Yakuza 3: Remastered Review

Oh Yakuza 3 what an interesting game. What was originally going to be me buying the Kiwami 3 "remake" then turned into buying the remastered version of the original game before the delisting on consoles. To do this along with Kiwami 3 going into the frankenstein's monster direction that it did is one of many reasons why I'm becoming more and more dillusioned and disinterested in the franchise. To put it plainly, I don't dislike Yakuza 3 but I'm getting more and more annoyed by the series' antics the more I revisit it. I did play the original game before and while I prefer it over Yakuza 5, I'm noticing so many more narrative issues with the former and the series by extension. In spite of all this, the main villain Yoshitaka Mine carried much of the game and even some aspects of the Morning Glory subplot too.

This transitions me to my next point and a much derided part of Yakuza 3: the narrative pacing. I didn't really taking care of the Morning Glory children in the early parts of the game but I can understand the complaints in that it has barely if any connection to the main story at all. It's also easy to complain about Sayama from the 2nd game being completely written out of the story when it hinders the narrative growth Kiryu could gain. Besides that much of the early sections of the game is helping out with the children and their problems. Sort of like Mass Effect 2 with the loyalty missions but if there is one thing I can give this game over ME2 is that Kiryu isn't directly solving the problems the children are having, he's more along the lines of guiding them in the right direction. For a game that deals with parenthood, it's decently executed.

This all ties into what happens later in the game with the main villain Yoshitaka Mine. He might just be the most interesting antagonist the series has ever had. The story starts to get much more engaging when late game he delivers Kanda head to Kiryu and the gang. Speaking of Kanda, it's easy to write him off as a dumb, horny and arrogant moron but the story does a solid job at establishing he was only ever able to get anywhere because no one else better could step up to take over the Niskiyama family.

Mine himself has an interesting backstory on he's a self made man who paid to be part of the Yakuza life rather than having it forced on him or choosing to impress role model like Kiryu did. How he wanted to find geniune love and loyalty when he never got when he was younger which leads to a great scene later in the game where Kiryu showing love, compassion and sympathy to the children is more of him showing weakness than geniunely helping the kids.

Whenever I look back on the story of Y3, this is what I often think of since while this is well done. The narrative pacing gets really messy. The game's main plot is about brining a corrupt CIA operative to justice and finding a mystery man, so much of the game's plot is this wild goose chase to find the mystery man. That and long drawn attempt to draw out a corrupt CIA agent. When the plot twist is finally revealed you GO BACK to Morning Glory with the kids again for 50 minutes and then the story can continue.

However what really annoys me and this is much of the series is how Kiryu despite supposedly being a criminal acts like a superhero with his moral code of not killing but then he'll act "devious" and wait for someone else to kill or scarifice themselves to finish off the opponent he himself won't do.

He's esstentially the personficiation of the Lex Luthor line: "I'm not going to kill you, she is. I abhor violence" but Kiryu is supposed to be a hero and not a scheming villain. The lack of any kind of self awareness in the story itself just makes this so much worse and harder to swallow and I just can't take the series' writing at face value because of this.

So parts of Yakuza 3's story I like but other parts I can be downright apathetic towards.

Gameplay particularly is not as maligned as parts of the internet can make it out to be. Yes, enemies do block a lot but it mainly happens with bosses or mini bosses and when that dice roll happens, it just exposes the big issues with the Yakuza combat system. You need to land hits on them to build up the heat guage and if you don't build heat fast or efficently enough, combat encounters go on for so much longer.

On top of this smashing furniture to activate the frantic button tapping stomach punches is the most effective way to do damage and the button prompt to activate this in heat mode is a dice roll on if the animation will happen at all making combat even more dragged out if you don't land this move.

Just be prepared to have a lot of healing items on you since and go to the drug store to buy them since you'll need it for the blocking mini bosses and bosses.

There is also a challenging police chase mini game but lowering to easy helped.

Overall, Yakuza 3 is okay but I question venturing furthur with the series or replaying later games.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North Review(Playstation 3)

This was a game I wasn't expecting much out of. I mainly tried it out because it was considered one of the better games based on Lord of the Rings. Apart of me was expecting to drop it at some point due it to being a coop RPG but instead I had a blast with it atleast on easy mode playing as Farin. Would I call it amazing? No but as far as LOTR games I played before the Middle Earth titles, it's above the Two Towers and Lego Hobbit games and on par with Return of the King and Lego LOTR. To best describe War in the North it's a combination of Mass Effect with the dialogue wheel and two party members, the stories some of the various Star Wars games that run in conjunction with the movies, the loot and gear system that is come to be expected and the finishing moves of God of War.

