RealM722's Trophy Cabinet

realm722 · September 23, 2023

Game: Neon White (Reflex Runner / First-Person Shooter) (My Game of the Year 2023)

(DISCLAIMER😞 Hello everybody. Whether you're a frequent reader of this thread or have stumbled upon this post by mere chance, I hope my posting of video games over the last 5+ years or so has earned me the slightest shred of credibility. I have only given one game a score above 9.0 (Inscryption) this year and am tepid to heap overwhelming praise given how relatively few truly special games I've played this year. I hope these posts have at least earned my opinion a slight amount of weight, and it's with that weight, that I care to state quite matter-of-factly that this is hands down the best game I have played in 2023 and is quite easily one of my new favorite video games of All-Time. I believe I can tell you every plot point in the story and every mechanic found in its gameplay and despite that, you could still play this game with all of that knowledge and find it to be absolutely magnificent. Its greatness is found in its moment-to-moment excellence and nothing I type in this review can replicate that. I will dedicate the first 5 paragraphs of this review trying to convince you to play it. After that, I will be selfish, and endlessly ramble for myself so I can reexperience all my joys about this game all over again in the future. I've done it with Hades & Dragon Quest 11. I'll do it with Neon White too dammit. Games this special don't come along often, and when they do, they deserve to be immortalized in written word.

Analysis: I bought Neon White for $19.99 all the way back in very early February 2023. If you're playing this through to the platinum, I think it's a steal at full price.

Why Neon White? The very first mention of Neon White in this thread was back in June 2022. I gave it a "wait and see" rating on my review of Summer Games Fest 2022. I thought it looked good but as with most games, I wanted to see what sort of trophy list it had before strongly considering it. Time passed and it eventually faded out of my general memory. Until my favorite streamer, Joseph Anderson, decided to stream it two times on his channel. I will say that with about 90% of the games that Joe plays, I will never play them myself. But Neon White? I saw how hooked and addicted he got on the very first level and immediately knew that this game was going to be for me as well. I've linked it before but I'll link it again. Mirror's Edge Catalyst made me discover that I love knowing a task and trying to accomplish it WELL more than discovering HOW to accomplish something. Refinement vs. Exploration. Neon White is that gameplay loop personified. With that knowledge, playing it was a matter of when, not if. I said I'd platinum it in 2023 back at the end of my Donut County review. I said at the end of my Inscryption review that it'd be my next favorite indie hit. This game somehow had some of the most hype and expected enjoyment of any I've ever played and it somehow STILL surpassed my expectations. It's the LeBron James of my gaming catalog for unfathomably living UP to the hype. Let's break down on a molecular level why it's brilliant.

Neon White Is Always Teaching - There are 96 levels in the game. That may or may not sound like a lot. Each level, your goal is to kill all the enemies on the level (if there are any) and reach the end destination point. This is done via cards that you can collect that are scattered throughout the level. These cards also have a movement ability (a double jump, dash, stomp, etc...) While this may sound intimidating at first, Neon White does a masterful job of teaching the player a new technique or method on every level. I do not believe a single level is wasted in this regard. You will learn through trial and error. The idea in your playthrough through the main story is speed. You can earn a bronze, silver, or gold medal depending on how quick you are. Gold will almost always be the reward if you play moderately well and through the main path. Yet, that's not all. There are also ace medals. These are the ones you're going to need for the trophy, "Straight A's". While that may sound difficult, it's really not. After you earn the gold, if you play the level again, a helpful shortcut hint will be provided that if taken properly, will give you a new perspective on the level and decrease the amount of time it takes to complete often easily earning you the ace.

For Those Scared of Speedrunning - Listen, I recognize that this game embodies one of the biggest things that the vast majority of trophy hunters HATE. Speedrunning. Here's the thing! While Neon White encourages you to go fast as hell and blaze through its levels, you are never asked to speedrun for a truly absurd amount of time. The vast majority of levels in the game last TENS of seconds at most. You read correctly. It is RARE for a level to last more than a minute and the ones that do are Boss Fights. Once you know the route of a level, where the enemies are positioned, and most importantly, where the shortcut is located, I'd venture a claim and say that the overwhelming amount of players can do this relatively easily. Do not be intimidated by the challenge. Embrace it!

For Those Scared of Aiming Difficulty - One aspect of the game that did scare me is after watching Joseph Anderson trying to snipe explosion barrels from halfway across the map for an Ace medal, I feared that this game's difficulty would simply be beyond my scope because of needing to click an enemy halfway across the map on a bloody gaming pad as if I'm Shroud's brother or something. I can safely say after playing the game thoroughly for the platinum that this is NOT required for the overwhelming majority of levels and is at best a speedrun tactic used by the most godly gamers amongst us at most. Even for the most difficult challenges, this sort of ability is never essential and the general aim of my guns is remarkably generous as long as you shoot within the general vicinity of an enemy.

My Call to Action - I hope this bombardment of praise has moved at least one of you to play this game if it wasn't previously on your radar. But I don't want you to stop there. If you've bought the game and are about to play it, PLEASE send me a friend request to compare your time on all levels with my own. I was robbed of one of the most fun aspects of the game that led to Joseph enjoying it as much as he did (Get fungled, slower than a cow, ChadHeavy, etc..) as nobody on my friends' list had played the game. I cannot imagine how wildly addicting it must be to be going up against somebody you know and slower removing mere seconds off your time attempt after attempt until you finally conquer them and get to move on. In the friend request, just include the message "Neon White" and I'll automatically accept. I could genuinely see myself coming back to the game in the future if enough of you play the game and beat some of my times just to re-experience the game all over again. It's that fantastic, I'm done being a spokesperson, the rest of this review is going to be self-indulgent and borderline incoherent unless you've played the game for yourself. Toodles!

I love the kind of woman that would actually just kill me. You know, when I left the house today I was thinking "Damn, I really hope some hot chick paints my brains all over some fu-"

There are Layers to this Love - One of the incredible feats that Neon White manages to pull off is it managed to make me adore it for a variety of reasons, each slightly changing my perspective. I'll explain. My 1st love of the game was found in it's speed and conciseness. It is exhilarating getting from point A to point B while taking out all enemy foes. Getting faster and faster with each attempt. This loop is mesmerizing. But it's not all the game has to offer. My 2nd love of the game is found in its gift/puzzle system. You heard correctly. While never required for completion (but it is required for trophies), each level will have a collectible the player can find after having completed the level once. Some of these are obvious and easily within sight. Others are trickier, hidden, or may require some creative card manipulation by the player in order to reach. Thus, the game not only offers a fast-paced dopamine loop but also a more methodical thinking man's puzzle for those who care to engage with it. OR you could easily find how to get all the gifts on YouTube. Your call. My 3rd love of the game was found during the rush sequences which the final part of this review will be dedicated towards. In essence, it flips Neon White's gameplay loop on its head. Turning you from a speed demon being as reckless as possible barreling towards each finish to a scared and terrified cautious one who's hell-bent on surviving above all else and is willing to sacrifice time for the sake of preservation. It is... a masterstroke of game design. I've never had a game make me view it through three unique perspectives like this. I don't think it's far-reaching to say it'll be stunning if I find one any time soon that pulls it off again.

Let’s Talk About the Story… - You may be thinking to yourself. "Wow, why the hell are those cool boys and girls wearing masks is this like Persona or something why has he only talked about the gameplay and not the story". Well, if you haven't seen Dunkey's video on it yet, the story and overall narrative have been universally panned. Joseph Anderson hated it. Dunkey hated it. Every time I happen upon someone talking about the game on a random gaming Reddit thread, it's inevitably something along the lines of: "The game is freaking awesome, just skip all the cutscenes." I don't know if y'all know this about me, but I have devil's advocate contrarianism running in my veins. If everybody is ever really WITH something OR AGAINST something, I like to argue the other side. I blame my upbringing. So when I tell you that I went into watching ALL of the cutscenes and sitting through ALL of the dialogue even during the "free time" sections (which are essentially Persona 5 social links), and I have to shamefully confess.. yea... this story is actual DOG WATER y'all, I can't help but be a bit disappointed that even I can't go against the grain on this one. But hey, just cause the story's trash, what if the characters are good?

Oh No, The Characters Are Bad - I will quickly summarize the plot and characters of Neon White. The game takes place in some form of Heaven but Neon's are sinners who are entrusted with the indentured servitude of killing demons or else they are blown up if they refuse to comply. You play as White. Oh no, he has amnesia! Just like every video game protagonist! Oh, and he happens to know all the other Neon's but they refuse to tell him about his history and prior relationships so you only find out certain details when convenient to the story! Dang it! It's for this specific reason I am deadass serious when I tell you my laptop contains an 88,000+ word document telling myself everything about myself in case I were to ever suffer severe memory loss. I update it every 3 months. Anyways, let's sum up the crew. Neon Yellow is basically Ryuji from Persona 5. The dumb as rocks fun-loving friend who's a real bro. Neon Violet is a girl with big ass titties that is ultra-violent and is constantly plotting murders and setting traps. She's for the dudes who love the emotionally unstable types. Then there's Neon Red who is the red-headed sultry possible girlfriend possibly not girlfriend of White who teases and negs you. I liked her the most. It wasn't very difficult for her to finish 1st. Neon Green is your ex-Boss. (SPOILER STORY FINALE) (It doesn't matter man if you play this for the story you should have cardboard for breakfast). Your crew was a team of ex-Assassins. Your plot got exposed. I think? You kinda decide Neon Green's fate at the end as you wanted out before a plot went really poorly and killed your whole crew. Something like that, I think. It's not good. Even as someone reaching to enjoy it. I thought Raz at the Neon Bar was fine. I liked Mikey the cat (voiced by ProZD) who gives you all the missions to complete. None of this was very good and the best joke in the entire game is when they mention John Cena.

Imagine If It Was Good Though - It's a bit of a shame that the story/characters sucked so much. I'm not even going to do the incredibly tired thing far too many people are doing now when they say that something's poorly written. They usually say: "This sounds like it was written by AI". This wasn't written by AI. It was written by some dudes who liked hacky anime and thought being self-aware and wacky enough would lift it above the floor threshold. It didn't. One of the reasons it hurts most to say it sucks is the REASON you collected all those gifts throughout all the levels while playing is that just like Persona 5 and Hades, the more times you give a character their item, the deeper your relationship grows. Sadly, all of these free time slots are just... BAD. Like there's no other way to say it. Not even slightly funny. The performances are acted, I guess. But the fact the developers from the very jump allow players to skip through all of the dialogue by clicking the square button with zero questions asked indicates to me they knew their cutscenes were trash and gave players the path out if they found it truly unbearable. Could you imagine if these relationships had at the very least the depth of I dunno... Harvest Moon: Magical Melody heart events? Instead, we got a tire fire. Oh well, thank goodness the gameplay is some of the most intoxicating I've ever experienced in my life.

Why Rank the Levels - As I find this game to be truly special, I think it deserves meticulous analysis about what I found so particularly ear-tickling about each level. The Neon White Fandom page contains the names of all the levels along with what the areas are called. I love this game to bits and hell, I don't even remember them. Rather, I remember how they're divided up into different mission structures with some containing as many as 10 and some as few as 2. I will now rank how much I enjoyed each of them by how memorable and enjoyable I found them as well as how much they infuriated me due to their difficulty and trollyness during hell rush attempts.

#1. Mission 11 (???) (10) - Surprise everybody! I lied earlier about always needing to kill all the enemies in every level. That's right, with the "Book of Life" card, you can teleport straight to enemies and eviscerate them out of existence while gliding at an obscene pace. This is your reward for having gotten thus far. Go absolutely nuts. I died on "Breakthrough" in crushing fashion since I didn't know the layout well. "Switch" is mortifying. "Marathon" is without a doubt the level that most made me say: "oh my god here we go" every time I encountered it until I practiced it so much that it became one of the more calming ones. THAT'S GAME DESIGN FOLKS!

#2. Mission 8 (Heaven's Edge) (10) - I love the rocket. It's wild that for however intimidating some of the heights can get on these later levels, I almost feel safer with it given I have a rocket that can self-correct a missed jump at a moment's notice much more easily than on prior missions. The rush you get from ziplining is sensational. "Ascent" is awesome. "Mirror" was undoubtedly a damn-near-poop-your-pants at the end level for me for how far out you end up with zero salvation if you goof up.

#3. Mission 1 (Glass Port) (10) - Remarkably simple yet oh so memorable, man will you be wishing for some Glass Port missions when you're in the midsts of a hell rush gauntlet. I love this portion of the game even in the end game because of how simplistic it is. You're never at any risk of dying by falling to your death of a ledge. The enemies are sparse and pesky at worst. You absolutely glide through levels with the speed provided by the water in almost all sections and it easily has one of the best songs on the entire soundtrack with Glass Ocean. What's not to love?

