River City Girls(Playstation 5) Review

Decided to randomly play this game again. I got a free PS5 upgrade path with the digital PS4 version I bought years ago. It was short enough that it was worth quickly going through again. I remember it being the "the wacky 2D beat em up with solid voice acting, great soundtrack and dumb ending" and it was just that.

The best parts of River City Girls is everything involving visuals and audio. The visuals are vibrant, crisp and colorful. It's some of the best I've seen when it comes to modern 2D pixel art.

Voice acting does a great job at selling me on the over the top and silly premise the game has. The VAs are acted and directed in a way that they know exactly what kind of story they are in. An over the top campy excuse plot to go beat up a wide array of goons.

Soundtrack might be one of my favorites in gaming or at least when it comes to "recent" releases. The snyth wave soundtrack with Megan McDuffee's singing gives the game a bizzarely chill atmosphere as you go around beating up dozens of bad guys. There's some good 8 bit sounding songs too. Whenever I think of this game, the soundtrack is what I often think of more than anything.

Gameplay itself is on the "fine" side. It certainly feels like a 2D beat em up of yester year where it's more reliant on the collision detection and hit boxes being line up perfectly for you to consistently do damage. Enemies also spongey and get spongey the more the game goes on.

To counter this, you get XP and level up to improve base stats. You also get new moves upon levelling up as well being able to buy new ones at dojos with items to help you out too. The game autosaves frequently too and madatory waves you only have to do once upon completion.

As a result River City Girls feels less like a game where it feels you are getting good and more so a series of safety nets and band aids are in place to prevent the game from being overly frustrating and difficult.

There are also bizarre platforming sections here and there. Mainly just 2 or 3 but they feel out of place whenever they happen.

It can lead to a massive issue I have with the game is that when you start running, it feels like you are being magnetically pulled back but after a little while, the momentum you are supposed to get from a running animation finally kicks in.

A big reason why I'm not as positive on the gameplay as I could be is due to the amount of fetch quests you have to do to progress the story. Every chapter there's at least one or two fetch quests before fighting the boss instead of just getting to the end of the stage and then fighting them. It can make this already short game feel padded. This is a bigger issue in the sequel with that said.

Bosses are a strange case where most of them are easy especially if you know to buy food at the various shops especially buying lots of Double Merv Burgers. The continue system can feel like a cheap way of adding stakes since you lose money and all the used healing items after dying to them or any enemy encounter.

Hibari is by far the hardest fight in the game since she's the only flying boss on top of having bullet hell attacks. She also spawns in a bunch of goons as she tries to fire her needle at the player and in turn has to predict where it will bounce back to her to do damage. This boss can feel bizarre in that even using food items would still not be enough to beat her.

Once you win, it's mostly smooth sailing.

The ending is pretty dumb. I do know Wayforward changed the ending after initial backlash. I have a hard time telling which of the specific ones were. It's not good but it only lasts about a less than 3 minutes so it's not get attached to how "bad" it is.

Overall, River City Girls was exactly what I remembered. It was a solid if not an overly enthuastic trip down memory lane. The PS5 version did come free so I'm not complaining.

Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour Review

This was a game I was initially super hyped for when it was announced it was coming to PS4 in 2016. I loved Doom 1993, Doom 2016 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I wasn't the Doom 2 fan yet. I might've recalled pre ordering this version of Duke 3D but when I finally played I was really disappointed by it particular in how I found the level design way too confusing. 2 years later, I would actually beat the game and I would really enjoy it. I'd beat it a 2nd time a few years later. I'd decided to another run of the Episode 1-3 again and while I still really enjoy some things like the over reliance on hitscanners and much of the enemy line up can be big sore spots for it.

When discussing Duke 3D two of it's biggest positives are it's level design and how it refuses to tell the player anything.

By comparison to the first two Doom games and the first Quake which came out the same year. Duke 3D's location have so much more personality and feel lively by comparison. Instead of in very abstract locations like a Mars Research Base, Hell or Gothic Mediveal settings, you are in futuristic LA, an Alien Spaceship, and various places on earth. It gives the levels an idea of them being actually lived in instead of just places that are an excuse for you to kill monsters. Places like a hotel, subway, bank, prison the San Andreas fault and even the Alien levels of episode feels like there's a slow gradual journey when going through it.

