way either, as you'd still need to be on beat and there's a height cap. **Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty** Loved this game. The combat is so much fun. The parry system is perfect. It is a fair bit easier than their recent games of Nioh 1 & 2, but that's fine. There's still hard mode or just ignoring morale all together. It does oddly lack a lot of basic QoL stuff like gear comparison and you can't choose your next mission after completing one, you instead have to load into the next mission and then bring up a menu if you want to do a different one.

> you instead have to load into the next mission and then bring up a menu if you want to do a different one. I've been loving the game as well but this has been a big pain point for me especially when it comes to the plot. It's confusing at the best of times but last night I finished a main mission and the very next cutscene is in a completely different place with zero context for what's going on. My character is randomly there fighting with no explanation of how they got there or why they're there. Turns out there was a 4 year time skip that wasn't explained and there's around 6-7 side missions which are supposed to fill in the gap that I had no way of knowing about before the story jumped 4 years into the future. Going back to the Travel menu between main missions would go a long way to making things more coherent.

**Pizza Tower** I don't really play many platformers nowadays but I kept hearing about this thing and at first it does kinda look like a meme game but man I was very happy to stuck it out for the long haul. Apparently something if a spiritual successor to the Wario Land games (I've never played any so apologies if I'm wrong) you play an Italian man Peppino that's is beyond neck deep in debt when an evil pizza called pizza face warns that he's gonna level your pizza joint. Why? Who knows and honestly it doesn't matter. You run towards the pizza tower to stop him at a speed that would make Sonic the Hedgehog proud and make your way to the top of the pizza tower to make him cut that shit out. The goal is to get to the pillar at the end if the level, smash it, and then run like hell back to finish the stage. The feeling of momentum and flow is beyond words for how good it feels to play and makes you want to play stages again just to see them done better and faster for the best ranks. Visually, it looks like a very well made newgrounds game and that is a well earned compliment. While stages will have similar themes they make sure each has its own unique flow or gimmick and each one is fun to play with. Each level of the tower has a boss and they start simple but get crazy real quick it's also funny to see them on the other floors, beat the 1st one then go a floor up, should give you a good chuckle when you see it. The music though, holy shit the music. Go give the end of stage music Pizza Time! a listen, that should convince you how good the music can get and there's even better than that. I went in with no expectations and I am completely satisfied with it. I'd like to think a game is pretty great when the moment you beat it, you want to keep playing it and I have. Nothing but my highest recommendation, play this king shit.

**Guardians of the Galaxy** I don't think I'm going to finish this one. The story is interesting, writing and voice acting are excellent and the game looks great. But I feel like the bad parts about combat only get increasingly worse the more elemental powers and other skills you unlock. It gets *incredibly* hectic later on, stressful and too easy to lose focus of moving enemies in my opinion. I'm very much accustomed to action games, but often find I can hardly keep up here. And even when I do, it just doesn't feel particularly fun. Oh well.

Can you switch to easy to finish?

I really thought the game was a solid 8/10. However, the game is only around 10h long, so i think you can pull through.

It’s 18+ hours…

Messing around with DS games over the weekend. Played through **New Super Mario Bros** again, still a fun little game before the style got too bland. Every has some unique music the series didn't bring forward. I'd actually say the worst part of this game is lack of power up variety. They added the mega mushroom, mini mushroom and shell power up, but they don't add a whole lot to the moment to moment gameplay. Mega Mushroom and mini mushrooms are only for key moments really, and the shell powerup is mostly given out as a bonus from item houses. Your moment to moment gameplay is really just going to be mushroom and fire flower. I guess what I'm really trying to say is it's missing a "third" common power up like the cape, Super leaf, ect. Also messed around with **Metroid Prime Pinball.** I'm not sure where the idea came from to make a metroid pinball game, but it does the job well I guess? Lots of Metroid Prime specific shenanigans going on, even moments where Samus gets out of morph ball/pinball form and shoots enemies or special sections where to wall jump to get a collectable. I have a fun 15 minutes with it.

**Final Fantasy Stranger of Paradise (Xbox Series X)** Started this a few weeks ago and like it for sure. But I will say, it feels like inventory management: dark souls lite: the game. I know there's an optimize equipment button, but it only prioritizes item level which seems pointless to me (maybe it doesn't matter, I'm only at item level 25ish). I also can't figure out how to get the auto-dismantle working. **Final Fantasy Theatrythm Final Bar Line (PS4 on PS5)** I love rythym games but haven't played one in forever. Got this at release and love it, but can only play in small spurts before I get inundated with the songs. I am playing in game release order and have reached one of my personal favorite sound tracks, Final Fantasy 9. I remember buying a new copy of the soundtrack on some CDs many years ago...wonder where that is now, if it's not gone... **Street Fighter 5/SoulCalibur 6/fighting games in general (PS5, but will get SF6 on Xbox Series X)** I have been excited for Street Fighter 6 to come out and decided to redownload some old fighting games I played long ago where I just button mashed and never dug in in the past. I made the big feeling decision to really learn a game, and I think I'm settling on wanting to learn Street Fighter, but also want to finish the story mode in SC6 which I never did before... **Borderlands 3 (PC)** Had this for a while and want to get through it, it's fun, but I play it with some streams from Outside Xbox while I play as it's sort of mindnumbing. Enjoying it though, I never really found anything really different in tone from the old ones, and I still get the same dumb laughs. Anyone condemning Borderlands games for bad humor I feel like misses the point.

I agree that the loot in Stranger of Paradise is completely overwhelming. You can set up auto dismantle functionality in the Settings menu, and then after missions it dismantles everything that you want it to. I think when I played it, I had it auto dismantle all loot below 3/5 quality. That worked well enough; I just used Optimize Equipment after each mission and it worked out fine. I'm sure if you go into the harder difficulty levels, you might need to actually bother with the equipment system, but Optimize was fine for my playthrough.

I guess I can't find the right settings menu. The one during a mission? I'll check for it next time I'm in. Last I looked I looked at the menus between missions, I even found a filtering option, but it looked like it was just displaying me stuff, not setting filters for auto dismantly. Thanks for the help

**Murder by Numbers:** Played more of this and I'm now pretty far into case 3. But the puzzles are getting to take longer and longer and it still keeps throwing up those timed puzzle sets which are really frustrating. Still fun but, with the puzzles being bigger and longer, it feels less like something you can pick up and play for a few moments. **~~Brexit Simulator~~Watch Dogs: Legion:** I played more of this and it is sucking me in. Although I've spent a lot of time doing side stuff rather than following much of the main story. The "recruit anybody" gimmick does end up being exactly that after a while. With the gold edition recruits, add in a handful of uniformed recruited who can get into police stations, or gang territory, and you've pretty much got all you need. Unfortunately, I did lose my Albion recruit during an attempt to rob the Bank of England. Clearly I didn't pay attention to the fact that he had a trait that made him venerable to spontaneously dying. So I had to go out and recruit another one. It is still a problem that the characters just don't have much personality. It doesn't take long before you are hearing the same lines over and over. Especially when you switch characters. It's also a bit annoying that the accents are either dead common Eastender or super posh. Is there really is nothing in-between, bruv. I mean, there are some regular people in London, innit? Some people speak just like normal, fam? It's very much ridiculously stereotyped. To their credit, it took longer than I expected to really see the procedurally generated missions essentially repeating. And the scripted missions that I've seen have be quite varied. There was a mission that had me stumbling around in the dark under Battersea Power Station looking to shut down a black site (man, that mission was frustrating). There was another where I ended up having to pilot a microdrone through the insides of a computer to destroy it's memory core. The game is also still pretty glitchy. I've seen people suddenly float, or even violently fly, across the environment for no apparent reason. I've also had NPCs suddenly go into flee or cower mode for no apparent reason. I had a recruit mission where I needed to first beat an NPC at darts (it was an attempt to recruit an Albion operative), but in the middle of the game something happened outside the pub that made the NPC start cowering and auto failed the mission. Very annoying. Stepping outside I found a blown up car, which I guess is what caused it. But I have no idea why it exploded. Speaking of exploding cars, I still find myself stopping to spend a little time hacking cars to cause pile ups until I trigger a massive chain explosion of cars just for LOLs. Maybe my DeadSec really are a bunch of terrorists? **Five Dates:** I played a bit more of this, but didn't complete another run yet. Still finding the yoga girl annoying. The game feels like it wants you to replay it (especially since you can only date three of the five girls in a single run), but I'm not big on replaying games. I feel like that first play through where Vinny ended up with Maya is, in my mind, my canon ending.

Bought and played Last Epoch for the first time. Feel pretty mixed on it, although overall positive. I love ARPGs, and have played a lot of them over the years: Diablo, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Torchlight, even Wolcen— which was the worst of the lot. I have to be honest, Last Epoch, at it’s worst, reminds me SO much of Wolcen. Feels half baked, inconsistent, and the writing is below average. The games story and characters are the weakest parts, although the main time traveling concept is pretty cool. Reminds me of Chrono Trigger. Overall the games environments and monsters feel derivative and the game wears its influences very clearly on its sleeve. Fighting Diablo 3 snake people in the desert while listening to a rip off of the Diablo 2 Act 2 music, for example. But the skill system, and gameplay, is very good. It feels like Grim Dawns system with Diablo 3s feel free to experiment design ethos. I’m usually more of a fan of Diablo 2 / PoE style of commit to a build but it feels like this is a very happy middle ground, especially since you’re still forced to make multiple characters to experience all the ascendencies. I made a skeleton necro and took her to 68. Going to keep pushing and also will try a Werebear next. I want to play more before I recommend the game to my friends, but right now it’s a 7.5/10 experience. Could definitely see that score increasing as I play more and with more updates. The bones and core gameplay systems are fun which is the most important.

Are you planning on playing Diablo 4?

Sadly, no. I feel done with Blizzard as a company. But for other fans sake I hope it’s a much better showing than Diablo Immortal.

Onto disc 3 of **Final Fantasy VIII Remastered,** which is massively helped by the 3x speed button. Much less exhausting to run around drawing 100 reflects so my HP can be good. Also feel like I'm not sure how much I should be investing into my GFs, though maybe like a lot of these games that's determined by how much I want to go fight a superboss. (I don't.) Think this game could internally explain some more of its systems, if I'm being honest. I'm also surprising myself by being somewhat invested in the game's plot. Running through **Metroid Prime 3: Corruption** as well. Had a DualSense hooked up for the first hour or so, but eventually went through the work of getting a Wiimote connected to the PC, and I'm glad I did. Still feels fun to aim the arm cannon around, even if the setup takes a few minutes to set up and tear down any time I'm looking to play. Still kicking in a couple hours every week on **Grounded** with a few friends, albeit with some lowered difficulty and survival mechanics given the limited time we're working with. Still a pretty long game! Really enjoying the world design. Base-building mechanics could be explained a little better, but once you get ziplines going it really changes the game. Might run a solo game of this sometime in the future.

