Assassin's Creed(2007) Review

After replaying most of the AC games over the past few months returning to AC1 was an interesting experience. Some parts upon replaying it again I expected but other parts surprised me. The story, parkour system, music and atmosphere and brisk pacing of the game is what I found fascinating upon coming back to the game over a decade later. AC1 isn't a game I consider to be amazingly designed, it has just enough going on from a moment to moment gameplay standpoint with an engaging story that it was enjoyable.

The story I have a soft spot for since it was my first introduction to stories with philosophical themes and questions. With that said, the only big issues with it is the begginning, ending and some of the plot twists. The first issue probably going to turn away many since it starts with Altair killing an innocent old man and disregarding a creed that he seemingly followed for a long time. What lead to the disillusion of it? What lead to Altair's arrogance? The game never answers this. However, if you can get past this, the story from here and out is full of intrigue and thought provoking moments.

The dialogue Altair has with his assassination targets and the Brotherhood he serves is the biggest highlight of the story. In how with each target Altair kills, he starts to question if he is doing the right thing. His targets speak of good and noble intentions where his allies and by extension master Al Muliam often reassures that what they say are lies and misdirection. Altair and by extension the player however are still not 100% sure. What also helps is that at the start of the story after the inciding incident, the Assassin Brotherhood treats him with scorn but he slowly earns their respect with each assassination in the various cities. Al Muliam would often test his conviction to the cause with cryptic riddles and questions. The best part is that all of these dialogue sequences are never overly long and to the point.

There are some questionable plot twists like why did Altair take so long to figure out the men he was sent to kill where connected due to them being Templars and was Al Muliam always evil or did he go through a heel turn? The lack of backstory can take the idea of Star Wars logic a little too far. The ending is also very anti climatic and doesn't provide much closure.

Atmosphere and music is also quite good. With the Jerusalem, Arce and Damascus ambient songs giving a lot of character. The gritty and grimy look of Arce is contrasted the more hopeful and upbeat Jerusalem both accompanying by music that work in tandem with each other to give an immpecable vibe.

The gameplay is interesting in that it has a mission system that is infamous for being "repetitive" but it is accompanied with at the time a novel climbing and free running system.

However the fulcrum of what makes AC1's gameplay solid is how it follows the idea of, "it's over before you know it". Every mission like pickpocketing, eavesdroping and interrogating are over in less than a minute. Climbing up the towers to find them is also quick. Side missions where you need to rescue civilians are also brisk. You climb, do a quick mission then climb some more. This free running system is intuitive enough it can be enjoyable and immersive climbing up such tall structures. It also helps that hidespots are on rooftops so when chased by guards, it's still encouraged to free run and use the roofs.

The act of the assassinations themselves can also be over and done with fast. In a game like Hitman, much of the gameplay in the levels are spent trying to get up close and then quietly killing your target. In AC1, most of the legwork of getting close to the target is done in the open world so the actual kill can be down through semi efficent infiltration or getting caught and quickly getting the kill before the target can draw his sword and it becomes an actual duel and by extension brawl. It ends in a chase accompanied by an amazing chase theme. Hidespots are plentiful and breaking line of sight is not difficult so it adds to the brevity of the game's challenge.

The assassinations towards the end of the game do a good job at throwing more geniune shakeups to the game.

It's not all amazing since one big issue with the game is the terrible AI especially the furthur you get into the game since guards become more aware of Altair's presence and more trigger happy. A massive strength the game has that there never any extended sections where you aren't allowed to be seen or it's a game over so the devs are aware of their enemy AI shortcomings.

Combat is decent and swift. It's not counter spamming or getting one kill means leads to insta kills. Enemies can do heavy attacks which can't be reliably be countered and partner that with weaker enemies encourages defense and offensive. One heavy attack can't kill you but multiple can level your life bar.

Overall, the brisk gameplay pace, the amazing animations, dialogue and music carries AC1 even if the terrible enemy AI and rather simplistic mission and by extension gameplay structure can reveal the illusion a little too much. 

Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days Review

I'll start off by saying that my only experience I have with the first Kane and Lynch is playing the demo on PS3 over a decade ago. I mainly remember the voice acting, dialogue and music. I decided to jump straight into Dog Days since it's easier to obtain, much shorter and doesn't have a section that is as a bizarre bait and switch where it turns into a tactical shooter where you are in a war zone. With that said, the sequel is a fascinating game all though not because of it's geniune quality more so because of just how committed it is to looking, sounding and feeling much more quickly slapped together than the first game. If you ever wanted to play a game that has the has the feel of a straight to DVD low budget sequel to a middling first movie, K&L2 sure is a ride.

When talking and K&L2: Dog Days, the aspect of the game that is hard not to look past is the presentation. It is shown as a found footage movie as opposed to it's more lavish and extravagant predecessor. Where Dead Men has an excellently composed score by Jesper Kyd, the only track in Dog Days that anyone could recall is the series of Chinese pop songs that plays at the end credits. Dogs Days plot is more like a highlight reel than a journey where you go from point a to b to c. The plot is almost too incoherently presented to follow. The game has an ugly filter effect, shakey cam when the player is sprinting, narratively calls it's level load times "buffering", censored body parts whenever it gets "too violent" and at times can almost be too hard to see due to how dark it can be when partnered with the filter effects.

