Aragami(Nintendo Switch) Review

This was a title I played almost 10 years ago and I might've even heard of the crowdfunding campaign the game had prior to that. I played and enjoyed it but didn't think super highly of it. A decade later with the stealth genre being more niche than ever before and it's sequel being such a big flop that the studio went under decided to make me come back to the 1st game again. Aragami does have it's issues and certain groups of people could put it under heavy scrunity but when it came to being a modernized version of the Tenchu franchise and fuffling the fantasy of being a badass stealthy ninja, it does it's job well.

The story while having some interesting lore and has decent presentation for an indie game with a moderate is mainly just a backdrop for all the over the sneaky and murder shennaigans you will partake in. There's also an interesting twist late game but I did there was some voice acting for me to pay attention to the cutscenes better. Still, it's fine for contextualizing the gameplay.

Aragami is of course a stealth game where you play as a shadowy ninja spirit. Some of it's marketing and asethetics can be comparable to Mark of the Ninja. Since stealth is first and foremost the name of the game, that means you have to sneak around and when caught, there's no combat option of any kind when an enemy sees you and hits you with their light attack, it's an instant restart however due to reasons I will mention later, it's not that big of a deal.

I've made comparisons with aforementioned Tenchu and there's similarties to be found with the vertical levels and the very stylish and swift stealth kills. There's also comparisons to be made to Thief and Splinter Cell with darkness making you harder to spot. It also has Dishonored's blink with the teleporting ability.

What makes Aragami so much fun is how all these abilites work in tandem to create the badass stealthy ninja fantasy. See some shadows? Teleport there. You can't spam this because when you are in the light, you have to go back into the shadows for your shadow powers to be used again. You also create a temporary shadow for a few seconds to teleport into and get a quick kill. Combine with chaining shadow teleports with the stylish stealth kills and it just feels awesome to go on a sneaky over the top murder fantasy.

Remember how I said that if an enemy sees and hits you with their light attack it's a checkpoint restart? You can even chain teleports into a front kill and quickly prevent the enemy from calling in his reinforcements if he doesn't use his horn. It does depend on how dark the areas are and how close by he is to other enemies.

The checkpoints are plentiful so there's not too much content you have to do upon death but there are weird some crutches the game gives you. When you get caught, sometimes there is a Metal Gear Solid 5 style slo mo that allows you to quickly prevent the alert from happening. Considering how overpowered and reliable killing from the front while teleporting is, this was an unnesscary addition.

Level design is mostly solid with them being decently open stealth rooms where you get from point A to B. A stand out being The Mausoleom of the Fallen. An issue is that many of the objectives can be very samey. It's either get from point A to B or destroying light orbs without anything else to break things up. This is something the Nightfall DLC does better since it adds different kinds of objectives like looting or killing guards or finding light orbs to open doors.

I got to give Aragami a lot of credit for having boss fights in a stealth game that actually uses the base stealth mechanics instead of turning into an awkward action game. It's something the genre was always lacking in. The only exceptions to this being Mr. Freeze from Batman Arkham City and Vulcan Raven from Metal Gear Solid. I did wish that teleporting from the front kills weren't so reliable on them since it's more about waiting for the right opening, teleporting and pressing the stealth kill button with a very large hitbox for it to activate.

The guard AI can also be too forgiving which I don't mind but it's been said that playing on normal is too easy as a result even more so if you get the shadow powers. I did what I normally don't do and did self imposed restrictions of no shadow abilities. The base moveset is fun enough without them. The Nightfall DLC did make the shadow powers more accomdating with the level design. The explosive kunai gets more use and is encouraged due to guards always walking into each other or stationed together.

There are some issues when you have to use the teleport powers during scripted sequences, the teleport indicator takes too long to activate or have a mind of it's own. Remember the Mausoleum chapter? No joke the hardest part of the game was scripted sequence where you have to get past 4 levels and avoid multiple light lasers.

Overall, Aragami is a solid attempt at revitalizing the ninja steath game.

