Tagged roundup

My favorite things I played in 2025

Happy new year everyone!!!!!!!

Well, I intended to make 2025 a year where I'd be able to spread my wings and fly around the current state of games media, but between an awful incident in my personal life, complete creative lock-ups aside from the Shenmue piece, a contact for a job that went nowhere and a general sense of my life going wrong on all possible angles, I couldn't really muster the will nor want to write longform critique again. To be honest, I don't really think I still can right now.

But I also don't want to stand around and do nothing of myself. One year was enough, and while it allowed me to pierce through 53 full fuckin' games off of my backlog (!!!) it also felt really empty to not have a way to express these feelings outside of disparate discord servers and DMs. So as a way to kick off the new year and make a use of this new and nifty blog I built (shoutouts to Strawberry Starter, this whole place is soooo much easier to work on now) I wanna go back and talk about some of my favorite things from 2025. I don't want this to be like the other round-ups where I got ahead of myself and wrote too much for 'em (also cuz I wrote those while in the middle of work tehe) so I'll try to keep these short and sweet.

Games

Honkai: Star Rail (up to midway through 3.0)

I don't like this game at all. I find its story really boring, the characters incomprehensible, the flowery language unbearable and the general user experience as a live service game to be annoying to play through. I like some of the designs and found parts of Penacony to be soooorta interesting, but Amphoreus, even the fuckin start of it, was so mindnumbing that I couldn't get back into it. I logged back in to get my wife Saber and that free Archer and haven't booted it up since. Not a fan.

Castlevania - Symphony of the Night

Igarashi nailed the formula on the first try and but no modern Metroidvania wants to admit that half the fun of the namesake genre is in the RPG lying underneath the exploration. It's a really fun ARPG with great music and a fantastic sense of progression and discovery. The only issue is, as many have said already, that the inverted castle really kills the pace as you're forced to explore the exact level you've been in but upside down. A bit of annoying but nothing like, super bad. Good stuff.

Ninja Gaiden (1 Sigma and 2 Black)

RIP Itagaki. He made (or well I guess he didn't make these two) a really fun, unique way of approaching action games by basing it off entirely on positioning ala old beat 'em ups. NG1S has fantastic level design and really fun set pieces even if the bosses are horrendous. 2 Black is really pretty, but lacks a lot of the fun of the interconnected level design of 1 and feels more like a chore to go through. Worth playing though.

South Park - The Stick of Truth

Delightful JRPG. It has really witty humor and is very fun to play through. I'll never forget the broken bottle strategy I beat the game with. Highly recommend.

Tony Hawk's Underground

Yadda yadda Eric Sparrow rules. The levels are great, the progression is super tight. It's probably Tony Hawk's at its best. The final challenge was really good.

Death Stranding

There really is just no experience like reconstructing infrastructure by hauling materials from warehouse to warehouse, hauling ass because of bad weather, sneaking around ghosts and spending a dozen hours just making it more convenient to drive around. For what purpose? I don't really know. But it's really fun to just do and I think that's DS's greatest strength. You can call it a loop if you wanna, but I think the core mechanical throughline is to make you play-pretend logistics and no other game really does this, not even Euro Truck Simulator 2 since that focuses more on just getting from point A to B within a "realistic" framework (real roads, real traffic laws, real radio if you feel like it). DS likes to play it more abstractly and it works for the better. I will defo play DS2 later on (maybe this year).

Shinobi III (on 3ds)

Guys this game fuckin rocks. Fuck that new Shinobi game, play this instead.

Dragon Quest II (SNES)

Playing Dragon Quest I is like witnessing history before your eyes. Playing Dragon Quest II is like seeing the foundation of the future be set in stone. Jackson Tyler has already written a great article on the experience of playing DQ2 as it compares to its predecessor but I think Dragon Quest II has a lot of elements that feel a lot more resonant than I as they expand on how I worked. There's this concept in Japanese called 謎解き (Nazo Toki/riddle solving) where the basis of a puzzle will be structured so that the player has to figure out the clues by talking to NPCs and discovering the world to solve it, and this game plays into that very hard for good and for ill. I respect the search for the medallions, but it's also very bullshit to have two of them just, on the floor, without any indication (afaik anyway). I still really enjoyed the game though, in spite of its awful difficulty spike at the very last area of the game. Maybe play the new remake if you wanna see it modernized, but I also recommend the SNES or GBC versions.

