RealM722's Trophy Cabinet

[realm722]

Game: Horizon Forbidden West

 

Analysis: I bought a physical copy edition of HFW for $59.99 on February 18th, 2022 (Playstation 4 Edition). This is a prestige game. Let's get it the love it deserves. As with my Dragon Quest 11 review, the first 3 paragraphs will be spoiler-free. Everything after that will have spoilers sprinkled in. As the game has been out for less than a month, I will ensure no spoilers are contained in any of the prominent images. Time to dive in!

 

Why Horizon Forbidden West? While originally releasing in Feb. 2017, I did not get around to playing the original Horizon Zero Dawn until December of 2018. I wrote a brief version of my review on the game in this thread and a more extensive one on the Horizon Zero Dawn forum of PSNProfiles. My thoughts can generally be boiled down to "I really enjoyed that!" The game was gorgeous, fighting gigantic animal-like machines is awesome, and while there were some elements that were lackluster (I distinctly remember being ANNOYED at the climbing segments and how difficult they were to find at times, many lackluster side quests, lack of weapon diversity not through the fault of the game but never adjusting as a player to the options available). On the whole, it was a really good time. So much so, I was determined to get the sequel on its release date despite the fact we really don't do that here. I had liked what I had seen in the trailers (specifically Erend running from a gigantic Tremortusk) and after that - I fully committed to avoiding all information about the game because I knew I was going to play it and likely enjoy it. Did that turn out to be so?

 

Following up on the events of the original, Horizon Forbidden West is bigger, faster, stronger in every sense of the word. The developers took the original which was a marvelous concept and expanded the game in every sense without needlessly bloating it with filler content. You can't walk 100 steps in any direction on the utterly gargantuan map without running into SOMETHING. Is all of this content 10/10 Witcher 3 Red Baron tier? No. But you will frequently find yourself on the road to a main quest and along the way take care of 6-7 side activities without fully realizing it until after you've done it. This is at the heart of Horizon Forbidden West's gameplay loop. it fully EXPECTS you to get sucked into checking out that relic ruin, taking care of those 2-3 collectibles, fighting those machines for a few key components, and hey, there's that side quest from the NPC you talked to in the town prior just 120 steps from here, why not take care of it? The core main quests also offer an excellent amount of variety. It's NOT just "see big machine, kill big machine" OR "here are Old World tech ruins, hover your focus over the device and listen to old world evil billionaire ramble narcissistic nonsense". Of course, that still exists in the game. In an FPS, you're still gonna shoot other people. A game's bread and butter is its bread and butter. But the diversity was something I distinctly made a point to write down in my notes as I played. Along with this, HFW makes a specific effort to make you truly care for your companions and not feel completely isolated as in the original where you genuinely were shunned by your tribe, the Nora, as a child. Without venturing too much into spoilers - there is a core base of a cast and crew of friends you make as the game progresses who will frequently update with dialogue on their investigations, comment on your accomplishments, and each have their own unique quests you can complete that AREN'T obligated in the main story. Aloy can't save the world on her own. She needs her buddies. Guerrilla on the whole largely makes the player feel like those characters also matter to you, and without it, the entire system crumbles. Thankfully, it succeeded (at least for me).

 

Horizon Forbidden West is an excellent video game. I REALLY like shooting key components off the big machines. I love the satisfaction of the gigantic enemy crumbling to the ground with the final shot from my bow. The world is fun to move about in! The biomes are gorgeous and colorful. As someone who likes to click buttons while playing video games, you will be clicking the triangle button A LOT scrounging up resources from enemy machines and wild plant life as Aloy is a kleptomaniac storing up an entire agriculture company's worth of goods in her pockets. There's something oddly soothing about scooping up all your goodies after a hard-fought battle. I can't promise the game is for everyone. Some will get bogged down by the story and its terminology, become null to the combat and desensitized to the beasts they've been slaying after the umpteenth time, or just find other games that are more attractive to them that release at the same time (Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring). Thankfully, none of those latter side effects affected me. I loved Horizon Forbidden West and recommend it, even at full price, to just about anyone. While the platinum took me 66 hours, I only achieved 68.79% in-game completion. It is chock full of content and worthy of the praise I've seen it receive from mainstream outlets. With that being said, I have a LOT more to say about it without being so damn vague - hence we delve into the madness that is my personal opinion on just about every damn core aspect found in this game. SPOILERS BELOW. You've been warned. 

Slitherfang is one of the coolest enemies in the game. One of my favorite moments happened when it coiled up around Aloy and unleashed a devastating electric attack that left me with a slither of my health on the brink of death.

As a disclaimer, all of these observations I made were during my first and only play-through of the game on Hard difficulty. I was experienced with the original and while it has been a few years, I did not want the game to be a cupcake of a challenge playing on Normal. I can happily report I died plenty and experienced plenty of thrilling challenges via these means and recommend veterans of the original to do the same. Now let's dive into many of the core aspects that make up the foundation of the Horizon series.

 

COMBAT VS. MACHINES - I do not hesitate to say that someone who does not enjoy the combat in the Horizon games will not enjoy the games on the whole. I mean, I'm sure there's some weirdo out there who plays Horizon "for the story" but they're likely very far from PSNProfiles and we won't waste time dwelling on them. I LIKED SHOOTING THE BIG MACHINES. Typically, you'll scan the machine, see the yellow highlighted spots on them that are considered "weak spots" and emphasize hitting them with your bow and arrow. If you hit them enough, they'll shatter off the machine dealing huge damage. This never got old for me. I love the explosions and crunchiness of knocking a power disc off a Thunderjaw and seeing the static electricity of the blown-off component rattle about on the battlefield. You will end up fighting these machines so much throughout the course of the game, for many of them, towards the end of your playthrough, you will know exactly where to hit them to deal the biggest damage points without even scanning or highlighting them. I had tattoed on my brain where to precisely hit the likes of Bellowbacks and Scrappers in order to evaporate them within moments of entering battle. I imagine there are some who inevitably get bored of this. Thankfully, I was never one of those people.

 

COMBAT VS. HUMANS - The way Aloy fought against rebel enemies in the original was a frequent point of criticism I found in reviews of the game as Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn wasn't really created with melee in mind. It was included as a sort of last resort, desperate attempt when you've gotten yourself in a bad position or exposed out of stealth. I, personally, DIDN'T MIND fighting human enemies in the original. it was uproariously hilarious to me to snipe rebels with arrows mere inches away from them and deal catastrophic amounts of damage. You could have Aloy waltz into an encampment and within 2 minutes snipe about 20 enemy rebels with exclusively taking advantage of the critical bonus given by headshots. I did this numerous times while cackling like a maniac. In response to this, Guerrilla Games went out of their way to create a deeply involved melee combat system filled with specific combos you can perform as Aloy along with involved attacks by the enemies that don't involve merely flailing at her. It's SOLID. It's not anything out of this world and while there is a fair amount of combos you can unlock under her skill tree, I personally stuck to a rotation of three being the "Block Breaker", "Nora Warrior", and the occasional "jump-off" move by hitting R2. Despite these improvements, I still found myself resorting to sniping rebels in the head for 3x damage compared to melee fights and once again, greatly enjoyed it. Sneaking up on the leader of a rebel outpost and killing him with a silent strike was delightful. Though I will mention, there are "Melee pits" in Horizon Forbidden West that are sparsed throughout various towns you'll find as you explore the world with Aloy. These pits are specifically designed to stop players like me who exploit headshots and leave Aloy with a basic, trainers bow and force us to learn the melee system in order to perform the combos properly and takedown the "Pit Boss" with exclusive melee moves. These fights were enjoyable, and the fact they will mock you saying "this isn't an archery range" when you try to headshot them over and over again had me cracking up as the developers knew that players such as myself would resort to these tactics. 

 

WEAPON VARIETY - Oops, I did it again. I REALLY should have read my brief critique of Horizon Zero Dawn before playing Horizon Forbidden West because, for the second consecutive game, I thought the game had crappy weapon variety lmao. This is ENTIRELY my fault as it was in the original. What happened? I would say about 98% of the damage I dealt in my playthrough was done via "Hunter Bows". I consistently searched for the latest and greatest Hunter bow in each new town that I found and tried to upgrade it whenever reasonable. While the game tried to include some weapons from the past games such as the "Blast Sling" or "Trip Caster", I largely ignored their usage. The blast sling just seemed like a way to deal elemental damage to multiple enemies, but I typically enjoyed solo-focusing one specific enemy before moving on to the next. So why use it? The trip caster was used mildly at the start of the game vs tough enemies in order to get the "first jump" on them with damage, but once I got comfortable, even against the likes of Tremortusks and Behemoths they too fell to the wayside. What about the "Ropecaster"? I did not use a Ropecaster a single time in my entire playthrough. I only bought one at the end of the game in order to achieve the "Obtain All Weapon Classes" trophy. The only other weapon I really used was the "Sharpshot Bow" for long-range damage. I did not enjoy the "Warrior Bows" as they required me to get too close to the enemy and would frequently lead to me taking huge damage. When did I realize I had goofed up with my Hunter Bow-exclusive mindset? The Arena. GOOD LORD. The Arena is a series of challenges you find by a group of Tenakth that fight machines. On the final boss of these battles, the game gives you a SPECIFIC loadout in order to beat it. This is when I discovered "Blast Slings" can include "Adhesive" which is freaking phenomenal against gigantic, fast-hitting enemies in order to slow their assaults. "Boltblasters" are basically machine guns and can deal ungodly amounts of pain. "Shredder Gauntlets" are badass as hell and allow you to tear off components and have the fun aspect of being catchable upon return if you time it properly. WOW. I SURE WISHED I INCORPORATED ANY OF THAT IN MY 50 HOURS PRIOR TO REACHING THE ARENA. I don't blame the developers. They showed me the pop-up tutorial of each weapon each time I got one. I just ignored it and stuck with my trusty Hunter Bow. You can't fix stubborn. 

 

EXPLORATION - For as much fun as a world brimming with life can be, a player will quickly be sapped of their desire to explore that world if the exploration is tedious and a chore to get through. How does Forbidden West handle it? Shockingly well. Seriously. While not every mountain/cliffside is climbable by Aloy, I was frequently surprised by how often I would think "that looks like an area I should be able to get to" and when I highlighted with my focus clicking R3, there were inevitable yellow points of contact that conveyed they were indeed accessible. This is a HUGE upgrade over the original system in Horizon Zero Dawn which limited your climbing capabilities to specific yellow beams. (By the way, what post-apocalyptic construction company made sure all those yellow beams were in the PERFECT spot for the redheaded savior to come in the near future?) In a nutshell - climbing is greatly improved. Along with this new sense of verticality, the game also felt the need to incorporate a hang glider which you acquire after slaying a fancy warrior of a rebel army that was the champion of a woman named Regalla. More on her later. Initially, you won't really find much of a use for the glider. At least I didn't. But as you explore more of the world and reach some of the mountaintops, you'll quickly realize how much of an excellent decision it was and my only complaint would be Aloy commenting on her use of it EVERY time she opened it even if it was for a 2-second fall and wholly unnecessary. "Time for a glide". NO. IT'S NOT TIME FOR A GLIDE ALOY. I JUST WANT YOU TO HAVE CARTILAGE IN YOUR KNEES BY THE TIME YOU TURN 25 AND DIDN'T WANT YOU TO CRASH LAND ON THE ROCKY FLOOR. You can also swim underwater in Forbidden West which you could not in the original. Uhh... I kinda hated it. Hated is probably too extreme. But even with tapping "L3" to swim faster or incessantly clicking "O" to dodge in the water, Aloy moves far too slowly for my liking. It also created some of the worst and most debilitating horror elements of the game for me as Aloy CAN NOT attack machines while underwater. This means slowly creeping past Snapmaws and in one Cauldron, a Tideripper, which if they had seen me, would likely have led to me needing to change my pants. I hate feeling so defenseless. It's a great "effect" it has on the player, but for as gorgeous as the game can look underwater at sea, I entirely avoided it due to the panic it caused me. Finally, there are "mounts" both on land and in the air. The latter of which is unlocked at the very end of the game. Mounts are fine. I only used them if I wanted to quickly get to a destination. If I was entering an unexplored part of the map, I preferred to be on foot since gathering resources on the back of a Charger/Bristleback is a pain and halts your momentum too frequently. I also noticed they removed a skill allowing you to summon a Charger at any time. I imagine this was to encourage players to experience the various ridable mounts available such as Bristlebacks and Clawstriders. It's okay. I kinda wish I had the option to pay 50 metal scrap to summon one on command any time I wanted though I understand why they made the decision they made. 

 

FORAGING / RESOURCE GATHERING - You are going to be hitting the triangle button A LOT while playing HFW. This is done after fights to loot machines for resources. It is also done frequently while traveling between destinations as there is SO MUCH to collect in the world. You need the likes of ridge-wood in order to craft arrows. You also need medicinal berries in order to stay topped off on health when you get damaged in a fight and they're super convenient when compared to a health potion because they allow you to heal immediately after getting attacked. There are NUMEROUS loot boxes scattered throughout the world which you can highlight when tapping your focus by clicking R3. In hindsight, I should have made a few adjustments to my settings to make this more convenient. I distinctly remember in "The Last of Us 2", there is an "auto-pick up" option for accessibility. I didn't check, but I hope that's in Horizon. I probably should have turned it on. Aside from collecting resources like a hoarder, you will also frequently snipe the wildlife of Horizon from boars, to peccary, to vultures, to rabbits, to squirrels, and so forth. You NEED to kill this wildlife for key pouch upgrades for your arrows, health, ammo, etc... I BECAME A FIEND in this game sniping animal wildlife. Mountain goats weep when they here Aloy's footsteps. They know that death has arrived. This is also a way of the game "gating off" the player from certain upgrades as certain creatures such as Moonfish and Bass, required for key upgrades in your arrows to go from 30 to 45 and all the way up to 60 is only found at the very far left edge of the map. I thought it was an interesting way to gate progress that didn't feel "wrong" since nothing stopped me from going there in the first place after the game opens up and allows you to go after one of AETHER, POSEIDON, and DEMETER. Whoever's idea it was to "collect" bass/moonfish/carp underwater sucks. Aloy moves so damn slow and it takes forever to catch up with the fish. Wish you could just shoot and collect them as in the original. 

I let out a shriek of excitement when I realized "Machine Strike" in Horizon Forbidden West was exactly what I thought it was. I love it when games incorporate whole-ass board/card games in their already mammoth open worlds.

Now that I've covered everything at the core of the main gameplay elements that form the foundation of Horizon Forbidden West, I see it appropriate to dissect some of the core side activities that form the soul of the open-world found in Horizon. Basically, does Horizon separate itself from being a part of the Ubisoft formula "empty, open-world stuffed with filler content"?

 

SIDE QUESTS / ERRANDS - If you asked me to explain the difference between a side quest and an errand, I wouldn't know what to tell you. Both seem quite involved and while I think errands are more... "go here, do this, and return", Side Quests seem a little bit more involved than that? Regardless, how GOOD were the side quests in Forbidden West? It's hard to say. I DID NOT COMPLETE ALL OF THEM. I did a fair amount that were not required for the main story, but there are likely some solid ones I did NOT enjoy and thus you may find them absent from this review. As a sort of cruel way to judge how good they were... let me think for a moment, without looking at my notes - how memorable they were. 1) Sisters Delah and Boomer. Super memorable. Boomer is obsessed with explosions and they help you get your first "Spike Thrower" weapon. You also help them on a later quest to rescue Boomer after she's gone missing. 2) There's an Utaru elder who you help defend their settlement against an onslaught of rebels and machines with a go-getter crew of Utaru that don't know how to fight. 3) Talanah(who I enjoyed in the original) reappears and you can on a series of quests to help rescue a man who's won her heart(though she won't tell you this 'til much later). 4) There's an Oseram woman who is trying to get old radio signals from the old world. You climb various spires to help her uncover the message. 5) You help an Oseram tradesman, Porguf (I ACTUALLY REMEMBERED ONE OF THEIR NAMES). He has a distinct... salesman-esque personality and you end up returning something he stole from his sister. Also, there's an awesome Shellsnapper(or was it a Rockbreaker?) fight. 6) Each of the individual quests with each crew member is super memorable. Helping Zo fighting some Plowhorns and reviving the land gods, helping Kotallo get a robotic arm after he lost his own and fight a Ravager, Erend with going after the Sons of Prometheus and the last woman who had a tenuous relationship to his murdered sister, and finally Alva with the Quen and going up that gigantic skyscraper on their main island. 7) You help bring water back to the Searing Spire and have to choose between the current woman Tenakth leadership or new man Tenakth accused of sabotaging the supply. 8) Uhh... I think that's it honestly. Time to look at my notes and see which ones I had forgotten. checks notes

 

OOOOOOH yeah okay now that I'm looking at my notes there are a few ones I missed. One of them is Ulvund who claims to be a champion of the working class meanwhile he's actually doubling backward over with conspiracies and plots and you eventually get him ousted and humiliated. Aside from that though, there honestly aren't many that exceedingly stand out in my mind. There are other activities that don't qualify as these two such as the "Salvager Contracts" (or is it Scavenger?) where you help out Oseram scattered about the world with some contracts in order to bring them specific resources. But again, these don't count as side quests. I'd like to briefly comment on a few of these activities. 

 

RELIC RUINS - Relic ruins serve as a way to incorporate puzzles into Horizon's world. Rather than fighting machines, you'll typically have to navigate ancient structures and use your pullcaster, boxes, water manipulation, environmental objects, firegleam explosions, and your grapple hook in order to attain an elusive treasure hidden away. I stumbled upon these and occasionally tried to solve them. WOW. My idiot brain made these 10x harder than they should have been and I am embarrassed to admit that on multiple occasions I had to resort to looking up the solution online. There was one particular one with a passcode that said "the code is the year of the building on the front". I go outside. I kept trying to input the code "1623" and thought the game had glitched out on me and was not working. I did not perceive the environmental clue that suggested it was "1923". I needed far more help than I'd like to admit and its puzzles in games such as these that are there to remind me I'm a video game caveman. Anytime in the future when I puff up my video game intelligence, please cite this paragraph and humble my ego. Thank you. 

 

REBELS OUTPOSTS / CAMPS - These outposts typically serve as the main source of combat vs humans found in the overworld. Some of them will have story elements that tie into the quest that eventually allows you to go with Erend and infiltrate their headquarters. They're solid to handle when you stumble across them on your way to other activities in the game and as I mentioned in the "Combat vs. Humans" section, I never get tired of having Aloy run in arrows blazing and headshot an entire dozens worth of Regalla's soldiers.

 

TALLNECKS - I think Tallnecks are one of the best representations of creativity by the Guerrilla Games team and how they separate themselves from the typical open-world video game. In most games, you can unlock some tower or some map that allows you to get the lay of the land and figure out where other activities are in that newly unlocked zone. In Horizon, Tallnecks serve that purpose, but their mystique and elegance make them a special encounter every time you discover one of them. It's not simply "find Tallneck, reach high point, jump on top, unlock map area". The quests for Tallnecks are very involved. One of them walks about in an empty desert and for the longest time, I wondered how one earth I was ever going to find a way on top of it. Later you find ballistas you use to shoot at it, bring it down, and climb on top to seize its data. Another one is sunken in the island region beneath the water, and you must fight your way trepidatiously through Glinthawks and Snapmaws dangerously close to the water in order to bring it back to operation. They are excellent and a perfect example of a creative take on a familiar concept.

 

CAULDRONS - I'll be 100% honest. I did not love the Cauldrons in the original Horizon. For whatever reason, the antiseptic metal and greyness of these zones were generally depressing for me. While I appreciated the function that they served for allowing you to override new machines, the reward did not outweigh the journey traveled in order to acquire it. Oddly, enough this did a 180 in Horizon Forbidden West. I greatly enjoyed each of the Cauldrons. Perhaps because there were only 4 of them and they were each distinctly special. The first one was when I was Level 13 and it was Level 18, and I decided to venture in any way. I had a legendary fight in the finale against 2 Widemaws which in hindsight, is hilarious since they end up being one of the easier "big" enemies to takedown once you're powerful. Much later on, was an intense fight in one against a Frostclaw that I thought served as the "final boss" when in reality it was a fakeout for a real Slitherfang fight which was utterly brutal and killed me multiple times. The "hardest" Cauldron involves underwater elements and had you sneak past an Apex Tideripper before fighting it 1 on 1. It is one of the most memorable sequences of the entire game for me and allows you to unlock the biggest machine overrides in the game. The final one also has a Tallneck "stuck" in it and you emerge from the Cauldron on its head for an absolutely gorgeous view of the world. EVERY SINGLE one of them was memorable - and that is a marvelous achievement considering they serve as one of the "side activities" in Horizon Forbidden West. 