How you start at a Spaceport but then slowly go through a multi layered level where there's space terminals taking you to different parts of the levels that loop you back to the hub of where the level started. It's also fun to just find random secrets by blowing up cracked walls with either pipe bombs or the rocket launcher. You'll need those portable medkits due to issues I will mention later.

There's also a great amount of narrative foreshadowing and in universe reason for player hints with the cameras. The aliens are always watching and if you are confused on where to go, press the interact button on the monitor and it will give a list of places in the level you might've already been to or haven't explored yet. It's a good way of guiding the player without being intrusive.

This might as well transition to the next positive or an issue depending on who you are and that is how the game tells you absolutely nothing. That camera system is the closest thing to guide you even get in the game. Duke 3D tells you nothing. You need a jetpack to get a higher place or across? You even have a jet pack? Need to a puzzle to get furthur in a level? Need to jump on switch to open revolving doors to get a key? Need to go through specific color grading to not get crushed by moving gears? Need to find a shrink ray projecticle to get you small to open a new part of the level? Need to have a hook in factory get you into another part of the level? Accidentally missed a switch? Shooting switches can activate parts of the levels? You get the idea, the game just won't tell you or give you any kind of idea that you can or have to do any of this stuff to get the level exit.

This will be very offputting to many who play the game for the first time and if you are overly used to how a lot of after 1996 to now are used to doing things it will be even more so. It's hard to really get accustomed even if you play Doom 1993.

If you do get used this and come to terms with what the game expects. There's a very rewarding game that rewards problem solving just as much as shooting things.

The weapon line up is good. You got your usual archetypes like a pistol, shotgun, assault rifle(which is a chaingun but same idea), rocket launcher but you also get some weirder ones like Pipe Bombs, Trip Bombs, Shrink and Freeze Ray, and the Devastator. The latter weapons makes the game standout from Doom and Quake.

I do love lining up Shrink Ray shots and then squishing multiple enemies at once. Trip and Pipe Bombs are fun to use when low on rocket ammo. The Devastator is a fun dual wielding rocket launcher weapon.

After all this praise, there is one big problem with the game that can be irritating at best and absolutely infuriating at worst. That is overreliance on hitscanners. There's your usual culprits like Pigcops and they lots of damage but they are the least annoying due to their wind up time. You fight Assault Captains, Troopers, and Enforcers A LOT. They have hitscan machine guns that can chip away at your hp very quickly when in groups. The Battlelord Sentry has a hitscan chaingun too. It also doesn't that the Sentry Drone is also poorly designed and if you aren't chaingunning or firing rockets before they get close you lose a lot of health.

It's good that there's lot of health packs and portable medkits on normal difficulty since many of the firefights can turn into last man standing battles and getting attacked from behind a lot.

Overall, Duke 3D is very good but there can be some massive sore spots.

Ghost of Yotei Review

The best way to describe Ghost of Yotei is that it's the game sequel that's just there and offends barely anyone. I already knew all of this going in. Apart of me was expecting to get the infamous status that games like The Last of Us 2 got. Instead Sucker Punch took lessons from James Cameron and made a money making product that does it's best to never get under anyone's skin. Add to how Assassin's Creed Shadows was a very disappointing take on what people wanted out of a feudal Japanese game and it's easy to see why the game did so well. GoY is still far from what I consider a bad game but compared to it's predecessor Tsushima, it's writing can feel very play it safe. The writing particularly with Jin Sakai is what made that game stood out in the first place.

Ghost of Yotei's story is a revenge story rather a deconstruction of the samurai's code of honor like Tsushima's. Almost to the point where Yotei feels like a reconstruction. It's back to the days of the lone no nonsense samurai wandering around from place to place getting what he wants or a she in this case.

It's at least a well presented story with well shot and put together cutscenes. With many of it's shots in them telling it's own story. The individual memebers of the Yotei Six are decently despicable enough for you to want to kill them. A lot of it is rather typical. Atsu eventually comes to realize that there's more to life than revenge and you know what that entails.

The strange part is that much of the interesting writing in Ghost of Yotei comes from the characters around Atsu. Her brother Jubei, a former Yotei Six member Oyuki and even Kiku to a lesser extent.