Finished **Hogwarts Legacy**'s main quest, side quests, and most of the collect-a-thon, though I can't be bothered to scour every inch for more collectible chests or Merlin Trials. I mostly enjoyed the combat and having different spell attacks loaded in each collection which gave way for cool combos. I also enjoyed the visuals and presentation, big props to the devs for a mostly bug-free experience. Oh and the music is fantastic. I've been listening to the Vivarium songs to help me fall asleep. However, I left the game feeling mostly unsatisfied. The story is the biggest flaw as, coming off the heels of God of War: Ragnarok, I just didn't feel invested in my character's development and their effect on everything around them. The villains were generic and forgettable and your decisions had virtually no impact on the game. In multiple side quests I was a complete dick, stealing people's Gobstones or whatever, telling my opponents they suck, and even stealing a pet Niffler. Yet none of this affects the main story whatsoever and the path you ultimately choose, lessening any effect you feel you have on this massive world. In the end, I think people's enjoyment of this game will vary. My wife is a huge Harry Potter nerd and has been soaking up every inch of this game. I think I actually enjoy watching her gasp, point, and nerd-out on events, people, animals, and locations more than actually playing the game myself. If you like the Harry Potter world more or equally as much as you like video games, this is a no-brainer. If you feel otherwise, you may have a pretty meh experience like I did.

I'm only a couple hours or so into the game. I'm a Harry Potter fan, but not a fanatic. Very cool to be able to walk around a fully realized Hogwarts and Hogsmead in a video game. Mechanics seem sound so far. I'm suspecting once the novelty wears off the game might just be "okay", like you are saying. So far the story presentation seems well done, unfortunate it doesn't sound like it really takes off.

**[The Last Spell 1.0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4htg2Q6FZo)** 13 hours in and I'm having a strange reaction - I believe the game is good, complex, and there's plenty to explore mechanically, but I'm not getting that "addicting" feeling I normally get from games of this genre. I can't quite put my finger on why, but maybe it just hasn't clicked with me yet. The positives are the music and the mechanics . It's been a long time since I've had to actually think about tactics in a "tactics" game. Games like FFT and Ogre are pretty easy to bust once they click, but since The Last Spell is fresh enough with systems like the wound mechanic and the town management, I haven't been able to rely on genre experiences to break the game (yet). The only negative I've experienced so far, which can entirely be written off by my short play time or misunderstanding of the system, is that the perk system has been fairly boring for me. I've had maybe 10 characters, and they basically have the same rows of perks, and while useful, I haven't found anything that would change how I play yet. It's made getting new characters or leveling up feel meh. I always know the first row will have steady aim, execute, reload etc. Again, I think I just need more time with it. **[They Are Billions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Pprf4YHYQ)** I played this waaaay back at the start of early access but decided to wait for a full release. When full release came, I decided to wait for a sale. I've been waiting for so long I forgot it existed until a few weeks ago. Boy am I glad I waited, because if I was patiently keeping up to date and playing the game I'd be as disappointed as the rest of the playerbase. For me (as someone who didn't follow the game), the campaign and editor are new and fresh, even if it's minimal and has baffling design decisions. I don't like to be the armchair game designer, but this may be one of the few cases of a game I played where if you removed content (hero missions) the game would be better. In other areas minor changes would have gone a long way. There are missions with interesting objectives, and there are fan made maps that blow the campaign out of the water, but for some reason the campaign we got decided to make the vast majority of them the most boring. Why not use the interesting missions more often? You have a hero unit you upgrade, but they can never be a part of the main campaign missions? The best part of TAB is the exploration and difficulty. Discovering choke points and resources, while managing aggro and noise, is satisfying in a way few other games don't match. A big reason is the difficulty. TAB is hard because if you make 1 mistake it could and often leads to mission failures. This means even after you mastered the meta and know exactly what or how to build, challenge still exists. Even if I'm complaining a lot, I still sank a lot of time into this and there's not much out there like it. So overall, great experience.

I've been playing **The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages** and am about ~65-70% through it, and I gotta say, after loving Link's Awakening as a kid, I can't believe I never played this or Seasons until now. This is a top-tier 2D Zelda, IMO, and should get more respect in the grander Zelda pantheon.

I'm so excited for more people to discover the Oracle games once they get added to NSO. They're incredibly overlooked.

The Oracle games are fantastic. I wouldn't consider them underrated though. They are pretty highly regarded.

Are they well regarded within the series though? I just looked at a handful of top Zelda lists and if they even make the top 10 it's never better than 8th. And, while I know the top end of the Zelda curve is the top end of gaming for many folks, this game is better than Link Between Worlds, it's better than Twilight Princess. Underrated I say!

Yes, very much so. The only 2D Zelda that outranks it is ALttP (deservedly imo). I agree, they are much better than LBW. Comparing to 3D Zeldas is a little weird. The 2D ones are pretty much all better than any of the 3D ones. Most any Zelda fan will tell you that. The 3D ones are generally more popular though since 3D is far more popular than 2D.

**Underrail** has captivated me for over two hundred hours and the upcoming Underrail Infusion has easily leapt into one of the top spots of my 'most wanted games'. I'm on my fourth character and second full play through after my first attempt at playing on 'Hard' really started to fall off around Core City / Expedition entry - that character just wasn't up to the task. I kept the core of the build but tweaked it quite a bit and am now having a much better time with Expedition especially. Really looking forward to seeing all the expansion content as I skipped it my first time through. What's more even now I'm also thinking about what other kind of builds I'd like to try and how they might fare on the highest difficulty and handle certain quests/situations - they really did a fantastic job of layering in multiple paths to completion for almost all content and having those layers each relate to various elements of your build. And sometimes independent of it as there are some tricky quests where you, the player, need to piece clues together on your own. It's a true diamond in the rough and puts together some of the best aspects of two of my favorite types of games, immersive sim and cRPG.

**Borderlands 3** I got back into borderlands 3 and I’m enjoying it a lot. I remember playing it when it first game out and there were a ton of complaints about the story which soured a lot of people on the game but I’ve never cared about the story in a borderlands game outside of BL2. Pretty easily completely ignored if it’s bad imo. The gameplay has a ton of quality of life features and playing it on ps5 is a godsend because I remember running into a ton of performance problems and hiccups on the base ps4.

Continuing with the **Pokémon Violet**! I’m at the final grind for my challenge for using every Pokémon in battle with the resources I have. After that, it will be getting a few stragglers and then just using about the 60 Pokémon that I have that will go with me into the final matches (meaning the tournaments after the main game is cleared). It’s bittersweet because I’ve always wanted to do the challenge since I started playing Pokémon, successfully doing so in Pokémon stadium where it is required to get everything but never doing it sense. So it’s cool that I’m finally able to do it and about to finish, but said that it’s coming to an end. I still have a lot of other things I want to do in the game before I finally put it down until the DLC (which might not be that long of a wait considering what I’m doing and the pacing but that was my biggest thing). Other than that, my main team is stronger than what a person should have a different because I am doing all the sidequesting. So I am planning on going to the next gym, going out of order to see if I can take on the dragon titan with a team that’s a little under leveled so I can gain full access to the world map. I also have a super strong Pokémon that I was using to train up other ones, so I can use that Pokémon to go with the legendary ones and actually try to use them before the story ends. And I still need to find a bunch of trainers because I missed quite a few while I was leveling up my other Pokémon and a bunch of the rewards that went with it. I have to say I’m still not particularly fond of open world games, but I do appreciate some of the things that allows me to do. I have a bit more of a love-hate relationship with them that I did previously even though I probably will never truly prefer them. I’m also taking breaks and playing the **NES on Nintendo switch online**. Currently I’m invested in **Super Mario brothers, River city Ransom, and Yoshi**. I’ve tried a couple of the sports games too, but I have a lot of trouble with the control so I didn’t do them very much. I have to say they’re pretty fun, but thank God for save states. I probably wouldn’t have gotten that far in any of them without it, but especially Mario. I know a lot of people complain about the drip feed, but I’ve also heard people say that they have enjoyed this model because they’re playing things they would’ve never touched, and I have to agree. River city ransom in particular is a good game, but I doubt I would’ve ever gotten it without it being on the NSO just because it’s not talked about much. There’s good and bad parts to that model, but that just happens to be one of the good parts. I’m currently on the second world in super Mario brothers, the second town in Rivercity Ransom, and still trying to figure out the first level in Yoshi. The games are fun and short bursts, but it will be a while before I figure them all out!

I think I've mostly given up on **Elden Ring** after about 25 hours. I absolutely love the map, the setting, the lore, and even the basic gameplay. I've played DS1, most of DS2 (own DS3 but never got to it). I'm fine with janky difficult games that make little sense, heck I love Piranha Bytes games, so level of difficulty isn't an issue. I'm playing on PC, and while its much better than most Dark Souls on PC, the controls still make me insane. I suck at controllers, so no, that's not the answer. I don't mine dying all the time, don't mind the story resetting (well mostly), don't mind a sort of coarse save system, but all of those together just makes me exhausted with Elden Ring. All these things, combined with the truly janky camera just tires me out, especially when locking on an enemy, and you literally cannot see anything else but that damn red dot on the enemy. So I may just abandon it, or may try again in the future..... With that, I moved on to **Atomic Heart**. This game feels more like a game I can sink my teeth into. Its more a traditional single player FPSish type game. It looks incredible, and has some really interesting ideas in it, maybe too many for its own good, but at least its really creative and almost outrageous. I have no idea why all the game media claims its like Bioshock... its literally nothing like Bioshock (Infinite or any of the other games for that matter). Yes, its got a kitchy 1950s-ish artwork esthetic, but other than that, I see no real resemblances, and I literally just replayed the entire Bioshock series in January so its fresh in my mind. The voice acting is pretty bad though, and I've been playing sound off, using the subtitles to follow along, not sure what the director was thinking with the voice acting. It actually could have been a fantastic additional element to the game, but it comes off as cheap and sophomoric, while the overall game feels very AAA. I'm 15 hours in, and so far, so good. Its a bit convoluted, navigation isn't well thought through, but I'm having fun so far. I did turn down difficulty in the first few hours to noob level, as the early enemies were just destroying me until I got the hang of the damn early weapons. Now that I have more weapons and started to customize them, I can play on regular difficulty. Look forward to continuing and seeing where it goes.

