Yakuza: Kiwami 2 Review

There are some memories attached to the PS2 release of Yakuza 2 in which I emulated the game 10 years ago. It was also one of the first game I ever recall using emulation on PC for, at least the first batch of games. When this remake was announced, I thought it was never going to come to the west or at least this back before Yakuza 0 really took off in the west and now the series gets active releases in both Japan and North America. I've fallen out of the series but I bought this remake a couple of years ago on a sale and I felt like revisiting the story of Yakuza 2 again. I do remember how back before 0 really took off in popularity, at least in terms of writing, this was considered the pinnacle of the series or 5 was. I was baffled at how this was considered to be well written.

This leads to story and Yakuza 2's story is one of the biggest mixed bags, I have ever experienced. Not even sure if I can outright call it "bad" since after all I got to the end of the game and rolled credits. I am well aware that the series is known for being "dumb" and "doesn't take itself seriously" but that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want and still have any form of crediblity. There still needs to be some consistency and logic to follow or you might as well call scribbling with crayons a "story" too.

The best way of describing Yakuza's narrative is like hanging around with a person who has crazy mood swings and has bizarre episodes. There is a lot of interesting and entertaining moments but there is a lot of "what the hell" or "why" moments to go along with it. At times, Yakuza 2 can feel like Metal Gear Solid 2 but more so the zany and wacky aspects of the latter and less of the meta commentary on society and sequel culture.

The very existence of Yakuza 2 contradicts the ending of the first game where Nishki, Shintaro and Yumi's deaths never meant much in the grand scheme of things or even guarenteed Kiryu and Haruka having a happy life with their scarifices.

With that said, the story of this sequel for the most part is fun in the moment. It is carried by arguably it's main antagonist Ryuji Gohda. He's a very fun, entertaining and charismatic villain the kind of character you'd expect in an action film. He doesn't have an overwhelming amount of screen time but when he does show up, he makes an impression like early game where he raids a meeting with the Tojo and Omi and kidnaps leader of the latter. His manly sense of honor prevents him from too one note and predictable.

The character of Sayama, I sort of get what RGG was trying to do with her in that she's supposed to be a female cop who inspires fear in gangsters. The idea I got was that deep down she never really wanted to be a cop but just used the police force as an excuse to find out about her past but she tends to either too useless or helps out in ways that can feel bizarre and unearned. Examples of the former being shot by a sniper in Sotenbori and then fainting when enterting Kamurocho after regaining conciousness. The latter is when it turns out she was part of a cyber crime unit the whole time with no hints of her being good with computers or shooting fake Kazuki because he was unaware and not because she was a geniunely good shot.

Then from Chapter 12 onwards and especially the final Chapter, it just amps the stupidity up to 11 almost to the point where I wonder if there is has any crediblity left especially with how the character of Terada is a heel-face revolving door and I'm not even sure who's side he was even on the whole time and he was supposed to be just a face in the first game with no hints of being possibly being a heel. There was also a deus ex machina where Majima, this whole time had a camera system not even Florist knew of.

There is also a fare share of filler here and there and you will know because the dialogue in the text boxes aren't voiced.

There are some scenes are appreciate more now like teenage Kazuma tring to help out Kazama but by helping him, the former made things worse. My personal favorite is that Majima knew Terada wasn't the "good man" that he sold himself as.

I'm talking about story so much because if you choose to just do story quests much of the game is cutscenes all though the story to gameplay ratio is mostly solid here. After a lengthy cutscenes 9 times out of 10 there will be a gameplay section that will last just as long depending on skill level. The bosses can last pretty long more on that latter. However due to them taking so much abuse, it does make getting that lengthy story cutscene feel like a geniune reward. 

It will mainly the exploration of cities and combat. I did like buying various foods at resturants to get more stat points and to heal up without using a cosumable. The skill tree is mostly stat based and by the end, the stat tree will be mostly upgraded.

Then there is combat which is "fine". This is in the Dragon Engine, the one used for Yakuza 6. It's not amazing but it gets the job done. Weapons are fun to use and it's mainly about crowd control. The wonky grab button and physics are the biggest enemies since one hit can send Kazuma flying across the arena. 

The biggest enemy against bosses where the hurdles is trying to have Kazuma realign where he is facing the enemy after doing a combo on his opponent and then they quickly dash out of his line of sight. Let go of lock on and then lock on again. There is also how much abuse bosses can take before getting staggered when powered up in "Heat Mode" form with only charge attacks being able to hurt them but then they can run up hit and then stagger you. 

What cancels this out is how much money the player can accumlate just by fighting in random battles so items can cheese much of the encounters on top buying food at restaurants like I mentioned earlier. 

There is decent progression of getting new moves, heat attacks and getting higher stats. It gets easier the more it goes on. I got so much money that I bought weapons and items and the final fight was over fast. This was the opposite in the PS2 game since you didn't get nearly as much money in abundance as well as weapons and items to plow through the late game mobs with ease. The only time I died was getting attacked by rocket launcher enemies who blindsighted me and killed me in 2-3 hits. 

You also get a save point, abilties to organize items and buy new ones after the elevator fight in Chapter 16 too. This section was much easier than the PS2 original game. 

Overall, Kiwami 2 is a decent remake. There are those who are critical of Kiwami 2 itself but it's a fine enough of version if you want to experience the story of Yakuza 2 for the first time and has enough new ideas of it's own and are executed decently enough from a gameplay standpoint that it won't feel like you are going through the motions when wanting to revisit it after a while. Not the best remake you can ever play but definitely a middle ground one.

Hitman: Blood Money Reprisal Review(Nintendo Switch)

This particular Hitman game I always had a soft spot for, it's what got many to finally embrace Hitman as a concept. It was one of the first games I recall getting when I used to collect for the PS2 back in 2012. Blood Money was also one of the first games I played when I started to learn more about the design aspect of video games.

There is a "modern" port of it on Nintendo Switch with the Reprisal version and I decided to get that when revisiting it. Reprisal is mostly the same except for some UI and button layout changes and the inclusion of instinct mode from later Hitman titles. It also crashes from time to time but that seems to be universal among all versions even if I mainly experienced them in Reprisal. Instinct is also useless since the mini map and menu map are still objectively better for guard and assassination target tracking.