Jubei's interesting in how he's often conflicted in helping his adopted family or his family by blood and often makes decisions where it could compromise either side while trying to appease both.

Oyuki is my favorite character in that she was a former Yotei Six member who trying to make amends for all the wrong doings she did and is trying to hunt down her former pupil and in turn helps you due to how far he's lost his way. Atsu sparing her does help make her a decently rounded character.

Kiku also represents the life that Atsu can live and move past her quest for revenge. She's at least not a completely helpless child and does want to start improving at being proficient in life.

Saito starts off as an interesting villain in that he opens the game by saying, "I regret doing this" but he never really shows that level of sympathy again and it's just him reacting to story milestones after.

It's also silly how Atsu believes Saito would stop hunting her after killing Yotei Six members and foiling his plans constantly.

Once again, I'll preface that the story is just "fine". One thing I'll say that is the side characters are an improvement over Tsushima but the protagonist is a downgrade.

Gameplay is mostly the same as the first. You got jaw dropping vistas and landscapes that also has an amazing wide shot when riding. The gust of wind system I appreciate more now and it's more organic way of guiding the player rather than quest marker.

Stealth is mostly the same. Just sneaking up from behind and do a takedown with some distraction items here and there. It really says a lot how this game has more stealth encounters by comparison to Assassin's Creed Shadows despite it not bragging about having prone or a darkness system.

Combat is also mostly the same. Just hit enemy, weapon switch, hit enemy then counter. I could do this on normal difficulty but combat becomes a tedious slog of attack, break guard, then enemy attacks, counter then guard resets. It's also ridiculous how rolling of all moves has to be unlocked in a skill tree making the bigger enemies with overheard swipe attacks hard to dodge.

Bosses can also level your health bar in a few hits while also being unable to use resolve orbs while in a downed state. I get they don't want you to abuse this but they could've just used the 2nd chance system from the Middle Earth games. You timing window lowers each time you are downed. I eventually lowered to easy and beat it. Luckily it's accomadating as the first gme.

There's far too much automated platforming for my liking but there's is so much that I got overly annoyed.

Overall, Ghost of Yotei is what I expected it to be. An inoffensive game that's made to make a lot of money. 

Strider(2014) Review

The first metroidvania I ever played. A great begginer friendly metroidvania is best way to describe Strider 2014. I remember the days of being a PS4 early adopter and recalling how barebones the releases on it felt back then or just how easy it was to whine about the new releases of 2014 before knowing what a backlog even was. I was feeling nostalgic(weird saying that, I know) and decided to just boot this game up again on PS5 for a quick trip down memory lane since it's a short game and it held up for the most part.

The way this reboot of Strider starts I can't help but love it in how straight to the point it is. No exposition dump, no cutscene or any quick rundown on the story, you are already in the middle of the action when you select your difficulty.

Controls take a little getting used to since it requires the analog stick to move but right away, Strider 2014 has a feel about it that feels unique back then and didn't feel again until playing Ninja Gaiden Ragebound. The way you go around levels has you quickly mowing down enemies with constant slashes with quick succession. You are constantly on the move mowing things down.

There's bigger robots to fight but you'll be sliding through them and then slashing them to take them down. A criticism to make is that the collision detection for the slide doesn't always work and it could get interrupted by the bigger robots.

Another criticism to make is that if you don't strike first or poorly time a charge attack it's easy to have your health drained very fast. The developers are aware of this since on normal there's health packs, save points and checkpoints litered everywhere.

Also bizarre is that while for the most part the bosses aren't too hard, both fights against Solo are very challenging and can beat me down multiple times. The first fight against him can feel like a huge difficulty spike. After his second fight is over the game never gets hard again until the freeze grenade gets introduced and there's a later game elevator climb where two mechs on each side hits you with freeze grenades and can stunlock you and can lead to a game over. The last one was easily the most frustrating part of the game. You'll need to get explosive kunai for this.

Some of the movement while climbing walls can be awkwardly unresponsive at times and it can get frustrating when there's flying enemies hurting you. The low gravity sections can also get a little disorienting too.