Doom(2016) Review

It cannot be understated just how much of an important release Doom 2016 was. For a long while FPS or a lot of the games with shooting in them tend to revolve around hitscan weapons where you were forced to take damage and then spend a decent amount of time waiting for your health to regen. There were your outlier releases like Resistance 3 and The Darkness 2. Sunset Overdrive would have the same ideas Doom 2016 would bring regarding combat where you were always on the move. The main difference is that Doom 2016 would go on to be a massive success and would resurrect and at the same time rebrand the shooter of yester year as the "boomer shooter". Both this game and playing the original 1993 Doom would both spark my love for this genre where before I was lukewarm or indifferent it.

In spite of John Carmack's infamous quote of story in games is like story in porn(which the man himself would later go against with games like Doom 3 and Rage), Doom 2016 does make a geniune attempt at having one. To it's credit, it's moderately interesting in Samuel Hayden wants control over powers that he thinks he understands while Oliva Pearce is so crazy that the former almost comes off as reasonable. The main draw is that Doomguy while being a silent self insert for the player represents how the player feels in that he's just an angry and pissed off space marine who just wants to go in and kill demons. As a result, the player and the protagonist's needs are in line. The story never gets in the way too much and cutscenes are mainly just down time much like the Half Life series.

The main draw with Doom 2016 that everyone knows is the "push forward" combat. At this point, many players were very much used to the idea is that shooters give you flashes of aggression where you kill lots of enemies but then there is a moment of vunerablity where you wait for your health to regen. Doom 2016 makes you unlearn all of this. It's all about getting up close and personal and as the game would say, "rip and tear" into your enemies. Combat is about getting enemies into staggered stun states and doing a "glory kill" to get health back. Enemies also get up close and personal while also having their ranged moves be projectile rather than hitscan. This was also one of the games that brought up the discussion of what "hitscan" and "projectile" attacks even are to many. It also helps that the glory kills have a stylish yet aggressive flair to them and are quick enough to witness without the animations dragging on. Chainsaw can also be used to get ammo back too but this is only used on occasion.

This allows for combat to be an intense ballet of trying to avoid enemy attacks but if you get hit, instead of running away and hoping the enemies buzz off, now just get them into the stun state and get the health back. It's a game of being fast and aggressive at the same time. Creating the idea that you move so quick and nimble that enemies have a hard time even landing a blow on you.

It doesn't end there either. Doom 2016 does try to modernize the franchise. When doing things like this you got to borrow from similar franchises that attempt similiar ideas as a way to bring innovation. Doom 2016 does with both the horde shooting of Serious Sam and and the vertical arena design of Quake. The way Pinkies are reimagined almost feel like they were directly inspired by the former's Werebulls. If you had horde shootouts with large arenas with verticality and launch pads, Doom 2016 is it.

At the same time, the level design does have some weird inconsistencies. "The Forge" feels much more akin to a classic Doom level with it's more open and mazelike design where you hunt down various keycards to progression even the waypoint markers might not be of much help. The weird part is that the rest of the levels after don't do this and while there are keys to collect, it's noticeably more straightforward. That and because enemies are health and ammo pinatas, it does make for a lot of down time in between shootouts to not have much going on. Platforming is on the basic side and is mainly just finding anything green and going there.

There are some nice secrets but exploration to find ammo and health isn't prominent anymore.

I also wished that the player didn't have to choose between alt fires and it gave just one after you unlock it. What's better? A sniper mode or standing in place for the Guass Cannon? Would you prefer a grenade launcher or wasting more shotgun ammo?

A bigger issue after a certain point the game does start to loose steam. When you go to hell for the time the difficulty really starts to ramp up and the hordes get very tough to takedown. After getting the super shotgun and the pinkie demons get introduced, the game reaches it's limits with adding new ideas or throwing any shake ups. A lot of the game can feel interachangeable. It's still fun but it starts to loose steam.

Overall, 2016 modernized Doom better than anyone could've hoped for.

Call of Duty Black Ops 2(Playstation 3) Review

In some circles of the internet, CoD Black Ops 2 is considered to be the last "good" CoD game before the series would become "bad". From that you know what it entails, it either spawns "the loyal few" who still cling on or is a cut off point for many. With that said, while I don't dislike Black Ops 2, replaying it now makes me notices the issues it has all the more. There's also things that I can't help but find head scratching since later games would get lambasted hard for being too "futuristic" but yet this game has that glossy sleek sci fi look that those games would get attacked for. I try not to bring any of this stuff up in my write ups but it was hard to unshake this when playing BLOPS 2. To put it simpily, at it's best BLOPS 2 is just more CoD. At it's worst, nothing added here amounts to anything interesting and come off as trivial additions.

