I think so, but it comes down to preferences in game play. Big time action/ fighting fan? You may enjoy the other installments. But if you like turn based RPG, like a dragon will be your jam. It's my favorite of the bunch, by quite a large margin.
The last few games you beat and rate them 5
- Thread starter Ceremony
- Start date
I honestly don't know, I never played a Yakuza game because I wasn't really ever in PlayStation (I grew up with Nintendo and then Xbox). From playing Playstation, I loved the FFVII: Remake combat and loved P5R combat as well.
Unholy Diver
Registered User
God of War - Ragnarok 8.5/10
Continuation of the story of Kratos and his son Atreus as they try to both fulfill and avoid their destiny and the war to end all wars Ragnarok, more of the hack and slash fighting from the 2018 game, better enemy variety, and a nice group of boss battles. Good story with a lot of interesting branches as you assist your various allies and even some enemies throughout.
Continuation of the story of Kratos and his son Atreus as they try to both fulfill and avoid their destiny and the war to end all wars Ragnarok, more of the hack and slash fighting from the 2018 game, better enemy variety, and a nice group of boss battles. Good story with a lot of interesting branches as you assist your various allies and even some enemies throughout.
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,291
- 17,359
Alan Wake is a game about Alan Wake, a writer who goes on holiday with his wife to the secluded town of Bright Falls to get away from a period of writer's block after finishing the last book in a long-running series. You play as Alan Wake, the world's most unfit man. The game starts with Alan and his wife Alice landing at Bright Falls and going to the cabin on the lake they're staying in. While you're there Alice surprises him with a typewriter and a pile of paper. Alan storms off in a huff because he wanted to get away from writing, and the next thing he knows he's outside it's dark he hears screaming and he runs back into the cabin only to see that Alice has seemingly jumped off the deck and into the water, so he jumps in after her.
I had never played Alan Wake originally and didn't know anything about it. I knew it was a third person horror game but that was about it. My assumption was that I'd like the game, since the premise is largely something that appeals to me. Ultimately, I enjoyed its literary pretensions. Although it seems obvious in a game and story about a writer, there's a lot of narrative depth and complexity. Reality is often subverted in a way which suggests Alan is responsible for all of the things happening to him, which is an interesting premise for a story. You can't argue with that.
The problem is that it doesn't do this well. It does pretty much nothing well. I've played this game from beginning to end twice. I've read the very detailed Wikipedia article. I've read all 144 collectible manuscript pages you find in game. I still don't know what the plot is. I'll try and summarise it.
It turns out the cabin Alan was staying at doesn't exist. Only it does, or did, but there was a writer there some decades before called Thomas Zane who stayed there. He had a girlfriend called Barbara and they disappeared. When Alan turns up, Barbara is actually the one who steals Alice away and holds her to ransom, trying to force Alan to write a book to get her back. She actually is taken hostage, Alan ends up following one of the kidnappers who he later discovers is in cahoots with a psychiatrist who works in Bright Falls. He deals with struggling artists and Alice secretly planned to get him to see Alan to try and help him. But it turns out that Thomas Zane and Barbara are in The Dark Place and The Dark Place turns various objects and people against Alan in the present - it gets dark, swirly, people appear in the woods and in town covered in darkness trying to attack Alan. If you defeat them you get away, but more come. Alan and his agent Barry go to this farmhouse outside of town owned by two old, viking-obsessed former rock stars who brewed their own moonshine and wrote a song about how if you drink the witches brew then you can find out where she is, so Alan and Barry get plastered and this gives them insight into getting Alice back. Thomas Zane pops up periodically too, for some reason he's in an old fashioned diving suit and looks like a Big Daddy from BioShock. Then... I think eventually you get Alice back. I don't even remember how it ends, and I'm writing this much earlier after finishing the game than normal.
In my old age and relative social seclusion there are times I think I can feel my brain deteriorating in real time. Not anything serious that I'm going to go into detail on here but just not getting things. I felt like that when I played Alan Wake the first time. By the end I realised it wasn't my fault. This game's plot is incomprehensible. As I said, it's an interesting premise. That's where it ends though. You end up struggling so hard to follow it you stop caring. By the time it reaches a resolution it's so contrived it's not worth it.
And that's before we get on to the characters. Weirdly, for a game about a writer there are very few characters who react to things the way an actual human does. When Alan arrives in town he goes to the local diner and meets a waitress who's a massive fan. She gushes about how much she loves him, all his books, the usual stuff. Later she gets possessed by The Darkness and she calls him telling him she has the manuscript he's working on to free his wife. Hello, Alan. Yes. I have the. Manu. Script. You should. Come. Over. It's like Smithers' screensaver. When Alan turns up at her house and asks for the manuscript she instead offers him coffee, and he accepts. In the same voice. The coffee is then drugged, because The Darkness which wants him to write a book things making him waste time running around after his wife will help. He wakes up at night and Rose is gone and there's no manuscript. When will his luck turn?!
That's just the lack of logic, there are plenty of characters who are just plain irritating. There's Alan's obnoxious agent, Barry, who manages to do a better job of embodying Alan's self-doubt than all of the possessed people and objects trying to kill him. There's the rogue FBI agent who turns up... in fact I don't think I know why he turns up. Or why he constantly tries to shoot Alan whenever he appears. I do know why he calls Alan by a different writer each time though - someone thought this would be funny, and they're badly wrong. Hey Stephen King! Hey Hemingway! Hey Brett [sic] Easton Ellis! Hey Dan Brown! I'm not kidding, there's tons of these. There are pretty much no sympathetic characters anywhere in this game, and it's because they're all written like people who just don't behave the way people do.