After all that criticizing, it sounds like I might not like the game that much but I still do. One great advantage the game has is quick and rapid fire the pacing can be. Outside of the Solo and late game elevator battles, everything goes by very quickly.

Remember how I said, it's a great begginner friendly metroidvania? This is what I mean. The map tells you were to go, there's constant save stations and checkpoints, there's health packs everywhere. If you want a quick and digestible metroidvania to play to get into the genre that doesn't take too long, this game is it. Bosses besides Solo can go down very quickly especially when timing in slashes and the phoenix attack to major damage.

It's brevity and accomadating nature is Strider 2014's greatest strength. Nothing in this game lasts overly long enough to the point it gets utterly grating minus the freeze grenade mecha elevator fight I mentioned.

You kill enemies, get upgrades, fight bosses in a rather quick and no nonsense package. You don't need to invest that much time into it to get to the end nor does it waste your time.

I was surprised to see Strider talk instead of being a generic silent protagonist. He's not super in depth but I like how stoic and to the point he can be.

Art direction can be rather striking and the music is great too. I'm amazed how I still remember the songs to this game 12 years after I originally beat it.

Overall, that's Strider 2014, it's worth checking out as a fast paced and concise metroidvania and was a solid trip down memory lane.

Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon Review

The original Spyro was an interesting game in that back when I played it 11 years ago, I didn't think much of it due to rather primative it can feel compared to other platformers and games. I can to appreciate it for how relaxing and tranquil it was. I'm jumping to Spyro 3 instead of doing a Spyro 2 review first and to put it simpily, Spyro 2's means of progression can be obtuse while also being fiendish in terms of how much time it demands out of the player to get to the final boss. On top of the said final boss being too challenging that the grind for orbs sucks the excitement out of fighting him. Spyro 3 keeps everything good about 2 while fixing the progression issues and adding in new characters.

Everything good about Spyro 3 can also be said about 2. Controls feels tighter and refined. Spyro's speed when turning while in his run animation feels much more fluid, snappy and responsive. Gliding feels tighter and the quick second few seconds of air time after a successful one when pressing the triangle is much more reliable to pull off.

Instead of going to one big hub world with smaller levels. The smaller levels have their own standalone story told in that specific level giving the vibe of you going through an episodic show when each larger hub. One big point to Year of the Dragon's favor is that when beating the smaller level, it remembers you beat it instead of doing the level's story all over again after getting through it once.

Here comes the biggest improvement over Spyro 2 and the first game by extension: the means of progression is very straightforward. In Spyro 3, all you collect are Dragon Eggs to unlock levels and gems to unlock new paths in those levels. So now Spyro 1 of collecting dragons, then eggs and then gems and especially 2's unlocking tailsmans than getting 8 orbs to 64 is gone, thankfully.

What also helps is that new levels will only be unlocked after collecting a certain amount of Dragon Eggs so you are always encouraged to find them to progress furthur into the game. This isn't a case of Spyro 2 where you get a bunch of Tailsmans and then you suddenly need green orbs since like I said earlier you need to collect Dragon Eggs to unlock more smaller levels in the various hub worlds so either way you are encouraged to get gather Dragon Eggs.

Also nice that all the moves you get from 2 carry over to 3 without unlocking them again. Nice way of keeping continuity.

With that said, you still need to collect 100 Dragon Eggs to unlock the final boss. The big issue lies that by the time you get to the 4th boss and beat him you might have around 66 eggs. That's still around 34 of them and it's a while of a lot of nothing of note happening just to get the final boss and it can still feel like grind just not nearly as much as Spyro 2's 8 orbs to 64. It helps that you can find many of them by exploring the world and the need to play the various mini games like skating aren't nessescary to beat them game.

It also helps that regular final boss against The Scorceress is easy so thanks to that, the grind won't feel as much of a waste of time since you'll by beat the game for sure once you get the 100th egg. All of the bosses in Spyro 3 are for the most part easy with the exception of Buzz but he becomes easy figure out after a point.

The grind can still expose the issues that the collectathon platformer had like if there were no progression roadblocks, you have no reason to actually collect the macguffins in question. No new ablities or resources to collect. It starts to feel like busywork.

