[blog] Calbon's Wild PlayStation Backlog Crusade (Featuring Nintendo and PC games)
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3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon
3 Yrs♥✓#
Howdy, this is Calbon. I'm a new member of the website, and so I've decided to start my own blog of my gaming and backlog journey. I mostly play my games on PlayStation consoles, with a little bit of everything else sprinkled in. My backlog is insanely huge right now and I thought it would be fun to start a blog on my journey. So here is some basic information about myself on this website to get to know me. My favorite game is Bloodborne, with Borderlands 2 being a close 2nd. I have played and beaten around 40 to 50 games last year. My favorite types of games are souls-like and 3D platformers. So with some basic information out of the way, im going to give you a kind of basic plan/scheduled for how I've been doing things recently. Normally I play 3 to 5 game on my ps5 at a time with usually one switch game on the side. I have 2 custom tabs on my profile for different purposes. The first tab is my up next tab. This tab is for games from my backlog I plan on starting soon or in the near future. At the first of the month, I add 4 to 7 games to the list that I would like to check out soon. The other tab is my long ago tab. This is for games that I've beaten in the past with no accurate times, or information. So this kinda sums up my introduction. I plan on posting when I can, but with 40+ hour long work weeks and full time schooling, its kinda hard to keep up with gaming and such.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
As a first post, I would like to talk about some Nes games I played on the switch the other night for about half an hour, alongside my thoughts on how frustrating Nioh can be sometimes.
Last night, I decide to renewed my Nintendo Switch Online to check out NES and SNES games on the switch. I want to slowly check out almost all of the game on each of the emulation software. I first began with Yoshi (1992). This game is an almost match 3 style game in the same style as Doctor Mario, and Tetris. Its has you attempting to land a Mario enemy inside and egg and covering it up to gain points. Its pretty mediocre in my opinion and just not interesting enough to really warrant a purchase or even time. I checked out both game types and even played with different sprite variety but I was really not that interested in the gameplay. I'd kinda recommend this a pick up and play game for the gameboy, but on a home console / Nes it just come off as kinda unremarkable. 3/10
I next up picked up Tennis for the NES as another kinda small game since I was pressed with time. I played a set of tennis and had a little bit of fun with it. I like how the game feels, and just how simple it is. Each set is kinda long, but still fun none the less. I found hitting the ball when it came back towards you hard to do but great when you pulled it off. The difficulty is also pretty hard which is kind of a staple for old NES games. The biggest problem this game has though has to be landing an actual hit with the tennis racket. The hitbox seems to be somewhat wonky and unpredictable while the AI land pretty much every hit with a level 2 of 5 difficulty. Overall its pretty fun for what it is, and that is not very much in ' game standards. 5/10
My biggest problem with both of these NES games is how do I rank them as complete or not? There was no story, but I played at least one round of each, does that classify it as complete? Idk, if you know please tell me.
Onryoki
Next up I would like to just briefly touch on how unfair and difficult Nioh sometimes can be. Nioh for the most part is a great souls-like game, with an even better sequel, but man, this game sometimes is just pure crap. Harder difficulties are something i've come to appreciate more and more over the years, with the souls games being my favorites. Tough but fair difficulty is a great thing that is often leads to a more rewarding experience, but just plain unfair games are an awful experience. Nioh often teeters between the two sides. On one side is a fantastic, quick, and complex combat system that is a great branch off from a souls-like game formula. On the other side, the game has terrible enemy scaling, potential grind walls, unfair traps and situations, and messy hitboxes and tracking. All of this brewed together forms a rough experience that has me really conflicted on whether I love the game or not. I've beaten Nioh once before in 2019, and I was absolutely walloped.
The Dreaded Raven Tengu
I think the worst contenders of this artificial difficulty has to be with the sub missions given to you to gain some extra levels. Most of the time, they rely on pairing enemies together that are often super unfair when being faced alongside another. For instance, the sub mission A Fiercer Flame pits you up against a Raven Tengu and a Flying Bolt, arguably two of the hardest enemies in the game. When faced alone they are often easy enough to face, but when combined, form a fight that is far from fair. Nioh has a lot of these points in the side missions and they are honestly not fun at all. Another thing that I hate seems to be the insane amount of damage enemies can deal to the player in contrast to the meager amount that I was putting out with the best stuff in my disposal. Enemy projectile tracking has to be my least favorite thing related to artificial difficulty this games has. Pretty much every ranged attack used by a super strong enemy or boss, can track you down to the end of the earth to catch you in an unfair way. For instance, with the Onryoki on the pirate ship near the beginning. The metal balls he throws at the player will always it seems track the player down to the point where it can get flung completely behind itself and hit you in the most BS situation possible. The worst contender boss wise for artificial difficulty has to be Yuki Onna. The insane amounts of projectile tracking, along with crazy amount of damage inputted on the player ruin what could have been a fantastic fight. There is definitely a solution to avoid these issue though and that is grinding, which can be insanely punishing for newer players. Repeatedly your main upgrade and spending power is a souls staple, but with how Nioh handles it, with pretty much required grinding for all players, it can be a huge annoyance. I don't know, I probably just sound like I need to get good, but Nioh tends to just be so frustrating compared to its amazing sequel. I think I now know why I did not love Nioh the first time around, and I think I can trace it back to this.
Yuki Onna
Anyway, this concludes my first main blog post for this blog. I want to do game reviews with this blog when I can, alongside personal thoughts, rants, and memorable moments from what im playing on the side. I'm nearing the end of Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition and I plan on making this my next big blog post. Thank you for reading this if you are, and I wish you a good time gaming.
Last night, I decide to renewed my Nintendo Switch Online to check out NES and SNES games on the switch. I want to slowly check out almost all of the game on each of the emulation software. I first began with Yoshi (1992). This game is an almost match 3 style game in the same style as Doctor Mario, and Tetris. Its has you attempting to land a Mario enemy inside and egg and covering it up to gain points. Its pretty mediocre in my opinion and just not interesting enough to really warrant a purchase or even time. I checked out both game types and even played with different sprite variety but I was really not that interested in the gameplay. I'd kinda recommend this a pick up and play game for the gameboy, but on a home console / Nes it just come off as kinda unremarkable. 3/10
I next up picked up Tennis for the NES as another kinda small game since I was pressed with time. I played a set of tennis and had a little bit of fun with it. I like how the game feels, and just how simple it is. Each set is kinda long, but still fun none the less. I found hitting the ball when it came back towards you hard to do but great when you pulled it off. The difficulty is also pretty hard which is kind of a staple for old NES games. The biggest problem this game has though has to be landing an actual hit with the tennis racket. The hitbox seems to be somewhat wonky and unpredictable while the AI land pretty much every hit with a level 2 of 5 difficulty. Overall its pretty fun for what it is, and that is not very much in ' game standards. 5/10
My biggest problem with both of these NES games is how do I rank them as complete or not? There was no story, but I played at least one round of each, does that classify it as complete? Idk, if you know please tell me.
Onryoki
Next up I would like to just briefly touch on how unfair and difficult Nioh sometimes can be. Nioh for the most part is a great souls-like game, with an even better sequel, but man, this game sometimes is just pure crap. Harder difficulties are something i've come to appreciate more and more over the years, with the souls games being my favorites. Tough but fair difficulty is a great thing that is often leads to a more rewarding experience, but just plain unfair games are an awful experience. Nioh often teeters between the two sides. On one side is a fantastic, quick, and complex combat system that is a great branch off from a souls-like game formula. On the other side, the game has terrible enemy scaling, potential grind walls, unfair traps and situations, and messy hitboxes and tracking. All of this brewed together forms a rough experience that has me really conflicted on whether I love the game or not. I've beaten Nioh once before in 2019, and I was absolutely walloped.
The Dreaded Raven Tengu
I think the worst contenders of this artificial difficulty has to be with the sub missions given to you to gain some extra levels. Most of the time, they rely on pairing enemies together that are often super unfair when being faced alongside another. For instance, the sub mission A Fiercer Flame pits you up against a Raven Tengu and a Flying Bolt, arguably two of the hardest enemies in the game. When faced alone they are often easy enough to face, but when combined, form a fight that is far from fair. Nioh has a lot of these points in the side missions and they are honestly not fun at all. Another thing that I hate seems to be the insane amount of damage enemies can deal to the player in contrast to the meager amount that I was putting out with the best stuff in my disposal. Enemy projectile tracking has to be my least favorite thing related to artificial difficulty this games has. Pretty much every ranged attack used by a super strong enemy or boss, can track you down to the end of the earth to catch you in an unfair way. For instance, with the Onryoki on the pirate ship near the beginning. The metal balls he throws at the player will always it seems track the player down to the point where it can get flung completely behind itself and hit you in the most BS situation possible. The worst contender boss wise for artificial difficulty has to be Yuki Onna. The insane amounts of projectile tracking, along with crazy amount of damage inputted on the player ruin what could have been a fantastic fight. There is definitely a solution to avoid these issue though and that is grinding, which can be insanely punishing for newer players. Repeatedly your main upgrade and spending power is a souls staple, but with how Nioh handles it, with pretty much required grinding for all players, it can be a huge annoyance. I don't know, I probably just sound like I need to get good, but Nioh tends to just be so frustrating compared to its amazing sequel. I think I now know why I did not love Nioh the first time around, and I think I can trace it back to this.
Yuki Onna
Anyway, this concludes my first main blog post for this blog. I want to do game reviews with this blog when I can, alongside personal thoughts, rants, and memorable moments from what im playing on the side. I'm nearing the end of Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition and I plan on making this my next big blog post. Thank you for reading this if you are, and I wish you a good time gaming.
8 Yrs♥$✓#
schiemann
8 Yrs♥$✓#
I mentioned this when I finished my last soulslike game - for me, the fun of these games is finding builds that let you melt bosses and completely ignore part of the "difficulty" of the game. If you ever want to try something different or is stuck at a certain boss, I'd recommend trying a Ninjutsu/Onmyo Magic build; you will melt everything in front of you. It's not the same for Nioh 2 tho; it's still a strong build, but way more balanced.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Thanks for the advice with games of these types. I would probably give Nioh a 7/10. I would have given it a 6/10 a year ago, but that was mainly due to me being and idiot and not learning key systems till after I beat the game like the Ki pulse and buying skills. Nioh is definitely on the harder end of things when it comes to souls-like games. I can be easy if you do a heavy magic or ninja build, but I don't like playing games like that.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
I've played around with the ninjutsu and magic in this game a little bit but never so much to be OP. I find the magic in Nioh to be a bit too cheap, but that is just my personal preference.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition
Hi welcome to my first real game review on this blog. Today I am covering the ps2 classic devil may cry 3. I'm using the version from the HD collection on the ps4 for this review. So let's not waste time and get on with it.
Devil may cry 3 follows the quest of Dante trying to find the perfect name for his demon slaying business. There is also a bit of a side story involving him stopping his brother Virgil from gaining too much power and taking over the world, but it's really not that important. Being serious here, the story for this game is a huge step up for the series, with its fun characters and surprisingly emotional story. All the newcomers for the series such as vergil and lady, are great back up villains and friends. The plot and story are all really great, even though it was really predictable. It's a great prequel that stays true to what happened in the original and just has some great fun with itself. The cutscenes are an amazing highlight for the absurdity on their own. Stuff like Dante riding a motorcycle up the tower, and beating up enemies midair is really something to behold. The stylish and amazing action related cutscenes are blended perfectly with a great story into the brotherly bonds of Dante and Vergil. It's simple, sweet, and a blast overall. My favorite part has to be the end of the game with the final fight between Dante and Vergil. When Virgil loses the fight and then gives up the force edge for his side of the amulet, its really compelling considering how he gave his aspirations for power for his fathers amulet. These subtle yet compelling moments are all over the game and really add a lot to the plot. With a pretty great narrative, how does the gameplay compare?