It's so committed to looking cheap and visually appalling that it almost gives K&L2 a unique identity all to it's own. This leads to some unintentional comedic moments. One note worthy example is when you are running around in the streets bloody naked gunning down dozens upon dozens of full body armored police officers. The story's bad presentation can almost make me laugh due to how poorly told and terribly executed the seemingly "emotional story beats" are. There's barely any screen time or character interactions given for Lynch's girlfriend for the player to get invested. Then there are other bizarre story beats like the titular characters getting caputured not once but twice. The second time adding nothing to the story and pads out the already short run time since said second capture just involves a pointless building shootout on a helicoptor and inside a building where a corrupt politician dies...and titular characters end up at an airport with barely any clue on they got there even though they are wanted men by this point in the story.

The player controls Kane towards the end of the game with no build up leading to a hollow payoff.

When you ignore all this, Dog Days is a by the numbers cover shooter of the era. However it has issues that some of those games avoid. For one, the only options for offensive is to duck behind cover, aim, shoot, get hit, wait for health to regen, rinse repeat. There is is no ability to throw grenades, all you get are generic hitscan weapons to thin out the waves, and not even human shields are effective since you move too slowly when dragging them and enemies have no problems riddling your hostage and by extension you with bullets.

There is some flanking options early game when an ally can lay down supressing fire and you can catch enemies by surprise similar to Army of Two. You also get a crouch button in this like you do the aforementioned Army of Two however a big problem is that due to how large the on screen enemy count is, the much weaker level design, lack of combat options outside of shoot and ducking and covering and waiting for health to regen. You can die to a few bullets even on easy mode.

The guns do sound punchy at least. 

What helps makes all this bearable is how frequent the checkpoints are and how short the levels seem to be. With that said, in spite of most of the levels taking around less than 20 minutes to finish, it can feel much longer due to the amount of time spent waiting for health to regen. It also doesn't help that sprinting leads to an obnoxious camera shake and getting up after getting knocked can lead to disorientation since the button used to get up is also used to take cover too.

Overall, there have been those who bashed Dog Days for being short but I argue the game being longer would just make it even more insufferable to play. Due to the game being short, it's one of those sub par if not outright "bad" games that is worth looking into. It has to be seen to be believed. It is by the numbers cover shooter but it is memorable for opposite reasons that the Uncharted games are. Where Uncharted has high production values with simple yet memorable characters interactions carrying it. K&L2 is an ugly mess of a game that almost feels like it is trying to mimick a cheaply made and quickly put together film production. Uncharted is the Yin to K&L2's Yang.

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z Thoughts and Rant

I played this game out of sheer curosity since game critics at the time ravaged it and fan reception didn't fare better. What really sparked all of it was the fact that this game never got remastered and on top of all that no one is demanding the game to get a modern port or cried foul when it wasn't included in the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection that came out a few years ago. There's no vocal cult following that is defending the game and calling it a misunderstood masterpiece. Also because there's a recent resurgance in the franchise with the recent release of Black 2 and the upcoming Ragebound and NG4. This was the game that "killed" the series for a good while or at least finished it off when NG3 laid out the fatal blow.

I got around halfway into the game. 3 out of the 6 levels and I played on easy and oh god this game sucks. It's a bad game that lives up to it's reputation. Things were already feeling off when there is no jump button and this was a game that is aping off the God of War games of the time. The platforming angers me when I'm doing it. I rag on Uncharted and automated platforming but this game, it's so simple and relies so heavily on context sensitivity that it's QTEs but with certain buttons presses for specific actions. Why is this even in the game? It's like the game plays itself and I just press buttons here and there while Yaiba shows off his moves. Later in the game, the game throws in obsticles and hazards and it's so out of left field since everything in the late part of the canyons level, it was simple reaction time tests but now I need to be precise and methodical now? The magnetic jump button also stopped worked and I couldn't start the steam pipe section again. The best part? I can't restart from checkpoint even though the game has one. There's only an option to restart from level and the level was almost an hour with a challenging enemy wave with lots of mini bosses and a repeat of the fight with the mechanical dog. I gave up here. Nice that the game has checkpoints, would be even better if I can restart from them especially when the game is very buggy.

The writing sucks and I'm very forgiving of bad stories in games but the whole thing seems like it wants to be campy self aware stupidity but it comes off as lame and tryhard. I was in disbelief when Yaiba used like words "dick" and "dickhead" back to back. There is also a scene where the titular character is reveling in being covered in woman's panties. I thought this dude was supposed to be a super serious no nonsense killing machine, but he's a pervert too? It's so bizarrely at odds. The druglord that employs you seems like he just wants to be Tony Montana really badly. And you really think some low end overly vulgar jobber is going to kill Ryu? Sure man. There isn't even enough to the female character that provides radio support than her design.

The combat is where the game really sucks. On easy mode, it's terrible. Fodder enemies just stand around as you whail on them since they are zombies but the mini bosses are awful. They have status effects that can take away large amounts of health, frontal attacks might also take away health as well as stagger you since they have elemental shields. Kill animations to bring back lost health is unreliable and might not always work and the grappling hook is a 50-50 game of will the grab register. The only way to get past an enemy wave especially when minibosses are in them is to die over and over since your rage meter doesn't reset after death and will keep going up after dying in combat. After that tank hits and fight them and thin away a good number of the enemies and then use your rage to kill and lay out as much damage to the minibosses as you can before it wears off.