That out of the way, one interesting thing that puts Blood Money above many if not all of the other Hitman games is the story. It's surprisingly easy to follow and well presented. The cutscenes are decently composed and don't go on for too long. The idea of a framing story for this kind of game works hand in hand with the premise of the series. The mystery of how Agent 47 even gets caught despite all of these assassinations that are happening is enough to keep to keep the player glued when there isn't gameplay going on. Where Absolution has a lot of questionable writing and World of Assassination gets a little too hard to follow with it's overarching plot, Blood Money hits the sweet spot. There is some rather silly plot points especially with the idea of "legalizing" cloning but at the same time, these cutscenes are never long enough that you start pondering and questioning such bizarre concepts as the one I mentioned.

Apart of me also felt bad for a certain part at the end where the player by extension 47 has to kill a character due to unfortunate circumstances than because he was geniunely bad.

Gameplay is starts off on a bad foot. The tutorial level despite having one good line from 47, having a decent atmosphere and in some ways having the most sympathetic target in the game is awful in how it hand holds the player and how overly scripted it can be. If you want to talk about bad tutorials, this is a good contender since by the end of it, the player might not even have a good grasp on how the game even plays since distractions, disguises, traversal, human shield, and the controls are taught very well due to this, it can give a first time player a bad impression. I always get one every time I play this level.

The following mission after is where things let up and this is where the game's biggest asset shines: the level design. If there is one thing, Blood Money excels at is how the levels feel decently open but not feeling way too big to the point there is a lot of filler and needless amounts of empty space. Every level in BM is essentially one big square and there are multiple buldings and interiors withing that gigantic sqaure to look to find points of interest and guards to takedown and steal their disguises to get into restricted rooms much easier.

Hitman is said to be a "stealth game" when really the hardest parts of every game is when actual stealth of not being seen and not having potential witnesses where much of the challenge comes from. The challenge raises when trying to avoid witnesses and then it goes back down when obtaining a disguise to get into restricted zones. Blood Money also adds traversal options like climbing up pipes and jumping accross balconies to access restricted areas easier.

Add to the more accomadating enemy AI the series ever had up until that point where the guards aren't as twitchy as before and the sheer variety of locales and scenarios and it's easy to see BM despite it's flaws, won me over. You will be going to Opera Houses, to a party disguised as a drug lab in Chile to a Cruise Ship, to a Casino in Vegas all the way to the White House.

The save system on normal is also accomdating for first time players since the levels and missions by extension are short enough that 7 saves is all you need, it creates tension on when to save and when not to. So no save scumming willy nilly. Milage may vary on how well you know the levels however.

This does lead to 3 issues that work in tandem. The notriety and upgrade system as well as the final two levels. As the title implies you get money after each hit and depending on how money witnesses and kills you get, your notriety will increase. On normal difficulty especially the more you play it just minimizing casualities, you will rack up enough money to pay off the notriety AND be able to pay for all stealth and even upgrade one or two weapons by the time you reach the White House level. You get too much money to maxmize 47's stealth skills before reaching the end of the game. 

By that point, 47 will be able to have some painkillers, take more damage and even fully upgrade a weapon which makes what is supposed to be a challenging mission of infiltrating the White House too easy even with a lot of witnesses and kills you can STILL clear your notriety at the end of the level. 

The epilogue level "Requiem" requires you to shoot everyone in the level to end the game so you might as well get used to the shooting mechanics in the White House mission.

Overall, solid game, if you can get past the lack of modernized mechanics and controls.

Cold Winter Review

I might've remembered seeing this game pop up from time to time when discussing lesser known PS2 games. It will inevitably get talked about when discussing games on the system that aren't your usual mainstream heavy hitters that released on the system or didn't get a port, remaster or a remake of any kind. It's one of those games where if you are really into the PS2 and the 6th gen by extension, there will be some talk of it.

With that out of the way, Cold Winter is a title that is very much on the generic side but by no means do I equate that as "bad" like many others on the internet do. While Cold Winter is very much a serviceable game in everything it does, nothing about really pops out or it doing anything that other games and by extension media hasn't already done or explored. It doesn't have overly extravagent production values or presentation either. While the game fuffils a basic power fantasy, it's easy why a franchise never formed from this title.

What Cold Winter basically is that what if you were a console only player but couldn't play games like No One Lives Forever and Soldier of Fortune? What if you got a character like James Bond without being James Bond? What if you got Lian Xing from Syphon Filter in there?

That's Cold Winter in a nutshell, when playing it in the moment, it's like watching those random action movies that would play on TV or come across when the algorithm of a streaming service recommends something to you.

There's elements of No One Lives Forever with gadgets like lock picks and decoding tools. There's also looting and health being heavily reliant on how much body armor you have rather than just your HP bar. Something exclusive to this is crafting various items to open doors for various chests and rooms but these are all nothing more than just secrets for you to get and you'll always have enough ammo to get by. Looting guards will always get your damaged body armor back. You can also get your HP back by pressing left with no limits on it's use. However there is a slow animation where your moment is reduced when this animation is active so it isn't spammable.

There's optional stealth but you are already a one man army since looting guards and exploring levels will get your armor back. The crafting items offer no different paths to get through a level and is just for secrets.

You have the high amounts of gore like in Solider of Fortune and because of this combat can be very stimulating and fun to just see what body parts will fly off when shooting enemies. It does make the firearms you feel that much more powerful.

Burst firing will also be nessescary to active hit targets and the enemy count is high enough that throwing grenades is encouraged to thin out the herd.

There's also objective markers and the game mostly telling you where to go so there is much problem solving or outside the box thinking. Game also checkpoints often and much progress isn't lost upon death. I did beat this on PCSX2 but I can say this is beatable on base hardware with hardly any hair pulling moments. It's one of the easiest games you can play on PS2.

One big issue with the game is that the controls and movement can feel very sluggish. When moving, it can feel like you are on ice where moving right after you let go of the left stick your character will still have some momentum left after letting go. That and the occasional platforming can feel awkward due to the small jump arc and the momentum issue I spoke of earlier. These moments controls are going to be your biggest enemy when playing.