The setting doesn't help in this regard either. The game's development actually shifted from an open world to a more linear experience, but with aspects of both making it into the final game. The result is a fundamentally linear experience - you have an objective marker you need to follow (but no minimap) to a place to advance the story. But there are also large open sections which feel like they were designed to be explored, but aren't. Often they'll just be a stretch of road where you can drive a car while Alan's voiceover dumps some exposition if you haven't been following what's going on. The result is the setting and Bright Falls are less impactful than they probably should be. I don't have any investment in the location because I'm just being funnelled through an array of corridors, with nothing detailed or interesting to find.
In addition to the nominally interesting story conceit, there's also potential here with gameplay. You do have guns for stopping the possessed people, but you have to shine light on them first to get rid of the Darkness on them. You have a torch which you need to replace the batteries for, along with things like flares and flashbang grenades in some places. You can also use environmental objects occasionally, like exposed electric cables, to guide your enemies to their death. This aspect of gameplay is about the only thing I can praise the game for, as it's both straight-forward and consistently varied enough to be interesting. It's also undeniably satisfying launching a flaregun into a group of four howling monsters and watching them evaporate.
Sadly, there are problems here too. Shining your torch at an enemy is fine. Only it doesn't stop the bigger ones from moving towards you. If you then back off you'll end up backing into a wall or an object you can't see, you'll get stuck and they'll catch you and you'll die. If there's more than one enemy then you can't shine your torch on all of them, so you'll back up and you'll die. You need to get rid of the Darkness on them to be able to kill them, so unless you have flares or anything to stop them (and there are occasionally bigger enemies like lumberjacks or bulldozers or combine harvesters), you're going to die. The shooting also doesn't have much weight to it. It's really not a satisfying gameplay loop, apart from those few occasions you get a big group kill.
Speaking of which, this is one of those deeply annoying games which aspires to the cinematic. Frantically backpedalling from three or four guys surrounding you, pulling out your last flare to buy yourself some space? The game will slow down and rotate the camera 360 degrees in slow motion to show you just how dramatic the danger you're in is. Only now you don't know which direction is which and you're probably going to die. Press the dodge button just in time to avoid a clawing hand? Slow mo camera time. And here's another thing that annoys me, you know how in third person games if you press the right stick it swaps shoulders for the aiming view? Alan must be left handed, because if you do this the game just switches you back to the other shoulder a few seconds later.
In the game's brief tutorial section at the start which explains the combat, you're told that it's often a better option to run into light rather than try and kill every enemy. You'll find streetlights and other things periodically which act as safezones and checkpoints. This is fine, and obviously based on what I've said it would seem preferable to actual combat. The only problem is it's one of those games where your character can sprint for about three seconds then needs an oxygen mask and a cup of tea before they can think about doing it again. It doesn't help that there's no stamina meter (he breathes more heavily but he can't sprint even when this stops) or that it's the same button to dodge and sprint. Why? This isn't a game newly released, it's a game that was 'remastered' ten years after it first came out. Based on what I've looked at it was relatively well-received. How?
The game doesn't look or sound nice either. For a gameplay premise centred around the contrast between light and dark there's very little in the way of style or atmosphere. I actually got quite far in the game before I realised I had the brightness turned up too high. When I was in the woods I could see everything with no problems - trees, rocks, enemies, that sort of thing. When I turned the brightness down it just felt like my TV wasn't working. The sound quickly gets irritating too, with the same music cue every time enemies 'suddenly' appear and the same nondescript swirly noise in the background just before. I also think the PS4 version has an uncapped framerate, because during cutscenes my console was silent, during gameplay it turned into a jet engine. And this wasn't even utilising any HDR settings. I'm not going to tell you I'm the most technically minded enjoyer of video games, but this seems like easy thing to rectify. If everything else didn't annoy me so much I might not have been so bothered, but here we are.
Quite early on in my time with this game I realised what it reminded me of. It's like Deadly Premonition written by David Cage. A surreal love letter to TV shows like Twin Peaks and the Twilight Zone, only without any of the skill or insight to make something as engaging as those were. There are probably more details about Alan Wake that annoyed me as I was playing but I'm honestly surprised I've been as restrained as I have here. At some point in my time with it I realised this is technically probably one of the worst games I've ever played. And yet, I never really hated it. There were times when I played on the hardest difficulty I really questioned what I was doing with my life, but that was about it. Despite the amount of words I've typed here, it's not going to live long in my memory as a benchmark of anything. It was just a very stupid, unenjoyable period of my life where I ended up feeling quite aggravated in the process of not achieving a lot. If you think it's impressive that it's managed to make me feel so unenthusiastic about video games, then I suppose that's something. It's probably not what anyone was going for though.
Last edited:
- Aug 24, 2011
- 28,769
- 13,786
I watched ONE clip on YouTube from that game and now my algorithm is recommending clips to me constantly. I don’t own a PlayStation so I’ve never played those games but the cutscenes seemed hilariously dramatic, reminded me of the South Park episode about WWE where 90% of the entertainment value is from the dramatic narrative. Gotta love a big fat red headed Thor though
Would love to try those games out at some point. Spider-Man as well
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
YouTube algorithms suck so much that I've gotten to the point where if I watch a single thing that's not what I typically watch, I watch it in incognito mode so YouTube doesn't keep forcing things I'm not that interested in down my throat.
PeteWorrell
[...]
- Aug 31, 2006
- 5,085
- 2,215
I applaud you for playing through this game twice trying to understand the appeal. I quit after a couple of hours and never came back to it. I finish the grand majority of my games but i just couldn't finish this one. The gameplay was not good, the characters didn't act like human beings and the story was a mess. There was simply nothing there for me to look forward to so i did not even bother trying to power through it.Alan Wake Remastered (PS4, 2021)
Alan Wake is a game about Alan Wake, a writer who goes on holiday with his wife to the secluded town of Bright Falls to get away from a period of writer's block after finishing the last book in a long-running series. You play as Alan Wake, the world's most unfit man. The game starts with Alan and his wife Alice landing at Bright Falls and going to the cabin on the lake they're staying in. While you're there Alice surprises him with a typewriter and a pile of paper. Alan storms off in a huff because he wanted to get away from writing, and the next thing he knows he's outside it's dark he hears screaming and he runs back into the cabin only to see that Alice has seemingly jumped off the deck and into the water, so he jumps in after her.