Everything about this title felt like a bizarre precursor to the Middle Earth franchise minus the Nemesis system. You got a character who can use melee and ranged combat, brutal finishing moves and over the top violence, a skill tree and even sort of a gear system.

While the combat is a little on the simplistic and stiff side, the extremely satisfying and gory kill animations carries much of it. It also helps that beeline it to the next story mission will have the game be about 6-7 hours so it ends before the monotony really starts to set in.

It's a lot of fun to use War Cry, tank so much damage and then just seeing all the limbs of your enemies fly off and seeing the nice and brutal kill animations. It also helps that you get a lot of spell and healing potions and also Andriel will cast her healing shield whenever low on health. Some could argue there's too many safety nets here but considering I'm playing a coop RPG that is meant to be played with people on my own, I don't mind. I just have fun with the power fantasy especially when bosses could get tanky.

Level design is fine and serviceable, nothing complex but nothing that gets in the way of slaughtering hundreds of enemies either.

It's also funny to see to be able to summon the eagles at any time or them talking and playing an active role in the story.

If one criticism I can make is that there is are some super long and lengthy turret sections especially one later in the game where you defend Bruni and Nordi. That went on for so long I almost thought I was going to eventually get a game over and due the tedious enemy wave again. Turrets early game can also shred through your health on easy but this becomes less of a problem the more you level up.

The loot and gear systems can be hard to keep up with when so many are stacked and then becomes a game of stat checking but that's par for the course with games like this. The UI is at least easy to follow.

Frame rate can also can get into nasty dips on PS3 too.

The story is just kind of there. It feels like one of those filler arc stories where it can't interfere with the "main canon" so the heroes of this game have their own bad guys to fight while encountering the characters and locations from the movies. It's much like the gameplay, it's there, nothing overly exceptional but it's fun in the moment.

Overall, that's LOTR War in the North, it certainly isn't a great game but it is a fun and enjoyable romp and in some ways a decent change of pace up until that point with the amount LOTR games where you just relive the big set pieces of the movies. Wasn't expecting much it was a fun time.

Turbo Overkill(Playstation 5) Review

Out of all the "boomer" shooters that have been made, none of even managed to capture the sheer ambition of Turbo Overkill. If you ever wanted to see the feel of Doom Eternal replicated but through a much smaller dev team then you can't go wrong with this game. It's the most ambitious boomer shooter ever created but at the same time it can also come back to haunt it in a lot of ways.

As far as boomer shooters or even just shooters in general, Turbo Overkill is one of the most challenging I ever played. It's not just combat that is a hard time but also the sheer amount of platforming the game has too.

What makes combat so challenging where Doom Eternal has glory kill to replenish health back and chainsaw for ammo. Turbo Overkill at best gives you an upgrade you could by where killing fodder enemy with a chainsaw leg can get you back 1 hp. With ammo you have to find pick ups all over the map.

It does keep Doom Eternal's combat model of being having high HP one minute and then being down to critical the next.

Due to the lack of glory kills and chainsaw, the horde battle are even more intense than before. Every battle is an intense battle for survival. I'll be going through an enemy wave and then mech enemies pop up and I'm like, "damn it" after it kills me.

This is one thing Turbo Overkill does really well. The enemy variety is top notch one you'll be killing mooks with the chainsaw leg one minute, then switch to shotgun or assault rifle to kill the shield enemies, then use rockets to kill the drones, then running and shooting for your life when the mech enemies show up.

The weapon line up while standard like pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and so on. There are some insane alt fires you can have like the sniper having a telefraggins ability, shotgun having shock blasts that can be lined up, the pistol having a charge ability that can level most enemies if line up well. You even get a variation of the Hammer of Dawn from Gears of War here which is always interesting to see in the context of this kind of game.

Level design and platforming also returns from Doom Eternal and they can be quite expansive to how big the space can be. The levels can take so long to complete that it felt like I complete an entire episode of many boomer shooters even though I only did one level. There's levels that take place in wide open cities, traffic, destroyed cities, toxin refinery, factories, a scrapyard and so on. Each one of these levels can take a 30 minutes or an hour to complete. They have lots of platforming then lots of intense horde shootouts, then hunting keys and so on.