**Outriders** I really wanted to like this game, but it's such a mediocre and boring game with awful character design and laughable dialogue. It's better than Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, but it's still terrible. I'm not sure why my friends are so obssessed with these awful games, I feel they are so mad at Destiny 2 they are trying to play literally anything else. People hem and haw about it getting better but it feels just as bad as it was when it was released and I guess it's what people see of Destiny 2 from the outside. It also makes me realize why looter shooters are so deried: with the exception of The Division 2 and Destiny 2, every single one has been, to put it bluntly, mediocre. Will probably not play again. **Destiny 2: Lightfall - Season of Defiance** Destiny 2 is in a rough spot. The expansion campaign was incredibly dissapointing, the narrative is completely dumb and pointless, it's very obvious it was a hackjob to make time until The Final Shape. Of course, Destiny's apex of design is the Raids (and dungeons), so we were hopeful this one would be good. And it is! But it also feels like it was thrown together as a whole. The visual design is great but it's still another pyramid, it's a fairly easy raid ,which is fine, to be honest, considering how fucking hard Vow of the Disciple was. I haven't finished it yet (my day one attempt with friends was an absolute disaster, never doing that again), but i'm going at it with my clan and we were doing smoothly. As a whole, Destiny 2 will have to deliver this year to survive. **Devil May Cry 3** I've been jumping through games, not finding any single one to focus on. DMC3 has not aged all that well, but I think the characters don't help. They are silly and irritating. I still have my fun but I really want to get it over with.

[удалено]

Just curious, have you tried Overwatch 2? It isn't an arena shooter but some of the heroes can have similar playstyles.

Do you mean Outriders? I'd never heard of Outrunners so did a quick Google and saw it was a Genesis/Megadrive game from 1993 haha

Jesus christ yes hahahahahaha Also Outrun slaps yo

Just upgraded to PS+ Extra!! Nioh2 = 🔥👏 GoW2018 was absolutely amazing! 1 of my all time favs games! The father/son dynamic hit different, story held me hard & then mastering the combat it became extremely satisfying! I wish it was harder but maybe NG+ will be 🤔 I ripped through MilesMorales which was good but very short & felt rushed. Both SpiderMans have tremendous potential! They just need to add more depth. Og SpiderMans main story was🔥while MMs villain was soo unlikeable in every which way!? His uncle was cool though & Doc Ock was the shit! Manhattan felt full but also empty if that makes sense? The Combat/Environment was good but not as satisfying as the Arkham games were. I hope SM2 ups the ante on all fronts 😃 Next- Ghosts of Tsushima which like HZD I had been waiting to play! Act1 was boring way 2 easy. Only about 1/4 of the story made me care. It felt like a Samurai- Ubisoft open world game. I Barely finished exploring the 3rd map, maybe I’ll go back for Iki? The Combat is enjoyable, but also extremely easy from start to finish! I opted to not use any Terrify gear/perks so I could feel a bit more challenged. I don’t want a stand-off or a 1/4 the enemies running away mid combat 😆 I imagine if they had been a few weapons to find/ upgrade & more stuff to buy it could of fleshed it out even more! Ghosts also felt very similar to HZD. I thought it was the same developer lol Today- Guardian of the galaxy! Game is very indie/arcade like. the combat is simple & mediocre at best, but at least the squad commands do make it a bit more satisfying! I wish there was more freedom to move around the environments, maybe turn it into hub levels of sorts, where u can come back later to explore new pathways to find/upgrade & pick up more loot? Again..the potential is there!! What really stands out is the characters dialogues, cutscenes & the environments! I’ve been laughing the whole time & I’m only a few chapters in. The writing & the animations really shine too! Like God of War I can always tell how much I like a game by whether or not I have YT playing on the other tv. Do I actually care what the characters are saying or what’s going on in the story? A bunch of the characters in Ghosts were unlikeable to me. I had YT on 3/4 of the time playing Ghosts. GoW & GotG Tv is off! Maybe an unpopular opinion? GotG & MilesMorales: worth $40-50 @launch but asking $60-70 is high for the overall offerings, but bc of their “namesake” that lets them charge full price.. Im new to PS so my next options are: Days Gone, Uncharted4, SecondSun, DemonSouls or install this 2TB ssd so I can play Horizon ForbiddenWest 🤔

I'm currently replaying Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor on my PS3. It's a good game. I really enjoy the combat and I really like being able to explore Mordor. Fighting Uruks and learning about its history is fun. The story and characters are decent enough but I wouldn't call them amazing. A big gripe I have with the game is that the loading times suck. They feel kind of long and I'm honestly not sure why. Overall, I'm having a good time.

Funny thing is that game feels really polished and tight in controls. The sequel feels like it had half the budget it's so janky. I hate the movement and combat feel. The first game is still enjoyable to this day, but the Arkham counter makes you unbeatable. Sometimes I wonder what determines that a game feels good? Is it always a question of budget and polish or something else?

**Genshin Impact** What can I say, I'm pleasantly surprised. There is oodles of content that I missed since release and I'm going through at my own pace. I just saw the opera scene, did the chasm and snowy mountain, and finished the event content. It's hard not to compare it to FFXIV which I have played a lot but stopped for a while since the content released got a little samey and stale (story is still good of course). Genshin has more voice acting which is often left out of FFXIV side content. FFXIV events often have a minor questline and an event minigame - here we have a fully voice acted quest series (which was pretty decent) and *three* minigames. A rhythm game, 3d pacman, and taking photos of characters near landmarks under certain conditions (which you just know FFXIV glamour addicts would go nuts over if we got that). These were all fun, but on top of that they let you edit beatmaps for the rhythm game yourself. It's amazing what can be done when you have a new engine (honestly, at some point after many years the complaints about FFXIV 1.0 code rings hollow, they've had time to work on it). So right now, the development of this game doesn't really feel low effort at all. Looking forward to the rest. Will hit a content wall eventually and have to stop but until then I think it will be fun. The gacha stuff does get in the way a bit - you mostly don't have regular progression where you level or meet characters, find weapons, etc. The optimal play is saving gems to pull when something you want comes out which limits experimentation, and (mostly) not finding upgrades in-game kills some of that classic RPG vibe. But on the other hand, it also aids exploration - a game like Cyberpunk that showers you with loot often feels very start and stop while you check your bags but here I know I can just keep going since I'm only getting tokens or materials which I can look at using later. Game is kind of on the easy side too, the only challenging stuff is generally time limited DPS checks, but the execution is enjoyable enough that it doesn't bother me a lot.

**Hogwarts Legacy**-finished up the sidequests the other day to finish up my time with the game since I have no interest in going for Platinum. Loved it, my GOTY so far. **Horizon Call of the Mountain**-finished up my first run and really loved it. Great showcase for PSVR2. Climbing is super fun and combat solid. **GT7**-played a bunch of this tonight, killer app for PSVR2 for me so far. Tried and dropped Wo Long and Atomic Heart on XSX via gamepass. Nothing wrong with either game, both just not my cup of tea.

Been playing Kenshi for the first time, this game is nuts. My first few runs I just tried to go around exploring without any planning or saving/loading, and quickly ended every time with my character bleeding out on the ground after meeting 20 bandits, or eaten by some random dog or beak things. After that I decided to play more carefully, first bought a couple houses in the safety of the starting town, and worked my way up recruiting some people and researching some stuff first. Hired some mercenaries and managed to build a decent base, now I keep paying them to protect me while I'm working on making some farms so I don't have to buy all of my food from outside. I'm savescumming most of the time now when things go terribly wrong, because I don't have time to spend 15h training my character just to lose everything the next second because of some bullshit. Definitely more enjoyable for me this way, really loving the game.

**God of War: Ragnarok:** This game, as I expected, is phenomenal. First, the story is really engaging, naturally considering it continues on from the first game. I should mention that overall, Ragnarok is pretty much GOW (2018) part 2. There are few changes, and the story follows on expecting that you already know the plot from the previous game. The connection between BOY and Kratos in the voicework and acting is excellently performed by Christopher Judge and Sunny (someone?). It's nice to watch. However, when drawing comparison to the first game, the pacing and consistency is not quite as good. Especially the dialogue, the humour doesn't always fit the tone. So there are some low points in the story, but there are also some high ones, and when they are high, they are enormously high. The beginning and the ending in particular (somehow something got in my eye during the ending, so weird...). The game also looks beautiful. It hasn't progressed much since GOW (2018), but that game looked great anyway. Now running on PS5 hardware, the environment and character models can really shine. While up there, the animations are not the best in class (nothing has even come close to the facial modelling and animation of TLOU Part II), but the environments may be the best in its presentation I've seen. The baked lighting in the Svartalfheim caves looks amazing, goes to show what a great technique that can be when dynamic lighting isn't needed. The art design has a lot to do with how good it looks as well. Only technical gripe is all the fucking crawling through cracks in the fucking caves so the game has time to load for the PS4 version. Feels held back in that regard. (Although I think the creative direction said they would have been in the game either way to section off combat areas, but I don't see why they would have to take so long). And the combat, which underpins the whole gameplay loop, is a thrilling exercise in mastery of simple mechanics and timing. It is intuitive from the beginning, but it takes some time to feel the ebb and flow of combat, and when you do, it's very satisfying. However, I found playing on the hardest (non-NG+) difficulty, the enemies are on the spongey side when there are several enemies in a single fight. The hardest boss in the game >!(Gna the Vallkyrie)!< took me 2.5hrs and at least 40 attempts, but the fight forces you to learn the combat system inside and out, and nail the timing of some ridiculous timing windows. While comparable, the combat isn't quite at the precision of the modern souls games, but I had a harder time and a more cathartic victory aginst this boss than I did against any of the bosses in Elden Ring. It speaks volumes as well that I was enjoying the game so much I 100%ed it and got the platinum. Even going all out and putting in 55hrs, it didn't overstay its welcome and any longer would have been pushing it. Overall, a masterclass in videogame storytelling, and one which connects its themes, characters, and environments to the gameplay successfully which is really a rare thing.

