Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition Review

DMC5 was a game I played at around the time of release and remembered being completely underwhelmed by it. I wasn't as big of a fan of the series by the time 5 came out but if I was, I'd consider it to be a massive "disappointment". I still feel similarly now but instead I view the game as a game with great combat system held back a weak campaign. The best way of describing DMC5 is that it's a DMC game designed by hardcore fans made for hardcore DMC fans. It's hard to overlook that whenever I'm playing the game. Everything from the story to the way the campaign is structured gives me that vibe.

The story of DMC5 I found to be terrible even at the time of release. Everything about it feels it follows the same logic of stories like Metal Gear Solid 4, Final Fantasy Advent Children and JJ Abrams directed Star Wars movies where it's just a series of throwbacks and refrences and that's it. To give an example, V and Urizen aren't even their own characters, they are both two halves of Vergil. Say what you want about Arius and Argosax from DMC2 but they were at least their own characters. Vergil himself just wants power because reasons so he summons a tower...again. Nero is Vergil's son and this is revealed so late in the game that it almost feels like a desperation attempt to connect Nero to the overarching plot. Then there is the fact the game will just throw in stuff like, "remember Morrison and Patty from the anime?" Remember Nelo Angelo and Mallet Island?" "Remember Credo?" "Remember Cerberus from DMC3?" The final boss is even against Vergil like DMC3.

Everything about the story is designed to made for diehard DMC fans first more so than because it wants to be interesting on it's own. Sure, some can say you don't play DMC for the story but it's an example of an overarching point I'm making.

The gameplay does fare better by comparison but it does have it's own issues. Nero can be pretty enjoyable to play as. I'm used to playing as him from 4 so coming back to him in 5 did feel I was right back at home. Devil Bringer and Trigger are gone but now he has Devil Breakers, I do think this system is interesting but the problem is that the game gives you so many Devil Breakers to choose from and throws so many at you in the first few minutes that it's hard to really know which one you'll like the best. As a result, I stuck with the same Devil Breakers you start Nero's sections with like Mega Buster and Overture ocasionally using random ones. Anything else felt like it wasn't worth the effort. Exceeding does seem to have it's fans but not something I want to do in the moment.

V has been criticized to death and yes, he's bad. The problem with his sections is that it's just a game of moving around the character model on the battlefield and watch your familars do all the work. At first, I thought it was a game of using melee and projectile attacks to build up Devil Trigger to do massive damage. Eventually, I realized that you can cheese many of the V sections by mashing square and triangle constantly. Due to this, I never needed to buy any moves as V and just relied on the above mentioned tactic and Devil Trigger. To add more insult to injury, you can get high style points doing all of this. I'm wondering why these sections exist when it introduces a playstyle that is worse than Dante and Nero on top V not being an original character. At best V's parts can be used a way to stockpile orbs for Dante.

Dante is and unsprisingly the best character to play as. You got Style Switch and the awkward progression system from DMC3 is gone now. At first, I was annoyed by how much using Stinger in DMC5 caused a knockback effect on enemies which makes it harder to continue to combo on them after doing it but that encouraged me to used weapons like Balrog and the Motorcycle. Balrog is interesting in that you can transition between punches and kicks and using Swordmaster attacks with that as well as the Motorcycle while OP can be very fun to watch.

However, late game you get a new weapon as Dante but by that point it turns into a boss rush so it doesn't give you enough time to be familar with that weapon and putting orbs into isn't worth it.

You are also better off saving up as many red orbs as you can since along with that and the gold orbs you can cheese the very challenging Vergil boss at the end. Hard to believe that the gold orb system was worse in the vanilla release.

Remember what I said about how DMC5 was made for diehards? This is what I mean. If you play DMC games over and over again on higher difficulties and to get S ranks all the stuff I'm saying won't even be an issue for you. Coming from someone who considers himself a casual fan of the series, I consider DMC5's campaign to be too underwhelming on its own and doesn't make enough of an impression on me to want to do those harder difficulties and S ranks.

Overall, DMC5 can have great combat but the underwhelming campaign structure really can sour it.

Sonic Generations(Playstation 5) Review

I played the PS3 version of Sonic Generations back in 2017 and I didn't get very far because of the forced challenges needed to unlock bosses and to continue the game. I did play it again in 2021 and finished it however apart of me found it to be a miracle since the later stages got so challenging that I was like, "how was I able to do all that with limited continues?" I mainly played this again because of the recent Shadow Generations release and the best part, this version of Generations has no lives system meaning a replay of the game sounds much more appealing.

As a whole, Generations is a solid game even if much of the nostalgia the game tries to envoke is lost on me since I never grew up with the series. Classic Sonic for some reason reminds of Kid Goku. I did find him to be cute and adorable with the faces he would make. I do like Sonic music so hearing City Escape and Live Learn from Adventure 2 was nice. There's barely much story which I don't mind. Not even familar enough with the overarching Sonic narrative to be attached.

The game can be summed up like this, you do the same stages twice one as Modern Sonic and one as Classic Sonic. There's some challenges you need to do on each of the stages(mercifully it's just one on each stage to get the boss key) and there's 2D and 3D variations of all of them. Fight some rival battles to get the Chaos Emeralds and bosses.