The story is kind of there. The cutscenes are decently detailed with the character models and there is some decent camera work with the cutscenes. Voice acting is fine. The jarring part is how long cutscenes can go on for, some of them being completely disconnected with the player did in the game beforehand. Still, nothing overly awful here.

Overall, that's Cold Winter, it does everything serviceably and competently. It's not terrible but it's fun in the moment due to the over the top and gory combat. The fact that there is no instant fail stealth sections with terrible AI or any overly frustrating game design does help make the game the decent action movie romp that it is.

Ultimate Spider-Man 2005(Playstation 2) Review

Like Spider-Man 2 the game, I also played Ultimate Spider-Man 11 years ago. Where my opinions on the former has changed and I enjoy it much more now. The latter however is a game that makes two steps forward and two steps back. I still enjoy it but Spidey 2 just felt more cohesive and consistent experience which is crazy for me to say that considering that was a movie licensed game where this one is an original story? Or is it? 

This transitions me over to story. Ultimate Spider-Man's story is esstentially a filler arc, an original movie, OVA or original content not in the source material that anime adaptations of manga would do for the longest time. It's such a strange approach for a game story which is makes this game's existence as a whole questionable in the long run. It takes place after the Venom story arc during the Ultimate Spider-Man comic run which was issues 33-39. There's already red flags since in order to understand what is going on this story, you'd need to read the Ultimate Comics. Since the dynamics between Peter and MJ and later the former and Nick Fury are going to be harder to understand. Some might even think the woman with Nick could be Black Widow but it's Ultimate Sharon Carter. They also name drop the "Ultimates" in one cutscene which is the Ultimate Universe's Avengers, this was before the 2012 MCU movie would come out so hats off if you spotted that in 2005 or before the 2012 MCU movie came out. 

Then this leads to other issues like how Bolivar Trask is one of the key villains of this game yet there is never one mention of the X-Men. 

If you did read the comics, it's not like your homework is even rewarded since there is a chase and boss fight with Ultimate Green Goblin and Peter has no idea who he even is. If you already didn't think the former was The Hulk with fire powers. Gwen Stacy was also a promnient character during that aforementioned Venom arc of the Ultimate comics, she's no where to be mentioned or found here. It's not like this all matters considering like the original material in anime adaptations, this is all non canon and have no bearing on anything, status quo is god by the end like in those anime original content stories. 

This already an aspect Spider-Man 2 does better since it just takes the themes of the movie and by extension the Spider-Man mythos and repurposes it into an open world game plot. All that baggage you don't need to deal with. 

What does carry the story and prevent it from outright bad is the beautifully rendered comic book panel cutscenes and the solid voice acting. It may not be a very well written or even interesting story when it isn't piggy backing off your knowledge of the Ultimate comics, it's sort of like just watching a movie it's nice to look at even when the writing isn't landing. The cel shading still holds up now is quite presentable today and is one thing it does do better than Spider-Man 2 the game. 

Gameplay fares better but it is held back by a short length and an uneven story campaign. The Spider-Man city traversal is just as great as ever with major improvments. The double jump makes movement more fluid and flashy since you can jump over large buildings with it. There's also the wip zip which combined with double jumping can make you dart around the city like a living springboard. Web swinging while being more realistic doesn't detract the traversal since web zip and double jump can be used in conjuction to keep you in the air longer. It becomes a fun self imposed challenge of how long you can keep Spidey in the air before touching the ground. The only big issue is that swing boosting doesn't have the feedback it once did without the swoosh effect when doing it in Spidey 2 making me not want to engage with it as much since holding the boost button looks the same as regular swinging.

Combat as Spidey is the definition of just "there". It's not anywhere nearly as prevelant as 2's movie game. You just need to beat up thugs in the combat tours and city events but just by punching, Spidey darting along walls and webbing up enemies will get you by as for as ones to unlock main story missions.

Much of the story campaign is bosses and chases. The latter being noticeably harder due to retrying a few times figuring out the AI pathfinding since you don't have line of sight on them and the chase arrow is just moving back and forth before it can go back to going straight again during that a good amount of distance is created and a few seconds is enough get a game over. This is where much of the game's challenge can come from. That and those obnoxious trigger mashing mini games to open doors whether it's be lifting cars as Spidey or opening doors as Venom. These almost feel like a game of luck, I wished there was God of War's mashing circle instead.

Bosses as Peter are little hard at first but the key to them is jumping out of the way when the spidey sense indicator and then hit them with air attacks.

Spidey also shares this game with Venom. As a whole, I'd find him to be decent even if it's hard not to unfavourbly compare him to the Hulk in his game that came out in 2005 with Ultimate Destruction. Venom can leap large distances and can also run up buildings much like Hulk in UD, he has a small web zip too. Mook combat as him is a little dull since it's just eating innocents to replienish health and spamming that 3 hit tendrill attack combo. Bosses fare better since they can also get back health and you have to deal with other factors around venom like the billboards with Electro, the doors with Carnage, and dealing with enclosed space with no one to feed on and laser pits when fighting Beetle.

Overall, since it's short and has 19 missions with a two character split, you could play Spider-Man 2 if you want to play as just Spidey with no Ultimate comics knowledge to get what's going on and if you want a to play as a large and bulky character that can make large leaps and wreck havoc play Hulk Ultimate Destruction. The biggest problem with Ultimate Spider-Man is how everything down to it's story and gameplay feels directionless and confused. The visuals being the one major thing that stands out the most. It is worth playing just to experience how confused it is. 

Timeshift(Playstation 3) Review

Whenever I think of Timeshift, the demo on the early days of the Playstation Network on PS3 is what I always thought of. Out of all the demos I played this I did play an awful lot. The time manipulation powers just felt so inherently cool and awesome. Not a lot of shooting games even give time powers outside of Quantum Break so Timeshift has some novelty to it. That is weird thing about it, the game is extremely derivative but the game rips off so many titles that released in the 00s that it inadvertantly becomes innovating in an extremely bizarre way.

Before I start, the game does have a strange glitch where the PS3 version if you remain idle when paused for too long, the melee attack animation will trigger on it's own in an infinite loop and then crashes after a few minutes.