I had never played Alan Wake originally and didn't know anything about it. I knew it was a third person horror game but that was about it. My assumption was that I'd like the game, since the premise is largely something that appeals to me. Ultimately, I enjoyed its literary pretensions. Although it seems obvious in a game and story about a writer, there's a lot of narrative depth and complexity. Reality is often subverted in a way which suggests Alan is responsible for all of the things happening to him, which is an interesting premise for a story. You can't argue with that.
The problem is that it doesn't do this well. It does pretty much nothing well. I've played this game from beginning to end twice. I've read the very detailed Wikipedia article. I've read all 144 collectible manuscript pages you find in game. I still don't know what the plot is. I'll try and summarise it.
It turns out the cabin Alan was staying at doesn't exist. Only it does, or did, but there was a writer there some decades before called Thomas Zane who stayed there. He had a girlfriend called Barbara and they disappeared. When Alan turns up, Barbara is actually the one who steals Alice away and holds her to ransom, trying to force Alan to write a book to get her back. She actually is taken hostage, Alan ends up following one of the kidnappers who he later discovers is in cahoots with a psychiatrist who works in Bright Falls. He deals with struggling artists and Alice secretly planned to get him to see Alan to try and help him. But it turns out that Thomas Zane and Barbara are in The Dark Place and The Dark Place turns various objects and people against Alan in the present - it gets dark, swirly, people appear in the woods and in town covered in darkness trying to attack Alan. If you defeat them you get away, but more come. Alan and his agent Barry go to this farmhouse outside of town owned by two old, viking-obsessed former rock stars who brewed their own moonshine and wrote a song about how if you drink the witches brew then you can find out where she is, so Alan and Barry get plastered and this gives them insight into getting Alice back. Thomas Zane pops up periodically too, for some reason he's in an old fashioned diving suit and looks like a Big Daddy from BioShock. Then... I think eventually you get Alice back. I don't even remember how it ends, and I'm writing this much earlier after finishing the game than normal.
In my old age and relative social seclusion there are times I think I can feel my brain deteriorating in real time. Not anything serious that I'm going to go into detail on here but just not getting things. I felt like that when I played Alan Wake the first time. By the end I realised it wasn't my fault. This game's plot is incomprehensible. As I said, it's an interesting premise. That's where it ends though. You end up struggling so hard to follow it you stop caring. By the time it reaches a resolution it's so contrived it's not worth it.
And that's before we get on to the characters. Weirdly, for a game about a writer there are very few characters who react to things the way an actual human does. When Alan arrives in town he goes to the local diner and meets a waitress who's a massive fan. She gushes about how much she loves him, all his books, the usual stuff. Later she gets possessed by The Darkness and she calls him telling him she has the manuscript he's working on to free his wife. Hello, Alan. Yes. I have the. Manu. Script. You should. Come. Over. It's like Smithers' screensaver. When Alan turns up at her house and asks for the manuscript she instead offers him coffee, and he accepts. In the same voice. The coffee is then drugged, because The Darkness which wants him to write a book things making him waste time running around after his wife will help. He wakes up at night and Rose is gone and there's no manuscript. When will his luck turn?!
That's just the lack of logic, there are plenty of characters who are just plain irritating. There's Alan's obnoxious agent, Barry, who manages to do a better job of embodying Alan's self-doubt than all of the possessed people and objects trying to kill him. There's the rogue FBI agent who turns up... in fact I don't think I know why he turns up. Or why he constantly tries to shoot Alan whenever he appears. I do know why he calls Alan by a different writer each time though - someone thought this would be funny, and they're badly wrong. Hey Stephen King! Hey Hemingway! Hey Brett [sic] Easton Ellis! Hey Dan Brown! I'm not kidding, there's tons of these. There are pretty much no sympathetic characters anywhere in this game, and it's because they're all written like people who just don't behave the way people do.
The setting doesn't help in this regard either. The game's development actually shifted from an open world to a more linear experience, but with aspects of both making it into the final game. The result is a fundamentally linear experience - you have an objective marker you need to follow (but no minimap) to a place to advance the story. But there are also large open sections which feel like they were designed to be explored, but aren't. Often they'll just be a stretch of road where you can drive a car while Alan's voiceover dumps some exposition if you haven't been following what's going on. The result is the setting and Bright Falls are less impactful than they probably should be. I don't have any investment in the location because I'm just being funnelled through an array of corridors, with nothing detailed or interesting to find.
In addition to the nominally interesting story conceit, there's also potential here with gameplay. You do have guns for stopping the possessed people, but you have to shine light on them first to get rid of the Darkness on them. You have a torch which you need to replace the batteries for, along with things like flares and flashbang grenades in some places. You can also use environmental objects occasionally, like exposed electric cables, to guide your enemies to their death. This aspect of gameplay is about the only thing I can praise the game for, as it's both straight-forward and consistently varied enough to be interesting. It's also undeniably satisfying launching a flaregun into a group of four howling monsters and watching them evaporate.
Sadly, there are problems here too. Shining your torch at an enemy is fine. Only it doesn't stop the bigger ones from moving towards you. If you then back off you'll end up backing into a wall or an object you can't see, you'll get stuck and they'll catch you and you'll die. If there's more than one enemy then you can't shine your torch on all of them, so you'll back up and you'll die. You need to get rid of the Darkness on them to be able to kill them, so unless you have flares or anything to stop them (and there are occasionally bigger enemies like lumberjacks or bulldozers or combine harvesters), you're going to die. The shooting also doesn't have much weight to it. It's really not a satisfying gameplay loop, apart from those few occasions you get a big group kill.