Sonic Generations is a pretty short game but I don't mind, most of the length however especially if you aren't 100%ing it is finding which of the stage challenges is easy enough for you to complete. This could be the first one you attempt or it could multiple ones. I was lucky to finish most of the first ones I tried. This is going to be the biggest hurdle for many first time players of the game.

An issue I notice upon playing Generations again is that the Modern Sonic stages are supposed to be in 3D but they aren't or at least not 100% of the time. There's sections of his levels that are in 2D. The thing that bugs me about this is that the Classic Sonic stages are already in 2D anyway. If you want to play 2D Sonic, that's what the Classic stages are for. It can make the Modern Stages seem misleading. Shadow Generations would improve this since the 3D portions of Shadow's stages are in 3D and no random 2D transitions.

Another issue is that Modern and Classic Sonic have moves specific to them. Modern Sonic has boost, slide, stomp and the homing attack while Classic Sonic has different jump physics and the Spin Dash. Due to this, you may have to get reaquainted with playing as either Sonic. It's not bad but it's yet another improvement Shadow Generations made where 2D and 3D Shadow stages have the same move set and controls.

Still in spite of all might compliants, Generations is a solid game and these aren't overly big issues, for the most part Sonic Generations is fun to play in the moment. However, the later stages can be a problem and it always seems that a lot of Sonic games, they get hard due to some really unpolished and unrefined platforming. Everything past the Dreamcast era feels like I'm messing up due to the homing attack not always working or just how much longer later stages can feel. Planet Wisp in particular can feel especially jarring considering it took the Wisp mechanic from Colors and just has that very gimmick be featured for one level only and never pops up again. The platforming on the Wisp stage is more challenging than any other in the game due to this on top of being very long too. How I was able to do this with limited continues I'm still trying to figure out.

The bosses are pretty enjoyable especially the rival battles. They feel like high speed set pieces where you need to dodge their attacks and wait for an opening to attack them. Silver's battle was my favorite of the bunch.

Overall, Sonic Generations out of all the games in the series I played is one of the better games in the series. Shadow Generations does overshadow it since it feels more refined and consistent by comparison.

Portal 2(Nintendo Switch) Review

Portal 2 was a game I owned on PS3 for a while and when I originally beat it, I just wanted to beat it for the sake of saying I did. This was mainly because of the fact that I'm not big on games purely dedicated to puzzles, however after beating Portal 1 recently I decided to replay Portal 2 and for the most part, I'd say the latter game holds up mostly well. I do prefer the brevity and quick pace of the first game. With that said, considering Valve was already fighting an uphill battle of making the idea of Portal into it's own fully fledged game that didn't need to be packaged with other titles, they did a very admirable job.

The story is very entertaining with the voice acting and writing carrying much of it. It keeps the first game's idea of always being in control when major story beats are happening and creating attachment with fun and quick dialogue interactions. Wheatly is an entertaining villain in that he's esstentially a narcisstic man child who thinks he's way cooler than he actually is. First he tricks the player and then lets his arrogance get to him. It's also nice that Glados even turns face for a little bit. I have a soft spot for the trope where a previously established villain turns face for a little while due to bigger threat and Portal 2 executes it pretty well. JK Simmons also has an entertaining performance as Cave Johnson too.

The gameplay is of Portal 2 on a mechanical level is the same as the first game. You got the blue and orange portals and momentum jumping. You also have the various tools to help you solve the various puzzles like lasers, pressure plates, switches, and cubes(blocking lasers and pressure plates as well as redirecting lasers). Turrets are also back with water and death pits hazards.

Portal 2's early game does a good job at reintroducing the player to all of these concepts without it being overly slow and meandering. It's paced well enough that it feels natural and not overwhelming. What helps is the fact all of this is done before the major twist happens later on the game so it does a good job at being a rehash of the first game without feeling like one.

There are new concepts introduced in Portal 2 like hardlight beams, tractor beams, and aerial faith plates. There are also the various "gels" introduced. Orange propulsion jel, blue repulsion jel, and conversation jels.

The best part of all this is that it does a great job at making the puzzles more complex and varied without even introducing any brand new gameplay mechanics. Portal 2 is the same game as the first but with the addition of the various jels and beams as well as adding on to everything from the first game, the act of playing Portal 2 does not feel like you are going through the motions.

When it comes to being a full fledged game and being a sequel that expands on Portal 1, Portal 2 does do a very commendable and admirable job. My replay of Portal 2 was me playing the game for hours upon hours on end so playing Portal 2 in the moment was a great time.

With all that said, I do prefer the quickness and brevity of the first game. In Portal 1, it never felt like things dragged on but Portal 2 can feel like it can take a little too long for the plot to move. I also felt that while I enjoyed all the new gimmicks Portal 2 due to the nature of it being a puzzle game and all the gameplay revolves around is getting to the end of a test chamber or getting to a test chamber, it gets harder and harder to sustain the length. You ever wondered why there was never a Portal 3? This is a big reason. Portal 2 pushes the concept of Portal to it's absolute limit especially considering there are no new gameplay mechanics or anything else to the game besides solving puzzles. This could be a me thing, if you love puzzle games, Portal 2's length might not even bother you but for me, the more the game went on, the more I really wished things started to wrap up.