The story here tries to be far more ambitious than the first Black Ops. Where that game was a framing story underline with a conspiracy plot. BLOPS 2 tries to tell a story that is a sequel to it that spans over the course of the cold war all the way to the far "near" future. As a result the story can feel disjointed due their being so many flashbacks. Also I forgot to mention that this was the first CoD game to have actual cinematics and is not entirely told in first person with load screens giving exposition and background details like in past games.

Not only is the order of events harder to follow but there is also other aspects like how the main villain Raul Menendez is trying to get his revenge but it's over the course of 40 years? The guy has multiple goals within goals but due to the how ambitious this story and like every CoD game that tries to tell a more ambitious story, they also very poorly presented within the game's narrative. The only one that is decently presented is getting revenge on Woods for his sister's accidental death but it goes back to the 40 years question I asked before.

There is also the other issues that games like MW2(2009) had like the villains always needing ways to be 10 steps ahead of the player. For example Raul gets captured late game but it turns out he was expecting a traitor to apprehend him and get captured on a battleship.

Jason Hudson is also a barely even much of a character here even though the game reveals he turns heel later.

A choice system is also here but it adds so little and the only major way to effect the outcome is either killing or sparing Hemendez. The bad ending is hilariously awesome so I'll give the game that. There is a reason why later CoD games would never add a choice system again since BLOPS 2 added so little.

Gameplay is the same as you expect at this point. Regen health, hitscan weapons, two weapon limit, scripted sequences, ducking behind cover, ADS, throwable equipment that's just there.

Now you get a custom loadout system but what's selectable are machine guns that mostly operate the same way. The enemy line up is mostly the same. The whole scripted nature of levels are the same so this barely adds anything to the game. You could cut this out and nothing would change.

You got the the FOB missions which are just terrible first person RTS levels and every time you replay the campaign, you got to do the tutorial for it every time. I skip these whenever given the chance.

There are drone enemies now but you kill them the same way by just riddling them with bullets and maybe use throwables to kill them faster.

Another issue is how sometimes levels will have the cinematic play inbetween which can also be very immersion breaking and awkward. I don't mind these at the start and end of every level but not in the middle of one since it can feel like jarring cut inbetween takes. It can also make the levels feel longer since you think a cinematic playing mean a level is done but it's still going.

This could be me playing so many of these games but the scripted nature is so noticeable here. One example is during Phyrrhic Victory when Woods was being dragged the game would not continue unless if I activate a cinematic of him being dragged. Later on in Suffer With Me there is a part where you jump across a balcony and you have to jump at a specific time or you will die.

Shooting has remained the same and the issues with past games are still present. The one off sequences stand out more now. Multiple being in the same level like a stealth section and a car chase both being in Fallen Angel or controlling the robot spider in Karma. This just highlights how the devs are just becoming more aware of the issues

I will add that the music is quite good but the music in the earlier Treyarch CoDs tend to be quite good. I do like the main theme, Pakistani Run and Adrenaline.

Overall that's just BLOPS 2. It's the same old CoD. Nothing new it brings adds to anything substantial. It's strange how this is considered the last "good" CoD when it inherents many of the issues as before with no improvents

Legacy of Kain: Ascendance Review(Playstation 5) Review

If you ever wanted a single reason as to why I don't demand revivals to long dormant franchises I enjoy, stories like Legacy of Kain Ascendance and The Dead Shall Rise graphic novel by extension are why. More often than not, they usually turn into the what is known as the "monkey's paw". Everything about this game and the graphic novel makes me ask, "who in the hell is this even for?" Long time fans are obviously alienated by it but this whole thing didn't even bring in any new comers either. The only reasons why I'm not harsher on this game and why I beat it is due to the short length and story mode. Music is also surprisingly decent which I'll give. I mainly checked this game out of being a fan of the franchise and curiosity.

Unusual for me but I'll start with the gameplay and it's terrible. You think the Symphony of the Night inspired visuals might decieve you into thinking this might be a solid if by the numbers 2D action game but it isn't. I don't mind that it's not a metroidvania or that it forgoes the exploration that games like the first Soul Reaver attempted. LoK never had a truly set gameplay style to get attached to.