Ace Combat 04

I really just don't have the words to describe how good Ace Combat 04 is. AC5 has better setpieces, AC2 basically perfected the formula on PS1, but there's something about AC04 to me that speaks to me. Maybe it's the really cool plot presentation with the dual POVs between Mobius 1 and the kid in the city, or the amount of bangers in its OST, or the simple fun of "hearing FOX 2 FOX 2" on the radio while dodging missiles left and right. I ended up replaying it on Hard the moment I beat it, which I couldn't do for 5 or 2 (haven't beaten 0 yet though). Either way, it rules.

F-Zero GX

They will never make another one like this and that's the biggest crime of all. One of the greatest ever.

R4 Ridge Racer Type-4

I almost wrote an essay on the appeal of kinesthetics as it related back to this one. The beautiful graphic design that permeates not just the experience of selecting things off of a menu, but the races themselves. The sense of melancholy as every story grapples with what the new millennium will bring to them, as the start of something new. The greatest OST ever composed by a human being. It doesn't just feel like a game, but an aesthetic statement. A hope for a future based on the promise of technology, something that we really want to reappropriate nowadays with LLMs but cannot. It really is a beautiful work of art.

Blue Prince

I'm actually not really a hater of most things. If I write something it's usually because I liked it to one degree or another. Either I found something interesting in its play or themes, or I just wanna gush about how it made me feel. Blue Prince is one of the only games I rolled credits on (the first credits) and felt nothing but sheer annoyance at its existence. I hate the way it mixes deckbuilding and puzzle-solving. I hate the way it wastes my time due to RNG, even when I understand or want to try out a solution for a puzzle. I hate how SLOW it is to play on a movement level. I hate it.

Shenmue

Read my article about it lol it's right there. One of the greatest games ever made.

Deltarune Ch 1 through Ch 4

It's hard to talk about Deltarune because, like most serialized fiction, a lot of the interpretation and experience of play comes from how you think it'll continue. I have my thoughts on that too, but playing gacha games for long enough has taught me that it's better to wait until it's all done to give full thoughts on a project like it. As for the individual chapters, I'll break my rule and give a 1-line review:

Ch 1: Still funny. Third best OST.

Ch 2: The funniest one. Best OST.

Ch 3: Inventive structure, fun villain, incredible secret boss. Weakest OST.

Ch 4: Cool aesthetics, made me cry during the secret boss, when I realized the point of the heart and its meta layer I clapped hard. Second best OST if only for the sanctuary themes.

Cairn (demo)

This is probably gonna be my GOTY for 2026.

Exapunks

I'm tsundere for this game. I love it and then I hate it and then I love it again. Someday I'll beat it.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Mid but I think the sequel is gonna fix all my gameplay issues so whatever. If you don't like the Agua song or the OST in general you have objectively awful taste.

Lost Judgement

It's good but I hate the conspiracy angle; it would have been better with the main antagonist alone. Still worth playing but not as good as the first one.

Umamusume: Pretty Derby

I love it. I love the gameplay, I love the characters, I love the idol concerts, I love the historical philosophy it has. I love it all. I am an idolbuta without any shame. I've been an Uma fan since 2021 but it feels SO good to see it blow up and see people fall in love with it as their idol franchise of choice. I believe we all love idols, we just have to find the groups or franchises that speak to our hearts.

Mahou Tsukai no Yoru (Witch on the Holy Night)

I really don't think I can fully encapsulate how much I love Mahoyo in a round-up like this. Frankly I don't think I could do it justice as a full blog post. It's a very difficult game to put into words, as you can focus on a myriad of things about it, from its character work to presentation and how it operates around Nasu's general oeuvre of work. I love it though, and if you ever wanna talk about it with me please DM me on Bsky.