Yes, on easy mode in order to feel competent at combat, I need to overly heavily on your rage mode to get anywhere. When this game came out in 2014, what niche did it even fill? You wanted a God of War game? Ascension was there. You wanted a game where you played as a ninja who was proficient at killing with a sword? Metal Gear Rising. You wanted an over the top violent game with lots of crude humor and an over the top protagonist? Deadpool. 2 of the above mentioned games came out months apart from Yaiba with the latter coming out a year and 2 months after MGRR.

I can surely say that me trying out Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z is a good example of the saying, "curosity killed the cat". I did know this game was bad going in but some small part of me really wanted to see if I can salvage some fun out of it. Nope. The best thing I can say about this is that the game didn't cost me too much to get. The cel shaded visuals are nice but I've already seen all this before so it's not enough to really wow me.

Peter Jackson's King Kong The Game Review

This was a game I played as far back as 2018 and while I remember enjoying it, I appreciate it much more now than I did after that initial playthrough. This is in large part due to me playing so many movie tie in games over the years and I mean the decent and enjoyable ones. What makes this Kong Kong movie tie in game stand out is how it feels like a meticulous and delibrately crafted by comparison to some of the better games of it's type. When playing King Kong, I couldn't help but say to myself, "wow there seems to be an earnest attempt at telling a story without me needing to watch the film". I also haven't watched the Peter Jackson King Kong movie in a very long time.

Starting up the game, it was surprising, sure there's footage from the movie used as the opening cutscene but there is an attempt to establish character and location. For example, Jack Driscoll and the other characters all start off washed up on Skull Island. There's also a sense of establishing Carl Denham as this guy eccentric, self centered movie director who cares more about getting a good shot than the well being of others around him, this can be infered all by watching him move around during gameplay and what he says. Ann Darrow seems like someone who might be helpless but she can help you during gameplay and during the Kong sections, she help play a role in help the player progress through the level. Characters like Hayes is a by the book straight man. It was weird playing a game like this where it doesn't feel like the developers are secretly telling you, "you watched the movie, we don't need to tell you anything".

There's also other deligently planned aspects of the game like how for example there are moments where there are scripted set pieces where you are going to run past a part of the level that you will eventually come back to continue on with the game. You even slowly go back to the start of Skull Island towards the end of the game.

Other parts like there's multiple levels where you try to get Kong's attention to defeat the V Rex or Jack and by extension the player making his way to Kong's Lair to rescue Ann.

When Jack is with npcs, it can feel like an escort quest but it does reinforce themes of survival and the npcs will also help you. The sections where you play as King Kong himself contrasts how the creatures you barely scraped by against using guns and spears are now insignificent which explains why the humans are afraid of him. This is all done through gameplay.

The committment to not relying on a HUD is also commendable even if at times how much ammo you have in the heat of the moment can be pretty vague.

The visuals themselves also hold up well too with detailed character models for the time and an impressive sense of scale.

With all that said, there are issues with that game that hold it back from great. One issue is that I wish the load screens weren't so frequent. This was before God of War would come out and find ways to mask load screen while keeping the player in the game but with a game so adament about immersion, a load screen can take me out of the experience especially when the levels themselves aren't that long.

The combat for both Jack and Kong aren't very good on there own. The former is shooting or throwing spears dinosaurs, centipedes and bats until they die. Their behavior just consist of charging in at you. Your ammo pool is limited and you can die in 2-3 hits with long health regen time, this can be problematic when Jack's base movement is so slow and stiff and there is no run button of any kind to help avoid damage. The checkpoint system is forgiving luckily. The sound design for weapons and feedback is just satisfactory enough but doesn't go above and beyond.

Kong's combat while not prevelant mainly consist of mashing the attack button and maybe doing some dashes into an attack. Rage mode here and there. It's just mainly there to fufil a base level fantasy until the regen health for Kong pops up and now you have to wait for health to regen and avoid damage while getting into close quarter fisticuffs with animals. The platforming is also very automated where death can happen due to buggy game design than because of skill.

There's also some weird bugs and glitches and this can vary widely from the version you play.

Objectives can get reused quite often. Lots of, "go find switch to put on pillar to open door","burn some grass with flame spear" , "throw spear to have fire to drop down", "get bait to lure some some spiders away," "escort or defend npcs", "walk on large bodies of water", "lure some canivores away from friendly npcs".

While these get reused and mixed up enough to not feel too grating in the moment it can feel like the game dragging at it's heels at times.

The last few levels in the city can also feel confusing to navigate and quickly cobbled together too.

Overall, while having major gameplay issues, King Kong is a game worth experiencing for its earnestness.

Lost Judgment: The Kaito Files Review

Wasn't super big on the main game and I'm just as lukewarm on this DLC. The most impressive things about is how for $20, you are getting a pretty meaty amount of content that lasts about 8 hours. Kaito plays differently enough from Yagami, the former does play like Kiryu in a lot of ways.

With all that said, divorcing it from it's price tag and content on offer, it's nothing remarkable and in some ways worse than the base game. One big issue with the story is that the themes of Kaito Files is divorced from this spinoff series. What made the Judgment games interesting is that the plots in them dealt with an intriguing societal and moral dilemma and how the law deals with it when regulating that. Judgment was about a possible cure to Alzheimer's and Lost Judgment dealt with victimization.