At the same time, the level design is terrible the moment you boot up the game, it's full of awkwardly placed traps that are hard to avoid even on platforms that shouldn't even have them since that is where the player could land.

Combat is terrible and I lowered the difficulty to story mode with infinite health due to the parry system not adding much and especially those awkward knife throwing enemies that dart around and move much faster than you do.

Story mode won't completely absolve everything however since there are times where levels have death pits and other times where you can descend lower into the level geometry. There are other platformers that do this but I'm not big on when they do it either.

There will be other awful moments like when Raziel gets his wings and the controls for descending are very stiff and unintuitive.

For some reason, the game even includes trivia game at the Pillars with Kain and Ariel and recall how I asked who was this even for? Why would you have the first LoK game in over 20 years include a trivia game that doesn't add anything to the story.

Might as well cut to the chase. This isn't a brand new LoK game, it's more of a video game adaptation of the recent Dead Shall Rise graphic novel. To put it lightly, the source material is a poorly written mess. What was promised as a midquel that takes place between Blood Omen and Soul Reaver turns out to be an excuse for a Sosuke Aizen retcon inducing original character to ravage her way through all of the franchise's most interesting moments.

I already knew I was in for how poorly written Elaleth was going to be when Raziel kills Janos Audron in Soul Reaver 2, not because he was an arrogant religious zealot but because he wanted to avenge her. There's other infamous moments like Kain killing Raziel's parents turning a character who was once a well intentioned extremist into a generic evil villain you'd fine in some revenge story. Elaleth suggesting to resurrecting Raziel and the Sarafan. It's not because Kain was so cool that he wanted to keep his enemies even closer it's because of some stupid Aizen style retcon. The story even making out that Kain really was jealous of Raziel's wings.

Elaleth herself isn't very compelling since her backstory is very poorly defined due to a badly directed and composed scene of Raziel killing her dead boyfriend. It's so awkwardly put together that it's hard to tell if Raziel was trying to help her or was scared out of his mind. Most of her interactions just consist of her constantly whining about how much she wants Mathias to come back. I could tolerate this but the story never gives any geniune interactions between her and Mathias to even warranting her endless constant mention of her.

Then there is awful writing without Elaleth like how there's a chase scene between wraith Raziel and Sarafan Raziel during Soul Reaver 2 but this can't even possibly happen due to the player controlling the former the entire time when heading back to the Sarafan Stronghold.

The one that really permeates everything is seeing Kain get overly annoyed and reacting to Sarafan scriptures as if he really would care about anything they would have to say.

Yes, the guy who said the line, "hate me Raziel but do it honestly" would really care about these petty writings.

At the end of the day, this all links back to what I said at the start. Who is this even for? Long time fans are appalled by the terrible writing. The gameplay isn't good enough of as a 2D action platformer to warrant the price of admission. It also expects you to be familar with the series due to that trivia game. You are left with a game and by extension story that fills in a niche for no one. Due to the stories like this, I'm more happy that dormant franchises I enjoy are stay dead.

Devil May Cry 2(Lucia Disc) Review

Everyone knows the story on how Devil May Cry 2 being one of if not the most infamous sequel in all of gaming. It's well disliked among the fandom of the franchise and gaming in general. When you think of "bad game sequel", someone will mention this game. You'll most certainly hear a collective groan in any gaming discussion by it's mere mention or presence. As someone who has long since gotten over how much of a mess DMC2 is, I can't help but find it to be a fascinating title when viewed from afar. There's no doubt worse PS2 titles and games in general than it. On top of that, there's nothing for DMC2 to fallback on when trying to find praise for it. The gameplay isn't very good, the game never looked that great visually, and the story? There's one here? I suppose there is but it's more of a vague outline than an actual story. On top of that, DMC2 isn't part of some ongoing narrative where you have to experience in order to understand later entries either. DMC5's recap only acknowledges 2 for about a few seconds at most. If you were to remove from compliations of the PS2 games, no one would care if it was omitted. Gametrailers quote on "Top 10 Disappointing Games in the 00s" sums up the game adequately, "this isn't just some movie tie in game from 2003, this is the sequel to Devil May Cry".