#4. Mission 12 (Glass Port) (2) - Technically two missions though one of them is story-focused and not featured in the rush trials. The final boss fight is sublime. It's a gauntlet of a fight with some trolly bits that will have you tearing your hair out if you "get got" by them but the Book of Life makes everything much more forgiving despite the increased stakes.

#5. Mission 9 (Heaven's Edge) (10) - Mission 9 is less about introducing new mechanics and more about throwing everything you've learned thus far at you for one different challenge after the very next. They're undeniably some of the most balanced of the entire bunch requiring some lightning-fast reflexes for levels like "Godstreak" and others such as "Mayhem" causing me to cry into a pillow because the sideways staircase mimic chest killed me at an angle I least expected while 75+ levels into a White's Hell Rush.

#6. Mission 10 (Third Temple) (2) - The first level in the mission is oddly calming as there's literally zero enemies and pathing isn't all that difficult whatsoever as it's meant to teach you the rocket zipline mechanic with the crystals. But the 2nd Boss Fight against Neon Green? Bloody hell. It makes the first one look like child's play with the amount of ground you'll cover. It's fantastic.

#7. Mission 3 (Lower Heaven) (10) - Your chances of dying increase greatly with the introduction of the dangerous time-ticking instant death skulls compared to the relative breeze that was the first 2 missions. Despite that newfound peril, oh my goodness do I love the introduction of the stomp mechanic. It is such a rush and feels remarkable when you string together a sequence perfectly. "Driller" made me poop my pants every Hell Rush out of fear of death by being a moment too slow.

#8. Mission 5 (Lower Heaven (10) - The introduction of the red shotgun card! I love this card. It feels amazing to burst and is superior to many cards in allowing you to move with a quickness in whatever direction you desire. I very much appreciated the introduction of the chunky circular enemies as they always drop a reload ammo card which is remarkably helpful in a pinch and saved me from getting locked out of completion of a level due to draining all of my gun. I always felt super comfortable on these levels even during Hell Rush.

#9. Mission 4 (Old City) (3) - One of the shortest missions in the game and it contains the first boss. I found the two lead-up battles to be a perfect "calm before the storm" remaining fairly simple yet fun before the introduction of the first Neon Green fight. As for the fight itself... it's decent. You rely on the purple machine gun and going up the clocktower is a fun enough visual for the first fight, but it pales in comparison to the spectacle featured in the latter battles.

#10. Mission 2 (Lower Heaven) (10) - Your movement expands a fair amount in Lower Heaven with the implementation of the dash card and an increasing amount of verticality with endless falling awaiting you in case you accidentally go flying off the edge of a surface. Still, despite the slight increasing complexity and fun of bouncing off some of the black balloon enemies, I think I found it on the whole to be less memorable than the initial mission. The final mission "Dancer" when you're blazing through all of the blue enemies in a melodic fashion is wildly addictive though.

#11. Mission 6 (Hanging Gardens (10) - THIS JERK LEVEL! Okay, in normal runs, this mission is honestly pretty funny. The purple trip wires themselves are entertaining in how once triggered, they fire off on themselves and can eliminate huge swaths of enemies from your overall list. The downside? IT IS HUMILIATING TO DIE TO THESE DURING A HELL RUSH. It's always your fault. You shot incorrectly and got lasered. TRY AGAIN! Despite my frustration, "Tangled" is wildly fun to pull off when you do it properly and "Race" is immaculate. The introduction of the lili pads is also pretty cool. Dammit man, even the levels I try to hate on I can't help but compliment!

#12. Mission 7 (Hanging Gardens) (10) - These levels introduce the bubble enemies which will only disappear once the player character themselves has passed through them. Those honestly aren't too bad. It can honestly be quite hypnotic to pass through them while sniping enemies and pulling off some incredible maneuvers. Why do I have this level ranked last then? THOSE GODDAMN MIMIC CHESTS. Worse than dying to a trip wire, dying to a self-inflicted bullet wound of a mimic chest YOU fired at feels like you failed kindergarten. I am genuinely embarrassed by how many times I let these get me. "Trigger" got me once embarrassingly at the start. My "Sweep" attempt on Hell Rush is embarrassing with how plainly cowardly I act around them. I do not apologize. They are that scary.

I did not know this about the PS5 but by clicking the share button, you can snag any gameplay of yours from as far back as 30 minutes and record for over 60 minutes straight without stopping. Cool!

My Trophy Guide to Platinum - It's about damn time we got to the point of this review where we talk about how to obtain the platinum. Thankfully, @JKOROX made a quite thorough trophy guide for all those going in blind. Though I must admit I do have some slight qualms with some of the pathing that I'll vocalize here. In essence, when playing through the main story and discovering each level for the first time, just play through them and scoop up the Ace medal and gift on each of them. That'll take care of the majority of the hassle on the initial playthrough. In clean-up, do some of the miscellaneous trophies in case you missed any (I got all of them naturally except for two of the boss fight ones) Congratulations! You're on to the final step! It also just so happens to be far harder than anything you've encountered thus far. Heaven & Hell Rush Mode. Heaven Rush isn't too tough. It's all the levels of a character sequenced in a row with no cutscenes. Just go go go with an infinite amount of lives! Not too bad, eh? Hell Rush on the other hand must be completed on ONE life. That's right. You did not read incorrectly. 96 levels. In a row. Without dying. A single time. There are no Cloud/USB save loopholes. You need to summon together an hour and 15 minutes or so of excellence straight (you can pause without issue) but there is no saving "progress". You die. You start from scratch. There's a reason I saved these trophies for the end. If I started with these from the jump it would have scared too many of you off! But here's the crazy thing, it's still not THAT bad y'all!

Violet/Yellow/Red Hell Rush - I haven't mentioned these levels up to this point given how relatively little relevance they have compared to the main game. As you progress your relationship with each character, apart from nonsensical dialogue sequences, you'll also be able to complete some side quest missions (no medals) which can be a decent bit of fun. There are 8 for each of the 3 characters. Violet's is probably the toughest on Hell Rush given the constant risk of death, especially on the annoying Residen Saw I level. Persistence will be imperative. I failed a few times but as you can complete these in less than 10 minutes, they're not all that bad whatsoever. Yellow is unique as it takes away the L2 mechanic of all cards which kinda makes them more boring in every way but much less challenging. Red will probably kick your ass at first with the relative difficulty of bouncing off with the purple bombs and double jumping through the ceiling with the pistol cards but the latter levels are somehow easier than the early ones. Your will will not be broken here if you have the slightest bit of resilience, well done!

White’s Hell Rush - HERE WE GO LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THE BIG ONE! 96 levels. 1 life. Good luck. Why is this so damn difficult? Quite honestly, because the game has conditioned you to focus on bursts of excellence with a one-minute frame for your entire enjoyment of the experience and now all of a sudden wants you to survive an endurance gauntlet for well over an hour with an array of changing movesets and challenges. I tried to plot this out methodically in my notes and do it on my 1st attempt. I failed on Level 30 because I missed an enemy. It's here where I'll disagree with JKROX in his recommendation of "'playing non-randomized as this will help give you rhythm, consistency, and help manage your health." The reason why I disagree so strongly with this is because after my 3rd attempt where I died to a goddamn mimic chest, it felt awful starting from Mission 1 all over again and having to work my way back up the difficulty ladder. Once you know the game well enough (which by this point, most players should have a grasp for just about every level), I found it to be MUCH better to play randomized as it allowed me to get some of the harder levels out of the way sooner. I also didn't find health to be nearly as big a deal as he said it would be. I knew the levels to heal by memory and if I got down to 1 heart, I'd simply use a miracle katana and never ran out of them in any of my attempts. I'd say it's much better to have the sense of relief when you take care of "Marathon" on say your 18th level compared to saving it 'til the very end when choking becomes a very real possibility. In an unlisted video, here are the final 30 minutes and 30 levels of my randomized run where I got the trophy. I nearly choked on the 2nd to last level facing the final boss going down to one heart and not even thinking of using the miracle katana because of how much I was paralyzed by fear of another hour's worth of attempts being flushed down the drain. I loved every second of it.

White's Hell Rush Attempts

1st Attempt: DIED (Rush 30, Superkinetic)

2nd Attempt: DIED (Rush 14, Thrasher)

3rd Attempt: DIED (Rush 78, Mayhem)

4th Attempt: DIED (Rush 21, Guardian)

5th Attempt: DIED (Rush 63, Fuse)

6th Attempt: DIED (Rush 44, Triptrack) (VIDEO) (RANDOMIZED)

7th Attempt: DIED (Rush 70, The Third Temple) (VIDEO) (RANDOMIZED)

8th Attempt: SUCCESS (VIDEO)

Final Thoughts: While it's easy to get frustrated in the moment, I can't help but laugh when looking back at some of those death videos. The incredible thing is, with a trophy as difficult as this one, requiring both skill and endurance, you can't help but tattoo your mistakes to your memory so as to never commit them again. I am proud to say I never died on the same level twice. I learned from my errors. That triptrack death made me SO mad that it prompted me to literally get literal footage on how I died thinking the game had glitched on me and as it turned out, no, I simply failed to shoot one last trip wire I was sure I had taken out. I wish I had footage of my mayhem 3rd attempt death. I literally let out a "NO NO NO" whimper as the mimic bullet came flying at me at an angle I never knew possible. The pathetic missed stomp and refusal to accept my defeat on my 7th attempt is hilarious as well. Maybe I'm a masochist but the memories I've gained from these trophy attempts alone will live with me longer than full complete games I've played in the last year.

Mikey’s Hell Rush - I saved this one for last and just as JKOROX recommended, I think it's smartest to do so. Mikey's Hell Rush also requires you to complete all 96 levels just as White's, but with the distinct caveat that ALL cards in the game (outside of the Book of Life missions) are replaced with rockets. What does this do? Well, in all honesty, it makes the vast majority of the game much easier. Once you stock up two rocket cards, you can manipulate boost and zipline your way to most endings rather rapidly and correct any slight jump mistakes at a moment's whim. The only time the challenge is genuinely ramped up is on the Book of Life levels due to the juggling you'll need to do with rocket cards being placed in your hand when having teleported onto a colored enemy. Still, for those curious, I've linked my full 1 hour and 17 minute successful attempt in the video above. Not that anyone would watch it. I just love to have it here. For posterity. This only took me 2 attempts as on my first one, I was flying through everything beautifully before running into "Breakthrough" on Rush 66 and died a pathetic death after failing to salvage it. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a teensy bit bittersweet finally reaching the game's conclusion because man... I think it's going to be a long time before I play anything this good ever again.

If I Was DrBloodmoney - One of my favorite features on @DrBloodmoney 's trophy checklist is the part of a game's review where he directly compares it to games in a somewhat similar genre and ultimately decides on a final ranking rest spot for said title. I don't do it too often except for special occasions such as comparing a bunch of phenomenal JRPGs against one another or contrasting my favorite roguelites. Thankfully, today IS a special occasion. So where does Neon White rank amongst the hierarchy? Well I named it my GOTY for 2023 with 3 months of eligibility still left so that's gotta automatically put it past Inscryption. Furi's fantastic but I don't find myself itching to go back to it. Slay the Spire is brilliant for a whole different set of reasons, but turn-based can never compete with real-time gameplay (at least for me) so that vaults it ahead of a number of games such as The Banner Saga 2 and Spiritfarer. Pyre is special to me for so many reasons but... I'm not craving 3-on-3 fantasy sports like I am going BOOM BOOM POW across the map with a dash card. Going Under? Sorry, it's Going Over. Stardew Valley? More like Snoredew Wacky. Dead Cells? Forgive me, Motion Twin. It's the 4 Big Boys left. Persona 5 & DQ11? I'm just going to be honest... I'd rather play through Neon White again than experience those magnificent games just because of the downtime in-between the great sections. Oh my god. It's Top 3 y'all. Ahead of Final Fantasy VII Remake?..... no. I'm sorry, Neon. You have to stop here. I love the gameplay of both my top 2 titles ON TOP of their storytelling and characters. You should have known better making your game cracked-out anime bait for young 20-year old adults with cartoon avatars on Twitter. Top 3 it is.

Would I recommend Neon White? Absolutely. Of all the games in my entire catalog, even ahead of the 5 I posted about earlier this month, I think Neon White is the game I will most universally recommend to every type of player out there. I swear to god if anybody comes back here complaining that I overrated or overhyped it I'm personally asking Sly Ripper to make me a mod so I can delete your post MYSELF. I will probably never play a game that makes me feel this way again. That's okay. I honestly felt like this year I had played far too many lackluster titles and was starting to get a tiny bit jaded with my selection. I had gone a little bit too far "art house" and forgotten the fun. Not anymore. Ben Esposito and the team over at Angel Matrix have made a game that I will wax poetic about for a very, very long time. I'm ready to accept my post-great game depression and suffer the withdrawl. The highs were that special. It was all worth it. I earned the 7.81% rarity platinum in 2 weeks and 1 day. See y'all in October!