 

HUNTING GROUNDS / THE ARENA - I waited far too long to participate in these and I shouldn't have ignored them as much as I did. The majority of these turned out far too easy due to the fact I was "over-leveled" and returned to them once I had beaten the game and could absolutely stomp many of the challenges they set out of the player. Aside from serving as a challenge, they also teach the player key combat and movement tactics such as the "fly/glide" ability while grapple hooking up to a vertical post OR utilizing traps to cause environmental damage. It's my fault I did not take advantage of them earlier. Still, in a small way, absolutely dominating them was fun in its own right. 

 

MACHINE STRIKE - I freaking loved Machine Strike. There have been jokes made about how in games such as The Witcher 3 with Gwent or in Yakuza 0 with Mahjong that these side activities can become a beast of their own and devour much of the player's time before they realized they've been sucked in but I knew from the very jump I was going to love this board game. You essentially collect "Strike pieces" which are replicas of their machine counterparts in the "real world". You have your Burrowers, Scrappers, Bellowbacks, etc... and each have certain advantages and disadvantages against the opponent. You can battle Beginner, Intermediate, Skilled, & Expert players in the various settlements you encounter. I knew the second I arrived the very first thing I would do is challenge these players and try and win more and more pieces. A lot of it is trial-and-error and baiting out the opponent piece but I had a blast with it considering how quickly you can blaze through the matches and they don't take that long in all reality. The NPC who also introduces you to them, Salma, is absolutely lovely as well. 

OTHER ACTIVITIES / FINAL THOUGHTS - The only other main side activity I have left to mention is the "Gauntlet Runs". You read correctly. You can race on Chargers against other Tenakth in the region. You're allowed to hit other riders, shoot a limited supply of arrows at them, and protect yourself from taking damage all while racing across a destined course laid out on the map. They're fun and provide a visual spectacle as other machines stumble upon your little race track and can't process in their programming just how disrespectful you're being. I've been overwhelmingly positive until now regarding the side activities so I'll be negative for a moment. The "Vista Points" as a collectible completely sucked. One of them glitched out on me and refused to reappear. They're obtuse, Aloy walks slow as hell when they're presented (don't tell me you can "hide" the point, I know that). They're not fun and if I ever desired 100% completion, I'd just follow a YouTube video on how to quickly find all of them. Black Boxes on the other hand are simple and straightforward, as are the Metal Flowers which unlock certain valuable loot boxes or other goodies behind them. The Water Caverns are fine though I did get killed in one as I didn't have the diving gear unlocked yet and didn't realize it until Aloy had drowned. To sum it all up, I greatly enjoyed the vast majority of the content aside from the main quest in Forbidden West and it is the game that has most closely reminded me of Batman: Arkham Knight in terms of open-world quality which is a HUGE compliment if you know how positively I think about the final entry in that trilogy. 

Don't tell anyone but I legitimately thought the game was going to incorporate a love triangle element into the game and I was absolutely HERE for it. Almost giddy with excitement. But uhh... didn't turn out that way. 

It's about damn time we got to the story and characters at the heart of HFW. This section is going to be extremely spoiler heavy. Please forgive any inaccuracies(see paragraph #2).

 

REALM722'S VERSION OF HFW'S STORY - In this paragraph, I am going to attempt to recite from memory, the entire core plot of Horizon Forbidden West. From the jump, you as Aloy, saved Meridian from peril and disaster. Hades, an evil... "source" that provoked the rebellion and attack of machines is captured by Sylens. He's not the biggest baddie...there's always a bigger fish. A new threat suggests imminent doom for the entirety of life on earth! Where the hell did that bald jerk Sylens go? Aloy must journey out west and discover the source threatening humanity. You discover some old ruins with your buddy Nora pal Varl who you met in HZD. You reach the outskirts of the Carja after having an encounter with the Sun King Avad and he kinda tries to make a move on Aloy. I said "this isn't the time for this" and kept it moving. You find Erend, another old buddy from the original. You bail on them and intend to get to the "Embassy" being held between the Carja and Tenakth. You've never met the Tenakth. They're supposedly a savage, violent people who hate the Carja due to the Red Raids (King Avad's father, tyrant of a king who did lots of killing before being murdered) You help out and get the embassy underway after speaking with the Tenakth. They aren't the... chillest group of folk but they're also not the ruthless blood savages they've been made out to be. OR at least not all of them. During the embassy - a surprise attack is launched! A woman named Regalla comes in with machines and slays some from the delegation on both sides. Aloy and Varl escape with their lives and fend off the attackers. You then journey by yourself into the West properly. There's an important element of rebuilding "GAIA" (some software that controls the earth and is portrayed by an ethereal black woman) by collecting her subsystems named after some Greek gods. While exploring, you cut off Sylens, end up in some base, and are ATTACKED by Mass Effect-looking dudes called the "Zenith". These dudes look like hilarious caricatures of the rich elite in space. ONE OF THEM TRIES TO KILL YOU. You barely survive and are rescued by Varl who takes you to a group of people known as the Utaru. They're the "plant-based" people of the West. Very different from the violent Tenakth. A kind woman named Zo offers to help. She also digs ya boy Varl. Giggity. Eventually, with their aid, you find an old base and establish a headquarters. You get GAIA to help you explain where to find 3 of her subsystems which serve as the maguffin the game needs to have you explore the vast world. AETHER, POSEIDON, & DEMETER. This is when the game REALLY opens up. You collect each of these, and have huge transcendent events such as making new friends such as Kotallo after going after the Bulwark, meeting Hekkaro and discovering the background of Regalla, and finally, DEMETER where you meet Alva and have your first interaction with the Quen. After collecting each subsystem, you also have key story quests uncovering another clone of Elisabet Sobeck's and Aloy's twin... a woman named Beta. Created by the Zenith to access her ancient world facilities. Kinky. You now go after "HEPHAESTUS", try to capture him, he escapes, instead of deceiving the Zenith you lead them right to you, Beta, and Varl and Varl freaking DIES. Beta is captured. But Aloy is saved by one of the Zeniths, a woman who looks exactly like Tilda Swinton. With her, she offers you a backdoor into the Zenith's facilties. You also reconcile with that jerk Sylens since he created a way to get through their impenetrable shields. I also kill Regalla as opposed to letting her continue her reign of terror. The final descent of the game involves you infiltrating the Zenith base with all your buddies, kill some Zeniths, get to the top, discover that Tilda Swinton is in fact READY to abandon Earth to destruction due to the evil force of past consciences of the Zeniths coming after them to destroy them and the final boss fight is You vs. Tilda Swinton in a Transformers suit and you're victorious. Rather than fleeing, you agree to stay and try to fight this final imminent threat, Nemesis. Sylens is so moved by you and your companions, he also stays. Hence... Horizon Forbidden West kinda ends on a cliffhanger suggesting a possible 3rd game... Horizon... IN SPACE!

 

MY GOOPY GOBLIN GAMER BRAIN AND LORE JARGON - Okay, that wasn't the greatest and most complete summary but I hope it conveyed the general idea enough to all 3 of you who decided to read it. Here's my problem with Horizon. I have a "goopy goblin gamer brain". What is that? It's a term, first acknowledged by YouTuber NakeyJakey that perfectly encapsulates an issue that I suffer from in heavy story-based sections of video games. What does this disease cause? Basically, whenever Aloy gets into these long-winded segments talking about the ancient ones, the Zeniths, the Tenakth, the focus, the hidden streams of data, the APOLLO'S, GAIA'S, DEMETER'S, POSEIDON'S, functions, subsystems, incessant never-ending dialogue trees, ya boy's brain starts to wander and I start thinking: "damn... what time do the Heat play tonight?" More often than I'd like to admit, the bogged down nature of Horizon's science fiction-esque elements had me "zone out" so to speak, and if you were to ask me something like - "What did Aloy and this NPC just talk about?" I'd have to sheepishly stare at you and admit... I wasn't paying attention. Whenever I have to use my focus to scan some ancient hardware and hear some ancient psychopath blabber on for 3 minutes, I zone out. By the time the fourteenth indistinguishable Tenakth is going on rambling about some specific companion with a bizarre name that is in need of help, I zone out. I feel awful because I know how HARD this must have been for all the Guerrilla Games developers must have poured their heart and soul into creating this world and how someone's job was probably just saying "Slitherfang" a million times to make sure it sounded right and didn't sound overly ridiculous. In my head, I just called them "the snake machine" or "the deer machine". I have a fairly low tolerance for this stuff. I still enjoyed the story and the ramifications, and there are sequences where I care about what the characters are saying (Sylens is captivating ALWAYS, Zo is good, Varl is a bro) but others completely fall flat for me. Beta is an adequate name for a secondary character I cared very little about. Too many settlements have far too few NPCs I actually care about. This is why I made a specific section dedicated to characters that I deemed memorable. All in all, I don't know if I just have a very small attention span and this wasn't an issue for many other players OR if others have also experienced this. 

 

MEMORABLE CHARACTERS - At the end of the day, what matters to me in stories is all about the vibes. Did I like the protagonist's companions or not? Dragon Quest 11 pulled it off. Persona 5 pulled it off. Final Fantasy 7 Remake pulled it off. Pyre pulled it off. Did Horizon Forbidden West? In terms of your core companions... it's close. Varl is awesome. He's helpful, caring, and is one of your tribesmen from the Nora. If I could, I would have probably had Aloy dating him. Too bad that plant-eating bitch Zo stole him from us. I kid. Zo's great. But I remember distinctly thinking "yo is there some sexual tension here?" and then Zo straight up kisses him and I was like "bruh". Erend is an Oseram from the original game and the game.... kinda makes him Aloy's companion? He talks about being upset she left without a word and he is shoulder to shoulder with her during the final cinematics. I gave a "neutral, brain" answer to his advances. Does that still happen if I say "hell yea Avad lemme be your queen" at the start of the game? Kotallo is a solid fella. He's a serious, no-nonsense Tenakth but his warrior mentality and loyalty to Aloy is commendable. Alva is a complete sweetheart. I loved her from the moment we met her and while her people, the Quen, are really wacked out with the mythologizing they do of past humans she acknowledges her people's faults with a surprising amount of reasonableness. In terms of NPCs, this is where things take a nosedive. Some of them are good. I freaking loved Lawan and his Final Fantasy-esque get-up even though he barely appears after the opening events. The "Ceo" with the Quen is cartoonish levels of narcissism and I get the game wants you to hate him but goddamn. Bohai isn't THAT much better as revealed in later conversations with Alva. Hekkaro is a solid war chief but very stoic otherwise. Regalla and Tilda Swinton serve as girl boss enemies to Aloy. They're fine. The Zeniths, such as Erik, are hilariously evil. They definitely traded cryptocurrency and promoted online sports betting on DraftKings. Porguf was great. Salva was great. Petra has a badonkadonk and takes over for Ulvund when you oust him. Sylens steals every scene he's in. But he honestly isn't in as much of the game as I thought he'd be after you cut off contact with him. Morlund and the Las Vegas crew are cool. A lot of the Tenakth blend together for me and I don't know if that makes me video game racist. All in all, it's like a 7/10 performance in the characters department. I'm surprised by the number of characters who have personal names even if they're just mentioned once and never seen again. 

Look at how colorful all these colors are. Although now that I think about it, how does Aloy's luxurious red hair not get utterly filthy with all her jungle running, mud sliding, cave spelunking, machine fighting way of life?

I would now like to touch on something very specific to my experience with Horizon Forbidden West. The phenomena of how radically different I approached this game due to the fact I had bought it brand new, the day it was released. There are pros and cons of buying the biggest, baddest, brand new AAA release of the games industry. Let me be frank about it. 

 

PROS OF BUYING A GAME BRAND NEW - I think the pros should be fairly obvious. You're playing the latest and greatest as soon as it became widely available to the public. It is a moniker of "I got here first, look at me." This is rarified air for me. Outside of Kingdom Hearts 3 and the formerly yearly cycle of Madden's and FIFA's that I used to pay $60 the day the newest iteration came out, I don't buy games brand new. If it's a game I don't think I'll play, I'll check out the reviews and if it intrigues me, watch a Let's Play or stream. If it's a game I DO think I'll play, I'll avoid it at all costs, hide videos on YouTube, hide posts on Reddit, and avoid relating hashtags on Twitter to avoid spoilers. Typically the worst of it comes 1-2 weeks into its release. It's then forgotten and I can enjoy it for $20 down the line when it goes on sale. I have avoided ALL discussion about Horizon Forbidden West due to wanting to enter this review with a FRESH, UNTAINTED perspective and experience. I don't want to be influenced by others if I didn't notice certain aspects. Of course, this has the downside of the fact I don't really get to enjoy the discourse of a game when it is the hot button subject. Thus, my purchasing it brand new means little until I do decide to enter those waves of discussion. Which, sadly for Horizon, has had the unfortunate happenstance of releasing a week prior to the game the ENTIRE video game community wants to talk about in Elden Ring. Over the last week, I barely have seen any mainstream social media outlets have it come to the forefront. Meanwhile, I've been bombarded with clips from Elden Ring of hilarious deaths to bosses and surprising events in that open-world despite the fact I've never played a Soulsborne in my life and you would think these companies who spy on us would know what would likely be more interesting to me. What's my point? Aside from enjoying the great new thing the very day it releases(which is fine for people who enjoy instant gratification), I don't think buying a brand new game offers me a lot to celebrate. On the other hand...

 

CONS OF BUYING A GAME BRAND NEW - Buckle up folks. I've been holding onto this. Horizon Forbidden West suffered from a number of bugs during my playthrough. I am going to be VERY charitable here and say this will not affect my review score. Why? Whenever I hear gamers complain about minuscule visual bugs in a game such as "popping in" of environments or that time a certain subset of players went nuts over the "low-quality door in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake", do you know who they remind me of? They remind me of a cartoonish depiction of a master from an early 1900s film coming home to his mansion and rather than greeting his servants for the outstanding work they've done in preparing the home, goes up to them and says, "you missed a spot" over a small brown stain in the corner of one of the floor tiles. MAKING VIDEO GAMES IS FREAKISHLY DIFFICULT. Making flawless, bug-free video games is tantamount to magic. Making flawless, bug-free, sprawling open-world 80+ hour AAA quality games? If you believe that's easily attainable, I have beachfront property in North Dakota I'd like to sell you. I am NOT someone who enjoys moaning about bugs. But here's the list. 1) Multiple activities glitched for me. There was a salvage contract with an Oseram woman named Runda that I had completed all 3 contracts for and she would NOT accept one of them no matter how many times I spoke to her. As I did not check the trophy list before playing, I became convinced this had glitched my save and I'd likely need to do another, 20hour+ rushed playthrough of the game after I was done with it. Thankfully, I was wrong and no trophies were tied to that quest - and even better, after the 1.06 patch the glitch was fixed and I completed her quest. But this small, seemingly insignificant issue on a side activity INFECTED my entire rest of the time in the game in a very small fashion. Why do all of the Melee Pits show their levels as "Level 1" and not mark as completed even after I beat the Pit Master? Why the same issue with Hunting Grounds? A Vista point legitimately glitched out on me and never reappeared even though I didn't solve it. These are "small" issues in a vast, wonderful game, but they had me fearing and holding my breath after each quest hoping it wouldn't glitch. 2) Multiple main story quests required me to reload a save. In the Repair Bay, one of those platforms you need to stop on Aloy didn't properly register her weight. I thought I was missing something obvious with the puzzle. Instead, it was the game glitching. On numerous side quests - the NPCs glitched and wouldn't let me speak to them. This happened with Delah/Boomer as well as the elder by Tide's Rising who is suffering from dementia. These small issues would make me think that whenever I got stuck, I sometimes wouldn't know if I was being stupid and not seeing the obvious progression path OR that something had glitched. It's a small, insidious problem that always lingered with me. 3) Aloy and her stash comments. It's since been patched. But good lord woman. 4) This is a hilarious one. In "enclosed' sections, you can't summon a mount if you have one loaded. Yet for whatever reason, when fighting Erik, one of the Zeniths in a fight you CAN NOT win, I was able to summon my Charger deep indoors and it HILARIOUSLY started attacking him and doing damage before he obliterated it. One of the rare hilarious bugs that while messing up an intended "scary" section was one I enjoyed. 5) Various visual bugs such as some NPCs not loading and it looking like Aloy had lost her mind and was speaking into the void. None of these bugs/glitches are game-breaking and Guerrilla Games is already fixing many of them. I wished I had gotten to enjoy the game "bug-free" which I would have if I had waited a few months from now to play it when I bought it for $40. Combined, these issues had a mild, not insignificant factor in my enjoyment while playing. 

 

DESIRE TO PLAY MORE, FUTURE DLCS - Despite all my qualms stated above, I still love this game. I still have the itch to play it. I won't, due to the fact that I need variety in my gaming life and spending an entire month on one game goes directly in opposition of that. Still, I am confident this is not the last of Horizon Forbidden West for me. I have NO DOUBT that Guerrilla will release DLC for the game in the coming months as they did with the Frozen Wilds in the original. I hope they had a "New Game+", "Very Hard" difficulty trophy so that I can rush through the game skipping cutscenes but still enjoying that chunky gameplay and gorgeous world. Hell, I'll go out of my way to try side quests I didn't on my first go-around. Whenever that time comes, I will be very happy to reimmerse myself in this world and bask in its glory all over again. 

 

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS - 1) I really enjoyed the photo mode. I am not particularly adept with them in terms of making jaw-dropping worthy wallpapers but I had my fun where I could. Here's the first one I made where I imagine many first-time players snagged of Aloy going down the elevator. Here's my bro Lawan in all his glory. Here's Aloy hangliding. I found this woman just chilling out underwater while gathering bass fish. Finally, Alva makes a leap of faith during her side quest. 2) I barely ever used traps or smoke bombs during my entire playthrough. I realized that i didn't incorporate this during my comments on combat since... I never used them. They're helpful. But I only ever used multiple traps seriously other than getting a jump on the Slitherfang in the Cauldron for early damage and the smoke bombs as a pure accident by clicking down on the D-Pad. If I was ever exposed, I was willing to fight the machines in the open while dodging their onslaught of attacks. 3) I'm sad Varl died and I'm mad at myself for not checking his new dialogue options before embarking on the mission that killed him. It's my fault. In real life you usually don't know when your last opportunity to speak to them is until it's too late. 4) The towns are decent. Not the greatest settlements I've ever seen(DQ11 has def ruined me forever as I'll always compare them to that game) but Plainsong is particularly gorgeous with its sprawling pathways ascending into the sky and the Bulwark is fun because you basically Rick James'd their crib and made them follow your orders. 5) I think it's cool that people constantly refer to you as the "Savior of Meridian" and follow story beats that happened in the original. 

 

TROPHIES - I did not check the trophy list before starting HFW. I wanted to go in completely blind and didn't want to even slightly risk the possibility of spoiling myself having dodged all the spoilers across the rest of the internet. By the time I finished the main campaign, I had earned 42 of the 58 obtainable trophies completely blindly. What does that tell you? This game is ridiculously easy to platinum. I expect it to rise between the 40-50% platinum range by the time the majority of users have had the chance to experience the game at a reasonable pace. There are no absurd missables (thankfully), or trophies begging for 100% completion scrounging up every collectible. The last few trophies I had remaining we ones I was going out of my way to accomplishing anyway such as hunting down the last of the rebels to activate Erend's side quest or the two flying mount quests where one of them involves you killing a Stormbird. As a small note, thanks to @Lezonidas I realized "All Combat Machines Killed" needed to be popped by completing the 5th arena challenge where you fight the Corrupters again. Apparently fighting them in the main story mission while traveling downwards with the Ceo didn't count. Still, it's a cupcake of a plat and while a part of me would have wanted a slightly more demanding one that forced me to explore every crevice of the world, I can appreciate that Sony has made it an effort for their franchise leaders to be attainable platinums for the majority of their audience. I earned the 13.25% rarity platinum (which will inevitably rise to the 40%+ range) in just 1 week and 6 days. 66 hours of total play-time according to the PS5 tracker. 

