Like a Dragon: Ishin(Playstation 5) Thoughts and Rant

I did not like playing the recent Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii game but I did enjoy playing Yakuza Kiwami 2 so I'm capable of enjoying the series. RGG puts out so many games that it starts to wonder if all of them are made equal. Case and point Yakuza Ishin.

This particular game is considered a mixed bag but I decided to play for myself and it is such a mess. It falls into things that other RGG games avoided...for the most part. There are crazy amounts of filler here. In between Not Kiryu super slow base movement speed and him needing to catch his breath after a minute and how much side quests get shoved down your throats. Much of Ishin's chapters could be much shorter if these two things were removed. When I was forced to do a side quest because I wanted to buy some healing items, I stopped playing the game there since I can tell my time is being wasted.

The game is also running to the same buildings over and over again wouldn't be so bad if your base movement speed wasn't so slow.

The combat is where things get really bizarre. I play Yakuza games on normal and I got stumped on the first boss fight. I am like, "why the fuck am I struggling in a Yakuza game?" The horde fights are fine but the bosses are some next level bullshit. It's esstentially a game of getting out of their line of sight and attacking from behind them while they are doing their combo attack since when they are doing it, they are locked in the animation. The thing is and what's bullshit is that they have craploads of HP AND they can level your health bar quickly. On top of that, they can stagger Kiryu like no tomorrow. If one of their attacks connect, it's stagger central then you got to wait for him to get up afterwards.

It just exposes that Yakuza's combat is infuriating whenever the player isn't being favoured. I've discovered that it's better NOT to use the lock on system and the evade command and just runaway when a boss is going to combo you THEN attack them from behind. So just hit and run bullshit. Thankfully easy mode mitigates but everything else annoying about the game starts to add up. I never thought I would ever need to rely on the series difficulty system of lowering to easy but only for specific fights but here we are.

The story is also a mess. It takes too long for the plot to move forward. One minute Not Kiryu is looking for the murderer of his father figure and deduces that members of the Shinengumi a specific fighting style. Not Kiryu loses sight on this very quickly and he almost forgets his own revenge quest.

What broke the story for me was Not Kiryu's refusal to kill. It's annoying when canon Kiryu does this but it's even more bizzare here. He's infiltrating a band of murders and assassins and he's actively budding heads with the captains and is unable to kill someone even if it means he could blow his cover. It gets ridiculous where I lose suspension of disbelief. I officially zoned out when at multiple points Not Kiryu SHOULD'VE killed someone but the plot finds external ways for a person to get killed off like someone else killing the guy the former was supposed to kill. As if someone else killing a person instead of you suddenly makes morally upstanding. It annoyed me that he names himself Hajime Saito because I'd take the Rurouni Kenshin version's philosophy of "slay evil immediately" over whatever Not Kiryu is trying to do.

I eventually gave up after a few hours. I'm only writing this because I played it long enough to form solid impressions on the game. I did really want to beat this. Guess I'll just replay 0 and Kiwami 1 and play Kiwami 3 and stop there.

Forgive Me Father 2(Playstation 5) Review

Pretty enjoyable sequel. In spite of the fact that this game gives you the ability to save anywhere, it's much more challenging that the first game. It also comes in handy too since the game can be unstable even on console too. The sound can randomly cut out and you have to boot the game again for it to return. My autosave got corrupted and if it weren't my other saves that I made prior, I might've had to restart a lengthy and challenging level again. I was never expecting this to be a sequel difficulty spike but it is.

Forgive Me Father 2 does walk a very fine tight rope of being challenging but fair especially in the early levels. When the game starts, there isn't an overwhelming amount of ammo and levels can be very stingy with healing items, they don't restore an overhwhelming amount of health. It can sort of enter into the realm of something like Resident Evil 4 where you aren't given an overwhelming amount of health packs and ammo and you have to make due with what you can find. There is also a Doom 3 style flashlight system too where there's dark areas and enemies can attack you while looking there. You have to to press the fashlight button to keep it charged.

There can be a fair number of cheap deaths and without saving anywhere I would've had to lower the difficulty to one of the lower settings or just drop. It's very easy to be low on hp and just get killed by a random enemy. It can be infuriating. The temptation to lower to easy was too great but every time I was going to give in there was a health pack lying around and I was able to turn the odds back to my favor. It's quite the example of early game hell.

When you unlock more powerful weapons with the tokens and get buy more cards for the dark tome, things do start to get easier especially when you find a play style that suits you. I went with a style where I was able to get back health when using dark tome and getting hit powered up my meter. There will be some random deaths from time to time due to how much one enemy projectile can take a quarter of your health. With the ability to save anywhere, I had to be careful whenever I did it to avoid an endless death loop. The different weapons you can get with the tokens does seem to give the player different play styles. I've seen some use the base revolver but I prefer the fish smg for how it tears into enemies up close.

The level design is mostly good with it being the expansive key card hunts you expect from the genre. One addition I love is that the game adds a small split screen effect found in games like Timesplitters 2 where when the player pushes a switch or kills enough enemies there will be a screen indicating what you did. It does a solid job at eliminating the guess work on what the switch activated a part of the level or what opened up.

Some of the bosses are okay a stand out being a boss that is basically a first person Sonic boss fight with guns.

The art style and animation are still fantastic especially with exaggerated blood and gore for the enemy death animations. Makes the guns just feel that much punchier. The voice acting for the main character is okay even if it feels like he's constantly speaking Frank Miller monologues.

There are some issues there is a level late game where you are in an egyptian pyramid and not only do you have to find colored keys but also activated around 25 switches. I strongly dislike level objectives like this since if you are doing it for the first time, you are bound to accidentally miss one switch. Afterwards finding the one you missed becomes searching a needle in a haystack. I got lucky when finding the ones I missed and had to look up a walkthrough on.

One major change I dislike is reloading. I'm starting to dislike the idea of reloading especially in this style of game since enemies will be relentless attacking you and I want to retaliate but then my character is stuck in a reload animation and I'm stuck until it's finally over. It can be very inconvienent when getting swarmed and attack from all sides.