Panda Score: 9.63 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 8.34 / 10

Spoiler

Neon White

Date: September 6th, 2023

I can’t freaking wait man… I think I’m gonna really enjoy this LETS DOOOO IT!!!!!
Wow “Neon White” said in the first minutes, cool!
Okay 3 levels in and I’m LOVING the speed rush in the water sensation
Oh no Purple girl… Mister White? Eh?
Alright first level where the ace medal got proper tricky was Glass Port Fast track
I love Neon Red’s big……….. belt
Alright I had heard bad things about the cutscenes… not great thus far
Lol Mikey is definitely ProZD
I’m hearing some Miss Kawakami in Neon Red which HELL YEA BABYYYY
Ah… they don’t have commentary for the sections where you’ve given gifts haha
Good lord… “some people got their wires crossed, that’s why some people like feet” is a real line of dialogue
Neon Yellow is giving me a lot of “Ryuji Stupid Bro Friend” energy and meh…
Side quests are hmmm… no medals, just complete the gauntlet
Alright finished Mission 2 all aces+gifts, not too bad, some parts are tricky but the levels are so quick it’s exhilarating to get them down. Shooting enemies from afar is a pain in the butt, still confusing L1 + L2 for R2 way too freaking much but it’s Day 1, good practice and effort
Neon Red walking in on Neon White naked is a real interaction in the relationship
Aight Neon Violet challenges are quite fun just tryna survive
Violet calling Yellow a fake himbo
The stomp green card feels hella satisfying to use
Okay Mission 3 officially kicked my ass… my goodness… shooting from afar with accuracy is a nightmare
Violet telling us to kill Yellow… hmmm….
Lmao got idiot island naturally screw you violet
Okay I’m surprised the boss fight was that fun, got gold first time and ace despite clumsy finish
“I’ve better stay away from that White guy”
Damn I just realized Neon Red’s choker… nice…
YO MEMORY FLASHBACK WITH RED LOOKING FINE
There’s a name crossed out hmmmm
Lmao making a friendship bracelet with neon green
This game is so freaking awesome man making my way through chapter 6 love the SPEED
So now that I’m a decent way along… the social link stuffs ain’t it chief
Manipulating the male ego lol Violet
Okay Red finally giving deets after final Mission 7, a small group of assassins!
Lol Team Gun vs Team Sword debate with Mikey oh Joe
Oh one of the tickets has beach photos of Violet and Red hmmm
Aight the levels from Mission 8 onward getting kinda complex and lengthier bruh
Final mission for episode 9 is a ton of fun
I liked the Angels baseball joke
The Book of Life power-up is ridiculous man just FLYING no enemies just vibes
Damn that final boss fight is FUN, fast and loose!
Almost EXACTLY 17 hours for 1st play through, all cutscenes non-skipped all aces / gifts
Alright just wrapped up the Violet/Yellow/Red Hell Rushes… honestly, not all that bad. Failed a few times on Violet & yellow but overall quite chuffed with my performances. Times come in for Violet (4:20.152), Yellow (9:07.336), & Red (6:31.070)
HEALS: Rush (1-10), Rush (4-3 or Rush 33), Rush 63,
Died (health loss, rush 15, (2-5), died (3-6, rush 26), low health (3-9, rush 29), messed up cards (rush 36), try again (rush 44), (rush 45), (rush 46), try again (rush 48), messed up (rush 54), try again (rush 56)try again (rush 58), died (rush 61), try again (rush 67), try again (rush 69), (rush 70), try again (rush 71), (rush 73), (rush 74), (rush 75), (rush 77), (rush 78), (rush 79), low health (80), died (rush 83), died (rush 89), try again (rush 91), try again (rush 92), rush 93), rush 94, rush 95, rush 96
Fina Time for Mikey’s Heaven Rush: 89:12.168
Man this thing is gonna kick my ass
First things first - I’m going to go through every level I died on or messed up in and make sure I complete it 5 times in a row without any mistakes so I get familiar with it
So I’m going to make small notes of levels where I can improve and have given me hassle
Rush 15 (take it slow taking out enemies and we’ll be fine)
Rush 26 (move quickly break chest and kill skull before zapped)
Rush 29 (careful with health, go methodically use purple bombs to take out skulls)
Rush 30 (DIED HERE 1ST HELL RUSH)
Rush 33 (1st Boss Fight, don’t mis use yellow card early and just play smart)
Rush 35 (don’t waste red gun early, conserve for all enemies and reload ammo)
Rush 36 (be smart when firing and conserve ammo until recharged)
Rush 44 (use bombs savvily twice to take out enemies)
Rush 45 (don’t use ammo hastily always recharge it)
Rush 48 (take it slow and be careful with lasers use black balloon going down)
Rush 53 (follow the race decently and just take it as you should)
Rush 54 (don’t miss the final bubble up top follow through completely)
Rush 56 (be smart, take things slow, take out purple lasers before stomp)
Rush 58 (take very slow, even if don’t get yellow gun at start can still complete)
Rush 61 (take out purple laser, hide, jump up and get green and just progress normally)
Rush 63 (fun level just be fast and reactive and aware of mimic chests)
Rush 64 (DONT ZIPLINE, take it slow and boost)
Rush 65 (be smart with zooming zippiness and maybe get extra zip from earlier)
Rush 66 (follow route and be smart with aim)
Rush 67 (follow route and be smart with aim, should be fine)
Rush 68 (DO NOT take shortcut, just take divet out and proceed as normal)
Rush 69 (be sure to get all balloons and can save instead of going down take shortcut)
Rush 70 (MAKE SURE TO GATHER ROCKET WHEN SMASHING DOWN or else death)
Rush 71 (dangerous, shoot barrels, play smart, take out mimics with time while falling)
Rush 72 (must shoot blue guy with rocket before using, maybe shortcut at end)
Rush 73 (bouncing on mirrors at end, just be smart and play safe)
Rush 74 (start of mission 9, follow through and be smart and play well)
Rush 75 (tricky level, be sure to snag the skull before going down path)
Rush 76 (VERY DANGEROUS LEVEL, be careful with JUMP then dashes, dangerous mimic chest around halfway thru level)
Rush 77 (be smart shooting mimic chests when jumping through level)
Rush 78 (VERY DANGEROUS LEVEL, go super slowly shooting mimics safely no need to rush)
Rush 79 (did very well in practice just be smart and navigate savvily)
Rush 80 (lots of balloons level, recharge ammo very early)
Rush 81 (lots of tripwires be very careful but not all that bad honestly)
Rush 82 (bouncy pads just play smart)
Rush 83 (Fortress, just play smart there’s healing)
Rush 84 (ZERO ENEMIES JUST BE NORMAL)
Rush 85 (2nd Boss, just… heal a lot and play good man)
Rush 86 (11th Mission 1st level you’re OP)
Rush 87 (just be smooth man, no need to kill enemies)
Rush 88 (be smart with the rocket boost at the end)
Rush 89 (careful with the trolly 3rd mimic chest on rockets)
Rush 90 (be careful here, lots of skulls at the end for death)
Rush 91 (VERY DANGEROUS, shoot at barrels for opening and just… play good)
Rush 92 (BE SURE TO SWAP CARDS EARLY, use barrel shortcut at the end)
Rush 93 (DANGEROUS skulls at start, remember swap cards towards the end)
Rush 94 (VERY DANGEROUS level with mimics, jump to avoid being killed, don’t be stupid towards the end)
Rush 95 (MARATHON FINALE, pls Manolin don’t die here, go through it, salvage at last sec if needed and falling but WATCH THE MIMIC CHEST EARLY ON)
Rush 96 (good lord man be careful at the end for the absolute worst possible deaths just clutch it brother)
1st Hell Rush Attempt White: lost a heart on Rush 20, lost a heart on Rush 30, missed an enemy and couldn’t kill it END OF Run like 30 minutes in Rush 30 (Superkinetic)
2nd Hell Rush Attempt White: END OF RUN Rush 14 (so stupid)
3rd Hell Rush Attempt White: goofed up Rush 45 and missed beams up top so had to use one miracle katana on it, had to use 2nd miracle katana cuz goofed on Rush 67, AGHHHHH DIED 40 MIN IN ON RUSH 78 DUMBASS SIDEWAYS CHEST DAMMIT MAN
4th Hell Rush Attempt: Died Rush 21 disappointing
5th Hell Rush Attempt: Died Rush 63 AGAIN GODDAMN MIMIC
6th Hell Rush Attempt:
7th Hell Rush Attempt
WE DID IT ON THE BLOODY 8TH ATTEMPT RANDOMIZED BABY!!!!!!!!!
HEALS: Rush 10, Rush 23, Rush 33, Rush 43, Rush 63
Mikey’s Rush

* Rush 14 (Thrasher) hella dangerous

* Rush 35 (Ringer) died health

* Rush 60 (Trigger) dangerous cuz mimics and skulls and awkward rocket

* Rush 63 (Fuse)

Overall feel very good about myself having done one of them, this rocket one may take a few attempts especially with how tricky those book of life levels can get but this game is so freaking amazing. One of my Top 5 of All-Time. The first discovery, tying to optimize and maximize time, learning all the mechanics, the gifts as puzzles and explorations, and then finally the endurance/life where time isn’t the biggest factor just SURVIVAL

Edited September 23, 2023 by realm722

realm722 · September 29, 2023

Guys, We Need to Talk About What It Means to Be "Original" in 2023

So what prompted the idea for this article is I've recently seen a somewhat concerning trend by some fans when defending X thing they like. Joseph Anderson is currently absolutely loving Lies of P and during one of his streams, he came across a Fromsoftware fanboy in his chat who lambasted the game with the following comment. (Source: Stream 5, 4 hour & 35 minute mark)

"Joe, how can you seriously classify this game as really good? Knowing full well that it's a whole ass copy of another game with no originality put into it they plundered everything from Fromsoft games and Disney's Pinocchio, hell not even the original and called it a day. I feel like anything else it would be called plagiarism but since this is a Soulsike it's okay, this game is the most unoriginal thing."

Joseph to the best of his abilities tried to be kind in understanding the chatter. He literally revealed himself to be 20 years old and it didn't make the situation much better. Usually, if someone voices an unpopular opinion, it's remarkably easy to dismiss his thoughts as one stupid person's opinion, and yet, I couldn't help but have a flashback to a viral tweet critiquing Doja Cat's latest style as simply "copying" Lil Nas X as he did it 2 years ago. Then I had a flashback to myself, a stupid child, thinking Terraria was bad because it was just a "2D copy" version of my beloved Minecraft. The reason why I bring these examples up is because I'm not making an entire article over one ridiculous comment from one random chatter on one video game stream. I think this sort of mentality exists in more pervasive forms than we'd like to admit and in a very breezy fashion, I'd like to present why it's okay for X game to be similar to Y game.

#1. Iteration is Innovation - We would not have the FPS genre as it exists right now if game developers decided to pack their bags and go home out of fear of being called "DOOM clones". Were there no doubt some games released soon after DOOM's release trying to capture some of its popularity and were haphazardly made and didn't feel the slightest bit as good as the original? Of course. But painting any game with "first-person perspective shooting enemies" with a broad brush wouldn't be any more productive. If a concept is worth exploring, passionate developers will continue toying with it. 21 years after DOOM, we got Titanfall 2. Which I've never played, but DAMN do people still talk about that game damn near a decade later!

#2. Other Creators Refine What The Original Won't - This is something Joseph brings up repeatedly while defending Lies of P. Fromsoftware has a few stubborn aspects to their games that Lies of P clearly rectified. If you treat certain games as completely untouchable and absolutely perfect and they cannot be improved whatsoever, it's likely quite difficult for the game developers themselves to innovate. Another great example of this is found in how the public and media treated Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game has received enough praise that some could argue Nintendo didn't feel the need to change as many of its core systems as it should have. So when Joseph was playing them on stream, and he saw that the combat system received virtually ZERO changes (with the same bugged ridiculous flurry rush) you could only imagine his dismay. Sometimes a studio may make refusals to changes in a specific aspect of their games because they believe in it wholeheartedly. That's alright. But those aspects may be the precise thing holding it back for other players. If we get more games that try and experiment in these systems, YOU may find a game in that genre that you enjoy while others don't. and vice versa! What a concept!

