Metroid Prime 4(Nintendo Switch) Review

Back when this game was announced in E3 of 2017 when the Switch was still a freshly released console who would've thought it would've taken almost 10 years for the game to come out and it would be 18 years after Prime 3's release, 15 years since the last "mainline" 3D Metroid and multiple 2D games in the series would be released. This also isn't including the massive boom with Metroidvanias in recent times. A lot has happened during the time it took for Metroid Prime 4 to release. After playing this game and while there are some notable flaws, it's rather impressive how much Retro Studios was able to salvage what was already a messy skeleton that Namco Studios made.

This is what caught me by surprise when booting up Prime 4. In spite of the fact it has been 18 years and 2-3 console gens later after the Wii, Retro working on two Donkey Kong Country games and not working on the series in so long, Prime 4 felt like it could've came out a few years after 3. The musical motifs, the look and asethethics of the series, the immersive touches like seeing Samus' reflections on her visor, the game feel all the way down to the auto locking and morph ball physics, it all feels in line with the series. It feels like a Retro Studios developed Prime game in spite of the very long time gap.

The visuals on Switch 1 are also impressive even now and the fidelity felt like an evolution over Prime 3. The only big downer is the super long load times.

With all that said, if you wanted a Super Metroid styled game in 3D like Prime 1, this game won't scratch that itch. In fact, it scratches a different kind of one. Prime 4 is more Zelda than Metroid both older and elements of the open world games.

This leads to the first negative. The shrines are completely pointless since progression in the story locks off your ability to complete them. New Zelda lets' you complete it's shrines in a varieity of different ways where Prime 4 has you do them in one way where you need a certain ablity to do them. Also doesn't help that the map never marks which shrines as not completed.

I'm not the biggest Zelda and I don't care for the overworld Prime 4 has much like older Zelda. If one good thing I can say about this is that if you know to constantly collect the green crystals while travelling around throughout the gme, it will be the shortest late game fetch quest in Metroid Prime history. It could be the longest if you don't know. I did wish the game did a better job at making this clear.

Story also is just there and isn't that great. Not the worst but it just exposes how Samus just feels like an overly expensive moving action figure when interacting with characters since she never even says anything nor do we know her inner thoughts like in Metroid Fusion. It made sense in Prime 1 and 2 since she never has to interact with anyone in those games but it exposes the problems in Prime 3 and 4. The npcs are moderately entertaining if nothing special. Them scarificing themselves the first time being a fake out but then dying for real against Sylux just made their actual deaths diminish the emotional impact. Sylux doesn't have much of a prescene in the story than fighting Samus a few times and then having some weird backstory.

Positives are that once you get past the tedious parts of trying to get to the dungeons like in older Zeldas, the dungeons themselves are pretty interesting like going to the Volt Forge to get the power on. Trudging your way through the Ice Belt with how windy certain parts of the level was. Fighting your way while escourting the characters in Flare Pool and having that really weird fake out countdown sequence or slowly going though the Great Mines and fighting off the Greivers while going through it.

The bosses are mostly solid with the worst being Sylux Phase 1 due to the reviving of teammates you got to do. I did enjoy the boss fight with Phenoros where there is decent specticle and good amount of challenge in dodging it's attacks while you are on the offensive. It was also nice to see the motorcycle get use outside of just only open world traversal. The only awkward part is remembering to use the control beam to finish off the boss. It pops up so infrequently that I always forgot I even have it. Same goes for the psychic glove.

I also enjoyed fighting the Omega Griever since it follows the formula of Metroid Prime bosses of finding out on how to damage it then dodging it's attacks and finally doing enough damage to finish it off. It hits the right spot at being a puzzle and having a good amount of action. My only big issue this time around is mashing A to get out of a boss' grab attacks since I hate doing mashing sequences in any game.

Final issue is that it did feel very grating that some switches had to be scanned while other could be interacted with by just pressing the button.

Overall, MP4 was an enjoyable game in spite of major issues. Games that take almost a decade to release could be worse than this.