Pikmin

CHILDHOOD AVENGED. I was so scared of this game as a kid and beating it felt so good. It's a lovely experiment with good music and strategy layers, though I think it only really comes into its own with 2 characters like in its sequel.

Mother

Anyone who says this is skippable over Earthbound is a liar and has no sense of taste of charm or how to have FUN with old games. It's silly, super charming and goes by faster than you'd think, even without the EXP boosting items from the English patch release. Worth every single second.

House of Necrosis

This game made me understand the core fun of mystery dungeon games and for that I think it deserves all the praise it can get. Please play it.

Cyberpunk 2077 (and Phantom Liberty)

Vanilla is like, a really really good exploration of the types of freedoms we lose and gain within a rotten society and economy. It's great, it's defo worth playing by itself.

Phantom Liberty is a feat of narrative design. Every sidequest, conversation, dialog choice and event reinforces the theme of "true" agency in narrative. It's one of the most impressive things I've played in years. The way the four endings play out is a prime example on how choices in games should feel to the player; shitty, awful, and full of regret, but worth sticking through for what you believe will get you at the very end. I love it.

Final Fantasy XIII

Yo all the haters are fucking liars bro this is the best combat system Square has ever put together. The story is really disparate but its saved by the incredible (JAPANESE) script. Maybe I'll write about it.

Gnosia

Really cool premise and I respect how its systems interact with one another to try and make Mafia work single player but it's awful how it degenerates into flag hunting by the midgame. Probably watch the (currently airing) anime if you want a better experience of the plot.

Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge

dogshit

Final Fantasy XVI

Boring and annoying.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Better and worse than most people give it credit for. It works well when it does but the act 2 twist, while cool and "works" for what the game tries to say, ruins a good part of the story in such a way where it's basically indefensible to choose the M-ending. Maybe that's the mark of a good narrative though, the fact it can inspire discussion like this. Gameplay's good too until it also degenerates into nuking enemies because you don't want to engage with the parrying anymore. Still fun though!

Fate/Grand Order - Cosmos in the Lostbelt

God, the fact I can just say "FGO is over" feels bizarre to say. Obviously the gacha game FGO is still alive, and it'll probably continue on for a couple more years with no issue, but FGO as the narrative game I've been playing since 2017 being "over" and done fills me with...a weird feeling. It's good and it's bad. I wish the final chapter did stuff differently with regards to its real main heroine, but I respect Nasu's commitment to do that ending and leave it to players to try and sort how they feel about it. It's ballsy, at the very least. I do wanna write something about it though, maybe at the end of the month once I can sort my feelings out. Either way, it's been a ride. Thanks for the memories.

My god that actually was way longer than I thought it was gonna be. I might post a different one about the movies, books and anime I watched as well later on. Honestly I think my intent for this is to try and make a monthly round-up of the things I finished in any given month to get stuff out, but I'll figure out if I wanna keep it in this subfeed or put it in the main one later.

Either way, if you're reading this, thanks for checking me out. I don't really write for clicks or fame, but if you wanna talk to me and check my thoughts on things as I finish them, you can check my Bluesky, and my Backloggd here as well.

Have a wonderful 2026, and I hope we see each other soon!.

Roundup 2 (09/11/2023)

The Roundup! Part 2!!!!!!!

hey! it's been a while since i last wrote something here hasn't it. i can't say it's been because i've been busy honestly, it’s just that opening google docs and typing kinda fills me up with some insane dread and anxiety since i start thinking of school and i really dont wanna do that. however since i liked writing the review roundup i did a couple of months ago, I figured i should do the same for the bunch of games i've finished since i last posted. it’s probably gonna be a semilong post so buckle up for some #takes from your local literal who.

so i didn't really end up liking alan wake 1 when i finished it. its a weird game that’s quite plagued by dev problems and script issues. lots of parts in it dont really mesh well together unfortunately, and the final game plays like a really boring version of luigi’s mansion but with a gun.

since then i’ve grown a bit of an appreciation over it after i finished it. i think the game’s messiness contributes to its thriller atmosphere quite well. the way the story “develops” feels like you’re right inside one of alan’s shitty books where he cast himself as the chad and the dark presence as the soyjack, for lack of a better way of explaining it. it works kinda weirdly but i think alan wake is a game that’s “good” but more plagued by its own ambition than anything; something that could very easily be refined in a sequel that hammers home the horror elements and the psychological horror of the writer’s room and the dark place.