It compares well. Though a bit dated, the gameplay is still really good for the time being. With the combat returning to the feel of Devil May Cry 1, I could not be more happy after the trainwreck that is Devil May Cry 2. The combat has the basis from the first, but adds a lot more great additions to improve it. First is the new styles mechanic. Styles are another great gameplay mechanic that really lets you play this game the way you want to play it. There are 4 initial styles that include new gun and sword options, a dodge, or a block. I used Swordmaster mostly, with a little bit of Trickster at the start for my playthrough but I forced myself off of this playstyle to get better with combos. There are 2 other styles (quicksilver and doppelganger) but I did not play with them. Devil May Cry 3 also brings back the many different weapon types, as barely touched upon in the original. There are 5 weapons and 5 different guns. My primary weapons were Rebellion for the amazing amount of combo possibilities, and Agni and Rudra for the large amounts of DPS. Gunswise, I mostly focused on Ivory and Ebony and Katalina Ann. The amount of weapons is just the perfect amount for the game with a ton of different options to surely suit every playstyle. The combat itself is also really good. The huge amount of combos to pull off is really helpful for the journey and the speed of it all is really impressive for a PS2 game. With the speed though comes my one gripe with the game and that is difficulty. The first real combat section of the game with the barrage of enemies and the Hell Vanguard was the point where I knew this game was going to be tough. The difficulty is tough but mostly fair at first, but starts to slide off the deep end with annoying enemies and bosses later on into the game. For instance the Arkham fight is really one of the worst and most BS bosses in the game with his constant amount of slugs forced upon the player, along with attacks with little to no tell at all. Though tough, I really think this actually helped me get better and have the game fully click for myself. The beowulf boss was the point where the combat clicked as it forced me to use everything the game taught me so far to good use. The fight was probably the second hardest for me to beat in the game and beating him with no items was insanely rewarding. I did not realize I was going to pretty go until the boss refights, where I beat a hell vanguard without taking damage and achieving a triple s rating. The combat is tricky to get, but really rewarding when you do so.
Finally I want to briefly mention the mission design and backtracking. This was something I really enjoyed about the first game, and it returns with 3. I wish there was a bit more to the backtracking and puzzle solving similar to one, but it was still pretty good. The map design of the tower is pretty wide and varied with lots to look at and do. Overall it's a great setting that suits the story.
So yeah this kinda wraps things up for this review. I'm still getting used to writing reviews and if you have any feedback, please let me know, I want to improve. If I missed anything in this review that you want to know more about also please let me know as I would love to talk about it. Devil May Cry 3 took me 18 hours to beat, mostly because I suck at the game, and also because I wanted to take my time and take everything in. I absolutely loved this game and I would highly recommend it to anyone willing to take a challenge. This game is pretty much a 9.5/10 but with the website only letting me choose above a decimal, I have to give it the rare and coveted 10/10. Thank you so much for reading this blog post. I'm not sure what to write about next, whether it be a game review or a fun thought post, it really depends on how much time I have. Thanks again and have a great time gaming!
Hi welcome to my first real game review on this blog. Today I am covering the ps2 classic devil may cry 3. I'm using the version from the HD collection on the ps4 for this review. So let's not waste time and get on with it.
Devil may cry 3 follows the quest of Dante trying to find the perfect name for his demon slaying business. There is also a bit of a side story involving him stopping his brother Virgil from gaining too much power and taking over the world, but it's really not that important. Being serious here, the story for this game is a huge step up for the series, with its fun characters and surprisingly emotional story. All the newcomers for the series such as vergil and lady, are great back up villains and friends. The plot and story are all really great, even though it was really predictable. It's a great prequel that stays true to what happened in the original and just has some great fun with itself. The cutscenes are an amazing highlight for the absurdity on their own. Stuff like Dante riding a motorcycle up the tower, and beating up enemies midair is really something to behold. The stylish and amazing action related cutscenes are blended perfectly with a great story into the brotherly bonds of Dante and Vergil. It's simple, sweet, and a blast overall. My favorite part has to be the end of the game with the final fight between Dante and Vergil. When Virgil loses the fight and then gives up the force edge for his side of the amulet, its really compelling considering how he gave his aspirations for power for his fathers amulet. These subtle yet compelling moments are all over the game and really add a lot to the plot. With a pretty great narrative, how does the gameplay compare?
It compares well. Though a bit dated, the gameplay is still really good for the time being. With the combat returning to the feel of Devil May Cry 1, I could not be more happy after the trainwreck that is Devil May Cry 2. The combat has the basis from the first, but adds a lot more great additions to improve it. First is the new styles mechanic. Styles are another great gameplay mechanic that really lets you play this game the way you want to play it. There are 4 initial styles that include new gun and sword options, a dodge, or a block. I used Swordmaster mostly, with a little bit of Trickster at the start for my playthrough but I forced myself off of this playstyle to get better with combos. There are 2 other styles (quicksilver and doppelganger) but I did not play with them. Devil May Cry 3 also brings back the many different weapon types, as barely touched upon in the original. There are 5 weapons and 5 different guns. My primary weapons were Rebellion for the amazing amount of combo possibilities, and Agni and Rudra for the large amounts of DPS. Gunswise, I mostly focused on Ivory and Ebony and Katalina Ann. The amount of weapons is just the perfect amount for the game with a ton of different options to surely suit every playstyle. The combat itself is also really good. The huge amount of combos to pull off is really helpful for the journey and the speed of it all is really impressive for a PS2 game. With the speed though comes my one gripe with the game and that is difficulty. The first real combat section of the game with the barrage of enemies and the Hell Vanguard was the point where I knew this game was going to be tough. The difficulty is tough but mostly fair at first, but starts to slide off the deep end with annoying enemies and bosses later on into the game. For instance the Arkham fight is really one of the worst and most BS bosses in the game with his constant amount of slugs forced upon the player, along with attacks with little to no tell at all. Though tough, I really think this actually helped me get better and have the game fully click for myself. The beowulf boss was the point where the combat clicked as it forced me to use everything the game taught me so far to good use. The fight was probably the second hardest for me to beat in the game and beating him with no items was insanely rewarding. I did not realize I was going to pretty go until the boss refights, where I beat a hell vanguard without taking damage and achieving a triple s rating. The combat is tricky to get, but really rewarding when you do so.
Finally I want to briefly mention the mission design and backtracking. This was something I really enjoyed about the first game, and it returns with 3. I wish there was a bit more to the backtracking and puzzle solving similar to one, but it was still pretty good. The map design of the tower is pretty wide and varied with lots to look at and do. Overall it's a great setting that suits the story.
So yeah this kinda wraps things up for this review. I'm still getting used to writing reviews and if you have any feedback, please let me know, I want to improve. If I missed anything in this review that you want to know more about also please let me know as I would love to talk about it. Devil May Cry 3 took me 18 hours to beat, mostly because I suck at the game, and also because I wanted to take my time and take everything in. I absolutely loved this game and I would highly recommend it to anyone willing to take a challenge. This game is pretty much a 9.5/10 but with the website only letting me choose above a decimal, I have to give it the rare and coveted 10/10. Thank you so much for reading this blog post. I'm not sure what to write about next, whether it be a game review or a fun thought post, it really depends on how much time I have. Thanks again and have a great time gaming!
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Hello, this is Calbon. Today I have decided to give an update where i'm at in terms of gaming and what i'm doing next. Lately I have been insanely busy with work and school, and it will be such for the next 2 weeks, so don't expect to much on the blog. I've been alternating off and on with different games for the last few weeks and I have made some good progress in quite a few of them. So here is kinda a basic update on everything i'm playing
-The Amnesia Collection
I just finished up Amnesia: The Dark Descent just last week. I'm going to be playing Amnesia Justine this weekend and Amnesia a Machine for Pigs next weekend. I'm just playing one of each game during the weekend as a quick horror game to check out. Overall i'm enjoying the series so far and I plan on covering the whole collection for my next blog post.
-Farpoint
I don't have much to say yet. I checked it out for half an hour last Sunday and I want to play more soon. Overall its a ton of fun with the psvr gun controller.
-Heavy Rain
I'm nearing the end of this mystery really soon. I'm currently at The Blue Lagoon about to meet Paco. I really don't think I have a lot more to the game, since its been pretty much revealed who the Origami Killer is. I've just been playing about half an hour at a time after work so that's why this game is taking so long to beat. I'm enjoying it so far for the great mystery, and awful acting.
-Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
I'm not super far into the game, but I plan on playing more once I finish New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe. I really like the game so far, and the combat is super addicting.
-Kingdom Hearts III
I'm just finishing up the Tangled world with the game right now and i'm not personally loving the game. The super floaty and flashy combat feels stiff, dull and boring and the story is insanely convoluted in Kingdom Hearts fashion. I don't want to retire the game, but i'm really not loving the game personally.
-New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe
Im at the airship in world 7 meringue clouds right now. I've been trying to go for all the gold coins and I have so far up to this point. I don't have too much to say except that i'm not a big fan of the generic feeling of the New Super Mario Bros series. I don't plan on covering Super Luigi U and I want to move onto something else, like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.
-Nioh Complete Editon
I have finally reached world 6 of the game with all side quests completed so far. I've been playing a ton of it lately since my hand has healed up, and I have finally gotten the hang of the games combat again. I'm now having a great time with the game, and I think it will have it done within the next few weeks.
-Yakuza 0
The thing I have realized about this game is that the more I play of the game in closer together sessions, the more I love it. The gripping plot of the game is a great contrast to the quirky and crazy side missions this game beholds. I'm only 6 chapters in so far, but i'm having a lot of fun.
So yeah, that's where i'm at with the games i'm playing. I plan on getting Resident Evil Village and either Returnal or Mass Effect Legendary Edition to celebrate the end of high school.
-The Amnesia Collection
I just finished up Amnesia: The Dark Descent just last week. I'm going to be playing Amnesia Justine this weekend and Amnesia a Machine for Pigs next weekend. I'm just playing one of each game during the weekend as a quick horror game to check out. Overall i'm enjoying the series so far and I plan on covering the whole collection for my next blog post.
-Farpoint
I don't have much to say yet. I checked it out for half an hour last Sunday and I want to play more soon. Overall its a ton of fun with the psvr gun controller.
-Heavy Rain
I'm nearing the end of this mystery really soon. I'm currently at The Blue Lagoon about to meet Paco. I really don't think I have a lot more to the game, since its been pretty much revealed who the Origami Killer is. I've just been playing about half an hour at a time after work so that's why this game is taking so long to beat. I'm enjoying it so far for the great mystery, and awful acting.
-Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
I'm not super far into the game, but I plan on playing more once I finish New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe. I really like the game so far, and the combat is super addicting.
-Kingdom Hearts III
I'm just finishing up the Tangled world with the game right now and i'm not personally loving the game. The super floaty and flashy combat feels stiff, dull and boring and the story is insanely convoluted in Kingdom Hearts fashion. I don't want to retire the game, but i'm really not loving the game personally.
-New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe
Im at the airship in world 7 meringue clouds right now. I've been trying to go for all the gold coins and I have so far up to this point. I don't have too much to say except that i'm not a big fan of the generic feeling of the New Super Mario Bros series. I don't plan on covering Super Luigi U and I want to move onto something else, like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.
-Nioh Complete Editon
I have finally reached world 6 of the game with all side quests completed so far. I've been playing a ton of it lately since my hand has healed up, and I have finally gotten the hang of the games combat again. I'm now having a great time with the game, and I think it will have it done within the next few weeks.
-Yakuza 0
The thing I have realized about this game is that the more I play of the game in closer together sessions, the more I love it. The gripping plot of the game is a great contrast to the quirky and crazy side missions this game beholds. I'm only 6 chapters in so far, but i'm having a lot of fun.
So yeah, that's where i'm at with the games i'm playing. I plan on getting Resident Evil Village and either Returnal or Mass Effect Legendary Edition to celebrate the end of high school.