 

My Conclusion - I absolutely love the Horizon franchise. With this sequel, it has reached the vaunted status of being a series I cherish and hold in high regard. I don't toss around "gave me Arkham Knight" vibes lightly. While there are those who have tired of the open-world genre, as someone who infrequently plays them, Horizon fulfills exactly what I want out of a game of its scope. The sequel built upon the foundation laid by the original and expanded it in ways that better buoyed the core elements of the arrow combat system against machines and story beats of a savior trying to make sense of the plan left behind by her original. It's a story about a woman who no longer does things on her own, but with the aid of her companions manages to overcome insurmountable odds. Call it cheesy if you want. In a world filled with cynicsm, I appreciated it. I kept my promise of this review not being as long as my Dragon Quest 11 dissertation. Barely, but I kept it. I know a game has reached a special status for me when I constantly think about it when NOT playing it and after turning the game off, I would immediately start thinking of what activities I wanted to handle when I began playing the next time. Horizon Forbidden West did just that. This game has consumed my life since its release and after milking it for all its worth, it's time to move on. I sincerely hope the Guerrilla Games team is satisfied with the fanfare, praise, and love the game has received. I hope it sold adequately to ensure they can do whatever they desire in the near future without papa Sony having to tighten their ship due to the unbelievably unfortunate luck of twice having released around "THE" game of the year. If nothing else, I loved your game, Guerrilla. Thank you for making it!

 

Panda Score: 9.3 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 3.8 / 10 (Played on Hard Difficulty, trophies themselves are around 2.2ish)

Spoiler

LMAOOOOOOOOO you seriously clicked on the spoiler? You freak. You goblin. These are my RAW notes I made while playing. They're not good. 

 

Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West

Game Start Date: February 18th, 2022

• I am SUPER HYPED. Bought full price. Last time I bought a non-sports game full price was Kingdom Hearts 3. I thoroughly enjoyed the original and expect great things from the sequel, LESSGO BABY
• Intro movie recapping the events of Horizon Zero Dawn from Aloy being Elisabet Sobeck’s clone, Sylens is mad sketchy, we bested Hades, here comes Sylens with his machinations… (of course all the events of the original get spoiled, that’s expected)
• I’ve decided to play on HARD difficulty since - may as well enjoy the experience. Explorer assistance as well.
• Aloy’s dream… big tree. Sees Elisabet. WOW Aloy looks ultra HD 8k
• Hey I remember Varl! But I’ve played Banner Saga since then lol
• THE COLORS ARE SO PRETTY MAN
• “The Blight” is the evil red plant I presume
• Isn’t bark just wood?
• That’s cute - the game teaches you how to collect materials for brand new players to the franchise through the lens of educating Varl
• First new machine! Burrowers - cute and slippery
• We just DESTROYED this training dummy lmao
• Yo this pullcaster is gonna be her grapple hook - tons of possibilities
• Osvald Daagard was the Zuck of Horizon
• I like Varl’s beard!
• GAIA, Apollo, ANZU, Far Zenith, whatever you say chief I’m here to kill machines
• Bro it’s gonna be mad funny when we end up fighting these cobras 1 v. 3 in the future
• WOW that Slitherfang enemy is super cool - good first boss fight!
• Bruh this dude Travis Tate
• Yo we got a statue made of us in Meridian lmao
• LOL we literally gotta go West where Sylens is, now I get it
• “The Tenakth” Is the tribe of dudes we’re gonna have to take out hundreds of lol
• I have no idea who Uthid and Vanasha are in all honesty
• LMAO IS THIS DUDE AVAD MAKING A MOVE ON US?
• Yo I have a feeling we’re gonna have a number of options to get Aloy some boy toys, I’m choose the reasonable “Now’s not the time” response
• I don’t remember whatsoever in the original him having a thing for Aloy. That bearded Oseram dude did tho
• We gave a him non-answer. Left the door open with him.
• I legit don’t remember these two uthid/Vanasha AT ALL lmao
• We just bailed on Varl. He’s not gonna be happy about that when he saves our life from peril out of thin air about 10 hours in the future lol
• Lessgo son I’m hyped they rolled opening credits and title card!
• Yo this crank is MAD sketchy hah
• We just got called “scalawag”
• WHO IS PETRA? I do not remember this lady
• Petra got that badonkadonk
• YOOOOO THE STASH! Beautiful feature. Allows us to always gather materials but still gives us an incentive or limitation with our on-person materials. Very nice.
• LMAOOOOOO THERE’S BOARD GAMES IN HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST LESSGO
• This theme of us being a “Savior” with everyone we cross paths with is unique
• Salma is very charismatic. I like her.
• I destroyed Salma on every challenge. I enjoy the board game. “Machine Strike”. Didn’t lose once - curious how complex it’ll get later on
• Ayyyyy we found Erend! Those Bristtlebacks were fun to blow up w/ acid
• Oooooh Erend… we’re gonna hit him with “Someone who had a good reason”
• Aloy is Batman now with these smoke bombs
• Okay, I’m sorry - maybe I’m an idiot but these vista points SUCK
• FINALLY FOUND IT right as I complained. Okay, that still was booty
• YO THAT FAST TRAVEL WAS HELLA QUICK
• We just obliterated this “Machine Strike” dude at Barren Light, get rekt son
• This Conover/Laruvik side quest… I think Laruvik has to be guilty because is HFW really gonna do a quest where the prisoner is guilty and concocting this elaborate lie?
• Lawan has a SICK Final Fantasy-esque get-up
• WOW Varl shaved his beard and showed up again 10x faster and in calmer circumstances than I expected
• Okay I’m getting hella vibes HFW devs want Varl to be our boyfriend. I want it too.
• You know the Tenakth are evil cuz their outfits don’t let us clearly see their faces. That way we don’t feel guilty about murdering them
• Fashav’s voice actor is excellent
• RIP Sun Priest bruh lol
• Bruh Grudda just busted out a BotW air glider
• LOOOOOOL I just cheesed the hella outta this Grudda fight. I shot his helmet with an arrow and broke his mask. His face was hella goofy. Rather than man-to-man combat I just sniped his face with a bunch arrows for 63+ damage each time. Hilarious
• Regalla: I’m out
• We just stole Grudda’s air glider raiding it off his corpse hah
• I freaking love Lawan
• Is Regalla gonna be the final boss for a girl boss finale?
• End of Day 1 Impressions: I’m really enjoying the game. Horizon has a wonderful gameplay loop. The game is GORGEOUS. The combat is fun. The characters can be hit or miss but I’ve dug enough of them to enjoy it thus far. There’s A LOT of side content that I’m gonna enjoy digging my teeth into. It’s a chill world to hang out in. Earned 6 trophies my 1st day which ain’t too shabby
• Finished chatting with Hades and Death’s Door, it’s so many video games in one!
• I like how the game actually makes you read the chat logs and input the codes manually
• Florida doesn’t exist anymore in Horizon’s USA map lol
• So we’ve gotta rebuild GAIA which is the thing that saves the world from badness, but we gotta find her sub functions, and that’s the maguffin we need to get moving around Horizon’s world to all the different zones? Works for me!
• We just smashed our focus to cut off contact with Sylens, but seriously? Sylens, the Albert Einstein of the New World, can’t just hack our lil basic focus and spy on us again in secret?
• OH DAMN DAS ELISABET SOBECK
• Why these Mass Effect losing dudes pull up looking hella evil?
• LMAOOOOOO I ACCIDENTALLLY SUMMONED MY MOUNT WHILE FIGHTING ERIK AND HE JUST SHOWED UP THERE DURING THE FIGHT LESSGO
• Hey it’s Rost… oh no it’s Varl! Lmao
• This is 1000% the time I would have expected Varl to find us after we bailed on him in Meridian, kinda similar but not quite
• Is there some sexual tension right now between Zo, Varl, and Aloy?
• OOOOH SNAP THEY KISSED LMAO
• Aloy: “this mf shouldn’t have turned down the SUN KING”
• Erend is someone I’m prolly not going for. Too drunk. Wack beard/hair
• Mian: The MAGA Member of Horizon New World lol
• Bruh… I just entered this Cauldron: Mu I think it was and got OBLITERATED by a shell walk in 1 v 1
• OOOOOOOOOOH MY GOD THAT FINAL FIGHT AGAINST 2 WIDEMAWS WAS MENTAL. Literally unloading SOOO many arrows. Somehow I won 1st try without dying. What a frigging fight. That’s why this cauldron was level 18 and I tried it when I was level 13 lmao
• Burrower, Scrounger, Scrapper, Fanghorn, Widemaw, NICE OVERRIDES!
• Talking with Zo… they got dudes named Do Re Mi
• Learned a new word - “fetid”, meaning smells awful bruh
• The default “pick your dialogue tree option” monotonous faces each time one dialogue sequence ends is a bit…. I dunno…. There’s not a better way to do it I think of but it’s unique
• Decided to equip Aloy with the Carja Blazon outfit - got the mid-riff showing, she should have a 6-pack
• Ay got a trophy for dying my clothes green - nice!
• Okay nearly just got super salty. In the Repair Bay with Zo & Varl, one of the floor panels glitched out and wasn’t registering Aloy’s weight to stop the gears. Quit out, started again, and not it worked. Lil annoying bug.
• MINERVA: “eh Aloy you make some good points. Stick your stick in me.”
• We’ve got 4 months? Damn that’s a bunch of time!
• AETHER seems like the obvious one (LVL 17). Poseidon (LVL 22). Demeter (LVL 24). Hmm….
• We’ll be obedient to the game leveling and go for Aether.
• This is the point in the game where I’ve actually decided to go back and take care of some past side quests before I get WAY overleveled for them
• We got Ulvund out of Chainscrape. Shoutout to ya Petra
• Talanah! I actually remember her!
• Wow that Shellsnapper was a HARD freaking fight
• Killed Vezreh and his damn ravager, it’s hilarious sniping human enemies with arrows
• I don’t enjoy these vista points
• Something tells me Kue(Riverhymn side quest) is gonna die… they gave us 2 chances to ask him questions
• LESSSGGGOOOOOO!! WON OUR RACE VS ATTAH AND THESE TENATKH! That was surprisingly fun. Frigging racing in Horizon lmao
• Oh my god…. That Drake Thunderjaw fight…. Dawg…. I legit died like 15 times on that fight probably. HE WOULD ONE SHOT ME WITH HIS DISCS
• Okay we’re finally at Aether now at Level 20 - let’s do it
• That Tremortusk fight was freaking awesome - did it 1st try! Sniped all the guards with sneak, and then iced the elephant and blew up his belly for HUGE damage. Didn’t even need to use one of his plasma cannons!
• We just blew up these dudes home and settlement lmao
• Damn Hekarro be out here running the Kulrut like the Romans ran the Coliseums
• LOL I dropped the cannons and couldn’t retrieve it whoops
• OH SNAP ITS A SLITHERFANG BUT HYPED UP LESSGO
• Took it down 1st try! Now for Regalla!
• I could literally snipe Regalla for like 360+ damage right now as she’s monologuing
• Ooooh the GAIA hub base with Erend/Zo/Varl is coming along nicely
• WOW those Tenakth killed a Zenith! Legends!
• Container 237 w/ Varl… it’s us! Surprise!
• Damn those 1 v 1 Spector fights were fun!
• Beta is pretty hot - she’s our clone but hey!
• Took care of the first hunting grounds challenges - simple and easy!
• UGHHHH IM SUCH A DAMN MORON! DOING THE RESTLESS WELD RELIC RUIN and I actually looked up the code since “1623” kept failing and my moronic brain didn’t just connect it to “1923” DAMMIT
• Game crashed twice at the Pit Master at Searing Spear >_<
• I like this NPC dude Porguf
• Arrived at The Tower of Tears in search of POSEIDON and it looks like this is where we get the water cavern diving equipment!
• My goodness this entire underwater sequence has been nerve-racking with the machines underwater. Real Subnautica vibes. Thankfully got through it all without being spotted by any Snapmaws
• OOOOOOOOH MY GOD WHAT A FIGHT - the frigging Tideripper. Good lord. Down to ZERO medicinal berries and potions and I kill him just before he kills me. GOOD LORD.
• Happy to make Morlund’s childhood dream come true
• Lmao Varl piping Zo in his private accommodations what a legend
• Zo tried to make Varl go vegetarian lmao
• Side Quest of Yarra vs. Drakka… I’m going with “You both need to stand down.”
• I’m siding with Drakka - sorry Yarra.
• LMAO the casualness with which Drakka shot that final blow was hilarious
• Wow that Bighorn side quest with Zo was no joke… absolutely insane amount of enemies, did it 1st try tho!
• Wednesday now and I just downloaded the 1.0005 patch - lessgo!
• Now we’re ready to pick up Demeter… let’s do it!
• Wow this Alva chick is mad cute
• WOW that Dreadwing was scary but honestly… kinda easy fight. Didn’t attack as much and with my fire arrows he crumbled
• Lol Alva defending Aloy yet we look kinda evil intros Tenakth outfit
• Just made it to Tide Reach while exploring… I love the beach areas!
• Garokkah quest glitched out one me for a sec but all I had to do was reload a save and it worked!
• Aloy’s like… “Yo Talanah… you down this bad for Amadis? Something’s up”
• LMAO VARL COMMENTING ON MY/ZOE’s conversation about him >>>
• Okay I’ve turned in Demeter finally - very nice. GAIA saying “Analyzing” in response to a suggestion by Aloy is what I’m gonna do whenever anyone recommends me an idea
• OH MY GOD…. This freaking Cauldron… Cauldron CHI - on the way to Hephasteus I ran into it. GOOD LORD THAT FINAL SLITHERFANG FIGHT. Frost bow saved me the 2nd try cuz I got OBLITERATED without taking advantage of the frost.
• Frostclaw, Redeye Watcher, Shell-Walker, Clamberjaw, Behemoth, Stalker, Shellsnapper, Spikesnout, Scorcher,AND Fireclaw damn those are all pretty great!
• Ay we found this Amadis dude, Talanah admits she’s blushy crushy for him
• Tenallo at Thornbush is completely invisible to me lmao
• Lmao the Pit Master yelling at me: “This isn’t an archery range” is hilarious
• Beat Josekk and the others racing alongside the beach - fun to see all the machines during the race
• Okay whoever came up with the moonfish/salmon/bass material gathering kinda sucks…
• Lol this dude in charge of a settlement is literally named Leo
• We’re seriously getting pressured into wearing a raiment? WACK
• It’s hilarious shooting Ceo in the head outside of cutscenes
• Okay the game is kinda obvious with this one. Just finished fighting the two Corrupters which were cupcakes. For whatever reason, Bohai returned to the surface since he’s not a “bad, bad guy” - and I imagine this is going to end with us discovering how evil Faro is, Ceo getting mad, threatening to kill us and Alva, and we have to kill him and his guards and escape back to the surface with our lives, yes? No way someone as unlikable as him survives
• Ceo dead. He had us attacked. Of course. We win tho
• Alrightie we returned to the base after getting the Landfall Tallneck
• Kinda crazy - it feels like we’re coming on a big moment but there’s SO much side content to get to… hmm….
• I was a moron and thought the Tallneck in the Stillsands had glitched. It hadn’t. Just needed to find 3rd ballista
• Damn that Spherespinner fight was decent
• NOOOOOOOOOOO VARL
• YO TILDA SWINTON GOING SUPER SAIYAN IN OUR FAVOR?
• Okay so this Tilda girl has us looking at art forreal cuh
• Lmao so it’s gonna be a gal pals victory us and Tilda while Sylens and the boys fight amongst themselves
• Damn Varl’s gone….
• Aw that scene with Zo
• We really out ‘chea riding a Sunwing!
• This 1 v 1 fight against Regalla was hilarious - she has more health than a freaking Thunderjaw
• We killed Regalla. Get rekt! Wonder if you legit could have kept her alive
• There was some abysmal lag during the Sunwing segment and afterwards leaving Hekarro’s region
• Kinda sad some quests glitched out for me (salvage contract w/ Runda)
• We helped Kotallo with his arm, those Spectors were cupcakes w/ acid
• Alva’s “I’m going to have nightmares tonight” after fighting the Slitherfang on her side quest is hilarious
• Aww we had the sisters Delah/Boomer reconcile, nice side quest
• Talked up Sylens…I like him despite the fact he’s a jerk and knowledge freak
• 100000% great point by Spleens about being careful of Tilda. She mega powerful. Our interests don’t align and….
• Alright after talking to all the companions - I’m ready to handle the final mission. Hope the game doesn’t have any missable (made a save beforehand) or trophies that are un-doable after the finale
• POINT OF NO RETURN LESSGO
• The machines fight for us now against the stormtrooper sectors!
• The Zenith dudes look freaking hilariously evil flying
• Sniping for 300+ damage each headshot with no helmet was hilarious
• ZOE WITH THE KILL STAB - THIS IS FOR VARL
• Of course Tilda was lying, Nemesis is these ex-Zeniths coming to rekt them
• Oh she’s not giving us a choice - hilarious
• Acid + Valor Surge + Hitting gold armor had us doing 500+ damage per shot LESSGO SHE’S FINISHED
• Damn…. Sylens was actually moved by seeing clones hug
• Damn we really got leave Nemesis unresolved for now? DOES THIS MEAN HORIZON 3?
• What a freaking game man… but there’s so much left to do. Earned 42/59 trophies blindly. Now for clean-up!
• Wow that final core was CRAZY man… I’m still missing one other one but the Apex Tideripper + Water levels weren’t playing
• Rockbreaker, Tideripper, Tremortusk, Stormbird, Thunderjaw, Slitherfang, Dreadwing, Slaughterspine
• Azurekka the Enduring is a bald woman. Cool!
• Ayyyy the 1.06 patch fixed the glitched salvage quest, awesome!

 

Horizon Stats at Conclusion:

• 59 hours, 27 minutes in-game (66 hours PS5)
• 68.79% game completion (17 Main, 19 Side, 10 Errand)
• Activities: (5 Tallnecks, 4 Hunting Grounds, 4 Cauldrons, 5 Rebel Camps, 4 The Arena, 4 Melee Pits, 2 Gauntlet Runs, 5 Salvage Contracts, 12 Rebel Outposts, 6 Relic Ruins)
• Collectibles: (2 Vista Points, 4 Black Boxes, 5 Survey Drone Modules, ? Unknown, 6 Ornaments, 2 Signal Lenses)
• Total Machines Killed: 591 (116 Burrower - 5 Grazer, 54 Scrounger, 19 Leaplasher, 30 Scrapper, 26 Spikesnout, 50 Charger, 7 Lancehorn, 17 Fanghorn, 15 Redeye Watcher, 10 Glinthawk, 11 Stalker, 3 Plowhorn, 11 Longleg, 29 Bristleback, 39 Clawstrider, 3 Corrupter, 7 Grimhorn, 17 Bellowback, 6 Shell-Walker, 15 Ravager, 12 Snapmaw, 8 Sunning, 12 Clamberjaw, 6 Rollback, 2 Frostclaw, 5 Scorcher, 2 Rockbreaker, 1 Behemoth, 4 Tideripper, 3 Stormbird, 3 Thunderjaw, 5 Tremortusk, 3 Fireclaw, 1 Slaughterspine, 13 Widemaw, 3 Dreading, 8 Skydrifter, 3 Shellsnapper, 7 Spector, 6 Slitherfang, 1 Specter Prime)
• Human Enemies: 302 killed (268 headshots)

 

Combat: (260 Silent Strikes, 90 Critical Strikes, 15 Canisters Detonated, 120 Elemental Sacs Exploded, 15 Traps Triggered, 94 Machines in Frost, 50 Machines in Acid, 43 Machines in Shock, 106 Machines in Fire, 25 Machines in Purgewater, 13 Machines in Plasma, 3 Machines in Adhesive)

 

Other: (202 Campfires Lit, 90 Legendry Items Obtained, 29 Machine Overrrides, 2134 Medicinal Berries Consumed, 455 Wildlife Kills, 591 Machine Kills, 5 Dyes Available, 19 Face Paints Available)

 

Favorite Weapon’s

• Sun-Touched Hunter Bow (fully upgraded, hunter bow)
• Frost Hunter Bow (fully upgraded, hunter bow)
• Death-Seeker’s Shadow (1 upgrade, hunter bow)
• Sunhawk Shredder Gauntlet (3 upgrades, shredder gauntlet)

Favorite Outfits:

• Tenth Skirmisher (3 upgrades, hunter)
• Nora Thunder Warrior (0 upgrades, hunter)

 

[Copanele]

Man, I read the first 3 paragraphs and I had to stop cause now i am sure I want to play Forbidden West I enjoyed Zero Dawn so hearing this game is bigger and better just makes me more excited to get my hands on it. 