BUT, before remedy made that game, they made Control and released it back in 2019. Control is a game about…control lmao. It’s a game that’s predominantly interested in how our traumas fuel us and how we can overcome them, and the usage of SCP aesthetics with a maximalist brutalist architectural aesthetic and lynchian (i hate saying it like this lol) storytelling makes for an extremely unique game in the AA space it occupies.

i think what stood out to me most of all is how good it feels to control. Jesse has this floatiness to her movements that make the big arenas feel incredible to jump around in, and as you get more abilities you feel like you’re getting more and more in tune with the themes of the game. Jesse learns to tap into her trauma and draws power from within it to overcome the SCP nightmare that’s in the oldest house, and the player follows up on this journey as they get stronger. it’s a very simple narrative that’s really nicely told as you get snippets of the situation at hand with some really pretty aesthetic flourishes like the Trench flashbacks, the Darling tapes or the weird board scenes. i can see why people wouldn’t like how up it is on its own hype but i relished in how hard it went. i didnt beat either of the dlcs (though i started the alan wake dlc but didn't finish it) so no comment on those except that Alan’s voice actor is always a treat.

speaking of alan wake: his sequel game also came out. i haven't finished it because i'm playing it with my dad (he’s really liking it) but i think it’s so far a stronger game than the first one, easily. it’s fucking gorgeous first of all, truly a game that could only be made with modern hardware. and the way it’s trying to fit in the pieces of the metanarrative between alan, saga, the first game and what it means to be a shit writer stuck in your own head is really cool. might end up writing something bigger if i feel like it idk.

im writing something on this. it’s probably gonna be as big as the samrem review if not bigger. i love these two games a lot and theyve made my brain whirl around a lot since i finished them. look forward to the ultimate akai mato review.

yakuza is the game series i think of when i think about my childhood watching youtube videos on games i couldn’t play. i had a wii growing up and my parents refused to get me any console after the Wii U, so most of my experiences “playing” non nintendo games that werent ports to the wii i rented from blockbuster came from let’s play channels. i distinctly remember making my youtube account to subscribe to The Media Cows after they started posting their videos on mass effect 3 multiplayer lmao, and it’s through channels like them, the rad brad, centerstrain01 and others that i grew my appreciation for the broader side of gaming back when i was, 11.

come 2023 and i finally got my first non nintendo console that could play modern games and i immediately bought yakuza kiwami on a sale. that game is like, generally ok, but it was a fun time visiting kamurocho for the “first time” (i played yakuza 0 a bit before it but i didnt beat it so it doesn’t count for my point). In came november 2023 and sony announces that a bunch of yakuza games are leaving playstation plus, including 7. i made it my mission to do the entire yakuza series myself to get to 7 and feel the differences firsthand, but i had to cut that short because i really wanted to play 7 and this gave me the best excuse to cram it all as fast i could.

and what did i think of it? it’s great! incredible hot take i know, the super popular yakuza semi-reboot is a good game? who could have seen this coming! i kid but i was pretty pleasantly surprised at how good of a first draft this system ended up being for me, coupled with a really interesting story about familiar bonds, election schemes and the consequences of the not!LDP’s policies on sex work and the homeless.

while the combat is really simple, i think it does a really good job at mixing its urban setting with dragon quest-esque combat to create this semi-unique mix of active turn-based combat. it has a lot of issues that the sequel fixed, mainly the lack of character control in battle, unclear AOE indicators and kiiiinda uninspired boss design and general lack of difficulty barring two bosses in particular, but i think it manages to be engaging throughout, and that’s something i care about more than if the systems are unique in a vacuum. one aspect that really stood out to me was the way the game encouraged me to grind a bit to get every character as even as i could, encouraging me to check jobs with interesting skills just to see what they could inherit to the main jobs i chose for my party. this is something i’ve also heard the sequel makes more interesting so i'm excited to get to that when it’s not 70 dollars anymore lmfao.