Kaito Files' story is more black and white by comparison. I wouldn't mind this so much if the villain was fun to hate, I can't get my eyes off of him and was really attached to see his downfall but he turns out to be someone hiding in the shadows and most of the manipulating he does is just a bunch of casual conversations that don't amount to any kind of geniune misdirection. Jun is even a teenager yet he doesn't even try to make him and by extension the player feel that he's not that bad especially when you throw in later in the game he's supposed to be the "reincarnation of the devil".  The final sequence in Chapter 4 before the epilogue was just ridiculous with the amount of monologuing there was when he could've been interrupted at some many points. Mikiko is sort of okay even if the story tends to make her capable by herself one minute and a damsel the next. The writers also put over her "looks" way too much and how much the men keep fawning over her. I can take certain amounts of this stuff but even my patience was tested.

The actual final boss is so ridiculous and stupid that it took my suspension of disbelief too far even for an RGG game. It felt like it was there because an epilogue with no gameplay with fail states would be too boring.

The pacing also isn't very good. With a heavy over reliance on the investigation sequences with Chapter 2 being especially ergregious with having one that goes on for a while then having a stealth section, then an investigation sequence then stealth just to culminate and Kaito getting caught in a cutscene that leads to a boss fight which then has him get tailed by someone who has nothing to do with the plot. I was almost considering stopping Kaito Files around this point.

The investigation sequences just seem to require more from the player by comparison to past Judgments almost to the point if I'm wondering why this wasn't a point and click adventure game.

The fights much like the base game are over way too quickly with lots of heat moves and even basic melee attacks that can level enemies and bosses' health quickly. The hardest combat sequence was a frantic button tapping QTE to finish off a boss fight...which the game never had up until that point and never does again after.

Some good things the story does is that the english voice acting is solid and Kaito is still entertaining. It's almost amusing how he and by extension me where just scratching our heads at all the weird stuff going on in the story. Jun is an okay character even if his knifephobia and him being all gung ho about joing the Yakuza can get a little obnoxious, he did grow on me the more the story went on.

The ending wasn't too bad but knowing how RGG games go, good endings usually don't last long even if it's been 3 years since this DLC came out and the last time the Judgment franchise has gotten an update as of writing.

Overall, while Kaito Files did drive me insane with over reliance on investigation sequences and bizarre pacing, it's okay. It being 8 hours is what prevents me from being harsher on it. It's value and content is the main thing it has going for it.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Review

Before I played this version of Dead Rising, I played the original in 2017 on PS4 and strongly disliked it. There was so much early game hell that made the game very offputting to a newcomer like me among other things I strongly disliked about it. When this Remaster got announced where it was including things like autosaving, a casual mode and generally made it easier to access for newcomers, I decided to look into it. I also played Dead Rising 4 a while back and I didn't think that game was really the trashfire it's made out to be by hardcore fans of the series either.

When playing Deluxe Remaster on normal, all the bad memories I had of the quirks of the original game came rushing back. The zombies grabbing you being based around RNG, the terrible survivor AI that feels like I'm babysitting children who don't even want to listen to me, the slow levels up that rely on you to rescue those said surivivors with terrible AI to get lots of XP, the terrible and awkward shooting mechanics only being slightly being better here, lots of bottlenecks where there is one reliable way back to the secruity room, and zombies always finding ways to spawning in the same spots despite me killing them over and over again.

Playing this on normal difficulty means I have to deal with this annoying stuff a lot more. Which is why I lowered to casual. Later in the game, I'm even more unashamed of my decision.

With casual mode, there's less need to rescue survivors and XP boosts happen faster so I'll be able to hold more weapons, take more damage and move faster. This now means getting through the zombie hordes and getting to story objectives is less of a tedious chore. The RNG for zombies grabs becomes less of a hassle to put up with. The same boring treks of getting to the secruity room the same way is over faster. The slightly better shooting and taking more HP, the late game third person shooting sections becomes much more bearable.

So what casual mode does is make DR's design choices more tolerable. On top of this, this remaster introduces the ability to fast forward time so now there's even less tedium.

If I can give the same some praise is at the very least the damage animations for killing zombies does provide some stimulus.

However, while the shooting controls are better here, I still wouldn't consider them good. You can move while aiming but it's way to slow to feel like it's something to be effective with.

This leads to another massive problem, which is the late game after "Ending A", you need to start dealing with firearm wielding mercenaries and it just highlights how bad the gunplay is and why I once again believe casual mode makes it tolerable. When you fire bullets at the mercs it takes a decent number of shots before they can be staggered. Enemies can stagger you much quicker with their shots. It esstentially becomes one big hitscan bullet tank battle where you keep tanking hits until you find healing items and maybe get some quick kills in with the rocket launcher. Casual mode gives you more HP so its easier to get away with more mistakes.

This is all while doing a series of fetch quests while getting from point A to B fighting the hitscan bullet tank battles with the mercs. This all culminates with a bizarre fist fight on top of a tank with some mercenary leader who just shows up a little bit before Ending A and barely had any presence throughout the game beforehand with an anticlimatic ending to top off everything after the terrible hitscan combat and fetch quests.