Doom(1993)(Playstation 5) Review

There's so much that can be said about the original Doom. It was an early example of gaming going into the 3rd dimension, it helped popularize a genre that is still around now, it's been ported to many different systems and formed a popular franchise much like Resident Evil and Metroid managed to reinvent many times throughout it's long history. In spite of the original game being relatively short especially if it's the first 3 episodes, lacking in features like looking up and down and the lack of a jump. It's still endearing even now. The original Doom is a simple game but what it does is give solid moment to moment decision making and always adding different variations on already existing ideas. It's fine to be repetitive but it's not good to be monotonous which Doom avoids. It's just one of those games where I supposed to play a few levels than stop but I ended up beating all 3 episodes in one sitting since I found it that fun.

The first pillar Doom does well is it's weapons. Sure a little tame by today's standards but every weapon outside of the pistol has a clear and distinct role during gameplay. Shotgun is good for close and long range but can take a quite a number of shots to kill an enemy depending on the range. Doom's shotgun has novelties of it's own that other video game shotguns don't have like being effective at longer ranges too. Chaingun is good for keeping enemies in one place and prevents them from getting closer or firing projectiles. Rocket launcher fires projectiles and is slow moving but can do a lot of damage you might need to guide it's shots to be effective with it. Splash damage can also hurt you and do a lot of damage so it's a no no at close range. Plasma rifle runs out of ammo fast but can kill multiple horde in one burst. The BFG of course is a weapon that do massive damage but it's better to be saved during a huge swarm.

The second pillar is the level design and variation. Doom has it's mazes of course but there is always variations to it's level design. There will be close quarters battles with enemies waiting to ambush you from behind corners. There could be an imp from afar firing a projectile or they could above or below you. There might be a shotgunner hiding from behind a pillar waiting to shoot you. You could pick up a key and enemies will spawn in from and cover your entire flank. The lighting could be a lot darker having you be careful on when is a good time to aim your shot on an enemy. There could be a wide open circular arena with lots of enemies for you to shoot. Teleporters can put you into different parts of the maps. The floors could have lava or be acidic so be careful that your health doesn't drain when on them. Elevators add verticality. Switches can open up new parts of the map or have enemies spawn in. Imps could be behind walls and shoot fireballs when behind them. You can also get crushed by moving ceilings too. There's also secrets to find rewarding people who throughly explore.

The only geniunely bad level out of the original 3 episodes is limbo due to how many lava floors that drain your health there is and over reliance on teleporters. It does say a lot when it's the only geniunely bad level.

The 3rd pillar are the enemies. You got the imps who are weak but can throw a projectile a fast moving projectile. There is a possesed human and his deadlier shotgun wielding variant who are hitscan but can die quickly. The pinky demon and his invisible counterpart where they are deadly upclose but can rush you if you aren't careful. Lost souls that can quickly zone in and hit you but can be taken out with a shotgun blast. The Cacodemon who float take more damage than the imp and can do more damage when firing projectiles. Then the strongest of the enemy line up being the Baron of Hell, they take a lot of damage and their projectiles can do a lot of damage if you aren't constantly strafing out of the way.

When you combine all these pillars together while you get game that while simple on paper can have plenty of variations and permutations on what kind of encounters and levels that can be created. There's a reason why it often gets cited so much when it comes to game design. Combine all this with a great soundtrack that does a great job adding to the upbeat power fantasy and I can see why I beat the game in one sitting rather than take my time.

The only real weak link are the bosses like the Cyberdemon and Mastermind. They are mainly just threatning due to how much damage they can do to you while you widdle away at their health using your stronger weapons. In Mastermind's case it mainly just had a super annoying hitscan chaingun. These levels are short and are over before you know it so you aren't even dwellling on this very long. In Mastermind's case, Limbo is such a long and confusing level that beating him quick with a good amount of health remaining can almost feel like the true reward.

Overall, my love for the original Doom has grown even more.

Tales of Berseria Remastered Review

Been planning to play this game for years but never knew how to approach JRPGs but after playing some YS games and Tales of Xillia, and with the recent remaster, I decided to finally jump into Berseria all though I might've learned recently that it's a prequel to the maligned Zestria. As a whole, I did enjoy my time with Berseria even if the gameplay is worse than Xillia and there are some major issues with the story pacing in the middle half of the game. It's also longer than Xillia and with the story pacing issues I mentioned it can feel that way.