Speaking of which, this is one of those deeply annoying games which aspires to the cinematic. Frantically backpedalling from three or four guys surrounding you, pulling out your last flare to buy yourself some space? The game will slow down and rotate the camera 360 degrees in slow motion to show you just how dramatic the danger you're in is. Only now you don't know which direction is which and you're probably going to die. Press the dodge button just in time to avoid a clawing hand? Slow mo camera time. And here's another thing that annoys me, you know how in third person games if you press the right stick it swaps shoulders for the aiming view? Alan must be left handed, because if you do this the game just switches you back to the other shoulder a few seconds later.
In the game's brief tutorial section at the start which explains the combat, you're told that it's often a better option to run into light rather than try and kill every enemy. You'll find streetlights and other things periodically which act as safezones and checkpoints. This is fine, and obviously based on what I've said it would seem preferable to actual combat. The only problem is it's one of those games where your character can sprint for about three seconds then needs an oxygen mask and a cup of tea before they can think about doing it again. It doesn't help that there's no stamina meter (he breathes more heavily but he can't sprint even when this stops) or that it's the same button to dodge and sprint. Why? This isn't a game newly released, it's a game that was 'remastered' ten years after it first came out. Based on what I've looked at it was relatively well-received. How?
The game doesn't look or sound nice either. For a gameplay premise centred around the contrast between light and dark there's very little in the way of style or atmosphere. I actually got quite far in the game before I realised I had the brightness turned up too high. When I was in the woods I could see everything with no problems - trees, rocks, enemies, that sort of thing. When I turned the brightness down it just felt like my TV wasn't working. The sound quickly gets irritating too, with the same music cue every time enemies 'suddenly' appear and the same nondescript swirly noise in the background just before. I also think the PS4 version has an uncapped framerate, because during cutscenes my console was silent, during gameplay it turned into a jet engine. And this wasn't even utilising any HDR settings. I'm not going to tell you I'm the most technically minded enjoyer of video games, but this seems like easy thing to rectify. If everything else didn't annoy me so much I might not have been so bothered, but here we are.
Quite early on in my time with this game I realised what it reminded me of. It's like Deadly Premonition written by David Cage. A surreal love letter to TV shows like Twin Peaks and the Twilight Zone, only without any of the skill or insight to make something as engaging as those were. There are probably more details about Alan Wake that annoyed me as I was playing but I'm honestly surprised I've been as restrained as I have here. At some point in my time with it I realised this is technically probably one of the worst games I've ever played. And yet, I never really hated it. There were times when I played on the hardest difficulty I really questioned what I was doing with my life, but that was about it. Despite the amount of words I've typed here, it's not going to live long in my memory as a benchmark of anything. It was just a very stupid, unenjoyable period of my life where I ended up feeling quite aggravated in the process of not achieving a lot. If you think it's impressive that it's managed to make me feel so unenthusiastic about video games, then I suppose that's something. It's probably not what anyone was going for though.
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,291
- 17,359
One other interesting thing is that because it's presented in an episodic format (despite not being released episodically, only ever been released as a full game aside from the two DLCs) you never really get any sense of flow. There are six (plus two DLC) episodes that all start and finish and all broadly involve the same thing. This means you don't get any real sense of narrative flow, even if you sit and play a couple of them one after the other.
I do get some shit from time to time (it's tried to make me watch baseball and cricket recently, come on) but I also get stuff like this, so I have no complaints:
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy - 9/10
Trine 5 is another solid Trine adventure. You know what you're getting into if you've played the other Trine games. There are some interesting new mechanics that will make some puzzles more challenging. It feels like a very well put together sequel to a great franchise. This is definitely worth your time.
Trine 5 is another solid Trine adventure. You know what you're getting into if you've played the other Trine games. There are some interesting new mechanics that will make some puzzles more challenging. It feels like a very well put together sequel to a great franchise. This is definitely worth your time.
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,291
- 17,359
Transistor is a 2.5D sort of turn-based RPG set in the futuristic city of Cloudbank. You play as Red, a popular singer who goes out one night and loses her voice. On the same night she pulls a sword out of a dead guy lying on the street, and the sword talks to her. She then spends the next few hours fighting through the city against the Process, an assortment of robotic creatures that pop up, and trying to find out what she can about the Camerata, a secretive group which is responsible for it.
I think I've done quite a good job of explaining the story of the game there. I've tried harder to explain it than the game ever does. It's quite hard to even try and explain Transistor because in addition to it definitely being a story told through showing rather than telling, it's very short. To explain the entire story is to explain the 4-5 hours a single playthrough takes. This isn't necessarily an overall criticism but it took two playthroughs and a lot of reading and listening to properly appreciate what's going on.
There are games which start in medias res and then there's this. You're dropped into pretty much everything right away. Who is Red? Why is the sword talking? Who are the people she's encountering along the way and taking new powers for the sword from after killing them? Who are the Camerata, and why is there nobody else around? What is the Process? Why do none of the computer terminals you find which ostensibly offer citizens votes on things like what the weather should be or what colour the sky should be ever offer a meaningful response? Why doesn't Red feel safe responding to them honestly? Why are all of the abilities you unlocked named like computer programming commands, and why is the combat explained so poorly?
With all of that said, I don't want to explain all of it. It would ruin the game. I will say that all of that is explained. The combat isn't really, trial and error is the point but there's still little explanation to start you off. But I'll come to that later. The game's length helps it a lot, because while the story and characterisation are deliberately obtuse, you'll uncover it all quickly enough to feel as if you're always uncovering interesting details. There's no real telling as you play how long things will take, but there's a constant sense of progress to keep you going, even if you don't necessarily understand everything you find as you go.