also to talk about the story a bit: i think it’s generally very competent and has an incredible grasp on the characters it wants to make central to the emotional core. everyone’s talked about how great ichiban is and how lovable he is but it speaks to the beats of the writing and Nakaya Kazuhiro’s talent to portray the vulnerability he exhibits throughout the key points where he talks to the antagonist made me tear up hard. speaking of which, without spoiling anything, aoki ryo is also a really good emotional counterpart to ichiban and he’s played BEAUTIFULLY by the goat Toriumi Kousuke. the ending is one of the most heartfelt and heart wrenching things i've seen in a while, and i haven't stopped thinking about it since i finished it.

i started this as a joke with some friends and ended up streaming it in full over the next few days after that. beast media. kino.

i knew i had to beat this before rebirth while i was under the illusion i'd be playing that at launch. silly me. but it was worth going “back” to FF7R through this dlc. very short and sweet and Yuffie plays better than every single character in remake. the way she can flow from close combat to ranged and exploit stagger with the unity attacks is really fun and i'm curious to see how her mechanics change in rebirth.

ill also add that i played the nibelheim incident demo for rebirth and also found that very fun. the changes to cloud’s movement and attacks are really good and unity attacks are a very welcome addition to the system. i just wished that the game would stop going all prestige on me and have me walk super slowly through certain environments.

i played this while i was half listening to my arts class lmao. i haven't beaten vanilla celeste but i thought the movement here was super smooth with some major issues in depth perspective and shadows. often i'd fall off because i didn't know where madeline was relative to the platforms below her and that was annoying; but also who cares lol this was made in a week and it’s more fun than most 3d platformers.

i've been playing granblue fantasy on and off for the last 6 years. i never got super hardcore into it but i had phases where id grind like a degenerate and then drop off for a couple months before picking it back up when the burnout faded. either way i'd still call myself a longtime fan.

however, relink never really caught my eye compared to other people. it looked nice but the constant lack of info and multiple delays just made me not care about the project, coupled with the fact i didn't have a console that could play it even if i wanted to, so i stopped caring and got excited for other stuff.

in came anime expo 2023, the first time i ever traveled by myself to another country with friends, and there they had a demo booth for relink. it was single player only and you could fight two bosses back-to-back, a goblin warrior and a griffon. the moment i took control of Gran i could see the sparks in my eyes fly out into the screen. movement felt great, and the combat was super responsive. even as i got my ass handed to me i couldn't stop going back and queuing for 10 minutes just to try it again and again. my friends and i even made it a small competition to see who could get to the secret boss since it required some inane requirements and strats, but it was incredibly fun.

the game itself captures this feeling by harnessing its main quest design through a monster hunter framework, and adding the one thing that makes granblue fun, seeing the number go UP.

you’ll beat the game and immediately start doubling, tripling, quadrupling your attack and hp, gain new equipment slots, and break through every cap the game has as you battle through very fun bosses by yourself or with other friends. i've been playing the post-game only through co-op and it’s been a blast going through the game as a group, grinding and leveling up our weapons and getting to fight cooler and cooler bosses. more than anything, relink captures what makes playing with friends fun, and what makes single player rpgs with a focus on grinding up, and through its bizarre concoction of monster hunter progression systems, incredible art design and fun enemy encounters, manages to make a game that in any other context would be a live service nightmare, but instead it’s a fully complete bespoke experience that i've been growing to appreciate every time i open the game up. give it a go if you have a group of friends you wanna blast through some arpg bosses together

also there’s a main story but lmao it sucks ass.

funny story, while i was writing this i finished elden ring with most of the major bosses beaten but without triggering the credits because i dont wanna do ng+ for the dlc. sometimes my procrastination gets the better of me and i beat games like that lmao.