The story which is usually the main attraction for these games is mostly on the good if not great at certain points. The prologue is fantastic for the most part, the initial backstory of Velvet's early childhood could be delivered better since it felt sudden but the rest of it is great. It can be a little reminscent of Berserk's eclipse but there's enough here to defreniate Berseria from that.

Like in Xillia, the characters and the synergy they have is by far the biggest high point of the game. The way the party banters especially during the skits do a great job at fleshing them out during frequent combat portions of the game and is a great way to have the other party members get involved even if you don't use them in combat. It's still shocking it's exclusive to this series. One complaint I do have is that it can get a little overdone here. There are moments you will run for little while if not less than that and a cutscene that is presented like a skit starts to playing then there are 3 if not 4 skits after that. Xillia did pace them out a lot better.

The story during the early and latter portions are quite good and move at a decent pace. There is the middle portions of the game where Shepard Artorious and the Abbey lose Velvet and the team's trailer and they disappear from the story for so long, I almost forgot there was any looming danger the cast has to worry about. There is a scavenger hunt where many of the monsters the characters try to get end in failure and there is this one child monster who is really annoying and serves no geniune purpose to the story. He has one touching scene where Velvet hugs me while unloading his hatred on to her but that's it. There is also a very long section where a book has to get translated and these sections really do move slowly.

When the fight does get back to the villains, it does get good and thought provoking again. There is a twist late game where it recontextualizes her whole revenge quest and it made into a much deeper character. She eventually mellows out becomes more like how she was in the prologue before she got consumed by hate.

The other characters like Rangetsu and Magilou have more agency towards the end and the story finally starts to pick up. It's just that I always have to think, "man that middle section was such an annoying drag". The ending was decent but the fact that it's a prequel to Tales of Zestria did hold the ending back from being more impactful since it felt like it was setting up for a game I'm not sure if I'll even play.

Gameplay on the other hand is where the gameplay for the most part is worse than Xillia. No linking or linked artes, no special move shortcuts, and the gear and weapon systems are presented in a convoluted way. Half the time I wonder if me buying new gear and weapons actually did much of anything. There's a stamina meter which replaces the turns you can do but that just made everything needlessly confusing. I eventually lowered to easy to get to the story faster.

One improvement is that there are actual dungeons this time and the devs seem to know how copy and pasted the level design is so they added those cat orbs to give the player a good idea where they are going without using the full map or mini map. The dungeons are okay if nothing special except for a bizarre water dungeon a good way into the game where you need to press a bunch of switches in a certain order to progress. Whole thing is a massive curve ball compared to the rest of the game.

Overall, I did like enjoy my time with Tales of Berseria in spite of it's problems even if there are certain parts I don't want to do again any time soon like that dreadful middle portion of the game. The highs of the narrative are still high with that said.

Resident Evil: Requiem Review

Resident Evil Requiem is such a fascinating game in that considering how much success Capcom had with Village, you'd think they'd just do a variation on that or just make a more casual friendly RE like last time but no they chose to up their game and attempt something different...or at least aspects of Requiem can feel that way. That's the thing with RE Requiem, when it's good, it's great when it's bad, it can really be stupid. There's aspects of the game that are interesting and adds new spins on existing ideas but there are other parts that ride off the coat tails of nostalgia. It's been said many times that it's a tale of two REs but I'd argue it's that while also being a tale of two Capcoms. The storytellers and as game designers.

I'll start off with the story and to no surprise at all, it's terrible. I always found it amusing how much effort Capcom puts into the narrative of these games since the overarching plot of the series is convoluted fecal matter. I'll keep my critique to this just this game as much as I can. It turns out there's another surviving Umbrella researcher named Victor Gideon. Who isn't named until now among such other names like James Marcus, William and Anette Birkin, Albert Wesker, Ozwell Spencer and are Sergei Vladimir and the Red Queen canon anymore? I don't know. You got a new character through Grace Ashcroft whose mother from the Outbreak games suffers the same fate as Harry Mason in Silent Hill 3. Grace tries to be like Stanley Goodspeed from The Rock but isn't as likeable while asking people if they are lying or wanting to give her life to protect blind girl who is a grotesque monster but only knew her for a few hours.