Combat is probably the most interesting thing about the game. As you progress you unlock Functions. Functions can be used in three ways. Active Functions work as attacks. You press a button and do a thing to an enemy. Passive Functions alter an Active Function. You can apply two of these at a time. Passive Functions provide... passive upgrades. With 16 Functions available (and the ability to stack the same Functions for extra strength) there's a wide range of combat options, and experimentation really is rewarded. By the end of a second playthrough you'll have discovered (or looked up) the one or two combinations which cheese every enemy encounter, but it's still more fun putting your own twist on things.
Rather than just creating Functions and spamming them, the game also offers a Turn-based style where you can freeze the action and plan out a few moves, with a cooldown period after. The need for thought and planning is a nice change of pace, and you'll probably use this most of the time due to multiple enemies or wanting to avoid the delay after using a Function normally. Once a Turn is over you'll spend a few seconds running away from the Process waiting for the cooldown to end (unless you have Passive Functions to speed this up) which makes things feel a bit awkward, but on the whole trying to do as much damage as possible in a single turn is always a fun challenge.
The enemy variety throughout the game is great for this too, with several different kinds of enemies posing very different challenges pretty much all the time. The amount of variety in the combat for a game this short is genuinely amazing. You could play games three times as long as this and not have this much choice on offer. In addition to the main story there are Test rooms you can enter to really make the most of combat. Speed tests where you have to beat enemies under a time limit, Performance tests where you have limited Functions and waves of enemies, that sort of thing. These really make the most of the combat, provided you've spent enough time with the game to understand it and not be overwhelmed. When it works, it's very rewarding.
This is the third Supergiant Games game I've played after Hades and Bastion, two games very similar in their presentation and overall aesthetic. I tried not to, but naturally I compared it to them as I played. It's much more similar to Bastion in terms of length and the overall depth, but I think Transistor suffers a lot in terms of its setting. This happens in a few ways. Much is made of Cloudbank and how great the city and its people were. You don't meet any of them. You read about some of its greatest citizens on a text log, but that's it. It's hard to care about a setting like this when there's very little done to immerse you in it. The same goes for your actual progress too. The whole game is a completely linear path with very little to interact with. I suppose Red and the consciousness inside her sword know the city, but the player doesn't. Less here is definitely less rather than more. The art style is similar to Bastion - beautiful isometric backgrounds with a hand-drawn feel, but with much less detail there's much less to care about.
Ultimately I think Transistor does a lot right and a lot wrong. It's very obtuse in its story and gameplay, although it's short enough that two full playthroughs (with a new game plus or 'Recurse') don't feel like an imposition, and they will explain everything if you pay attention. The gameplay itself is tremendously detailed and rewards a lot of time spent with it. The story, setting and characterisation is actually quite clever once you understand what's going on, although for pretty much the whole first playthrough you'll wonder when or if this moment of clarity is coming. The game looks and sounds great, although the city of Cloudbank and the central story conceit of what's happening to it always feels just out of reach of the player, as if you've come late to something fundamentally world altering and are just trying to pick up the pieces. The game is short enough to overcome these problems, which doesn't sound like the compliment it is, but despite enjoying and appreciating it I do think I wanted a bit more. Flawed, but still very good.
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - 7/10
I never played Klonoa way back in the day and figured I should finally give it a shot since I know it had a bit of a cult following. It's a pretty good platformer with some great style to it. The game play is mostly 2D but the world is 3D. Platforms will twist and turn and the camera turns perfectly to go with you to give you the illusion of playing in 3D while playing in a 2D world. The only thing you really get that makes it feel 3D is when platforms move you to the foreground or background, or when you can throw enemies into the foreground or background.
The jumping felt a bit off and got noticeable in the last world. If you hold jump or press jump again in the air, you'll do a small flying animation. You won't be able to fly for long but it helps you bridge some gaps or stay in the air longer to avoid hazards. The annoying thing with this is that you would run off the edge of platforms just a bit sooner than you'd expect which would make you use your fly earlier than expected and likely lead you to your death. Furthermore, grabbing enemies is a very short range. It can get pretty problematic on angled platforms as well as when you're trying to do it while jumping. Again, this becomes prominent in the last world. The last world was particularly frustrating which made it lose some points because the rest of the game was genuinely a lot of fun.
I'll still be giving the second game a try as I bought the Phantasy Reverie Series which is both 1 & 2. I'll review that one when I finish it.
I never played Klonoa way back in the day and figured I should finally give it a shot since I know it had a bit of a cult following. It's a pretty good platformer with some great style to it. The game play is mostly 2D but the world is 3D. Platforms will twist and turn and the camera turns perfectly to go with you to give you the illusion of playing in 3D while playing in a 2D world. The only thing you really get that makes it feel 3D is when platforms move you to the foreground or background, or when you can throw enemies into the foreground or background.
The jumping felt a bit off and got noticeable in the last world. If you hold jump or press jump again in the air, you'll do a small flying animation. You won't be able to fly for long but it helps you bridge some gaps or stay in the air longer to avoid hazards. The annoying thing with this is that you would run off the edge of platforms just a bit sooner than you'd expect which would make you use your fly earlier than expected and likely lead you to your death. Furthermore, grabbing enemies is a very short range. It can get pretty problematic on angled platforms as well as when you're trying to do it while jumping. Again, this becomes prominent in the last world. The last world was particularly frustrating which made it lose some points because the rest of the game was genuinely a lot of fun.
I'll still be giving the second game a try as I bought the Phantasy Reverie Series which is both 1 & 2. I'll review that one when I finish it.