The story of Timeshift is incomprehensible and hard to follow, the cutscenes are too vague to get a clue on what's happening. There's an evil dictator name Krone, main character goes back in time, there's a resistance you help them, Krone dies and it seemingly ends. There are some jarring ways the story is told like how it has cutscenes in the middle of levels when the story is presented in first person. There's a reason why Half-Life never cuts away from Gordon's perspective or even games like Call of Duty and Halo where the cutscenes often happen at the start and end of every level but never in the middle of one. The advantage of the first person perspective is how it creates the illusion of going through one take without the issues that film crews go through when making them.

Timeshift makes it almost too obvious how much it loves Half Life 2. There's a resistance and dictator who talks on the radio like Wallace Breen. It doesn't end there. There sections where you are going through a canal, a lengthy vehicle sequence remiscent of Highway 17, breaking into and out of a prison, going through vast outdoor areas of land on foot to get an enemy stronghold, there's also helicoptor fights, vehicle riding in first person and puzzles to solve too. There's also loading screens when entering a new part of the level. Weapons have alternate fire modes too.

The devs really like Half Life 2 but it doesn't just end there. There's the variations of bullet time from both Max Paynes 1 and 2. A radar that displays enemies, melee attack, grenade throw button like in Halo. Rewind like in the Prince of Persia Sands of Time Trilogy. There's also aspects of FEAR games like a 3 weapon limit and where many enemy encounters begin with enemies in an unaware state with death animatons being gory and over the top like in those games.

You can ridicule and mock the game to death for how "uninspired" I just made it sound. This is where the charm comes in and loops back in of itself. Half Life 2 doesn't have FEAR's over the top and gory combat. Max Paynes 1 and 2 doesn't have Halo's instant grenade throw button. Halo has regen health but doesn't have the bullet time of either Max Payne game as a quick way to save yourself when at critical health or get the quick drop on enemies. You may not be able to hold all guns like in HL2 and Max Payne but you get a little more flexiblity with the 3 weapon limit. To top everything off, Timeshift's various guns while standard fare also have their own alternate fires like in HL.

This makes for the most entertaining frankenstein's monster combat system ever created. You can can freeze time to disarm and quickly kill enemies, time speed up to make to quickly close the distance, throw a grenade to get some group kills. Use time freeze to better aim shots. You can even use time speed up to make the assault rifle have a faster fire rate and use the grenade launcher. You can also hold powerful weapon to keep for later along with the assault rifle and shotgun like a rocket or sniper. When low on health, time speed up to some far away cover or freeze to quickly kill an enemy in front of you.

The game is very much worth for it for how derivative yet indirectly unique the combat because of that.

Gameplay issues with the game is that the turret sections are dull and out of place. The saving grace is that you can use your time powers during these parts. The rewind ability serves no purpose outside of mandatory puzzles and you can quick save anywhere. Rewind is only here so the puzzles can exist. It's so useless in combat, it's easy to forget this power.

There is also random sections where there are hazards that can kill the player very quickly if you don't use your time powers in time to save yourself, the voice in the suit will give you a warning but they can still be rather intrusive since they can be trial and error.

First level is terrible since you have to play it like every other regen health shooter with far off enemies and waiting for health to regen. The 2nd level is when it gets good.

Overall, Timeshift is bizarre in that it rips off so many games that it indirectly makes becomes fun and memorable.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream Review

This was a completely random game for me to play. I browsed social media and this title popped up and heard it was a stealth game of some kind. It also seemed to be released at a reasonable budget price so I decided to buy it without waiting for a sale

With that said, I'll praise this game for the fact that the game is so unapolgetic about the kind of audience it's appealing to. If you enjoy early Splinter Cell before Chaos Theory and games like Shadow Tactics, it is very much a game in the style of those where much of the time is spent is failing over and over until you finally get it right.

Two big points to Eriksholm's favor is that the game is only about 8 levels long and while there isn't a saving anywhere feature, it tends use invisible save states where you respawn a minute after death as long as you are in a safe spot. It can take at least one game over before the save state can kick in. You can beat the game in 5 hours but depending on how many fail states you get, it could get longer but it won't be nearly as draining as Shadow Tactics since that has 13 levels. All this played a massive role in how I got to the end of the game.

The story while awkwardly presented at first and can get a little hard to follow does have some interesting characters and writing. With Alva and Sebastian being standouts. The former I inherently have a bias towards since she resembles the Thief series' Garrett. She does have the whole surrogate mother dynamic with Hanna. They both had a falling out where one embraced the thieving life while the other wanted to escape with her brother. It's an a solid dynamic to work with. Sebastian choosing to help due to the aforementioned characters, past histories instead of just getting away from it all does give him character.

What I love the most is that, it's a modern story driven game and an original story not connected a pre established franchise where it has a standalone complete ending with no cliffhangers or sequel set ups. That was very refreshing to see.

The gameplay is weird, too weird in fact. I'm familar with the aforementioned games like pre Chaos Theory Splinter Cell and Shadow Tactics. The latter I never finished but I'm experienced with the stealth genre or games about evading guards without being seen. I knew what I was getting into when I first started it.

When I was just playing as Hanna and there was no blow pipe to use, the game was enjoyable. This is about the first 3 of the 8 levels and some of the last level. You can't be seen and it's a game over if you do but since there is only character to account for and it's about oberving the environment to find the "avoidance path", it's a game of just figuring out what order to do things to for the optimal outcome like a stealth game with a heavy emphasis on problem or puzzle solving. There were game overs but I learned with each failure.

Things were starting to look up when controlling Alva since she can climb up pipes, cause distractions and shootout lights like Garrett and Sam Fisher can do in their respective franchises. There is also a darkness system which only made things more promising.

Then the problems all start rushing all at once. After the brief section where you control Alva in level 4 and the sewer puzzle with Hanna. What Eriksholm becomes is a game of where there is only one ideal way of solving any problem. With only Hanna, this was fine since I'm just accounting for her outcome to slip past the guards, with Alva and later Sebastian I now have to account for 3 characters to slip past the guards.