much ink has been spilled on the topic of elden ring and from software. personally it was one of the only games that made me resent not having a game-ready pc or a ps4/ps5 when it came out and i saw all my friends cream their pants over how kino poggers it was. luckily i ended up acquiring a ps5 last year and after seeing elden ring in a daily sale for 30% off i immediately started it and…dropped it for 7 months after getting to raya lucaria lmao. i dont even know exactly why i felt so underwhelmed by what i had played; maybe it had something to do with my choice of build (wretch start, mage only) which felt undertuned and annoying as i scrambled to find a staff and spells to start my quest in earnest, and by the time i conquered stormveil castle and got to the gates of raya lucaria after 20 hours of fucking about and finding out i got severely burned out of the game and just kinda left it there and played some other stuff; i think armored core 6 had also come out around the same time and i really wanted to check that out so elden ring ended up kind of forgotten to me for a while

then the dlc trailer came out and everyone around me was talking about it, and that was enough to spur me back into action and finally conquer the rest of the game. needless to say, the game hooked me harder than ever after that extended break and i beat it 2 weeks after with 83 hours of playtime and most of its optional stuff done and dusted, including malenia and ranni’s whole questline.

elden ring is one of those games to me. the type of game that gnaws at you with its fanged teeth and doesnt let you go until it eats you whole and the crows get the leftovers, or something. it’s a game that, paraphrasing a friend of mine, brings back the design sensibilities of 80’s RPG design and fully realizes them in a full 3d environment. a game where you can go somewhere and in most cases find some catacombs with a spirit ash left behind, or an npc will point you cryptically into a questline, or you’ll get ambushed by a big-ass dragon and die. the lands between transforms from this magical and unknown land to a land of explorable mysteries where you’ll be able to find cool legendary swords and armor, fight historical bosses and explore the fucked up parts of its geography as you slowly uncover the lore and the relationship charts of who’s who and what’s where. the best parts of the game for me were the moments where i knew where i wanted to go and went there, and by going there i found a cool legacy dungeon or a boss fight or a rise, and conquering it felt like i wrote a part in my own story of becoming the elden lord.

magical only partly covers the experience of playing elden ring. it’s a game filled with possibilities and playstyles, a game where stuff being kept from you feels just as exciting as uncovering it. i might end up writing a bit more on elden ring later down the line but i am very, very excited for the dlc and whatever it’ll bring to the lands between.

only gonna write a bit on this because i got burned out and played other stuff instead. i think nocturne is one of the most vibe-based rpgs ive ever played. totally unconcerned with having a main story, it dedicates its playtime to bespoke dungeon crawling and pure gameplay. SMT has a reputation for being ball-busting hard and i cant disagree with that assessment, though it might be because i was peer pressured into playing the game on hard mode. regardless, it’s a game that fully understands its scope and vision and realizes it in a really cool package of really inspired visual design, atmosphere and mechanical prowess. i know people like to complain that the dungeons are “too gimmicky” or whatever but if having complex layouts with dangers outside of enemy encounters counts as a gimmick then sign me the fuck up. ill beat this before the end of the year

finally, this game got on psplus while i was procrastinating writing this post and ive poured around 10 hours into it. sifu is a game that mimics the style and flow of martial arts movies by way of god hand and sekiro. if that sounds like a good enough pitch to you then hop on and have a blast as you get your ass kicked over and over again. ive personally been grinding the lower levels so i can have an advantage in the later ones but the combat system is so complex and so intricate that it hasnt bored me at all. it feels like a great mix of arcade playstyle based on short levels and depth to relatively simple mechanics and a DMC-esque upgrade system where your moveset becomes more and more intricate as you play through the levels and get really, really good. very excited to beat this and be sad that more games dont approach their macro design like an arcade game anymore.

and that’s that! im gonna try my best to write a lot more in 2024 (i say this despite it being march already lmfao) and try to be more consistent with my blog posts as long as this site still exists. i wanna make 2024 the year i get really into certain games and try to explore more RPGs and finish quite a bunch of famous games in my circles (cough cough rance quest, sekiro, dark souls 2 and dragons dogma 2) so please be on the lookout for my following blog posts. thanks for reading!!!

Roundup 1 (09/11/2023)

Been a bit! Here's some quick impressions on stuff i've finished!