3 Yrs✓
NeonWorldWeary
3 Yrs✓
Yukuza 0 is a really good game the contrast is pretty funny even if I don't personally like some of the side stories but the main story is awesome I will agree your on chapter 6 right believe that's a majima series let us know what you think in any case
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
The Amnesia Collection.
A while ago in 2010, the horror video games industry was on its own path of destruction. The big budget horror was discarding its roots of survival horror and heading more for more of an action approach. Horror giants like Resident Evil, and Silent Hill, followed this approach for horror and paid dearly. Most people at this point were sick of the fast paced action with horror and wanted something to take the power away from them and pit them against all odds. Thus the indie survival horror genre was born. With it the first huge spark came in the ways of Amnesia: the Dark Descent. Amnesia was a huge hit with its viral nature spawned some of the biggest youtubers of all times. Amnesia received many different community mods, along with dlc and 2 sequels. Today I am covering the Amnesia Collection for the ps4 as this is currently the oldest game on my playstation backlog from 2017. The amnesia collection has Amnesia the Dark Descent, Justine, and A Machine for Pigs bundled together. Here are my thoughts on all 3 games based on my journey to the platinum trophy.
Amnesia The Dark Descent
Amnesia The Dark Descent might be one of the best horror games i've played. Amnesia follows Daniel as he awakes in Brennenburg Castle. Your goal is to escape the castle and confront Alexander who has a past intertwined with yours. Amnesia’s main gameplay gimmick has to be the mechanic of maintaining your sanity. Sanity is depleted when you view horrific situations or just spending too much time in the darkness. Sanity as it gets worse adds hallucinations, unpleasant sounds, and sickening screen pulses and movements that will really bring you unease and problems when exploring the world. The only way of improving sanity is progression through the story. To maintain sanity you need to use lights to your advantage. The lantern and tinderboxes are great limited resources to slowly drum up tension and paranoia as you may run out if you are not careful. The game puts item management and complex puzzles to great use. I found pretty much every puzzle in this game, just mind boggling enough to keep the game interesting and challenging while not being frustrating. Another gimmick this game wears as a badge is the fact that there is no way to fight back against your foes. The only way to deal with them is to hide, and pray they don’t spot you. The gatherers are iconic and easily some of the most terrifying monsters in video game history. Not being able to look at the monsters is also really cool and forces you to be scared of even encountering them. I also really like the controlled open level design from the beginning of the game. The last half is not as good in my opinion, but the 2nd main hub right after the flooded tunnels, is probably my favorite portion of the game. Now to some dislikes, and I really don’t have too many. I found the last section of the game to be less interesting and just really different in feeling to the spooky first half. The more linear 2nd half is not really the best, but it really is not that bad. I also don’t love the story all together, but this is mainly a personal preference. There were no real performance issues, but I wish the AI for the monsters was better developed and not following a pretty strict path on what it does. I have all the achievements for the game and it really was not too bad to complete. The worst was having to collect all notes and tinderboxes, but I was able to pull it off on my second playthrough. Overall, Amnesia the Dark Descent is one of the best horror games out there. I highly recommend this experience to anyone with a horror itch. 9/10
The infamous gatherer.
Amnesia Justine
Amnesia Justine is a free dlc pack put out for Amnesia the Dark Descent to hype up portal 2. Its Justine who set up a sort of torture dungeon for her former sueters as a sick way of testing her humanity. That's really what i got from the story, but i'm not entirely sure if its correct. The dlc just kinda ends the moment it really starts. I love the many different options for endings depending on how many people you save or kill, but I wish this was developed more overall. The endings are exactly the same, yet there are different achievements for each. The solutions to each person involved range from really smart or just a simple valve turn. The puzzles are probably the most complex for the series, and are genuinely pretty rewarding once you figure them out. Oh I forgot to mention what the Portal 2 teaser was, its just a simple note addressing Aperture Science. That’s really it with this quick dlc though, just a pretty mediocre fun experience to waste a half hour on. Its plot is super confusing and its way too short to make it interesting. 5/10
Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs
A Machine For Pigs is an almost unrelated sequel to Amnesia the Dark Descent. The game originally started as a mod from The Chinese Room. Frictional picked up and published the game around the time of its development. Amnesia A Machine For Pigs is a very different game from the original and this is often a bad thing. Most of the mechanics that made the Dark Descent so good are not present in the game, or just completely gone. Take for instance, the fantastic sanity system, completely gone. What about the inventory system, and managing supplies? That is also not present. The lantern now has infinite charge because it is electric, and your health automatically regenerates. They really should have worked around better with what made the original's gameplay so good, as this could have become my favorite game of the series, more on that in a second. This game is more of a walking simulator with the occasional encounter or puzzle, that remains mind numbingly easy. Even though it abandons the Dark Descents gameplay, this game has a dark, twisted story that is genuinely really good, alongside great sound design and a terrifying atmosphere that, if fully imagined, could be an outstanding horror game. The machine has a dark and claustrophobic yet huge and expansive feeling that really got under my skin and left me pretty scared, when going though the game. The noises of people calling for help, alongside opera and pig squeals is enough to get under anyone's skin and truly leave an impact. The quiet and reserved music for important moments in this game is absolutely beautiful and emotional. The sound design is stellar and so is the narrative. Amnesia A Machine For Pigs has you play as Oswald Mandus, as he searches a mysterious machine built underneath his house for his lost kids. In the machine you have to search for a way to undrain the pumps to rescue your children. I can’t really talk too much more about the narrative without spoiling the fantastic plot twist and absolutely depressing and horrifying narrative. I recommend you check out the game before checking my thoughts out, so yeah this is the final warning. As the title suggests you have Amnesia and you were the one who created the machine as a way of saving humanity from itself. You sacrificed your kids to obtain an orb similar to the one in the dark descent, and create the machine. The machine acts as a way to turn man into a piglike slave to prevent the horrors and destruction of WWI soon to follow. After reaching the truth, Mandus goes and attempts to shut down the machine and sacrifices his own life in the process to end his awful creation. I absolutely love how dark the story is willing to get. The story is really great, hell I’d even say it's better than the originals by a long shot. It's a bit confusing to figure out at first, but when all the pieces are put together, it all makes sense. The many big moments in the game such as the invasion of London are handled decently well, and are well supported by the fantastic voice acting from Mandus and his counter ego The Engineer. My favorite delivery from him has to be when on the streets of london fleeing from the pigs, and his speech is playing over the speakers, it's incredibly dark and terrifying to listen to. This pretty much wraps up what I have to say about A Machine For Pigs. It’s got a fantastic story, soundtrack, and atmosphere that is held back by subpar gameplay. I really think this game needs a proper remake more like the Dark Descent in terms of gameplay. With that I really think this game could be as good if not better than the original. 7/10
Awesome Machine Diagram from in the game
That wraps up the entire Amnesia Collection. It’s a great package overall with a very easy set of achievements. Amnesia the Dark Descent is a fantastic game that launched the indie horror genre to new heights. Amnesia Justine is just an Ok dlc that is somewhat fun to play though once. Finally Amnesia a Machine for Pigs is an imperfect game that is held back by its less than stellar gameplay. There is another sequel, Amnesia Rebirth, which just came out last year, that I hope to check out when it goes on sale. If you are interested, the whole collection is on sale right now for about $9 on the switch, and I’ve even seen it go down to $3 on the playstation store.
So yeah, that ends today's review. I plan on reviewing Heavy Rain and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe really soon. I'm also playing Resident Evil Village right now and i'm loving it so far. I plan on playing more games this summer since today is my last day of high school. Have a good time gaming.
A while ago in 2010, the horror video games industry was on its own path of destruction. The big budget horror was discarding its roots of survival horror and heading more for more of an action approach. Horror giants like Resident Evil, and Silent Hill, followed this approach for horror and paid dearly. Most people at this point were sick of the fast paced action with horror and wanted something to take the power away from them and pit them against all odds. Thus the indie survival horror genre was born. With it the first huge spark came in the ways of Amnesia: the Dark Descent. Amnesia was a huge hit with its viral nature spawned some of the biggest youtubers of all times. Amnesia received many different community mods, along with dlc and 2 sequels. Today I am covering the Amnesia Collection for the ps4 as this is currently the oldest game on my playstation backlog from 2017. The amnesia collection has Amnesia the Dark Descent, Justine, and A Machine for Pigs bundled together. Here are my thoughts on all 3 games based on my journey to the platinum trophy.
Amnesia The Dark Descent
Amnesia The Dark Descent might be one of the best horror games i've played. Amnesia follows Daniel as he awakes in Brennenburg Castle. Your goal is to escape the castle and confront Alexander who has a past intertwined with yours. Amnesia’s main gameplay gimmick has to be the mechanic of maintaining your sanity. Sanity is depleted when you view horrific situations or just spending too much time in the darkness. Sanity as it gets worse adds hallucinations, unpleasant sounds, and sickening screen pulses and movements that will really bring you unease and problems when exploring the world. The only way of improving sanity is progression through the story. To maintain sanity you need to use lights to your advantage. The lantern and tinderboxes are great limited resources to slowly drum up tension and paranoia as you may run out if you are not careful. The game puts item management and complex puzzles to great use. I found pretty much every puzzle in this game, just mind boggling enough to keep the game interesting and challenging while not being frustrating. Another gimmick this game wears as a badge is the fact that there is no way to fight back against your foes. The only way to deal with them is to hide, and pray they don’t spot you. The gatherers are iconic and easily some of the most terrifying monsters in video game history. Not being able to look at the monsters is also really cool and forces you to be scared of even encountering them. I also really like the controlled open level design from the beginning of the game. The last half is not as good in my opinion, but the 2nd main hub right after the flooded tunnels, is probably my favorite portion of the game. Now to some dislikes, and I really don’t have too many. I found the last section of the game to be less interesting and just really different in feeling to the spooky first half. The more linear 2nd half is not really the best, but it really is not that bad. I also don’t love the story all together, but this is mainly a personal preference. There were no real performance issues, but I wish the AI for the monsters was better developed and not following a pretty strict path on what it does. I have all the achievements for the game and it really was not too bad to complete. The worst was having to collect all notes and tinderboxes, but I was able to pull it off on my second playthrough. Overall, Amnesia the Dark Descent is one of the best horror games out there. I highly recommend this experience to anyone with a horror itch. 9/10
The infamous gatherer.