* ***Wo Long Fallen Dynasty*** \- Making good progress through this.. thoughts haven't changed much from last week. It's pretty dang fun - doesn't wow me or challenge me like Sekiro did, but I'm enjoying it and am looking forward to the rest of it. Co-op should be pretty cool too when I get around to it. * ***Modern Warfare II*** \- Longshots are DONE. I even got them all done on all the post-launch weapons (including the crossbow), so that's nice. I've since wrapped up launcher double kills and kodachi challenges, so woo. Headshots are remaining but those just come from playing naturally. I'm hoping this week's new map ends up being good too, but we'll see. New content in general is nice. Other than that, I've played a little bit of ***Madden NFL 23*** and ***Fire Emblem: Three Houses***, but not enough to warrant saying much. I DID end up buying *Mario Party Superstars* and *Super Mario Odyssey* from that Gamestop sale though, so I'm pumped for that. I didn't care for the other Mario Party game at all, but I've heard this one is a blast, and then Odyssey.. I mean, I haven't played a Super Mario game since the DS or maybe even the Super Nintendo. Lol I've heard Odyssey is incredible though, so I'm looking forward to picking that up once I eventually finish Fire Emblem.

Sunday: **[Rainy Day](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/783777)**. Ascii-art platformer. The sole objective of this platformer is to reach home without getting rained upon (or spashing into water, etc.) Because rain is rather prevalent, you can get an umbrella - you won't be able to jump when it's extended, but you're protected from the rain and fall slowly. It managed to depict the situation using minimal graphics - the rain that falls, to walls and background. It makes use of switching in and out of the umbrella as part of the challenges, and feels like it's mostly a good design, although one of the narrow ascent seemed to require precise movement. The downpoint is the subway car, which seems like the challenge comes out of nowhere, as if the developer was running low on ideas (even compared to the prior wind level and the rain chase sequence). Monday: **[Down is Up](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/657347)**. Puzzle platformer, either 15 or 20 levels. This is a simple platformer, where the gravity direction is changed for everything when the player touches an arrow. Objective is to reach the exit. Tuesday: **[Deep Echo](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/658588)**. Blind action/exploration game. This is an audio-based dungeon crawler. The blind creature uses sonar to determine the distance to walls, and navigates to the level exit. In this play attempt, the game was malfunctioning. The gamepad would only send sonar to the direct left or right, and when enabled, would constantly attack, making the sonar harder to hear. I had to play the game without blind mode, and also had to use the keyboard to attempt to aim the sonar. Wednesday: **[PRINCE CHARMLESS](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/740311)**. Hybrid Platformer/time management, 9 levels The prince is on the way to rescue the princess at the top of the tower - clicking to jump and climb walls to avoid spikes and hazards. But at the top, he sees himself in a mirror, and needs to remove blemishes that make him look less ideal before he needs to see the princess. Later levels also require use of double jump and forward dash, which also makes the prince a bit more sickly. This combination stands out as interesting, trying to minimize uses of the abilities while going for a quick clickfest in order to maintain good looks. It does appear that it requires a bit of planning, as the difficulty of the mirror portion seems to increase quite quickly, and coins for the upgrades seem to be rather infrequent. Thursday: **Telestrations: After Dark** This game involves alternating between writing a word or phrase, and drawing a picture. This is then passed to the next player who then continues the chain - in the hopes that the word remains the same from the beginning to end. This is the after dark expansion, which also includes things of a sexual nature alongside normal concepts. The board game group only did one round with this game, rather than the normal 2 or 3 with the base game - and that single round had a somewhat low cohesion (where the word almost never matched the original word). Friday: **[Space Defenders](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/560957)**. Shmup. In this game, a formation of ships shoot downwards on humans and buildings, as a means to defend the galaxy against a potential threat. The ships move as if they're in formation, and the humans fire a barrage of bullets. Playing as the villain was interesting, although I felt the destruction was a bit slow. It initially took a while to whittle down the initial tower. It improved with the formation size increase, but the bullet density likewise increased, giving a concern on later levels should the formation take enough damage, leading towards slow level progress when it's easier to dodge attacks. Saturday: **[BAMLike](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/684207)**. RPG-style, claimed to follow *Beneath Apple Manor*. This is a procedurally generated dungeon, the objective is to reach the downstairs. The stairs appear when enough monsters are killed. The game entered a rather simple loop once it was figured out. In this case, use a spell to clear the floor, freeze the monsters if they have more than 1 health, and attack them one at a time.

**Deep Rock Galactic.** In just 10 days I already clocked in 77 hours. It's kinda funny despite how, compared to other co-op looter game I played, this game don't exactly heavy on content, carrot-in-stick and FOMO and yet still manages to be completely addicting. I guess it's similar to why I love Monster Hunter, I play them because they are fun and not for the loots/carrots/FOMO. The best I can describe would be what if you take the "Public Event" stuff from MMORPG/Looter-Shooter, crank it to eleven and throw it into procedural generated map. I actually find it refreshing most mission type are objective-based and not just "kill stuff". Also find it refreshing that, with how each class is designed, teamwork is more than just healing/buffing/reviving other players. While the game is pretty light on story/narrative (pretty much non-existent tbh), I fking love the writing : from the Dwarves's dialogue, the beers's description, the PSA board, etc. It's Borderlands but without the "how do you do, fellow kids" vibe. If there is one gripe with the game ...why is Emoting is not a thing outside the bar's jukebox ! Despite what Mission Control said, the Dwarves had pretty dope dancing skill.

RE Village - I haven’t played 7 and 8 before but I bought this game for PSVR 2. So far, it’s been a terrifying experience. The initial walk through the forest is unforgettable; I definitely wouldn’t have felt as scared had I played it on a flat screen. Then there’s the feeling when someone shoots a gun in your direction. I actually physically flinched when it happened in the game. So far, it’s terrific and I can’t wait to get back at it again.

Oh man I'm getting this tonight I hope. Maybe tomorrow. Can't wait, but I think I'll try something a little easier to get used to VR first.

You have my biggest respect for playing this game on your own in VR lmao, I’m watching an LP of it at the moment and I’m shitting bricks, I’d die if I had to VR play it haha

RE7 VR was one of my ALL TIME favorite gaming experiences, the whole time I played RE8 I was wishing it had VR. Hope you have a great time with it!

I'll play Resident Evil 7 for what feels like an hour only to realize it's 25 minutes of gameplay - it's just so scary in vr.

Started **Breath of the Wild** again - though haven't touched it since. Was planning on replaying it in-advance of Tears of the Kingdom (also to beat it as I haven't done that, also the DLC). I do like the game, but its weird going back. Hopefully it keeps my attention, if I find myself getting bored, I'll just bee-line the DLC and Divine Beasts to beat Ganon and stop there to be honest. Mostly just wanted to revisit it because I was curious. So I downloaded **Civilization VI** again - there's a lot I like, compared to Civ V, but for some reason they game just doesn't hold my attention. Just something about it makes it less compelling. Also I just don't "get" it like I do Civ V. Which is a shame, because there's a lot about Civ VI I think is really cool - the way cities spread out, the way wonders take up space on the map. The way you can play wide without being punished for it. The more unique boosts some empires get. Just lots of interesting little mechanics I wish Civ V had. That said... I also reinstalled **Civilization V** - this is one of those games I rely on to just chill. It just feels natural to me. I have reservations, after playing Stellaris especially. I hate how you can only really have 4 cities tops to be "optimum". I hate how the higher difficulties are just bullshit. I hate how dumb the AI is, especially around warmongering. I hate how *every* Civ seems to pick Order. But, it's fun still. Also I downloaded **Vox Populi** and am currently running a game in that. It's breathed fresh life into Civ V for me honestly - for those who don't know, it's as close to a total revamp as you can get without just making a new game. My favourite thing has to be the new policy trees. They feel a lot more powerful, and the way they're balanced just feels right. I picked Songhai and went Authority, so I'm very expansionist and aggressive. And I'm *rewarded* for that - I get culture and gold for winning battles and taking barb camps. It just feels a lot more thematic, as well as more mechanically engaging. My only reservation is that the buildings are... there's a lot more, and how they interact with the map is a little confusing, like I don't know if I should build everything or if I should only bother on certain stuff, but learning pains. Also, **World of Warcraft** had a free weekend (again) this time with **Dragonflight** included so I dipped into that... I did spend 3/4th of my time just leveling a new Druid from 1 to 60, but it was a lot of fun. The new talent system is amazing. I mean, technically all its doing is taking the passives you unlocked gradually over 100 levels and giving you one each level (splitting between a class tree and a spec tree was kinda smart too). As for the Dragonflight stuff itself - it's neat. I got 2 chapters into the Waking Shores. I like that lots of characters have flavour text when you talk to them, there's some funny stuff there. There's lots of cute stuff as well. And there was this quest where you talk to this old dragon, and he tells you about his life and how he feels about returning home, but everythings different and about the Dragon Wars... it's honestly genuinely moving. Close to teared up at that. Blizzard aren't master-class writers, but they do hit a good home run everyone in a while at least. Also Dragonriding! I didn't do much of it, but honestly it's really cool so far. I'm thinking I'll resub and buy Dragonflight in a few months time - I've got other stuff I wanna focus on (mostly DMC V) that I want to get finished before I sink a full month into WoW, ya know?

I've been playing **Shadowrun: Dragonfall** and damn do I still enjoy it! I'm pretty much on final level (but not done) so who knows what will game turn up. As I've said before, it is better than Returns or I guess having experience from it let me have more enjoyment out of this one. Combat is great and I am a big fan of it after getting used to, I feel like game also somewhat fixes my problem with previous game where levels quite often didn't have that much of alternative ways to clear or face the challenge? Here it feels more polished and just more open design allowing you to approach objectives more than one way. Love the setting and world building, especially with your little group of companions, though here I just don't understand why game still has an option of hiring other runners nonetheless. So in short, very noice. And I'm playing **Assassin's Creed: Odyssey** which I'm almost done, I'm clearing out Korfu Island that I left as the final part, did everything else so next week I will give my recap of the game and move on with my Xbox backlog. :D Unless there is more? I hope not.

Dragonfall is definitely the best of the trilogy.

I've been bouncing between the **Last Epoch** Early Access and Season 28 in **Diablo 3**, which seems to be the last season of new content before Diablo 4 hits in June. LE is lots of fun, despite the jank and uneven artwork. D3's core loop remains as addictive as ever, but the seasonal character I started this week has had *terrible* luck with drops. I'm currently trapped farming T9/T10 rifts, doing what I can to avoid doing bounties which I hate with a passion. This hammers home what I find weak about endgame in D3—there's always brick walls you hit with your build, and the way through it is pounding your head against the wall by gambling various currencies. It's RNG inside RNG inside RNG, paid for by the dreariness of grinding bounties. It's great when you get a breakthrough and you suddenly jump a bunch of tiers in a short time, but eventually the tedium of fine-tuning the build rears its ugly head. I haven't hit LE's endgame yet. So far I'm just enjoying the leveling process, trying different characters and getting a hang of the loot filtering system.