Almost all of the antagonists with the exception of Carlito Keyes and Russell Barnaby just randomly show up and then you kill them in one fight with them being "weird" and "quirky" being the sole character traits like the Cobra Unit from Metal Gear Solid 3.

Overall, this Remaster I didn't enjoy that much, I was only able to get to the end at all because of how accomadating casual mode was. Without it, I would've dropped again like I did in 2017.

Resident Evil: Revelations Review and Joycon Aiming Thoughts(Nintendo Switch)

Originally, I wasn't going to play Resident Evil Revelations 1 again due to me previously beating on PS3 and later PS4 but the Nintendo Switch does tend to be more open for motion control aiming depending on the game and I've been going through RE games as of late so I decided to take the plunge and beat Rev 1 for a 3rd time.

I learned later that there is no gyro aiming for the pro controller and that this version only has Joycon motion aiming. The Joycons have been something I never liked using but I decided to give it a chance. It turned out to be more interesting than I thought it was going to be. It's basically the Switch version of Pointer aim on Wii which is one of the more interesting ideas that brought to the table regarding motion controls. Revelations 1 with this aiming style is basically RE4 Wii Edition.

This did however created problems that were never there before. Like say playing Doom 1993 without keyboard aim. Aiming for headshots on enemies became so easy and I was rolling with ammo for much of the game. The sniper rifle which was something I never felt comfortable for using is now the best weapon in the game bar none due to the much added precision of Joycon motion aiming.

The slower moving enemies were almost too easy to take out like the Molded on the Queen Xenobia. With them only being in large numbers being more threatning. The faster moving enemies like Hunters and Dogs fared better but with the former, there's less need for melee attacks. The only big challenge to overcome is evading enemy attacks since dodging is context sensitive and reliably evading attacks is moving back or strafing left or right before a seconds or a minute before an faster moving enemies like Hunters can reach you. This isn't the best tactic however. I often did get hit by them a lot and relied on the healing items a lot. Might've been high on ammo but not healing items which prevents Rev 1 from being a complete pushover and a sleepwalk game with this control setup.

The final boss of Rev 1, Jack Norman is pretty challenging with Joycon motion aiming on normal. It can feel like a huge difficulty spike compared to the rest of the game. I questioned how I was able to beat this with analog stick aiming...twice. Or how this was doable on 3DS the system it was first on. This is a boss fight I appreciate a lot in some ways but there are things that are bizarre. As a whole, Norman is one of the series' better bosses in that he has actual patterns and attacks to dodge and it's game of waiting for openings to hit him but those can be guessing games since he can be an illusion and it's about noticing and reacting quickly when to shoot him in the heart before he can hit you. This is well above using your best weapon and tanking hit like in past REs, there is some skill here. One thing that holds it back and can make this boss enter into the realm of frustration is how much HP he has. The only way to reliably widdle his health down was using the sniper. Anything else would make this fight longer and his later attacks get less and less easier to avoid especially his running charge move.

Outside of that, it's still for the same game I enjoyed. The attempt at combing older more exploration based gameplay with action is commendable. The Queen Xenobia sections with the player going to different parts of the ship to find key progression items to unlock different areas is still as enjoyable as ever since it builds up anticipation on where you are going to go next and various locked areas and inaccessible parts of the level you can't go to hours earlier you will go to later on.

The shooting gallery sections are enjoyable since it breaks up the pace of the exploration and it's nice to just let loose on some faster enemies after fighting the slowly creeping towards you Molded. The game also does a good job at having sections where it feels like you have too much ammo and healing items but later on, a longer enemy wave will pop up to drain at least one of these things if not both. There are also timed and swimming sections here and there but neither lasts overly long enough to make me groan at their inclusion. The levels can be lengthy too and this was once a portable game.

If there are issues that are in the game regardless of what aiming method you use are that sometimes, you can randomly get killed in one hit even though you were at full health. Some stuff like the finger print touching was a carry over from 3DS. The aforementioned lack of a dedicated evade command. Getting hit from behind can happen often especially during faster paced segments with high enemy volumes.

The story despite being called "Revelations" doesn't reveal anything about the series' story you already don't know. It's pretty much just a filler arc like many interquel stories tend to be.

Overall, Rev 1 is a very enjoyable game, I can still be engaged by it even when most of the game design never intended to have motion controls and fast aiming.

Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny Review

This was a game I played around a few years ago. I recall liking it when I initially beat it. After beating Demon Siege, Dawn of Dreams and Warlords in recent times, I decided to jump back into Samurai's Destiny again. As a whole, it's pretty much the typical expansion sequel of the time which were prevelant in late 90s all the way up to the mid to late 2010s. Some of it's ideas land but many others miss the mark. It's an enjoyable game however compared to games in the series like Warlords and Demon Siege, it comes up short. It edges out Dawn of Dreams however.

Samurai's Destiny's story is a weird one. In some ways it doesn't feel as confused as Warlords' story was. There's multiple allies to team up with and the villains last a lot longer by comparison to create some attachment. Jubei Yagyu's backstory is a bit more clearly defined than Samanosuke Acehi's where at least you know the former's upbringing. With all the improvements, there are also some new issues, for one there story just has Jubei randomly teleport back to the locations from Warlords with no clear explanation or reason, it just happens. It reinforces to me how quickly put together this sequel is.