The enemies that can fire laser beams from afar can be very annoying due to how far their beams can reach and can you in seconds. It can lead to some cheap death. There is an exploding barrel enemy but he's too infrequent to get annoyed by him.

Overall, FMF2 is a solid sequel to the first game. It did a good job at innovating what that game did without feeling like it was overly rethreading what that game did.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance Review

LoK Defiance was a game I beat around 11 years ago. I always wondered why I remember much of the game outside of the last few sections. The best way to describe the game if Soul Reaver 1 felt like the protracted prologue then Soul Reaver 2 felt like the amazing follow up season. Defiance feels like an incredibly disappointing season that continues off that. The season that was hugely disappointing, the last few episodes saves it from complete garbage. It might have one of the most epic and profound conclusions to a character arc I have ever seen. It's too bad it's in a game that is a hastily put together mess.

Defiance starts off strong with an amazing monologue by Kain saying, "given the choice whether to rule a corrupt and failing empire or to challenge the fates for another throw. A better throw against one's destiny. What was a king to do?" It's a great quote to start the game considering how much Kain's been through since Soul Reaver 1 up to now. The opening level in the Sarafan Stronghold is decent and the combat itself isn't too bad. It may be borrowing heavily from 2001's Devil May Cry but compared to combat in a lot of western RPGs, it's kind of decent. There's an attack button where you do a combo, air attacks, lock on, a dash, telekinesis, and you have a magic meter that can recharge after kills and execution animations as well being able to get back health when an enemy is weakened. Telekinetically sucking someone's blood from a distance can feel pretty satisfying.

A lot of the aspects found here can be seen in God of War 2 years later where it's a fantasy hack n slash with puzzles and platforming. It also has a follow cam. This now leads into two big problems. Defiance's follow camera is a disorienting mess and the platforming feels floaty and lacks weight when gliding. Getting stuck in Defiance is often a game of the camera so awkwardly angled and framed that the game never conveys the right information on what the player is supposed to do. It almost feels like a video game version of watching a movie with bad cinematography. There is a section later in the Stronghold level where you need to place an item on a door to continue the level but the camera never zooms in on areas of interest or if certain areas are blocked off.

The platforming can feel awkward and weightless as if you are control paper floating in air. It makes those sections when trying to get up platforms with archers shooting at you all the more tedious and infuriating.

Level design is the final nail in the coffin. Almost every level in Defiance is from past games like The Pillars, Graveyard and the one you will be seeing the most, the same elemental temple rooms where Raziel has to get different colored reavers. You will be going back to this same map at least maybe 5 or 6 times if not more. You will also come here as Kain too. You think you will explore a Vampire Citadel? Nope, it's just a teleporter to that same recycled temple map. Vorador's Mansion does fare the best since this an actual level that is pretty open with different areas. You will come back here multiple times as well going to that temple map during that level. So much of Defiance is seeing the same scenery of those temple maps over and over.

The combat which started off as decent start to become diminishing returns due to how unpolished and unrefined the combat can feel. Many of the moves for both Kain and Raziel is just million stab from DMC, an air version of it, a slash, air slash and telekinetic shackles. Not really much to work with not does the game encourage to use these moves. It is a 3D beat em up issue but considering much of Defiance is combat, these issues stand all the more. Enemies get spongier and spongier. Once you fight the demonic statues, the game never throws much new at you again with more tanky enemies making combat feel longer. If I enjoyed the combat a lot I wouldn't be complaining but it isn't good enough to carry the game. Much of the reaver attacks for both characters are the same area of effect moves. One only difference that Raziel has is the spectral realm and that is mainly used to phase through gates.

The story while having an amazing last few moments is mostly Kain and Raziel going through the same temple maps narrating to themselves about prophecy murals. This is much of the story. It does pick up with Mortanius, Turel, Vorador and Janos however.

Last few moments with Kain, Raziel, Moebius and the Elder God is where everything comes together incredibly well. The twist with Raziel if you paid attention to what Moebius said at the start of SR2 can be obvious. It's such a cathartic everything comes full circle moment that who even cares if it is? So many epic lines and moments happen here with the series' impeccable foreshadowing on full display. It then ends on a clifhanger. Aww

Overall, if you said Defiance was put together over 10 months, I'd believe you.

Far Cry 5 Review

Far Cry 5 what a confused game it is. Apart of me wants to say FC5 is an improvement over 4 but with step forward the former does there's at least one or two steps backwards. Everything about the structure feels muddled. You have npcs and quests with an emphasis on coop like the Borderlands series but at the same time the game wants to tell a serious story with more scripted missions in a CoD game. It also wants you to destroy property and cause reckless abandon in the style of the Just Cause games do. There is also the stuff from previous Far Cries like outposts, skill trees and enemy outposts.

I did have fun playing FC5 but that was more so because it's an open world game where there are no loading screens and play for hours without interruption. It still can feel like frankenstein's monster when playing it in the moment.

The story is a great example of what I'm talking about it. Is it an excuse for you to over the top open world shennigans? You could get that impression since you can play the game for hours without interruption. One good thing about the new mission structure on paper is that it's less about actual missions to progress the story but how much damage you are doing to reduce influence of each of Joseph's captains. This meter can take hours to fill up however and when you reach a story milestone, the game will bizzarely have the player character get captured to escape for his life multiple times. You could be in a helicoptor and you will still get kidnapped when reaching a milestone. This can feel forced since the villains are cheating to get a leg up on the player while also interrupting the open world activities.

Then there is the story itself which is about a deputy and his group overthrowing a cult group. The problem is it feels like the villains are cheating especially at the end where it turned out Joseph had a nuke the whole time and you indirectly caused Judgment Day? How did everything lead to this? I was just doing missions with wannabe Borderlands npcs for much of the game. Speaking of those npcs, they can drone on for so long before giving a mission that I just started to skip the dialogue after a point.