One character getting seen is or a unconcious body found is an instant fail with it also accounting for 3 characters, everything just turns into failing over, over and over again just to have an ideal outcome with Hanna, Alva and Sebastian can all get to the end of a section.

The biggest problem and the thing that just really annoyed me about this game is trying to get Hanna's blowpipe not to get you a game over every time it's used at all. If Metal Gear Solid 2-4's tranquilizer pistol is Rey from Star Wars than Eriksholm's blow pipe is Finn. Every frustrating part was trying to get the blow pipe to work in a way where using it wouldn't lead to a fail state. There's also other aspects like knowing when to knock out guards as Sebastian, finding ideal ways to destroy light sources and getting a vantage point as Alva and unlocking paths in the levels so one of the 3 characters can get to the other side. Much of these design decisions I can agree with but the blow pipe especially when upon firing a dart, it takes few seconds for the guard to get knocked out and firing one out of the order the script demands will lead to a game over.

There are times where where was on the game's wavelength but was lost because not everything 100% aligned with what the game designer expected

Overall, I know who this is for and what it's trying to do but feels too strict in what can be done in gameplay.

Gears of War: Reloaded(Playstation 5) Review

Gears of War on Playstation, if you told myself back during the late 00s and early 10s that this franchise would come to Playstation, I would tell you that's crazy talk. I never thought Microsoft dropping their Xbox exclusive ways would go as far as a their first party franchises coming to Sony would ever happen but here we are. I'm hoping the later Gears of War games also get modern ports and come to PS since 2-Judgment were always stuck on Xbox platforms. That said, Gears 1 might've been and a groundbreaking game back in 2006 but playing it now especially with how cover based shooting on it's own was never that interesting and usually needs to have other ideas to carry it. The Gears sequels at least had more going on mechanically, broke up the pace more often and had a lot more chaotic firefights.

What prevents Gears 1 from being aggressively mediocre is it's rather quick and brisk campaign, the soundtrack and how Act 1-3 especially Act 2 does have some interesting ideas going on.

I'll start with some major issues I have. The controls with the idea of having one button be sprint, vault, cover and roll might've been novel at the time was never well design in the long run. You can just click the analog stick for sprint and the Y and triangle button can be used for vaulting since the point of interest command is contextual to begin with. This button system I described is fine when the game design favors the player but is infuriating when it doesn't particularly during the Berserker and Raam fights with Dom's AI being unbearably terrible during these parts.

There is also the famous chainsaw which in isolation to Gears 1 is too risky and never worth using. Trying to get the reving animation can get you shot at when trying to approach an enemy since Marcus can get staggered very easily after a few shots. At least in later Gears games, you can't get staggered out of the reving animation as easily. This can be a big issue since Gears 1 encourages you to flank the enemy and get some chainsaw kills in but due to the aforementioned issues as well as you getting shot at while the chainsaw killing animation happens and it heavily discourages it's use. Get Gnasher shotgun whenever possible, get close, get decent enough at the active reload mini game and it's much more reliable than the chainsaw.

The active reload mini game is decently realized, the timing hits the sweet spot of not being overly grueling to try but not being super easy.

Weapon feedback when it comes to using firearms and damage animations is fine when partnered with active reload.

Act 1-3 does actively introduce new ideas and enemies. You got enemies slowly being introduced like Grubs, Grenadier, Wretches, Boomers, Berserkers, and Theron Guard. There is also my favorite the Kryll. There is Act 1 which is just firefights with some Hammer of Dawn, some occasional turret sections and a Berserker fight.

Act 2 is where Gears 1's design reaches it peak and never reaches it again. It's where propane tanks have to actively be shot at and lit in order to create to light sources so the Kryll can't instantly kill you when in darkness for more than a few seconds. You also have to contend with locust shooting at you. So it's a game of killing enemies finding propane tanks to shoot and sprinting from light source to light source. There is also parts where you have to move cover and time moving light sources with your sprints. You might need to look for hidden tanks to shoot to progress furthur. This where is where the campaign is at it's best.

Act 3 is okay with some rather dull attempts at horror. It's a little too excessive on the body horror to be effective. You have an underground section with some interesting scenery and an epic fight with the Theron Guard which the background music helps elevate it.

That's it. Gears' campaign is monotony from here. It's easy to tell because the initial goal of activating the resonator underground didn't work and the characters all questioning the illogical writing of the script, they pretty much know it's nothing more than padding.

Act 4 and 5 is just one boring interchangeable cover shootout after another. The most you get is battles with a Berserker and Brumak. The former is the same as Act 1 and the latter is a scripted sequence where Dom's AI will slow you down.

Get the Gnasher and Hammerburst or Lancer and get getting active reloads right and keep shooting, get hit, wait for health regen rinse repeat.

Act 4 is spent getting to Adam Fenix' House and Act 5 is spent trying to lower a drawbridge. That mystery box of how Marus ended up in jail, who the Locust are or just anything resembling plot and drama all get washed away much like the game design after Act 3.

Raam is a very uninteresting villain since he has two scenes and neither of them is him doing anything of geniune note outside of killing two red shirt jobbers brutally. His boss is just RNG.

Overall, while revolutionary in 2006 is dull now.

Mafia: The Old Country Review

Mafia was a series I recently got into a few years ago because of that remake of the first game that came out back 5 years ago. It was rather refreshing at the time to play a story driven game where it's inspired by crime stories and gangsters but there is no open world attached to it. There was an influx of those kinds of games coming out and Mafia 1's approach of just having the campaign be the actual missions with the needless and boring downtime present in those games not even being there. What might've viewed as a drawback in 2002 is a selling point for a structurely and narratively faithful remake in 2020. A few years later the same devs make a prequel to that first game especially in a time where gaming prequels are not as prevelant anymore and with Red Dead 2 being the only major one after 2013.

As a whole, Mafia the Old Country is very much in line with that remake of Mafia 1 in 2020. Your enjoyment of the game hinges on how much you like that remake and the story this game is trying to tell. The story in Old Country is well acted, written and told with gameplay that manages to be solid enough but nothing amazing. However like the aforementioned remake of Mafia 1 since the open world is a backdrop, there is no excessive amounts of trekking, downtime and mechanics that is mostly window dressing when getting to the next story beat. Where a game like Red Dead 2 can be overly indulgent among the needless open world fluff. It also helps that while The Old Country has some of the most rudimentary stealth and detection system in a mainstream game I've played, it's never overly cheap and frustrating that it hinders progression of the story.