The next issue is that in the grand plot of the Onimusha games, Samurai's Destiny can almost feel like filler in how little it advances the story and how none of the characters get mentioned outside of the game itself. Nobunaga's defeat in this game barely advances any kind of struggle.

This could be fine if the characters are enjoyable but that's where the problems start. Knowing or getting attached to the characters depends on how much you gift them items. If you don't even engage with any of this, they are nothing more than background characters who show up on occasion, you'll fight them some of them randomly if you don't gift them things or form attachements but it's hard to care about them as villains since they don't do much of anything and this is what I mean. Due to this system stories can vary widely...kind of. The ending is ultimately the same no matter what choices you make. Oyu is one of few allies in the game that feels fleshed out. Jubei is okay even if I stopped taking him seriously when he said he would kill Ginghamphatts in their 2nd fight and he didn't. He's mainly just a stoic avatar for the player.

Gameplay in Samurai's Destiny is mostly the same as Warlords but there is one major additon, the charge attack. Strafing was a great evasion tactic in the latter and with the charge attack, you are encouraged to use strafe more and not getting hit means you can land some major damage.

Secondary characters are handled much better now. Where with Kaede, there was no need to fight enemies unless in needed to progress the story. Where now, Oyu can soul absorb and do charge attack and what you get with her carries over to Jubei.

You can transform into Oni Form now which was a cutscene in Warlords. However you can't choose when to turn it on when enough of souls are gathered so it's something I did when fighting the damage sponge enemies and bosses.

As a whole, Onimusha 2's gameplay is enjoyable, the solid backtracking and level looping level design is still here even if it reuses Warlords' levels. When the combat is just close quarters sword fights, it's still enjoyable as before, and improved in some ways with the charge attack.

There is two major problems with Oni 2's gameplay, the bosses and projectile attacks. Both can work in tandem to make the game insufferable. There's more archers than there were in Warlords and you can't seemlessly fire arrows and guns and the same time, you have to go into a menu and unequip your melee weapon. Some enemies can throw quick projectiles at you but the problem is that due to this it's much easier to get attacked from off camera. An enemy can fire a projectile from camera angle and by the time projectile reaches your line of sight, you could get damaged. Strafing also isn't quick enough to dodge since the projectiles move faster than Jubei can strafe.

The bosses have all this plus their overly aggressive and fast moving attacks combined that with the fixed camera and strafing not being as reliable and it feels like the game is demanding skill out of you that the controls and game design doesn't feel like it's up to the task due to the amount of times off screen attacks will happen.

The only interesting boss is the first phase of the final Nobunaga boss where it's esstentially a fighting game where the goal is trying to perform whiff punishes on him. This doesn't last long and he eventually starts flying and the projectile problem is amped up to 11 because the camera and slow strafe will make his projectiles you need to dodge a game of luck than skill of any kind.

There is a hub and currency but that gets dropped around halfway into the game.

Overall, Oni 2 is mostly a decent sequel but it's sequel difficulty spike exposes issues that were never that noticeable in Warlords.

Yars Rising Review

I randomly just found this game when browsing through game releases for the Fall of 2024 and found a trailer of it. I'm not very familar with old school Atari games outside of hearing about Missile Command a decade ago. On top of the most well known stuff assiocated with them like Space Invaders and Tetris. I also don't know what the "Yars" franchise is. As a result, much of the fan service and throwbacks that this game has will be lost on me. I bought it a convention and the fact that it didn't release at full price also made me try it out.

Yars Rising is esstentially a metroidvania with it leaning towards the "Metroid" side. There is also some light stealth which is mainly the hidespots in Mark of the Ninja. There is also lots of mini games, lots upon lots of mini games. There's more hacking mini games here than any other game I played, it does make sense within the story since the protagonist is a computer genius.

One major thing I will suggest is to turn on inviniciblity during the minigames. This does not effect trophies or anything. I say this because there is already a timer and you lose health upon failing them. Being stuck on those mini games can get in the way of the moment to moment platforming and exploration.

The way it handles health and missile upgrades and additional perks is also interesting in that you can't permenantly keep it unless you fit it in with a tetris style mini game.

From the looks of it, you could think that Yars Rising is a typical 2D metroidvania and outside of the light stealth, upgrade system and execessive mini games and you right. With that said, while it doesn't do anything standout, it doesn't do anything outright terribly either.

It's an enjoyable game to play in the moment. This is also a forgiving game too with plenty of save points scattered throughout the various maps, the game autosaving after every successfully completed hacking mini game, and the game being too generous with the amount of inviniciblity frames upon damage taken.

It does satisfy the itch that a metroidvania should give you in that you are bottlenecked but slowly throughout the game, you find more and more upgrades that opens up the map.

Music is also solid too especially considering it has the same styles and motifs as the River City Girls games and as a result certain areas of the game can have quite a bit of personality

There are some major standout moments with that said mainly just two bosses one with a spider lady monster and especially with Missile Commander. The latter especially in that incoporates the gameplay of the series it's based on in a boss fight with a really awesome boss theme accompanying it. I can picture many calling Yars Rising a forgettable game but I find it hard to believe they would find the latter boss fight forgettable.

That's another issue with the game. Spider Lady monster and Missile Commander are the toughest while also most memorable fights in the game. Every boss after Missile Commander is a pushover and can probably be beaten in a 2nd, 3rd if not first try.