Leon and Sherry got infected by some virus offscreen and he needs to remind everyone that there's still some connecting tissue to the franchise considering the Ethan Winters games were basically filler arcs. He goes through some CGI movie bike chases with some nostalgia pandering to the RPD while him dealing with both Victor and a Wesker wannabe known as Xeno. It all culminates with Ozwell Spencer being a very important character despite being dead since RE5 and the story won't really acknowledge this. Then the it ends with Leon's disease he got off screen being cured and contacts Chris for more episodes for this on going terrible TV show.

Alright, I did speak about the story in a more facetious manner than I normally do but trying to actually talk about it with it a straight face would be even harder to do.

Now the tale of two REs and Capcom as game designers. The game fares much better here or at least during the Care Center part and to a lesser extent the downtown Racoon City portions.

If we are talking about the Care Center where you play as Grace. It is some of the best survival horror gameplay the series has ever seen. There's so many new things added to breathe new life into the gameplay. You have the zombies with different characteristics, personalities and patrol patterns where their characteristics change the more of the map you unlock. There's zombies like the Chief and singing lady for example.

Not only this but you can either sneak past them by using stealth but if you get caught or you can stagger them with bullets and make a quick getaway or run and try to break line of sight.

The zombies also can't be killed unless if you use a hemo injector or the Requiem Bullets so it's best to pick and choose which zombies you want to get rid of especially on which routes you want to take. They turn into Blister heads and can be very damage spongey, it's better to not use bullets but to either have Requiem bullets or stun them and then use a hemo injector so the game heavily encourages to never fight them.

The Care Center itself is one of my favorite maps in the series up there with the likes of the Spencer Mansion and the RPD. It has enough shortcuts and twists and turns and it's just large enough to not be overwhelming. I still have the west and east wing connecting hall in my head.

This is however not all of Requiem. You got the action sections with Leon and they range from, "this is kind of cool but that was over fast" to "wished we had some longer levels" to "oh my this is terrible". There's the Blister Borne but you only fight him twice. The downtown Racoon City section was the best Leon part since it kind of has the same semi open world that Jacksville from TLOU2 had where there's an overarching objective but lots of secrets and side paths to find.

Then it's all downhill from there. You have a stupid Advent Children and CGI RE movie playable motorcycle chase. Then a REmake 2 RPD visit a series of weak bosses with Tyrant, Plant 42, and a TLOU style hitscanner battle horde fight that ends in killing Hunk.

It gets a better when you play as Grace and have to stealth past Lickers and get resources to use molotovs if caught and ends with a dumb boss against Victor. Who's Xeno again?

Overall, RE9 is some of the best RE but is messy too

Yakuza Kiwami(Playstation 5) Review

Playing Yakuza Kiwami again was an interesting experience because I remember having a fondness for the original Yakuza's story and even going out of my way at multiple points to say it's one of the better narratives in the series and how the series got dumber and the villain writing got worse the more the franchise went on like say Metal Gear Solid. Playing Kiwami again however, it's hard where I got those notions from. I'm starting to think it was me being enamoured by the idea of the original Yakuza's story more so than the execution of it. It's not a repulsively terrible story but at the same time I question how you could make a long running series with an average at best story with an amazing premise like this one. I can now see why Yakuza 0 and 2 were considered better narratives especially with the flaws the latter has or how the former does very little legwork to improve Yakuza 1's story.

Before I start describing why I'm so lukewarm on Kiwami. The game itself isn't really a remake of the original PS2 game from 2005, it's more of a remake that is sequel to Yakuza 0. It's easy to see with Kiryu having the fighting like Brawler, Tiger and Rush from 0 and having his signature Dragon of Dojima locked behind the Majima is Everywhere is system. This is one of the most questionable aspects that Kiwami brings. It's retroactively made after the fact that Majima had limited screen time in the original game and the devs never expected him to be as popular as he was. You love Majima from 0 especially? Here's more of him more than you could ever want. This is still ultimately a mostly faithful retelling of Yakuza 2005's story so there are bizarre moments like where he gets stabbed and then pops up later in Soapland where the story still acknowledges his stab wound.