The gameplay when broken down is horseback riding, driving, knife fighting, stealth, and shooting. It combines many different gameplay ideas rather than focuses on one thing. One interesting about The Old Country is that the player will have access to horses as a main mode of transportation but as the game progresses, they get phased out and cars are used instead. It's interesting to any game let alone story that shows this at all since it shows how times are changing. Much of the horseback riding and car gameplay will consist of npc conversations, shootouts and chases much like how it was in Mafia Definitive Edition. The chases also manage to hit the sweet spot of not being overly punishing but not brainlessly easy. Milage may very on how good you are at with playing games where there is gameplay involving high speed movment.

When there is downtime driving sections, it's usual characters speaking to each other and giving their thoughts on situations and getting from point A to B doesn't take too long.

Shooting and stealth you've played before. There's cover based shooting with firearms but nothing overly modern due to the time period with generous amount of healing items both found in levels and when looting corpses. Weapon sounds and feedback for killing enemies are moderately satisfying. It still isn't as smooth as the system in the Last of Us games however but it's fine here and never gets in the way. If cover shooting what all this game was then it could fall apart due to how one note this style of game can be luckily it isn't.

This now leads to stealth and like I said before, the guard detection speed is some of if not the slowest in a mainstream game. I would almost find it hard to believe someone would actively fail these sections. Early game I accidentally vaulted over cover due to me being not being used to triangle being vault and I was close enough to the guards for it to be a detection but the game never did. A ghost run here wouldn't really be too hard due to how slow the guards' vision is. Knife kills don't need to be used often due to the mashing mini game for knockouts not taking too long. This does work to the game's favor since an unforgiving stealth system would get in the way of story pacing and make the many scripted detections be infuriating due to the amount of times seen due AI that feels like they are psychic.

The knife fighting is a decently fleshed out system. It isn't overly deep by any means but there is enough going on with a forgiving parry window, knowing when to get strikes in and doing guard breaks that isn't dull and mindless. Better than shootout bosses.

There is a light exploration with currency buying weapons, knives and charms and charm slots to give the player a reason to look around the enviroment along with whitestone to replenish the knife something like Resident Evil 4 Remake.

The story itself is well acted, written, has well made cutscenes that never go on for too long and gets character and story beats across quickly and concisively. There is also a decent amount of restraint with no shooting and killing until a little while into the game.

There is a disappointing mystery box of Isabella's kid which would be fine if this wasn't a prequel to Mafia.

Overall, Old Country is a solid title that is more Mafia DE.

Genji: Dawn of the Samurai Review

Genji was a game I originally played because I heard it was a hidden gem and I recall it being pretty good. After playing so many games and going through the Onimusha series again in recent years. My appreciation for this particular game has grown considerably. For a game that was widely considered to be an "Onimusha clone". It surprisingly kicks Onimusha's ass in a number of departments.

The story while your typical action movie and by extension action game fare is decently presented with a number of high quality cutscenes with decent voice acting at least from what I can tell considering the North American version has no dub. While there is your usual tropes of damsels in distress, heroes working together to thwart an evil plot, heroes getting backstabbed and then a villain underlying backstabbing his master, the story does a good job making it clear who the back guys are and what the conflict is. There's just enough going on for me to pay attention to the cutscenes when there isn't gameplay happening. The story is better presented than Onimusha Warlords and 2 at least.

The gameplay while sharing striking similarities to Onimusha differ considerably. For one there is no fixed camera angles but a follow camera. I wanted the Onimusha series to have a system like this and it took a different developer and game for this to be implemented. It's more similar to the camera system found in God of War which funnily enough came out the same year as this game.

Then there is also the fact that the Yoshitsune is a lot more acrobatic, agile and more nimble than an Onimusha protagonist. He can block and strafe around his enemies but he can carthwheel and flip around his enemies too. As a result reliably evading enemy attacks is more doable than the strafing system in Onimusha. The only downside to this is you might need to let go of R1 for Yoshitsune to lock on back to an enemy again from time to time.

Put them the agile movement and the follow cam together and it's easier to feel competent at Genji than by comparison to something like Onimusha 2 since the hit boxes for Yoshitsune to get hit by an enemy aren't too wide and flipping around gives some decent invinciblity frames.

It doesn't just end there, this now leads to the Kamui mechanic. It really feels ingenious. It's esstentially removing Onimusha's elemental magic system and instead have magic attacks be tied to the Issen counter attacks. It's like how in samurai moves where the protagonist kills multiple enemies in one strike. Kamui esstentially slows down time like say bullet time in Max Payne and there is a timing window where you can make a devastating counter attack that can do a lot of damage, wipe out enemies one at a time or killing a group in one slash. You can even reflect projectiles back with good timing too.

This does sound like a "win" button on paper but even the square button prompt that shows up can be misleading, more often than not you have to press sqaure a few seconds before the prompt even shows so there is some attack learning that has to be done. If timed well, bosses can die pretty quickly or can have their health bar levelled. I did wish there more wiggle room for this since you scarifice two kamui bars to slow down time even more but it doesn't make much of a difference. It would be interesting if two bars guarentees the counter but does less damage but one bar the window is tighter but a successful parry can do a lot of damage. Still, this system is solid as is.

It does handle a shop and economy system better than Onimusha 2 since it's prevelant throughout the entire game of Genji. The combat animations, sound effect when the blade hits an enemy and the blood splatter makes combat look and feel satisfying too.

Moment to moment level exploration is straightforward and never too confusing, there is so nice sections of the level looping back on itself.

There are some issues I have with all this said. As much as I love playing as Yoshitsune, the other playable character Benkei is cumbersome and not very enjoyable. His base movement is much slower and he can't dodge around as nimbly as Yoshitsune. Using kamui almost becomes a borderline neccessity to get anywhere with him.

Environments get reused a lot. Chapter 3 has much of the same scenery in Chapter 1 with only one new area to visit after. Chapter 2 doesn't even have a world map either and that with new environments.