Portal 1 never really had this issue due to everything moving by at a brisk pace and the game's nature of solving puzzles never feeling it was slowly hitting into the wall of diminishing returns.

Overall, Portal 2 is a very good sequel and is a well made game especially considering the first game was there to give the Orange Box more value but at the same time, Valve's endeavor to make the concept of Portal it's fully fledged game does remove some of the charm the first Portal had. It's a still a good time with all that said.

Onimusha: Warlords Review

Since I beat all the mainline Onimushas with the remaster of Onimusha 2 and especially with the recent Onimusha Way of the Sword coming out, I decided to play Warlords once again. I recall this game being well made and the first good 3D beat em up that I can recall and after playing the game again, I say it still does.

I'll start with the weakest aspect of the game first and that is the story. What I find so frustrating about it is that it can't decide whether it wants to be an excuse plot or have a geniune attempt at a story so much of the characters and their interactions expect you to feel like you should know everything already before playing the game. On top of that, the characters feel underdeveloped. The monsters you fight being called the "Genma" was something that was introduced in the sequels. Samanosuke's speech seeking knowledge or something felt unearned and barely had any build to the reveal.

There is also other early installment weirdness like Oni Form being just a cutscene to finish off the final boss or Nobunaga popping up at the end of the game and the player never actually faces him despite being a built up antagonist the game reminds you of. The Onimusha sequels do have a far better attempt at telling a story than Warlords does.

Gameplay is where Warlords shines. If you can get past the short length and the fact that the game is even shorter knowing that you have to upgrade the Oni Jewel for all 3 weapons to unlock level 3 doors early on in the game then a enjoyable game can be found here. Cutscenes also can't be skipped which is why I played on emulator and not pick up the remaster since you can't skip them in that either which also helps alleviate the frustration from that infamous drowning puzzle.

What makes Warlords such a stand out game in terms of combat is that it has a pick up and play feel to it. Sure, play the game on normal difficulty and dying to combat might happen here and there. The thing is, the game has enough going on that players like me who are average at best at action games if even that can feel competent at the game.

There is a block button but there is also a lock on button and Samanosuke can strafe around enemies using the d pad while the former is held down. This really helps at avoiding enemies attacks especially larger enemies that can break blocks. The large enemy attacks generally have enough telegraphing to know when to get out of the way. The only big issue with this system is knowing when to strafe left and right in the heat of the moment. There are also times where Samonosuke will try to attack enemies you don't want him to but this never got in the way.

The only two big issues I can say is switching to between ranged and melee weapons during the heat of battle.

Camera is competent here too especially how it's better than the first Devil May Cry, the latter of which came out around the same time, on the same system and under the same publisher. Warlords camera complements it's more methodical, "wait for an opening combat" system. It's always framed enough to the point where the player has a good idea of where enemies are coming from. There are moments of getting attacked off screen here and there but it is not as numerous by comparison to the aforementioned Devil May Cry.

What also helps makes Warlords easy to approach for newcomers is that enemies always give health, magical and currency upon death and due to this combat never feels like a dull boring chore of you being a tank living off borrowed time. Each weapons has it's own magic attack which has it's own meter which also helps even the odds against tougher encounters.

There is the counter attack isshin system but that is mainly for players who want to learn the extra step.

Level design also has that classic Resident Evil feeling too. There isn't as much backtracking but there is a sense of the overall setting being interconnected. The way level loops back after Samonsuke gets the second half of a seal to open a closed door late game is a good example. My only big gripe is that some doors don't look stand out enough to use the various colored keys on. The blue or red keys don't have designs that much their color for example.

The Kaede sections aren't very good. Later Onimusha games would do a better job at multiple player characters but the problem with her sections on top of not being as fun as Samanosuke is that there is no reasons to fight enemies as her. She has no Oni Gaunlet so no upgrade, health or magic orbs meaning no reason to fight enemies so you can run past them. Outside of bosses, you can run past most if not every enemy with her which is for the best since she takes less hits and is more limited in terms of moves. It's weird how considering how the Samanosuke parts avoided this potential issue.

Overall, I don't mind the breezy length and really enjoyed the game in the moment. Some questionable design and story here and there doesn't detract from Warlords' quality.

Asura's Wrath(Playstation 3) Review

I have a weird history with Asura's Wrath in that playing it was the first time I ever learned what a "bad used game disc" was, where they are so badly damaged that reaching up a certain point in the game, it will simpily freeze and not load up the next section of the game. I thought it was my PS3 not being able to run it but I later learned what this was and this is one major reason why I don't care for physical copies of games nearly as much as I used. I thought there was something wrong with game itself or my PS3 but it was neither. Other than that, there are other much more infamous hurdles regarding the game in that the ending was locked behind paid DLC. This was during Capcom's "heel" run after all. On top of this, there is no modern version of the game with the DLC included which hurts the game even more. Anyways, I decided to play AW again with me buying and beating the Part 4 DLC this time since I doubt there will be a modern port of the game.

With that out of the way, the best way of describing Asura's Wrath is that it's basically about as much of a 6 out of 10 game as one can get, however, it is a entertaining and enjoyable 6 depending on your suspension of disbelief levels.