This then leads to the difficulty and it just adds more confusion. When you start up the game it's easy to get overwhelmed and decimated. The game now drops the syringe system from past games for a generic regen health with med kits losing the self healing system that made the series different up until that point. The starting weapons feel weak especially the starting pistols and smg. Had to lower to easy since the health can take longer to kick in than many games using the system and enemies can tear through you easily. The more you play and getting more good weapons and especially when you unlock more guns for hire if you played single player like me the games gets much easier. Grace Armstrong and Boomer were my go toes basically Quiest and D-Dog from Metal Gear Solid 5. Remember what I said about this game feeling schizophrenic? It comes back again since during the most of the story missions where you are "captured" your guns for hire you've been using are taken away from you. The game gets much harder now and enemies can end you pretty fast especially heavy enemies with lots of health who use heavy weapons like LMGs You don't have your guns for hire to revive you during these missions. I want to lower to easy again during these parts so I can tank more hits, regen health can kick in faster and take more damage before dying when the medkit activation animation happens.

The perk system while interesting on paper since it encourages you to experiment just starts to become a hassle since this is a hitscan shooter and I just want to get the typical weapon archetypes like a sniper, shotgun and assault rifle eventually a semi automatic rifle since it covers both mid and close range and I don't need to grind out the perk system.

Outside of all that most of the game is spent trying to reach story milestones on each mission to get captured and then annoy the captains. The game did start to get monotonous due to how long it would take for a milestone to be reached. One thing that did certainly made the last few hours of the game super entertaining was buying an attack helicoptor and going to town on enemies with it from the sky.

Stealth is back and like every stealth system in this series from FC3 onwards, if you unlock fast crouch speed, it gets noticeably more easier to than it was when you didn't have since you move faster than enemy patrols do and before their AI awareness semi circles filll up. It's a shame not much has changed since these stealth mechanics were first introduced. There is no melee weapons now but they just make the takedown animation look slightly different.

Overall, I enjoyed FC5 and while this review can sound confused but that's how it feels when playing the game itself. It's as mad as the doomsday cult you are trying to stop

The Thing: Remastered(Playstation 5) Thoughts and Rant

When I heard Nightdive was going to remaster this game having not played it, I was scratching my head. Yes, the game does have a cult following however that is just as mind numbing in it's own right. As far as the remaster is concerned, it does it's job and Nightdive delivers yet again. The problem is that The Thing 2002 wasn't a good game even for it's time. This game could be one of my go to examples how horribly things can go wrong when innovation isn't matched by good execution. It can be used as an example of how not every title from the 6th gen is automatically amazing for simpily being from that era. It also fall into the licensed game trap that a story unique in another medium can be a derivative and boring in a different one.

It's easy to insult The Thing 2002 for being a 3rd person shooter with a premise of the titular movie. It really is. The infection is a massive red herring since all your npcs are scripted to turn. What I don't understand is, why have everyone who turns into the monster be random npcs with no real character? The game can easily have scripted infections but have it be in a way where when it happens, the player is attached and don't want the npc to become the monster. Instead of every npc is a generic nameless character who are just there to be fodder with the exception of the engineer to repair the many, many, many fuse boxes and then it turns into a dull escort mission. You can also win them over very easily by handing them a 9mm pistol. Spoony's review isn't lying, there are lots of broken fuse boxes where you need to wait for either the main character or an engineer to fix. These sections just waste time and offer no geniunely interesting gameplay.

It's a 3rd person shooter and maybe you'd think the combat might be enjoyable but not really. All you do is shotgun the same headcrab enemies for much of the game. There are bigger thing monsters to fight but just shoot them then flame them with them running around and having a hard time knowing where you even are. There isn't much more to it do than that. It's the same 3-4 monsters for much of the game. Shotgun and shoot the headcrabs, shoot the bigger monsters than flame them. You also have to fight special forces marines since it doesn't already borrow enough from Half Life and their AI is really dumb and have their bad pathfinding put you in such advantage where you kill them before they fire their hitscan weapon at you until you fight enemies with flame throwers because if the flame even touches at you at full health, it will be a game over. This is where I quit the game since I would have to deal with them one shotiting me or the enginners I have to escort. It wasn't worth it for a game as aggressively bad as this even with Nightdive making this remaster easier with more health kits and auto saves, there is still awful design quirks about it's combat that persist.

The story might just be one of the most poorly written in gaming. I am almost shocked John Carpenter gave the game his blessing and even popped up in it. The first big issue is that the main character Blake is so generic and has no personality he can call his own. He just goes through the game killing monsters and no sense of doubt, no learning about his backstory, just anything that makes him more than a character I'm playing as. All the npcs that are with Blake are going to die or won't be able to follow him past a loading screen so he has no one to play off.

It doesn't help that the bosses pop up out of nowhere with no mystery, intrigue and build up any kind. Blake just walks into the room and you fight it. No sense of anything foreboding. Not even a creepy hallway or some segway into the boss like say a lot of boomer shooters do. There isn't even any reason why buildings are suddenly exploding or why every fuse box is busted.

The villain is also generic, confusing and also really stupid. He sends in Blake have look around the research outpost and then when the latter is cornered after rescuing not John Carpenter, he keeps him alive in the lab...just to come up with a bomb to try to kill Blake. What stopped him from killing Blake before. I'm guessing not John Carpenter is supposed to be important but then he dies as soon as Blake wakes up from being unconcious.

The final nail in the coffin is that the writers that the Thing was a virus and not an parasitic alien life form that completely takes over it's host. The Thing is a virus infection like Resident Evil's T-Virus. I would do what many people do online and bash the writers for not "understanding" license they are adaptating but if this game and story was good, I could overlook this but this just adds an extra reason for me to dislike this game.

Overall, I'm lost why a game like this was ever remastered. If you want 1st or 3rd person shooters play Half Life and Max Payne respectively. Want sqaud shooters? Play Rainbow 6 or Ghost Recon. You want to play a game with an actual zombie virus infection? Play Resident Evil.