Long rambling on the game's legacy aside, I decided to do something many wouldn't do when playing DMC2: play as Lucia. The game is really short if you do one run as either character and that makes me much kinder on the game as a result. Any longer and I would be much harsher on it.

I already know that playing as Dante is a sleep inducing borefest with how you can stand around firing his pistols all day in the wide open spaces as enemies struggle to hit you or have a hard time even figuring out where your position is. This all changes up until the fight against the Despair of the Embodied but most won't even get there.

Playing as Lucia on the other hand isn't as bad, not good but the lack of Dante's quick firing hitscan pistols does mean you have to close in the distance more by comparison. Lucia's throwing knives are projectile so it'll take a little while before the attack reaches the enemy. Thanks to how much slower it is to deal damage with the throwing knives, it now encourages the player to not rely on one tactic and start trying to get more upclose and personal. Her Devil Trigger still gives her throwing knives travel time before they hit enemies so it's not as easy abuse as Dante's DT is. As a result, this does allow some much needed "depth" to DMC2's combat.

With all this said, the problems that were there when playing as Dante are still here like the needlessly wide open enviroments and the camera not doing a good enough job at keeping all the enemies in focus. It can become an easy game of mashing the knife throw button due to how wide open and poorly placed the camera can be.

It also doesn't help that the combo system isn't based on what direction you are facing but also on how you flick around the left stick which adds needless confusion since the rest of the series and many action games using directional based inputs don't follow this.

Some of the bosses are a little better since throwing knives aren't hitscan like Plutonian but still suffer from the wide open areas problem.

The music is fantastic. It's a shockingly really good OST and despite the game's reputation, I still listen to random tracks from it to this day. The thing is that good bgm is only fondly remembered when everything else around the media in question lines up. If everything else is lacking except the music, it won't be enough to save it. You can look up the "filing dark souls with light" scene from the first Devil May Cry for proof of that.

There is more of a motif this time around with Lucia exploring various underground tombs all though it doesn't really mean much when the story in question is...uhh there is one?

The best way of describing DMC2's story is that it's an outline that has no body paragraphs.

To give some examples, the game's opening cutscene never establishes what the player or Dante is supposed to do. It just ends with Dante and Lucia exchanging names and that's it next thing you know, Lucia's in a village somewhere. Another example is how Lucia's in an abandoned city ravaged with demons then the mission ends with her running into a black void...and then she's in an oil rig? Arius sends Lucia down a portal and then she ends up in some tombs? She meets Dante at the end of the tomb missions and then it suddenly cuts to her obtaining a disguise and already infiltrating Arius' HQ.

It's more of a bunch of vaugely connected jot notes then it does seem to be anything resembling a plot.

Overall, there's worse games to find but due it to be associated with a popular game franchise with nothing substantial to fallback on even at it's best, there's nothing you can't find done better elsewhere. At least it's short

South By Midnight(Playstation 5) Review

I randomly saw this game get discussed and talked about in certain places and I decided to check it out due it to recently coming to PS5. As a whole, I'd say the game is "okay" and nothing more. It doesn't really get any strong feelings out of me but I did have a moderately enjoyable time in the moment. I did start to get sick of the game the more it went on.

South by Midnight is a cinematic platformer while also being a melee brawler with a unique asethetic and a rather unconventional setting for a game.

Story is decent. At first, I was a little offputted that the game sort of relied on you to read to lore pieces to have a better idea of what's going on but at the same time I'm glad it's there at all since it would be harder to piece together without them.

The characters you meet are moderately interesting enough especially when you learn more about Hazel's past and her family. Laurent being the most interesting of the bunch.

I did wish Chapter 11-13 got removed since it slows the pacing down to halt and not much actually happens in it.

Which leads me to a big complaint I have is that the game can feel longer than it is. Gameplay mainly consists of platforming, puzzle solving and combat.

With all 3 aspects, in the early hours, it's reasonable in that you start off with a basic list of abilites you can do but then you slowly get new ones. After a point, it just stops and much of the game design can feel like it's on autopilot.

This can especially apply to combat. At first, new enemies and combat abilties are being drip feeded to the player at a reasonable rate. With different enemy types you got to take down and prioritize. You get a push and pull ability and a slam. Enemies also give health drops and there is a healing item in the arena.