Man that samurai remnant review took me out a bit. i had a lot of fun writing it but needed to clear my thoughts with some actual #media ever since, and oh man ive been doing a lot lol. So this post is gonna be me going over some of the stuff i've been playing and watching the past month-ish cuz i wanna share my EXPERIENCES and i have some stuff to say about a couple things here. So here we go!

Final Fantasy VII Remake

FF7R is one of the weirder AAA games ive played through in the last few years. its a game that feels a bit stuck between the graphical rut of AAA games and the creative business unit i's throughline of FF combat from OG 7 onwards. its by no means a bad game at all, it's really funny, stupidly pretty, incredibly well acted and has a really interesting viewpoint of how it looks into the legacy of ff7 proper that im very excited to be expanded upon in rebirth and the third game. but the actual game feels a bit padded in ways, especially the dungeons that, while beautiful, feel overly long and dry despite their visual splendor.

the best part of the game that's not the genius implementation of ATB into an action game is the actual world of midgar for me though. chapters 3, 10 and 14 let you actually explore the slums in such an immersive way that it made me actually 100% all the sidequests, which i fucking hate doing, solely because i really wanted to do more stuff in the world. i can't wait for rebirth to expand on this with all the dumbass towns the larger world has to offer, its gonna be great.

Spider-man ps4 and miles morales (and a bit of 2)

i wanna preface this by saying that i havent played a single ratchet and clank game or a spyro game made by insomniac, so their spiderman series is my first exposure to them and i left both games positive but mixed. sm ps4 is a Fun(tm) game that really knows what it wants to be and doesnt try anything else. It has a very boring open world filled with tedious activities and kinda boring side missions i stopped engaging with halfway through, and a combat system that has an interesting foundation but doesnt have the mechanics or enemy variety to make it shine. that Fun(tm)-ness is what's at the core of the insomniac spiderman trilogy. they're fun games to play through in the moment and have some generally alright story but are bogged down by their prestige-branded experience that sony keeps trying to push out the door. ps4 and miles's scripts are both ass, and it's a miracle that the stories are still as alright as they are when they're written like that. 2 is a bit better in that department and Harry actually makes Peter have a dynamic that's not as one-sided or gimmicky as the one he had with mj and miles. it's weird to say but that's kinda where the writing fails to me, its just so generically Fine that i ended up forgetting most of it.

miles felt a lot more polished in the gameplay at least even if the script was bad. it's no wonder sm2 expanded the venom power system more since it actually makes the lame and simplistic combat bearable by letting you pull out cool lil super attacks. I did miss the gadget wheel even if it makes more sense to not have a huge repertoire of those here compared to peter's.

sm2 is a technical marvel and a way better Game than the other two, to the point i feel that it makes those two obsolete on a gameplay level. the open world shit feels a lot less annoying to do since the upgrade materials that they give are simplified and the activities are not as long as the fucking base missions in ps4. i havent beaten the game yet but i think most of the additions to the combat and all of the additions to swinging are good, especially when it relates to speed and movement with the latter (i love u PS5's ssd mwah). i might write a bit more about sm2 when i beat it idk.

the coffin of andy and leyley (aka the third best game of the year)

gonna cut straight to the point here: the coffin of andy and leyley is one of the most interesting games to have come out this year. while it being on early access means i cant really comment on the plot as a whole, the current EA build has me under its spell.

incredible and impressive number of unique CGs, generally good music and a stupidly impressive script has its hooks on me. i love how andrew and ashley's relationship plays out through the two routes in episode 2, and i really liked the subtle horror of ashley's dependency on andrew and how pathetic andrew's reliance on ashley made their fucked up relationship work. really excited for the full game next year

also its sicko as fuck and i approve

resident evil 2 (the remake)

my only other experience with resident evil are my two playthroughs of resi 4. resi 4 is one of the best games of all time, and i was very excited to see what capcom had in store for their remake of 2 which had some really high praise from normal reviewers and my friends. suffice to say it's one of my favorite games this year (in hardcore mode only)

i think the beauty of resi2 hardcore is in its subversion of expectations. say you play the game like me, you do Leon standard. you go through his campaign learning the ins and outs of the rpd building and get scared by the zombies not going down on one hit or the lickers or the Mr. X section. you get tense, you scream, you do the sewers and get scared by the big monsters, you do the lab and get scared by the plants, you beat the game, yay! you did it!