Since this a CyberConnect2 game when it comes to production values as usual, it's top notch. The way characters look and are animated are very expressive and since this is not based on an already established license, it's rather impressive how many of the characters I can recall based on their looks alone. The music is also some of their best. The main theme and Yasha's music in particular is great stuff. The level of over the top scale the game has is really commendable, there will be parts where the player will be fighting enemies as big as planets or ripping through large fleets of spaceships. AW is definitely one of those where the visuals and specticle carries much of the game which isn't too far off for CyberConnect2.

The story is decent but it is mostly carried by the production values, music and immense scale. Contrary to popular belief despite the game being compared to God of War, outside of featuring "angry" protagonists and being based on myths, AW's story is a combination of the Gungrave anime and fighting shonen anime like Dragon Ball and Naruto among other media. The thing with AW's story is that it's not so much "bad" is that I just wanted to know more since a lot of the characters and their relationships aren't really shown that well in the game itself. Outside of Yasha and Augus and maybe Durga and Mythra, a lot of the characters usually have one or two scenes that don't do really do enough to create attachment towards them. The villains like Deus and the Golden Spider are on the underdeveloped side and don't really do much outside of monolouging or just angering Asura. The interludes don't do enough. It is awesome that there is an interrupt monologue button, I'll commend it immensely for having that.

The scene at the end of Act 2 where, the girl that looks like Mythra dies and causes Asura to go full on rage mode falls flat since there was barely any interactions or anything to the girl other than looking like Mythra.

A large part of me wishes the game got an anime adaptation of some kind with adaptation expansion and a protracted prologue like the aforementioned Gungrave since I can picture it improving the story. AW's story is arguably too ambitious for the kind of game it is.

The gameplay is where things get a little on the dull yet frustrating side. AW is basically a shoot em up and a 3D beat em up. Both of them are basically a means to an end for QTEs. The concept of building up your rage is interesting but it never goes behind being nothing more than a "win" button. The shoot em up sections is just dodging projectiles and spamming fire until you press the rage burst button.

The 3D beat em up combat has slightly more going on but not much. AW's combat is basically what if the Kingdom Hearts 2 reaction commands system was the basis for the entire combat. It's a cross between that and the Naruto Storm games' QTEs.

When not using the QTE reaction commands to build up rage, your fist attacks don't do much damage. The "heavy attack" is a 360 degree area of effect swipe which can't be chained with light attacks. Projectile attacks needs player to stand still in order to hit things and is only needed for flying enemies.

The hardest enemy is the camera since the bosses can move at high speeds faster than the camera can track them and the lock will follow them making them harder to keep track of. They can dart across one end to another end of the battlefield and Asura's has no distance closing moves making combat more of a game of, "waiting for a QTE prompt to pop up to do massive damage". You get no new abilties or moves on top of level design being scripted.

Overall, it's funny how a game where it's major selling point was being an "interactive anime" was better off being an anime.

War of the Monsters Review

This was a game I played back a couple of years ago on PS4 but recently got a PS5 and a Premium version re release so I decided to play it again. When I first played War of the Monsters, I remember liking but there were a number of weird and awkward quirks about it that held the game back, however there were things about it that prevented me from dropping the game. Now playing it again, there is still fun to be had but it all really depends on how much you are willing to put up with all of those "quirks" I mentioned.

WotM is an arena fighter with a fully destructible 3D environment where the player characters can run and jump around, climb buildings, use weapons, grab enemies, or even have have a building collapse in an your opponent. In the moment, the amount crazy over the top specticle the game can provide is pretty impressive. The way buildings can tear apart or how the player can be thrown all away across the map with the scale the game has is quite impressive especially the kind of over the top giant monster movies the game is trying to emulate. It's also nice that the game comes with an adventure mode similar to the campaign routes of Twisted Metal Black where you need to fight bosses from time to time all though the lack of mid campaign route movies is missed.

With that said, in order to appreciate this stuff, there are the aforementioned quirks.

The first major one are the controls. The way WotM controls, it very much feels like it began it's life as a Sony Playstation game, not a Playstation 2 game. What I mean is that the game has tank controls in a fully 3D environment where you can turn the camera but can only see what's in front of you. So turning the analog stick left or right will turn your character to that direction but not move it the left or right side. In order to strafe, you need to press L1 or R1. The former to strafe left and the latter to strafe right. To top everything off you need to hold L1 and R1 to lock on and the right analog stick has no actual camera control. This is what I mean that it controls more like a PS1 game than a PS2 game. It sure did started to hurt my hands holding L1 and R1 together to remain locked on especially during bosses. You could bypass this with the PS5 emulation control options but I'm not sure about the lock on system since I never bothered to try to see if you could have a dedicated button press for holding L1 and R1.

The 2nd quirk is he opponent AI. If it's one on one fights then it isn't too bad. Just remember to hold L2 when they are about to attack you but when it's more than 1 opponent, it feels more like a handicap match than a geniune free for all battle. It's very easy to get attacked or thrown across the map after wailing on an enemy and then they can retreat, get health and recover from the massive whailing you gave them.

The final quirk is when you get impaled or the fatigue system where you need to mash certain buttons like crazy to remove the object out of your body. You can get fatigued when can do special moves and on top your special projectible attacks do very little damage to enemies, it takes awhile for the character to break out of his tired state and the meter can take a while to regenerate.