Metal Eden(Playstation 5) Review

I might've recalled hearing buzz for this game from a couple of places. I thought I wasn't going to bother with the game since I heard some pretty scathing things said about the demo. Much to my surprise however that the devs turned things around and the game turned out to be solid. I did enjoy my time with this game however, the game is unstable as of now. I would've beaten Metal Eden on PS5 sooner but then the game crashed on the final boss fight. This isn't your usual run of the mil game crash. All the progress I made since I returned to playing it the prior day was gone. To say I was really angry would be an understatement. I was close to beating the game and then one expected crashed set me back hours. With all that said, this is a testament to how much I enjoyed the game from a moment to moment gameplay standpoint. I would've dropped the game if I didn't enjoy it or thought it was mediocre. It did sting redoing everything from Level 4 onwards again just to get back to fighting the final boss.

That massive problem out of the way. Metal Eden is seemingly a new Doom meets Titanfall adventure. There is one major inspiration I never thought would be here that is the Halo series. There is also a weird homage to Metroid with Samus' morph ball mode but is more head scratching than endearing. It does add to how much Metal Eden borrows from the strangest of places.

It has the asthethics of modern Doom with mechanics from Eternal. There is also being able to hold all your guns, a freeze grenade and a "blood punch" of sorts. Titanfall's fast paced wall running and double jumping parkour system is here with a small hover ability. The grappling hook can be used in the campaign unlike the 2nd Titanfall. One big aspect of the Halo series does rear it's head, it's the aspect that never got ripped off nearly as much as 2 weapon limit, regen health, dedicated grenade throw button and vehicle sections. That is the shield and flesh system. There is something so surprising about this getting borrowed from since it always goes ignored.

Some weapons are good against flesh while others are good against shields. You need to drain the enemy of their recharging shield and then use a flesh weapon like a pistol or shotgun to actually damage it. The melee attack is a bit like Doom Eternal's blood punch with the animation of Halo's rifle butt melee attack where you get back health and armor when the attack connects. An issue is that the impact when using doesn't have the same feedback as the Blood Punch does.

Being effective at Metal Eden means you will need to switch to shield draining weapons and then after a flesh damaging one. There is also a high enemy count to contend with, health and armor management as well constantly being on the move to mitigate damage. There is also some stage hazards to content with like turrets that you have to shoot in the eye to deactivate for a few seconds and the floor getting electried to encourage the constant movement. You also need to stay in place for a few seconds as certain parts of a level scans to complete the enemy waves.

Metal Eden throws a lot at you and keeps things fresh and varied. I would do without those morph ball sections since they were are out of place in a game like this and are also too infrequent to be anything worth noting.

Weapon line up also isn't very interesting. You got two machine guns. One of the pistol alt fires being a rocket is more useful than the weapon itself. The grenade launcher like many in games is too unreliable due to hoping you time the denonations enough for them to damage the enemy. The two energy weapons more or less do the same thing, widdle at shields.

Reloading also is a massive inconvience. There is nothing more infuriating when a perfect freeze grenade is timed and I want to use that time to widdle at a shield but the reload time is happening while the freeze effect is active. It can feel like the game is holding the freeze grenade at being a reliable tactic.

The story is also kind of just "there". The AI companions you get do tend to monologue excessively. I'm more focused on the platforming but these sections at times do feel like a means to an end have them drone on and one. It's not a story that overly annoys me since you are playing it more than you engaging with the story. I did wish sometimes you get some warnings when an platforming obstacle was going to pop up.

Overall, Metal Eden is a solid and enjoyable game. I would sing the praises for the devs turning things around as well as they did if it weren't for the crash save data wipe I mentioned earlier. It really left a sour taste in my mouth an otherwise an enjoyable game.

Metal Gear Solid: Delta Snake Eater Review

I'll preface this review by saying I'm not a fan of the original game this remake is based on. I played it because I wanted see if the gameplay was improved. I was already aware that the story was going to remain unchanged. It's esstentially something along the lines of the Destroy All Humans remake that came out a few years ago. Everything is the same but there are some gameplay changes. Despite knowing what I was getting myself into, I was surprised that the gameplay hasn't improved by much. It makes me wonder what even is the point it other than for people who really want modern graphics and controls. The existence of MGS Delta is as questionable as the MGS The Twin Snakes was. This time replace MGS1 level design with MGS2 mechanics with MGS3 level design with MGS4 and 5 controls and mechanics. Playing this remake is like rewatching an action movie I'm not a big fan of. At least Twin Snakes had the amusing value of being MGS1 with over the top Matrix fights.

The story of the game manages to be both overbearing yet empty at the same time. What I mean is that a good bulk of the game's story is at the start with the Virtuous Mission. There will be non stop exposition with small amounts of gameplay. This whole prologue is as long as a feature length film and most of it is just non stop exposition and characters talking. The opening briefing sequence goes on for so long when it could've been so much shorter. You sneak into a Soviet jungle, get Sokolov, get out. This is somehow way longer than it needs to be.

I'll give some credit in that the character of The Boss is at her most interesting here with lines like, "today's friends is tomorrow's enemies" and "the only thing you can believe with absolutely certainty is the mission". This is as interesting as she is ever going to get.

The middle half of the game is barren in terms of story and all you fight are one note generic bad guys with their most memorable traits is their ridiculous looks and names. They are no different than boss fights in platformers in terms of characterization and relevance to the overarching plot. For a story about a man becoming slowly becoming disillusioned by his own government that and why native people betray their own country, not much of this explored in the middle half and all of this is frontloaded at the end portions of the game.

There is never any bad calls Snake has to make or arguments with his superiors in the middle half. The support team is along for the ride.

Ocelot, The Boss and Volgin are the only "real" villains. Ocelot spends most of the game being a goofball to suddenly being the greatest secret agent ever. The Boss only shows up to stop Snake and report that he killed a Cobra member than leaves until her long monologue at the end. Volgin is an angry kid who thinks he's way cooler than he is. Everyone just lets him act like he's in control. All his accomplishments like owning the Philosopher's Legacy, the creation of GRU and firing the nuke at the start were mainly because of other people. His lightning powers are unexplained since he needs a last line of defense since he's not very strong or smart.