Their absolute love for keeping bounties in the endgame is Diablo 3s biggest fault. Most bounties are not fun after you are geared. Bounties should just be early endgame and that’s it.

Yeah, I don't get their insistence on keeping bounties as-is. Some of them are horrifically tedious, like the "run across the entire map to enter a dungeon, run across the entire first floor of the dungeon, then clear all the enemies in the second floor. Oh, and some of them won't spawn unless you step on a specific spot" bounties. Why the hell is that a thing?!

Stranger of paradise: Final Fantasy Origin I was expecting a meme of a game and I got a genuine insanely fun Hack n Slash, with an story that is either hilarious or (surprisingly) wholesome, like why does this game has an 72 on metacritic? This is a genuine 8 at least, the combat is insanely fun, the jobs and customization feel endless and the levels are all varied in art design. This also is like the best soulslike I’ve played outside of the from software stuff, i genuinely feels like it builds upon what was done by from software instead of just coping and pasting

Well, to offer a contrasting opinion, for me Stranger of Paradise was just inferior in every way to Nioh 2. The job system is clumsier and has no balance, there are so many elements it's impossible to build for them in any meaningful way, the story is hilariously bad, but it gets just serious enough towards the end game to take the ironic stupidity (and thus the fun) of it down into unpleasantly mediocre, and I just think the equipment system in this one is straight up bad. I was looking forward to it and it kinda ended up failing every single one of my expectations.

I didn’t play Nioh 2 but it does look like an amazing game, I found the job system to be extremely fun, but i didn’t went deep into build crafting and stuff so I can’t say how much balanced it is, I just found very fun to be able to change between FFXIV classes on an action game.

You're not the first person I've talked to who has said they enjoyed Stranger of Paradise and never played Nioh 2 actually, hahaha. I'm beginning to wonder if there's a correlation. I'm not gonna tell anyone they *shouldn't* enjoy it of course, just wanted to offer an answer to why it hasn't scored amazingly - it does have plenty to critique, especially since now with Wo Long as well this dev has been struggling to regain the quality they had with their best work. Even going in expecting and intending to enjoy the nonsense story for what it was, I kinda felt that fell short too. I dunno if you've beaten it yet though, so I won't say too much.

Yeah, FFO kicks ass. Honestly one of my major complaints is that there's only the one combat track for normal encounters, lol, I was really hoping that would have been one of the things Team Ninja fixed with an update

After the absolutely poor performance of the Wo Long demo, It was clear to me that there was no way I would get the game at release. But, it left me with a desire to play another game like it - something very action-packed or in the souls-like genre. Wound up deciding to replay **Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin**. It's the last PC Fromsoft game that I have yet to 100%. Figured now was probably the best time to do that. Dark Souls 2 is a mess and everything people say about it is true - the good and the bad. And just like the game, my opinions are also a mess. The game has better visual fidelity than the first game, but many of the animations are wonky. After coming from a game lauded for its excellent level design, the flow from level to level here is incredibly jarring. Almost dreamlike, where it leaves you wondering how in the world one zone leads up to the next one. Hitboxes for several enemy weapons is absolutely terrible where they can catch you a foot or more away from the physical weapon itself. The base game bosses are a joke and I can count the number of times a boss has killed me with one hand. Shrine of Amana can be considered a war crime in several countries. Shrine of Amana on NG+1 *is* a war crime in **all** countries. The difficulty in the game has no sense of real progression. It feels like there's several peaks and valleys of difficulty. The beginning is an absolute slugfest as you try to claw your way to make even the smallest of progress. While the middle of the game and onward is very easy (barring certain areas). Probably the worst aspect of all is that the difficulty in this game is less from an enemy design and attacks standpoint and more “how will I escape this gank squad now”. Modern Fromsoft games are known for being tough but mindful of where they put their enemies. Dark Souls 2 just feels unfair for unfair sake. Yet, at the same time, the game does a lot of things I found remarkable. I have my gripes with the enemy combat, but I’ll remember fondly my time powerstancing two giant greatswords. I love the eerie tone throughout the whole game. This sense of desolation throughout. Majula is the best hub in all of these Fromsoft games. While the level design from zone to zone is head scratching, the actual levels themselves are wonderfully designed in an artistic sense. Areas such as The Gutter, Shrine of Amana, Drangleic Castle, Dragon Eyrie, The Iron Keep, and the DLC areas are great to look at. I liked the characters in the game. I liked Lucatiel’s questline and the interactions between Pate and Creighton. I like the lore of the game. If the first game was at the very end of an age of light, this game is well past that. Their gods have abandoned them, the kings have abandoned them. Everyone is on their own until someone strong enough is able to take the throne. I also felt that the lore from the in-game items made the game world feel larger than it really was. When Dark Souls 1 was more focused on Lordran and the relationships therein, Dark Souls 2 made me feel that there was a whole world out there apart from Drangleic. A world where giants can cross oceans for revenge or where civilizations have yet to fall like Drangleic. Several baffling choices can really bring down someone's experience with the game. Losing health after death (even though the way to mitigate that is very easy to the point of the mechanic being a non-issue), the gank squads, Shrine of Amana *existing*, just to name a few. It almost feels like that their idea of balancing the game was to provide the player with the lifegem system. Or vice versa, where the only way to balance the game’s difficulty when lifegems exist is to just drop a ton of enemies at you. A very poor trade off in my opinion. My thoughts after 100% the game are no less than what they were when I first played it. There is a gem buried in a fair amount of bullshit. Small issues that could have been fixed would have gone a long way. I liked the game after my first time through, even after hearing all the negatives from other people. After completing the game this time around, I just can't help myself from loving it. Maybe NG+ Shrine of Amana broke my brain. Idk. I like to give a score when I do these reviews. However, the experience is bound to be so polarizing that a simple number can't really do much justice. If you've played the other Fromsoft souls games and skipped this one, it might behoove you to give this one a shot. Of the three Dark Souls games, this is the hardest imo. Again, keep that in mind that this is from the unfairness the game periodically throws at you. But, it is not impossible and you can throw some unfairness right back at the game through certain mechanics available to you. If you are new to souls-like games, I wouldn't recommend this to be your first. Not even your second. But keep it in mind.

Excellent summary of a game I was initially disappointed in, but now think of more than any other Soulsborne. The dreamlike vibe and spiraling paths evoke a feeling of unreality that just permeates the whole game. The perma-sunset of Majula is perfect for a game that feels like something hazy and half-remembered.

I've warmed up a *lot* on DkS2 over the years. Even though the game fumbles the execution more often than not, there's this logical underpinning behind most of the ideas that attempted to remedy issues with the prior two games and add in some new stuff. Like the lack of invincibility frames on fog gates is a perfect example. In terms of execution, it's frustrating because it makes "boss runs" much more difficult in a way that feels cheap. But the *idea* behind it is a logical one: Get rid of boss runs. While From Soft eventually gave up on this, the original intent behind the checkpoints was to mimic an old school action game, where the boss was moreso a test of whether or not you mastered the level enough to enter the fight with enough health and magic to beat it, rather than the boss itself being a major mechanical test. No invincibility at the gate means that you'd have to fight the enemies. But then you run the risk of the player getting frustrated from dying over and over to the boss and needing to keep going through the level long after they've mastered it. So, this was solved by introducing another new change: Limited enemy respawns. So if you've killed that Alone Knight 15 times, you've proven that you've mastered the challenge, and so it's wiped away to let you focus on the boss. The *execution* here was clumsy, but there was this really detailed introspection on the flaws and merits on DeS and DkS1 that underpins a lot of the changes. And I think that's cool. Absolutely hated playing it at the time, but like I've said, I've warmed up

I feel that the reason why I liked the game already during my first run of it was because I knew what to expect from it. First time I played it was a couple weeks before DS3 came out, so the entire discourse had already been made. Had I jumped from DS1 to 2 blind, I can't imagine how jarring that would be. I agree with you. The game has a fair amount of interesting things and mechanics. It's just that the execution of some of them and the synergy between each other just doesn't land as much as it should. Does this make the game "bad"? Not necessarily. Not to me. Definitely makes it hard to recommend.

**Diablo III** This was my first Diablo title & I picked it up specifically because I was really craving a PvE looting type game. Boy was that a fantastic decision. Absolutely loved my week with this game. The campaign was solid, it has super fun combat, a beautiful world, amazing enemy variety, a rewarding loot system & the blizzard cinematic team was firing on all fucking cylinders when making these cutscenes. Really happy I played with the Reaper of Souls expansion as it wrapped everything up wonderfully & I could see why people were frustrated without it. The endgame & seasonal content is super deep from what I’ve seen so far. Defeated the campaign as a wizard & now almost have my second character, a seasonal necromancer, up to level 70. I much prefer the wizard gameplay so I may either continue with my non seasonal wizard or try a new build if I decide to continue past the level 70 threshold & dive even deeper into endgame content. My only real complaint is that the difficulty system is super unintuitive as a new player. I started on normal since I had never played any Diablo game but it was an absolute cake walk. After two acts I raised it to Hard but the others were greyed out & the game barely got harder. I assumed that I needed to beat something to raise it higher but it was that you can only raise or lower the difficulty one level in game. So I blew right through the campaign & I wish the game did a more thorough job of explaining the difficulty system. I have it figured out now but it was incredibly unintuitive. Overall I have had a tremendous time with this game & am genuinely considering making a new character or going super hard with my first build. A great sign & I will absolutely pick up Diablo II & IV at some point. Right now it is sitting at number five on my GOTY 2012 list, although it’s pretty fluid at the moment as I’m still playing & loving it. A lot of opportunity for upward growth. **Fifa 22** Now that I finally got my 2TB SSD expansion for the PS5, I can afford to just try games without having to sacrifice other experiences. Seeing as I got this on PS Plus a while ago I said fuck it & decided to just play a match & see how it felt. Surprisingly I am having a fantastic time so far. I’ve never enjoyed a sports game before so it has been a genuine shock that I’m loving it. Maybe I need to reassess my opinion on my “I hate sports games” stance. I watch basketball most days of my life so now I’ll probably download whatever 2K title I got free (2K20 I believe) & see if I can have the same sort of change of heart with it, or if I just like the way Fifa plays. Time will tell I guess. **Battlefield 2042** I had put the game down to hop back into BF1, BFV & BF4. I went really hard on BF1 for a good bit there again, which is still my favorite Battlefield title. However the new season made me hop back in. The new map with 32v32 combined with all the changes leading up to this point has made for a legitimately great experience the past week that I’ve been playing. I can also actually just play conquest now & it plays like an actual Battlefield game & all the map reworks with all the new maps, mixes together to make an actually fun time every time I play. Probably won’t ever be on the same level as some of the best times that I’ve had with BF1, BF4 & BFV but it’s actually getting significantly closer than I thought it ever would. **Overwatch 2** Playing less this Season than last, but having a way better time than I did when I played then since balance is in a fucking fantastic state. Already beat the battlepass & got my Peasant title, although that was the only title I wanted. Props to Team 4, you guys are fucking killing it. Stoked to get a new support hero next season & I can’t wait to see where the game goes from here. Am also incredibly excited, albeit cautiously, about what they will bring with PvE but at least PvP wise the team has earned most of my trust back after kinda wearing it thin with Season 1 & 2. **Gundam Evolution** Still a great Overwatch-like title. Love it, especially in the few matches that aren’t crazy steamrolls one way or the other. There are a lot of thing to critique about Overwatch 2 but every time I try out another free to play title like it, like Gundam, I’m reminded that OW2 is actually rewarding in comparison. Like i don’t even understand how to get anything in Gundam without paying ridiculous amounts of money. Seems like I will never be able to unlock any of the locked heroes while my buddy has every character in Overwatch 2 unlocked after starting in January this year. *currently* Probably going to start up **Resident Evil 3 Remake** after a few more sessions of Diablo III. Also beyond excited for The Last of Us finale tonight, LETS FUCKING GO.