It doesn't end there either, there will be levels will you will be riding your car then the maps get bigger and then infiltrate structures while riding the said car, then getting out to progress the level. You'll in a motorcycle chase and then a mech late game. A late game set piece will also happen where an entire army gets wiped out as you are barely trying to survive while platfroming through the level.

In terms of sheer and utter ambition Turbo Overkill almost has no rival.

The sheer scope does come back to haunt the game. For one the upgrade system while interesting, it gives you a tons of perks and options but once you find the one that you are most comfortable with, you never want to try anything new.

Platforming and this might be me playing on a controller can so hard even analog stick can't even keep up like with the grapple hook mechanic, half the time I get past these sections by luck.

By far the biggest issue with the game is how long it is. Remember how I said that one level in TO can be as long as a single episode in many boomer shooters? This is what I'm talking about. The game can especially around Episode 3 can drag on for so long that by the time Maw was defeated I just wanted the game to end already.

It leads to the actual final showdown against Syn and to say this last level was hard would be an understatement. It's so hard that it dampers my experience on a game I really enjoyed. You not only have to defeat multiple challenging waves of enemies but you have to do in a time limit too. You already have to not die but also kill the enemies fast enough too. Then there is a late part where you have to use a sniper where you stand in one place since not all enemies can be telefragged and you could get hit and die here too. Doom Eternal never had this. Then you get to the actual final boss against Syn and it can take a lot of damage before it dies too.

By the time I got to the sniping, I lowered the game to easy and finished the game. I was just getting so worn out by everything that I wanted everything to wrap up. If the game ended with you killing Maw, I would've been fine with that.

Overall, while Turbo Overkill might just be the most ambitious and insane boomer shooter ever, I really just wished the game end earlier so it could be my favorite boomer shooter of all time.

Evil Dead: Regeneration Review

Played Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick prior to this and didn't get very far since it tried to be a combination of a third person shooter and a survival horror game and didn't commit to either. Evil Dead Regeneration on the hand is Devil May Cry meets Ico. This game was borrowing from the latter before it really started to take off later on with games like The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite and so on.

As far as Devil May Cry clones are concerned, Evil Dead Regeneration is easily on of the better ones up there with games like the Van Helsing video game all though the former has ideas that separate from DMC like aforementioned comparison to Ico.

One of the most interesting thing about the game is character of Sam. Where with many games that are escort quests like with Ico or TLOU, you have a case of consantly watching over Yorda and making sure she won't get kidnapped by the shadow monsters. It doesn't help the game has many combat encounters where you are meant to control a character who can't fight. TLOU has a case where the game world won't acknowledge friendly npcs unless if Joel is seen.

Evil Dead Regeneration solves both these issues where Ash controls much like Dante from DMC so the frequent combat encounters are more enjoyable and Sam is immortal so you won't have to worry about getting a game over when dying as him. Sam can also be useful in combat by distracting enemies and you being able to kick him into them as well.

One of the most fun part of Regeneration is when you play as Sam and seeing how many over the top and hilarious death animations Sam has after solving a puzzle as him before controlling Ash again.

There's also a surprising amount of conversations Ash and Sam have during gameplay too which keeps things lively rather than empty.

Combat itself is very similar to DMC. Ash has projectiles with unlimited ammo and one of the most fun things about the game is shotgun juggling with the ragdoll physics the game has. Enemies also can't die from just hitting them so you need to scripted finishing moves to actually kill them and they are a lot of fun to watch. Similar to the melee takedowns from God of War minus the QTEs. An aspect neither in DMC or GOW like being able to hit enemies while they are down.

There's even a rage mode Ash gets which is similar to Rage of the Gods but is obvious riff on Devil Trigger and it's just fun to watch Ash tear things up in this form. Bosses can beaten in short work depending on how efficiently you use this mechanic.

A big critcism is that I didn't even know Ash had a move list until you get to The Woods level. Trying to do the guard break on enemies can feel very awkward to pull off too. You also don't get many of the weapons until good while into the game. It starts to open up more and more when you get the harpoon gun when you are in the Mines level. Unfortunately you don't get all of your weapons until Port Turnham Shipyard level and by that point there's only two major levels in the game left.