The gameplay changes? Everything is mostly the same except on the fly camo switching, crouch walking and sniper holstering. No quick select shockingly. The stamina system is out of place in a linear game like this since all it does is just make you check a meter every once and a while instead of a guage you have to constantly watch like in a survival game. The health and mortal wound system adds little to the game since health DOES regenerate even when wounded, it's just slower than traditional regen health. This only matters during bosses since they hit harder faster than Snake can regen. You'll be stockpiled with medical supplies by then. 

The level design follows the same rules as the industrial corridors in MGS1 and 2 but makes less sense for a jungle since they are supposed to be wide and open. You crawl from bush to bush like how you run and press against walls in those games. There could've at least been a larger and more interconnected jungle. The level design does shine a little more in the open mountain areas and the start of Gronji Grad but that removes the jungle which was this game's major selling and where much of the game takes place, it's also easier to deal with guard sightlines with the open space plus the addition of crouch walking which is harder to do during the interior and jungle levels due to their cramped nature.

Sniper holstering and crouch walking breaks The End and final battle. The former took a bit of time since using the sniper meant you had to be fixed to one spot but now you can pull out the sniper at any time making it for quick shots at the former. No more need to get up close and shotgun him.

The Boss has a harder time seeing you due crouch walking and partner that with sniper holstering and slo mo counter when she gets close and it gets noticeably easier. The hard part is getting the timing right for the first few slo mo counters. 

The Fury is the hardest due to how one hit by his flame can level Snake's health and how he can stay in prone and the flames can still widdle away at it. 

Overall, this remake changed the controls and certain mechanics but nothing to accomadate it all. This whole remake is just one big "why" outside of those who want a modern playing game.

Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works(2014) Anime Review

Recently I decided to rewatch Fate/Zero again for the first time in over 10 years out of sheer curosity. I recall loving the series when I first watched it and a part of me thought if I were to watch it again in such a long time, it wouldn't hold up. Much to my surprise, Fate Zero still held up after all these years. It's still a well made show even now. It is easily one of my favorite prequels in all of fiction. This now leads me to the Ufotable's remake of Fate/stay night. When I first watched it, I was appalled by how bizarre and terrible the writing was in comparison to Fate Zero so much so that I question if I was crazy for liking the latter since after all, Fate Zero was supposed to lead into this remake of Fate stay night to the point where it's marketed as a sequel. It has now happened again 10 years later, I still don't like if not outright loathe this series. This could be all chocked up to UBW 2014 being a "bad adaptation" but the prior adaptation made by Studio Deen was also not considered a good adaptation. Ufotable was supposed to get "right" what Deen got wrong, they made Fate Zero after all. I'm covering all the seasons including the prologue. If Fate Zero wasn't a prequel, I wouldn't even touch a story like this, this whole show was a sunk cost fallacy because I was curious what exactly was that series setting up.  

Right at the offset, UBW starts off with a teenagers instead of the adult cast from Fate Zero, this is okay since both Rin and Shirou were characters set up by Fate Zero. The prologue episode is "fine" probably some of the best writing in this series which is already really telling on how much I dislike it. Rin and Archer's dyanmics and interactions are fun and amusing with Archer stealing much of the show with how casual he can be. Rin Toosaka as a character is at her best since she's driving the story and isn't playing a game of waiting around while getting googley eyed with Shirou. 

Then the series actually starts and right away things feel off. Fate Zero had a wide array of characters of different ages, skills and backgrounds and while it did take place in one city, there was a feeling of anything could happen at anywhere at any time. Fate stay night on the other hand, most of the Grail War participants all are located in this one high school Shirou and Rin attends, this already lowers the amount of tension or dynamic encounters these two characters could already be in. It starts to get really silly when even one of the school's faculty is a participant in this war. 

There is a decent number pointless side characters(most likely going to a girl) that add nothing to the story. Characters like Fujimura, Himuro, Mitsuzuri, Sakura don't add much of anything to the story and disappear from the story when the 2nd half starts rolling in. There is also characters like Issei and then there is Shinji Moto who is a character so pathetically awful, I'd almost mistaken him for David Blake from Highlander 2 for much of weasel and coward he is. Shinji is one of the few who do reoccur throughout out the show and he won't provide anything of geniune value. He lasts so long you wonder if he is just favored by the plot. He survives to the end of the story where Kirei Kotomine a few episodes before the end of the 2nd half gets killed off. 

Shirou isn't really anything more than a generic typical nice guy. His inner monolgoues in the VN is supposed to give him depth but hearing his inner monologues just makes it an easy tool to increase my chances of liking him since by that point I'm just being psychic. He's supposed to be a "traditional shonen protagonist" but I don't see it. He's more like a teenage Vash the Stampede without the exaggerated humor and hair with copying aspecting of Sasuke's sharringaan ability. On paper, maybe this isn't so bad but it drops the ball in that remember how Fate Zero is supposedly a prequel? This series does nothing with that. A big example of this is when Saber shows up. Considering how both Shirou and Kiritsugu both have "Emiya" in their full names and former's group mentions the latter on multiple occasions, Saber would be apprehensive towards Shirou since Kiritsugu in the last Grail War never spoke to her unless if it helping him to get an advantage, lied to her, and robbed her out of her wish from the Grail at the end of Fate Zero. This on paper should make for an interesting dynamic. Saber doesn't want to be Shirou's servant due to guilt by association but throughout the series she warms up to the latter and comes to accept that the man who fought along side her in the previous Grail War might've mellowed out and became a different person. 

Speaking of Kiritsugu, the one or two scenes he has in the first half is one of the few things about UBW 2014 I like since it's bittersweet that after all the screw ups he did, he managed to do one decent thing about saving Shirou. I was a little bummed he disppears from the story after the 1st half but considering how Kirei gets character assassinated, the former disappearing is like Abe Sapien not being in Hellboy 2019 or Clearence Boddicker, Dick Jones and The Old Man not being in Robocop 2014. 