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil - 8/10
This game handles pretty much exactly the same as Door to Phantomile. This one actually had some challenging skill based puzzles that was lacking in the first. It definitely feels like an improvement over the original except it still has the similar problems where platforming can feel a bit float-y at times and the last couple levels can feel very frustrating as a result.
They did include a nice change with some snowboarding style levels. It was a nice change of pace and they were pretty fun to play through. That change of pace with some new game mechanics made the second a bit more enjoyable than the first. They're solid platformers. The enjoyment you'll get out of the sequel is pretty much the same as what you got out of the first. If you enjoyed the first, play the second, if you didn't like the first, don't even bother with the second. It's just a little bit better.
This game handles pretty much exactly the same as Door to Phantomile. This one actually had some challenging skill based puzzles that was lacking in the first. It definitely feels like an improvement over the original except it still has the similar problems where platforming can feel a bit float-y at times and the last couple levels can feel very frustrating as a result.
They did include a nice change with some snowboarding style levels. It was a nice change of pace and they were pretty fun to play through. That change of pace with some new game mechanics made the second a bit more enjoyable than the first. They're solid platformers. The enjoyment you'll get out of the sequel is pretty much the same as what you got out of the first. If you enjoyed the first, play the second, if you didn't like the first, don't even bother with the second. It's just a little bit better.
dirtydanglez
Registered User
- Oct 30, 2022
- 5,444
- 5,503
tails of iron - 8/10.
interesting story. i loved the narration. the bosses were challenging for me. a little heavy on the backtracking.
alan wake remastered - 5.5/10
i just didnt find the game that engaging.
journey - 7/10
visually appealing game. relaxing and simple in a good way. by the time i got around to playing it there wasnt many players online which i felt took away from the experience.
maneater - 7/10
the story was better than expected. i enojyed the little bits of humor in the game. far too repetitive tho.
subnatica - 9/10
the story was pretty good, the environments are really interesting and i really enjoyed the exploration. one my favorite game so far this year.
interesting story. i loved the narration. the bosses were challenging for me. a little heavy on the backtracking.
alan wake remastered - 5.5/10
i just didnt find the game that engaging.
journey - 7/10
visually appealing game. relaxing and simple in a good way. by the time i got around to playing it there wasnt many players online which i felt took away from the experience.
maneater - 7/10
the story was better than expected. i enojyed the little bits of humor in the game. far too repetitive tho.
subnatica - 9/10
the story was pretty good, the environments are really interesting and i really enjoyed the exploration. one my favorite game so far this year.
dirtydanglez
Registered User
- Oct 30, 2022
- 5,444
- 5,503
that brings back some memories. i forgot all about this game.Beat Again Via Emulation:
8.5/10
also what do you use for an emulator
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dirtydanglez
Registered User
- Oct 30, 2022
- 5,444
- 5,503
do you use a controller too? if so are the joysticks usable at all or are you better off using the dpad?
I use an Xbox One controller which is fully useable and customizable with both emulators.
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
Railway Islands - Puzzle - 7/10
This is a neat little puzzle game based around getting trains to all the stations in the style of Dorfromantik. There are some fun mechanics here that as you learn, will help you solve the puzzles while also getting very challenging. It's a pretty casual little puzzle game but it's definitely enjoyable without overstaying its welcome.
This is a neat little puzzle game based around getting trains to all the stations in the style of Dorfromantik. There are some fun mechanics here that as you learn, will help you solve the puzzles while also getting very challenging. It's a pretty casual little puzzle game but it's definitely enjoyable without overstaying its welcome.
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew - 9.5/10
I'm truly sad Mimimi has shut down but I wish all the devs the best of luck because they have made nothing but pure gems throughout the years! If you've played the other Mimimi titles, you'll know what to expect. Every iteration has some improvements over the last and this one certainly does not disappoint.
I absolutely loved the setting and theme. Their other titles were set in more realistic worlds and as a result, the creativity was limited. They decided to go with magic as the main focus of theme and game play and it really shines here. It was a ton of fun experimenting with different characters, seeing who mixes well with other characters. Every character had some fun and unique abilities.
The structure is a bit different in Shadow Gambit vs the others. I didn't really like it at first but it grew on me. In previous titles, you would unlock characters as you progress, maybe they're forced to split up for a couple missions due to the story with areas designed for those characters. In Shadow Gambit, you have to choose parties of three characters. At first I didn't like it but it really grew on me because it helps keep things interesting and allowed you to experiment. Levels didn't feel like they were designed around particular characters, it was how do you solve issues with the characters you brought.
You will also revisit islands which again, I thought at first was lazy, but it didn't feel like that when you play the game. Most of these islands are very large with several different sections. There was nothing forcing you to take certain routes or even visit certain sections in every mission. You had to go to one specific spot, you can choose from a few options where you begin and end each mission. As a result, while at first glance it seems like it will be repetitive, it does not end up that way. You're constantly visiting different areas within each island. Sometimes you will revisit the same area of an island but it wasn't too often.
After the first 5 hours or so, I genuinely felt a little disappointed, I thought while the game play was fun that it would get a bit repetitive due to revisiting islands, or it wouldn't be as fun being forced to parties of 3 throughout most of the game, but as I played more, I realized how well it was designed and that the islands weren't repetitive at all, the smaller parties actually made every mission feel unique even if you do go to the same island a few times.
The game is an absolute blast, I love these kinds of games and it's a real shame Mimimi has disbanded because they truly make the best titles in a very niche genre. Regardless, I wish the devs all the best of luck! Hopefully they move on to bigger and better things and do what makes them happy!
I'm truly sad Mimimi has shut down but I wish all the devs the best of luck because they have made nothing but pure gems throughout the years! If you've played the other Mimimi titles, you'll know what to expect. Every iteration has some improvements over the last and this one certainly does not disappoint.