Two of the biggest problems are how many times the game reuses the "escort Sam 3 times to open a door to the boss level" objective throughout the whole game. It can be very annoying since while Sam is immortal, but if he "dies" while getting charged up a by spirit, you have to do it again which can be very tedious and the game does become the babysitting escort quest that games like this or feature it can become. Save points are plentiful but most of the challenge comes from these sections. 

The biggest issue however is the story or should I say, it's a pilot episode of a TV show. The entire game is Ash breaking out of the Asylum, trying to rescue Sally and stop Dr. Reinhard. The game is well acted and entertaining enough that it's not completely insufferable but at the same time, barely much of anything happens in this whole story. Almost to the point where it feels like a side story. No big twists, no moments of character development, it's just Ash and Sam getting to Dr. Reinhard, they stop him, save Sally game ends. That's it.

This is where unfortunately where the game gets let down. Outside of being an Evil Dead fan, there isn't much of anything here that you want to come to game to. In 2005, there were your obvious heavy hitters like Devil May Cry 3 and God of War but there was also Prince of Persia the Two Thrones, Hulk Ultimate Destruction and Genji Dawn of the Samurai as well.

Overall, while Evil Dead Regeneration is a solid licensed game, I just wished there was meat to it's bones like a story with more going on and a more evenly paced campaign. Still it's worth checking out if you are mildly curious.

Ereban: Shadow Legacy Review(Playstation 5)

This was an interesting effort especially for a genre that has seen fewer and fewer releases as the decade has gone by and not even by a big budget studio at that. It is easy to rag on how underdeveloped the game can feel but at the same time due to the above mentioned reasons I'm a lot softer on it. After dropping Styx Blades of Greed a day prior to the game's port to PS5, it just gives me even more reasons to be softer on Ereban. Just for the fact that it's just a "linear" stealth affair and no bizarre and awkward attempts at an open world.

It's easy to draw comparisons between this game and the Aragami series. The visuals, the looks of the player character, the shadows motif, the various upgrades, and the fact that there is no combat option. Getting caught once means that it could lead to a game over.

What really surprised that it had much more in common with the Splatoon games than I thought it would. Shadows in Ereban is like the Inkling's ability to travel through ink in that series. You can even attach yourself to walls and surfaces that have shadows on them much like the aforementioned character with ink. The main differences are is that you can't plaster ink to create more surfaces to travel only the shadows is already cast on the level geometry and you can hide under shadows for a certain amount of time.

With that said, as novel as a concept this might be. It can feel more so like a underdeveloped gimmick much of the time. It's often easy to bypass many of the enemies due to how slow they can move and how fast you are when travelling under the shadows.

It's often easy to just knock out a robot, have another robot spot the unconcious body, hide and travel under the shadows and then knock out the suspecting guard.

There are human enemies too and the game does try to incoportate a morality system by having you avoid killing them but they don't behave that differently from the robots.

Different attempts at gadgets are also in here but I didn't really use them that much or as much as the game would want me to due to how OP the base shadow travel ability is. I did you the decoy ability from time to time with that said.

Platforming can also feel stiff and awkward here too especially the base movement ability since your character can't mantle up waist high obstructions as gracefully as I would like. It can also feel unresponsive and awkward trying to from one shadowy surface to another during occasional mandatory platforming section with it. There's also a puzzle section late game that can feel out of place considering there weren't any puzzles before that.

The hardest parts of the game is when you have to deal with key or level progressing item that can't be phased along with you so you have to find a way to travel through the level where you can physically bring the item to the terminal to progress the next level. I did wish the game had more shake ups like this. That or have more enemy can directly influence the environment.

After all that criticism, it should sound like I shouldn't really like it that much, I can say I do at least like it. The level design is at least designed in the "get from point A to B" sqaure and rectectangle design. It's hard to get lost meaning the levels move at a fast and steady pace. The game also checkpoints quite often too so it's never too much progress lost upon death. There's also a really cool and interesting open level at around Chapter 3 that encourages you to explore. The whole game isn't like this and it's a decent way at shaking up the level design. Chaining multiple kills while hiding and travelling in the shadows does feel satisfying to pull off in the moment.

The story while nothing special never gets in the way. Main character can get a little chatty but nothing that gets in the way.

Overall, while the game can feel underdeveloped, I can say as a stealth game it does get the basics right and while I wish there were more higher quality new releases in the genre, I'm happy to say I atleast enjoyed this one.

Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! Review

All I knew about this title going in that it was made by the developers of Warhammer 40K Boltgun which is a game I enjoyed for the most. It did however turn out to be a complete surprise in more ways than one.