#3. It's Okay If There's More of a Good Thing - This will be my boldest of the 3 yet. Let's say you play a video game. You absolutely love it. It scratches every itch in that wonderful little brain of yours and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. Unless it's a MOBA or one of these "forever games", there's eventually going to come a point in time where... the love will fade, at least a little. That's simply life. But you want something pretty similar to that yet at least slightly different just to recapture some of the old magic. Huzzah! That's why we play video games. Some of my favorite video games fall into this category. Stardew Valley was created because Eric Barone loved the old Harvest Moon games. We hadn't gotten a good Harvest Moon in forever. He made one. He made some tweaks to the formula no doubt that make it feel fresh but at its core, boiled down to its essence, you live on a farm, plant crops, take care of livestock, build relationships with townsfolk, and participate in mini-games like mining and fishing. Yet, you know why it works? Because it's GOOD. and making a GOOD video game, regardless of how much you borrow from another GOOD game, is VERY hard. It's why I hate whenever people ask for a HM-like people just say: "just play Stardew" bro I ALREADY poured hundreds of hours into that I wanna try something else that's in the same vein yet a lil different. Yet that's so hard to find in the HM-genre without being dull or barebones or just... not capturing the essence. Just ask @Cassylvania who has slaved through the Doraemon & Marenian Tavern Story. It's why I'm so glad Ash of Gods exists despite it's absurd clunkiness because the experience offered by The Banner Saga series is stupidly rare and just something similar I can still love all the same because of the formula and core ideas. Why would you hate on something for being inspired by what you love?

That's all. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled if I see more cases of "it's just like X boring and unoriginal" in the near future. Maybe this'll inspire you to do the same and think a little more critically about the accusations as well. On another note, dammit, that Lies of P looks REALLY good. I'm kinda tempted to pop my Soulslike Cherry by making it my first... in part because it's awesome. In part because it's developed by a South Korean developer (Round8 Studio) and I don't have a game made in SK in my catalog yet!

realm722 · October 5, 2023

Game: Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (Metroidvania, Action (Simple), 2D Platformer)

Analysis: I bought Momodora when it was on sale for $2.49 way back in mid-February 2023. I'm adding it to my big titty Metroidvania collection!

Why Momodora? For as much as I'd like to admit the boobs were the outside attraction that brought me into the Momodora tent, it actually wasn't the case. Though I've played a handful of games from Brazillian developers (Dogurai, Dandara, Flatland Vol. 1), I wanted to check out a game from Bombservice, arguably the most prominent video game developer in the country despite being indie with its handful of releases. The Momodora franchise is something they've cultivated for the better part of a decade, and Reverie under the Moonlight was actually the 4th installation in the series. The first two were released for free and garnered a following to the point that they were now confident to release a paid product and whaddya know, they've managed to carve out a pretty decent niche for themselves in such a competitive landscape. I figured why not test the waters for myself given how I've enjoyed Metroidvanias?

Playing the Game the Wrong Way - As this game is a 100% completion and not a platinum, sometimes I'll confess that I can be a bit stubborn in terms of thinking some tasks should be simpler than they appear. I bought the game, figured, "how tricky could it be?" without actually looking at the trophy list. Good lord, these trophies are brutal. Let me just list you a handful of the 10 trophies. 1) Finish the game without killing ANY common enemies, only bosses. Okay, that's kinda obnoxious and can make traversal through basic levels pretty annoying but eh, I can tough it out. 2) Finish a playthrough without dying. Okay that's super annoying since now not only can I not kill anything, I also have to make sure I never die and if I do, I have to quit out to the main menu and reenter as opposed to simply retrying. Tedious and a bit irksome but I guess I'll be fine. 3) You must play on Hard to unlock "Insane" difficulty which must be completed. Gosh freaking dang it man. Completing just one of these would be a big enough pain on its own even while acknowledging the game's relatively short length but completing all 3 on my FIRST playthrough? That'd be just stupid. So that's precisely what I did.

@greenzsaber Holds My Hand To Completion - Over 4 years ago, our lovely friend Green Z-Saber made a wonderfully crafted 100% trophy completion guide video that would take around 3 hours to complete. This would be my saving grace when it came to enjoying the game. Though I'll be honest. I was quite unhappy at first. Trying to progress in Momodora with the 3 requirements listed in the paragraph above is about as painful as trying to watch the 2023 Chicago Bears offense move with Justin Fields at the helm. (I'm sorry Justin, you killed the Dolphins last year with your legs alone, I don't know what they did to you). I'm not trying to be hamfisted with jamming a sports joke in here. Progressing very early on in Momodora when you merely have human form, can't kill enemies, and are playing on Hard difficulty is a miserable experience. You can save your progress at various bells scattered throughout the world but interspersed are a solid 1-2 minute travel sequences with mobs who want to see you die. There will be wizards who snipe you across the map with a 103MPH Aroldis Chapman purple fireball that instantly kills you. There will be small screeching troll girls launching knife throws with an accuracy that would make Kirk Cousins blush. Hands down the most painful part of the entire game is at the beginning because of all these limiting factors, your low health pool, and not having abilities such as cat form and air dash. Thankfully, after much persistence, I eventually got past the most painful sections and breezed through towards the latter half of the game. One aspect that may be a teensy bit obnoxious will be needing to complete some bosses without taking any hits (due to gaining a special prized item if you do so) but the boss fights aren't that tricky most of the time and as long as you keep your distance and know their 1-2 most dangerous patterns, you should be fine.

My Insane Mode Difficulty Run - With 9/10 trophies out of the way, I could now focus on just beating the game. I could actually kill common enemies this time around! That'd be very important given Insane Mode essentially means you die in one hit no matter what. The developers themselves have a "do not try this" note before selecting this option in the main menu. Once again, due to your limited moveset, even while being able to kill enemies (though this dummy priestess can't ever aim DOWN to shoot her arrows for some reason) you're still looking at the most challenging areas of the game being the very beginning. There's always a bell not TOO far from the next boss fight. For whatever reason, my biggest struggle was against Duchess Lupiar & Royal Huntress Mangolia. It's essentially a duo boss fight and due to not doing enough damage with the Bakman patches + Strangle Thread (two items you get for flawlessly defeating bosses earlier in the run), I couldn't kill her without dying for like 15 attempts I wanna say. Eventually, I figured it out. The final boss fight is also only two phases this go-around so it shouldn't be too tricky. I managed to earn the 6.39% rarity 100% completion in 3 hours and 16 minutes, making me the 5th fastest 100% achiever of All-Time!

Would I recommend Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight? That's really tough man, maybe? The reason why I'm so hesitant is because on one hand, I think if you played this game NORMALLY (normal difficulty, not with a guide, just trying to progress naturally) I think someone could really enjoy the game appreciating it for its combat, relatively small scale, pleasant on the eyes pixel art, and overall polish. The cat form is quite fun. You can't attack from a distance yet maneuver far more quickly and it's a breeze to transfer back and forth with the cat sphere. Yet, if you were to play it that way, you'd still be looking at a Pacifist/Hard Mode run ON TOP of needing the Insane run and even though the game is remarkably short (you can complete it in under an hour if you don't have to worry about map completion), I think some would absolutely find the crippling moveset so early on as just Kaho to be grating with enough play-time. I can't tell you how many times I thought, "I can double jump up there!" and just fall 1-2 pixels short. It doesn't feel right. Combat is decent though I can't fathom how anyone would ever favor melee over ranged with how fragile you are on the higher difficulties. I wish I had dedicated more time to the story. It's themes are decent and I enjoyed the atmosphere. I like how when you fight Lubella her boobs bounce when you hit her. I probably should have opened the review with that line. Maybe that's all some of you needed to hear to give it a shot. See ya!

Panda Score: 6.57 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 4.88 / 10

Edited October 5, 2023 by realm722

realm722 · October 6, 2023

Game: Aztech: Forgotten Gods (Limited World / Action (Simple))

Analysis: I bought AFG when it was on sale for $8.99 back in mid-September 2023. This is my 2nd video game played by Mexican developer, Lienzo.

Why Aztech Forgotten Gods? As mentioned above, this is actually the 2nd game I've played from this studio. The first one was Mulaka back in February of this year. I thought the game was a fairly brisk adventure and provided enough enjoyment and sampling of a culture that I encouraged most people to check it out. Upon doing research on the game for a review, I discovered the developers had a 3rd title coming out very soon - which just so happened to be this one! I was excited because I was hoping with more experience under their belt and a slightly larger budget that they'd be able to hone their voice and perhaps make a sleeper hit. As the game has received virtually zero fanfare, I could have had the privilege to be the bullhorn on an overlooked gem. OR maybe it'd all go kaput. I put on my critic glasses and played and man... there's a lot I need to vent about.

Big PlayStation 2 Vibes - It is with a heavy heart that within my first 2 minutes of playing this game I immediately realized: "Oh no... this isn't going to be what I thought I hoped it would be". You are thrust into action learning some of the basic movement mechanics for the game. On my first double jump, I noticed the instant warping the protagonist did to reach the ledge. I felt the atrocious combat where you just spam square and immediately teleport to attack the enemy. I tried to figure out how the hell to fly/hover with the gigantic right robot hand. Still, I tried to remain at least a little bit positive. The game shifts gears quickly taking you into the life of a young woman named Achtil. You're asked to wake up from your bed and go speak with your mother. You go over to her and go through a series of cutscenes and dialogue sequences (with no voice acting) where you get some context for your life and what each of you is doing. The zero-voice acting is incredibly jarring. Just look, man. I felt like I was transformed to my childhood playing a knockoff version of Beyond Good & Evil. Wait a minute, that game even had voice acting in 2003! 20 years later and we couldn't even get some Spanish VAs? But hey, at the end of the day, I get it, paying for VAs for a few scenes probably isn't worth it. Oh wait, there isn't just a handful of cutscenes?

Way Too Much Freaking Story (SPOILERS) - I don't know how any of the developers over at Lienzo thought this was a good idea. I promise you I am not exaggerating when I say this. I think you will spend over HALF of your play-time of this game in cutscenes. A normal playthrough will take you 4-5 hours. That's INSANITY. I remember thinking: "man this intro is REALLY freaking slow" but good lord man it just kept going and going and going. So many sequences with your mom questioning why you still wanna be a food delivery person. So many scenes talking with your mom locked behind a barrier downstairs and Achtil acting like it's the worst thing in the world. So many scenes with the family friend Tepo and setting up sequences for the next boss fight. The freaking laboratory dude who shut down your mom's artifact project. The AGONIZINGLY LONG story sequence where a forgotten god is getting in your head and making you doubt yourself and now you're hallucinating and oh hey you can talk to your dead dad who you accidentally got killed when you were a girl! Who is this for? Even WITH voice acting, I think it would have been excruciating. Yet to try and pull off this gut-wrenching family-centric story with none of it is somehow even more baffling. There's even some Marvel-ass tier dialogue with Achtil and talking with the forgotten god in her head. Oh yea, this is a cuff link game in the mold of Forspoken. His name is Tez. Oddly enough, he's the most interesting character in the game. He's a gigantic snake and he betrays you in the end and becomes the final boss but he honestly made some pretty reasonable points throughout the course of our journey. Maybe if they had actually trimmed the fat on all the other story bits with your mom, dead dad, friend Tepo, etc.. I could have actually appreciated some of the more compelling bits a tad more. Unfortunately, they didn't.

The Jonathan Blow Conundrum - I don't know what the majority public opinion is on J-Blow at the moment. He was pretty despised in this r/Games post and disparaged for taking some far-right views. I think it's undeniable he's a smart guy who comes off as an elitist douche a lot of the time. But unlikable people still can make good points now and then. I've listened to many of his lectures and interviews on YouTube over the years and one from this video particularly stands out in my mind. Essentially, he talks about being dissatisfied with how story-based games have tried telling their narratives over the years. At 13:00, he mentions how foolish it is to try and replicate cinematography from film in video games. He gives the example of having a close-up on an actor's face being capable of transmitting so much emotion due to the fact the actor is a human being and has so much nuance going on in their face, inflection points, etc.. and can convey so much with so little. Compare that to trying and replicating it with computer-generated video game characters (let alone those on a super low budget where you can't even afford voice acting) and... yea... I'm not stunned that none of the story sequences ever had any impact on me in Aztech. I'm not saying it can never work. Aztech's biggest sin is leaning far too hard into these for far too long stretches but it's a point Blow made that has stuck with me ever since and I'm keeping my eye on it for all games that I play going forward.

Oh No It Gets Worse (Combat) - Unfortunately, if the story sequences were outright bad and drawn out but everything else was enjoyable, I could have probably still rated Aztech in an incredibly favorable late. There's just one small issue. What on earth is this combat system? How did they jack this up so horribly after Mulaka had a fairly basic system with a few combos and yet felt pretty decent all things considered? I imagine the movement system bears a huge amount of responsibility for its limitations. But good lord man, this is the best you could come up with in terms of a solution? Basically, you look at an enemy or lock-on point of a boss and spam square and sometimes R2 if you want to do a really heavy hit. You then need to hit the button again as a small timed circular window closes and if you time it properly, do big-time damage. Don't worry though, you don't ever actually have to care about the timing. I messed it up plenty and still won regardless. Sometimes you do a random finisher move if you time things very well but honestly this drags combat out needlessly so I wouldn't recommend it. Fighting minor enemies is barely an inconvenience and thank goodness because there are like 3 enemy types in this game. The real focus will be the bosses throughout the game. Some of them are obvious and are just "hit the blinking pink/red point over and over again after you dodge attacks for a certain length of time". Others (like the circular white/dark boss in the arena) require you to power R2 hit it in order to make it vulnerable. The hanging vine boss in the Biodome has some silly "find the one figure on the door that doesn't match the others" sequence that I never understood and stumbled my way through anyway. The final bosses are fine but never get too complex. It all feels very half-baked and I can't say I'll miss any of it.