Once i also play it, I can read the rest of the post safely. 

 

Noow for the other topics you had in mind... All of them are good material but there's one that always catches my attention ?

1 hour ago, realm722 said:

 

"Do All Games Need An Easy Mode?" - This is a real underrated subject I've been itching to talk about for a while now. 

Hell yeah this is one "controversial" subject, since it almost always covers either my favorite game series ever or Celeste. Obviously, waiting for this topic to pop up, saving the impression for then

 

So again, awesome 1 and 1/3 post

[Together_Comic]

A little late, but I'm glad that you loved Dragon Quest 11.   The character work in that game is just absolutely astounding, not to mention managing to carry a convoluted plot over three acts and having it all make sense and tell a wonderful story. 

 

The twins are indeed great.  I think games are usually to frightened to do what they did with these characters and not only did they do it, but they did it well.   

 

I might have been one of the ones making noise about Sylvando, but I had no idea about the character going into this game, and the character just struck me, another bold choice by square that turned out well.  I think part of the charm is the surprise though and if you go in expecting it, it can make a weaker impact.   

 

As for Eric, did you play in English?  I think that the japanese voice actor for specifically eric (and sylvando) are so much better for my impressions of them in the game.  It really helped with some of your critiques of the character.  The problem is I think I prefer the English for everyone else, but its much closer.   

 

I'm so pumped to get to Horizon.  I only got through your first 3 paragraphs, but if this is just better and bigger version of the first game then I'm definitely going to enjoy it.  I'll have to come back when I finish it (Only God knows when that will be ?) and finish the review.  

[Grotz99]

Like the others in here, I only read the first 3 paragraphs as I'm currently playing through Horizon Forbidden West, but I'm glad it seemed to have met your expectations. This game might make me necro my thread as I have some things to talk about it as well, good and not so good. The not so good is pretty nit picky from me, as the game as a whole so far is amazing. Honestly, the best part is still the combat, it's just so satisfying.

[YaManSmevz]

On 3/4/2022 at 3:18 PM, realm722 said:

Explaining the Method to My Monthly Gaming Madness

 

A great read, and frankly something I could take a lot away from! I'm seldom able to have a real system in place, and as a result am either getting a lot done at once or scrambling to get anything done at all! Only a week into March and I'm already like "Crap what am I gonna definitely for sure no questions asked plat this month??"

[realm722]

On 3/7/2022 at 9:39 AM, Together_Comic said:

As for Eric, did you play in English?  I think that the japanese voice actor for specifically eric (and sylvando) are so much better for my impressions of them in the game.  It really helped with some of your critiques of the character.  The problem is I think I prefer the English for everyone else, but its much closer.   

 

I did play with the English voice actors! I actually listened to Tim Rogers talk about DQ11 S Edition(a MUST watch for any Dragon Quest fan) and heard him briefly talk a bit about it. I absolutely understand the appeal of listening to the native Japanese acting (I can't imagine the Yakuza series with English VA) but since I bought the base physical edition of the game the choice wasn't even presented to me. That all being said - thanks for mentioning DQ11. The more I think about the game as time has passed since playing it my mind continues to be boggled by its scope. 

 

21 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

Like the others in here, I only read the first 3 paragraphs as I'm currently playing through Horizon Forbidden West, but I'm glad it seemed to have met your expectations. This game might make me necro my thread as I have some things to talk about it as well, good and not so good. The not so good is pretty nit picky from me, as the game as a whole so far is amazing. Honestly, the best part is still the combat, it's just so satisfying.

 

Yessss!!! I have been itching to see someone make a lengthy review of the game here and while I checked many profiles and saw others were knee-deep in Elden Ring or other titles I was excited to see you had actually completed the majority of the trophies in Forbidden West already! Please feel free to get as petty as you like. I went ahead and watched quite a few Forbidden West "reviews" by some of the major YouTubers and could at least understand where all of them came from. Dunkey saw it as "another generic open-world game". Girlfriend Reviews made one that had me CACKLING about how relevant all of its humor is. SkillUp probably had the take that best embodied the way I felt. (Super awesome combat, good side content, story is a bit too sci-fi for me). Another complaint I've seen that I didn't include in my review(somehow) is the complaint of constantly needing to pause and hold triangle for looting materials in the world. I get it. It's not ideal and they absolutely 100% include a faster pick-up option in future patches but I dunno man. The game's so freaking gorgeous I really don't mind pausing to pick up a medicinal berry... even if it's for the 2000th time. 

 

18 hours ago, YaManSmevz said:

A great read, and frankly something I could take a lot away from! I'm seldom able to have a real system in place, and as a result am either getting a lot done at once or scrambling to get anything done at all! Only a week into March and I'm already like "Crap what am I gonna definitely for sure no questions asked plat this month??"

 

Honestly, the biggest thing it has helped with is avoid choice paralysis hah. Whenever I don't go out of my way to say: "I'm 100% playing that regardless of how I feel when I start it", I tend to get antsy about playing anything new and wanna stick to my comfort games (Rocket League) rather than branching out. I will say - as someone who at least tries to plat/100% every game - if you're picking something way outside of your comfort zone that you MAY not enjoy. Make sure it's short. You can stomach a crappy 10-hour experience at the end of the day without wanting to nuke your console. A 40-hour+ slog though? Yea... that'll get someone to consider giving up trophy hunting altogether lol

[Grotz99]

19 minutes ago, realm722 said:

Yessss!!! I have been itching to see someone make a lengthy review of the game here and while I checked many profiles and saw others were knee-deep in Elden Ring or other titles I was excited to see you had actually completed the majority of the trophies in Forbidden West already! Please feel free to get as petty as you like. I went ahead and watched quite a few Forbidden West "reviews" by some of the major YouTubers and could at least understand where all of them came from. Dunkey saw it as "another generic open-world game". Girlfriend Reviews made one that had me CACKLING about how relevant all of its humor is. SkillUp probably had the take that best embodied the way I felt. (Super awesome combat, good side content, story is a bit too sci-fi for me). Another complaint I've seen that I didn't include in my review(somehow) is the complaint of constantly needing to pause and hold triangle for looting materials in the world. I get it. It's not ideal and they absolutely 100% include a faster pick-up option in future patches but I dunno man. The game's so freaking gorgeous I really don't mind pausing to pick up a medicinal berry... even if it's for the 2000th time. 

I love watching girlfriend reviews, but she has gotten more tolerable to games and actually plays them more herself now. My wife is still like the early reviews where as I don't get tired of hearing the bow pull sounds come out of the controller 100s of times in fights, it sometimes gets annoying for her lol. Shes gone for the next week though so I'm going to power through and finish HFW, start playing Elden Ring coop with a friend and still try to knock out my daily mileage in GT7. Have way too many games going at once right now....

[realm722]

Game: Rogue Legacy

 

Analysis: I bought Rogue Legacy for $4.24 in mid-November 2021 and boy this review is a long time coming!

 

Why Rogue Legacy? As mentioned in the article I wrote above back in Nov. 2020 (good lord man), Rogue Legacy is a game I've had on my radar for years. It is one of the "Fathers" of the Roguelike genre in my mind. Binding of Isaac is the Grand-daddy of them all, but given how that game made resident legend and ultra-rare platting @ExistentialSolid quit on it, I knew I was never going to venture into ALL that DLC content. Rogue Legacy on the other hand? That one seemed plausible. I held off for two main reasons. 1) I thought the art style was abhorrent. Having played it for 30+ hours now, I can't say I think the game looks good but I came to appreciate the distinct styles of the enemies and due to the simplicty of the designs, could draw them from memory with relative accuracy if I could yanno... actually draw. It's not great. It's not terrible anymore for me though so, mission accomplished I guess? 2) The trophy "Thanatophobia" intimidated the hell out of me. Beating the entire game in less than 15 deaths? I didn't understand the gameplay loop then but knowing roguelikes it seemed like hell. Thankfully, @AJ_Radio helpfully counseled me that the game and its trophies weren't that hard. He was 100% correct! But before we get into the nitty gritty trophy details, let's look at the full scope of Rogue Legacy.

 

Progression >>> Ability - At the heart of Rogue Legacy's gameplay loop is the idea of dying over and over again, but earning enough gold each run to earn you upgrades that inherently make you superior to the enemies you'll face. You will get better at the game skill-wise. This is undeniable. You'll learn enemy patterns. You'll learn when a room is absolutely diabolical and should be avoided at all costs if it can be helped. You'll learn certain tricks on how to avoid the traps in the game that make up a huge portion of the platforming challenges to be found. There IS skill progression in Rogue Legacy and suggesting you just get upgrades until you win would be foolish. That being said... the game does have a strong case of "oh NOW I do enough damage to kill this enemy in a reasonable number of hits" simply because you put enough points into your strength attack to do the appropriate amount of damage. This isn't necessairly bad. Its just not for everyone. I REALLY like progression loops in games. I liked the idea of slowly getting more and more powerful. Enemies that initially took 3-4 hits to kill are now getting 1-shot. Sections of the map (Castle, Forest, & Maya) will eventually become your playground with how powerful you can become. The Dungeon always remains a bit threatening no matter how strong you get but it goes from being killed in 2-3 hits to being able to tank major damage with the right class. But this is all because of you slowly upgrading your skills and weapons/armor overtime rather than your own skill. I would say the game is generously 65% upgrades and 35% skill. You can go much further than you likely would otherwise if you master the mechanics. But the majority of players will hit a familiar ceiling until they upgrade their lineage's abilities.

 

Rogue Legacy is an indie hit from a simpler time

 

Would Rogue Legacy be a hit today? One constant feeling I had while playing the game was "huh, that doesn't feel very polished." I'll give a few examples. There are a handful of enemies in the game whose projectile attacks go THROUGH walls and can hit you from absurd distances. Early on, these will be the eyeball enemies that can fire a single red tear drop at you. It doesn't look right. Other enemy projectiles such as the fire and ice wizards can fire projectiles, but if they hit a wall, they'll break. Yet SOMEHOW, if they're hugging a wall, due to how their attack is spawned, they can hit you with projectiles that appear on the other side and clip you regardless. It's not a HUGE issue - but it will undeniably hurt you tens of times through hundreds of runs. I noticed it enough to make note of it here in the review. There's also the feature of "Traits" in the game which are unique abilities each of your offspring have. These can be super useful (bigger, longer range but more easily hit) to annoying ass ones like inversing the entire game or making the game black and white. I'd say 70% of them are useless/avoid at all costs and there are a rare few helpful ones. In terms of classes, I personally favored two types the most - "Barbarian King/Queen" and "Hokage". The former is FANTASTIC for building a strong gold run as while their damage is subpar, they have an absolutely mammoth health pool and heal for huge amoutns via the random pieces of chicken you'll find in the level. They're the class with which I had my best gold runs. "Hokage" is phenomenal for speed-running once you're strong enough and can virtually one-hit everything through the first 3 major areas of the map. They're also great for bosses if you're confident you can avoid getting hit more than 2-3 times. I NEVER used the magic/gold farming classes as I found them to be too weak or lackluster. I also didn't like the idea of my attacks being limited to an MP pool. I say all this to say - I think Rogue Legacy was a phenomena when it released due to filling a hole in the genre. But if it released today, much like many of the hit indies from the early 2010s, wouldn't receive much fanfare. The level of quality for an indie has risen greatly over the last 5 years and this is one of the games that helped make that blatantly obvious to me.

 

New Game+ and Trophies - Okay so let's get to trophy business. The majority of the trophies on Rogue Legacy aren't that tricky. You have to collect all the blueprints and runes but if you're anything ike me, you'll learn so much playing through the game for the first time you'll pick-up a ton of these naturally. Once you're on New Game+, things become a bit trickier. Even though your guy is powered up, all the hardest enemies from the original run will now be found in the first few levels. It'll be a slight adjustment period. Once you get used to it and have collected everything and gotten the one-off trophies, you'll be asked to fight the REMIX'd bosses. THESE are the hardest trophies in the game in my mind. "Scotomaphobia" (harder version of the 1st boss eyeball) took me an embarassing 2 hours in order to defeat. "Ostiophobia" (harder version of 2nd skull boss) took me about an hour. I honestly felt like I had learned a lot from that initial wall with the first boss. Then I tried for "Chemophobia". GOOD LORD MAN. I am not joking when I say this. It took me 5 1/2 hours worth of attempts to beat the 3rd boss which is basically a moving fireball that constantly chases you and leaves fireballs behind him. I kept trapping myself. I kept getting greedy and trying to get one or two extra hits when I didn't need to. There is no way to "cheese" this as you are given a preset character for the fight. This is the hardest trophy in the game hands down in my mind. Of course, after bashing my head against it for a full evening, within my first 5 attempts the following morning I actually earned it. Goes to show you "spiraling" is 100% a real thing. After that, the 4th boss and twins fights took me less than 10 attempts combined. I beat the game a second time and it was time to move on to the final trophy.

 

"Thanatophobia" - I come to you all with good news. This trophy is NOT that hard. Thanks to our trusty Cloud loophole that while reprehensible for the morally superior trophy hunters - works just dandy for scumbags like you and I who will play as dirty as possible within the fair rules of the trophy hunting hobby in order to achieve our trophies. I won't lie to you. I used this like 80+ times while attempting the trophy and crashed my PS5 an asinine 3 times because I would click on the game too early after swapping saves. Rogue Legacy itself crashed for me 9 times. WHOOPS. Listen to me. Don't break your $500 PS5 over a trophy. I don't know why clicking on the game icon immediately after loading in a Cloud save causes the crashes but uh... be careful if you do the method. I waited 30 seconds - 1 minute after each load and didn't have it crash from the on wards. ANYWAYS, how does this help? Basiclaly - have an absurdly great 1st opening run and STACK that gold. Unlock the Barbarian King/Queen and Hokage as soon as possible. From then on, depending on if you wanna do a gold run or boss run, pick whichever is available to you. Save frequently. If you take too much damage unjustly, you can reload. If you die at a boss with a good build because you played poorly, reload. If the Cheapskate Elf scams you out of tripling your gold, reload. If you don't like your heirs after dying, reload. Abuse all of this, and the trophy will become a joke. I did it. After unlocking the two key classes, I put the rest of my money into evenly distributing points to health / strength / armor. With an odd upgrade to critical + upgrading gear + ensuring I had 2 jumps + 2 dashes with runes. Here is my killing blow of the final boss when I earned the platinum. I used only 7 children to make it happen and as you can see, was an "under-leveled" Level 94. 

 

Would I recommend Rogue Legacy? Maybe. Are you a roguelike enthusiast? Then yes. Everyone else? I'd say pass. While I appreciated the game the more I played it and learned of its funky quirks and quick gameplay once you got used to the enemies and room layouts - the game definetly feels like it's from a bygone era of indies. I think that's undeniably why the developers, Cellar Door Games, are currently in the midsts of developing a sequel. I am someone who enjoys repetitive gameplay loops and in a weird way, the simplicty of the design is charming. For others, the lackluster way to dodge enemy projectiles and progression over skill gameplay loop will be a turn-off. There's also quite a bit of meme and nerd humor that could be charming for some and groan worthy for others. I'm glad I finally played it but I don't think it's not going to crack my Top 5 Roguelikes list any time soon. Overall, I earned the 2.95% rarity platinum in 3 weeks and 4 days. 

 

Panda Score: 7.4 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 6.4 / 10 (Brutal 3rd REMIX'd boss + Thanatophobia trophy constant Cloud save reloads. Without expolit, easily 8.5ish)

[realm722]

Game: Ikenfell

 

Analysis: I bought Ikenfell for $9.99 back in early March 2022 and managed to platinum it within the same month! How did we get here?

 

Why Ikenfell? I cannot start this review in proper fashion without first crediting @Darling Baphomet for inspiring me to purchase the game. They wrote a glowing review about the game (+ a recommendation!) hitting them at a necessary time in their life. We have enough games in common with regard to being obsessed with indies that I felt comfortable in picking up the game despite knowing shockingly little about it. In the midsts of playing tough games like Horizon Forbidden West, Rogue Legacy, and a return to Dead Cells(that re-review is gonna be a doozy) - I wanted a comfy game to enjoy that would serve as my "easy" game of the month. A 40%+ rarity platinum seemed to fit the bill. Little did I know just how true that'd turn out to be by the end of my experience.

 

The Pitch - You play as a redheaded girl named Maritte looking for her sister who seems to leave a whirlwind of chaos everywhere she goes. Some positive, some negative. You end up infiltrating the academy she attends where each student has their own powers. You befriend a group of these students over the course of the game, visiting various parts of the academy, and slowly unravel the mystery behind your sister's actions and the deeper issues plaguing both your friends and the school itself. It's pretty good! This is my spoiler-free paragraph promoting the game to any who haven't heard of it and I quite liked it. The game takes a hell of a lot of inspiration from Undertale and the pixel art is adorable in displaying the characters you'll become buddies with. The combat is turn-based, but there's actually an element of skill to it where you have to hit the button of your attack at the precise moment in order to achieve a "GREAT", "NICE", or "MISS". The better your timing, the more damage you deal and the less damage you receive. If your timing sucks, you will likely wipe out within a handful of turns or drag-out fights to absurd lengths. It's a unique take on the genre I haven't really ever experienced and I thought it was fundamentally decent. I didn't love it. But it always forced me to pay attention. I couldn't check my phone or refresh Reddit for NFL news (oh my god we got Tyreek) while an enemy was attacking since if I did, my characters would take obscene amounts of damage. That being said, the fights can get kind of... glacial. Perhaps it was just me. But after seeing attacks from the enemy for the 10th+ time, I would get a bit bored of having to see the full wind-up animation every time. The grinding in this game is ridiculously minimal. I never went out of my way to fight enemies more than once as they don't respawn unless you completely leave the area/building. There wasn't ever really a need to. Overall, the game has a solid heart at its core and if you're someone who enjoys games like Crossing Souls or Cosmic Star Heroine, I'd wager you'd probably enjoy Ikenfell.

 

(SPOILERS BELOW)

(I HAVE A SHOCKINGLY HUGE AMOUNT TO SAY ABOUT THIS GAME BOTH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE. CHARACTERS, STORY ARC, AND OTHER CRITIQUES)

This picture of my cat serves as a blockade for the spoilers. If you're reading this, it's too late. Clementine has claimed your soul and your life is now forfeit.

 

Your Crew - You play as a party of 6 characters in Ikenfell. Maritte is the protagonist and you play as her for the vast majority of the runtime. She never left my party unless forced and was typically the strongest character for me in terms of dealing damage. She's kind to the entire crew and despite having a few setbacks of her own, frequently powers through on this audacious quest. Soon after, you meet Petronella (seen adorably fumbling with alchemy in the featured image) and Rook (black dude). Petronella is freaking adorable. She's extremely fragile and very shy. She stutters frequently. On numerous occasions, I wanted to give her and her big poofy hair a hug whenever she needed a pick-me-up during the story. Rook is aight. I honestly didn't vibe as much with his character. He really likes reading books. But if you asked me for a memorable moment regarding his character, I wouldn't be able to tell you one. After that, you have Pertisia who is one of the more complex characters in the entire game. She has an extremely icy relationship with your group during to her falling out with your sister. (They used to be friends, now they ain't). She ended up trapped in a mirror by herself. She breaks down crying at a climactic moment during the story. Her ice crystals do hella damage early on. She had a very strong arc and is arguably the strongest character in the entire game from beginning to end. Ima is featured in the yellow dress and she serves as the senior member of the crew. She's the oldest and at one point even steps in as leader over Maritte due to necessary circumstances. Aside from that? Don't remember much about her and largely remember her for her "Rainbow" ability as she was in my crew for the remainder of the game as my healer. Finally, you have BEST GIRL in the entire game and that is Gilda. I love her. She's goofy as hell and has a hardcore crush on the protagonist. Her entrances are always bombastic and she was in my crew for the rest of the game with her awesome lightning attacks. Sadly, I felt the game didn't utilize her enough once she became a part of your crew and she took a backseat to the other characters and narrative. 