If you can get past all this then there is fun to be had with this game. Something this game does shockingly well is the lives system, it's done much better than any Twisted Metal game. You get 3 lives and a health refill upon each respawn. The battles usually not being more than 5-8 minutes. Combine that with health pickups scattered all over the map and the fact that you have all 3 lives refilled upon new battle in the campaign and it's a lives system in a game I can say that feels balanced. It's one big reason why the game can feel beatable in spite of it's many odd design decisions.

The bosses are decent too minus the final boss, they strike a decent balance of not being a damage spongey version of regular enemy fights with the puzzle element of throwing objects at them with every opening after evading their telegraphed attacks. The only exception being the final boss since it's laser beams can destroy the pillars in the arena that is supposed to block them with ease. Get past the 1st phase and it gets noticeably easier.

Overall, WotM in spite of it's issues I had with it's design is a game I still enjoyed there is still a lot of specticle and carnage to be found with it's over the top scale, production values and it's very premise. If you don't mind what I have mentioned there is fun to be had. It's a shame that the planned successor never really went anywhere with it's development.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Review

The Metal Gear game that is controversial due to it being not being directed by Hideo Kojima and it's place in the canon of the series or is it canon? I've dabbled in superhero comics and many long running franchises in different mediums, canon in a lot of them tends to be fickle in the long run. Metal Gear itself is a series with many retcons over the years so it's better not to get hung up over it. With that said, I did play it on PSP over a decade ago, what turned me away were the controls and the lack of voice acting during the "codec" calls and the reading needed to be done. That and Peace Walker was considered to be Portable Ops but much improved on top of the former being on the MGS HD collection with improved controls. I ultimately just ended up watching a cutscenes movie compliation of PO. In recent years, I did start to get obessesed over portable spin offs and I decided to give PO a proper go from start to finish. 

As a whole, PO is just an okay game. It's easy to see where Peace Walker and Phantom Pain would improve upon this in terms of gameplay. This isn't even a case where this is a "non canon" portable Metal Gear that does certain things better than the main canon series like Ghost Babel was. In terms of gameplay, everything in PO is done better in PW and TPP. One improvement is that there is no grinding for the "true" ending like in those two games. In PO, you beat Gene and its done and due to that PO despite not being something I consider good doesn't overstay it's welcome at least.

The best things about Portable Ops is the music and story. The ambient sneaking music does a good job at getting the player in the mood. The story is pretty decent. I'm not an MGS story super fan but it's rather impressive how many voiced cinematics they snuck in considering it was on a UMD and for a portable system like the PSP. The comic art is well drawn if some of the shots can be awkward with the lack of backgrounds drawn for some them and it can just look like the characters are in a void empty space. Not all of the cutscenes are like this but some of them can be. 

Gene and Cunningham are decent villains. You surprisingly know them more than majority of the villains in MGS3. Gene is also an interesting mirror reflection of what Naked Snake would become later in the series much like God of War's Persphone or Star Wars' Count Dooku. He even does more villainous things than the Boss does outside of beat up Snake or tell him to go back. He managed to make Snake scream and get him angry. The whole prophecy with Elisa is a little a weird with the whole destiny thing but I can overlook it since it takes more than a destiny reveal to ruin a story for me. Roy Campbell being my favorite character in the series didn't even need to be there since he had barely anything to do outside of being Snake's advisor. You could've had anyone or Kaz Miller since the latter would pop up in later games in the Big Boss timeline.

This is where the praise ends, if you play Metal Gear for the story, you might get your fill with PO especially if you disliked TPP's excuse plot.

Gameplay side of things is not so good. Not bad but also not good and much of the potential frustration could've been alleviated with right stick controls and save states on PPSSPP. 

Stealth is much like MGS3 and much like the issues I had with that, guard sightlines are inconsistent. Sure you get a radar of sorts giving vague locations on where guards are but it doesn't include sightlines so there's a good chance that you could get caught and not have any idea where the guard saw you. Sometimes, they will investigate, other times it will be a full on alert. This was never an issue with the "fixed camera" MGS games since the soliton radar showed the player where guards were and if you were in their sightlines or not. TPP would have detection arrows that gave a better idea of  enemy awareness to the player. 

To add to this, both long and close range tactics to take out guards are unreliable. Knocking out guards with the tranq gun can be a game in of itself due to the game's aim sensitivity in first person. CQC is heavily nerfed too. CQC slam is not the powerhouse it once was. You need to press the CQC button multiple times for the slam animation to activate and if it works you need to slam than one or two more times to take them down. Sneaking up on them can also be a game of chance too since it could lead to an alert due to the grab animation not always working. 

The recruitment system which is what the game is based around is tedious and also half baked. Much has been said on dragging guards to the truck but if you do this early game and actively recruit every guard you find in early levels, you are set. The thing you need to use the recruits for is the "spy" unit. Just reassign the same recruits in the spy unit on certain levels and use the day waiting feature and then you can get past much of the game. Only issue is that you can do it 3 times but just load up a level and abort mission and it resets. 

This is also how you bring health and stamina back since it doesn't refill automatically inbetween missions. Stamina only matters on the final boss since Gene's mind control attack can quickly drain the stamina bar and can cause a game over.