We Were This Close to Greatness (Movement) - The saddest part of this review now that I've lambasted the story & combat is that yo man... I REALLY LIKE THE MOVEMENT IN THIS GAME. FLYING WITH THE GIANT ROBOT ANCIENT GOD HAND IS FUN. WHY DIDN'T THEY MAKE IT A BIGGER PART OF THE GAME? You are given this MAMMOTH limited open world to fly around in and there are these fun rails where you can run really fast alongside them and they are NEVER really incorporated in a single way. You can run up walls to recharge your arm fuel and it's a blast to balance the timing between horizontal speed and also occasionally boosting up verticality in order to fly through the various rings to recharge your fuel and... THEY DIDN'T MAKE ANY OF THAT A CORE PART OF THE GAME? The most fun I had in the game was during the "chase" side quests. Basically, there are 3 side quests in the game. Collectibles (whatever), combat (ass), and chases (super fun). Where you can never fall more than 60meters behind the flying drone ball or else you have to try again. Trying to keep up with this little thing switching directions left-right, up/down, was awesome! aaaaand... it's the only time in the game where they really make this a core element of the experience. I think they entirely blew their focus when it came to the direction of the game. I would have ditched all of the combat and insanely lengthy story sequences and made this a light-hearted racing adventure game where Achtil is this competing sprinter with other peers who have this system. Just add a few more elements to it and it would have been thoroughly enjoyable. Add a few more landmarks in the open world and it probably would have been one of my favorites. But nah... just wasted it, I guess.

The Trophy Guide Experience & Speedrun - I figured I'd put some time in on the trophy guide experience given how shockingly little there is available about this game out on the internet. The vast majority of the achievements are super easy. They're basic things like defeating 20 minions(spawn infinitely in the world), flying through 50 boost rings, wall jumping on a boss(I did it on the sphere in the arena unintentionally), flying ALL the way to the top of the open world, not touching the ground for 2 minutes, getting all the upgrades, outfits, and hairstyles (you'll get this while going for 100% completion) and complete all side quests (obvious on mini-map the points of interest). The only thing that tripped me up was "You see, some folks DO read everything" which I needed to view this trophy video for. It's stupidly easy and can be done within the first 3 minutes of a fresh playthrough. I just cannot fathom anyone playing and naturally thinking: "lemme go seek out MORE dialogue". Finally, you will need to complete a 2nd playthrough for the "beat the game in less than 2 hours". That is a comically generous window. In my 100% playthrough sitting thru all cutscenes and doing all optional content, I beat it in 4 hours, 39 minutes. In my skip every cutscene and bull rush the main story and bosses, I beat it in an hour and 12 minutes. This will not be a challenge for you whatsoever, even the slowest of you. I earned the 12.04% rarity platinum in 1 week and 45 minutes.

Would I recommend Aztech Forgotten Gods? Probably not. If you want to explore some ancient Indigenous Mexican culture, I recommend Mulaka even though there's far less narrative and dialogue. I'd only recommend this game if you wanna do a case study on how developers had a pretty fun system to mess with and completely detracted from its enjoyment by placing too much emphasis on other aspects that aren't merely as compelling. Still, I'll admit I'll remember the game fondly for making me hone on it so well critically and especially for identifying areas of weakness compared to what I enjoyed about it. The speedrun was oddly a blast since it was all about the movement and trying to blaze through sequences as quickly as possible. Lesson learned. I hope Lienzo gets to make a 4th game. I'm afraid the game has received virtually zero love and for an indie studio that can be a death sentence. The price point is ridiculous given the quality and short length. But on sale? Help them out if you have a big heart, eh?

Panda Score: 5.73 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.38 / 10

Spoiler

Big PS2 vibes
We have goku hair
Dead dad
Fancy aesthetic but poor floaty controls
We’re Achtil
Our mom’s Nantsin
Lots of convos early in the game
Why is this snake Tez so sassy
INSANELY slow intro man
Oh now as Joseph Anderson would say this is a cuff game with Tez talking
Lol Cahauni piss off bro
Okay we defeated the 1st boss.. Coatlicue?
She HATES elevators
Okay the big ball boss fight was a disaster R2 hit not even told and combat janky just spam square no timing
Jonathanblow facial animations point from video game
I like the movement with the glove pursuit challenge
Way too much freaking dialogue man I just don’t care
Goddamn Achtil got some JUNK IN THE TRUNK on that ultimate outfit
Oh lord the maze sequence
I have so much I want to write
Dad sequences, mom sacrificing self for Tea final boss

Edited October 6, 2023 by realm722

Copanele · October 6, 2023

13 hours ago, realm722 said:

Game: Aztech: Forgotten Gods (Limited World / Action (Simple))

Maaan I so wanted this game to be good...I LOVE Mesoamerican mythology-based videogames.

But then I saw the gameplay...and the choppiness...and the nonstop talking...and the poor reviews...and now this review 😅Guess I will sit this one out in the end.

An Aztec May Cry videogame would be so damn awesome though...

realm722 · October 17, 2023

The Starfield Problem: When You Disagree With A Review Score

It's a tale as old as time itself. Gamers huddle around their laptops and desktops to see what the latest and lamest video game websites have scored their beloved game that they've yet to play. Huh? What is this? IGN scored MY favorite game (that I haven't played yet) a measly 7/10? Give me one moment. *cue furious typing* Oh yeah of COURSE this guy scored this game a 7/10. He gave freaking Bubsy 3D an 8/10. Anyone who trusts that guy's opinion is a MORON.

While I may be well over a month late to finally getting around to writing this article, the great thing about this premise is that it is an evergreen subject. The game does not matter. It's the hype that kills you. Inevitably, sometime in the future, another big release will come out and there will be a person or outlet with a dissenting opinion from the majority. This game was SUPPOSED to be great. We hyped it up as great. Now this guy's not telling us it's not all that great. What are we going to do? We could believe him and start writing hate messages to the developers on Twitter for bamboozling us. But that seems more like something you'd only do after you have personally played the game and were disappointed. Instead, in an effort to cope, the next best thing is to find the guy who gave the thing-I-like-below-an-8/10 an IRS audit of his entire video game reviewing history. Oh man, this guy scored freaking Arkham Knight over Arkham City? Opinion invalidated. He's an idiot.

The impossible reality for a video game reviewing outlet is that despite having an array of reviewers, it's rare for opinions to stick to any one individual. IGN may have had personnel who reviewed games well over a decade ago a low score, or wrote a goofy comment, or had an objectively wrong observation about the game, and it doesn't stick to any person, but the company. Heavy is the head that wears the Burger King crown. I'm not going to pretend like I don't also do this. A game that I reflect fondly upon is Shadow Tactics. The game has reviewed remarkably well critically and the studio was able to make 2 more games in the real-time tactics genre before retiring. Rather than focus on the overwhelming amount of praise its received by both critics and journalists, what do I do? I scroll through the Metacritic reviews and select the lowest one I can find. 70/100? The jerk. What the hell? LITERALLY THE FIRST LINE OF THE REVIEW THE GUY SAYS "It’s always been a bit of a struggle for me to really get into real time tactics games." THE NERVE. WHY TF DO YOU HAVE SOMEBODY WHO DOESN'T LIKE THE GENRE REVIEWING THE GAME GRRRRRRRR

While I'm making a joke about getting angry there, it's a frequent sentiment I've seen uttered by players who are a fan of a genre. "Why did they get this guy?". The reality is, it's a pretty valuable opinion to have. As somebody who has never meaningful played many fighting games, if I were to hear a non-fighting game critic say: "yo this is an awesome entry point of newbies to the genre." it absolutely has some value to me. Though, I'd still understand the plight of diehard fans finding the game "too shallow" and stripped of its more hardcore mechanics to favor to casuals. Different strokes for different folks, yanno? In terms of our local residents here at PSNProfiles, I also engage in this casual exercise. Allow me to give a few examples.

For this experiment, we'll compare my ranking of games, @pelagia14 's rankings, and @DrBloodmoney 's rankings. (Gee, anybody reading this who has a thread and doesn't have something like this in their OP should really make one. Do it. Just for me. I promise you I'll look at it. I love this crap). Let's start off with a few games we agree on. All 3 of us have played Hades and Inscryption. They're each in my highest-ranking category, consisting of only 20 games. They're in pelagia's highest category of only 10 games. The Doc is the biggest "hater" of the 3 of us having them both ranked in his Top 60 but given the fact he's nearly 450 titles, he cleary still holds them in high regard. Universal across-the-board acclaim on all fronts. But now let's look at a few titles with some differing opinions. Journey is ranked as a 10/10 by Pelagia, Top 50 by the Doc, and yet in the lower half of a 7/10 by me. Oh no. I've become the biggest hater. But yanno what? A 7/10 isn't a bad score. I consider that to be a good game. I may not have LOVED it like both of them dude, but I can SEE why they loved it, which still brings value of their opinion and analysis to me. This is all I ask for. I may not always 100% vibe with a game in the same way as somebody else. But if I play a title and I think: "I just enjoy it, but I can see somebody else LOVING it" then there's value there. Finally, let's have Pelagia by the biggest hater. I played Shape of the World and found it to be a thoroughly fine time. As 6/10 as you can get. My strongest opinion was "I like the colors". The Doc played it and most have felt similarly. Coming it at a ranking of #357 as I write this, out of 446 games, while that IS in the lower half... it's not utter contempt either. It beat Knack! But Pelagia felt differently. Ranking as bottom of the barrel tier, it receives the ugly distinction of a game being actively disliked. How come? Oooooh having to do an obnoxious extra "slowrun" of the game would have definitely added to my irritation as well. Now I understand the score for an otherwise largely forgettable title.

So there you have it folks. The next time the big hype released gets a questionable score from somebody, you know what you need to do. Dig through their entire history and figure out what gaming opinion of theirs you disagree with most. Blast it to the masses. Shame them publicly. And hope they openly repent for their sinful ways. Until next time!

pelagia14 · October 17, 2023

Thanks for the shout-out! 🥰 And yup, I wear my Shape of the World "hater" badge with confidence. 😂

Another reason why I love when people have a game rankings list in their OP (or a link to it) is that it really helps determine where our tastes are similar and where they diverge. For example, I am so goddamn excited for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 to release in just a few days. I ranked the first game as a 9/10, and Miles Morales as a 7/10. If someone ranked the first game as something equivalent to a 5/10, their opinion is still totally valid! However, it means that the things I really enjoyed about the game probably did not click to the same extent for that person. Thus, were they to write a review for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and score it as an 8/10, that would indicate to me that either the latest game removed a lot of pain points for that player which were things I really enjoyed, or it added in a lot of new stuff that may or may not resonate for me as well. And of course, if that person gave the newest game a 4/10 then I would mostly be interested to see if the newest game still shared a lot of the same pain points for that player, or if there were new pain points that I would also potentially dislike. So there is still the potential for me to gain valuable insights either way, and game rankings are a nice shorthand for how likely I am to agree or disagree with that person's perspective.

Beyond the usefulness of looking at "Game: The Sequel" reviews, a game rankings list is a nice, quick way to get a reference point for what types of games someone likes in general. I'm still going to want to read their reviews to see what they have to say. As you said, sometimes someone reviewing a game outside their preferred genres can provide valuable insight. That's one reason why I adore your Final Fantasy VII: Remake review - not only does it give me the perspective of someone who has never played the OG FFVII, it's the perspective of someone entirely new to that behemoth of a franchise. Your review helped me to know that it isn't just us diehard FFVII fans who loved the Remake, but that the game is accessible to newcomers as well. Another benefit to game rankings is the value when someone typically ranks a genre of games pretty high or low, and then there are a few specific games that they ranked completely opposite.

One of my favorite things about everyone's personal threads here in Trophy Checklist Land is that I have discovered some fantastic games because they ranked so highly for people who tend to have more similar opinions to mine than differing opinions. There are some games that have been recommended to me by people here that I'm so excited to play when the time comes. The best thing is that this community is so chill, so even if I end up really disliking the game, I know that if someone were to post something about grabbing a torch and pitchfork, it would be said in a joking manner versus a serious one.