 

The Story / Setting - I'm not going to get too lost in the weeds regarding the story since it's pretty damn straightforward. Find the 7 red gems and save the world from ending. There are not actually seven red gems but basically bounce around from the previous clue of where your sister was at to end up at the next place where your sister was at to end up at the next place, etc., etc., etc... you get the idea. I thought the bosses were fun. Some of them were honestly quite challenging. I distinctly remember wiping out at least twice on the likes of Snatcher and Bloodwyn. I always made sure to have some of the best gear possible from scrounging up chests in the world for better equipment and armor but the game will absolutely offer a challenge for those looking for one. There are mild puzzle elements in different sections of the game. "The Obal" has some ice puzzles where your crew will spin across like a bunch of Winter Olympic amateurs that gave me pause for a little bit until I found the solution. I had to look up the solution on one of the puzzles in the Roost since I didn't capture the concept of a puzzle spanning across multiple rooms with the falling blocks. None of them are obscenely difficult but they made my dumb brain think for 4-5 minutes on several occasions. I think the game is very pretty. I enjoyed the secrets even as I had to look many of them up afterward while cleaning up for collectibles. It's a cute world and revisiting some areas that were initially daunting just to listen to the fantastic tunes again wasn't so bad. But enough of the small talk. Let's get to the crux of this review and what this game's lasting legacy with me will be.

 

The Elephant in the Room - For the first 16 hours of my time with Ikenfell, I quite enjoyed it. If you asked for a rating, I'd say something like a 7.5 in all likelihood. It took me a bit early on to get into the swing of things but once the crew started forming and I understand the typical gameplay loop, I was thoroughly enjoying my time with it. The dialogue was solid, the scenes meant to pull at your heartstrings landed, and I found a remarkably comfy balance between Ikenfell's more laid-back and casual gameplay to Dead Cells' monster difficulty. My trophy log is a testament to this frequently bouncing back and forth between the two. So what happened? As I was making my way up the Spell Tower (final main area of the game), I grew tired of the combat and found myself struggling against enemies to survive without losing tons of health and being forced to heal with items. This is an RPG. You're supposed to NEVER use your items and just hoard them like a dragon for a "just-in-case" situation that will never arise. So what did I do? I backed out of the tower, went all the way back down, and decided I'd work on some of the attainable side quests the game offered that I knew I could do after the main story but why not do them now since I could grind a few levels and let the crescendo of the story truly be my finale with the game? Satisfied, I looked up an Ikenfell trophy guide. That's when I discovered "Victory Mode."

 

Victory Mode ruined the final portion of Ikenfell for me. 

 

What is "Victory Mode"? It is quite literally, an "I win" button. Remember those engaging battles that forced you to pay attention to enemy attacks and legitimately plan out a strategy in battle even if it was against common enemies? Throw that out the window. Here is video of me using "Victory Mode" against what was supposed to be a fun and intense secret battle against "The Spectors"(clones of your whole crew). Did you see what I did? I checked their health bar, said "eh I don't wanna waste time with that" and just clicked the button that got me the trophy. The challenge in the game had entirely vanished. But you may be saying to yourself, "well Realm, for 1) Victory Mode is an accessibility option for those who want to enjoy the story and may not have the skill or desire to beat the game as intended. They should be able to enjoy the story even if they may not have the skill or reflexes to beat the intended gameplay system. 2) Nobody FORCED you to hit the "I win" button. You did that of your own volition. You took away the challenge from yourself." Let me both those arguments as on the surface, they're valid.

 

The Accessibility Defense - This section will essentially serve as my "Do All Games Need An Easy Mode?" article idea. No, I don't think ALL games should have an easy mode. Before reading any further, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND checking out this video by YouTuber "NeverKnowsBest" on the subject. It's 18 minutes and well worth your time. He covers the scope of the subject much better than I can and perfectly breaks down why the argument of obligating an easy mode is so flawed. I'll offer a butchered TL;DR. Basically, accessibility is the trojan horse the proponents of that argument are now using in their arguments. If you don't want an easy mode or in this case, an "I win" button, you're basically saying people with disabilities shouldn't play video games since it's my hobby and I don't wanna sacrifice contaminating my thing for them. You also curb stomp blind people on your weekends. I'm being flippant. The issue with that argument is accessibility is MUCH more complex than pure difficulty. I'll give an example from Ikenfell itself. You can literally skip all combat in the game and never have to do a single fight fairly. Awesome, right? But what if your disability makes you incapable of completing the various puzzles found in many of the towers in the game such as moving blocks in precise positions OR having the necessary timing on some of the more challenging movement puzzles? As far as I know, Ikenfell does not let you automatically solve puzzles. What if someone has trouble seeing the small sparkly indications necessary for collectibles to see 100% of the remaining content? Why isn't there a button to automatically give me every collectible in the game? I don't make these points to criticize the Ikenfell developers or those who appreciate many options given to make games more viable for disabled games. I just hope to point out that "accessibility" covers such an incredibly wide scope and I ultimately believe "Victory Mode" was a detrimental addition. But let's get to the 2nd argument. 

 

Nobody forced me to use this "I win" button. Why am I complaining? NeverKnowsBest nails it on the head. It all comes back to temptation. Being tempted by things is normal. You may find it foolish. I really don't think it is. Why would I spend time bashing my head against a fight for 15-20+ minutes knowing I have the trophy in my back pocket if I submit and click the flag button? I have no doubt I probably would have enjoyed the challenge of those fights as I did with many of the main story bosses prior to my knowledge of the button, but rather than engage with the battle system, I essentially bypassed my way through all the remaining side challenges. The allure of the easy victory was too strong. I opted for instant gratification. You can blame me for ruining my own experience. But I think developers time and time again have demonstrated that they implement systems to protect players from hurting themselves. Ikenfell quite literally fell short of this mark in my mind. I wish I never had the option available to me. have explained adequately why the option damaged my experience and I hope I did so in a fashion that doesn't make people think I'm gatekeeping or don't want disabled gamers to enjoy games. I think there are ways to make that happen and "Victory Mode" wasn't one of them. 

 

Would I recommend Ikenfell? Yes. If you enjoy an RPG with the fat trimmed off and some cute characters with a wholesome story, I think you'll have a good time with this one. My full play time was for 19 hours and even though the experience for the final 3 was damaged, I still on the whole enjoyed the experience. I would be remiss if I didn't include a link to the soundtrack. Some of my favorite tracks are Forest of Secrets, Petals in the Wind, Paint the Future and best girl's theme, "It's Showtime!". I also cannot help but mention the utterly adorable "Epilogue" chapter after you beat the game. I love games that have small bits like this and you can briefly see how characters have changed such as wearing completely different clothes and Maritte even rocking a completely different hairstyle. Aside from that, I think I've said everything I wanted to cover. Let's wrap this one up. I enjoyed the 47.66% rarity platinum in Ikenfell in 1 week and 4 days. 

 

Panda Score: 7.04 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.2 / 10

[Cassylvania]

Gotta agree with your main complaint for Ikenfell. Victory Mode was an unnecessary addition. I think I avoided using it until the final boss, but just knowing it was there made battles seem pointless. I think that was the game where I suggested they add a trophy for using Victory Mode for the first time. At the very least, this would allow you to have some sort of bragging rights if you manage to make that your last trophy.

 

It's the same reason I can't bring myself to play Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs, despite it looking like a really fun game. Just knowing there's an "I win" button if the game gets too hard ruins the experience.

 

Still, glad you enjoyed the game. It didn't win any awards from me last year, but I remember nominating it for a bunch of things, including best soundtrack.

[Darling Baphomet]

Thanks for the shoutout! Personally, while I do think accessibility modes can ruin trophies in some instances, I'm not against their inclusion in general. Ikenfell on its own is not particularly difficult, so I don't think it desperately needs them - but in a harder game (particularly not an RPG where you can just grind enemies to your heart's content) there's definitely an argument to be made for letting the player skip parts of the game that are simply too hard for them. As an experienced gamer, it's rare that I get to points in games that I simply cannot beat, but I remember my childhood being full of half-finished games, or games I needed to use cheats to win. And friends who don't game except on rare occasions often tell me that most games are too hard for them, and I think those sorts of people deserve to be able to play games even if they're not good at them. One of my former roommates had a switch but barely used it, and when I asked they said they like games but they just have too much trouble with them. It takes a lifetime of gaming to get to the point where games are as easy for people as they are for us. And no offense, but I think people being able to play games in the first place is more important than you potentially being tempted into playing a game with less difficulty than you it would have normally. Most games I play have an easy difficulty, but I don't feel obligated to use them unless I find the gameplay particularly insufferable.

 

A good compromise, I think, would be if the 'victory mode' voided trophies; that way you can have your cake and your bragging rights.

 

It's been a while, so I don't recall whether I used victory mode or not. I believe I may have used it to skip one of the secret bosses, and / or skip re-fighting the final boss when I was going for the secret ending. For me it was purely a matter of tedium, because... man, Ikenfell's combat is charming at first, but it definitely starts to wear on you a bit by the end.

[realm722]

19 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Still, glad you enjoyed the game. It didn't win any awards from me last year, but I remember nominating it for a bunch of things, including best soundtrack.

 

I vaguely remembered you reviewed the game but didn't entirely remember how your final verdict of the game. After reading your review again, it is hilarious how similar our experiences were. These sentences in particular...

 

Quote

Cassylvania on May 14th, 2021 on Ikenfell:

I only used the win-the-game button near the very end, when I was lost in the Spelltower and got sick of refighting the same enemies, but I encourage you to play the whole game without it. The combat is pretty fun, even if it can get tedious. My team was almost exclusively Maritte, Ima, and Gilda.

 

Make me feel like by some bizarre osmosis you influenced how I played the game lmao. Literally identical to what happened to me. I wonder if there was some way they could have incentivized the player to use the other 3 remaining characters since they really did fall to the wayside once the team roster filled out.

 

18 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

One of my former roommates had a switch but barely used it, and when I asked they said they like games but they just have too much trouble with them. It takes a lifetime of gaming to get to the point where games are as easy for people as they are for us. And no offense, but I think people being able to play games in the first place is more important than you potentially being tempted into playing a game with less difficulty than you it would have normally. Most games I play have an easy difficulty, but I don't feel obligated to use them unless I find the gameplay particularly insufferable.

 

Agreed! I've been helping someone learn how to play video games for the very first time the last few months and it is unbelievable how complicated managing a 3rd person camera for a character is an open-world game. They insisted on learning how to play Horizon Zero Dawn since they wanted to prep for the sequel. I cannot tell you how painful it was watching them fumble with the camera, have Aloy walk directly into walls, have the camera stare into the sky during combat, etc... If I hadn't been there to help, I don't think they could have progressed. Eventually, they got the hang of it and pretty much play entirely on their own now. But I do think there's a balance. Obviously, people playing games for the first time need help/modifiers that make that experience easier compared to an experienced player. But I'm not sure completely removing combat from the equation is the solution. Part of playing video games is figuring out what the games ask of you. If every game offered an easy opt-out where you can entirely bypass the challenge, is that a good thing? Isn't some part of the charm difficulty? and if not, I'd question what is truly lost between playing in that manner compared to watching a no commentary let's play of the game on YouTube. 

 

Ultimately, I really like your compromise. If the mode had voided trophies, I would have never activated it. I also 100% agree that ikenfell's combat is fun at the start but after the umpteenth time of watching the same enemy animations... eh. Still happy I played it though so thank you again!

[realm722]

Game: Dead Cells DLC (Review Deux)

 

Analysis: I bought the three necessary DLC packs for Dead Cells trophies (The Bad Seed - $2.49, Fatal Falls - $3.49, & The Queen and the Sea - $4.99) in early February 2022. I had originally managed to earn the base game trophies and platinum way back in June of 2019. Here is my original review. I was cautiously optimistic about revisiting a game I had discovered nearly 3 years ago and BOY do I have a lot to say that I regrettably did not cover in my first attempt at reviewing this masterpiece.

 

Worries & Doubts - To be quite honest, I was unsure how I would feel about returning to Dead Cells after so much time away. To give you all an idea, Dead Cells was my 50th platinum milestone. As of writing this on March 30th, 2022 - I have recently earned my 170th platinum. That is over 120 games of varying difficulty and enjoyment that I had conquered in-between the time of revisiting what I once considered to be the greatest roguelike of All-Time. What did this cause? I doubted how good Dead Cells truly was. Some say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I'd argue that I began to fell victim to doubting whether Dead Cells was really as great as I thought it was back when I originally played it. I'd heard Joseph Anderson and Northernlion voice their gripes with the game, such as the combat being "too chaotic" making it difficult to discern attacks and incoming information through the screen. Perhaps with my vast experience with more games, Dead Cells original charm would have waned and I'll have discovered that the game that was my first love, and at one point, my #1 rated game of All-Time on this thread, wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Did that turn out to be so? 

 

Falling In Love All Over Again - A classic, borderline cliche line you'll often hear people say after experiencing something amazing is "I wish I could forget all about it and experience it for the first time all over again". I'm not sure I'd go quite that far with regard to describing how I felt rediscovering Dead Cells but DAMN if it wasn't close. Dead Cells is SPECTACULAR. No qualifiers needed. I had forgotten just how addicting and utterly scrumptious this gameplay is. The smack of the beheaded's feet as it slams against the floor sends opposing monsters into a daze, allowing you to rip through their remaining health in the matter of a few frames. Dodge-rolling through every door and scampering up each wall while dodging left and right through spikes and potential hazards. That borderline holy sound that blesses your ears each time you find a scroll to increase your power by 15%. It's all magnificent. Every last bit of it. I think that without the slam effect and being able to bash through doorways, Dead Cells would probably be a 7/10. With it? It stands out so much compared to all other games in the genre. It feels weird NOT to smash each after leaping. Naturally, since this was my return to the game, I decided to go easy on myself and play on 0BC for the first few runs. I wanted to get familiar with ALL of the many new DLC packs all interceding at once and that doesn't even include content such as The Crossover DLC (Hollow Knight, Guacamelee!, Hyper Light Drifter, etc...) OR The Giant + Hidden 5BC Boss. Hell, literally as I was writing this review - they dropped a new DLC pack in "The Bank" that thankfully had easy trophies to wrap up. But before getting into my experience with the specific DLC content, I thought it'd be nice for me to cover some points I sadly did NOT properly dissect in my original review. 

 

DC's Marvelous Gradual Difficulty - Dead Cells is an extremely difficult game. A mistimed parry or a lapse in judgment for 3-4 seconds will cost you a potentially promising run and lead to an immediate game over. You will experience this on 0BC. It took me 24 runs in order for me to achieve my first victory nearly 3 years ago. Upon your victory, you'll have a small sinking feeling come over you as you realize you've been rewarded a... "boss cell". Then it hits you. 0BC was the "Tutorial". The real game starts now. All the way up to 5BC, the game slowly throws more and more at you until you are completely overwhelmed and out of your depth. You will hit many walls during this ascent. You will laugh at your past self when you thought X activity was "difficult" and now you waltz past it. Yet your current foe will also fall ill to that same fate as you continue to practice and hone your skills. It's incredible the kind of effect this has on the player. On my return, I was surprised by how handily I owned 0BC despite not playing in 3 years and remembering how hard the game was. But of course, I remember how little experience I had with the game back then when I originally played on this difficulty. I would say the challenge really starts to ramp up once you hit 3BC. Health pots are far rarer. You need to play judiciously or you'll wipe. Rather than other games that merely make you receive more damage or pathetically decrease your own attack output, Dead Cells throws out completely different enemies depending on the difficulty you'll play. Once you reach the dreaded 4 or 5BC, you'll have to learn how to kill Failed Experiments and Bombers with consistency, or else you will die. An ungodly amount. Remember when Inquisitors and Pirate Captains were your worst enemy? This gradual effect is mesmerizing and it will forever be one of my lasting memories about Dead Cells.

 

The Bosses Are Iconic - You cannot obtain the platinum in Dead Cells without properly learning the ins and outs of each of the major bosses. Of course, that is unless you get an obscene build going and can whittle their health down to zero before they can even blink but that's a story for another day. I am surprised by how much I love each of these bosses upon replaying the game. The Concierge is the perfect first major individual enemy the player will face. You can't endlessly melee him due to his red aura that spawns after attacking him for too long. You can parry him, but you can also dodge all of his attacks by rolling at the correct time. Even once you become a very experienced player and he becomes a joke compared to his peers on the "Boss" tier, he's not a guaranteed "no-hit" kill given how tricky his red aura can be to navigate when he's closing in on walking towards the player when backed in a corner. Conjunctivius is a super-challenging fight and one I'd argue has the potential to be the most difficult to no-hit due to how rapidly his distanced green sperm-like projectiles can close in on you. You also have to chase him around the room vertically while also avoiding some ridiculously fast tentacles once he's in his "break" phase. I only fought him once upon returning to the game after rediscovering the headache he can cause. Time Keeper is a fast and chaotic fight that constantly keeps the player at a distance. Getting caught in her vine is devastating and will lead to huge damage. This is the fight where having a shield most benefits the player. I'll be 100% honest with you. I NEVER used a shield or tried to parry back when I played the game for 75+ hours in 2019. In hindsight, it's asinine. I just preferred tactics and always had a bow for range damage. This time around, I rectified that and INSISTED on learning how to use one and boy does this fight completely change when you can launch her shurikens right back at her. The same can be said for Hand of the King. Good lord is that fight STILL awesome. The way he gestures with his hand inviting you to a duel still gets me hyped even nowadays. He's a super difficult fight and I died to him in my 1st return battle. I wanted to make a detailed list of these 4 since even after facing them tens of times since they're still so damn fun to fight and will often make or break your run depending on the type of gear you've accumulated. 

 

DC's "Game Feel" - It wouldn't be right for me to create this re-review without dedicating a paragraph to this specific, marvelous, elusive trait that is at the heart of Dead Cells brilliance. Without any sense of hyperbole, Dead Cells has crystallized "great game feel" down to its essence and makes the game endlessly replayable. Watch their GDC talk from 2019 to get a glimpse into their magic. It feels amazing to navigate the world when you have a speed boost after killing a few enemies and are able to glide up walls jumping from right to left. It feels fantastic when you get the perfect parry on an enemy that typically gives you a hard time and you're able to eviscerate him within three button presses. It feels spectacular when you manage to pull off that 60 kill streak in a challenging biome and are rewarded with a legendary item that will single-handedly carry you further than you've managed to venture for the previous 10+ runs. If I had to list every great thing that Dead Cells does that "feels" amazing, I'd end up with a dissection longer than my Dragon Quest 11 and Final Fantasy 7R reviews combined. It's all brilliant. I understand how daunting it is given the inherent difficulty to recommend this game to someone, especially if it's outside of their comfort zone. But please. I really don't think you'll regret it. Hell, even if you do, send me a DM with your Playstation Account Details. I will greatly enjoy unlocking all 100+ trophies all over again from your account. But enough is enough. I understand that this amount of adoration can get nauseating. Let's get into breaking down the specific DLC packs, what they offer, their trophies, and how much I enjoyed them!

There are SPOILERS for some of the DLC sections below. I really don't think spoiling Dead Cells lore is a big deal but in order to avoid attracting the ire of some individuals, you've been warned.