I absolutely loved the setting and theme. Their other titles were set in more realistic worlds and as a result, the creativity was limited. They decided to go with magic as the main focus of theme and game play and it really shines here. It was a ton of fun experimenting with different characters, seeing who mixes well with other characters. Every character had some fun and unique abilities.
The structure is a bit different in Shadow Gambit vs the others. I didn't really like it at first but it grew on me. In previous titles, you would unlock characters as you progress, maybe they're forced to split up for a couple missions due to the story with areas designed for those characters. In Shadow Gambit, you have to choose parties of three characters. At first I didn't like it but it really grew on me because it helps keep things interesting and allowed you to experiment. Levels didn't feel like they were designed around particular characters, it was how do you solve issues with the characters you brought.
You will also revisit islands which again, I thought at first was lazy, but it didn't feel like that when you play the game. Most of these islands are very large with several different sections. There was nothing forcing you to take certain routes or even visit certain sections in every mission. You had to go to one specific spot, you can choose from a few options where you begin and end each mission. As a result, while at first glance it seems like it will be repetitive, it does not end up that way. You're constantly visiting different areas within each island. Sometimes you will revisit the same area of an island but it wasn't too often.
After the first 5 hours or so, I genuinely felt a little disappointed, I thought while the game play was fun that it would get a bit repetitive due to revisiting islands, or it wouldn't be as fun being forced to parties of 3 throughout most of the game, but as I played more, I realized how well it was designed and that the islands weren't repetitive at all, the smaller parties actually made every mission feel unique even if you do go to the same island a few times.
The game is an absolute blast, I love these kinds of games and it's a real shame Mimimi has disbanded because they truly make the best titles in a very niche genre. Regardless, I wish the devs all the best of luck! Hopefully they move on to bigger and better things and do what makes them happy!
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 - 8/10
This is a great remaster of a classic. I obviously haven't played a Tony Hawk game in 15 years so I can't compare it side by side but it feels as great as I remember. The game runs great, awesome soundtrack, and really fun to try to pull big combos. It still has that fun arcade-y feel where you don't have to be perfect and can fix silly problems. I'm a bit surprised at how short it is from what I remember though. I already completed all the park challenges for both 1 & 2 in about 6 hours.
Still, the game's a lot of fun. If you want to go try for high scores, it'll have a lot more life than that! It's a solid game and I hope they remaster more Tony Hawk games.
This is a great remaster of a classic. I obviously haven't played a Tony Hawk game in 15 years so I can't compare it side by side but it feels as great as I remember. The game runs great, awesome soundtrack, and really fun to try to pull big combos. It still has that fun arcade-y feel where you don't have to be perfect and can fix silly problems. I'm a bit surprised at how short it is from what I remember though. I already completed all the park challenges for both 1 & 2 in about 6 hours.
Still, the game's a lot of fun. If you want to go try for high scores, it'll have a lot more life than that! It's a solid game and I hope they remaster more Tony Hawk games.
Unholy Diver
Registered User
Starfield - 8/10
I enjoyed it a good bit, the main storyline was mostly good, the faction missions were mostly good, it had some bugs as all of the Bethesda action/rpgs in the Elder Scrolls / Fallout family tree do, but nothing crazy. The fact that really no decisions that you make have any bearing on the game was a step back I think from previous games, it was a very good game but it really didn't do anything special to improve upon what previous Bethesda games did, if you are/where a fan, then this was more of a good thing
I enjoyed it a good bit, the main storyline was mostly good, the faction missions were mostly good, it had some bugs as all of the Bethesda action/rpgs in the Elder Scrolls / Fallout family tree do, but nothing crazy. The fact that really no decisions that you make have any bearing on the game was a step back I think from previous games, it was a very good game but it really didn't do anything special to improve upon what previous Bethesda games did, if you are/where a fan, then this was more of a good thing
SimGrindcore
Registered User
Homefront: the Revolution - Solid 7.5/10
Homefront: The Revolution is a AA (my feeling) semi-open world FPS set in the near future. The North Koreans invade and control the USA. You are Brady, a soldier of the revolutionary faction of Philadelphia. The game reminds me of a mix of the Far Cry formula, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus and Terminator: Resistance.
I found the game to be more challenging than other shooters at first and puzzles are sometimes hard to solve. In some missions, you can't jump straight to the checkpoint because it will bug the progression (as I said AA game). There is no skill tree but you can purchase equipment that will make you run faster, reload faster, heal yourself faster, etc. You can upgrade your weapons and add weapon variants. Like your pistol can transform to a SMG or the shotgun transforms to a firethrower. Same for throwables. You can recruit NPC (and they effectively kill enemies) and hack drones on the fly to help you along the way. You can stealth (not my playing style) and I found it challenging. You can drive a motorcycle in some areas of the game and it handles really well. There are side jobs that make you earn money to spend on equipement and upgrades, but are optional.
There are 3 DLCs and each are built around 3 linar missions (1 to 2 hours of gameplay) and are tied to the main game story. The Voice of Freedom DLC is a direct prequel as its ending is the main game opening sequence. It reminded me of the Metro series. The Aftermath DLC is the continuation of the story set 2 weeks after the events of the main game and is more open world than the 1st DLC. The Beyond the Walls DLC continues the story further outside Philly in the countryside. I feel that these 2 DLCs are the true ending of the game.
It's really decent for the challenge, the vibe and story. As a person who primarily plays FPS games, I think this game definitely scratched an itch. Easily worth the $3.99 I paid. It's a way better game that the critics described it to be.
Homefront: The Revolution is a AA (my feeling) semi-open world FPS set in the near future. The North Koreans invade and control the USA. You are Brady, a soldier of the revolutionary faction of Philadelphia. The game reminds me of a mix of the Far Cry formula, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus and Terminator: Resistance.