Final issue is that the final boss Kagekiyo's final form can feel like a massive difficulty spike. It was so hard that I forgot you can upgrade your stats by using amahagne shards since you never really needed to interact with it beforehand as long as you bought high level gear and sword.

His attacks can hit hard and kamui isn't very useful since he can teleport and dart around all over the map. Before you had to pay attention to the animation but he disppears and repears before you retaliate.

Overall, despite some blemishes Genji is a well made game.

DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition Review

Since I replayed a lot of the DMC games recently, I decided to play this reboot again. I remember the Definitive Edition being good and it still pretty much is. I'd say it's one of the better games in the series. With only DMC3 in the mainline games that rivals this. In comparison to DMC3, I'd say it's two steps forward and two steps back in terms of story and gameplay, I would rather play this reboot than 1, 2, 4 and 5 since it has the much better combat than 1 and 2 and you play as Dante the whole game unlike 4 and 5. Must Style Mode also drew me to play this again, unfortunately it was pretty much an afterthought, more on that later. Story has improvements but also makes one big massive misstep from being the best in the series. Well two but the 2nd issue isn't as big.

The story at least in terms of backstory and aspects of it's world building is better than the mainline games. For one it is actually shown and explicitly shown what happened to Sparda and how Eva died. There also is a better clue on the how the demonic underworld works in this universe of DMC. Mundas also has more character by comparison to DMC1 since he reacts to what you do at the end of the missions and while he is basically a Wilson Fisk and Lex Luthor character with superpowers the story sets him up well in that you have to take out his operations and do strategic guerilla stikes before getting to actually fight him.

It also gives you more of a framework on Dante and Vergil's backstories by comparison to the mainline games.

The side villains like Lilith and especially Bob Barbas are quite entertaining and fun. The latter being my favorite since he belittles and attacks wrongfully accuses Dante and by extension of things the player didn't do. His death even helps gives an edge by giving Mundas the location of Vergil's hideout. Lilith keeps mocking Dante and insults Kat while she is trying to kill you. The Hunter Demon being a starter demon does destroy Dante's trailer and is a persistent threat in the mission he is in.

Kat is also the best female character in the series even if it is a low bar. How she helps contributes to the team and how her interactions with Dante are quick to the point without getting in the way of gameplay. She ironically contributes more to the plot than Vergil does especially with how she gives the layout of the demonic building or earlier in the game where she helps Dante thwart off a demon even though she didn't have and could've cowered in fear.

Speaking of Vergil this is where the game massively fumbles, early game he isn't bad when he's just hiding in the shadows and is giving Dante orders and is just manipulating both him and Kat for his own purposes. He's shown to be quite cunning and smart. Then later in the game when the resistance location is revealed is where everything falls apart. Remember how DMC3's Vergil was memorable for how the game uses the worf effect to show off how skilled he is as a fighter with him finishing off the bosses you previously fought as Dante? DmC Vergil lacks this strongly. This is the thing that prevents this version of him being better than 3's.

The way Vergil's fighting prowess is displayed he comes off more as a cowardly villain than someone who is manipulative but can also hold his own in a fight. Like say Star Wars' Emperor Palpatine, DC Universe's Darkseid or Dragon Ball's Cell. DmC Vergil shows the intellect part but not the fighting. Every time the game could show Vergil's abilties to hold his own in a battle, he either decides to not do act, have Dante do the work, rely on sneak attacks or when he does seemingly win in a fight, it is an off screen victory. When Vergil fights Dante at the end of the game in a fair and honorable duel, it feels unearned since the former never acted that way throughout the whole game. It can almost catch you off guard that he's even resorting to this. When he's doing his boss attacks, these are fighting moves and abilites not even shown in the game previously. 

The way Vergil's fighting is displayed he comes off as like a serious version of Futurama's Zapp Branigan, Ratchet and Clank's Captain Qwark, Dragon Ball's Mr. Satan and Harry Potter's Gilderoy Lockheart. With how much Adaptation Wimp he gets in this aspect, you start to wonder how he was able to amass followers and how his resistance group lasted so long against Mundas before Dante was recruited. There also only seems to be 3 major memembers of this resistance group and everyone else just being red shirts from Star Trek. 

Dante's character is also a lot more serious compared to the wannabe goof ball who thinks he is way cooler than he actually is in DMC3. Due to the serious nature of reboot and Dante himself being just as such his interactions with his enemies can off as vulgar than endearing. He isn't that bad considering his interactions with Kat saves it and there are some funny moments with him like waiting for the elevator to go up with annoying music playing. It did seem like an origin story where maybe in later installments and later parts Dante becomes more like how he was in the canon games. 

It's a shame that the story makes these massive fumbles since the baseline here is good and it gets quite a lot right. It makes these pitfuls standout all the more. Still, out of the mainline games, only DMC3 is a rival to this. 

The gameplay is solid. Reboot Dante doesn't really have the expansive moveset and weapons that Dante in DMC 3-5 has but at the same time, he is above Nero and V. Speaking of Nero, Ninja Theory managed to do what Capcom had a hard tim figuring out, they gave Dante a grappling hook without needing an entirely new character to justify having one in the game. This already is a point to Ninja Theory's favor. I also don't mind stinger having a knockback effect like it does in DMC5 since you have the ability to pull enemies back to you after you do it. 

The levels hardly ever feature any backtracking which is fine considering how ridiciulous DMC4 got with it especially with no level gimmicks like the disappearing platforms, dice game, slo mo dodging lasers and sawblade traps, a maze and puzzles that slow down the action like moving statues across a multiple areas. DMC3 was fine with the backtracking but DMC4 took it a step too far which is why DmC's adherance to not having any backtracking and puzzles is a big point to the game's favor. 

Platforming is also solid. Nothing indepth but it's involving enough just being a game of moving platforms and pulling them towards you. There is also some timed dashes you needed to with the timing window to do them being forgiving. 

When it comes to the actual sword combat there are new additions like a glow when Dante will do a pause combo, a dedicated launcher command and dodge button. The glow with pause combos I don't mind since it helps less adept players know when to do those attacks. 