 

1st Major DLC Pack - The Bad Seed

 

Immediately upon returning to Dead Cells, I noticed the curious 3rd option now made available to me to leave the Prisoner's Quarters and head to the Dilapidated Arboretum. I obliged. A lovely bonus added at some point during my 3-year long hiatus from the game was an incentive to visit lesser-known biomes due to bonus cells earned in ones less traversed. What a nifty little bonus to motivate players to explore unfamiliar zones! I think the Arboretum is lovely. The "Yeeter" enemy can pack one hell of a bunch if you don't properly counter him but aside from that and occasionally slamming down onto some piranha plants that will nick you for huge damage, this is a fairly pleasant and breezy zone. On the other hand, the one that follows it, the "Morass of the Banished" is a nightmare. My first few trips here were not pretty. For one, you'll be immediately jumped by a Giant Tick and get your ribs kicked in if you aren't careful. Blowgunners are the evil cousin of Inquisitors and fire their darts so rapidly I frequently found myself losing kill streaks due to a rapid attack of theirs. Once I got everything I needed from this DLC, I typically avoided going here given the equivalent in a biome such as Ramparts was far less deadly for me. 

 

In terms of trophies, the pack honestly isn't so bad. There are multiple related to the "Mushroom Boi" skill you can discover in one of the lore rooms of the biomes and while it took me two attempts due to foolishly exploding him prematurely, I managed the "Who's a Good Boi?" trophy with ease once I knew what I was doing. The hardest trophy easily has to go towards beating Mama Tick and doing so while taking zero damage. Thankfully, she's surprisingly easy to learn. I strongly recommend bringing a shield as it'll give you the option to reject her claws when she powers them up. After beating up one of her eyeballs, she'll spring up her claws from varying parts of the ground and the generally recommended strategy is to stick to one corner and parry/dodge roll out whenever the exclamation mark pops up beneath you. It will undoubtedly take a few tries but she ended up being one of the few DLC bosses I managed to no-hit in future runs without specifically aiming for the trophies. Overall, a very sound alternative to Concierge and a great concept to add to the early portion action of a Dead Cells run. 

 

2nd Major DLC Pack - Fatal Falls

 

  Entering the mid-game, the Motion Twin developers decided to spice things up by adding the "Fractured Shrines" and "Undying Shores" biomes. This is a rare case of me enjoying the latter biome more than the former! Fractured Shrines is tricky since there are SO many traps waiting to kill you everywhere. I know they're "obvious" once you get familiar with the game but I've been hit in the face with a swinging log far more times than I'd like to admit. You also have a ridiculously tempting "Cursed Chest" that can be the downfall of many who don't see a dumb bird flying in from the far left-hand side of the screen that ends up single-handedly ending your run. In comparison, I absolutely love Undying Shores. It's a weird map layout where you slowly descend down the right side of a mountain and have to deal with enemy types such as Apostates. They're actually a fantastic enemy since they'll revive dead enemies you've killed which is a marvelous way to tick down your "Cursed" kills needed if you ever find yourself in need of dwindling that number down. I personally did when I went for the 100 curse challenge necessary for the Bank DLC trophy. It ended up working perfectly and I managed to take care of all the cursed kills before reaching the boss fight. It's not the easiest level to navigate but I think it easily stands out as one of my favorite biomes from the plethora added to the game.

 

Circling back to trophies, a lot of this stuff is straightforward and easily achievable once you know what you're doing. The "Me, jealous?" trophy took me a few attempts after finding "Serenade" hidden away in the Fractured Shrines. For whatever reason, he refused to kill the owl and yet killed the mushroom boi on a second run. I followed the same procedures in the Passages multiple times and for whatever reason sometimes it worked whereas other times it didn't. The boss fight added is "Scarecrow" and man is he a complete cupcake in comparison to Time Keeper. He has a surprisingly low health pool which means you can quickly destroy all of his health before any of his enemy patterns really threaten you. I managed to earn the "no-hit", alongside the one for not bouncing on any of his mushrooms while fighting him. His attacks are quick, but as long as you stay ready with a shield you'll be able to hold your own. 

 

3rd Major DLC Pack - The Queen & The Sea

 

  The final and latest major content update to Dead Cells is that of the Queen & Sea DLC. Previously in the game, you were always given no other option for a final boss fight other than Hand of the King. At least, for those of us who played on 4BC or lower. This update desired to rectify that. When approaching the endgame, you are now given the option to avoid High Peak Castle and instead opt for a route off the island. That place is the "Infested Shipwreck". This is an absolutely mammoth map. Some of its signature enemies include the Mutineers which will launch themselves at you with an anchor along with the Armored Shrimp which are shockingly simple to parry but will appear from the walls of the ship as you traverse through the level. I quite enjoy it! You have to learn to get comfortable with the level as you'll be asked to go through here a lot due to a variety of trophies revolving around defeating the Queen. After the ship, you can head to the "Lighthouse" which arguably has the most distinct level design in the entire game. This isn't a typical biome. It's a boss fight. But it's an endurance test as well. You'll frantically scale your way up the gigantic tree while trying to avoid damage. The Servants - Calliope, Euterpe, & Kleio will appear one by one and quickly ramp up the challenge of the fight. I died here my first time and fell into the endless pit of damage below far too often. Eventually, you'll get the hang of it. I honestly think that this fight at its most chaotic third stage reminded me the most of the Mantis Lords' fight you'll find while playing Hollow Knight. Overall, it's some damn solid content. 

 

  The vast majority of the trophies in the DLC revolve around the latter two boss fights. It's easy to train a Leghugger up to adult form and utilize the shark weapon you'll unlock after firing a Hunter's Grenade at a Mutineer. But the boss fights? Woof. The Lighthouse is manageable in the sense you're given easy and obvious "checkpoints" that you can save and quit to "lock-in" yourself so to speak to certain parts of the run you've managed to avoid being hit. I'll get into more detail regarding the exploit later. The good news is given the fact there are 3 of them, none of the Servants have a huge health pool. Once you take down one of them, you can concentrate on the others and with a shield, it really isn't that bad. The Queen on the other hand is a whole different animal. The very first time I faced her, I won. I must be a god gamer, right? Nah. She literally froze/stun-locked in that animation where she sends out a billion lasers all at once and I literally just hit her over and over again until I had finished her. Sadly, I had gotten hit in the fight earlier and it did not end up exploiting the "no-hit" for me. So imagine my rude awakening when revisiting her that WOW this lady is FAST and she hits HARD and DAMN are her moves hard to telegraph. Easily the hardest "no-hit" in my mind. Maybe the weapons (brutality) I tried to use to face her weren't the wisest since even with a shield she's a pain. There's a trophy for "killing her" by knocking her into the void for damage. Use the Gilded Yumi. I think this is the most "game-changing" DLC addition just because of the final content with her and the story/lore context if you're into that. 

 

4th Major DLC Pack - Rise of the Giant

 

  The order in which I've included these may be peculiar to an experienced Dead Cells player. Rise of the Giant actually came out well before any of the prior three but I specifically waited to include it here due to the order in which I completed the various DLCs. You see, the other 3 major content updates can all be experienced and enjoyed on 0BC. The game does not obligate you to reach a certain level of mastery with the difficult. Rise of the Giant does. This is because, in order to obtain the elusive 5th boss cell, you must defeat The Giant on 4BC. Up until now, I've just enjoyed getting reacclimated on the easiest difficulty and rediscovering my love of the game. But now it was time to get serious. In preparation, I did a couple of trial runs on 2BC and was surprised by how well I performed. I won once and lost twice in the final battle. Both losses were due to me getting greedy with doing damage. With that knowledge in mind, I ventured onto 4BC and with the save&quit exploit by my side, I was able to make my way through the Cavern and eventually face the Giant. I would NOT recommend trying to "no-hit" him without a shield given the way he can lock you in for damage in the center of the screen with his lasers. With a shield? You can quickly whittle down each of his fists and prevent either from getting fully powered up. I defeated him and never faced him again for the remainder of the game. He's a fine boss fight but the route in order to reach him was more precarious than I typically cared to venture towards and with the 5th and final boss cell in my back pocket, it was time to go for the hardest trophy remaining. Fight. The. [Redcated]. (Mega-spoilers below)

 

  On 5BC, the game becomes ridiculously difficult. I died 15 consecutive times in the Prisoner's Quarters. Everything teleports after you. There's malaise. You're not in for a good time. So I started looking up some strategy recommendations. Use a Repeater Crossbow you say? Don't mind if I do. It is utterly hilarious how broken Reapeter Crossbow + Barbed Tips (mutation) is. You will have enemies melt halfway across the map with the barrage of arrows you can fire and as long as you're savvy about focusing on the most dangerous enemies, nothing will stand in your way to victory. I made a direct bee-line for the most familiar path (Promenade, Ramparts, Concierge, Stilt Village, Clock Tower, Time Keeper, High Peak Castle, Hand of the King) before reaching the Astrolab for the very first time. WOW, that place sucks. Good lord. Do you know what enemies I hate? The Librarian and Slammer bird enemies. I feel like they always do an obscene amount of damage. I spammed the exploit whenever I took one of them down since the sheer idea of having to fight one again after killing it horrified me. I eventually learned the lay of the land and made my way to the final boss fight. The Collector. This wasn't a new revelation for me. I had seen videos of the fight on YouTube. Dead Cells lore/story spoilers aren't that big a deal for me but I held off on mentioning it here in case it was for any readers. This is when something hilarious happened. I defeated The Collector, and yet, for some random reason, found myself doing SHOCKINGLY little damage to him. I presumed this was a ruthless final phase. I shamelessly exploited the exploit, got him all the way down to 1HP... and wondered why he wasn't dying. This took 15+ minutes of on/off saving. Why was he not dead? I did not drink the Panacea. You read correctly. RP+Barbed Tips does SO MUCH damage you can even get him down to 1HP without drinking the "I win" drink that's supposed to signify the end of the fight. I drank it. and killed him. I did not get hit a single time. Yet... the "no-hit" trophy did not pop. Why? Well...

 

"NO-HIT" TROPHIES ON BOSSES DO NOT POP WITH ASPECTS ENABLED

 

My moronic ass did not realize this. I did not even think to look it up. Why didn't I look it up? It was such a stupid decision in hindsight. I took the "Stomper" aspect that makes you do 4x more damage when stomping on enemies. It was wholly unnecessary and with 99/100 trophies unlocked, I was forced to do ANOTHER 5BC run just to "no-hit" the Collector all over again. But rather than go for the easy, cheap, and cliché route of the Repeater Crossbow again, I decided to try and win my way. I managed to earn myself an Impaler with the affix (Leech) "1% of HP recovered per attack" and good lord did this one affix single-handedly carry my entire run. I was no longer limited to healing by means of my four health pots or the scarce number of food items in the level. In the Astrolab, I managed to find a legendary edition of the weapon that was doing 60k+ damage per hit. To put it simply, I ended The Collector's career. It was kind of fun fighting him fairly given how much familiarity I got with his attack movements while using the Crossbow. Pro-tip: Take a shield when fighting him. It makes those annoying waves he does 10x easier to handle than having to time perfectly dodge-rolling into the corner each time. 

Did you know that the developers behind Dead Cells, Motion Twin, are an indie team of 8 people that have a unique work structure, all making the same salary and share as equal partners?

 

The More Content The Merrier - I am 99% sure that despite this deep and elaborate review I've concocted to truly give Dead Cells the farewell it deserves, this will NOT be the last time I play the game. Why? Because as I was writing this review, they dropped MORE DLC content in the form of the "Bank" update. Imagine my horror after spending the last few weeks cleaning up all the trophies, finally achieving an "S" rank, and a day later check my profile and see it dropped back down to an "A" rank. Thankfully, the trophies were super simple and I personally took care of all of them in 3BC. I switched mid-run to a "Rapier" and good lord do I love that weapon. So quick and doing crits after dodge rolling feels spectacular. One of the trophies requires you to accept a 100-curse streak which can be hella dangerous if you don't get rid of it before a boss fight. The time the chest appeared for me worked out beautifully since I got to go straight to the Undying Shores and had the Apostates earn my "MVP" nomination due to how much they helped dwindle that number down. I also just realized I did not mention any of the content from the "Derelict Distillery" which is its own DLC list. Uhh... we don't talk about the Distillery around here. It's coarse, painful and those barrels get around everywhere. I went there once, got all the trophies I needed, and never returned. I wouldn't recommend you do either unless you're scouring for some blueprints you have left remaining. In all seriousness, the Motion Twin team has promised more DLC and future free content updates for AT LEAST another year. I genuinely can't wait to see what they have in-store and return to this game whenever it drops.

 

My Dead Cells Play Style - This is a bit of a unique placement for this post but since I want my time and memories with this game to be immortalized, I wanted to dedicate a small section of this review to some of my favorite weapons, skills, and mutations that I typically found myself leaning towards while playing. As I move on to other games, I'll inevitably forget what my preferred playstyle was with the game and some of the strategies I opted for. I decided to go digging through my old Twitter since I knew I had marked a few of my wins back when I originally played and wanted to remember what I had used. Check out how hilarious these are in hindsight. My first 0BC win came with a Rapier. My first 1BC win came with a tactics-focused Lightning Bolt + Heavy Crossbow build. (This was back when Crossbows only consumed one weapon slot). My first 2BC win came with an Assassin's Dagger and grenade build. My first 3BC win came with a tactics heavy turrets dependent build and boy does that stand out clearly in hindsight. I remember after finishing, reading in future patches that they had nerfed turrets and was relieved I had gotten my victory's with them when they were OP. Finally, my first 4BC win and the one that earned me the platinum came via a Heavy+Ice Crossbow build. That is HILARIOUS given how impossible such a build would be nowadays. With all that out of the way, let me bring special attention to some items that I particularly enjoyed while revisiting the game.

 

My Favorite Gear Options in Dead Cells:

(Brutality) (Melee) (Impaler) - My MVP weapon since returning in 2022. Got me my 5BC win. AMAZING in enclosed biomes. 

(Brutality) (Melee) (Rapier) - My MVP weapon from 2019. Super fast and easy to crit with, I still love it in 2022. 

(Brutality/Tactics) (Melee) (Sadist's Stilleto) - Not the greatest weapon but I love how it crits on bleeding enemies. 

(Brutality/Survival) (Melee) (Giantkiller) - Spectacular if you can get right before a boss and don't love your current weapons. 

(Tactics/Survival) (Ranged) (Repeater Crossbow) - One of the most broken weapons in the game with Barbed Tips. 5BC winner.

(Brutality/Survival) (Shield) (Assault Shield) - Shield that moves forward. Most fun shield in the game for movement/offense. 

(Brutality/Survival) (Shield) (Bloodthirsty Shield) - Shield that causes bleeding within range. Great in small, compact levels. 

(Tactics) (Traps) (Heavy Turret) - Turrets that shoot at the enemy and do damage. Completely broken in old builds, still useable now. 

(Brutality/Tactics) (Powers) (Phaser) - Teleports you behind the enemy doing big damage upon next hit. My favorite skill in the game. 

(Brutality/Tactics) (Companions) (Leghugger) - Companion skill. It's fun to see him grow up and he forces bleeding on enemies. 

 

(Brutality) (Mutation) (Open Wounds) - Causes bleeding during melee combat. Always wonderful to have, lovely with Sadist's Stilleto. 

(Brutality) (Mutation) (Scheme) - Does fixed damage each time your use a skill. With phaser, one of my favorite combos in the game. 

(Tactics) (Mutation) (Barbed Tips) - Makes enemies take damage with embedded arrows. Completely broken with a proper crossbow. 

(Tactics) (Mutation) (Acrobatipack) - Fires the ranged weapon from your backpack for a % of damage. Lovely w/ stuff like Hokuto's Bow. 

(Neutral) (Mutation) (No Mercy) - All enemies under 15% HP are killed instantly. 7.5% for bosses. I loved it and makes no hits easier. 

 

The Save / Quit Exploit - I cannot in good conscious continue any further without mentioning this loophole to virtually all of Dead Cells difficulty. In the game, you can quit and save at any time. Your progress will be saved regardless of where you are in the biome, even if you are in the middle of combat, or quite literally, in the midsts of a boss battle. The exploit is this - when you re-enter, even if you get hit for huge damage or even die - if you dashboard quickly enough and close the game and re-enter, you will be placed right back to your previous savepoint. Health 100% in-tact. What does this mean? If you really wanted to, you could slowly but surely trickle your way through entire biomes, killing one monster at a time, save/quit, one enemy after another and if you EVER take any damage, dashboard, close game, re-enter. That's for biomes on harder difficulties. The real exploit comes in the sense that during boss fights, you can get through a phase, hit the boss for huge damage, save/quit, re-enter, and essentially have given yourself a brand new mid-fight "checkpoint" from which you haven't taken damage. If you take any - dashboard close the game and re-enter. I will not lie to you. I abused this an ungodly amount. I'm embarrassed to say how much. But it probably rivals my Cloud exploiting during Rogue Legacy and the Banner Saga 2 DLC. (80+ times). Still, I'm glad it exists. I hope this exploit makes those worried about the game's difficulty quell their fears. This game is spectacular. It deserves your attention. Consider this a... backdoor so to speak. Don't use it when you start the game. Learn enemy patterns. Get familiar with the mechanics. But 60-80+ hours in? I think it's reasonable for one to start using it to cut down on the time that would be spent re-do runs over and over again and have entire runs wasted due to the Queen clipping you at an inopportune moment. 

 

Would I recommend Dead Cells? Absolutely. What Dead Cells has done to me in the 35-40+ hours I've played since returning to it is pimp slap me across the face for ever considering there was a superior roguelike out there. Going Under is still phenomenal and amongst my Top 10 games of All-Time on Playstation consoles, but I think Dead Cells has solidified its place as a Top 5 game for me and it is going to be VERY hard for me to imagine any game knocking it off that pedestal any time soon. I think the game has the most satisfactory "game feel" of any I've played and I will happily revisit it in the future whenever more content drops. If you're hesitant about playing - keep in mind two things. 1) That Exploit is always there for you. 2) Watch this YouTuber by the name of Veedotme. He's to Dead Cells what Jorbs is to Slay the Spire. He has 1.5k+ hours invested in the game. You'll find something on that channel of his to help you. Aside from that... there's also an extremely dedicated wiki and subreddit community that's remarkably large for a game on the indie scene that released a few years ago. Killing has never felt better in a video game than Dead Cells and I hope this monstrosity of a review convinces at least one person to check the game out. If I did convince you, check out my stats and see how you compare! Other than that, so long and we'll have shorter reviews soon! (I promise)

 

Panda Score: 9.5 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 7.5 / 10 (lowered greatly to a high 4 if the exploit is used consistently)

Spoiler

These are some of my favorite memes I've found regarding Dead Cells.

 

 

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

Totally awesome write up of the Dead Cells DLCs man - bravo, and congrats on getting that S-Rank back! ??

 

I'm playing these myself right now - done pretty much everything except get past Hand of the King on 5bc - your write up is really giving me some ideas though - I've never really fucked much with bows or crossbows, (My Symmetrical lance brutality & Bleed build has always been my go-to!) but that tactics build sounds pretty sweet, and might be the push i need to get through to the Astrolab!

[realm722]

Game: Popeye

 

Analysis: I bought Popeye on sale for $3.89 in mid-March 2022 and boy are they trying to run a scam selling this full price for $13. 

 

Popeye as a character doesn't really attract many eyeballs from the latter generations. His popularity was at its peak in the 1930s and 1940s. He's famously known for eating spinach and his ridiculously huge forearms. That's about it. So when I saw this delightful artwork on PlatPrices for a discounted price, I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to play a game that tried to bring some relevance back to an old classic. I wasn't exactly expecting anything revolutionary, but a decent cute game with some nice charm would be appreciated. Instead uhh... man. This was rough.

 

This is the gameplay loop. You are Popeye. Around the level, you must run towards "red hearts" thrown by Olive Oyl, Popeye's love interest. These will fall randomly about the world. You must collect them. While doing so, you must avoid potential threats such as Brutus(big burly guy), vultures, a witch, and some random skulls. If you come into contact with them, you'll lose a life. You have 3 lives. If you lose all 3, you must start from Level #1 all over again. The only way you can attack these threats and punch them off the face of the map is by eating spinach, running up, and hitting the square button. THAT IS THE ENTIRE GAME. Not ideal but.. how bad can it get? Well for one, there are only 3 levels in the entire game. There's an open island for level #1, a cramped boat for level #2, and a portside city area for level #3. Then they loop until infinity. You'll have to collect more hearts each level and avoid more threats, but the fundamental core of the game does not change. You are always slightly faster than your enemies and the biggest threat comes to you zoning out while slowly picking up each red heart or being completely blindside launched into the air by an enemy hidden around a corner. None of this feels very good as there isn't even a jump button. Popeye walks far too slowly unless he's eaten spinach in which case he'll have a speed boost. The biggest compliment I can give is that the game does have a satisfactory "THWACK" sound when you launch an enemy but that's about it.