I found the game to be more challenging than other shooters at first and puzzles are sometimes hard to solve. In some missions, you can't jump straight to the checkpoint because it will bug the progression (as I said AA game). There is no skill tree but you can purchase equipment that will make you run faster, reload faster, heal yourself faster, etc. You can upgrade your weapons and add weapon variants. Like your pistol can transform to a SMG or the shotgun transforms to a firethrower. Same for throwables. You can recruit NPC (and they effectively kill enemies) and hack drones on the fly to help you along the way. You can stealth (not my playing style) and I found it challenging. You can drive a motorcycle in some areas of the game and it handles really well. There are side jobs that make you earn money to spend on equipement and upgrades, but are optional.
There are 3 DLCs and each are built around 3 linar missions (1 to 2 hours of gameplay) and are tied to the main game story. The Voice of Freedom DLC is a direct prequel as its ending is the main game opening sequence. It reminded me of the Metro series. The Aftermath DLC is the continuation of the story set 2 weeks after the events of the main game and is more open world than the 1st DLC. The Beyond the Walls DLC continues the story further outside Philly in the countryside. I feel that these 2 DLCs are the true ending of the game.
It's really decent for the challenge, the vibe and story. As a person who primarily plays FPS games, I think this game definitely scratched an itch. Easily worth the $3.99 I paid. It's a way better game that the critics described it to be.
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pistolpete11
Registered User
- Apr 27, 2013
- 12,000
- 11,027
Alan Wake - 5.5/10
I didn't play single player video games when this was originally released 13 years ago, so it's hard for me to grade it on a curve. In 2023, it was not an enjoyable experience.
As I wrote in the Currently Playing thread, The Remedy-ness of it is cool. The trippy, mind bending, what's going on here story is really it's only major selling point...The atmosphere is pretty good, too, I guess. Particularly when you're in the dark woods.
The actual gameplay is brutal. I found the dodge and jump to both be janky as hell and frustrating to use. The gun play is forgettable. There's only a few enemy types and you deal with them the same way. It was so un-fun that I eventually turned the difficulty down to easy just to get through the story....There was a lot of walking from point A to point B segments where nothing was really happening....The 'puzzles' were simple and repetitive. Find a generator so you can turn on a light or use some equipment. Move this cart out of the way. Stuff like that. There's nothing to figure out...When I had it on hard (or maybe it was normal?), I wanted to explore to find ammo or batteries for the flashlight or whatever, but the character is kind of slow and stamina is pretty limited. Stamina needs to be limited during combat or else you could just run by everything, but it would have been nice to have unlimited stamina when you're outside of combat...Throughout the world, there are lost pages of a book the character is writing for you to collect. I started off reading them, but grew kind of bored of it. It would have been nice for the character to just read them out loud while you were still exploring or going to the next spot.....When enemies appeared, the game plays a sound, freezes, and the camera rotates to show you where they are. At first I thought this was kind of cool, but I think it takes away from the spookiness of it for them to show you where everything is. I don't want to be jump scared throughout the entire game either, so I appreciate the notice. But it would have been better if there was just a sound and you had to find them yourself.
Between this and Shadow of the Colossus, these old, classic games are making me think that they are just too dated for me to enjoy in the present day. Games might not be as groundbreaking or whatever anymore, but the technology improvements and more importantly the lessons learned for world design, quality of life improvements, etc. that are just common practice now make games a lot more enjoyable. Demon's Souls, which I generally liked, broke new ground and started a new genre, but the other FromSoft games are still much better IMO (haven't played DS2 yet, though). I appreciate the impact they had on the gaming industry, but it's going to be harder for me to convince myself to play 10+ year old games again.
I didn't play single player video games when this was originally released 13 years ago, so it's hard for me to grade it on a curve. In 2023, it was not an enjoyable experience.
As I wrote in the Currently Playing thread, The Remedy-ness of it is cool. The trippy, mind bending, what's going on here story is really it's only major selling point...The atmosphere is pretty good, too, I guess. Particularly when you're in the dark woods.
The actual gameplay is brutal. I found the dodge and jump to both be janky as hell and frustrating to use. The gun play is forgettable. There's only a few enemy types and you deal with them the same way. It was so un-fun that I eventually turned the difficulty down to easy just to get through the story....There was a lot of walking from point A to point B segments where nothing was really happening....The 'puzzles' were simple and repetitive. Find a generator so you can turn on a light or use some equipment. Move this cart out of the way. Stuff like that. There's nothing to figure out...When I had it on hard (or maybe it was normal?), I wanted to explore to find ammo or batteries for the flashlight or whatever, but the character is kind of slow and stamina is pretty limited. Stamina needs to be limited during combat or else you could just run by everything, but it would have been nice to have unlimited stamina when you're outside of combat...Throughout the world, there are lost pages of a book the character is writing for you to collect. I started off reading them, but grew kind of bored of it. It would have been nice for the character to just read them out loud while you were still exploring or going to the next spot.....When enemies appeared, the game plays a sound, freezes, and the camera rotates to show you where they are. At first I thought this was kind of cool, but I think it takes away from the spookiness of it for them to show you where everything is. I don't want to be jump scared throughout the entire game either, so I appreciate the notice. But it would have been better if there was just a sound and you had to find them yourself.
Between this and Shadow of the Colossus, these old, classic games are making me think that they are just too dated for me to enjoy in the present day. Games might not be as groundbreaking or whatever anymore, but the technology improvements and more importantly the lessons learned for world design, quality of life improvements, etc. that are just common practice now make games a lot more enjoyable. Demon's Souls, which I generally liked, broke new ground and started a new genre, but the other FromSoft games are still much better IMO (haven't played DS2 yet, though
). I appreciate the impact they had on the gaming industry, but it's going to be harder for me to convince myself to play 10+ year old games again.