Saber seemingly has a mind wipe like R2-D2 and C-3PO at the end of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith which already ruins what good writing there could be. It doesn't help that her personality is rewritten and she's esstentially nothing more than an obdient plaything for Shirou. Any crediblity Saber could have is even furthur destroyed when towards the end of the 1st half and the start of the 2nd, Saber is tied up wearing these fetished bondage clothes. If this was a movie, I would've walked out of the theater. I would've stopped there but I pressed on due to curosity. 

This leads to the next few issues that work in tandem to make this remake/sequel such a mess to watch. Shirou and Rin never drive the story in any meaningful way. Most of the time, enemy mages will come to them then they planning something themsleves. Illya for example is the one to make the first move on the two characters. The school gets attacked and Shinji makes the first move and the attack wasn't even stopped because Rin and Shirou. When they attack Kuzuki, the latter overpowers them both that it never amounts to anything. When they go to Illya's castle, Gilgamesh and Shinji are the first ones to get there and the former is the one that does the major damage. I got to wonder what the purpose of these characters even were. 

Surely the villains can carry this story right? Well unforunately that is a massive NOPE. Shinji Moto has already been discussed. There is the aforementioned Illyasviel von Einzbern. This character on paper should be interesting in spite of the fact that she is a underaged girl who speaks like a psycho but hey she's on the side of evil. Plus she has a lot of connections to Fate Zero with both Kiritsugu and Irvisveil both did in everything in their power to make sure she would have a normal life. She's Shirou's half brother. There is some room for drama here, right? Not really. She shows up in the first episodes of UBW 2014 and then gets killed off quickly and easily by Gilgamesh in the 2nd half. She barely has much of a presence and gets killed off at around her 3rd appreance. To top it all off, it even shows her backstory with Berserker right before she is about to die which only angered me. Illya's servants? Leysritt and Sella? They die in their 2nd appearence. The worst of the villain writing has yet to come. 

There is Kuzuki who is really nothing more than a dull pawn who is a puppet for Caster. 

Speaking of Caster, she might be the closest thing this series has to an interesting villain. Her plan of harvesting innocent people for energy while morally apprehesible, she does at the very least have some kind of strategy to win the Grail War. Her gathering enough energy to take on Berserker and Illya sells you on the latter two characters' crediblity more than their actions do. She doesn't amount to much since she doesn't even fight Berserker and she gets humliated by the end pretty epicly in spite of her probably being the most interesting character in the cast which isn't saying much. 

Assassin is basically just a guard dog and nothing more. He's stuck in one location and in both his scenes fights Saber and that's it. 

Gilgamesh while interesting in Fate Zero, it was mainly that way because he was the catalyst for Kirei's arc and development and highlighting how dull of a person Tokiomi is. On his own, he's just a one note overpowered villain. Him being OP is all he really has going for him since his motivation of wanting to using the Grail to kill millions of people just makes him come as a narcisstic idiot. He doesn't do much outside of act superior to others and think he's awesome. 

The worst of all UBW 2014's version of Kirei Kotomine. The term "character assassination" gets thrown around with reckless abandon on the internet but this version of Kirei is the biggest downgrade ever from the one from Fate Zero. In that show he slowly went through an arc of being evil and inflicting suffering on to others. He ruins the lives of innocent people and kills people who showed nothing but kindness towards him like Tokiomi. He kept Kariya alive just to prolong his suffering some more. He also has no problem framing that series' version of Rider if it means getting what he wanted showing off his cunning and deception.  

What does UBW 2014 do? He barely has any screen time, does anything of geniune note with that time has and when he revealed to Rin that he killed Tokiomi which SHOULD be a scene that destroys Rin to her foundations(plus almost getting inapprioately touched by Shinji Moto) and it gets brushed off fast and Kirei dies in the very scene this gets revealed in. You think Kirei might come back or the very least have a battle with Rin in the show's final few episodes but no, she's trying to save Shinji, the guy who tried to grope her. This was the moment I gave up and stopped caring, the final link to Fate Zero is gone and in an anticlimatic way. 

From here on out I stopped caring about Shirou and his past selves and all that convoluted stuff about time travel or any conflict in the story. I just stopped being invested and wanted it all to end. So I fast forwarded the pen ultimate episode and watched at 2x speed for the last episode and ended it. I just wanted to sinking my time into this. 

Overall, I loved Fate Zero and UBW 2014 just proves the saying "curosity killed the cat". I was smart for dropping at the first half back 10 years ago since time hasn't made me kinder on this series. Shows like this are proof that amazing animation and well animated fight scenes can't carry bad writing especially writing that is monumentally terrible as this. I don't try to finish anime I don't like anymore but my love for Fate Zero wanted to see what it was building up to. At this point, I just wished that series was just it's own story and has no connection to this. I could maybe look up a playthrough of the VN but UBW 2014 fails miserably as a commerical for that. 

Yakuza: Kiwami 2 Review

There are some memories attached to the PS2 release of Yakuza 2 in which I emulated the game 10 years ago. It was also one of the first game I ever recall using emulation on PC for, at least the first batch of games. When this remake was announced, I thought it was never going to come to the west or at least this back before Yakuza 0 really took off in the west and now the series gets active releases in both Japan and North America. I've fallen out of the series but I bought this remake a couple of years ago on a sale and I felt like revisiting the story of Yakuza 2 again. I do remember how back before 0 really took off in popularity, at least in terms of writing, this was considered the pinnacle of the series or 5 was. I was baffled at how this was considered to be well written.

This leads to story and Yakuza 2's story is one of the biggest mixed bags, I have ever experienced. Not even sure if I can outright call it "bad" since after all I got to the end of the game and rolled credits. I am well aware that the series is known for being "dumb" and "doesn't take itself seriously" but that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want and still have any form of crediblity. There still needs to be some consistency and logic to follow or you might as well call scribbling with crayons a "story" too.