The bosses are challenging because they have hitscan attacks that you have to tank while also being damage sponges except Null. With the Null fights, you can't shoot in third person with default controls and hit him while he reloads. 

Overall, PO is okay with it's story and brevity being what saves it. Peace Walker and Phantom Pain are better in terms of gameplay but this was an interesting first attempt to what the later Big Boss games would do. 

LEGO Horizon Adventures Review

I was not expecting myself to enjoy Lego Horizon Adventures as much as I did. I am not a Horizon super fan but I do enjoy the series to some degree. The idea of a Lego title based on the series felt like a bizarre move since it's not a licensed game based on a family friendly kids franchise.

However with that said, this is easily the most interesting and innovating lego game I played in such a long time. Usually every lego game after the first Star Wars in 2005 is just a variation on what that game did maybe some attempts at an open world but it never goes furthur than that. Skywalker Saga did try to breath new life but it sort of just felt like a hodge podge of different ideas if not entering into the realm of a mini game compliation. I already knew I was in for a different kind of lego game experience when there are difficulty options and actual fail states. Death is not a slap on the wrist this time around. The closest you got to that in other lego games was not getting 1st place in the Pod Race in the games based on Star Wars.

Lego Horizon Adventures however is the game in the series I always wanted. I never cared about the mainline series' open worlds, RPG and traversal systems and the stealth mechanics. All I really cared about was the projectile based weapons, the elemental weaknesses on enemies and weak point based damage system. This to me is what made the series interesting and finally there is a game in the series where this is in the forefront and all the above mention stuff is out. The closest thing to RPG system is this game is a light levelling system similar to the Ratchet and Clank games where even if you die, the XP gained from killing enemies will be retained even upon death. You can also use lego pieces to get buffs but it still is light by comparison to the main series.

An improvement over the mainline games too is the camera, some could scoff at the isometric camera and while the lack of a dedicated dodge button is missed, I love the fact that now, I have a better view from where enemies are going to attack me and where their projectile attacks are going to land. There is a red circle for when an enemy is going to an attack and stay out the circle, you don't take damage. This by comparison to the 3rd person Horizon games where it's easy to get hit from off screen whether it'd be from far off projectiles are enemies just randomly charging into you from behind, blindspots or aiming your bow to land a hit. Despite the lack of a dodge button, I feel more capable in this game than I do in the mainline series, the removal of the aforementioned stuff just adds to it.

In terms of combat difficulty, the game is by no means a cakewalk but it's overbearing when it comes to challenge. The "balanced" combat difficulty actually does live up to its name. While your health does increase upon level ups even weaker enemies can wipe a quarter of your health and stronger enemies can do even more damage. The thing that prevents combat from feeling impossible is that there are medicinal berry trees scattered all over the various battle arenas.

What Lego Horizon ultimately is a twin stick shooter where you need to kill waves of enemies to progress and complete the level with bosses thrown in every few levels. I love that it's level based and focuses on what makes Horizon interesting like I said before.

New enemies get introduced throughout the campaign and they get mixed in with the fodder enemies too, they all have different weak points and targets to hit. This is the kind of game that I wished the main Horizon games leaned more into

The biggest hurdle is the controls. It looks like a twin stick shooter but does not control like a traditional one. In these games on console left stick is to move while right stick is to aim. Thing is, you can't aim and shoot at the same time. It's like Resident Evil 4 2005 where you aim, stand still and then fire. This can be offputting especially at first and it took a while to get used to. There's accessiblity options in the menu, I put aim and shoot to by clicking R3 and also switched it to toggle aim rather than hold.

There also different gadgets, elemental weapons and even environmental hazards like fire, ice, electricty hidden to damage enemies with so aiming with just the bow arrow so you don't have to primarily use that. Enemies can also hurt themselves by charging too.

After that, the only big negative I can say on the game is the story and writing. It can on the obnoxious side with the 4th wall breaks and referential humor and I am not a fan of the replaced voice actors for Hellis and Sylens.

The splash damage on rocket attacks can get a little on the cheap side since you might get hit even when out of the red circle

Overall, this was the most enjoyable Lego game I played in a while especially considering how samey many of them tend to be. Horizon and Lego did sound like a weird combination on paper but it turned out to work better than I thought.

Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind Review

I'm not even a Power Rangers fan, I remember watching a random series of it over a decade ago and the extremely rad and awesome theme song of the 90s series. Other than that I came into this game because it seemed to be yet another throwback 2D beat em up on a nostalgic series that began with TMNT Shredder's Revenge. I played G.I Wrath of Cobra earlier this year and the game was so unstable that I couldn't even get past the 2nd level due to crashes. I thought Rita's Rewind was going to suffer the same fate but thankfully it didn't.

The game's combat is pretty much traditional 2D beat em up affair with punches, combos and special moves, however one major difference that not every game in the genre has if not most of them is the addition of a dedicated dodge button. I tend to have a soft for any game in the genre that has this since now avoiding attacks doesn't become an unreliable game of chance. Due to this it now feels like I can feel competent in combat rather than a tank who needs to rely on having enough healing items spawn to get by a stage.