Amnesia Justine
Amnesia Justine is a free dlc pack put out for Amnesia the Dark Descent to hype up portal 2. Its Justine who set up a sort of torture dungeon for her former sueters as a sick way of testing her humanity. That's really what i got from the story, but i'm not entirely sure if its correct. The dlc just kinda ends the moment it really starts. I love the many different options for endings depending on how many people you save or kill, but I wish this was developed more overall. The endings are exactly the same, yet there are different achievements for each. The solutions to each person involved range from really smart or just a simple valve turn. The puzzles are probably the most complex for the series, and are genuinely pretty rewarding once you figure them out. Oh I forgot to mention what the Portal 2 teaser was, its just a simple note addressing Aperture Science. That’s really it with this quick dlc though, just a pretty mediocre fun experience to waste a half hour on. Its plot is super confusing and its way too short to make it interesting. 5/10
Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs
A Machine For Pigs is an almost unrelated sequel to Amnesia the Dark Descent. The game originally started as a mod from The Chinese Room. Frictional picked up and published the game around the time of its development. Amnesia A Machine For Pigs is a very different game from the original and this is often a bad thing. Most of the mechanics that made the Dark Descent so good are not present in the game, or just completely gone. Take for instance, the fantastic sanity system, completely gone. What about the inventory system, and managing supplies? That is also not present. The lantern now has infinite charge because it is electric, and your health automatically regenerates. They really should have worked around better with what made the original's gameplay so good, as this could have become my favorite game of the series, more on that in a second. This game is more of a walking simulator with the occasional encounter or puzzle, that remains mind numbingly easy. Even though it abandons the Dark Descents gameplay, this game has a dark, twisted story that is genuinely really good, alongside great sound design and a terrifying atmosphere that, if fully imagined, could be an outstanding horror game. The machine has a dark and claustrophobic yet huge and expansive feeling that really got under my skin and left me pretty scared, when going though the game. The noises of people calling for help, alongside opera and pig squeals is enough to get under anyone's skin and truly leave an impact. The quiet and reserved music for important moments in this game is absolutely beautiful and emotional. The sound design is stellar and so is the narrative. Amnesia A Machine For Pigs has you play as Oswald Mandus, as he searches a mysterious machine built underneath his house for his lost kids. In the machine you have to search for a way to undrain the pumps to rescue your children. I can’t really talk too much more about the narrative without spoiling the fantastic plot twist and absolutely depressing and horrifying narrative. I recommend you check out the game before checking my thoughts out, so yeah this is the final warning. As the title suggests you have Amnesia and you were the one who created the machine as a way of saving humanity from itself. You sacrificed your kids to obtain an orb similar to the one in the dark descent, and create the machine. The machine acts as a way to turn man into a piglike slave to prevent the horrors and destruction of WWI soon to follow. After reaching the truth, Mandus goes and attempts to shut down the machine and sacrifices his own life in the process to end his awful creation. I absolutely love how dark the story is willing to get. The story is really great, hell I’d even say it's better than the originals by a long shot. It's a bit confusing to figure out at first, but when all the pieces are put together, it all makes sense. The many big moments in the game such as the invasion of London are handled decently well, and are well supported by the fantastic voice acting from Mandus and his counter ego The Engineer. My favorite delivery from him has to be when on the streets of london fleeing from the pigs, and his speech is playing over the speakers, it's incredibly dark and terrifying to listen to. This pretty much wraps up what I have to say about A Machine For Pigs. It’s got a fantastic story, soundtrack, and atmosphere that is held back by subpar gameplay. I really think this game needs a proper remake more like the Dark Descent in terms of gameplay. With that I really think this game could be as good if not better than the original. 7/10
Awesome Machine Diagram from in the game
That wraps up the entire Amnesia Collection. It’s a great package overall with a very easy set of achievements. Amnesia the Dark Descent is a fantastic game that launched the indie horror genre to new heights. Amnesia Justine is just an Ok dlc that is somewhat fun to play though once. Finally Amnesia a Machine for Pigs is an imperfect game that is held back by its less than stellar gameplay. There is another sequel, Amnesia Rebirth, which just came out last year, that I hope to check out when it goes on sale. If you are interested, the whole collection is on sale right now for about $9 on the switch, and I’ve even seen it go down to $3 on the playstation store.
So yeah, that ends today's review. I plan on reviewing Heavy Rain and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe really soon. I'm also playing Resident Evil Village right now and i'm loving it so far. I plan on playing more games this summer since today is my last day of high school. Have a good time gaming.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
I just finished up Resident Evil Village tonight and it was really good. The story was pretty good and on par with 7 in my opinion. The gameplay was definitely an improvement, as on standard difficulty, it can be a ton of fun. The game as a whole was nowhere near as scary as the entirety of 7, but it did have its moments (Benevento House). I wish the game gave more time to the lords, and I think if was just a bit too short for its own good. I still prefer 7 to village, but this is still a fantastic follow-up. I'm going to write up a full review in the future, but I just want to get this off my chest right now while its still fresh. Overall a 9 out of 10 game or at least I think so, idk. Also the Duke is a true friend and morbidly a beast.
I also want to talk about villages ending since I'm still processing it. To begin, Ethan being dead and reanimated is one of the wildest twists I've seen from this franchise, but it all makes sense. Its nice to see a reason for how he is still standing after all the gruesome injuries. Also the foreshadowing for this adds a lot to a few specific lines in 7 and village. Ethan's "true" death at the end has probably made me the most emotional out of all the RE games I've played so far. I also don't think Ethan is dead yet, with people pointing out the silhouette in the final cutscene with rose, is a special model of Ethan. I do also feel slightly conflicted with the games conclusion as it slightly leans to a more action packed future, rather than its horror revived present. I really hope the franchise does not go down this direction, but I do think Capcom has wised up since then. I'm hoping dlc wise for the game in the future, has a few short campaigns similar to 7. A campaign with Ada who was cut from the game, would be a lot of fun. A return of Joe Baker to kick some lycan butt would be also super fun. Not a Hero pt 2 with Chris visiting the NCAA would be fun since the next game looks to be much further in the future.
So yeah, for specific games I might do a sort of brief thoughts review after I finish since I have a ton of stuff to talk about after completion. I've still got to check out mercenaries tomorrow, since its so late right now, where I'm at. I'm currently about half ways through a full review of Heavy Rain right now. I'm planning on doing some small reviews for Nioh Remastered and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe. I also just started up Ghost of Tsushima and Super Mario 3D World the other day, and I'm loving both of the games. So yeah, have a good evening, or morning since this is coming out at such a weird hour.
I also want to talk about villages ending since I'm still processing it. To begin, Ethan being dead and reanimated is one of the wildest twists I've seen from this franchise, but it all makes sense. Its nice to see a reason for how he is still standing after all the gruesome injuries. Also the foreshadowing for this adds a lot to a few specific lines in 7 and village. Ethan's "true" death at the end has probably made me the most emotional out of all the RE games I've played so far. I also don't think Ethan is dead yet, with people pointing out the silhouette in the final cutscene with rose, is a special model of Ethan. I do also feel slightly conflicted with the games conclusion as it slightly leans to a more action packed future, rather than its horror revived present. I really hope the franchise does not go down this direction, but I do think Capcom has wised up since then. I'm hoping dlc wise for the game in the future, has a few short campaigns similar to 7. A campaign with Ada who was cut from the game, would be a lot of fun. A return of Joe Baker to kick some lycan butt would be also super fun. Not a Hero pt 2 with Chris visiting the NCAA would be fun since the next game looks to be much further in the future.
So yeah, for specific games I might do a sort of brief thoughts review after I finish since I have a ton of stuff to talk about after completion. I've still got to check out mercenaries tomorrow, since its so late right now, where I'm at. I'm currently about half ways through a full review of Heavy Rain right now. I'm planning on doing some small reviews for Nioh Remastered and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe. I also just started up Ghost of Tsushima and Super Mario 3D World the other day, and I'm loving both of the games. So yeah, have a good evening, or morning since this is coming out at such a weird hour.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Today i’m talking briefly about heavy rain, an interactive story telling game by Quantic Dream. Heavy Rain was released in 2010 to a ton of critical acclaim and at the time was considered one of the best games of its time. Does the game still hold up today, that's the question I'm answering today for this review.
For the most part, Heavy Rain really holds up well, yet it still has many problems. To begin I should probably start with the story as that is the main draw. It is pretty good. The story follows 4 intertwining stories and the hunt for the origami killer. I'm just going to briefly explain each character's story and what I like about each since there is so much to work with. The first character is Ethan Mars, the main protagonist of the game. His story has him put into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the killer to rescue his son Shawn. He ends up going through a Saw-like game to prove his love for his son. I really like Ethan’s story for the most part, but I'm not a big fan of the opening with him and his family before the game begins. It seems completely tonally different that it does not match with the rest of the game. Thank goodness for it being short, as the dark gritty atmosphere is much better. Madison Paige is another character who is a big part of Ethan's story and one of the 4 protagonists. She is just ok and feels kind of thrown into the game as a main character last minute. She is an ok side character, with a kinda mediocre story that relies too much on Ethan. Next up is Norman Jaiden, an investigator from the FBI tasked with helping find Shawn Mars and finally arresting the Origami Killer. Along with the investigation, Norman has to deal with a serious drug addiction to a made up drug called Triptocaine, that is linked to his high tech investigation glasses called ARI. I for the most part really enjoyed Jaiden’s story also. I like his sort of battle with drug addiction and was rooting for him all the way till the end of the game. He also has what I think were the best action scenes in the game so yeah, he is pretty cool in my books. Finally there is Scott Shelby, a private investigator into the Origami Killer. I really did not care too much for him in the beginning as he felt kinda forced in, but as the pieces of the puzzle in the story are put into place, I came to enjoy his story much more. The story is pretty great all together and really fun to watch play out. I really enjoyed it for the most part, even though it has a few issues with execution. For instance, I found the dialogue to be voice acted horribly. Every single one of the main characters has a sort of robotic monotone voice that feels really unnatural and not great altogether. It is especially bad with really important and emotional scenes. For instance, the part where Ethan is calling out for Jason and Jason’s death should be a really important and sad story moment, but is ultimately destroyed with the laughably bad voice acting. Another great example is with a monologue with the Origami Killer at the end of the game, that comes off as funny thanks to the laughable voice acting.
For this next part I want to address spoilers with the story as there is so much to talk about. If you are interested in the game, I won’t spoil anything with the section after so skip this. The big twist for this game is that Scott Shelby is the Origami Killer. It's a fantastic official reveal when it happens and is really dang surprising. The problem with this has to do with certain things not making sense. For instance when Manfred is murdered at his store, Scott goes nowhere near the room until he actually dies. Certain things don't line up, and it comes off as kinda lazy. While near the reveal, the game makes it blatantly clear that he is the Killer. This reveal is pretty cool, yet just a bit underthought about.
Now for the gameplay, I actually really enjoy it. Heavy Rain's gameplay is really good for a narrative game. The button prompts are easy enough at points to achieve, and are also super complex at others. I’ve always enjoyed quick time events to a degree, and this game nails it a great majority of the time. The walking controls are pretty bad, and some parts can be very infuriating with how they control, but it's definitely on the better end of gameplay for the narrative game genre. It's a good basis that is figured out properly by the time Detroit: Become Human and Beyond: Two Souls were released
So yeah, this is all I really have to say about Heavy Rain. It has a really good narrative that is held down with certain uncanny story moments and terrible voice acting. The gameplay is great for a narrative game, but it still has its own stumbles. I’d recommend picking up the game when it's on sale for like $10. 7/10
Thanks for reading today’s review, I'm currently working on a mini review for New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, and Nioh. I have also retired Kingdom Hearts III as I'm really not enjoying it. In the wake of summer, I have just started up a ton of games these last 2 weeks, those being Super Mario 3D World, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Battlefield 1, Mortal Shell, and Ghost of Tsushima. I have also been making really good progress with Yakuza 0, which I'm having a ton of fun with. So yeah, see yall next time.
For the most part, Heavy Rain really holds up well, yet it still has many problems. To begin I should probably start with the story as that is the main draw. It is pretty good. The story follows 4 intertwining stories and the hunt for the origami killer. I'm just going to briefly explain each character's story and what I like about each since there is so much to work with. The first character is Ethan Mars, the main protagonist of the game. His story has him put into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the killer to rescue his son Shawn. He ends up going through a Saw-like game to prove his love for his son. I really like Ethan’s story for the most part, but I'm not a big fan of the opening with him and his family before the game begins. It seems completely tonally different that it does not match with the rest of the game. Thank goodness for it being short, as the dark gritty atmosphere is much better. Madison Paige is another character who is a big part of Ethan's story and one of the 4 protagonists. She is just ok and feels kind of thrown into the game as a main character last minute. She is an ok side character, with a kinda mediocre story that relies too much on Ethan. Next up is Norman Jaiden, an investigator from the FBI tasked with helping find Shawn Mars and finally arresting the Origami Killer. Along with the investigation, Norman has to deal with a serious drug addiction to a made up drug called Triptocaine, that is linked to his high tech investigation glasses called ARI. I for the most part really enjoyed Jaiden’s story also. I like his sort of battle with drug addiction and was rooting for him all the way till the end of the game. He also has what I think were the best action scenes in the game so yeah, he is pretty cool in my books. Finally there is Scott Shelby, a private investigator into the Origami Killer. I really did not care too much for him in the beginning as he felt kinda forced in, but as the pieces of the puzzle in the story are put into place, I came to enjoy his story much more. The story is pretty great all together and really fun to watch play out. I really enjoyed it for the most part, even though it has a few issues with execution. For instance, I found the dialogue to be voice acted horribly. Every single one of the main characters has a sort of robotic monotone voice that feels really unnatural and not great altogether. It is especially bad with really important and emotional scenes. For instance, the part where Ethan is calling out for Jason and Jason’s death should be a really important and sad story moment, but is ultimately destroyed with the laughably bad voice acting. Another great example is with a monologue with the Origami Killer at the end of the game, that comes off as funny thanks to the laughable voice acting.