However when the final giant glob enemy gets introduced, combat encounters become more and more interchangeable especially when you add in how lengthy the game can be.

The bosses were creative and had a decent specticle going on. Ranging from bosses you have to fight like Laurent to more puzzle bosses like Huggin Molly.

Final boss was really disappointing and was when I go so sick and tired of the monotony that I lowered to easy. It's just yet another series of horde battles...something you were already doing in droves prior to this boss fight.

Overall, it's strange. South By Midnight is an average game that I can recall aspects of but I'm just completely indifferent towards.

Mafia: Definitive Edition Review

Another example of one of the more interesting attempts at bringing an older game into a new and modern audience similarly to the Destroy All Humans remake which conincidentally came out the same year as this. Mafia Definitive Edition enters into the same realm as it in that it's not quite, "same game different visuals" but not quite "different game, same name". It also has similarities to the Silent Hill 2 remake which would come out a few years in that the story is mostly the same but the gameplay is modernized. With all that said, I never played the original game back in 2002. This Defintive Edition being a remake of a beloved cult classic and will no doubt have it's naysayers due that status, I'd argue even without playing the original, it kept what made the original standout in the first place. Due to reasons I will mention later, it indirectly stands out more in 2020 to now than the original back in 2002.

What Mafia Definitive Edition tries to do is trying to be a playable mob film. One big difference is that this is a video game and not a 2 or 3 hour film. Not only is this an interactive medium but you also have to maintain interest over the course of 10 hours or more.

However like film, you do need to engage the audience in the story as quickly as possible and this goes double here since the narrative is way over 2-3 hours. Thankfully, the intro quickly engages the player right away. You have a great narrative hook of Tommy Angelo confessing his story to a detective who initially distrusts him but slowly starts to get his interest piqued.

There's also a great example of combining gameplay and story at the begginning where Tommy and by extension the player makes a reluctant decision help two members of the mob that are on the run by a rival gang. There's some great cutscene composition where Sam draws a gun on Tommy thinking he might die but it's actually money for helping them out.

Later this is reinforced when Tommy and the player by proxy do a bunch of menial cab drives for rather annoying customers and get paid little for it and then get attacked by the rival gang that you were driving away from earlier in the game.

Making Tommy join the mob that much more. When you add to the fact that the story slowly starts off with Tommy doing smaller jobs like taking down thugs to doing hits to then killing higher class members of the rival family. It's this narrative synergy that works so well with the story of telling the story of a mob movie over the course of multiple hours. All culminating in a fantastic ending.

Remember how I said before Definitive Edition stands out more in 2020 to now than the original did back in 2002? This is where the narrative is also enhanced. This is what caught my eye when I first heard of this remake: the open world is entirely optional.

Where titles like Grand Theft Auto and crime games after would have an open world where it either gets in the way of the narrative pacing or just indirectly have the mission parameters and the open world itself clash in game design especially in the case of Rockstar games. Mafia forgoes all that and have the narrative come first above all else.

It also helps that Mafia Definitve Edition came out in a time where more and more people were getting tired of weary of the game design tropes present in modern open world games so the Mafia remake's adherance to having it be optional indirectly gave it a massive selling point. It's something I strongly respect this remake for doing.

Other than that gameplay, is on the "fine" side. It's functional enough and is mostly there to serve the narrative. There is one interesting aspect about it which is the shooting. It is a cover shooter but since health is finite with you needing to find first aid kits to get back large portions of it. You can't hold on to any medkits and can only be recovered at health stations which gives a weird late 90s and mid 00s vibe to the combat. It's about trying to trying to minimize damage and trying to get headshots as quickly as possible even on normal you have to be somewhat efficient at this. If not, you could lower the difficulty or try to memorize as many of the enemy spawns as you can to be more efficent. I was better at playing on normal on this replay.

However this system can be more annoying during escourt mission with vehicle with finite health bars

Driving is okay but it can be really awkward and stiff at times. I did eventually get used to it.

The infamous racing mission from the original didn't get touched up. It's terrible to play due to needing to be good with the driving and dealing with awful physics. It takes too long to obtain first place and even if you do, the awkward vehicle physics will have your car so badly damaged that you could get a game over by the time you get first place. Doing this on anything above easy is a waste of time and could stump many.

Overall, great modernization of a cult classic that walks a fine tight rope.