Then there is how bosses can have fighting styles that are similar to ones found in 0 like one of the Akai brothers having the Breaker style Majima had in 0.

With all that out of the way, Yakuza Kiwami and by extension the original game's story has an interesting premise of a man who was in jail in 10 years and having to take care of his lover's daughter while trying to find his foster father while learning about how his best friend has become a completely different person during those 10 years.

Much of this said story is mostly a series of wild goose chases and completely unrelated subplots that don't really advance the story. For example subplots involving Date and Florist is just filler. When you solve Florist's family issues the dead body with Mizuki pops up not because Kiryu did the favors but out a random picture of that dead body that Florist just suddenly finds. After that Haruka gets kidnapped a few times, you find her. Then go after Shinji and Reina and then the plot slowly wraps up and as you given so much information on everything. It doesn't help that characters like Shinji Tanaka barely show up and have much presence in the story. Shintaro Kazama barely has much presence in the story since he is in hiding for much of it. Shimano barely does much of anything that makes you dislike him. Nishki himself could be an awesome combination of Fredo from the Godfather and Harry McDowel from Gungrave but even he's out for much of the actual story.

I do like some of the flashback cutscenes with him but much of them is going over how awesome Kiryu is. Shimano even tries to glorify Kiryu taking the blame for Dojima's murder even though it was supposed to be an act of selflessness.

The cutscene where Nishki becomes the person he is in the main story and how he got his hair was pretty well directed.

Then there is fact that the bad guys only get anywhere in the story because Kiryu doesn't kill them but someone else will kill them after. This is an issue with the whole series unfortunately.

What does prevent me from disliking the story as much as say the first Red Dead Redemption is that the last few hours of Kiwami are pretty good and has some solid character work. Yumi telling Nishki that he is just running away is a solid line even if the writing up until that point was lacking. The final battle was pretty epic and Kiwami's version of "for whose's sake" make the final boss more epic than the writing did. Made me want to ignore Majima is everywhere more so the song and battle last longer.

The gameplay is pretty much Yakuza 0 but much harder. Heat moves do much less damage. Bosses now needed get hit by heat climax finishing move or else their health will regenerate.

What's worse now brittle Kiryu is even by comparison to the PS2 original. He can be staggered very easily and if enemies have weapons it's a game of how much Kiryu gets staggered and how many healing items the player has to see if the enemy and boss health bar will go down before Kiryu gets stunned yet again.

This does get mitigated with more upgrades you put into Kiryu but it'll still be prevelant.

Overall, while Kiwami is okay, I can see the lukewarm reception it got

Resistance 3 Review

Oh man, Resistance 3 it's easily one of my most replayed games of all time up there with titles like Mark of the Ninja, Vanquish and FEAR to name a few examples. I've played most of the games in the series with the exception of Burning Skies and I at least enjoyed all of them. My favorites being Fall of Man and 3. In spite of me replaying it so much, I'll more critical on it than if I were to play it once or twice, I do get more critical the more I replay which is a side effect. I also tried to play on hard mode this time around. If I were to make one big criticism on R3 is that it's easy to see why the series did die out. This game is completely removed from Fall of Man and also R2 as well to the point where each game in the series feels completely different from the last with the Chimera and the weapon line up being the thing that links everything together. R2 had a focus on multiplayer where R3 had no trophies for mp feeling like the mode was a contractual obligation.

This leads to story and it's easy to see that R3 is more or less Half Life 2. Fall of Man was an alien invastion during WW2 and R2 was super soldiers fighting off aliens in alternate pre Cold War America. R3 is in the post apocalypse where the Chimera are like the Combine and it's a post apocalyptic road trip to get New York. One aspect R3's story does well is how it humanizes many of it's NPCs from Capelli's family and community to Charlie Tent's rag tag fighters to a religious community all the way down to cannibals. When it comes to the people Capelli meets, he has to earn their trust like moving a down battery or killing a monster in the tunnels or helping a captive in the base of the Cannibals. Cappelli doesn't have much personality himself during gameplay but the various npcs you'll meet are interesting enough.