There are new characters in Year of the Dragon. Most of them are just "fine". They don't really ruin much of anything and you don't need to engage with everything with these characters to roll credits but it can be bizarre that the most praise I can give is that they can be skipped. Shelia's fine to play as untill I have to be better at using her hop. Bentley is also fine as long I don't have to get good at using him.

I did LOVE playing as Agent 9 since the Ratchet and Clank fan in me knows that he's basically a prototype for that franchise. Thanks to the Reignited Trilogy his sections are more fun now due to them controlling like a modern shooter.

Overall, I could say Spyro 3 is my favorite in the Insomniac trilogy. It's a toss up between this and the first game. It keeps the relaxing and tranquil atmosphere of the latter without the obnoxiously obtuse progression of both that and the 2nd game.

Rise of the Tomb Raider Review

This sure takes me back. I remember enjoying the 2013 Tomb Raider so much at the time that when I heard it had timed exclusivity on Xbox, I was really annoyed. I eventually did play for the first time on Steam and would so again on PS4. I recently finished the 2013 game for the 3rd time, I might as well follow it up with a 3rd playthrough of Rise. As a whole the gameplay is mostly refined and improved but the story while not terrible does bring in the arc fatigue that the Survivor Trilogy is infamous for.

The story is where I feel Rise takes two steps forwards and two steps back. Two steps forward in that Lara in this game does feel like she has gained experience since her last adventure and acts smarter more resourceful now. Two examples is when Konstantin shows up at the end of the 2nd level, Lara decides to hide and then eventually steal his explosives. Another example is letting Jaccob out of his cell when she could've chosen to let him stay there. The audio logs and guard conversations do a good job at fleshing the guards and the main antagonists too. Lara's monologues at the campfires after a story milestone also does a solid job at giving an idea at what she's thinking and feeling at the current moment.

On paper, I do like the idea of Lara becoming more and more obessive and crazy like her father and the idea of long buried secrets should stay that way.

There's the two steps back in that Rise introduces a bizarre overarching story arc where Lara is up against a secret organization known as Trinity which just felt like a continuation for the sake of it. A guard conversation even says that they were even connected to the island incident in the 2013 reboot and that is the kind of sequel retconning I've come to strongly dislike since now apparently, Trinity was connected to was supposed to be an isolated incident.

Jonah also leaves for a while then comes back.

The game's ending has Lara learns the same lesson she did from the last game in that she accepts the overly obessive and negectful antics of her father and moves on. This is unfortunately the arc fatigue that carries over to the next game.

In terms of gameplay, traversal has mostly remained the same. It's still automated with everything Lara can climb being magnetized to anything the game deems fit. There are issues in that this time around I did encounter a few instances where it felt like the grabs Lara did on hand holds should've registered but they didn't. Everyone's milage will vary regarding this however.

You do get some cool new abilties this time around like the ability to use a rope to grab a nearby ledge, using your bow to swing across, or using compact arrows to climb on new footholds. They do make the myriads of scripted set pieces exciting this time around.

Puzzles are requires more steps this time around two examples smashing two bars to open a big locked door or burning two wooden areas holding up a statue to create a bridge to get across.

The major improvement in Rise is to some degree the stealth and especially the combat. With the former there is more of a timing window before guards can spot you. Guards will also start suspecting things the player does in the game world instead of detecting the player right away. You can also use bottles to distract and use gas arrows to knock out multiple guards. The AI still isn't amazing since you can spotted out of nowhere with a white arrow popping up right after a player is spotted rather than having it slowly fill up.

With combat, you can do quick heals through bandages. There's also creating smoke bombs and molotov cocktails. You can customize the way you approach fights more with the different weapon loadouts like having a rifle that does high damage but needs to have the shot reload after firing and an auto shotgun that's really satisfying to fire at enemies with but chews through ammo. You can also use explosive arrows and these are so fun to use.

As a result, Rise's combat has a lot of moment to moment decision making. Take care of enemies at long range then worry about them coming up close. Use some molotovs to get quick kills to conserve ammo, use smoke smoke bombs on occasion to get quick melee kills if cans or bottles or nearby. Use explosive arrows to get quick kills. Upgrade the dodging QTE windows to do a perfect dodge and get a quick kill on a nearby enemy.