The last few sections of Yars Rising is also a slog because you have to rescue 4 aliens before you can fight the final boss. It almost felt like this was here because the devs knew that the fight was a pushover.

There is also random moments of unpolish early game but went away the more I played it.

Story was decent and entertained me in the moment even if some plot points kind of feel forgotten about like with Mrs. Davidson and Missile Commander I don't even recall getting a full on death scene. The main character can enter into a try hard of being a quirky nerdy girl character but she never got overly indulgent with it since she never acts overly smug or condescending.

Overall, I expected Yars Rising to be nothing more than just a quick game Wayforward put together and it was just that. It entertained me in the moment, had some solid music and had some enjoyable boss fights. I was expecting to drop this game after a point but I didn't. Not the most amazing game you can play but not anything I consider awful either.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver(Playstation 5) Review

Soul Reaver and by extension the Legacy of Kain series takes me back in more ways than one. Back when I first heard of, "video games with great stories". Soul Reaver and LoK by extension were one of the games that always popped up. I tried to get into SR1 over a decade ago and was turned away by the initial lack of hand holding in the game design. I did finally beat it around 2014 through PS1 emulation and I enjoyed it but apart of me wondered if I liked it because it was one of the first "older video games" I played where it rarely held your hand and was able to mostly play it without a guide. I've beaten many older games since then and the recent remasters of the first two SR games convienently released as well. As a whole, I'd say SR1 while a very ambitious game for it's time and even now, it's hard to not overlook a lot of the design shortcomings it has which were there even for it's time.

When it comes to story and presentation Soul Reaver delivers...in some ways but feels lacking in others. The opening cutscene is easily one of if not the best in gaming. It follows the idea of stories creating attachment in a quick period of time almost down to the letter. The music, the narration and dialogue by Michael Bell, the cutscene cinematrography, the hints and foreshadowing within the scene itself and it's implications later in the LoK series is impeccable. If you want to open any video game with a single cutscene and create a strong first impression, you can't get any better than this. To top it all off, Soul Reaver is a sequel to the first Blood Omen game yet it never feels like you ever needed to know the latter to get into this.

The voice acting as it's been said many times over the years by Simon Templeman, Tony Jay and the aforementioned Micheal Bell is fantastic and is easily some of the best voice work at the time especially in terms of mainstream console games. There are other good things the story does well like how you learn about Raziel's Sarafan brethren as the character kills them one by one throughout the game. There isn't much in the way of exposition but they reveal their characters through dialogue and Raziel's inner monologues as he explores each other their domains. I felt bad for Melchaiah the most since he seems to geniunely regret what he did and is revolted by what he's done. This is a well presented story for it's time especially.

However, with that said, SR1's story can feel like a prologue to later events and is more step up for Soul Reaver 2. With some plot twists and the ending especially playing a bigger role in the latter than the former. Much of the amazing dialogue and thought provoking moments happen in SR2. SR1's plot is framed as a revenge story and it isn't until 2 where it really starts to become something much bigger. As a result, SR1's story feels like a solid first season or protracted prologue to a TV show where it sets up an amazing second season. I'm talking about story so much because this was Soul Reaver's biggest strength.

Gameplay is where things are ambitous but lacking. To describe Soul Reaver it's basically Core Design Tomb Raider meets Legend of Zelda meets the Metroid(before Prime and metroidvanias were even a thing).

One big defreniating gameplay idea is that Raziel can't die by conventional means since he's a spectral husk and thus there are no fail states. Crystal Dymanics at the time seemed to be aware of this since much of SR1's challenge is figuring things out rather than combat.

Combat itself is a puzzle where every enemy is immortal but by burning, staking or throwing them in water, you can kill them. This starts to not matter in the long run since once you get the titular Soul Reaver, this can be trivial but not completely. Damage enemies and stun them and you can get a one shot kill if you get hit the sword dissolves but then comes an issue that there will always be a material realm portal nearby with souls avaliable to absorb to get back to where you were.

The spectral realm is interesting but it's mainly just there to extend platforms to make jumps and to bail the player out of redoing content upon failure, it is possible to lose all health in the spectral realm but the enemies in that realm are so easy to defeat and die in a few hits that you will back in the material realm in no time.

This leaves platforming and exploration. The former felt awkward and unrefined even for it's time. One could criticize the aforementioned Tomb Raider games for not having traditional analog controls. However, once you slowly learn the rules of the TR games or TR 1996 at least, the rules of platforming are very consistent and doesn't feel floaty. SR1 despite having analog controls and the modern remaster having right stick to turn the camera, I still felt like getting jumps right especially in some sections felt like a game of luck than it felt like I was good. The camera can get too close to Raziel in tight spaces, being precise while using the glide ability feels like I could undershoot and overshoot my landing on the platforms and there are times where I missed a jump where it felt like I could've grabbed the ledge or landed on the platform.

There are dungeons and bosses. The opening necropolis dungeon was the best and it never reaches that point again. The puzzles and clues felt like it was slowly guiding the player. Silenced Cathedral was a terrible follow up level and has all of the aforemention platforming issues of I mentioned as well doing x amount of something to progress at least twice in the same level. The rest of the dungeons while not as terrible don't like up to Necropolis. The bosses' biggest challenge is figuring how to defeat them but the clues to beating them aren't hinted at very well especially in Dumah's case.