However it's hard not to draw the Half Life 2 connections. You help out Resistance fighters, break out of a prison, fight zombies in an abandoned mining town and fight a monster in the tunnels like in that game all while heading to a Citadel except here it's in New York.

There also some criticisms to the story divorced from that game like how Malikov never tells Cappelli how to stop the wormhole before he dies. Cappelli never talking during gameplay making him hard to connect with as a character. How SRPA couldn't take down the Chimera but a depowered Capelli and Charlie Tent can. How much of Cappelli's assault on New York can be skipped over since he needed to be rescued by Tent and then the former has a sudden epiphany on how to stop the wormhole.

R3's story is decent if derivative and having some major problems. However the story was never really the main attraction.

In terms of gameplay especially in terms of it's weapons and combat, it beats Half Life 2 by a mile and in terms of weapon feedback, it's the best in the series. The super loud and punchy sound effects especially with the Bullseye and Marksman to the very detailed and gory animations to the enemies making very loud groaning sounds as you are hitting them. The weapons like the Bullseye, Auger, Marksman, Rossmore, Magnum are all back but can be levelled up now which makes them even deadlier. An issue with this system is that you would have to play the game 3 or even 4 times just to level up every gun. The level 3 magnum's alt fire makes it the best pistol in gaming.

The enemy line up especially when you are fighting the Chimeran Hybrids is great you got the foot soldiers, Ravangers, Shock Drones, Long Legs, Stalkers, Steelheads, snipers, brawlers and widowmakers are fantastic and keep you on your toes. They have enemies that run that run the archetypes of your close range, mid range and longer range combine that with the weapons and damage animations and it's easily some of the most fun first person shooting in the 7th gen.

With that said however, you won't be fighting these enemies for the whole game. You will also spend a good chunk of the game where there's no Chimera footsoldiers for much of it. The parts where you'll be mainly fighting Grim and human enemies. The latter is where R3 loses what makes it so much and very much resembles the hitscan human enemy combat you often went up against in many 7th gen FPS games. So for a good while of R3's campaign it's fighting human hitscanners and zombies which isn't playing to R3's strengths. Everything does pick up in New York and back to fighting foot soldiers.

This does lead to another criticism which is the health system. I do like that it's finite and not regen like in R2. Enemies also drop health upon death abeit inconsistently. I did really wish your health can regen up to certain thresholds since shots enemies fire can't be as reliably evaded like in Fall of Man since it's more hitscan now. Due to this playing on higher difficulties and using close range weapons feel like games of luck since you have to kill an enemy upclose to get health back but you could get down before you even close the distance. 

Overall, R3 might be derivative of HL2 but it's weapons and combat makes it the best HL2 inspired game. 

Hard Reset Redux Review

This was a game I played years ago. I have hard time recalling it but I want to know why that is and having playing it again, I can see why. It's by no means a bad game just feels like a game that is just there. I'll give it credit in that it does invoke some weird nostalgia with it's whole "early 2010s PC look" and if you want a quick game to be in an afternoon, the game gets the job done.

If there was one novelty the game had is that at least with the original game, it was an FPS game in the early 2010s that didn't have regen health or a two weapon limit so it had that going for it.

There is some interesting ideas here like there is bullets and there is plasma weapons sort of like in Halo but the game never really encourages you heavily to use prioritize on certain enemies. Some enemies are seemingly weaker to either one but it was never I never felt like I had to use plasma on to get down a shield and then bullets to hurt flesh like in Halo. There's also environmental hazards to kill enemies with but even that is never encouraged either. Bulletstorm at least had the skill shot system that encouraged you to kill in different ways.

There's the katana from the reboot Shadow Warrior games but it didn't really serve much of an actual purpose during combat.

Bosses are a decent specticle at least with weak point shooting.

The big issue with the game is the arena design in which many of them feel like corridors that box you in and relying on the same idea of being so claustrophohic that the enemies will widdle away at your health. One later in a trash area was the worst since the enemies can hit you hard and the arena itself is so tight which made evasion really hard. It never got that hard again however. Being able to save anywhere does help at least.

Overally, I can see why I had a hard time recalling Hard Reset Redux, it's by no means terrible but Flying Wild Hog would later do much better than this especially with Shadow Warrior 3 and Evil West.