Combine this with the bandage system where the need to wait for the health to regen is gone and eventually bumped up combat to Season Raider. Due to this, I have to use bandages more often in combat since on normal I would just ignore this system entirely.

The only big massive problem with I can say is that the final one on one encouter again Konstantin can be cheesed pretty epicly with the crafted smoke bombs even on Seasoned Raider.

Overall, in spite of questionable story decisions here and there and the aforementioned arc fatigue, the gameplay in Rise is improvement over the 2013 Tomb Raider.

F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin Review

The best way of describing FEAR 2 is that it's the Deus Ex Invisible War of FPS sequels. A follow up to a well remembered PC classic but consoles was the priority over the PC platform. It makes sense logically, you can never become a mainstream mega success without catering to console gamers. Bioshock did the same with System Shock. Dishonored did the same with Thief. The main difference is that the Bioshock and Dishonored were new IPs on console where FEAR 2 and Deus Ex Invisible War were sequels to games that made their name off the PC platform. There are exceptions like the Call of Duty franchise however. FEAR 2 was supposed to be something along the lines of Doom 2 and Serious Sam the Second Encounter but instead it's more like the aforementioned Deus Ex Invisible War and Serious Sam 2. FEAR Extraction Point is a better sequel and Trepang2 is a better spirtual successor.

FEAR 2 is by no means bad but the best way of describing is that it's "watered down". Right away this is something noticeable about the game. It can be both felt and even seen.

Two very strong aspects of the first game is the sound design and the amazing feedback for weapons. You can notice how watered down they are in FEAR 2 just by watching gameplay footage of the first game and playing the former. FEAR 2 feels like a video game version of a movie that began life as a rated R film but got reshot to be PG 13.

Weapons do not sound nearly as punchy and impactful anymore. The pistol and shotgun being two very noteworthy examples. Firing the pistol in the first game had a super loud POP to it. The shotgun is especially watered down what was once a badass insturment of death now feels like a water gun by comparison. The loud punch is now replaced with a quick flash sound. Hitting enemies with it now has enemies just flinch a little, take 3 shots to kill with and sometimes will just blow up into mush. You get an auto shotgun but why does FEAR of all franchises need two shotguns? What's worse is that while the auto shotgun is more effective, it also chews through ammo much faster and it still doesn't come close to the shotgun of the first game and the Extraction Point.

The same can be said for weapons like the sub machine gun, assault rifle, penetrator, laser gun and so on. It's all so watered down.

This can also be said for the combat encounters themselves. It still has that feel that the first game and Extraction Point but it's much tighter and more boxed in. There are some good arenas like some of the ones in the warehouse and the elementary school but it never reaches the heights of the first and especially Extraction Point.

It also doesn't help that addition of ironsights makes it easier to gundown enemies at closer range and it's no longer the epic game of slowing down time and shooting from the hip and watching the carnage unfold. Combined with the more compact level design and it just reinforces the watered down feeling the game has.

I'm also not big on the additions of turret and mech sections. It ruins the gameplay purity FEAR and Extraction Point have. They aren't overly awful but it does put FEAR in the realm that a lot of FPS games of the time.

Also don't really think the new enemy types add much of anything. Abominations just crawl around everywhere and the most threatning aspect about them is the mashing you got to do get them off. They're just fast zombies from Half Life 2. The Replica Assassins are more annoying due to them cutting through your health quickly. Remnants are interesting on paper but they just show how weak FEAR 2's guns are due to how many shots it takes to kill them. Don't even use the Hammerhead on these guys.

The changed health system is interesting on paper since it's more about enemies dropping health than carrying medkits but since enemies can tear through health faster and can hit you in slo mo and don't drop health enough, it makes playing on anything above normal a nightmare.

After all the criticism I've made, there are things FEAR 2 does well. The story is better here than the first game while the characters aren't super interesting, the overarching urgency of stopping Alma and how much destruction she causes throughout the game does make the story intriguing in the moment. The text files aren't too long either which helps flesh out the story. The ending is still insane and crazy even now.

The environment variety is better than the first game. You go to more places than just office building after office building. While it is an improvement over the first game. Extraction Point also had more variety in it's enviroments while retaining everything great about FEAR 1. Some of the weapons and locations are similar to Extraction Point too like both being in a hospital and a subway station.