The best way of describing Yakuza's narrative is like hanging around with a person who has crazy mood swings and has bizarre episodes. There is a lot of interesting and entertaining moments but there is a lot of "what the hell" or "why" moments to go along with it. At times, Yakuza 2 can feel like Metal Gear Solid 2 but more so the zany and wacky aspects of the latter and less of the meta commentary on society and sequel culture.

The very existence of Yakuza 2 contradicts the ending of the first game where Nishki, Shintaro and Yumi's deaths never meant much in the grand scheme of things or even guarenteed Kiryu and Haruka having a happy life with their scarifices.

With that said, the story of this sequel for the most part is fun in the moment. It is carried by arguably it's main antagonist Ryuji Gohda. He's a very fun, entertaining and charismatic villain the kind of character you'd expect in an action film. He doesn't have an overwhelming amount of screen time but when he does show up, he makes an impression like early game where he raids a meeting with the Tojo and Omi and kidnaps leader of the latter. His manly sense of honor prevents him from too one note and predictable.

The character of Sayama, I sort of get what RGG was trying to do with her in that she's supposed to be a female cop who inspires fear in gangsters. The idea I got was that deep down she never really wanted to be a cop but just used the police force as an excuse to find out about her past but she tends to either too useless or helps out in ways that can feel bizarre and unearned. Examples of the former being shot by a sniper in Sotenbori and then fainting when enterting Kamurocho after regaining conciousness. The latter is when it turns out she was part of a cyber crime unit the whole time with no hints of her being good with computers or shooting fake Kazuki because he was unaware and not because she was a geniunely good shot.

Then from Chapter 12 onwards and especially the final Chapter, it just amps the stupidity up to 11 almost to the point where I wonder if there is has any crediblity left especially with how the character of Terada is a heel-face revolving door and I'm not even sure who's side he was even on the whole time and he was supposed to be just a face in the first game with no hints of being possibly being a heel. There was also a deus ex machina where Majima, this whole time had a camera system not even Florist knew of.

There is also a fare share of filler here and there and you will know because the dialogue in the text boxes aren't voiced.

There are some scenes are appreciate more now like teenage Kazuma tring to help out Kazama but by helping him, the former made things worse. My personal favorite is that Majima knew Terada wasn't the "good man" that he sold himself as.

I'm talking about story so much because if you choose to just do story quests much of the game is cutscenes all though the story to gameplay ratio is mostly solid here. After a lengthy cutscenes 9 times out of 10 there will be a gameplay section that will last just as long depending on skill level. The bosses can last pretty long more on that latter. However due to them taking so much abuse, it does make getting that lengthy story cutscene feel like a geniune reward. 

It will mainly the exploration of cities and combat. I did like buying various foods at resturants to get more stat points and to heal up without using a cosumable. The skill tree is mostly stat based and by the end, the stat tree will be mostly upgraded.

Then there is combat which is "fine". This is in the Dragon Engine, the one used for Yakuza 6. It's not amazing but it gets the job done. Weapons are fun to use and it's mainly about crowd control. The wonky grab button and physics are the biggest enemies since one hit can send Kazuma flying across the arena. 

The biggest enemy against bosses where the hurdles is trying to have Kazuma realign where he is facing the enemy after doing a combo on his opponent and then they quickly dash out of his line of sight. Let go of lock on and then lock on again. There is also how much abuse bosses can take before getting staggered when powered up in "Heat Mode" form with only charge attacks being able to hurt them but then they can run up hit and then stagger you. 

What cancels this out is how much money the player can accumlate just by fighting in random battles so items can cheese much of the encounters on top buying food at restaurants like I mentioned earlier. 

There is decent progression of getting new moves, heat attacks and getting higher stats. It gets easier the more it goes on. I got so much money that I bought weapons and items and the final fight was over fast. This was the opposite in the PS2 game since you didn't get nearly as much money in abundance as well as weapons and items to plow through the late game mobs with ease. The only time I died was getting attacked by rocket launcher enemies who blindsighted me and killed me in 2-3 hits. 

You also get a save point, abilties to organize items and buy new ones after the elevator fight in Chapter 16 too. This section was much easier than the PS2 original game. 

Overall, Kiwami 2 is a decent remake. There are those who are critical of Kiwami 2 itself but it's a fine enough of version if you want to experience the story of Yakuza 2 for the first time and has enough new ideas of it's own and are executed decently enough from a gameplay standpoint that it won't feel like you are going through the motions when wanting to revisit it after a while. Not the best remake you can ever play but definitely a middle ground one.

Hitman: Blood Money Reprisal Review(Nintendo Switch)

This particular Hitman game I always had a soft spot for, it's what got many to finally embrace Hitman as a concept. It was one of the first games I recall getting when I used to collect for the PS2 back in 2012. Blood Money was also one of the first games I played when I started to learn more about the design aspect of video games.

There is a "modern" port of it on Nintendo Switch with the Reprisal version and I decided to get that when revisiting it. Reprisal is mostly the same except for some UI and button layout changes and the inclusion of instinct mode from later Hitman titles. It also crashes from time to time but that seems to be universal among all versions even if I mainly experienced them in Reprisal. Instinct is also useless since the mini map and menu map are still objectively better for guard and assassination target tracking.

That out of the way, one interesting thing that puts Blood Money above many if not all of the other Hitman games is the story. It's surprisingly easy to follow and well presented. The cutscenes are decently composed and don't go on for too long. The idea of a framing story for this kind of game works hand in hand with the premise of the series. The mystery of how Agent 47 even gets caught despite all of these assassinations that are happening is enough to keep to keep the player glued when there isn't gameplay going on. Where Absolution has a lot of questionable writing and World of Assassination gets a little too hard to follow with it's overarching plot, Blood Money hits the sweet spot. There is some rather silly plot points especially with the idea of "legalizing" cloning but at the same time, these cutscenes are never long enough that you start pondering and questioning such bizarre concepts as the one I mentioned.