then you go do claire hardcore and you immediately understand the game was just testing you. it was preparing you for the real horror: the horror of not having enough shit and all your shit being over/undertuned. take the weapons for example: leon gets two good pistols, a good shotgun, and a flamethrower. a generally well balanced roster of situationally aware weaponry that you'll always get a use of, and more importantly, always have available at a moment's notice. claire is not like that at all. you get two revolvers that suck ass, a stupidly good grenade launcher, a good machine gun and a single pistol, that's it. claire also doesn't get enough ammo for these weapons, and most of the pistol ammo you'll find in the game is for the terrible quick shot revolver that sucks ass and barely deals damage. this, however, is balanced by the fact that this is probably your second run, so you know more or less where the key items are at, what zombies to avoid or kill, how to find the scattered green herbs and pouch upgrades, so you go "hey its fine, i know where most stuff is, it'll be ok."

its not ok.

claire has to deal with the bulking giant Mr. X far earlier and more frequently than Leon did. While you're exploring the second floor of the east wing, he appears from around a corner, and you have to deal with him while finding the three medallions for the underground section AND the search for the electric boxes. so while you, as a player, already have the game knowledge to route most of the way through the station, you have to deal with enemies that deal way more damage, not having enough resources to survive, having to deal with limited save items in the form of ink ribbons and, and this is key, not having enough item slots to carry everything you want. claire's second run was one of the most stressful experiences ive ever had with a game, let alone a horror game. the sheer dread you're always finding yourself in was such a fantastic and unique experience that elevated the kinda mid leon run into an all timer for me. defo one of the best games ive played this year.

alan wake remastered

then alan wake 2 came out. at the time of writing this ive not played AW2; i hadnt even played the original game or any of remedy's catalogue aside from half a playthrough of max payne 1 on ios. however, AW2's supposed media-mix venture into playing with formats and the sheer amount of Horsepower required to run the game on pc made me really curious about it, and hey i already had AW1 and control on ps5 thanks to playstation plus, so i decided to take a plunge into this remedyverse right after resi 2.

alan wake is not a good game.

i think AW is a game that suffers a lot from its ambition and the hellscape that was 7th gen gaming. the game was in dev hell and had to be rebooted into a linear thriller that was horror-themed instead of a horror game and man you can tell. while the core gameplay feels coherent, it lacks the enemy variety to make it shine, and the lack of good weapons or actual progression ruined it a lot for me. you spend most of the game slowly walking through dark forests with boring enemies and middling level design while the game tries to tell an interesting story that left me wanting more. i think the ideas it presents are interesting but it really needed more time in the oven to get the script working. im currently in the middle of control which is a way tighter game and im very interested to see how they retconning of alan wake into that SCP-esque thing works out, but the game itself is just really dull. a shame, really.

still gonna play aw2 when it's not 60 fucking dollars though

the movie project

dont confuse this with me actually making a movie lmao im not built for that shit. due to some (not negative) circumstances in my life that have happened over the last week i took it upon myself to start watching more movies, mainly because i noticed i didnt go to the cinema a single time through september and that made me feel like ass, so ive been watching one movie a day over the last week, mainly some stuff ive been meaning to get to for a while but never found the time or urgency to do so.

so far ive watched 8 movies, 6 full length ones, one short film and a documentary. ill give a one paragraph review of each because they deserve to be talked more at length and this is running long as it is.

-Nope (dir. Jordan Peele, 2022): good movie about animal abuse and spectacle. the more i think about it the more i like it. the cast is really good and the script manages to capture the heaviness of the subject while still being funny. the monkey scene will not leave my head

so yeah that was pretty much everything ive done since. after i finish control im probably gonna get to finishing up some of my japanese games like King Exit and the tsukihime remake, probably start yakuza 7 and nier replicant too. ill write about those too when the time comes but if you managed to get here after that big-ass post, i wanna thank you for reading my insane ramblings and hope you got a recomendation out of these.

until next time!