For this next part I want to address spoilers with the story as there is so much to talk about. If you are interested in the game, I won’t spoil anything with the section after so skip this. The big twist for this game is that Scott Shelby is the Origami Killer. It's a fantastic official reveal when it happens and is really dang surprising. The problem with this has to do with certain things not making sense. For instance when Manfred is murdered at his store, Scott goes nowhere near the room until he actually dies. Certain things don't line up, and it comes off as kinda lazy. While near the reveal, the game makes it blatantly clear that he is the Killer. This reveal is pretty cool, yet just a bit underthought about.
Now for the gameplay, I actually really enjoy it. Heavy Rain's gameplay is really good for a narrative game. The button prompts are easy enough at points to achieve, and are also super complex at others. I’ve always enjoyed quick time events to a degree, and this game nails it a great majority of the time. The walking controls are pretty bad, and some parts can be very infuriating with how they control, but it's definitely on the better end of gameplay for the narrative game genre. It's a good basis that is figured out properly by the time Detroit: Become Human and Beyond: Two Souls were released
So yeah, this is all I really have to say about Heavy Rain. It has a really good narrative that is held down with certain uncanny story moments and terrible voice acting. The gameplay is great for a narrative game, but it still has its own stumbles. I’d recommend picking up the game when it's on sale for like $10. 7/10
Thanks for reading today’s review, I'm currently working on a mini review for New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, and Nioh. I have also retired Kingdom Hearts III as I'm really not enjoying it. In the wake of summer, I have just started up a ton of games these last 2 weeks, those being Super Mario 3D World, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Battlefield 1, Mortal Shell, and Ghost of Tsushima. I have also been making really good progress with Yakuza 0, which I'm having a ton of fun with. So yeah, see yall next time.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Man, I'm really loving Ghost of Tsushima so far. This games is a perfect after a long day of work. The game is just really relaxing to play, with its beautiful water color-esque landscapes and quiet hums of nature. The wind system is now one of my favorite ways of telling a player where to go, rather than a mini map. The combat is simple yet intricate, and just a ton of fun. The story and side missions are really interesting and tons of fun to do. Ghost of Tsushima feels as if its a modern Assassin's Creed game with more love and effort put into it, rather than a somewhat soulless cash grab. Ghost of Tsushima is fantastic and I'd highly recommend the game after a little over 11 hours played so far.
I also just started Devil May Cry 4 a few days ago and its ok. I'm not loving the game nearly as much as 3 but its still good. It might be just me, but I'm not a huge fan of how Nero feels compared to Dante in previous games. He feels much slower and jankier than Dante did in 3. I do really like the buster arm and all the different functions for it. The story is kinda meh, with Dante being in the sidelines, and it rushing through itself way too quickly. I'm currently on chapter 11 of the game right now, and I hope to finish it up within the next few weeks.
So yeah, this is really all I have to say right now. I was on vacation all of last week, so I was unable to play pretty much anything or continue writing up my next review.
I also just started Devil May Cry 4 a few days ago and its ok. I'm not loving the game nearly as much as 3 but its still good. It might be just me, but I'm not a huge fan of how Nero feels compared to Dante in previous games. He feels much slower and jankier than Dante did in 3. I do really like the buster arm and all the different functions for it. The story is kinda meh, with Dante being in the sidelines, and it rushing through itself way too quickly. I'm currently on chapter 11 of the game right now, and I hope to finish it up within the next few weeks.
So yeah, this is really all I have to say right now. I was on vacation all of last week, so I was unable to play pretty much anything or continue writing up my next review.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Dang, spending 6 hours on champions road in Super Mario 3D World, really does feel like your on the brink of insanity. I just can’t beat the last part, due to how much crap is on screen at once. I hate this level so much, to the point where I’m about to just quit the game entirely.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Finally finished Champions Road tonight along with the final mystery house. These have got to be some of the most brutal challenges I’ve faced in game within the last 2 years. Champions road all together took me about 8 hours to finish since I’m so god awful at it, along with the final mystery house taking about an hour. I’m now pretty much completely done with 3D world and now onto bowsers fury. I will be reviewing these in the super near future. I’m nearly done with a huge super large combined review set covering 4 games briefly. Those being New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, Nioh Complete Edition for the Ps5, Battlefield 1’s campaign, and Devil May Cry Special Edition. This is to make the 15th post on this blog something special. So yeah, this is just kinda an update on how things are going and my personal struggle to beat what I believe is the hardest 3D Mario level ever made.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
whoops a repeat post, nothing to see here
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
I'm changing up how I'm doing things with reviews. I don't have time to really work on longer ones such as my Amnesia Collection, or DMC3 review with me working over 40 hours a week alongside extra summer classes and scholarship applications. I'm just going to start doing smaller reviews such as the Resident Evil Village one up above. To make up for all this, I'm going to go over all the games I have beaten up to where I'm at currently.
New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe
It might just be me, but man I hate these modern 2D Mario games. Mario's movement is way to slippery and imprecise to be fun. The new look feels super generic and dated for a Mario game. The game is pretty easy for the most part, except for a few pesky star coins that took me a while to obtain. I do enjoy some levels in this game quite a bit, and there really is quite a lot of content in this package to make up for its mediocre nature. The huge world map that is ever so interconnecting with secret exits and secrets is really good. The power ups for the most part are super generic and not super varied, except for the penguin suit and propeller mushroom which can only be obtained from toad houses. I for the most part did not enjoy my 23 hour romp through the game collecting all star coins and completing every level. I really hope Nintendo does not move forwards with this style of 2D Mario game in the future, as a return to his pixelated roots would be a great breath of fresh air for 2D Mario. I did not check out super Luigi U and I really don't plan on it in the future with me not really enjoying the base game. 5/10
Nioh Complete Edition
\\
To clarify, this is not my first playthrough of Nioh. I recently played it near the end of 2019 and early 2020 before crap hit the fan. At the time like a complete idiot, I did not play attention to many different mechanics in the game, nor how to properly utilize them. I still don't know how I beat the game without knowing how to properly Ki pulse or obtain skills. At the time I thought of the game super negatively and thought it was complete crap. I ended up getting Nioh 2 right as the Lockdowns hit, and man I fell super in love with the sequel to Nioh, to the point where I would even consider it my 2nd favorite game I played last year. I wanted to return to Nioh again recently to give it a proper review with my newfound skill and knowledge.
The game overall feels super undercooked in a sense. The combat system is fantastic, and definitely a fun and unique take on a soulslike game. This time around I focused on using the dual swords primarily with a little bit of ninjutsu and tonfa action on the side. The weapons are all a ton of fun to play with as the Odachi is my favorite weapon in the series. The enemies in this game are for the most part pretty fun to fight against with just a few exceptions (Screw the Raven Tengus, Wheelmonks, and Onyudos). I wish there was more variety with the enemies, as you are able to see 90% of them within the first 2 of 6 worlds. The level design is for the most part pretty good for the most part with a few exceptions. The bosses are just kinda meh, with most of the Yoki fights being super annoying and borderline bullcrap, and Human bosses feeling like reskinned revenants. The side missions are complete crap with most levels being reused lazily to add extra playtime and grinding opportunities. I honestly can't even make out what happened in this games plot, even after 2 playthroughs and multiple youtube videos. There is just too much going on, and none of it being well refined. I do like how most of the characters are actually real people from this era and some event, minus the yokis and amrita, that actually happened. The last thing I need to bring up is the difficulty for this game. It is really all over the place. On one hand, it can insanely easy if you heavily invest in magic. But if you decide to do like what I enjoy doing, which is no magic, this game will tear your ass apart like tissue paper. Sloppy hitboxes, unfair trap, overpowered enemies, systems not explained properly, and insane levels of enemy ganking can either make or break this game for someone, myself being super frustrated a great majority of the time. I have a whole post at the start of the blog explaining this if you are interested in more of what I have to say. Overall Nioh is just a decent soulslike. It has a lot of great ideas, but it never fully reaches its potential. The sequel fixes nearly all the gripes I have with this game and I would highly recommend that to anyone interested in soulslikes outside of the From Software titles. I enjoyed Nioh a lot more this time around and I would recommend trying it out if you get the Nioh Collection for the ps5. I did not touch the dlc as it is supposed to be insanely hard and meant for those willing to farm beforehand. 7/10
Battlefield 1 Campaign
I'm not a big fan of multiplayer games personally. I have dabbled with them in the past, but as I've grown older, I've been less and less interested. Though I will say, this last year I have been enjoying their short singleplayer campaigns. My favorites so far have been Modern Warfare 2 remastered and Titan Fall 2. I came to battlefield 1's campaign with high hopes, as this game is often talked about positively. I did not like this campaign. The war story idea is really good, but would benefit better if this was not a side edition to a multiplayer game. Each of the 5 main campaigns is roughly an hour long and they greatly are impacted by it. The stories themselves are way to short to be invested on each characters journey. The moment most of the campaigns started to pick up steam, they were done 20 or so more minutes later. I also found most all of the gimmicks for each campaign to be the worst parts about them. The tank and plane were really not that fun to play in, though they kind of grow on you a bit by the end. Another annoying gameplay gimmick the campaign kept forcing was stealth, which sucks so bad. I'm fine with stealth sections in games, but with a game like this, was it really necessary? The actual hand to hand combat is really good, and my favorite thing about this game. It is really fun running from section to section gunning down enemies. The game has great looking graphics also, that hold up 4 years later. Overall, its pretty mediocre for a multiplayer campaign. My favorite story was The Runner, because it did not rely on gameplay gimmicks to make it interesting. Plus the characters were the most fun to play with. I found Friends in High Places to be the worst story, just due to how much I hate flight controls and sections in games, alongside with how crazy unrealistic the action scenes got near the end. There is no way you can walk on top of a burning blimp as it falls to the ground while blowing up other blimps, and concluding it by jumping into the water and surviving a 100+ ft. drop. 5/10
Devil May Cry 4
Lately I've been on a binge of the Devil May Cry games, as I've never played them before. DMC 3 has so far been my favorite game that I've played this year. After this I was super hyped up for what the series would hold, as it would finally make a transition to HD. Devil May Cry 4 is just ok. First off, I hate how the special edition auto downloaded a ton of red orbs, and proud souls. They completely broke the difficulty for me. The gameplay was the best of the series so far, but was held back with smaller issues, such as annoying enemies, mediocre bosses, and arsenal issues. Nero's side of the campaign is pretty good, but kind of bland at points. Nero controls similarly to Dante, but has a few of his own twists such as the buster, and revving up the sword. Dante's section of the campaign is pretty bad though and is what makes this game so frowned upon. More or less, for those not familiar, Dante ends up repeating Nero's section of the campaign backwards with little to no changes. Its absolutely lazy and makes the final 4 or so hours really not fun. Dantes arsenal this time around sucks and is a huge downgrade to 3. The weapons are way to gimmicky and just not super fun to play with, minus pandora, which may be one of my favorite firearms of the series. The graphics look pretty good for the time, yet a bit dated. The story is just ok, nothing great but nothing horrible. Overall DMC4 is just an ok follow-up to the stylish DMC3. It feels super rushed, yet solid on most fronts. Its a shame it bombed and led to the less than stellar remake, but at least it left a solid foundation for the fantastic 5th game which I'm playing right now. 6/10
So yeah, thanks for reading this extra long blog post. I'm just getting ready to finish up Super Mario 3D World + Bowsers Fury and Mortal Shell right now, so expect reviews soon.