Apart of me also felt bad for a certain part at the end where the player by extension 47 has to kill a character due to unfortunate circumstances than because he was geniunely bad.

Gameplay is starts off on a bad foot. The tutorial level despite having one good line from 47, having a decent atmosphere and in some ways having the most sympathetic target in the game is awful in how it hand holds the player and how overly scripted it can be. If you want to talk about bad tutorials, this is a good contender since by the end of it, the player might not even have a good grasp on how the game even plays since distractions, disguises, traversal, human shield, and the controls are taught very well due to this, it can give a first time player a bad impression. I always get one every time I play this level.

The following mission after is where things let up and this is where the game's biggest asset shines: the level design. If there is one thing, Blood Money excels at is how the levels feel decently open but not feeling way too big to the point there is a lot of filler and needless amounts of empty space. Every level in BM is essentially one big square and there are multiple buldings and interiors withing that gigantic sqaure to look to find points of interest and guards to takedown and steal their disguises to get into restricted rooms much easier.

Hitman is said to be a "stealth game" when really the hardest parts of every game is when actual stealth of not being seen and not having potential witnesses where much of the challenge comes from. The challenge raises when trying to avoid witnesses and then it goes back down when obtaining a disguise to get into restricted zones. Blood Money also adds traversal options like climbing up pipes and jumping accross balconies to access restricted areas easier.

Add to the more accomadating enemy AI the series ever had up until that point where the guards aren't as twitchy as before and the sheer variety of locales and scenarios and it's easy to see BM despite it's flaws, won me over. You will be going to Opera Houses, to a party disguised as a drug lab in Chile to a Cruise Ship, to a Casino in Vegas all the way to the White House.

The save system on normal is also accomdating for first time players since the levels and missions by extension are short enough that 7 saves is all you need, it creates tension on when to save and when not to. So no save scumming willy nilly. Milage may vary on how well you know the levels however.

This does lead to 3 issues that work in tandem. The notriety and upgrade system as well as the final two levels. As the title implies you get money after each hit and depending on how money witnesses and kills you get, your notriety will increase. On normal difficulty especially the more you play it just minimizing casualities, you will rack up enough money to pay off the notriety AND be able to pay for all stealth and even upgrade one or two weapons by the time you reach the White House level. You get too much money to maxmize 47's stealth skills before reaching the end of the game. 

By that point, 47 will be able to have some painkillers, take more damage and even fully upgrade a weapon which makes what is supposed to be a challenging mission of infiltrating the White House too easy even with a lot of witnesses and kills you can STILL clear your notriety at the end of the level. 

The epilogue level "Requiem" requires you to shoot everyone in the level to end the game so you might as well get used to the shooting mechanics in the White House mission.

Overall, solid game, if you can get past the lack of modernized mechanics and controls.

Cold Winter Review

I might've remembered seeing this game pop up from time to time when discussing lesser known PS2 games. It will inevitably get talked about when discussing games on the system that aren't your usual mainstream heavy hitters that released on the system or didn't get a port, remaster or a remake of any kind. It's one of those games where if you are really into the PS2 and the 6th gen by extension, there will be some talk of it.

With that out of the way, Cold Winter is a title that is very much on the generic side but by no means do I equate that as "bad" like many others on the internet do. While Cold Winter is very much a serviceable game in everything it does, nothing about really pops out or it doing anything that other games and by extension media hasn't already done or explored. It doesn't have overly extravagent production values or presentation either. While the game fuffils a basic power fantasy, it's easy why a franchise never formed from this title.

What Cold Winter basically is that what if you were a console only player but couldn't play games like No One Lives Forever and Soldier of Fortune? What if you got a character like James Bond without being James Bond? What if you got Lian Xing from Syphon Filter in there?

That's Cold Winter in a nutshell, when playing it in the moment, it's like watching those random action movies that would play on TV or come across when the algorithm of a streaming service recommends something to you.

There's elements of No One Lives Forever with gadgets like lock picks and decoding tools. There's also looting and health being heavily reliant on how much body armor you have rather than just your HP bar. Something exclusive to this is crafting various items to open doors for various chests and rooms but these are all nothing more than just secrets for you to get and you'll always have enough ammo to get by. Looting guards will always get your damaged body armor back. You can also get your HP back by pressing left with no limits on it's use. However there is a slow animation where your moment is reduced when this animation is active so it isn't spammable.

There's optional stealth but you are already a one man army since looting guards and exploring levels will get your armor back. The crafting items offer no different paths to get through a level and is just for secrets.

You have the high amounts of gore like in Solider of Fortune and because of this combat can be very stimulating and fun to just see what body parts will fly off when shooting enemies. It does make the firearms you feel that much more powerful.

Burst firing will also be nessescary to active hit targets and the enemy count is high enough that throwing grenades is encouraged to thin out the herd.

There's also objective markers and the game mostly telling you where to go so there is much problem solving or outside the box thinking. Game also checkpoints often and much progress isn't lost upon death. I did beat this on PCSX2 but I can say this is beatable on base hardware with hardly any hair pulling moments. It's one of the easiest games you can play on PS2.

One big issue with the game is that the controls and movement can feel very sluggish. When moving, it can feel like you are on ice where moving right after you let go of the left stick your character will still have some momentum left after letting go. That and the occasional platforming can feel awkward due to the small jump arc and the momentum issue I spoke of earlier. These moments controls are going to be your biggest enemy when playing.

The story is kind of there. The cutscenes are decently detailed with the character models and there is some decent camera work with the cutscenes. Voice acting is fine. The jarring part is how long cutscenes can go on for, some of them being completely disconnected with the player did in the game beforehand. Still, nothing overly awful here.

Overall, that's Cold Winter, it does everything serviceably and competently. It's not terrible but it's fun in the moment due to the over the top and gory combat. The fact that there is no instant fail stealth sections with terrible AI or any overly frustrating game design does help make the game the decent action movie romp that it is.