I kind of regret playing on easy but at the same time there is one thing that made me say, "kind of".

The game isn't purely a 2D beat em up. There is a fair number of shoot em up mini games and first person person mega zord sections. These are mostly fine and nothing too bad and I'm guessing the developers really wanted to make the most out of the Power Rangers license as they could. I just prefer games to do one thing and do it well.

Another reason why easy mode could be accomadating for me is because you get more health pick ups and power ups during these sections. If I found these sections any harder, this could've ruined my enjoyment with the game. The only major hard part of these sections is during the Green Ranger fight since his boss requires you to hit flashes of the character before you can do actual damage to his Mega Zord and I did get a game over here due to me not being good enough to tank my way through.

The Mega Zord sections are okay, they seem to be a moment of empowerment and an over the top way of finishing off the villain for that episode.

Some bosses like Bones 2nd fight where his projectile attack can stun lock me and I lost a lot of health rather than getting inviciblity frames after getting hit caught me off guard

The final boss with Rita was mainly hard due to her puzzle design and you couldn't win by hitting her, dodging her scripted attacks and then hitting her again.

Overall, game was a good time despite me not really being into the license. Price point might be questionable but there are always sales and you can get it at a reduced price. It's an enjoyable few hours.

Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro Review

Pretty much everything regarding Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro feels like one of those superhero story sequels that only exist because the producers thought they had massive success with previous entries and are now making a story because they know audiences will come to it regardless of quality. Something along the lines of Superman 3, the Joel Schumacher Batman movies or the 90s live action TMNT movie sequels.

Everything in this game was already done in the previous Neversoft game. It's very much a typical expansion sequel of the era. The biggest improvement Enter Electro has is that that the scripted sequences with the tank controls, slowly descending web swinging, and limited camera movement are noticeably reduced if not outright gone.

The music is also just as good as the first game too.

Other than that, it's the same game, combat is a little better in that there is an auto lock on and Spider-Man will close in any enemy nearby him but considering this game came out the same year as Onimusha Warlords and the first Devil May Cry game having slightly better combat than the first game by Neversoft isn't really a worthwhile improvement. The former even had 3D beat em up combat with tank controls much like this game. There isn't a dedicated dodge button or a reliable means of defense. Spidey is a tank with the frequent health pick ups being the only reason why I was able to scrape by combat.

The hard parts of the game is where you have to deal with the bigger environment with lots of enemies being thrown at you and hoping you can tank hits and hopefully find enough health pickups to get past the level, the multi colored key section where you need to find the keys on a timer, the plane section where you need to web up the propellars and bosses like Lizard and Electro himself and dodging Electro's blast while climbing up a large structure.

Much of the challenge comes from the limited movement and combat. I also used save states on Duckstation in conjunction with the frequent health pickups. The latter prevented me from relying on the using the cheats within Duckstation itself. That having the web yank work the way you want to it where sometimes where Spidey will do it or he will just shoot his generic webbing.

The story itself is extremely barebones if not a borderline excuse plot. This would be fine if the gameplay was great but it never rises above being "okay" at best.

Some have complained about how this game has some of Spider-Man's jobber villains like Electro, Shocker, and Hammerhead but I argue a good writer can make them compelling. Electro does have interesting versions like Spider-Man TAS and The New Animated Series. This game however, he just runs around committing crimes and Spider-Man stops them. Electro kidnaps a character towards the end of the game but she has no personal connection to Spider-Man. At least Venom from the first Neversoft game kidnaps Mary Jane and there was a symbiote invasion Spidey had to stop where in this there isn't much of a plot or stakes other than Electro does bad things and he teams up with bad guys. The titular character of this sequel doesn't even have enough overacting or scenery chewing moments to make him any less forgettable.

The Neversoft game didn't have the most in depth plot but the presentation carried much of it, however here there is not enough plot or enough of Peter being challenged as a character that it pretty much warrants the comparison between the superhero movies previously mentioned. Everything about Enter Electro just makes me ask, "why was this game even made?"

On a side note, it does annoy me even in the comics how whenever Spider-Man is around other heroes, they just have to beat over your head that Peter Parker is an underdog and a weakling by comparison to the Avengers and Fantastic 4.

Overall, by no means is Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro something I consider "terrible" but it's so average and a by the numbers sequel that I got to wonder what was even of it. The Neversoft game was popular so Activision wanted a quick buck so they got Vicarious Visions to make this within a year. It's not the most egregious example of games and by extension media being made like this but it doesn't make me kinder on it by any means.

Silent Hill: Homecoming Review

The Silent Hill game I avoided for a very long time due to it's bad "reputation". I managed to somehow get the game at an okay price considering how hard it is to find now and by extension all of the Silent Hill games are up to Downpour. I don't want to emulate PS3 games as of yet either and the PC port of Homecoming on Steam is broken, unsurprisingly. With all that said, in spite of all the negative virtol this game gets by Silent Hill fans by the mere mention of it's name like many "disappointing" game releases in popular franchises, I found it to be decent. It does have some major issues particular with story, combat design and presentation but this is not even close to a game I consider to be badly made.

The best way of describing SH Homecoming that it's an algamation of Silent Hill 1 and 3, Silent Hill 2, the SH movie, Jaccob's Ladder with some elements of games like Resident Evil 4.