The metroidvania elements while novel add little to the game. There are no traditional fail states meaning there is no need to get them and you don't need to use them on enemies or bosses. The latter especially since they are puzzles and can't be beaten through combat so the abiltiies give you no edge over them. In Metroid for example, health tanks are needed to give the player more hit points so they can help defeat bosses but since Soul Reaver's enemies and bosses are puzzles, on top of no fail states why would you want to find health upgrades?

Much has been said about the block pushing puzzles but a big issue is the game overly relies on them without much to spice things up. Tomb Raider had it's block pushing puzzles but there were other aspects to exploration like finding keys and plot progressing items, pulling switches, avoiding traps, and doing timed puzzles. The last dungeon of the game has so many of the same tedious puzzles especially regarding block pushing that I wanted things to wrap up already.  

The abilties you get by killed bosses do open up the map and the game does a decent job without spoonfeeding you where to go next in the overworld making the map in the remaster sort of redudant. The abilties do get decent use like the projectile attack, climbing and spectral realm phasing through walls so there is some interesting level scenarios here so it isn't all sub par game design. 

Overall, while ambitious Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver crumbles under it's weight and is mainly carried by it's story and presentation. Still, it did introduce me to the wonders of backtracking and non hand holding game design so I can give the game credit where it's due even there many games before and after that has surpassed it. SR1 is still worth looking into since in spite of this game and by extension the series' gameplay shortcomings, it earned the cult following it has for a reason.

Lost Judgment Review

Judgment was a game I enjoyed for the most part. The game's individual story chapters can drag on for a little too long, I didn't like the forced side cases and the combat much like the rest of the Yakuza series was just so okay it's average. However, the story was gripping even though I do have some other issues with it besides the pacing. I played it because it felt divorced enough from the mainline Yakuza's overarching plot. I did hear some good things about the sequel "Lost Judgment" however throughout my entire time playing I just kept asking myself, "why wasn't this just a TV show instead of a game?"

Yes, I have played the aforementioned Judgment and Yakuza games and I'm aware that they have lengthy cutscenes. With Lost Judgment since I played the main story, a good amount of my time was spent just watching cutscenes and having characters getting into lengthy conversations and exposition. There were multiple times where I even finished food and the cutscenes were still going. Longplays of Lost Judgments's campaign can be 21 hours but the cutscenes are 15 and 6 of those hours are actual gameplay. In a lot of ways, LJ is a TV show where each episode is as long as a feature length film.

With that out of the way, there is already one major issue when starting up LJ's story in that basically it follows the logic of Marvel and DC comics where a major crossover event happened and if you pick up a solo hero or a hero group's comic after that said event, the story is going to be harder to follow. I can accept that but there are also other aspects like there are characters in the story that date back to the days of Yakuza 0 and the first game but I'm just now hearing about them so there are aspects where I'm scratching my head. The Like a Dragon series started off as standalone stories and now there is some greater narrative going on. It's out of left field.

Then there is other major problems like how despite the cutscenes being so lengthy Yagami's allies have less challenges and things to do in the plot. With Saori being about the only exception but she contributes to Yagami's case the same way in the first game. Mafuyu had so little presence that I almost forgot that she was even a character in the story. Kaito, Higashi, Genda, Sugihara, and Hoshino might as well be IMF agents from the Mission Impossible movies in how little they are involved other than just being Yagami's helpers. Tsukomo despite at first having a more active role is not much different than Luther from MI is in the plot as a whole.

I'll give the story credit in that the new characters like Yoko Sawa is kind of interesting and she has enough going on for me be hooked to Yagami's plight. The forced side cases and scenes that don't advance the plot are noticeably toned down. The themes of bullying and vicitimizing are interesting and made me even think about them even after beating the game despite the fallacious logic the main villain has. It however doesn't make me less kind on other issues I had with the story especially where I'm spent so much time watching cutscenes.

Gameplay takes two steps forward and two steps back. The mortal wound system is gone, thankfully. There is only one tailing mission in the main story and there are no progression roadblocks. There are however very scripted stealth segments which just tells you how to do everything and you get a fail state for not doing things exactly the way the devs intended.

There is automated platforming and parkour now. Both are so infrequent that I wonder they are in the game. The stamina system adds nothing other a pointless fail state, it's still your typical automated platforming. If the wallruns are QTEs, it might as well not be there.

Speaking of QTEs, RGG still uses them to this day. They are also uncommon that when they pop it can be a "huh?" Failing one QTE restarts a boss fight and the last two bosses has you do a QTE and then you finish off them off...when 95% of the bosses can be beaten by just depleting their HP.

The combat itself is better in some ways, for one there is a soft lock on when Yagami is facing enemies all though no cycling between targets.

Fighting styles while interesting, I mainly just used Snake since it has an easy to use counterattack and the combos is enough to get me by hordes and bosses.

There are powerful EX moves that are easy to abuse especially one where you are downed and then activate to get a free attack that levels a health bar in. Bosses can't counter this. They also do a lot of damage making me never want to use Burst mode. There is also Mortal Reversals which are so easy to pull off and can can level any enemy or boss' life bar.

Bosses' only major advantage over you is that they can level your life bar before you can heal yourself and many health upgrades are locked.

The skill tree has pointless extra step like finding books.

Overall, aspects about LJ are interesting and improved but it's inferior to the previous game.