Overall, FEAR 2 is by no means terrible. I've played far worse games and there's far worse FPS games you can find released in the 7th gen but it's just an all around watered down sequel in many ways.

Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition Review

This was a game that helped me through some tough times when I originally played it. I was very depressed and down on myself and this was one of the games I played during that period. Back in that time, I was obessesed with it's ambient music, really enjoyed the performance of Michael Wincott as Death, loved the puzzle and dungeon designs and combat was solid too. Over the years, I have heard criticism about how padded the game can be. I also tried and failed to replay the original Darksiders. That game I did enjoy at first but The Black Throne was so terrible and it was also followed up with a fetch quest after that I gave up on it. I was hesistant towards to even try DS2 again due to the stories I've heard regarding the padding it had. Luckily, I was able to look past it. Don't get me wrong, it's by no means good but compared to DS1's padding, 2's is more bearable by comparison. It is more of a pick your poison situation with that said.

When starting Darksiders 2, the soundtrack is already an improvement over the first game with how epic the guardian theme is when riding your horse. The narrative hook isn't as interesting but it's made up for in visual specticle and music.

One improvement here is that Death is far more charismatic and has more of a light sense of humor by comparison to War's endless stoism espeically with the latter's lack of interesting character interactions

The music by Jesper Kyd is amazing with it's roaring battle tracks and of course is very memorable ambient music that permeates many of the exploration and puzzle sequences of the game.

Platforming is more involving this time around, it's very similar to the Ubisoft Prince of Persia games in how it's an automated and Death is a death defying trapeze artist. It is however one aspect of the game and when combined with puzzles and exploration it can add some verticality to the dungeons.

This is where DS2 strongly shines. The various puzzles Death will have to do throughout the game. Activating switches to open new paths, throwing bombs to destroy yellow corruption stones, using golems, finding pathways to unlock more parts of the dungeon, using clones to get past obstacles, using the Deathgrip, moving around statues and obstacles to find different areas of the level. When it comes to this aspect, the game shines.

I'm not even a super big puzzle guy, I do enjoy enviromental puzzle mores and DS2 does such an incredible job with them. There are moments where it can feel like I'm stumped and then I ponder on it enough and eventually figure it out. The abilties you have plus working with what's in the level makes for enjoyable scenarios where it feels like you are solving a puzzle within a puzzle like in say an exploration Resident Evil map. This can apply to the first game by extension before the Black Throne.

Combat is also good and do a good job at breaking up the exploration. I'm not big on the loot and RPG levelling systems. The former I can forgive since you are always given good loot just by looking around the levels. The latter not so much since it's hard to tell what abilities are useful and which aren't. I mainly just used Teleport Slash and dumped all the XP I got into that. This is something DS1 did better since there was no XP systems or skill trees and you just got extra abilties through buying them in a shop.

Outside of that, it's good. You still have the direction based inputs from the first game, and it's fun to slash around and hit enemies with various combos. Moves like deathgrip can even used in combat.

This does unfortunately lead to the game's biggest problem and that's the pacing. When judging the game based on The Forgelands, DS2 is fantastic and the plot moves and flows at a reasonable rate. Then when you get to the Well of Souls and then Death touches the door to it, everything goes downhill. Kingdom of the Dead is one big filler arc. No meaningful plot progression or plot revelations even happen. All you do is 3 of something constantly. There's even a part where you have to 3 of something while already doing 1 of the 3 of something.

It doesn't help that you get an ablitiy of using the souls of the dead generals just for the end of the level to take that power away from you.

Then you get to Lostlight and while it's better there's still macguffins you have to collect and the plot building up to moments that never had any like Death meeting Lilith, him fighting Samael and his final confrontation with a character that shares a similar look to the Superman villain Doomsday. The final boss itself felt like a mini boss encounter.

That and Death being a kinslayer and having the nephelim never really goes into interesting places due to so much of the story being padding.

Overall, Darksiders 2 feels like a 7-8 hour game that stretched to being 10-12 hours. I really wanted the game to end when you had to get two keys to open a door. A better middle half would've made a good game, a great one.

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.