Ultimate Bug War isn't really a traditional "boomer" shooter but it also has elements of games like Halo with the two weapon limit, vehicles(mainly just mechs but still) and the the supply drops from Helldivers 2. There's even having other soldier NPCs help you like in a Halo and especially a CoD campaign which adds to the immersive feeling that you are in a large scale battle. It's impressive that this is all done in an indie pixel art game. It gives it's own unique feeling. You got the powerful feeling guns and bugs have satisfying gore effects when you kill them.

There's different kinds of guns like of course your assault rifles and shotguns but there is also energy weapons and my personal a carbine that is hits hard but can't be reloaded like an M1 Garande.

The different bug types do a decent job at changing things. There's your fodder but there also flying ones, armoured enemies and bugs that can shoot fire.

What really puts everything together is the bizarre framing that the campaign cutscenes uses. It's used in the satire videos that were in the initial Paul Verhovan movie but the video game that you bought is now being used as a propaganda simulator to help recruit new members into the Federation. These live action satire cutscenes are hilarious and it's good way to frame why a single soldier is able to feel so powerful while being a single soldier in the military and how the player is able to be so proficient at killing so enemies, the game you bought is a satire military recruitment advertisement after all.

I was already enjoying the game but this whole framing device tied everything in a nice bow.

You could argue that the only big gripe is that the game is too short and can be beaten very quickly on normal difficulty but I argue it would start to get monotonous and mind numbing if it were longer.

If you are unsure on the price, the game is certainly worth getting on a discount.

Overall, now with this and Robocop Rogue City, all it is needed is a solid Total Recall modern licensed game to close out the package. 

Crisol: Theater of Idols Review

For a is a cheap game that was shadow dropped out of nowhere, made by a newly formed dev team that seems to have the very least double AA production values, Crisol is rather impressive for what it is. There are some major issues that prevent from being a I would highly recommend instead of midly but for what's on offer here, it's impressive.

To sum up Crisol simpily, it's a horror game leaning towards the action side where you use your health as ammo for your guns. It's like if Resident Evil 4 and Village combined together. It's an interesting concept but due to the early game hell that is at the start, this is more of a hinderance rather than something you can use reliably or strategically. This could be due to me playing on controller but enemies on normal take way too many shots to die. Your shots in the early game do little damage and I was in many situations where I was either out of ammo or was too low on it due to enemies taking away a large chunk of health when hitting you. Syringes were also very scarce and the knife also inflicts very little stun on top of the parry being unreliable. The final nail in the coffin is that enemies can do a scripted attack when you are at critical health but it's hard to tell how low does your hp have to be for the scripted attack to happen.

Add to how slow paced combat feels and because of how infrequent checkpointing can feel because of this, I lowered to easy. It is still strange how you can't lower the difficulty once you start the game even though the game also allows for custom difficulty but how I can use it effectively if I can't do it while playing the game?

Once I got to easy combat started to get more enjoyable, enemies took much less shots to die, the knife felt more reliable to use and I had more HP to draw blood for ammo for the firearms. Guns also feel very nice and punchy and enemies also have location based damage like both various of Resident Evil. I started to get into the groove of combat more.

There are some annoying parts like traversing parts of levels with a stalker monster coming after you. Reaching it's lowest point in Chapter 2 where you need to sneak past her, kill flying enemies and archers WHILE she can hit you while also being blindsighted by mines when running away.

It also doesn't help that audio cues for mines and cameras are minimal leading to plenty of surprise out of nowhere attacks. Dead Space 2 did it far better when it's explosive alien husks.

After all that, the game gets noticeably easier with so many syringes, healing and ammo that it hard to feel geniunely threatened by anything. The final level can feel long and tedious due to how many puzzles and combat encounters you have to get to before fighting the final boss.

There is also too much of that infamous yellow paint. I try not to complain about it but Crisol has a bad habbit in putting them in obvious spots where by the time you interact with the level, you'll already know that's the only places you can go. The levels are not super open nor is there any platforming to warrant this.

To give some praise, the story is rather decent. Not amazing but the main character has a decent amount of personality and he does slowly change and learn humlity throughout the game despite being hostile towards everyone at first. Not amazing but it's solid. The story doesn't rely on notes as much as other horror games do.

Overall, decent game considering the price and the devs who made it even if I had a lot of issues with it.