New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe
It might just be me, but man I hate these modern 2D Mario games. Mario's movement is way to slippery and imprecise to be fun. The new look feels super generic and dated for a Mario game. The game is pretty easy for the most part, except for a few pesky star coins that took me a while to obtain. I do enjoy some levels in this game quite a bit, and there really is quite a lot of content in this package to make up for its mediocre nature. The huge world map that is ever so interconnecting with secret exits and secrets is really good. The power ups for the most part are super generic and not super varied, except for the penguin suit and propeller mushroom which can only be obtained from toad houses. I for the most part did not enjoy my 23 hour romp through the game collecting all star coins and completing every level. I really hope Nintendo does not move forwards with this style of 2D Mario game in the future, as a return to his pixelated roots would be a great breath of fresh air for 2D Mario. I did not check out super Luigi U and I really don't plan on it in the future with me not really enjoying the base game. 5/10
Nioh Complete Edition
\\To clarify, this is not my first playthrough of Nioh. I recently played it near the end of 2019 and early 2020 before crap hit the fan. At the time like a complete idiot, I did not play attention to many different mechanics in the game, nor how to properly utilize them. I still don't know how I beat the game without knowing how to properly Ki pulse or obtain skills. At the time I thought of the game super negatively and thought it was complete crap. I ended up getting Nioh 2 right as the Lockdowns hit, and man I fell super in love with the sequel to Nioh, to the point where I would even consider it my 2nd favorite game I played last year. I wanted to return to Nioh again recently to give it a proper review with my newfound skill and knowledge.
The game overall feels super undercooked in a sense. The combat system is fantastic, and definitely a fun and unique take on a soulslike game. This time around I focused on using the dual swords primarily with a little bit of ninjutsu and tonfa action on the side. The weapons are all a ton of fun to play with as the Odachi is my favorite weapon in the series. The enemies in this game are for the most part pretty fun to fight against with just a few exceptions (Screw the Raven Tengus, Wheelmonks, and Onyudos). I wish there was more variety with the enemies, as you are able to see 90% of them within the first 2 of 6 worlds. The level design is for the most part pretty good for the most part with a few exceptions. The bosses are just kinda meh, with most of the Yoki fights being super annoying and borderline bullcrap, and Human bosses feeling like reskinned revenants. The side missions are complete crap with most levels being reused lazily to add extra playtime and grinding opportunities. I honestly can't even make out what happened in this games plot, even after 2 playthroughs and multiple youtube videos. There is just too much going on, and none of it being well refined. I do like how most of the characters are actually real people from this era and some event, minus the yokis and amrita, that actually happened. The last thing I need to bring up is the difficulty for this game. It is really all over the place. On one hand, it can insanely easy if you heavily invest in magic. But if you decide to do like what I enjoy doing, which is no magic, this game will tear your ass apart like tissue paper. Sloppy hitboxes, unfair trap, overpowered enemies, systems not explained properly, and insane levels of enemy ganking can either make or break this game for someone, myself being super frustrated a great majority of the time. I have a whole post at the start of the blog explaining this if you are interested in more of what I have to say. Overall Nioh is just a decent soulslike. It has a lot of great ideas, but it never fully reaches its potential. The sequel fixes nearly all the gripes I have with this game and I would highly recommend that to anyone interested in soulslikes outside of the From Software titles. I enjoyed Nioh a lot more this time around and I would recommend trying it out if you get the Nioh Collection for the ps5. I did not touch the dlc as it is supposed to be insanely hard and meant for those willing to farm beforehand. 7/10
Battlefield 1 Campaign
I'm not a big fan of multiplayer games personally. I have dabbled with them in the past, but as I've grown older, I've been less and less interested. Though I will say, this last year I have been enjoying their short singleplayer campaigns. My favorites so far have been Modern Warfare 2 remastered and Titan Fall 2. I came to battlefield 1's campaign with high hopes, as this game is often talked about positively. I did not like this campaign. The war story idea is really good, but would benefit better if this was not a side edition to a multiplayer game. Each of the 5 main campaigns is roughly an hour long and they greatly are impacted by it. The stories themselves are way to short to be invested on each characters journey. The moment most of the campaigns started to pick up steam, they were done 20 or so more minutes later. I also found most all of the gimmicks for each campaign to be the worst parts about them. The tank and plane were really not that fun to play in, though they kind of grow on you a bit by the end. Another annoying gameplay gimmick the campaign kept forcing was stealth, which sucks so bad. I'm fine with stealth sections in games, but with a game like this, was it really necessary? The actual hand to hand combat is really good, and my favorite thing about this game. It is really fun running from section to section gunning down enemies. The game has great looking graphics also, that hold up 4 years later. Overall, its pretty mediocre for a multiplayer campaign. My favorite story was The Runner, because it did not rely on gameplay gimmicks to make it interesting. Plus the characters were the most fun to play with. I found Friends in High Places to be the worst story, just due to how much I hate flight controls and sections in games, alongside with how crazy unrealistic the action scenes got near the end. There is no way you can walk on top of a burning blimp as it falls to the ground while blowing up other blimps, and concluding it by jumping into the water and surviving a 100+ ft. drop. 5/10
Devil May Cry 4
Lately I've been on a binge of the Devil May Cry games, as I've never played them before. DMC 3 has so far been my favorite game that I've played this year. After this I was super hyped up for what the series would hold, as it would finally make a transition to HD. Devil May Cry 4 is just ok. First off, I hate how the special edition auto downloaded a ton of red orbs, and proud souls. They completely broke the difficulty for me. The gameplay was the best of the series so far, but was held back with smaller issues, such as annoying enemies, mediocre bosses, and arsenal issues. Nero's side of the campaign is pretty good, but kind of bland at points. Nero controls similarly to Dante, but has a few of his own twists such as the buster, and revving up the sword. Dante's section of the campaign is pretty bad though and is what makes this game so frowned upon. More or less, for those not familiar, Dante ends up repeating Nero's section of the campaign backwards with little to no changes. Its absolutely lazy and makes the final 4 or so hours really not fun. Dantes arsenal this time around sucks and is a huge downgrade to 3. The weapons are way to gimmicky and just not super fun to play with, minus pandora, which may be one of my favorite firearms of the series. The graphics look pretty good for the time, yet a bit dated. The story is just ok, nothing great but nothing horrible. Overall DMC4 is just an ok follow-up to the stylish DMC3. It feels super rushed, yet solid on most fronts. Its a shame it bombed and led to the less than stellar remake, but at least it left a solid foundation for the fantastic 5th game which I'm playing right now. 6/10
So yeah, thanks for reading this extra long blog post. I'm just getting ready to finish up Super Mario 3D World + Bowsers Fury and Mortal Shell right now, so expect reviews soon.
4 Yrs♥$✓#
churros
4 Yrs♥$✓#
That Nioh cover 🔥
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Hello Everyone, I want to give a sort of huge announcement for gaming in the future. Recently as of a few days ago, I upgraded from my shitty $500 PC that can barely run half life, to a brand new gaming laptop. With this, it finally opens up a whole new window of games to play in the future. The laptop is an OMEN by HP for those wondering. With this, I can now check out a bunch of games that are not currently on the Nintendo Switch, or PS4 such as Metal Gear Rising Resentence, Dead Space, Fallout New Vegas, etc. I can also catch up on Microsoft exclusives such as Halo, Dead Rising 3, and Alan Wake. I have purchased all these games listed this last week, and I'm super pumped to check them out, but first I must finally sit down and fully beat Half Life for the first time ever. I've had this game for forever and I've never been able to make it to the weird alien world near the end of the game.
I also want to point out that the PC works amazingly with games that I've previously used to test how well a PC runs games. The first game was Roblox, since my brothers are super into it. I decided to check out my favorite game on the site, which is Arsenal. Arsenal for those not familiar is a shooter game, with a gimmick of whenever you score a kill, your gun changes. The new laptop can run this game at its max settings at 60 fps, which is insanely exciting for me. My next game I use for testing is The Binding of Isaac Rebirth. This game is able to run on pretty much every computer I have owned, but its performance has depended on how well the pc runs. Sometimes the game on older computers, has hiccups with all the different particle effects. This makes this game a great candidate. Its safe to say that this laptop runs the game super consistently and very well with no hiccups. Finally the 3rd game I check out is Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, aka my most played game of all times, and potentially my favorite. I have put almost 1500 hours into this game to date, thanks to the addictive, yet easy coaster design tools, and fun decoration capabilities. This game works just as well as ever on this new laptop, and I could not be more happy.
To conclude what I'm going on about, I am super happy about this PC, but I'm not going to be completely moving over to it for gaming. First and foremost, this PC is for college schoolwork and whatever projects I need it for in the future, not entirely for gaming. I will continue to use my ps5 for 90% of my gaming ventures, as I just enjoy the casual console feeling, to a computer. I just personally don't love PC gaming's feel to the cozy console vibes. When I normally think of a PC, I think of school and work, and its good to get away from a computer screen and move to a TV screen to play. so yeah, this blog and my gaming journey shall continue to Playstation focused with other consoles and computers to the side.
PS. the Mortal Shell review is half ways done. I'm hoping to release it next week, potentially on Tuesday.
PPS. I have added all my long ago games to my completion tab with the year I completed them in. I did this to help free up some clutter and to more accurately show what I did before joining the website
PPPS. Also a final closing question, does anyone know a good place to emulate the original 4 Silent Hill games. I've been interested in the series for a while now, but finding the games at a reasonable price has been a bust so far.
I also want to point out that the PC works amazingly with games that I've previously used to test how well a PC runs games. The first game was Roblox, since my brothers are super into it. I decided to check out my favorite game on the site, which is Arsenal. Arsenal for those not familiar is a shooter game, with a gimmick of whenever you score a kill, your gun changes. The new laptop can run this game at its max settings at 60 fps, which is insanely exciting for me. My next game I use for testing is The Binding of Isaac Rebirth. This game is able to run on pretty much every computer I have owned, but its performance has depended on how well the pc runs. Sometimes the game on older computers, has hiccups with all the different particle effects. This makes this game a great candidate. Its safe to say that this laptop runs the game super consistently and very well with no hiccups. Finally the 3rd game I check out is Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, aka my most played game of all times, and potentially my favorite. I have put almost 1500 hours into this game to date, thanks to the addictive, yet easy coaster design tools, and fun decoration capabilities. This game works just as well as ever on this new laptop, and I could not be more happy.
To conclude what I'm going on about, I am super happy about this PC, but I'm not going to be completely moving over to it for gaming. First and foremost, this PC is for college schoolwork and whatever projects I need it for in the future, not entirely for gaming. I will continue to use my ps5 for 90% of my gaming ventures, as I just enjoy the casual console feeling, to a computer. I just personally don't love PC gaming's feel to the cozy console vibes. When I normally think of a PC, I think of school and work, and its good to get away from a computer screen and move to a TV screen to play. so yeah, this blog and my gaming journey shall continue to Playstation focused with other consoles and computers to the side.
PS. the Mortal Shell review is half ways done. I'm hoping to release it next week, potentially on Tuesday.
PPS. I have added all my long ago games to my completion tab with the year I completed them in. I did this to help free up some clutter and to more accurately show what I did before joining the website
PPPS. Also a final closing question, does anyone know a good place to emulate the original 4 Silent Hill games. I've been interested in the series for a while now, but finding the games at a reasonable price has been a bust so far.