Finally, it's been interesting in recent years to watch general online discourse evolve in regard to gaming (and even TV/movie) reviews. I've seen people joke, "Oh this game was an unplayable mess of a dumpster fire, so IGN will of course rate it a 6/10". Independent online content creators might feel pressured to be less harsh on a game in order to maintain a positive relationship with devs or publishers so they can continue to get early access codes. Then there's the review-bombing phenomena, which can harnessed by a gaming community that feels slighted or taken advantage of by a game (ie, Overwatch 2) but can also be weaponized because of things like "Grrr how dare you put the LGBT romances in my game". Honestly, there's so much that can be unpacked and discussed in terms of how gaming journalism is no longer as centralized as it once was, for both good and bad.

realm722 · October 17, 2023

9 hours ago, pelagia14 said:

For example, I am so goddamn excited for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 to release in just a few days. I ranked the first game as a 9/10, and Miles Morales as a 7/10. If someone ranked the first game as something equivalent to a 5/10, their opinion is still totally valid! However, it means that the things I really enjoyed about the game probably did not click to the same extent for that person. Thus, were they to write a review for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and score it as an 8/10, that would indicate to me that either the latest game removed a lot of pain points for that player which were things I really enjoyed, or it added in a lot of new stuff that may or may not resonate for me as well. And of course, if that person gave the newest game a 4/10 then I would mostly be interested to see if the newest game still shared a lot of the same pain points for that player, or if there were new pain points that I would also potentially dislike. So there is still the potential for me to gain valuable insights either way, and game rankings are a nice shorthand for how likely I am to agree or disagree with that person's perspective.

Sequels are funny in that way. I think one of the best recent examples if Tears of the Kingdom. While a bunch of praise came out as expected, I've noticed a more frequent dissenting opinion from those who've played and loved the original believing that the game didn't improve in the ways they would have liked (exact same combat system, again no shrines, etc..) whereas I know a friend's kid who DIDN'T play the original and played the sequel and it is unquestionably their favorite game of All-Time. It's hard to recapture that mystique and awe on a second go-around. I know I wanna play the second Spider-Man but I gotta get around to that Miles Morales first... thankfully Sony actually puts their games on sale unlike Nintendo so hopefully I can snag MM for $15 and the 2nd Spider-Man months down the line when it first goes on sale.

9 hours ago, pelagia14 said:

That's one reason why I adore your Final Fantasy VII: Remake review - not only does it give me the perspective of someone who has never played the OG FFVII, it's the perspective of someone entirely new to that behemoth of a franchise. Your review helped me to know that it isn't just us diehard FFVII fans who loved the Remake, but that the game is accessible to newcomers as well. Another benefit to game rankings is the value when someone typically ranks a genre of games pretty high or low, and then there are a few specific games that they ranked completely opposite.

Thank you for the kind words. That FF7R review really marked a turning point in this thread... I had played many games I've loved before but so remarkably few that had the aura around it like FF7 does that it just came bursting out of me while writing. I have avoided all of the trailers when it comes to Rebirth. That is going to be one of my INSANELY rare Day 1 $70 purchases and I don't even doubt I'm going to love it just being with that cast and that juicy combat system again.

9 hours ago, pelagia14 said:

One of my favorite things about everyone's personal threads here in Trophy Checklist Land is that I have discovered some fantastic games because they ranked so highly for people who tend to have more similar opinions to mine than differing opinions. There are some games that have been recommended to me by people here that I'm so excited to play when the time comes. The best thing is that this community is so chill, so even if I end up really disliking the game, I know that if someone were to post something about grabbing a torch and pitchfork, it would be said in a joking manner versus a serious one.

It's my favorite part of this forum. I would have never played Shadow Tactics if Cassy hadn't reviewed it. I would have never touched Ash of Gods without Briste. I have plenty of fun unearthing gems of my own (Going Under, Tunche, Paradise Killer) but getting that itch to play someone because an avatar on a forum you're familiar with over the course of several years gets me giddy. It's also great for filtering a lot of titles that I was hesitant on and ended up not being worth the squeeze.

9 hours ago, pelagia14 said:

Finally, it's been interesting in recent years to watch general online discourse evolve in regard to gaming (and even TV/movie) reviews. I've seen people joke, "Oh this game was an unplayable mess of a dumpster fire, so IGN will of course rate it a 6/10". Independent online content creators might feel pressured to be less harsh on a game in order to maintain a positive relationship with devs or publishers so they can continue to get early access codes. Then there's the review-bombing phenomena, which can harnessed by a gaming community that feels slighted or taken advantage of by a game (ie, Overwatch 2) but can also be weaponized because of things like "Grrr how dare you put the LGBT romances in my game". Honestly, there's so much that can be unpacked and discussed in terms of how gaming journalism is no longer as centralized as it once was, for both good and bad.

IGN and any of the major gaming outlets at this point just serve as a piñata for gamers. The people dunking on them or Kotaku at this point don't actually consume their content. They just see a headline of "IGN scored X game X" and type away. Another one I love is: "you do this just for clicks". I don't doubt those writers exist. But the way it's used as a crutch for anybody who disagrees with a nonconventional opinion is pretty funny. Sports fans with ESPN are the same way. "It's sad to see how far it's declined." Buddy. ESPN is gigantic. It's a buffet. Ignore the stuff you don't like. Enjoy the stuff you do like. It ain't that complicated. As for the review-bombing... yea... I dunno the solution for that. I don't engage with any review aggregate website (Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, etc..) so it's not something I confront often. I imagine some website inevitably in the future will create a requirement for a minimum word count, filtered reviews by moderators, and a minimum account age of say like 3+ months"... that actually doesn't sound like a terrible idea. They just need a catchy name for it. Something like... "The Casual Critiquer".

YaManSmevz · October 19, 2023

On 10/16/2023 at 5:07 PM, realm722 said:

(Gee, anybody reading this who has a thread and doesn't have something like this in their OP should really make one. Do it. Just for me. I promise you I'll look at it. I love this crap).

Shiiiiit... I could try😂

Great read as usual, my dude! I also do the lowest rated review thing... not to hate but I just get this paranoid sense of "but what's the REAL shit goin on here..." cuz a lot of positive reviews, especially for the type of game I might not immediately be attracted to, can get me wary.

We are not a normal bunch😂

realm722 · October 24, 2023

Game: Curious Expedition 2 (Roguelike / Resource Management / Narrative)

Analysis: I bought Curious Expedition 2 when it was on sale for $7.99 back in mid-September 2023. Buckle up for my most obscure game review yet!

Why Curious Expedition 2? Of all the games I've covered, I think CE2 has to have one of the most unique discovery experiences ever. After writing my post about why I still go for ultra rare trophies in 2023, I realized I was coming up short on games in my catalog that actually qualified with that low of rarity. I'm not going to say I've played all the URs in the world or anything close to it, but I would say the well is slightly drying with how many URs fall under the category of games that I care to play. (Ex: not insanely grindy 60+ hours, not so difficult that'll give me hernia, not in a genre of games I don't care for). Thus, I decided to do a very unusual form of digging. I literally sorted all games in the PSNProfiles database and filtered them by platinum only ultra-rares on PS4. This yielded only 42 pages worth of results, which while not a miniscule amount, when you factor in the 0% unachieveables amongst other things, you can surprisingly skim past move of the games within an hour or so. Curious Expedition 2 was one of those games. What made it jump out from all the rest? It's curiosity piquing name and majestic artwork. Once I saw the platinum was obtainable, I was sold. I bought the game and dove in headfirst without reading any reviews or even so much as doing any research in the form of a YouTube preview. I experienced this game the way all gamers experienced them pre-internet circulation hype train days. Just as Kojima intended.

Let Me Sell You The Gameplay Loop - The developers described the game as a "turn-based narrative roguelike" which includes resource management as a core element in effort for conquest and glory. I thought to myself: "how the hell is that going to work in actual practice". Despite being puzzled about how the game would function, once I hear the term "rogue" I'm almost always in as I just naturally enjoy the formula and have explained why in previous posts. You play as an explorer. You go out on "expeditions" each year (3-4) and must successfully complete the given objective on a mission in order to succeed. This can range from killing a certain monster, finding and returning a rare item, or reaching specific locations to take measurements. The entire game takes place on a big 4X map as seen below and you use "sanity" points to move across the land. It is VERY, VERY important that you manage your sanity well. You can upgrade it with certain equipment, regain it by resting at specific locations, OR eat food that refills it. If you DON'T manage it well and it falls to 0, you're going to have a VERY, VERY bad time and likely see your run end soon thereafter. If you're successful, you get to return to Paris (the hub of this game), can switch-up your crew, equipment, make some small upgrades and intereact with a few other supplementary elements in the game. If you survive the random expeditions, in the campaign mode, you will then play through a "Story Act" and must navigate it well enough to survive into the next year. Rinse & repeat for 4 years and if you survive all the way through you're... celebrated eternally! Wow! That sounds pretty damn fun!

My Overall Enjoyment - Having suckled at this game's teet for well over 50 hours(I know, I know, I paint a canvass with every sentence), I can confidently say that I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it even as I felt the game lacked enough content and variety to make the final end process a teensy bit laborious, but even then, nothing too egregious. I think I'll sum it up in a few reasons. 1) This game has a fun ability to make chaotic and hilarious situations. I'll dive more into this in the latter paragraphs but it is a game with enough systems that can intertwine well enough that it made me stop several times and crack. For brevity's sake, I'll list one. During one of my early runs, I was pretty happy with most of my crew (a big game hunter, a British soldier, a nurse, and a hunting dog) but wanted to get rid of the nurse and replace her with a local tribe warrior that I just recruited from the village I rested at after engrastiating myself with the local population. The idea was simple, dismiss the nurse, replace her with strong tribe warrior. But oh wait! The game's resisting! Due to the fact that several nights earlier, I had rested by a waterfall and the British soldier and nurse had "fallen in-love", if I now threatened to dismiss the nurse, not only would I get a morale penalty for breaking up the couple but he even threatened to leave my group ENTIRELY if I failed a difficult dice roll. "Dammit" I thought. On one hand I was annoyed the game stopped me from easily upgrading my team. On the other hand, I loved that it even thought of this fact in the first place that most other games would totally gloss over. From there, I had a lot of fun poking and prodding at the systems to see if the game had a response for my actions. 2) Understanding the meta of a niche game is fun. I did research on the game. There's shockingly few research / strategy help. There are a few on Steam. I decided not to read any of them. It was a ton of fun playing a game knowing there isn't much aid out there and you just gotta figure out for yourself how to survive and make things WORK. When you find a certain method or trick that's repeatable, it's like you're leveling up both your in-character and out-of-character abilities! 3) The trophies encourage experimentation and different playstyles. I can't thank the developer enough for this. Due to the manner in which the trophies are implemented, I could not just play as a big game hunter every single run and dominate all enemies by killing everything. There are certain traits available for only certain classes that utilize much less violent means to accomplish their objective. The trophies prevented me from getting lazy and doing the same thing over and over again. Way to protect me from myself, thank you Maschinen-Mensch!

Why I'm Going to Make This Review Exhaustive - If you've never heard of this game, I don't fault you. It has less than 150 owners on PS4. It has been out for over a year and a half on consoles. It is officially the platinum with the FEWEST achievers of any platinum in my entire catalog at a whooping 5. In a game all about exploring unknown lands for fame and fortune, I feel that it is my duty bounded by honor to not only write poetically about this game, but do so in such a thorough manner that even if I were to lose my entire memory in the near future, I could reread this review in its entireity and feel like I've played through the entire experience all over again. I believe this game has been overlooked enough for how creative it is that it has earned a 9.0-worthy deep dive, even if I don't QUITE adore the game to those levels. I want to get into the nitty gritty super specific game details that may as well read lie a foreign language if you've never played the title just because I want to savior it for posterity. This game now joins the ranks alongside Paradise Killer & The Banner Saga of ridiculously niche titles that I will recommend at every turn to other players just so they can play something DIFFERENT. I hope you understand. Without further ado, away we go!

Isn't this game gorgeous? All of the colors are so eye-popping and distinct. If I love the way you look I can tolerate an awful lot of faults and forgive many transgressions

This Game Makes Me Sympathize With Archaeological Looting - That's a pretty jarring statement. Allow me to justifiy myself. I know what the correct answer is. In recent years, whether it be Iran or Kenya, many nations and I would say the majority of the public decided it wasn't very cash money of archaelogists from yesteryear to have waltzed into foreign nations and take many former treausres and historical evidence. Hell, the British Mueseum still gets on-going hell for this from Egypt. As someone who has plundered hundreds of islands over the course of the last 50 hours... I'm NOT saying it's right... But I AM saying I understand. Let me paint you the justification. You have just labored, agonizingly, across this brutal landscape surviving against dangerous and deadly wildlife, have lost one of your crew mates to a horrific incident, battered and bruised have wandered these miserable lands for upwards of 200 years and it has been NOTHING but a struggle to find what you set out for in the first place. Oh! There it is! The end goal marker! Oh hey, there's ashrine right before the exit! You have not been able to collect any valuables and the local village was kinda prickish with you earlier. You poke your head inside and realize an item worth 150+ FAME is just sitting there for the taking. What would you do? I'm sorry, I know what I sure as hell did, I went full Denzel Washington. Of course, this minor act of petty theft may have enacted a course on the entire island killing every living inhabitant but as they say, can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs!