Hitting enemies and killing them has a very eye popping and satisfying stimulus when hitting. 

The upgrade system is a step above DMC3 where you get skill points for moves and red orbs for itsems like in DMC4. You hold up to only 3 Gold Orbs unlike 5 where they keep stacking. 

DmC also doesn't have enemies as annoying as the Dullhans, Soul Eaters and the Fallen or as boring as the Chessmen from 3. the color coded enemies from the base game are gone and it's more so you do more damage to them if you hit them with a color attack which is a better change to me since you still need to engage with the mechanic. Outside of that is no enemy that overly annoys me however this is a different story on Must Style Mode more on that later. 

There is also some some great on boarding too. For example, you get used to the aforementioned dash move a few times before getting accustomed to it. The Pathos enemies can be a little annoying to get up close with swords or kill with guns but then you get a grapple hook so you can bring them to you or come closer to. You get Arbiter after trying to deal with the Hell Knight's shields beforehand. Aqulia is accquire late game to get past the Witch's force fields. Demon Shards you struggle with killing when using Ebony and Ivory but then get the Revnant Shotgun and they go down quicker. My personal favorite is how much the player would hypothetically be struggling against Tyrants but then then Dante gets Eryx and dealing with him becomes easier. You also get Kablooey to help deal with armored enemies easier. 

When it comes to subtlely teaching player what to do and easing them into the game DmC might be the best in the series. It's a step above DMC5's giving Dante 2 weapons and 2 guns the moment you control him or giving the player a new weapon towards the end of the game just to have it be a glorified boss rush. 

There are some issues with the game with all this said. The first one being Devil Trigger. This isn't a big problem early game before you unlock the ability halfway through especially if you don't care about getting high style points but when it does. My suggestion that after you get it, select whatever difficulty you are and switch to "hardcore mode" if playing the Definitive Edition since in the base game had DT be a glorified win button, it was quite obnoxious which DE thankfully removed. 

The weapon and style system can annoy some who loves playing as Dante in 4 and 5. I don't mind it too much. The weapons are like light and heavy stances from Heavenly Sword. Angel is light stance and Demon is heavy. This can feel derivative, it didn't bother me too much since at least you can seemlessly switch between both weapons. That and no specific combo attack to use to damage enemies like in that game. 

The weapons can also follow Quake logic where there's a stronger versions of already exisiting ones. This can make some for rundundant weapons unforuntately. 

Fighting styles or lack there of can be a kicker for some. You have some moves in Gunsliger style like Rainstorm, Shotgun Numbchucks, and charge shots. You also have a weird variation of the air dash in Trickster mode abeit a bit cumbersome to pull since it's better for platforming than in combat. As cool as I think the fighting style system is. You couldn't even select whenever you want in DMC3 without mods or playing it on Switch and it was never meant to played that way due to the style level up system. DMC4 and 5 doesn't even let you play as Dante the whole game and style switching itself could lead you open for an attack since the thumb is off the left stick and is on the D pad and an enemy could hit you. Swordmaster was mainly useful for close range since you get the max level of sword moves and trickster helped for bosses due to the air dashes 

While I like this system, I'm not too disgruntled over it's "removal". 

The lock on system isn't the greatest since this was added in DE but it mostly works fine even if there is seemingly no way to switch between targets. It never really got in the way of moment to moment enjoyment. 

Bosses aren't as good as DMC3 unforuntately. Bob Barbas being the best since it has decent specticle and it's also a good story boss too. The rest outside of him and Vergil tend to be a little too scripted. You hit their health bar and then do some grapple moves, a set piece then win. 

As a whole, DmC is more than worth checking out in spite the infamous reputation it can get. As long as you just accept as an offshoot universe of the series, it's easier to swallow. If you don't care about Must Style Mode, ignore the next few paragraphs. 

I do want to talk about Must Style Mode which I wanted to play DmC again at all. I always wanted some kind of game with a style meter to do what the Ghost Rider movie tie in game did and have the player reach a certain style and then he can damage to enemies. 

The fact that DmC has a mode where you need to get S rank and above to do damage drew me to it. I stopped about halfway through the game. This mode is an afterthought in spite of the interesting premise. 

The first red flag is that when playing must style on hardcore mode, the style meter goes down very quickly and it's worse with flying enemies especially when they are the only enemies on the battlefield or if the spawn at all. Mainly because when Dante combos a pathos or harpy, they will go flying across the map during that second it takes for Dante to grapple towards or bring an enemy over to him, the style meter will go down very fast. So it's a game of combo, knockback, style goes down, grapple rinse repeat. When not on hardcore mode, the issues with the vanilla release like DT doing high damage and have everyone float around Dante partnered with the easy style meter actually cancels out now since it raise the combo meter back up again much quicker. 

With that said, there are other red flags like how you don't get graded in this mode meaning no red orb or skill point bounuses after missions so you are needlessly playing on a harder mode with no reward for doing so. 

Both these issues start to ruin Must Style mode. The issues start to show when you have to deal with Pathos and Harpies while also dealing wth Tyrants and if you get hit, the combo meter has to be built back up again and your enemies are immortal punching bags while you have finite health. Outside of building up DT there is also no other way to get the style meter up much faster making combat even more of a battle with immortal punching bags. This gets worse when the ONLY enemies are Pathos and Harpies which where once minor speed bumps now become a long and very tedious battle of attritution deal to the knockbacks hitting enemies can bring with them also being immortal until you hit S rank or above. 

When the Witches showed up, I gave on this because I didn't want to deal with immortal flying enemies as well as a teleporter. She keeps disappearing before I can get the meter up to damage her. 

This mode was an interesting concept but the implementation of it was nothing more than an afterthought. It's nice this mode exists but so because this hasn't been done in a style based 3D beat em up before outside of the aforementioned Ghost Rider movie tie in game. 

Overall, DmC is an enjoyable game and one of the better games in the franchise. The story has more going for it than most of the games in the mainline continuity. You also play as one character the whole game and unlike DMCs 4 and 5. It has it's problems like a lot of games but as long as you don't try to play on Must Style mode like I did after my first playthrough, it's a game with a lot to enjoy. Go in with neutral expectations and there is a very enjoyable game to find here.