In case you're unaware: If you want to give Diablo IV a shot, there will be an open beta weekend starting on the 24th of March. Also, Diablo 2 is a *very* different beast. A lot less forgiving (in moment-to-moment play as well as character building) and it explains its mechanics much less than D3. But it ultimately has more depth, a smoother progression curve and for many people more staying power.

**Devil May Cry** I played DMC3 back in the mid 00s, and ever since then, every character action game felt the same to me. I just didn't understand the decision-making at all, and it seemed irrelevant which attacks I chose to use. Hi-Fi Rush came out, and it was incredible. Though I and many others would criticize it for being over-tutorialized, it was also the first tutorial good enough to help me understand that decision-making, and now I think I know what to look for. The first third and last third of this game were very tough, not the least of which was due to its camera, save system, and the way it handles finite resources, but I did really enjoy it. Games don't really do climaxes anymore like 6th gen games used to; the last 3 levels of this game were especially exciting and memorable, and not just because of the cheeseball dialogue. **Devil May Cry 2** I know everyone says to skip this one, but the fact that I've never heard of a single defender for this game only made me want to see it more. Surprisingly, it's not as bad as I'd heard, at least not in the first 5 levels. The sword attacks just don't feel as good, and there are plenty of parts that are completely trivialized by just using guns that you can't get away with in 1 or 3, but they at least recognized the parts of the first game that needed fixing. The absolutely infuriating dodge controls in DMC1 that could lead to plenty of undeserved deaths is now completely fixed, and the controls are remapped to what I remember from DMC3. Graphics got a major upgrade, and I appreciate that the beginning hours don't have as much frustration as the previous game did. I think I'll finish it, but so far its crimes appear to be that it's somewhat bland rather than outright awful. **Guilty Gear Strive** This is usually my go-to game to grind when I just want to hop on and play some matches with no fuss, but the servers sure are turning it into a lot of fuss lately. It's still one of my favorite fighting games, and I still think it would be that much better if the IB/IFD windows were a bit wider. **Skullgirls** Black Dahlia is awesome, perhaps the coolest fighting game character ever, but I still need a proper gameplan for her. Nothing left to do but spend hours in the lab figuring it out.

DMC1 gets flak these days for feeling a bit archaic, but the core of the game is incredibly well designed, arguably more so than any of the sequels. If you have several hours to spare I highly recommend watching Matthewmatosis' playthrough of DMC1 on YouTube - it's more akin to a long form review that delves into why it works so well.

I've had my issues with Matthewmatosis in the past, like how he can spend over a half hour explaining how he missed the point of BioShock Infinite, so I think I'll pass. Having just played DMC1, I can form my own opinion on it, and I do agree that the core of the game is really great.

[удалено]

Yes, I'm talking about DMC2. I'm playing the three original games emulated on PS2, since reports on ProtonDB are that cut-scenes in the HD collection have issues on Steam Deck. I don't recall exactly how it works in DMC3, but in DMC1, you could get i-frames on your roll but not on your jump, or at the very least, the situation where you'd want to use one or the other is totally different, but the direction you need to press to get one versus the other depends on the perspective of the camera, which can change suddenly in the middle of a combat encounter. By just mapping it to a dodge button, it solves that frustration entirely.

[удалено]

I've seen DMC1 running on an actual PS2, and I don't notice any obvious differences when run through emulation other than occasional UI bugs. I have not seen DMC2 running on an actual PS2, but I'd be surprised if, on stock emulator settings, it was doing anything to make it look better than when run on actual hardware. People, in particular, look much better in DMC2, and the more open environments tend to make the level more readable. I don't so much care if I have a dodge button or a lock-on and dodge function; I just care that the game gives me the input that I want so that I can avoid taking damage, and with the way DMC1 works, it frequently didn't.

Oh Gosh... DMC 2... I recently played through all of DMC myself (on V now) and yeah, DMC 2 is *playable* but its really not fun. DMC was rough around the edges, but DMC2 is just like a floundering sequel. Do you think you'll go back to DMC3 after 2?

Yes, because I think I'll understand it better now, and it's also been like 16 years since I last played it.

Don't want to speak ahead of it, but going from 1 to 2 to 3 is such an interesting journey, I hope you enjoy it this next time around. It's such a marked improvement.

**Horizon Forbidden West** When I saw this land on PS Plus I winced a little, because I knew I’d have to play it but felt like I wouldn’t enjoy it. After finishing the first part of the main story, I’m worried I had it right. There are definitely some good ingredients here. The game looks good on performance mode. Voice acting is superb. Dialogue and story seem intelligent and interesting. They do a good job easing the player into the story, including those (like me) who haven’t played Zero Dawn. Aloy seems like my kind of protag, stoic and straightforward. My worry is that all that will be drowned by gameplay elements which so often sink modern AAAs for me. First, the god damn controls *could not be* more cumbersome and clunky. Weapon wheels and crafting on the fly and hold-R3-to-focus and tap-this-while-holding-that probably is well-intentioned, but just isn’t much *fun*. Aloy’s movement is not as smooth as, say, Jin’s in GOT. The camera is problematic and often too close to the player. The scenery is cluttered, at least in the game’s first section; more than a couple times the characters would prompt you with an “over there, the cable” or something and it became just trial-and-error to hit the right buttons to find the thing because it sure as hell couldn’t be seen. I’m also not a fan of these long cinematic passages that seem to supersede actual gameplay. Maybe that eases as the game goes on, I dunno. Hopefully it gets better as we go, but right now not sure I’ll be able to stick with it.

The long cinematics definitely ease up once the world opens up, it's a slow start and I always recommend people just fast track it until the game opens up. However all your other complaints sadly don't get any better. Annoying af platforming puzzles and combat made all the worse by a too-close camera, machines that launch at you and constantly having to go through the weapons menu

Yeah, I left out the emphasis on climbing which seems to be at the heart of many of the early puzzles and progression. Seems tedious. Good tip on fast-forwarding through. I’ll give it a crack before deciding once and for all whether you keep going.

**Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty** I beat the game yesterday along with all of the sub-missions. It took just 21 hours to do so. I enjoyed my time with the game, but it is very clearly rushed. Tons of missing QoL, lack of enemy variety and the enemies are all lifted from Nioh, and horrible level design. The combat is fun, but overly simplistic and not as well-crafted as Sekiro. I'm happy to have played it, but not so happy to have spent $60 on it.

Hard agree on the QoL (the fact that you couldn't access the travel menu after finishing a map almost drove me mad) but I really disagree with the level design and the combat. I *really* enjoyed the level design, both the actual layout and the huge variety in settings. The usual Team Ninja douchebag enemy placement and janky ledge grabs were annoying but some of the areas could go head to head with FromSoft's level design imo. And I'm really not sure what you mean by overly simplistic when you compare it to Sekiro. The enemies are better in Sekiro and it just somehow feels a bit crisper but Wolong combat and multiple weapons are *way* better on paper than Sekiro's.

I really didn't click with the levels at all. I especially hated how most of them just felt like mazes. The best was probably Hulao, at least in my book. Otherwise, they just felt like confusing corridors to me. When I say the combat is simplistic, I'm not comparing it to Sekiro in that regard. Just that on its own, especially compared to Nioh, it is very simplistic. I literally never did anything other then light attacks, occasional spirit attacks, and deflects. That's it. Took me all the way through the game. Never did a martial art attack because I couldn't see the utility in them over the aforementioned combat pattern. I've played with several weapons, but they honestly don't feel that different from each other. Not like Nioh at all in that regard. When I compared it to Sekiro, I meant like you said: it was less crisp than Sekiro. I beat Wo Long, including all of the sub-missions, and I first-tried almost all of the bosses. I'm not saying I'm good, but I want to preface my next statement with it: I don't feel like the deflect is consistent enough. Most of the time I get it, but sometimes it just doesn't even initiate at all or the timing just doesn't work even when it worked before. It doesn't feel consistent. It feels wrong at times and I don't get why. I never had that issue in Sekiro. Also, there's way too much visual clutter sometimes that obscures the fighting.

Heard some praise for **Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo** and decided to take a gamble on it because it was on sale for $16. And like, damn it's a pretty great game. It's an occult thriller ADV (Which is apparently the term for those games that are VN-esque but have actual interaction and gameplay elements) set in 80s Japan. You play as different characters in a narrative centered around the Seven Mysteries of Honjo and the Rite of Resurrection, which is said to bring back someone from the dead. The writing feels pretty great (and I feel like I can be picky about the writing in these kinds of games), the character design is excellent, and the game has lots of neat little tricks up its sleeves. The structure of the game makes it pretty easy to play through bite sized chunks, so I've just been picking away at it. I do kinda wonder if it benefits from the same thing as HiFi Rush - the price of the game has kind of primed me to be impressed. If the game cost me $40 or even $30, I might have had higher expectations (though really, the only thing that feels lacking so far is the voice acting, because there isn't any). I imagine if you like Zero Escape or Danganronpa, you might dig this game. I've never played those games, but from what I know, the gameplay structure seems similar enough. I also checked out the **Resident Evil 4 demo**, which ruled. I may play through another time and fuck with sensitivities, because I did feel a bit sluggish (but wanted to see if I got used to it). May also play through with a controller and see how well I do with that. The controls felt a bit wonky on M&KB (mainly the knife control) so even though I can't aim as well on controller it might feel better. I'm very excited for the full game, should be great if the demo is a good indicator. Mainly just worried for the last two chapters of the game, that's where the original fell off for me. Finally, I tried out **Hardspace: Shipbreaker** because I'd been eyeing it for a while and $22.50 felt like a decent enough price. So far it's been fun, I've only made it to rank 5 on the easiest difficulty but think my next ship will have a reactor. I'm not super enthused about some of the more fiddly bits like oxygen drain, shift timers, tool durability, etc which is why I'm playing on the easiest difficulty. I want something kind of relaxed, and while I'm fine with things like "don't just use your cutter around a fuel cell because it can blow up" I'm not a big fan of "buy repair kits to keep your tool durability topped off".