I'll start with the story and it's okay, not bad but not amazing. Remember what I said earlier how its an algamation? This is what I mean. It has parts of SH1 and 3 in that it deals with the religious cult group called "The Order" and it involves demonic scarifices. Silent Hill 2 in that it's about the protagonist's personal nightmares being represented by the town with a similar twist towards the end. The movie with it's visuals, human enemies, grotesque death scenes and exposition and of course Jaccob's Ladder with it's very premise.

As a result, it feels jumbled and confused. A positive is that the voice acting is good and the cutscenes are decently directed and those do help the game's story. The music during the cutscenes are also fine if one of Yamaoka's weaker OSTs. With that said like SH2's story there is a lack of conrete evidence for anything. What was Alex going to do after he found Josh? When did he get released from the Hospital, how long was he there? How did Alex know how to fight like a solider despite not actually fighting in a war? Why did the town of Shepard's Glen choose to act hostile when Alex got back? Why was Alex not a kid and was considerably older if they wanted to scarifice him? He would be harder to manipulate the older he got. What was Alex really doing when bringing Josh on the boat?

I didn't like this storytelling in SH2 but it's worse here since like the movie, there is exposition now and it makes Homecoming's lack of background details more noticeable since Homecoming bothers to explain things.

There is also weird things about it like how when characters die, it's similar directed like in the SH movie where it's an over the top grotesque death scene where in the first 4 SH games, the way deaths were played out were up to the imagination.

The visuals are also a downgrade from SH3, that game was one of my favorite looking games on the PS2 and the character models especially look worse in Homecoming. In a time where major franchises were making leaps in terms of visuals entering 7th gen, this stands out all the more.

Final issues is that load times can be lengthy on PS3 and the early hours can be lacking in terms of direction. The early Shepard's Glenn and graveyard sections almost made me quit the game due to the lack of direction on what do and where to do. There was also the Scarlett Fitch boss and the police station section after that can be very challenging due to resources being drained in the former and touch enemies being spawned in the latter. Usually there is down time in a survival horror game after a boss fight so the player can get resources again

With that out of the way, the gameplay for the most part can be solid. The combat can be criticized but the idea of it is good and you can tell since SH2 Remake would use this as a basis.

Shepard's Glenn can be interconnected in some ways too, the Graveyard will be a return to Alex's house when you get the key daggar in the Town Hall.

Enemies often never appear in more than 2 and it's more about trying to defeat and avoiding attacks as much as you can and not using too many health drinks. The game has just enough exploration and combat encounters is spread out evenly enough that it never feels like I'm playing an actual beat em up. Enemies visually taking more damage is a nice touch.

There is some problems that holds the combat system back. That is the inconsistent AI and lack of I frames. Enemies in SH Homecoming will either be two things:

They will either stand around and let you whail on them until they die or they will interrupt your combo, you try to anticipate their moves and dodge but will get hit anyway since the dodge rarely if ever gives you I frames so what feels like a game of intense fights where you barely get by feels like an inconsistent game of luck.

Overall, SHH just feels like a basis for SH2R much like Splinter Cell Conviction was for Blacklist, Hitman Absolution was for World of Assassination or RE6 for RE4R if you like SH2R it's worth looking into this game or trying again if you disliked SHH.

Soul Calibur V(Playstation 3) Review

Normally, I don't really talk about fighting games that much, all I wanted to do was just play SCV, have a quick and good time and move on to something else. Maybe even enjoy the game and consider it one of the many, "disliked game in popular game series that I enjoy". When it comes to fighting games I do enjoy Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, Tekken 4 and 6, the Mortal Kombat games after MK9 and MK vs. DC by extension, and Dead or Alive 6. Only Street Fighter 5 being the exception. I didn't come into this game with high expectations.

However, upon playing, a large part of me can't help but slowly get annoyed. The story mode is pretty bad and of course you don't play fighting games for the story, however the writing is bad even by those standards. The new characters are insufferable and only a few of the legacy Soul Calibur characters are even around. Whole thing feels like a bizarre fan fiction. Something that really annoyed me was when you played as Z.W.E.I and a had very challenging fight against Nightmare just to lose in a cutscene.

The AI is very inconsistent one minute they are pushovers and another minute they are overly aggressive who feel like they can read your moves before you make them.

However the thing that really annoyed me was the 3 round system, I can't for the life of me why this system was here. Even if you manage to win 1 round and your opponent wins 2, it's still going to be an uphill battle trying to get two wins in to become the victor.

I also dislike playing as many of the new characters since the appeal of SC for me was how since it's a weapons based fighting game, your attacks have far more reach than fighting games with fists but many of Patrokolos and Phyrra's combos don't really have this and they feel short ranged, I could've looked up the moved list but when I play as Nightmare and Kilik in other SC games, I never had this problem. Playing as any of the characters in the story mode despite having so many fights never made me feel like I was comfortable with them.

Still, I didn't find the gameplay that repulsive or insufferable since making a truly unplayable big budget fighting game from a casual standpoint seems almost impossible to do at the same time, it's a hard game to geniunely reccomend outside of Soul Calibur completionists or people who want to try out as many installments in a popular franchise that they enjoy as they can out of curosity.