 

Would I recommend Popeye? No. It's not a good game. It's not even worth the $4 I paid for it. This is a $1-2 game at most if you're buying it purely for a random 100% on your profile of an iconic character. In terms of the trophies, they're extremely easy. You must reach Level #10 of the game. This may take 2-3 attempts. The hardest level will easily be Level #8 as with more enemies(4 in total), you can easily get tag-teamed with the spinach not spawning fast enough given how cramped the ship is. I fully recommend entering the level with all your lives since even if you get caught twice, you should still have collected enough letters to survive and move on. There's also an annoying "punch 10 bottles" trophy. Punching a bottle only happens when Brutus or the witch throws at you. This does NOT happen on the first 3 levels so you pretty much have to farm it from level #4 onwards. Brutus if you bait him will occasionally throw one, but not always. Make sure you don't punch too early or the bottle will hit you and you'll lose a life. I found the most consistent farming spot to be the witch on level #6 and #8 when she'll spawn outta thin air, launch a bottle, and you just patiently wait for it come to you before hitting it. Your mileage may vary with this method. Aside from that, the 100% is a cupcake and I earned the 41.80% completion in 5 hours and 25 minutes. The 21st fastest on PSNProfiles! I'll officially place this developer(Sabec Limited) on my blacklist going forward. 

 

Panda Score: 5.2 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 1.8 / 10

14 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I'm playing these myself right now - done pretty much everything except get past Hand of the King on 5bc - your write up is really giving me some ideas though - I've never really fucked much with bows or crossbows, (My Symmetrical lance brutality & Bleed build has always been my go-to!) but that tactics build sounds pretty sweet, and might be the push i need to get through to the Astrolab!

 

I have a huge amount of respect for you for playing with lance. I have a severe bias against "slow" hitting weapons in the game even though I know they're functional. It makes items like nutcracker & broadsword a complete no-go for me. I think a shield is too essential on higher difficulties for bows to be viable, but crossbows+barbed tips are the exception to the rule. I imagine you'd enjoy it even more than I did given you're used to waiting 1-2 seconds before the attack goes off(which is something that took a huge adjustment for me). 

Edited April 5, 2022 by realm722

[realm722]

Game: The Solitaire Conspiracy

 

Analysis: I bought The Solitaire Conspiracy on sale for $5.99 in mid-March 2022 and I am floored by how much I enjoyed this!

 

Why TSC? You have likely never heard of this game. I don't blame you. It has less than 150 owners. If you search "solitaire" on this website, you get a page plagued with anime girls and 95%+ rarity platinums. The only reason I know about the game is due to the fact its creator, Mike Bithell, is a consistent member of a podcast I listen to weekly called Play, Watch, Listen. He obviously advertised the game when it was released on Steam and when I saw that it had a reasonable platinum rate and was available for PS5 users, I decided to jump at the opportunity. The only other game of his that I've played is Thomas Was Alone. I thought it was alright. But if I believe in the individual(and I personally think Bithell is a great figure in the games industry), you'll get multiple shots to impress me. I say this as someone who has NOT yet played Volume or John Wick Hex which are also available on the platform. I've heard mixed opinions on both and while I would like to get around to the former, I've heard JWH has some nightmare randomness involved to its Baba Yaga challenges. But enough about those other games, why did I enjoy this game?

 

As someone who has never really dabbled much in solitaire, the game has a surprisingly helpful tutorial that lets the player get quickly acclimated. You must find the "Ace" and place it. Once you do that, you need to find a place 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10 cards in order. Finally, the J, Q, & K to finish the set. Higher cards cannot go on top of lower cards. With just one "team" of cards you'll be controlling, this will seem like a challenge for babies. Once you start involving two, three, and four teams, you start to realize where the challenge really lies. You're essentially juggling all of the sets at once. Due to the unique powers of each team (some help, some unhelpful) - you need to be aware of which powers will hurt or help your game. The orange crew (sorry, they have fancy names like Beta Alpha Division and so forth that I just never remembered) was particularly annoying since it would un-do the set of every color you placed and you'd have to place all the cards all over again. I explained that horrifically but I don't know how else to explain it. Some teams are SUPER helpful. The pink team has an ability that automatically places the next card due for the card you choose. So if a "2" or "3" is buried for one set, place that pink team-powered-up card and you can dig it out with ease and continue on with the game without needing to reshuffle anything. 

 

None of this is stressful or challenging as the game does not have a turn limit. Well, it actually does, but it's completely optional. Once I felt comfortable with the game I tried it 3-4 times, won twice, lost twice, and then decided to go back to the normal unlimited turns as the extra XP earned didn't make much of a difference. Where this game will be a platinum breaker for many is the 3 trophies associated with "Countdown Mode". Countdown only unlocks once you reach Level 9. You will be on the clock and must complete matches as quickly as possible. You earn +2 seconds back for each card correctly placed OR power used by a J/Q/K. The problem? Unless you're a Solitaire Demigod, I don't know how casuals like me who are playing a card game like this for the first time are supposed to beat the challenge. This is hard. I have brain farts seeing a buried "A" for 3/4 of the teams and automatically know this attempt was a loss. I hesitate far too much and even though turn count isn't much of a factor, I'm scared of misplacing a card and screwing myself over. So what's the solution? Pause the game, take a picture with your phone, analyze on your phone the moves you wanna make, unpause, and do them. That's it. You may lose 1-2 seconds per photo you need to take but you'll gain that back with the speed with which you can place them once devising a strategy. My phone tells me I took 61 photos in total to earn the achievement. Here's the 30-second video of me finally beating Wave 14 as the furthest I had gone without this strategy was Wave 8. I imagine with mere persistence I would have eventually gotten it to unlock but I honestly enjoyed planning out my moves beforehand and then completing them rapidly just as much as shuffling the deck around like a red bull fueled maniac. 

 

Would I recommend The Solitaire Conspiracy? Yes, easily in fact. I had never played Solitaire in any significant capacity before this. I greatly enjoyed what I did play. But I am of course someone who loves repetition so keep that in mind. The Countdown trophies pose a formidable foe for a newbie but can also be bypassed with the tactic I outlined. The game is a 1/10 difficulty in all other aspects due to the fact turn limits aren't a thing unless you decide to go for the extra XP. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention this game has a tiny bit of a story. This is basically solitaire + acting as a mastermind / manipulating squads behind the scenes plot. Greg Miller plays a predominant role as the man helping you along the way. Alanah Pearce makes an appearance as one of the squad's members... kind of? I think. I'm sorry, I was so distracted by seeing her in the game I didn't pay much attention to what she was talking about. It's cute how dramatic the tension can get since at the end of the day it is all placing cards. I didn't think any of it was outstanding but as a reward for each level-up, I didn't think it got in the way of the game too much. Speaking of level-ups, the platinum image now serves as the trophy for my Level 480 milestone. Cool! I earned the 32.86% rarity platinum in 6 days and 1 hour. Check it out when you get a chance.

 

Panda Score: 7.1 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.0 / 10 (solely for making me take my phone out for Countdown. Without the loophole... prolly a 5/10 tbh)

[realm722]

200+ Games In Hindsight... What Did I Get Wrong?

 

  The very 1st platinum I ever earned was achieved back on April 16th, 2016. After lollygagging for 2 years, I decided to start variety gaming in 2018. In 2019, I found a consistent routine that I have enjoyed and managed to maintain all the way up until 2022, and given the month of April is upon us yet again - it felt fitting to do a bit of a retrospective regarding some of the games I've completed. Specifically, what games do I feel I over or underrated in hindsight? You can see my game "power rankings" on the OP of this thread. They are deeply flawed. After typing up a review, I give a final verdict regarding the "game score" and file it away. I have never altered a score previously finalized unless some hefty DLC(see: Dead Cells) was added. I think the only way a rating adjustment could be justified was if I were to make a brand new spinoff series called the "Replayables" where I go back and play through the main campaign of a game and could then reasonably justify altering the once etched in stone decree. That won't happen any time soon. But maybe in the 2030s, stay tuned! Until then, we'll settle for an article like this. Let's go through some games that stand out in my memory as ones I would alter and move up or down a ranking or two if given the authority to do so. It's rewind time! 

 

9.00 Tier:

Games I'd Move Up: N/A

Games I'd Move Down: Gravity Rush Remastered

Explanation: The vaunted 9.0 tier is a very special collection of games. I take rating games a 9/10 seriously. I actively dislike gaming outlets and individuals who give out 9/10's willy nilly to games that are just fine and dandy for fear of angering the gaming mobs OR due to not wanting to come across as overly negative. A 9/10 is a special accomplishment for me, and due to my refusal to hand out a 10/10(unless that game truly arrives one day), it's essentially the highest form of praise I can offer to a game. Hence, it's not surprising the majority of the games stand the test of time even with a hyper-critical lens. That being said, with my vast gaming experience now accumulated, I think it'd be fair to say I probably overrated Gravity Rush Remastered. But it's entirely understandable now why it rates so highly. I earned the platinum in September 2018. I had a whooping 25 platinums to my name. That's not an insignificant amount, but I had failed to play anything that truly enthralled me since Unravel. That's when I met Kat. I remember being utterly petrified of the game's gravity mechanics due to some bizarre fear of falling endlessly without a stop in sight. The fact the game had proper side quests and such unique movement mechanics captivated me. it makes sense I rated it so highly when I did. But... with 200+ games under my belt now, I accept the combat is less than ideal and fairly one-note. The side content isn't that great, and while I love the characters, comic book narrative elements, and soundtrack, it probably should be an 8.5/10 if I ended up replaying it nowadays. Still, this is a rating I'm not too fussed about it. I'm glad I "overrated" a game like Gravity Rush compared to many others. 

 

8.00 Tier:

Games I'd Move Up: Batman: Arkham Knight

Games I'd Move Down: Children of Morta

Explanation: If I had to make a list of the Top 5 games I think about most frequently, Batman: Arkham Knight is cracking that list. Even ahead of games in the 9/10 tier. There is something inherently special about that game that I freaking adore and I will make a promise right here that the very first game that will ever be part of that "Replayables" series a decade from now WILL BE Batman: Arkham Knight. I love the combat. Batman is badass. I enjoy all of the Batmobile Tank combat. The side stories... agh... I miss that game so much, man. It deserves to be higher and I remember critiquing it because of the relatively lackluster boss fights(and quite frankly lack thereof outside of the tank ones). The rest of the games in the 8.0 tier all have slight flaws that prevent it from being the cream of the crop but are all still games I vastly enjoy. That is until we get to Children of Morta. I've gotta be honest, I think I oversold the game in my heart due to the fact I had built it up in my mind before playing it. It was my 4,500th trophy milestone. It was the first review on a new page(page #6) which is an honor I assign games I think deserve to be prominently displayed. The reality is, even as I praised it, I myself knew it wasn't worthy of the tier given the bare minimum 8/10 rating I assigned it. In all reality, it's a low 7.0 tier game. It lacked the inherent challenge that can make running a roguelike over and over again so fun and I thought the distinct lack of interaction between the family members outside of the limited number of cutscenes was disappointing. 

 

7.00 Tier:

Games I'd Move Up: Slime Rancher

Games I'd Move Down: Adventure Time: Finn & Jake Investigations

Explanation: While the above tiers feature by-and-large better games, I think I could honestly make the argument that I'd have better odds of giving someone every game in my 7/10 list if my objective was to find them a game they loved. There are some marvelous games in this collection. Hollow Knight, CrossCode, A Hat in Time, Marvel's Spider-Man, Valkyria Chronicles, Bastion, Celeste, etc.. All games that I thought were good and enjoyed but I did not love as much as some of their diehard fans love them hence their rating. But Slime Rancher? Damn, that is such a good game man. I can't even entirely remember the gripes I had with it and have to go back and read my own review and say: "oh yea those were all issues I had good point me from 2 years ago". I CAN'T WAIT to play the sequel (scheduled for release in 2022???) Perhaps it can fulfill the dream of reaching the tiers Slime Rancher couldn't quite ascend to. In terms of games I'd bump down, honestly, I feel pretty good about all of the ones I have up here except for Adventure Time. That was so stupid of me to give it a 7/10 nearly 5 years ago. It was only my 6th platinum ever and I didn't imagine I'd be typing up grandiose articles critiquing my own ratings half a decade later. It's a 6/10 game that was fine and served its purpose but not memorable in the slightest.

 

6.00 Tier:

Games I'd Move Up: Onrush

Games I'd Move Down: The Lego Ninjago Movie, The Swapper

Explanation: The 6/10 tier is the most plentiful of the bunch. These are largely non-mainstream games and experiments in testing out some of the weirder waters of the PlayStation store due to the frequent sales that throw up goblin gunk for $2 and I pull the trigger cuz why the hell not it's only $2! I'm very happy with Desert Child, Stikbold!, Wandersong, and Abzü all serving as the ceiling for this tier. They're all solid, I'd recommend them and they have distinct traits I enjoy but they all have their limitations. The one exception? That freaking Onrush man. I have no idea why. Why do I think so fondly back to that game? Was I in love in August 2019 and it's clouding my judgment regarding the media I consumed? Cuz I remember thinking it was a great "filler" game for mindlessly playing and having your thumbs twiddle back and forth while listening to movies, YouTube vids, podcasts etc... but I honestly feel like it deserves a solid 7.2/10. Towards the bottom of the list, I regret not punishing the Lego game with a 5/10 due to the annoying grind at the end. I just refused to believe I was bullied into playing a 5/10 game because it was given away for free to PS+ Users. Thankfully, this taught me the important lesson of never spending my own money on a lego game. Finally, The Swapper. I really didn't care for it. I gave it a "respect" 6/10 due to the fact other people rated it highly but I genuinely didn't enjoy much of my time at all with it. Thankfully it was brief. 

 

5.00 Tier:

Games I'd Move Up: Valley

Games I'd Move Down: N/A

Explanation: Falling to the 5/10 tier is a pretty severe insult from me. Even if I didn't enjoy your game that much, as long as I didn't actively dislike it - I'll typically give it a 6/10 and call it a day without being too disrespectful. So it's kind of odd that I felt the need to rate Valley so lowly. I think the movement and jumps in hindsight were neat. I didn't care for the story/combat but really, a 5/10 lumps it in with all the other crap on this tier? Gravel and being the rare driving game I disliked. Chasm being a shocking disappointment. A bunch of 100%'s or free games that I got that were basically my version of stat-padding like I'm Ricky Davis. Despite all those hot takes, I don't feel like any of these games deserve being dropped to the bottom four. The 4.00 tier. Dragon Quest Heroes sucked. I hate that game. I've loved everything DQ since but that spin-off nearly torpedoed my love for the IP. Soccer Pinball was 100% crap that was even crappily made for shovelware tossed up on Steam. Dark Mystery was the equivalent but as a Platformer. Dear Esther is the worst since while the other games were elephant crap, they didn't try and sell it to me like I was getting served fillet mignon. Dear Esther contains a 100% legitimate "Director's Commentary" for a game so thin for content I felt the need to mock it making a Director's Commentary of my own review. 

 

Honestly, this article was quite therapeutic. I'm surprised by how few games I'd end up altering if given the chance to right now and many of the ones I would change are due to having rated them 3+ years ago. I hope I'm not the only one who gives a game a really high score and within a few months looks back and thinks "did I overrate it?" so I don't feel like a psychopath who overthinks the most inane details in life. Currently enjoying a split of Katamari/Wreckfest and am super pumped for the NBA playoffs as the Heat have a realistic shot at not just making the ECF but depending on if we can avoid Milwaukee, I think another trip to the NBA Finals is in store. We shall see. Until next time!

[realm722]

Game: Wreckfest

 

Analysis: I got Wreckfest for free when the PS5 edition became available for PS+ Users back in May 2021. Finally felt like it was time to play it nearly a year later. 

 

Why Wreckfest? I am pretty much down to play any racing title once it goes cheap enough and has any platinum that isn't utterly absurd(looking at you, The Crew). Wreckfest seemed destined to be a game I'd inevitably scope up for $5-10 when it went on sale in the future before it became available. Racing games in general are far from my favorite genre but I do enjoy playing them (average score of 6.98 according to my spreadsheet). I haven't scratched the itch since August 2021 with NFS: Hot Pursuit so it felt appropriate to finally dive in. 

 

The Heart of Wreckfest - What is the unique take Wreckfest has on the racing genre? Demolition modes and an emphasis on rashing. While the vast majority of the races during the career mode deal with races of 3, 6, or even sometimes 12 laps - you will occasionally get the reprieve of a demolition mode where you either try to survive and remain the last surviving car or can endlessly wreck over and over again as long as you're causing the sufficient amount of wreckage amongst other vehicles. It's all okay. I personally played the game on Easy and Novice AI difficulty and still felt a decent enough challenge to not win every race by a mile. The demolition modes are a bit silly. If you want to be the last surviving, avoid contact with all cars by driving away from the action until the timer pops up critiquing your way of playing for being cowardly. This timer is so absurdly generous this will never influence your playstyle. You can love tap another car and it'll reset the timer. Just avoid all the mayhem till the end and take out the remaining 1-2 cars for the easy win. The free-for-all mode is a bit sillier since I guess it calculates how much wreckage you do vs. how many times you wrecked? Even after gaining the platinum I don't know how the formula works but you probably won't need to worry about knowing it either in order to win the majority of the events. 

 

In terms of the "game feel", I did not love how Wreckfest controlled. I know there are adjustments you can make with regard to each car and some grander versatility in the difficulty section but I typically don't like fidgeting with those settings unless I'm going for a very specific trophy. Again, I'm a casual racing game enthusiast. It felt like if you ever pressed too harshly to turn you would inevitably spin out. If you have the damage set to "Realistic" you will devastate your car in 1-2 turns if you don't sufficiently slowdown. Other cars can single-handedly crush your run by damaging your vehicle to the point of being incapable to reach an adequate speed. I had one event that sticks out in my mind where it was an obscene 6 laps that felt like it took an eternity. Every other vehicle had wiped. Mines was the only one left. I was at 7% health and my car couldn't go beyond 30 miles per hour and could barely turn left. It took 7 minutes apiece to finish the last two laps. That was a miserable experience. I'm fairly certain you can crush and still win the event if you're the last car remaining but I didn't know that then and didn't want to take the risk.

 

Perfectly Average - I think what I'll most remember Wreckfest for is that the game is perfectly sufficient. It's not particularly memorable or awful, just sorta there. It's the Andy Dalton of racing games. I didn't hate my time with it. But I'd probably agree with the sentiment that it was largely "empty calories" and a game to have on in the background while watching videos like "Daryl Talks Games" absurdly good YouTube channel that mixes video games with psychology. The game does not bother with a story mode. You play through a series of events in a career mode choosing each one. Make sure you go out of your way to complete the ones found on this list as you play since they're mandatory for a gold trophy. There's also an Online component which I knocked out of the gate before I even got my feet wet thanks to @ytx hitting me up with plenty of time. We were able to crash our lawnmowers into a wall for a solid 15 minutes before each of us got the necessary 20 online victories. Shoutout to him! Other trophies are fairly one note and easy with a quick Google search and the grind to Level 50 can be handled in 1-2 hours by using the recommendations found in the Trophy Guide. I was Level 35 when I finished the campaign, I believe that's the consensus where just about everyone finishes.

 

Would I recommend Wreckfest? I'd probably pass on this one unless you're a racing game enthusiast. If you want a fairly easy rare platinum in a reasonable timeframe, you could do worse than Wreckfest, but despite the fact I only had 17 game hours logged according to the PS5 tracker - the individual races themselves felt agonizingly long at times. Particularly the 6 lap races in the latter Championship series. Felt like they could have been handled in 3 laps and the game wouldn't have lost an ounce of quality. Finally, I'd also like to give a shoutout to @StygianWolf4 for their helpful thread and video that helped accelerate the process. All in all, I earned the 15.66% rarity paltinum in 1 week and 11 hours. 