3 Yrs✓#
Skyhler
3 Yrs✓#
Awesome to hear about your new computer! I'm excited for you. I understand completely about the coziness of consoles. Although I'm a PC gamer at heart, I do miss the feeling of chilling out, booting up the console and just play the game. No emulator knowledge here I'm afraid, here's hoping someone will be able to help you in that field :3
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Mortal Shell
For those who have not picked up on it already, the soulslike genre of games is easily my favorite. I enjoy the tough but fair difficulty, alongside the beautiful and expansive worlds. I have beaten all of the from software games, so my unquenched thirst for souls games had to be dealt with by playing games similar in concept from other studios. The best one that I've played thus far from another studio has been Nioh 2 which released last year. While I was occupied with that, another new one from a new studio called Cold Symmetry dropped. That game was Mortal Shell. I picked up a physical copy of the game at Walmart because I was not sure how long it would exist physically. Recently the game got a ps5 upgrade and that sparked me to finally play this game. After roughly 11 hours, I can confidently say that this is a fantastic game.
Mortal Shell has you play as a foundling, a ghost like creature who inhabits the shells/corpses of fallen warriors. You are on a quest to collect glands to ascend to a higher plane. That is really all I could gather from the game's plot. With soulslike for those unfamiliar, they don't really tell an upfront story, but allow you to gain the knowledge and lore through item descriptions and gathering up the rich visuals of the world. I don't really have much to say about the plot, but I do wish the game made it more clear on what is going on. With souls likes though, the plot is not the main gimmick, that is the world and combat. The world and environments of Mortal Shell are really good for what they are. The game is built around the large hub area known as Fallgrim, and 3 separate dungeon areas containing the glands. Fallgrim is a really fun hub world, for being a poison swamp, and each dungeon is pretty cool for what they are. Crypt of the Martyrs is probably the best of the 3 dungeons, but that is really subjective. The Seat of Infinity and Shrine of Ash are all great in their own ways. The visuals for each area are absolutely beautiful, and really give each character.
Entering a shell
The combat is also really good. I will warn you though, it is a lot slower than your average souls game, more similar to the speed of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. The main gimmick to separate this game's combat from Dark Souls has to be the really fun harden feature. For those wondering, while in combat, you can freeze yourself in stone to block enemies attacks and gain stamina. I love the harden feature and all the different ways you can use it towards your advantage. For instance, you can start an attack animation and harden yourself for when an enemy attacks, he will stagger himself and allow you to finish your attack on him. Each enemy is built around the harden feature, and has their own combos to be exploited by watchful players. This game also has a few great features such as the tarnished seal (A special parry technique with differing benefits), Familiarity (The more you use an item, the better the effects from it are), and the ballistazooka (Pretty much a huge bolt gun). There are 4 different shells you can use for the game, alongside 4 different weapons. Each one has their own benefits, and are all equally viable. I used the Harros shell with the smouldering mace, and I really enjoyed my build. It was primarily based around gaining as much invulnerability as possible, while maintaining a ton of stamina. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the different enemies and bosses, they are alright. Most of the enemies are super fun to fight, but they do get old fast with there not being a ton of variety in each area. They often will gank the player, which is normally a big no no in my book, but by the end of the game, you should be able to use the resources given to you, to tear them apart. The bosses are fine, a little bit too simplistic, but they are all decent. My favorite boss is definitely Tarsus, the First Martyr, as he has a super unique and interesting moveset, alongside being a fun and fair fight.
The Different Shells
Fallgrim Tower
Everything I have said so far has been super positive, but now it's time for the very few negatives I have had with the game. The first has to deal with how short the game is. This game can be beaten really quickly, as there are really only 3 dungeons alongside the main world and final boss. I probably would have had this game done much sooner if my next problem was better balanced, more on that in a second. This game is really great for what it is, and it's only $30 so I can't knock it too much for that. My next issue has to do with the inconsistent difficulty. The game ends up being insanely hard near the beginning of the game, but when you make it past your first dungeon, pretty much every enemy can be torn apart like wet tissue paper. Its super inconsistent and ends up making the challenge so early on with getting good, useless as you are able to demolish. Specifically the Eridrim Hammer and Chisel build which is so OP to the point where it pretty much hands you the ending. My final problem with the game has to deal with just the basic indie jank it can occasionally have. The enemy AI can be insanely stupid at points, specifically when you approach some from behind. Some cutscenes are really badly animated, Crucix the Twiceborn i'm looking at you. Finally, the fog that enters fallgrim after obtaining a gland is truly horrible and just painful. Having to fight a billion nocteserper enemies at once is the opposite of fun. There also is this bell sound that plays continuously without stopping until you bring the gland to the old prisoner. It is insanely grating to the point where I had to mute the game on my ps5 to shut it up.
To wrap up, though it does have some issues, I really enjoyed my time with Mortal Shell. The game is a ton of fun, and well worth checking out for $30. I bought the ps5 physical edition for the game, and it comes with a fun little poster and cute little artbook, with some amazing artwork. I would highly recommend buying this game physically just for these benefits alone. This game also makes great use of its ps5 upgrade, with amazing use of the haptic feedback, trigger resistance, and immersive audio. I would even say this game rivals if not is better in terms of using the ps5’s controller capabilities, than the Demon’s Souls remake. The game held a solid 60fps at 4k through my voyage through the cursed land of fallgrim. Definitely check this game out if you are interested in soulslike games, it's well worth it. I really hope Cold Symmetry is up for a sequel, as this game is a fantastic proof of concept, and could really benefit from an expansion into the cursed world. 8/10
For those who have not picked up on it already, the soulslike genre of games is easily my favorite. I enjoy the tough but fair difficulty, alongside the beautiful and expansive worlds. I have beaten all of the from software games, so my unquenched thirst for souls games had to be dealt with by playing games similar in concept from other studios. The best one that I've played thus far from another studio has been Nioh 2 which released last year. While I was occupied with that, another new one from a new studio called Cold Symmetry dropped. That game was Mortal Shell. I picked up a physical copy of the game at Walmart because I was not sure how long it would exist physically. Recently the game got a ps5 upgrade and that sparked me to finally play this game. After roughly 11 hours, I can confidently say that this is a fantastic game.
Mortal Shell has you play as a foundling, a ghost like creature who inhabits the shells/corpses of fallen warriors. You are on a quest to collect glands to ascend to a higher plane. That is really all I could gather from the game's plot. With soulslike for those unfamiliar, they don't really tell an upfront story, but allow you to gain the knowledge and lore through item descriptions and gathering up the rich visuals of the world. I don't really have much to say about the plot, but I do wish the game made it more clear on what is going on. With souls likes though, the plot is not the main gimmick, that is the world and combat. The world and environments of Mortal Shell are really good for what they are. The game is built around the large hub area known as Fallgrim, and 3 separate dungeon areas containing the glands. Fallgrim is a really fun hub world, for being a poison swamp, and each dungeon is pretty cool for what they are. Crypt of the Martyrs is probably the best of the 3 dungeons, but that is really subjective. The Seat of Infinity and Shrine of Ash are all great in their own ways. The visuals for each area are absolutely beautiful, and really give each character.
Entering a shell
The combat is also really good. I will warn you though, it is a lot slower than your average souls game, more similar to the speed of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. The main gimmick to separate this game's combat from Dark Souls has to be the really fun harden feature. For those wondering, while in combat, you can freeze yourself in stone to block enemies attacks and gain stamina. I love the harden feature and all the different ways you can use it towards your advantage. For instance, you can start an attack animation and harden yourself for when an enemy attacks, he will stagger himself and allow you to finish your attack on him. Each enemy is built around the harden feature, and has their own combos to be exploited by watchful players. This game also has a few great features such as the tarnished seal (A special parry technique with differing benefits), Familiarity (The more you use an item, the better the effects from it are), and the ballistazooka (Pretty much a huge bolt gun). There are 4 different shells you can use for the game, alongside 4 different weapons. Each one has their own benefits, and are all equally viable. I used the Harros shell with the smouldering mace, and I really enjoyed my build. It was primarily based around gaining as much invulnerability as possible, while maintaining a ton of stamina. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the different enemies and bosses, they are alright. Most of the enemies are super fun to fight, but they do get old fast with there not being a ton of variety in each area. They often will gank the player, which is normally a big no no in my book, but by the end of the game, you should be able to use the resources given to you, to tear them apart. The bosses are fine, a little bit too simplistic, but they are all decent. My favorite boss is definitely Tarsus, the First Martyr, as he has a super unique and interesting moveset, alongside being a fun and fair fight.
The Different Shells
Fallgrim Tower
Everything I have said so far has been super positive, but now it's time for the very few negatives I have had with the game. The first has to deal with how short the game is. This game can be beaten really quickly, as there are really only 3 dungeons alongside the main world and final boss. I probably would have had this game done much sooner if my next problem was better balanced, more on that in a second. This game is really great for what it is, and it's only $30 so I can't knock it too much for that. My next issue has to do with the inconsistent difficulty. The game ends up being insanely hard near the beginning of the game, but when you make it past your first dungeon, pretty much every enemy can be torn apart like wet tissue paper. Its super inconsistent and ends up making the challenge so early on with getting good, useless as you are able to demolish. Specifically the Eridrim Hammer and Chisel build which is so OP to the point where it pretty much hands you the ending. My final problem with the game has to deal with just the basic indie jank it can occasionally have. The enemy AI can be insanely stupid at points, specifically when you approach some from behind. Some cutscenes are really badly animated, Crucix the Twiceborn i'm looking at you. Finally, the fog that enters fallgrim after obtaining a gland is truly horrible and just painful. Having to fight a billion nocteserper enemies at once is the opposite of fun. There also is this bell sound that plays continuously without stopping until you bring the gland to the old prisoner. It is insanely grating to the point where I had to mute the game on my ps5 to shut it up.
To wrap up, though it does have some issues, I really enjoyed my time with Mortal Shell. The game is a ton of fun, and well worth checking out for $30. I bought the ps5 physical edition for the game, and it comes with a fun little poster and cute little artbook, with some amazing artwork. I would highly recommend buying this game physically just for these benefits alone. This game also makes great use of its ps5 upgrade, with amazing use of the haptic feedback, trigger resistance, and immersive audio. I would even say this game rivals if not is better in terms of using the ps5’s controller capabilities, than the Demon’s Souls remake. The game held a solid 60fps at 4k through my voyage through the cursed land of fallgrim. Definitely check this game out if you are interested in soulslike games, it's well worth it. I really hope Cold Symmetry is up for a sequel, as this game is a fantastic proof of concept, and could really benefit from an expansion into the cursed world. 8/10
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Hello, welcome back to the blog. This last weekend was the 4th of July for us Americans, so that means it was time to party like it was 1776. I did so with my family at our grandparents cabin, and since it was still so dang hot out, that meant being held up in the cabin to stay cool. This last weekend I played around with 3 games in particular, and this is what I want to talk about today. So yeah, on todays agenda, I will be talking about Farpoint for the PSVR
Farpoint
Farpoint is a first person shooter developed for the PSVR and was bundled with the PSVR Aim Controller. Farpoint has you play as an unnamed pilot, who crash landed on a planet due to being sucked into a wormhole. You are tasked with finding two other scientists who also crash landed on the planet, and finding a way to escape the planet. The story overall is fine, as it mostly focuses on you watching recordings of the 2 scientists searching for the pilgrim, and coming to terms with the situation at hand. The pilot is really not a character, and just really a vessel for the 2 scientists character arc to progress. You can tell the story takes a lot of inspiration from movies like interstellar and the Martian with the story that is told. The story is ok, but not anything spectacular. The same seems to go for the alien planet itself. It is mostly just a reddish rock planet similar to mars, with a little bit of space debris on the side. There are some really good looking moments, but it just all fades together with the blandish space feeling.