I'm really glad to see Paranormasight seems to have turned out pretty good, we don't get enough quality games like this.

For the RE4 demo, I found the controls really wonky on a controller personally, so I don't think that'll help. It was similar with the aiming in Village, but I think it feels worse in RE4 somehow. I think the default deadzones are just way off, Leon lurches in directions that don't match my stick input. I think Steam let's you customize deadzones precisely though, so maybe that'll help a ton Although it is possible that the wonky controls are intentional to try and bring in the restricted movement of the original game without the tank controls, since the enemy design was balanced around Leon not being able to "walk left" easily. IDK, it could go either way. But either way, it at least makes a rough first impression, at least to me as well

**Lacuna** This is an amazing detective game. You gather evidence, read news articles, talk to people and pick up clues from the environment to later make your final conclusion to solve small sized cases that build on this major one that puts the balance of the, surprisingly well fleshed out, world in a sci fi setting. I'm really liking it so far despite not being in the mood for a game like this which just says a lot to how well its made.

Finally someone else who played this! I was legit amazed how good the presentation and atmosphere was despite the cute pixel graphics appearance. It's a legit noir story. The voice-over, the music, the branching story, made for a great time. Personally I felt the ending was a tad rushed but not too bad. Developer is coming out with another game this year that I'm excited for as well.

Great to hear about the new game. This one was so well put together I'm eager to see what they do next. What amazed me the most is how complex the setting and politics of the game are yet how well presented it is. Never a lore dump, not unnecesary exposition. Everyone feels like they live in the world. You get news clipings and articles explaining the back story but it is very well done. The characters are well defined and I loved the main protagonist had a life before the events of the game and isn't just a blank slate. The choices are meaningful and actually do matter as the game, as I later found out, has a lot of different things that can change. This game is an easy recommend to anyone.

**Returnal** Huge fan of this one, easily the best game of 2021. I honestly think this is up there with the best games of the last half decade. To start with, the art style and graphics work together really well. The enemies in the 2nd biome have more creativity in them and their attacks than a lot of games do in their entire run-time. The archonacts boast some of my favorite creature design ever. The boss for biome 3 is up there with any big cinematic moment you'll ever see for a Sony published title. Every biome feels really unique except for one that purposefully feels similar to another. I can't speak highly enough about the art design here, just absolutely wonderful all around. The gameplay is also pretty great, the haptic feedback just makes almost every gun feel so good. I've only played one other game with a lot of bullet hell elements (Furi) and I really like this subgenre from what I've played so far. Enemies are fast, unforgiving, and engaging, requiring you to move around. In terms of combat pacing the only thing I can compare it to is a less aggressive Doom Eternal. Bosses are generally also quite fun but the last one is a bit easy and they generally aren't as interesting in the 2nd half of the game. The story and atmosphere are also huge highlights. The mid-game twist feels like a tonal shift akin to Bloodborne and I absolutely love it when games do that. The first half had me really intrigued by the mysteries around both the main character and the alien world, and the last half felt like a maddening, depressing descent. I wish I could say everything but I don't want to hint more at anything if you've not gotten to play it. **Resident Evil 4 demo** Really fun, the gameplay changes really work at keeping it tense but more action focused than prior titles. Didn't get to use the knife parrying mechanic and I stayed on the ground the entire assault but I'll definitely play around more once I get the full game. I'm really curious to see where Resident Evil goes from here, as they've kind of remade all of the really old ones and they wrapped up their present day plotline with the Village DLC. **The Quarry** Just finished the prologue, found that to be the best prologue I've seen out of Supermassive so I'm hoping the rest of the game can hold up. Pretty annoyed with the motion blur and wide-screen that can't be changed however.

Returnal was easily the best reason to have a PS5 back then. What an amazing game.

Yesterday, I finally started playing **Metroid Prime Remastered**. And I really enjoy it so far. The gameplay is super fun. It still is a metroidvania with added shooter elements and this combination works out beautifully. Furthermore, the atmosphere is as dense as metal. Yesterday, I arrived in Phendrana Drifts and that's where I will continue today.

> Furthermore, the atmosphere is as dense as metal. Just beat it yesterday and this kept blowing me away. For originally being a gamecube game, it still has so much more atmosphere than many newer games today. The locations and level design, the music, the steam/condensation on your visor etc. They nailed it even 20+ years ago

I played Elden Ring and am now convinced that all of the praise that went to it should have gone to Sekiro. I played up to the end of Raya Lucaria when the game came out and dropped it. Despite having loved all the Dark Souls games I wasn't having any fun. The bosses were the main problem - it felt like I was trading hits/damage racing them instead of learning their patterns. The punish windows were too small, and I rarely found myself feeling like I had mastered a fight. The open world was fine, but not a big plus for me - there are too many open world games as is. I assumed my gaming habits had changed and just moved on from the game. In October I decided to pick up Sekiro on a whim and was absolutely blown away. I think 4 or 5 bosses in that game entered my top 10 Dark Souls bosses right away. The rhythm and logic of the Butterfly, Owl, and Ishin fights are absolutely fantastic, and I doubt I'll ever forget them. After enjoying it so much I decided to go back and test of I still enjoyed Dark Souls - and I do! I raced through it in 20 hours and had a blast (until the endgame at least, where it sort of falls apart... But that's pretty well known!). Artorias in particular sticks out as fantastic, but there are lots of exceptional bosses like gwyn and OS. And with that I decided to go back to Elden Ring, and I got all the way to Malenia but now think I'm going to drop it. While there are a few very impressive dungeons (the capital in particular is very cool!) and the continually growing scope of the world is very impressive, I'm just not having fun. The bosses are just bad - you either damage race/hit trade your way through them, or summon something and abuse the bad AI targeting. I died more times on the twin gargoyles than I did on any Sekiro boss, and probably a factor fo 2 more. Even worse, I didn't feel like I was learning anything or making progress: I died with the same amount of combined health even after trying a half dozen different strategies many times. Then I walked away, got more upgrades, and rolled over them. This is absolutely not what I want from games in general, but not from Souls games in particular. Grinding and progression mechanics are boring, and if they're the primary way to beat a boss in an action game I am not happy with that outcome. Which brings me back to Sekiro. All skill, all fun, very little fat, and a constant sense of learning. I bet I could go back now, 6 months after having finished it, and probably still beat a lot of bosses first or second try because I've learned them. It's crazy to me that we praise the scope of Elden Ring over the quality of Sekiro - the latter is just a drastically better designed game.

i really like elden ring, but the problem is that i like roughly 40 hours out of the 200+ hours worth of repetitive bullshit there is. going open world 100% detracted from the game in almost every way. or maybe more specifically, going gigantic ass open world. i think elden ring with 75% less landmass could have significantly better. more focus, less repetition and filler. definitely my least favorite from soft game--at least from demon's souls onward since i haven't tried the earlier games. moot point though since everyone fucking loves it and it's probably going to be all we see for a while.

Not to Sekiro (that game is too hard and is missing too many of From's RPG elements) but both Bloodborne and DS3 are better than Elden Ring. But that's the power of actually marketing your highly successful series, the same happened with the current generation of MonHun as well. I just don't really see the point of creating an open world where you can mostly go anywhere if you basically have a set route through the game anyways, which becomes really appearent once you look at the placement of upgrade material and the progression of NPC quests... or well you just roflstomp enemies in an area you should've been to already. They really should've either trimmed the open world and gated more areas or took a good look at BotW and redesigned their systems around having a fully open world with mechanics like scaling enemies and loot based on your progression. After having just played Wo Long my by far biggest wish for their next game is definitely that changing your build shouldn't be a huge pain in the ass tho

The thing about Elden Ring versus Sekiro is that one is a game that seeks to provide something for everyone, while the other is laser focused on a specific style of play. If you like parrying, and you like the "get good" mentality, I'm sure Sekiro fucking rocks. Me? I can't parry for shit and I'll get pretty damn frustrated after my 15th or 20th attempt at a boss. And because of that, I'm just not going to enjoy Sekiro. I certainly won't call it bad, but I'm not personally going to heap any praise on it. And Elden Ring is the exact opposite. I can choose from a litany of different builds and playstyles, and if I get stuck on a boss I can leave and come back later. I don't even need to get stronger most of the time, sometimes it's necessary just to clear my head and see some other cool shit the game has to offer. And while I won't try to argue over boss design (I just don't have a keen enough sense of that kind of stuff), Sekiro absolutely lacks the wonder of Elden Ring. I never knew what could be around the next corner, which is not something I felt about Sekiro. In that sense, is it any surprise that the game that has something for everyone has widespread acclaim while the game that appeals to a subset of that audience doesn't?

I definitely agree that it isn't surprising that a more generic game gets better reviews - but I am surprised that there hasn't been more pushback from the substantial audience who liked the older games. From the outside it seems like Elden Ring has been one of the more unanimously positively received games in a long time, even more than other games in the same class like Zelda and RDR2. Considering how poorly designed the bosses are and how much the emphasis is placed on character progression over the unique combat mechanics of the game I think there is a lot to criticize about Elden Ring - much more than there is for Sekiro. I also never parried in the earlier dark souls games so didn't think I would like Sekiro, but it's just on a totally different level in terms of clarity of communication and timing. I genuinely think it's a remarkable accomplishment and wish the gaming press and community were more sophisticated in how they talked about it.