 

Panda Score: 6.5 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.3 / 10

[GothGirlMaxine]

2 hours ago, realm722 said:

*Wreckfest*

 

No worries at all buddy! I'm glad you found my video helpful, although I did end up replaying the entire game just to make that video, but it was worth it. Thanks for the shoutout, much appreciated  

[realm722]

Game: Katamari Damacy Reroll

 

Analysis: I bought the remastered edition of the original Katamari for $9.89 in early February 2022 and am thrilled to report I too now love this cult classic.

 

Why Katamari Damacy Reroll? Anyone who does some due diligence into discovering some of Playstation's lesser-known but just as beloved IPs will soon come across the Katamari franchise. The original game launched on the Playstation 2 back in 2004. Despite its unusualness and distinct style and humor, it was beloved in Japan and abroad. So much so that it's still talked about today a fair amount in the landfills where I too participate in the gaming discourse. I've played a few games from this mid-2000s Playstation era that are deeply beloved amongst niche fanbases to varying results. I loved Okami HD and the grandness and scope of its story still stick with me even to this day. PaRappa the Rapper had catchy tunes and while the Cheep Cheep level is stitched into my memory due to my frustrations with it, I'm glad I now understand where the admiration for the game originates. The same can be said for the Patapon franchise which is another rhythm game that removed any shadow of a doubt about how truly uncoordinated I am. You can throw REZ Infinite into this bunch as well. I've had different experiences with all these titles and while I enjoyed them to different degrees, something told me Katamari would be more up my alley given the colorfulness and the novel concept of a game where you just roll about collecting things slowly snowballing your little ball into a bigger ball. It seemed like a relaxing experience. How true did that turn out to be?

 

The Initial Playthrough - As a game released in the mid-2000s, Katamari has a very unusual menu system and control scheme from what many modern-day players will be accustomed to. You'll be thrown into an immediate tutorial learning the basics of how to maneuver the ball which requires both analog sticks to be pushed in a certain direction. There is no jumping. if you want to ascend up some stairs or a wall, you must roll your way up. One of the best features in the entire game and a move I used liberally was the L3+R3 combo which immediately repositions The Prince of all Cosmos 180 degrees and allows you to move in the opposite direction. After getting familiar with the basics, I ventured into the opening level and was quickly won over by the distinct charm of the game. The cheery tunes as you go from collecting tiny push pins to fully grown adults never ceases to impress. It's such a huge sense of progression and scale. Along the way, the King (your dad) will quip cheeky remarks at you and comment on your handiwork. The game makes the minimum bar to pass a level surprisingly daunting each time you reach a new star. You'll think to yourself "I don't know how I'm ever going to reach 3 meters...". Half the time will be gone and you won't feel like you're all that close. Yet almost always, there's a certain "click" that happens in a level where the snowball effect rolls in and you accelerate at a rapid pace to the final benchmark. So much so that you'll have time to spare to continue adding to your craft and frequently will be able to double the originally expected outcome. Yet, the King of all Cosmos will not always be as impressed with your work as you are. You know you've done the best you can when he answers: "(size of ball)!!!" with those three exclamation marks. There are so many small endearing qualities to the game that I'll only be able to name a few for the sake of brevity. I love how citizens will go from being entirely nonchalant about your presence at a tiny size to screaming with their arms in the air once you're capable of engulfing them. Policemen will start firing their guns at you. Initially impossible barriers will be scooped up and added to your collection as if you were lifting a paperweight. The game is surprisingly funny from the King's comments to the poor Prince's crying desperation when you fail to reach a benchmark and have your father reprimand you. It's all ridiculously enchanting and I fully understand why the game has stood the test of time 15+ years later.

 

Subtle Complexity and Skill Gap - If you're anything like me, you'd think that rolling about slowly collecting objects would be a fairly mindless, tranquil experience that would offer an excellent "peaceful" game before moving on to games with harder challenges. If you think as I did, you'll wind up mistaken. Katamari isn't a complete cupcake that can be mastered in one setting. While its simplicity even allows video game novices to enjoy its whimsicalness, hot damn there are some serious mechanics beneath the veneer of a seemingly one-note system. Take for example the camera. I imagine there is probably someone out there who has moaned about the camera controls in this game. I don't think their complaints are justified. I think the Katamari creators had a very distinct intention of not making the maneuverability of the ball the simplest task in the world. It requires skill and precision to stop on a dime and make an appropriate turn in order to continue soaking up items. I can personally say that while I greatly improved from my opening hours with the game, even after 25 I still find myself dazzled by some of the speedruns found on YouTube. I never reached that level of skill. But on top of mastering the literal movement, there's something to be said about knowing precisely which items can and cannot be scooped up when you're at a certain size. Katamari allows the player to LOSE items previously collected if they frequently bump into an item far larger than they are. This means you can't just bump into everything nonsensically and not pay the consequences. Towards the end of your time with the game, you'll have undoubtedly memorized a few key items you've seen frequently enough that can boost the size of your katamari at an absurd rate. The guard rails for driving at around 2.5 meters. The smaller trees at 9.3 meters. The watermelons at 16 centimeters. All of this comes from practice and time with the game and when your perfectly time the combination of smaller items into larger items you come away satisfied with your performance. 

 

Taurus & Ursa Major - I could not write a review about the game without mentioning these two levels. The vast majority of the trophies in the game are extremely simple. They ask you to merely beat the level and in the case of the constellations, simply complete the stage even if you do so rather unimpressively. The actual trophy that will serve as the platinum stopper is "King of Katamari Damacy" which asks you to roll up all 1,438 single items in the game at least once during your many hours with the game. There are some websites that can help with this. The trophy guide features a spreadsheet. I quite liked this nifty website from @Astray404 that lets you hone in on specific items and which level once you're down to your final 100 or so. The reason why these two constellations stand out is because they are the only two levels in the game where accidentally picking up a specific type of item can automatically end the level. Taurus is the Cow level, Ursa Major is the Bear level. Pick up any cow/bear-related item and your run is over. It is these two levels that made me realize how deeply incompetent I was at the game and how much precision I actually lacked when it came to avoiding specific items as opposed to barreling into them like a runaway elephant. You need to reach a respectable size in order to collect the Holy Cow (7.4 meters) and Kintaro Bear(4.6 meters). This means you must avoid all the cow/bear-related debris as you increase in size before aiming for your target. I am not joking when I say this - the cow level took me 3 hours and the bear level took me 2 1/2. I know there are tutorials on YouTube for each of them. It didn't matter. My incompetent fingers would send me hurling off a cliff directly into a waiting cow sign or I'd get rear-ended by a surprise truck and lightly caress a tiny teddy bear automatically ending my run. I imagine some must have hated these levels. I oddly loved the challenge. It's completely distinct from anything else in the game and served as a reminder of how much more I'd have left to learn if I decided to continue playing. 

 

Would I recommend Katamari Damacy Reroll? Absolutely. 100%. Katamari Damacy is a certified hood classic. I somehow made it thus far without even mentioning my three favorite tracks which are Lonely Rolling Star, Katamari Mambo, & Que Sera Sera. I'm willing to go so extreme and say that anyone who bemoans the controls or dismisses the game's eccentricities is someone I probably won't see much eye-to-eye with when it comes to games. This is a game so beloved that there are uploads on YouTube from as far back as 2008 teaching how to find collectibles. I'm super glad that the game got the remastered it deserved and hope more are willing to venture out from their comfort zones to enjoy something truly novel. I earned the 13.70% rarity platinum in 1 week and 6 days and encourage everyone who loves this game to check out Tim Rogers delightful dissertation of the game from way back in August 2008. It made his best 25 games of All-Time list! He covers the game and its creator Keita Takahashi in far more eloquent fashion than I ever could. Until next time!

 

Panda Score: 7.88 / 10
Panda Difficulty: 4.1 / 10

[YaManSmevz]

6 hours ago, realm722 said:

Game: Katamari Damacy Reroll

 

Excellent work as always!

 

I'm super excited to play this. A buddy and I obsessed over We ? Katamari on the PS2 way back in the day, so when I saw this remaster it was a non-negotiable immediate purchase. Thank you for reminding me that I've got this one waiting!

[realm722]

Game: Ms. Pac-Man

 

Analysis: I bought Ms. Pac-Man for $1.99 back in early February 2022 and while I try to avoid cupcake platinums, I too can succumb to temptation. 

 

Why Ms. Pac-Man? While this is the sort of game I'd typically save for the very start of a month when I want to get a leg-up on hitting my quota, I'm currently on the precipice of the significant landmark of my 175th platinum. I had 173 after taking down Katamari and since I didn't care to start up another lengthy game before wanting to sink my teeth into Hades (how long do we think the word count is gonna be on that one, over/under Dead Cells 5.5k?), I decided to revisit the sequel to Pac-Man. I distinctly remember NOT purchasing the game for a long time due to how easy the platinum was compared to the base game of Pac-Man that I had platinumed back in late December 2018. But times have changed. After 3+ years I didn't mind revisiting the game with a slightly more refined format and figured it fit in perfectly for what I needed out of a game at this time. How did it do?

 

Would I recommend Ms. Pac-Man? Sure! I mean, it's Pac-Man but with a bow and some lipstick. If you enjoyed the original, why wouldn't you enjoy the sequel? I didn't realize quite how rapidly I cleared all 17 levels and managed to move on to the Om Nom Nom x4 trophies at a lightning-quick pace. The game has a ridiculously easy save & quit feature which removes any and all possible difficulty thanks to the Cloud loophole. The game is as enjoyable and as lovely if not slightly more so than the original and while it lacks any revolutionary or unique mechanics that would allow me to drivel endlessly about it, I enjoyed it for the hour I played it! Speaking of which, the fact I managed to earn the 37.59% rarity platinum in 1 hour and 8 minutes actually makes this game my fastest earned platinum of All-Time! The previous record-holder was my easiest platinum ever in Burly Men at Sea so I will absolutely take that exchange. As I couldn't find myself capable of writing much that hasn't already been said about the game in the 40+ years since its release, check out Tim Rogers essay on how exactly, "video games have come a long way since Pac-Man!"

 

Panda Score: 6.35 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 1.5 / 10

 

P.S. - I am super pumped for Hades. I have had it lined up as my 175th platinum for ages and I can't believe the time has finally arrived to play it. I didn't think I'd manage to get around to it with this much time left in April yet here we are. I'm going to take of notes and am absolutely positive it'll live up to the hype. In movie news, I've been watching a lot of different stuff lately since I finally found a streaming service aside from Netflix in Hulu. I recommend Con Air and then immediately follow it up with La La Land. If you don't enjoy both, don't tell me. I wouldn't want to think less of you. In sports, I am starting to believe a Heat trip back to the Finals may be in the cards. Philly looks terrifyingly strong but Toronto has also been debilitated by injuries. If we get past them, I hope Milwaukee/Boston/Brooklyn all beat each other up. None of it may matter if nobody poses a threat to Phoenix out West. Real Madrid has had some ridiculous victories as of late against Chelsea & Sevilla. Don't know if the magic runs out against Man City but it'd be magnificent to foil yet another of Pep's cracks at a UCL trophy. The 2022 NFL Draft is next week. Normally I'd be knee-deep in mock drafts and scouring PFF for their latest draft guide. But the Dolphins don't have a 1st or 2nd round pick since they traded for Tyreek Hill and I am a-okay with that. Should still make for some entertaining reality TV. I've done enough rambling for now, time to go into my Hades hell-hole and see you all on the other side!

[realm722]

Video Game Length - Is It Fair To Criticize A Game For Being Too Short/Long?

 

Let's engage in a little bit of a thought exercise. Either from your memory or from browsing your PSNProfile, try and think of a handful of games you personally felt dragged on way too long. They were "bloated" and stuffed with "filler content". Did you initially enjoy your time with those games in the early hours and had your experience wane due to the amount of time spent in the monotony? OR was it that you disliked the experience from the start and the length of the game only added to your frustration? On top of that, were these laborious tasks necessary content found in the main game or were they side content that you were "forced" to complete for a specific trophy? Flipping to the other side of the spectrum, now try to think of games that you felt were WAY too short. The developers either clocked out just as the concepts of the game were getting good OR ran out of budget and had to ship the final product on a whim. Would these games have been better if they were doubled in length? What do you believe the developers could have added that could have justified the original runtime? 

 

I hope those rhetorical questions served you as well as they served me. Criticizing a game's length is about as common of a criticism as you'll find from journalists who review games nowadays. I've seen the recent Assassin Creeds Games get lambasted for just how bloated they are with copy & paste content. People who don't play RPGs will often cite their gargantuan length as one of the biggest impediments for getting started in the genre or the reason they've been turned off completely compared to when once enjoying them in their younger years. Meanwhile, you'll also see remarkably short games' biggest critiques being their limited length. Wait, you're seriously going to pay $30 for a game that isn't even 10 hours? Are you crazy? You could buy insert AAA franchise and quadruple your playtime! As someone who rarely ever purchases a game brand new, I get it. There's this bizarre blockade in my brain that thinks "time spent in-game = worth in money". How can I justify spending money on such a short experience when there are games 5x scope going for half that? This is a phenomenon very unique to gaming. The difference between a 1 hour & 30-minute film and a 2 hour & 15 minutes one is ultimately negligible in the grand scheme of things. But games? You can beat a puzzle game like Gorogoa in 2 hours and spend $15 on it OR buy The Witcher 3 for $10 on sale and keep yourself busy for 100+ hours. Your call, champ.  

 

Let's go back to those questions I posed in the original question. Do you know what games first popped into my mind for "extremely long games"? Dragon Quest 11, Okami HD, Ni No Kuni 1, Dragon Quest Builders 2, CrossCode, Graveyard Keeper, & Dragon Quest Heroes 1. Yet somehow, I'd consider only two of those games "bloated". Of course being the latter two, GK & DQH. The former are all mammoth sprawling RPGs and I can only appreciate their generosity as they offer multiple satisfying endings for people who don't want to pursue all the content to be found in the post-game. It's more for those who asked for seconds. GK was hampered by the fact the mechanics were ridiculously grindy, necessary for a trophy, and it took me until I got into a comfortable loop that the hours started to fly by without me realizing it. Dragon Quest Heroes was always a struggle. That game was painful from the jump and I remember within the first hour of playing thinking: "yo... what the hell did I pay for?". There was no moment where it clicked and while I am enough of a veteran to realize now that's what ALL Dynasty Warriors clones are like, my fledgling self did not realize that back then. 

 

A task that proved far more difficult is thinking of games I thought were way too short. I don't think I've ever played a game and felt there wasn't "enough" content. I've had the sentiment of wanting to play a game for more time, but that's mostly because the trophies did not ask any more of me so I had to check out of Risk of Rain 2 & Slime Rancher once the platinumed pop. In terms of overall short games? Sayonara Wild Hearts, The Forgotten City, Oxenfree, Islanders, & Journey are all extremely short games but I don't think they would have been enhanced if they had doubled in length. Sayonara maximized the rhythm style it was going for and is perfect in the sense it can be completed in a single play session of an hour. The Forgotten City is a wonderful mystery game and perfect for a game that can be played once before you uncover all there is to know about. Oxenfree & Journey can be replayed and enjoyed but the peaks and valleys you enjoy on your initial playthrough will be the ones that ultimately remain years later. All these games had a very specific intention when they were designed and they executed them beautifully. Trying to pad out an extra 4-5 hours would have brought the overall quality of the game down and asked the world of games with remarkably small dev teams. 

 

The Bottom Line - AAA developers will "inflate" their games out of necessity. I'd be disappointed if the next Final Fantasy 7 Remake game was only 20 hours in length. Even if those 20 hours were magnificent and streamlined perfection. When you're asking for $60 and now even $70 out of a game, the general gaming majority will be unwilling to negotiate on this point. It happened with the Resident Evil 3 Remake. I've accepted this as fact. The hope is the general gameplay loop is fun enough that handling a few bullet sponge enemies won't suck too much fun out of the areas that the developers poured the majority of their effort into. As an individual, you could also consider what's truly valuable to you. Are you down to pay $20 for a unique 4-hour experience on an indie OR is time spent in the game ultimately going to reign as king? Until the majority of the gaming public relocates in swaths to the former, this will continue to be a necessary evil for the medium going forward.

[Copanele]

Oh damn coming down with the true topics  I am down for some exercise here, so I will jumpstart my brain a bit! Sorry in advance if I end up sidetracking from the main topic!

 

The very first "way too long Jesus stop this" game that popped in my mind was, of course, an Assassin's Creed game (such amazing statement I know). My brain did a jumble and created a mix between AC Origins and Valhalla. NOT Odyssey, as shocking as it may sound. The very next game that pops into my brain is Uncharted 1. 

I rarely get bored out of my brains playing a game but these 3 entries made me almost snooze on my chair mid-play. Origins and Valhalla didn't need all those blasted chests and all that empty worthless space. Uncharted 1 could have cut 3 or 4 levels instead of boring me with the same shooting.

And I think that's the main issue to me - it's not the length of the game that makes me yawn like the Sleeping Beauty (I invested a ton of hours in Witcher 3 and Odyssey and I did not regret it), it's actually how monotone the entire experience is. If all I do is pew pew for 18 hours, shooting the same generic enemies in the same generic ruins with the same generic weapons and some cookie cutter story, no wonder I want to delete the game and play something crazy to rev me back up. On the flipside I could invest massive amounts of time in crazier games that would put any AC game to shame in terms of time spent (Heroes 3 and Mount&Blade Warband pops in my mind) but damn those games knew how to hold your interest.

 

Finding a game that is too short is truly a more difficult task  Ignoring fighting games, I think in this regard I can pinpoint only one game that made me legit want "more" in the true sense of the expression was Transistor. There was something about that game, the music, the atmosphere, the way the combat and "programs" worked that made me go "please, this can't be all!". And yes, the game HAS the right length and a coherent plot and no cut corners, BUT it was so good to me that I wanted to play more.

 

Now answering the real question:

1 hour ago, realm722 said:

As an individual, you could also consider what's truly valuable to you. Are you down to pay $20 for a unique 4-hour experience on an indie OR is time spent in the game ultimately going to reign as king? 

I would gladly spend the $20 for that unique indie, simply because I am sure that if the game is good, I won't resume just to the 4-hour in-game experience. If the game is that amazing then I will gladly spend more time listening to the OST, see reviews, forums, people talking about it, what was good, what was bad, speculations about the ending etc. If the game makes me think about it even after I finish it then yep I'd say the money was very well spent. And honestly that's what's valuable for me the most.

On the flipside, I don't mind the AAA developers inflating their games, just don't make the game the most mundane copy/paste salad I've ever played. Or at least fool me long enough to not see how repetitive the whole game is from the first 30 hours.

[Briste]

I usually feel like games go on too long more than games are too short. I still like most of the games I play, but Marvel's Spider-Man was a game that felt like there was too much fetch quest-y crap to do that made it feel like it dragged a bit. Game was amazing, but was like 10 hours longer than it needed to be just from the repeated crimes and bad guy zones to clear. Langrisser I & II was also too long. That one was like 20 hours longer than it needed to be due to all the different routes that needed to be cleared. 

 

I don't usually equate the dollars spent on a game to reflect the length. I mean, if I spent $50 on a game that was over in a few hours, I'd probably feel a bit cheated...but if the game only needs to be a few hours, I'd rather spend $50 on a game that didn't make me hate it by the end than $25 on a game that took 100 hours because you had to do a million fetch quests or kill 40,000 aliens.

 

A couple of games I felt were a bit too short were actually games that weren't that short. I would have loved to have had The Last of Us 2 be another 20 hours longer to flesh out some of the gaps in the time lines. The end of that game felt a bit rushed to me. I really enjoyed it, but for a story driven game like that, I wouldn't have minded it going longer. Same with the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. The ends just seemed to come a bit quickly in them, especially if you didn't do all of the side content or companion quests. Dragon Age is an odd one actually because I felt like it was too short as far as the story goes, but too long as far as the grinding and fetch quests go.

 

I guess at the end of the day, if the game is story driven it is far more likely to feel 'too short' for me if the story feels rushed than say a platformer or puzzle game. As far as money goes, if I enjoy the game, I don't really care how much it is but if the game sucks then any amount I pay will be too much.