The combat and gameplay though when it is working 100% properly is amazing. I used the psvr aim controller, and it really makes the game immersive. The controller feels really nice to hold and shoot with, and is light enough to move around with ease. I wish there was a stock attachment, as that would make shooting much better, but it is still great. You are given 5 different weapons and at least 4 of them are really fun to use. My favorite was either the shotgun or the precision rifle. This game acts as a sort of demo for what the controller and psvr can do as a shooter, so its is pretty basic. The enemies are pretty fun for the most part. The spider like enemies are a bit annoying, but still fun to fight regardless. I really enjoyed all the humanoid aliens and robots near the end though, as they offer a much more tactical option for combat that is surprisingly a lot of fun. This game can also be pretty hard, mainly due to a few bullcrap encounters, with the spider enemies, but nothing that could not be overcome with patience and the proper skill necessary. My main issues with the gameplay deal with long load times and occasional desync with my controller. The biggest problem with the game has to do with restarting the campaign and replays, you can't replay the main campaign without deleting your game data completely from your console. This is completely unacceptable for a modern game and was a really bad decision from the team responsible for the game. Along with the main campaign there are some multiplayer modes and time trial modes that I did not check out. These can be pretty annoying. Overall Farpoint is a pretty good PSVR title that acts a tech demo mainly for the PSVR aim controller. I don't think I would recommend it without the aim controller, but if you do have one, I would highly recommend it. 7/10
Well, that's all the time I have to work on the blog tonight. I've got a review for the original Mega Man, and Devil May Cry 5 on the way. I also want to talk about The Binding of Isaac Rebirth, one of my favorite games of all times, and my recent return to the game over the last week.
Farpoint
Farpoint is a first person shooter developed for the PSVR and was bundled with the PSVR Aim Controller. Farpoint has you play as an unnamed pilot, who crash landed on a planet due to being sucked into a wormhole. You are tasked with finding two other scientists who also crash landed on the planet, and finding a way to escape the planet. The story overall is fine, as it mostly focuses on you watching recordings of the 2 scientists searching for the pilgrim, and coming to terms with the situation at hand. The pilot is really not a character, and just really a vessel for the 2 scientists character arc to progress. You can tell the story takes a lot of inspiration from movies like interstellar and the Martian with the story that is told. The story is ok, but not anything spectacular. The same seems to go for the alien planet itself. It is mostly just a reddish rock planet similar to mars, with a little bit of space debris on the side. There are some really good looking moments, but it just all fades together with the blandish space feeling.
The combat and gameplay though when it is working 100% properly is amazing. I used the psvr aim controller, and it really makes the game immersive. The controller feels really nice to hold and shoot with, and is light enough to move around with ease. I wish there was a stock attachment, as that would make shooting much better, but it is still great. You are given 5 different weapons and at least 4 of them are really fun to use. My favorite was either the shotgun or the precision rifle. This game acts as a sort of demo for what the controller and psvr can do as a shooter, so its is pretty basic. The enemies are pretty fun for the most part. The spider like enemies are a bit annoying, but still fun to fight regardless. I really enjoyed all the humanoid aliens and robots near the end though, as they offer a much more tactical option for combat that is surprisingly a lot of fun. This game can also be pretty hard, mainly due to a few bullcrap encounters, with the spider enemies, but nothing that could not be overcome with patience and the proper skill necessary. My main issues with the gameplay deal with long load times and occasional desync with my controller. The biggest problem with the game has to do with restarting the campaign and replays, you can't replay the main campaign without deleting your game data completely from your console. This is completely unacceptable for a modern game and was a really bad decision from the team responsible for the game. Along with the main campaign there are some multiplayer modes and time trial modes that I did not check out. These can be pretty annoying. Overall Farpoint is a pretty good PSVR title that acts a tech demo mainly for the PSVR aim controller. I don't think I would recommend it without the aim controller, but if you do have one, I would highly recommend it. 7/10
Well, that's all the time I have to work on the blog tonight. I've got a review for the original Mega Man, and Devil May Cry 5 on the way. I also want to talk about The Binding of Isaac Rebirth, one of my favorite games of all times, and my recent return to the game over the last week.
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Mega Man
Just plain awful box art
This last weekend, I decided to finally boot up the megaman legacy collection on the switch, and play through the original Mega Man. Holy cow I'm super conflicted about this game. One one hand, I really enjoy aspects of the gameplay, and the choose your own poison style of level selection. This game has some pretty decent sprite work that is still memorable today, and would be the basis for a great majority of the original series. Some of the levels such as cut man and fire man can be just the perfect level of difficult to still be fun, the others not so much. My biggest problem with this game comes with the absurd levels of skills required to beat this game legitimately. certain parts of levels feel like they are just plain unfair to the point where I considered stopping the game and not coming back. Specifically Ice Man, Screw this level and it's bullshit disappearing platforms and insane boss fight. The worst offenders though are contained in the Doctor Wily stages. These are some of the most unfair and painful levels in gaming history, and just plain awful to dredge through. Having to beat 4 robot masters in a row without any healing items or item refills is awful and not fun in the slightest. Also screw the Yellow Devil, one of the most frustrating fights ever created, I can't wait to fight it again in pretty much every other game in the franchise. The worst offender though has to be the magnet beam powerup. It is a somewhat secret item needed to progress through the Wily stages. If you dont have it, or run out of energy for it, before the one section, you are forced to replay the wily stages to get to it. Idk, I just found this game to be super frustrating. From what I hear, this is supposed to be the worst of the main series, and its only going to get better from here, so I'm excited to see what is next. Also shoutout to those who beat the game on the NES rather than the Legacy Collection. The Legacy Collection saved my bacon so many times, and I'm quite honestly glad for the benefits of the rewind feature along with the game saving after each stage. It really helps this game out and turns what I might call a bad game, into something serviceable. 6/10
The Return to The Binding of Isaac Rebirth
Man, back during 2015 - 2017 this game used to be my jam. During that time I put in nearly 150 hours into this fantastic roguelike. I was even able to pull off killing Mega Satan, an accomplishment that I wear on my chest with pride. I got near all of the the achievements in the game, and I wished to pull it off eventually. I ended up dropping the game when my save data corrupted and I lost everything. Now recently I have decided to check back on the game since I got a new computer, and I'm having an amazing time. I may have to start over from scratch, but at least I still have my smarts from before. I was able to beat mom, and moms heart approximately 3 times over the span of the weekend. Heck, I even managed to grab the dark boy and mamas boy achievements for the first time ever thanks to an insanely lucky build with the items infamy, Sagittarius, cursed eye, and holy mantle. I'm now confident that this is easily one of my top 10 favorite games of all times. The rouge like elements are easily the best I've seen thus far, and the crazy levels of synergy with each item add so much possibilities for interesting builds. There are an absolute ton of different dungeon rooms that make each run always different from the last. The game is hard to pick up and get used to at first, but if you stick with it long enough, it grows heavily on you. I highly recommend the game for all those interested, easily one of my favorites. I just purchased the DLC for the game, and when I get time I will check out all the new additions to the game.
Edit I did one run of The Binding of Isaac Repentance with all the dlc installed and holy crap this is freaking sweet. I like the new animations and appearances of items and enemies. The new sound effects and music is really good and makes everything a lot more expressive. The new enemies are sure to piss me off greatly in the future and I'm looking to see what other rancid garbage is lurking in the basement of isaacs house. The new items I found were really cool, especially the psy fly (This thing is OP as hell, and could potentially be one of the best items in the game). I had a blast and I excited to play more, but its super late, and I need to get some sleep.
Just plain awful box art
This last weekend, I decided to finally boot up the megaman legacy collection on the switch, and play through the original Mega Man. Holy cow I'm super conflicted about this game. One one hand, I really enjoy aspects of the gameplay, and the choose your own poison style of level selection. This game has some pretty decent sprite work that is still memorable today, and would be the basis for a great majority of the original series. Some of the levels such as cut man and fire man can be just the perfect level of difficult to still be fun, the others not so much. My biggest problem with this game comes with the absurd levels of skills required to beat this game legitimately. certain parts of levels feel like they are just plain unfair to the point where I considered stopping the game and not coming back. Specifically Ice Man, Screw this level and it's bullshit disappearing platforms and insane boss fight. The worst offenders though are contained in the Doctor Wily stages. These are some of the most unfair and painful levels in gaming history, and just plain awful to dredge through. Having to beat 4 robot masters in a row without any healing items or item refills is awful and not fun in the slightest. Also screw the Yellow Devil, one of the most frustrating fights ever created, I can't wait to fight it again in pretty much every other game in the franchise. The worst offender though has to be the magnet beam powerup. It is a somewhat secret item needed to progress through the Wily stages. If you dont have it, or run out of energy for it, before the one section, you are forced to replay the wily stages to get to it. Idk, I just found this game to be super frustrating. From what I hear, this is supposed to be the worst of the main series, and its only going to get better from here, so I'm excited to see what is next. Also shoutout to those who beat the game on the NES rather than the Legacy Collection. The Legacy Collection saved my bacon so many times, and I'm quite honestly glad for the benefits of the rewind feature along with the game saving after each stage. It really helps this game out and turns what I might call a bad game, into something serviceable. 6/10
The Return to The Binding of Isaac Rebirth
Man, back during 2015 - 2017 this game used to be my jam. During that time I put in nearly 150 hours into this fantastic roguelike. I was even able to pull off killing Mega Satan, an accomplishment that I wear on my chest with pride. I got near all of the the achievements in the game, and I wished to pull it off eventually. I ended up dropping the game when my save data corrupted and I lost everything. Now recently I have decided to check back on the game since I got a new computer, and I'm having an amazing time. I may have to start over from scratch, but at least I still have my smarts from before. I was able to beat mom, and moms heart approximately 3 times over the span of the weekend. Heck, I even managed to grab the dark boy and mamas boy achievements for the first time ever thanks to an insanely lucky build with the items infamy, Sagittarius, cursed eye, and holy mantle. I'm now confident that this is easily one of my top 10 favorite games of all times. The rouge like elements are easily the best I've seen thus far, and the crazy levels of synergy with each item add so much possibilities for interesting builds. There are an absolute ton of different dungeon rooms that make each run always different from the last. The game is hard to pick up and get used to at first, but if you stick with it long enough, it grows heavily on you. I highly recommend the game for all those interested, easily one of my favorites. I just purchased the DLC for the game, and when I get time I will check out all the new additions to the game.
Edit I did one run of The Binding of Isaac Repentance with all the dlc installed and holy crap this is freaking sweet. I like the new animations and appearances of items and enemies. The new sound effects and music is really good and makes everything a lot more expressive. The new enemies are sure to piss me off greatly in the future and I'm looking to see what other rancid garbage is lurking in the basement of isaacs house. The new items I found were really cool, especially the psy fly (This thing is OP as hell, and could potentially be one of the best items in the game). I had a blast and I excited to play more, but its super late, and I need to get some sleep.
6 Yrs♥✓#
AwesomeNick94
6 Yrs♥✓#
I liked Nioh 1 but felt like it was severely lacking in enemy variety and was a little too long. I especially didn't like sorting through loot. I keep hearing Nioh 2 is great, but I don't know... Do you think I'd like it? You've definitely got me fully interested in playing Mortal Shell though, my backlog thanks you!
3 Yrs♥✓#
Calbon3 Yrs♥✓#
Nioh 2 is superior the Nioh 1 in pretty much every way. There is a ton more enemy variation, alongside great bosses, and much better level design. It is about the same length, but I found this game to be more fun overall, so length was not really an issue. Loot sorting and side missions are the only negatives I have really with Nioh 2, as they were really not improved. Idk, I did not like the original the first time around, but I really liked the 2nd one with all the new additions that enhance the game. I'd recommend it when it goes on sale if your not sure on the game.
4 Yrs♥$✓#
churros4 Yrs♥$✓#
As usual, the Japanese box art is much better.