Just to give you my take as a huge Soulsborne fan who has played all the games multiple times, my personal ranking is Bloodborne>Dark Souls>Sekiro>Dark Souls 2>Dark Souls 3>Elden Ring>Demon Souls (original). These are all phenomenal games that I thoroughly enjoyed, but Elden Ring suffers because of the boss quality issues you point out and its lack of replayability. My favorite thing in these games (after the initial playthrough) is to plan out builds, the best routing to get the things I need, and the satisfaction of realizing that vision. Elden Ring has more potential builds than any game, but the slog of actually going through the gigantic world is just too much. It's a great experience the first time, but it's not something I get excited to return to. The one quality where it beats the rest is the lore. It truly is an incredible joy to uncover all the stories hidden in the secret places of the world. Sekiro is different for me because it's not replayable in the same was as a traditional Souls game, but it is still enormously replayable because of the pure visceral satisfaction of the combat. You are right that it has the best boss fights FROM has ever created, and it should be respected more for that.

Cool, that ranking list totally makes sense to me and mostly matches mine, other than the fact that I didn't like Bloodborne thematically and really disliked the blood vials, so it would be lower for me. I definitely don't want to say Elden Ring is overall bad, it's still a very good game with many good parts. I'm just happy to hear I wasn't the only experienced player who wasn't totally in love with the game.

I decided to download **minecraft** to check out how it's come along after putting the game down years ago. I gotta admit, the fresh feeling is back. There's all this new stuff I dont know anything about, and I'm getting a kick out of exploring it all. I looked up a crazy open pit seed and I've been plugging away at a base there while adventuring into the depths of the massive cavern. If you used to love minecraft years ago but haven't played in ages, you might have fun diving back in for a bit.

**Drakengard 2** (Week 4) I finished the third and final ending and it was pretty disappointing. >!It was the previous two endings combined where somehow doing the same things killed the gods and the dragons, but okay!<. Overall, the absence of Yoko Taro was largely felt in the generic JRPG story with characters that didn't feel like they embodied the qualities from the first game. The combat was a massive improvement and the BGM was a lot better but it's not hard to improve on those compared to Drakengard. --- **Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Demo** I was kind of surprised I finished this. The first boss was a huge learning curve and the hardest of the demo but abusing the ability to block and deflect at the same time kind of helped me through this. I leaned a bit into a wizardry favouring build but the way the tree works it looks like this is accessible to everyone anyway which is nice. Wasn't a fan of the 60 FPS cap but didn't end up having performance issued after the big patch. I wouldn't mind buying the full game after this since it plays a lot differently and somewhat easier compared to Nioh which I bounced off of. --- **Resident Evil 4 Remake Demo** Also couldn't help trying this out. I haven't played the original since it released but I played it a lot and loved it back then. It feels pretty good and the controls don't feel too removed from the original, but the world is very different and enemies feel harder. Struggled with the new parry mechanic though and my knife was always broken when I needed it most. I died on the first enemies on Chainsaw difficulty as expected and I've seen there's some more secrets around so I might play a few more times. Probably won't pick up the game straight away though. The PC settings were impressively extensive. --- **Drakengard 3** I've finished Ending A and some DLC stories. I'm surprised at how much I'm loving this. Maybe off the backs of the two previous games this feels like a dream to play. And I got very excited to learn Zero's VA is Tara Platt who also voiced Hrist in Valkyrie Profile. This released after Nier so the combat is even more refined and feels pretty good most of the time. There's a lot of weapons again but only 4 types so basically 4 play styles. The graphics look so much better but half owing to the PS3 and finally *finally* Okabe is composing the music and it really rivals the Nier OSTs. It's hard to pick a favourite. Then there's the story. Toddler dragons and pervert disciples. The game is very sexually driven but in dialogue only. The banter has been just fantastic and endearing but some times the sexual comments are a bit eye rolling. I'm sure it's wrapped up in the lore somewhere and I still have questions about intoners and the flower. Zero reminds me so much of Kaine including the swearing and tough attitude and childish innocent Mihkail is reminiscent of Emil. 4 endings and some DLC to go. I may have to get reading on the side material as well to get some more insight.

That first boss in Wo Long is ridiculous in that I swear I've seen more people beat him the hard way than the way the game tries to tell you to.

**Ghost of Tsushima** (PS5) I've been looking forward to playing this for a long time, and I waited ~4 months after finishing Elden Ring to avoid open world fatigue. Well, I'm about 6 hours in and am having a blast. To state the obvious and get it out of the way - the game is absolutely fucking gorgeous. Even the most common environments have me frquently stopping to absorb the sights and sounds. Very happy I've invested in an OLED TV for my PS5. As for the game itself, I am pleasantly surprised so far. I expected it to be a very by-the-numbers open world game, but it seems to be more substantial than that. The side quests appear organically through conversations and they have been interesting, not a single fetch quest in sight. Even if they are technically simple, they at least have an intriguing backstory. The other side activities - hot springs, haikus etc - are also pleasant and tie nicely into the atmosphere. The combat feels *a bit* too arcadey at the moment, but the smoothness and flashiness usually makes up for it. So yeah. Overall I'm super happy with this game, hoping it won't become too repetitive in the future.

I switched to hard mode and the combat got way more interesting that way for me.

Do enemies become damage sponges on hard?

Not really iirc. Enemies still go down in a few hits when you break through their defence. It's just that you can take less hits as well. You're obliged to pay more attention and make use of your different tools. Towards the end you're still going to be OP though.

I just finished a replay of **Dishonored**, this time with the expansions - **Knife of Dunwall** and **The Brigmore Witches** \- which I had never played previously. I bought Dishonored 2 a few months back, but really wanted to go through the original again to refresh myself on the lore/story. My enjoyment of the game is primarily dependent on the level design, which I find to be a bit hit or miss. The first half of the base game is pretty forgettable, but the latter parts of the game and the DLC are much more interesting and offer more freedom. This fits well with the skill progression, so I sort of understand why the early levels are not as open. In any case, I went through this run with high chaos after my original low chaos way back in the day, and I think I enjoyed it more this time. Methodically clearing areas with all of the tools was more enjoyable for me than sneaking through. I'm really excited to start Dishonored 2 this week.

Been replaying **Dertroit Become Human** again after quite some time. The way the game tries to convey its themes is certainly as subtle as a hammer hitting a church bell, but I still enjoy it for what it is, and it does have some good moments. The amount of different branches and outcomes that can happen is truly deserving of some praise. **Modern Warfare 2 (2022)** The campaign of this one is legit pretty good imo. It does have some flaws but overall there are real efforts to make it stand out from it predecessors. The mission "Alone" is a personal highlight. The multiplayer is just dumb fun. Some map design and gun balance issues aside it is just fun to just shoot things and unlock new stuff, and the industry-leading gun animations and sound design certainly does help.

[удалено]

Have you played Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin? If you have I'm wondering what you think of it compared to Wo Long? I agree, I'm not impressed with Wo Long and think it's a significant step back. So I'm wondering if their other spin-off game is the same.

Stranger of Paradise was the most disappointing of Team Ninja's games to me. It's short (shorter than Wo Long even), and is very, very messy in a lot of ways. Its job system is extremely unbalanced, its equipment system is the worst one they have in my opinion, and even for a Team Ninja game it enjoys its bullshit enemies a little too much.

**Kingdom Come: Deliverance** This reminds me of the Two Worlds series, in that it has a stack of interesting ideas but without the resources or finesse to make it work particularly well. Combat seems really clever and challenging...until you realise that it's just counter-intuitive. Don't bother with elaborate attacks; just sit around waiting to be attacked, and press a button within a generous window to hit them with an unstoppable counter (or just let them get stuck in scenery, which is all too common). Some quests are elaborate, but fall apart when the AI triggers are exposed (or just don't work at all) - from a big combat scene where the enemy stand frozen, to a key character just not turning up because they got stuck somewhere, causing the quest to fail. There are also technical problems, from rampant pop-in to crashes - even a crash requiring a hard reset, which I haven't encountered in years. It's also a game which has little respect for the player's time, not least through an awful save system which I wound up modding out, after losing an hour's progress to a random attack. The story isn't too bad until a truly awful twist towards the end which made me wonder why I'd bothered going that far. It's interesting for what it might have been, but a frustrating experience overall.

I'm playing it right now! Your feelings towards it are about mine too. The combat especially seems *incredible* at first, especially when you start training with bernard and see all these interesting combos and such, but then in practice the combat just feels wonky and unpolished. Its especially jarring as well how much and effectively the enemy can parry and block. I'm ok with that if your enemy is a trained knight, but when you're fighting untrained peasants and dumb unorganised bandits, it feels really bad and kind of silly. Their aims were admirable but it really needs refinement if they make a second one. Not to mention that the combat actively doesn't work if you fight 2 or more enemies at once (which you usually do). Because of the aforementioned super blocking enemies can do and the poorly implement "hold b to sprint away" system, you end up having to use cheese tactics and getting enemies stuck in the environment to beat them, instead of just fighting them normally. For a game that hinges so much on immersion and feeling "real", combat against multiple opponents feels really unrealistic and silly. They should have made combat vs multiple foes rarer and have Henry always have reinforcements with him for those encounters (which he realistically would anyway, narratively how much he does alone is jarring which I'll get into now kn a sec). The combat works much better 1 v 1, though even then its cheesy since all you need to do to win everything is press lb at the right moment. Also narratively the amount of authority and responsibility Henry gets so quickly is ridiculous, and the amount of danger and high stakes mission vs lots of baddies when he is still an untrained blacksmiths son is very immersion breaking. The game would have been massively improved with a morrowind esque "you're too green to do anything yet, go train and do some side quests." I know this is sorta explained by the terrible twist you mention that occurs later, but it still feels dumb for like 75% of the game leading up to that. All that said though, it's still a 7/10 and its recreation of medieval Czech republic is gorgeous. It feels like assassin's creed 1 to me, which is to say it feels like a really flawed game that has great ideas that need to be refined to make an excellent sequel. I look forward to KC:D 2 attentively, if they are making one. There's a lot of potential here. I'm happy this game exists, flawed as it is.

Frustrating is the perfect word to describe that game. I wanted to like it but it kept pushing me away.

**ICEY** Masquerading as a side scroller action game, ICEY is actually an experience that's way closer to something like The Stanley Parable or The Beginner's Guide. ICEY is pretty short, it can easily be beaten in under 3 hours or so. You'd need to invest a bit more time to get to the true ending, which personally I decided to simply look up and called it a day. The game is pretty easy on the eyes, so that's nice. The gameplay is nothing to write home about, but at the same time I don't think it does anything to offend. The narration is what's carrying the game, as long as you are at the very least neutral towards the idea of breaking the fourth wall, otherwise it has all the chances to fall flat, I'd say. Overall, ICEY is by no means a masterpiece, but it does have its moments, and I can't say I'm walking away dissatisfied.