The Wacky Scenarios This Game Can Put You In - I think my most lasting fond memory about the game is going to be the # of unique situations the game created that made it so very memorable. I'll just list a few more that happened to me. On my very 1st run, I had a lovely companion as a member in my crew known as Brother Henry. He was a missionary, which allowed me to get a free +19 sanity to my overall health and allowed me to rest for free at various missions scattered across the world. Brother Henry was an integral member to much of my success. He had fallen in love with my protagonist hunter and they made one hell of a duo. Sadly, tragically, the day before the VERY FINAL MISSION IN THE CAMPAIGN, he was STABBED TO DEATH before the final expedition. I thought this was a cruel trick the game pulled that in future playthroughs is a way for them to take out your most helpful companion. NOPE! I saw that scenario just one other time in 50+ hours of play. HORRIBLE luck and yet while I was no doubt peeved to be screwed by the RNG wheel, I was able to defy the odds and still finish the campaign successfully. There's so many more examples I could give. Many of your crew members will suffer from various ailments that if not cured while in Paris, could impact how you play on your expeditions. I didn't realize it, but I lost an incredibly valuable academy one run due to the fact they had a fear of butterflies and collecting them across the world causes them to suffer a -1 loyalty penalty. With 0 loyalty, crew members become angry and can leave at any given time. Pissed off, one evening they got up and left because they couldn't tolerate my obsession with "pretty-privilleged moths" as they put it.

My Personal Preferences While Playing - I figured now it's my duty to share the methods and tactics I most preferred while playing the game that allowed me to be successful the vast majority amount of time. We can actually break this down into a few categorizes between characters, equipment, ship provisions, and objectives I preferred.

Leaders / Crew Members:

#1. Big Game Hunter - At the end of the day, I feel like the most common way for you to fail a campign or run early is ultimately by getting murdered to death by dangerous animals on islands. OR during one of the Story Acts, not being able to defend yourself in the rare few situations you're forced to fight and don't get a lucky dice roll. The big game hunter gives you the advantage of having a leg-up in every fight if you aren't surprise attacked and allows you to quickly whittle down the opponent's health with a solid first hand dice roll.

#2. Hunting Dog - Hands down my favorite companion in the game. When I was just grinding through runs at the end just to finish up the remaining fame I needed to collect, I always tried to fill my party up with hunting dogs since they're the most low maintenance, deadliest crew members in the game. Animals in general (also donkeys) are great because 1) They don't require loyalty so they're not gonna get pissed you're mistreating them and up and leave. 2) They don't suffer a bunch of ailments like normal humans. 3) The hunting dog particularly has just 2 moves. A red bite dice roll which is solid but a WAY DEADLIER green dice roll counter attack move if a party member is damaged called "Protect the Master". A leveled up Hunting Dog is doing +90 damage with just 4 green dice powered up and that will annihilate the vast majority of enemies in the game. I love my dogs Mona & Willie who carried me on several runs.

#3. Cook - The cook may be an unusual crew member to list since their moves aren't particularly note worthy but their value goes up a bunch when paired with hunting dogs. Why? Because with 2 hunting dogs and frequently fighting deadly animals on islands you're exploring, you're going to rack up an awful lot of meat and quails. These, without a cook, heal very insignificantly your sanity. +1 and +3 at best. But with a cook? They get boosted up to +3 and +6. You can get through a whole run minimally using any items up if you're savvy about balancing your cook's perks with your hunting dogs ability to gather sanity increasing consumables.

#4. British Soldier - If you have a gun as an equipment item either bought from the shady dealer in Paris or found out on one of your expeditions, they can be super valuable given the +15% damage buff they get. Of course, the downside is bringing a Brit onto your crew.

#5. Academy Master - Absolutely saved me on my lunatic playthrough. On lower difficulties, this isn't too necessary, but on higher ones, the academy masters ability to generate random scrolls every X number of days can SAVE YOUR LIFE in a jiffy. Either plummeting a brutal enemy into the abyss or teleporting you across the map out of a dangerous encounter, I highly recommend having one personally during your lunatic playthrough.

Favorite Items / Ship Provisions

#1. Granola Bar / Chocolate / Hard Cheese - Well over 60% of my funds every expedition would be dedicated to stocking up on sanity refueling items. Granola Bar was my favorite as it healed +15 when under 100 sanity for the same cost of 10 gold coins as the other two items. You can also dabble in lemons and tin cans for a cheaper method of keeping your sanity up in a jiffy when you can't find a proper resting point or the fog is closing in and you can't rest and just need to power through to the finish.

#2. First Aid Kit / Torch - These items are just helpful because it's rare to go through a run where they're never needed. Torches will always prove valuable for finding secrets in a shrine or bypassing difficulty in a cave and the first aid kit comes in clutch if you're fighting a lot and risk infecting one of your crew members. If you don't heal them, they WILL die so getting perks that give you 1 for free pre-ship expenses is always a plus.

#3. Random Teleportation Scroll - I did not fully appreciate this scroll until my lunatic campaign run which I'll dive into more detail with later. Basically, this scroll is AMAZING because if you hit an impass of mountains you can't get around and KNOW FOR A FACT that an objective marker is beyond that, this scroll can easily see you well past it and avoid you needing to waste huge amounts of sanity going the long way.

#4. Cunning / Vigour / Understanding Tonics - These are always nice to have because you never know what you'll encounter on an expedition. Greens are incredibly useful for maximizing value at shrines. Blue can make you avoid a fight when talking to village folk. Red I found the most unnecessary with how typically aggressive a red-dice heavy my crew already was. If I ever had extra money, I'd stock up on these.

Main Objectives Ranked

#1. Take Survey Measurements - HANDS DOWN MY FAVORITE OBJECTIVE! Why? Because from the moment you land on the island, you know precisely where you need to go to complete the map. There is no confusion or helplessly wandering a massive map wodnering if you'll ever find the main goal. When trying to speedrun finish through the campaign for more fame or you just want an "easy" island between harder missions, take this every time.

#2. Find the Golden Pyramid - Only really easy early on. This simply requires you to find the main goal that's typically on the other side from where you intiate. Not too tricky once you get familiarty with how they're typically located. On harder difficulties, you may have to get 1, 2, or even 3 keys to "unlock it" which can be gathered from traders meeting with the ruler in a village, or looting it from a shrine.

#3. Enter the Buried Pyramid - Kind of a twist on the #2 formula. You've got to hit 2-3 location points on the map which unlock and reveal the buried pyramid. The advantage here is once you hit the seals that reveal it, the location is unlocked on your map.

#4. Decpier the Map - Very similar to #3, with the one caveat that once you find the various stone circles, there is no final marker to head towards.

#5. Find Lost Explorer - This one could be good or bad depending on your fortune. They can be found in many different areas. Camps, villages, shrines. You then have to go dig up a treasure already revealed on your map. Not TOO bad but sometimes you can get screwed and feel they're impossible to find.

#6. Prove the Legend - You have to go find and kill a monster. They're always in a mountain/cave. Not TOO bad but highly wouldn't recommend if you lack a crew that has the firepower to make kills fairly easily.

#7. Return the Rainbow Orchid - I hate this objective. Partially because it's one of the longest of any listed here to complete. First, you have to scour the entire map just to find the mountain containing the rainbow orchid. THEN, you have to go ALL THE WAY BACK to your ship while fighting tough enemies who hunt you down along the way. Quite laborious and would avoid at most turns.

#8. Find the Missing Missionary - Hands down the most obnoxious objective. I failed this so many times because unlike other objectives, this one is passively timed as the missionary dies if you don't locate him quickly enough. It's not a game over or anything but you can easily lose 30-40 minutes on a run with this and it just kinda sucks.

Island Types Ranked

#1. Jungle - The easiest island type to navigate. Not a lot of dangerous land traversal and best one to fly through the game.

#2. Prehistoric - INCREDIBLY dangerous between sulfur and tar and dinosaurs amongst other things. But I love the color on these maps so much and their variety is hands down some of the most fun to explore even if you could get really unlucky with how the map is divided up.

#3. Drylands - As you can imagine, traveling through sand can suck sometimes. Sandstorms suck. Bring a lot of water or else you're going to lose a lot of sanity very quickly. The one perk is that if you have items that increase view distance, you can scour the map very very quickly to locate the objective.

#4. Archipelago - This one's complicated. On one hand, it's basically mini-islands divdied up which doesn't take too long to explore. But if you choose incorrectly, due to the narrow pathways, if you lack a good relationship with the local ferry population (freaking salamanders), you may be looking at a run-ending failure as the objective was on the one REALLY FAR OFF island you chose not to explore and you have 1 chocolate bar left and are going to get almost your entire crew undoubtedly killed due to insanity. Play with caution.

#5. Caverns - I HATE CAVERNS. I NEVER CHOSE A CAVERNS MAP. They SUCK during the main story acts due to your limited visiion. I don't like the idea of being forced to take a bunch of torches with me. I NEVER picked them when given the choice on any of my campaigns voluntarily.

Combat in the game is incredibly straightforward. Kill the enemy before they kill you. Upgrade your characters levels so your dice hit consistently vs. falling empty w/ blanks.

Analyzing Some of the Fluff Systems - While I've played the game plenty up until this point, I do feel the need to acknowledge that it's far from perfect. There's a whole lot of stuff in this game that feels like filler items or features to sort of pad out the actual real complexity. I'll give a few examples. I thought the idea of choosing a club before each expedition would be quite neat. This is done in Paris. You can either pick Royal Avalon (kinda hot exotic lady), Lux Labs (robot bro), or Taishi Academy (bald dragon bro). I went with Taishi Academy. I think I picked the best one given the scroll unlocks & academy master. But once I went with him, there was very little incentive to go elsewhere. You just get their level rank up to max and that's just kinda it... you can scoop up certain items sure but I never felt the need to. A lot of the items in general just have different skins or looks for the purpose of looking different. The vast majority of items I never touched. I found the expedition type variety to be lacking. This gets us into a deeper problem found in the next paragraph

The Game Doesn't Have a 50-Hours Worth of Material - Sadly, once I had played through the game's campaign once and got the bulk majority of trophies and played a few different play-styles, I started to see a lot of the unique scenarios from earlier repeat themselves. Eventually, you'll hit a point of turning your brain into autopiliot. "Oh hey this is the village question where they ask me to pick between a cowherd or a farmer. I've heard it 5 times." "Oh this is the event at night that gives my crew member X ailment. Aight, skip through it." "Oh this shrine consequence doesn't require me to read the whole paragraph just find the one word chasm/water and I know what'll happen next." This criticsm if repetition could be launched at any game if you play it long enough. The key difference is, the NARRATIVE & STORIES built around Curious Expedition 2 is the REASON why you're here. I can see repeittive elements in Dead Cells. That's fine. I'm not there for the stories created, I'm there to twiddle my thumbs like a mad man and always have an exhiliarating gameplay experience. CE2 doesn't have that advantage. Once I've seen these stories and scenarios before, the overall quality takes a hit since there's no extra thing to latch on to that makes it feel refreshing or exciting. To my slight surprise, the developers actually have come out with 3 DLCs for the game. Highlands of Avalon, Shores of Taishi, & Robots of Lux. All club focused. Unfortunatly, I didn't realize this 'til well after I was near the finish. I liked the game enough that I kind of wished I had bought 1-2 ahead of time to see if they offered new encounters and spiced up the original game's formula. Maybe you, the reader, can have that experience and be the first to write about it!

More Ambition In This Genre of Game - I think part of the reason I enjoyed this game so much is because it felt so refreshingly different. They didn't decide to go down the exact same route of so many other games and make a real-time combat focused roguelite that's in the mold of so many other titles. They tried to create a world and scenario and that's so unique. Playing as an explorer. Unventured lands. Trying to make sense of everything and survive in the process regardles of what difficulties the player may face. I think the key to making this game bigger and better is just making MORE of it. Adding even more encounter possibilities. Making sure that there's a certain counter to "meta" tactics to ensure the player stays on their toes and freshly engaged as opposd to resorting to the same old methods. I would absolutely love to see these developers get a 3rd crack at this sort of game. The original Curious Expedition is also available on PS4. I didn't decide to scoop it up since the art seemed paltry to this one by comparison, and the majestic artwork of this game is what prompted me to give it some run in the first place. Could you imagine what these folks could do with a 3rd game? I just don't know if the game has received the necessary love toe ven make that possible.

I used to think the salamanders were a pretty cool people. Then I decided to play Act 3, Island 1 on lunatic mode where I steal a great crystal from there. These mfers move like Tyreek goddamn man I hate it here

My Platinum Experience - If you're anything like me, venturing into a game where the achievers are few and far between can be a bit daunting. If few people have passed this test, who's to say I'm up to the challenge? I did my preliminary research as always. I checked out the Steam guide. I checked out TrueAchievements. Some of them were helpful. Some weren't. Some didn't have any trophy help whatsoever. As I've been baptized in the fires that is this game, it is my honor to now lay down the road map for you in your journey to the platinum. 1) Just complete the campaign once. Super simple. Get your feet wet. Don't worry if you die and fail. No need to reload. Just learn the mechanics, find strategizes you like, and eventually you'll hit the mountaintop. Once you're done with that, 2) Complete Director Mode. I haven't talked about director mode up until now. Basically, it's a way to compelte the game that doesn't have the obligatory story missions found in the campaign. You go to random islands and must compelte the same objective. Not TOO difficult You need to complete 6 years instead of 4 years. You need to play 10 years cumultaively. I can confirm this does NOT need to be done in one playthrough. You can compelte it, start a totally different run, and when you've hit 10 years across all playthroughs in this mode, the trophy will unlock. 3) Go back and get some campaign-specific trophies. One of these could be the pacfiist trophy for example where you don't kill anything, not even during story missions, for the entire runtime. Flee battles. Be friendly with townsfolk. Make sure you get plenty of green/blue dice in your crew so you can bypass the necessary clutch dice rolls and avoid being forced into any fights. We'll talk Lunatic later. 4) Keep your eye out for unique trophies / ones to work towards. Let's cover that in the next paragraph.

Trophies to Constantly Work Towards - These are just trophies you should always keep an eye out for while naturally completing the game as it helps you work towards them across your entire experience vs. needing to grind them at the end. 1) "Everything is FINE..." & "Abominable Hunger". I combine these two together because essentially, you need to intentionally sabotage a run to compelte them. Getting 6+ ailments on a normal character is hard. But in campaign mode, you sometimes have a story character, Victoria Mallin, accompany you. She CANNOT die. So basically, drain your sanity, suffer through many same scenarios, and hopefully, you'll get it. I had to get 8+ on my Victoria since I guess injured doesn't count? You have to get ones like pyromaniac, kleptomaniac, paranoid, etc... As for the other trophy, if a character in your cew ever gets a strange bite mark, KEEP THEM IN YOUR PARTY because they'll eventually turn, keep them in your crew, and let them eat a crew member and the trophy is yours. 2) "It's Not Too Late". I hunted this VERY early as the circumstances are very unique. You need to find an island that has Pale Mask members. You need to hope there's 2 villages on the island. 1) Recruit a member from one village by getting +3 standing with the ruler. 2) Go to the other village, steal the ritual mask. 3) Go through the guaranteed portal on the island. 4) Place the mask at a shrine. I'm not smart and did not discover that on my own, I followed the wiki instructions. 3) "X marks the spot". Find 50 buried treaure. This one isn't too bad. I personally did this with the "Plunderer" class that has a perk that lets you get a treausre map every map. You can even do another class which unlocks that from the start. Also, if you ever see any friendly pirates talk to them and trade for 2 treasure maps + shovels. Doing the locate explorer objective and village quests for artifacts also boosts this number. Everything else (killing 100 hyenas, completing 20 village quests, collecting 50 butterflies) all just takes some small amount of focus each run and you'll gather them well before you're in the home stretch for the plat.

Lunatic Campaign Mode - Good lord. This freaking trophy. Alright. This is hands down the hardest trophy in the game. Quite simply because the developers hate you. The maps on lunatic mode are MASSIVE. This sucks because it makes the mere act of complting the objective before running super low on sanity excruiatingly difficult. I honestly think there are some maps that if you simply get unlucky and chose the wrong direction, you're screwed. No amount of resting points or food provision items will save you. Enemies hit like a truck. The mentality here that you need to adopt is that found in college basketball during March Madness. Survive and advance. It doesn't matter if it's ugly. You can lose nonessential crew, scoop up 0 fame, loot very little from shrines, the idea is to stay alive and keep your most essential crew members healthy. Make Cloud back-up saves before going out on random expeditions. During the story mode runs, BE PREPARED. Act 1 has 2 islands. They're not so bad. You may have to kill a harsh hyaena or not depending on if you have the necessary blue dice to get the village ruler to talk. It's never too bad. The caverns can be obnoxious but managable. For me, BY FAR the worst of it was found on Act 3, Island 1. The mole people (oh yea, there are mole people in this game), want you to steal a great crystal from the salamander shrine. You MUST do this. The downside is you will instantly get -10 standing with the salamander folk who will hunt you down from heaven and earth to murder you for this injustice. These salamnders hit like Steve Atwater. FLEE EVERY FIGHT. DO NOT ENGAGE. It took me 40+ minutes of trying to complete this between failing 30% flee chances and just trying to keep my good crew members (academy master, 2x hunting dogs) alive. I recommend taking items that distract or lure off enemies. Having teleportation scrolls is a huge plus. Act 4 is long but no mandatory fights as long as you play well. I have some more specific details in the spoiler. Good luck, you're gonna need it.

The Grind Finale - Congratulations. You have completed every single trophy in the game. Except... you don't have the platinum yet. Why is that? Well, even after I compelted MANY years of Director Mode, saw every Campaign ending, and even did some miscallenous runs to grind for some of the final few unique trophies, I still didn't have enoiugh for the final "I Set Forth Again... and Again.... and Again" 100k fame trophy. You earn fame during runs. Both campaign + direcitor mode count towards this. In the campaign, if I wasn't looting many shrines, I'd earn between 5-7k for a full run. On aggressive runs, I could earn as high as 10-11k. In director mode, while you're completing 2 extra years, you don't have to do any of the obligatory stort act missions. I would consistently earn between 10-12k. By the time I finished every other trophy, I was at 81k. I decided to put my head down and blaze through Director Mode with my most well-trusted methods, items, and strategizes. All in all, it took me around 2 hours & 40 minutes to earn 10k fame looting and leaving local village folk crying in their wake. Not TOO bad of a final grind all things considered. I did a 2nd run and finished "early" I guess as I didn't even finish the campaign and the trophy unlocked. It's not the prettiest way to finish a game I enjoyed but I'll gladly take it. I ultimately earned the 3.50% rarity ultra rare platinum in 1 week and 6 days. This makes me the FASTEST 100% ACHIEVER IN PSNPROFILES HISTORY! HANG THE BANNER!

Would I recommend Curious Expedition 2? Absolutely. I don't care that this game isn't perfect. I understand for most other games I would qualify this with "yanno if you don't like roguelites you probably wouldn't want to strap yourself into a 50+ hour experience like this". I don't care. i want more people to paly this game. I want more people to have their own funny anecdotes with their crew or an island they encountered and how they heroically or hilariously failed or succeeded in their quest for glory. It deserves that sort of love. My final point would be this. Never underestimate how powerful a game LOOKS can be for roping in players. If this game had an artwork or plastic look that I didn't vibe with, I would have never touched it. But it is so beautifully lushly crafted that I couldn't help but dive head first into it. Those German artists deserve a raise! That's all from me. We'll be back to some more regualarly scheduled shorter reviews for the foreseeable future. Until then!

Panda Score: 7.93 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 5.68 / 10

Panda Time to Platinum: 51 hours

Spoiler

Curious Expedition 2 Notes

Date: October 7th, 2023
* I am going in 1000000% blind… kinda nervous that this is a bust but let’s find out!
* We’ve got quotes for loading screens!
* “Making fewer moves is more efficient”, 100 sanity to start
* OKAY WHAT THE HECK.. first vignette pretty decent finding a small local tribe, getting to know the leader, trading, finding old purple worship thing and all of a sudden purple fog ENVELOPED THE ENTIRE ISLAND and we escaped fighting a gigantic spider
* The Paris, France art is gorgeous man 1886
* WOOHOO WE DID THE FIRST EXPEDITION SUCCESSFULLY BABY!!!!
* Alright I’m seeing the gameplay loop, it’s… interesting
* Dope we finished Act 1 and didn’t let Sacagewea body us
* Brother Henry got a crush on me….
* This game has turned me into a colonizing monster killing elephants and desecrating shrines
* NOOOO WE LOST BROTHER HENRY STABBED TO DEATH IN A BAR BEFORE FINAL EXPEDITION MONA THE DAWG
* Gave healing kit to Sacagewea that b…
* Ayyyy we finished the 1st campaign! Key and the final pyramid for act 4, saved Malin, not bad
* 19/61 trophies earned
* Alright… did 2 director runs and died 2-3 years in. 2nd one I died since I rushed hard for opportunistic pale mask member cure go to one village and recruit and another to steal the mask and then through the portal so I think it was worth it
* Abomination mess around with the fog… good to know
* Finally finished the Director mode… I presume you get the 10 years playing in Endless? At least I’m going to try that playing 5 more years…
* Okay I just earned the 10 years trophy after completing my first endless so I don’t actually think this needs to be done in one consecutive legacy, just cumulatively across all playthroughs
* Act 1 Island 1, Speak to Locals, go to Village, either blue dice roll or kill animal, then next island you just need to find the Palio gate
* Act 2 fairly standard tracking Victoria’s tracks, part 2 is the caverns, find her in mole area, portal, then go back to entrance
* Act 3, 3 islands, rendezvous with moles, get great crystal, 3 green dice to sneak past, piss off all islanders when obtained and run back to moles, Island 2 is caverns, pissed off moles over crystal, find stones to reveal portal, island 3 scatter old island for old ship and 3 repair parts
* Act 4, have to take side in war and do 3 things including a fight, need 3 blue dice roll for that so important to keep in mind, island 2 is easy get key mechanisms and then find cave, island 3 is about going through fog and gathering the remaining key mechanisms to reveal being engine
* Okay the pacifist run wasn’t so bad playing as an anthropologist, fairly do-able just avoiding attention and fleeing from all fights along with some clutch supplementary items in bottles for dice green/blue during Act levels
* Down to the final few trophies… got the ailments with Victoria just tottering about in Act 1 final mission, the abomination bite, several others didn’t take too long now I just got grinding treasures with explorer, racking up fame, and the lunatic mode and we’ve got this!
* At 75k fame now after finishing up director mode plundered run + treasure map perk to wrap that bad boy up. Just missing 2 trophies now, the lunatic play through and 100k fame shouldn’t take THAT long
* Lunatic mode is all about survive and advance, start travel cost is SUPER costly to sanity so there’s not time to dilly dally finding the objective, compasss takes forever to locate, have to reset sometimes if get unlucky I’m rolling hunter + 2 hunting dogs, an oryx, and rotating 3rd member
* GOOD LORD OKAY ACT 3 3 ISLANDS WAS BRUTAL. 1st island I did not take some items to ward off enemies and that is VERY annoying when Tyreek Hill fast salamanders come for your head wanting that damn crystal. Took like 45 min of reloads. 2nd island wasn’t too bad in careen finding circle and then portal. 3rd island had to scout out first run all 3 ship parts and the ship itself and did it 2nd try while losing the cook Claudia. SO MANY BLOODY INFECTIONS, 6 islands left and we’re done with this godforsaken trophy
* Okay the 3 islands building up to ACT 4 weren’t that bad the magically scrolls are AMASZING for jumping around very quickly in a jiffy
MASTERFUL 1st island sided with the moles and everything worked beautifully used 3 magic scrolls as since it’s an archipelago was able to jump across with ease even without the ferry
* Impetus -40% initial travel cost perk also working wonders for me
* WE DID IT!!! Wow that was shockingly way easier… the scrolls helped. Lots of healing. +100 from financier, awesome job by me got 5k legacy so now to grind the final 20k in director mode
* 2 hour 40 min for 10k in director… at 92k fame, got one more in me!
* Ayyy plat popped early at just 5.2k for me in director mode midway through still had a few islands left to finish the campaign! What a run!

Platinum_Vice · October 24, 2023

*Opens wishlist*

pelagia14 · October 24, 2023

Ever since I first saw the game's gorgeous art in your signature, I've been eagerly awaiting this review to see how the game itself holds up!

3 hours ago, realm722 said:

I believe this game has been overlooked enough for how creative it is that it has earned a 9.0-worthy deep dive, even if I don't QUITE adore the game to those levels. I want to get into the nitty gritty super specific game details that may as well read lie a foreign language if you've never played the title just because I want to savior it for posterity. This game now joins the ranks alongside Paradise Killer & The Banner Saga of ridiculously niche titles that I will recommend at every turn to other players just so they can play something DIFFERENT. I hope you understand. Without further ado, away we go!

I was excited when you talked about the hilariously chaotic situations and trophy list encouraging different playstyles, but the above paragraph is when I really started to be sold! Since I don't have personal income right now I need to be conservative about when I purchase new games - my husband recently bought AC Mirage and Spider-Man 2, though, so this is a high contender for something to treat myself with! (Ironically, another one on the list is also a story-driven adventure with a unique art style from a German studio, so maybe I'll be bad and get them both! 😂)

3 hours ago, realm722 said:

More Ambition In This Genre of Game - I think part of the reason I enjoyed this game so much is because it felt so refreshingly different. They didn't decide to go down the exact same route of so many other games and make a real-time combat focused roguelite that's in the mold of so many other titles. They tried to create a world and scenario and that's so unique. Playing as an explorer. Unventured lands. Trying to make sense of everything and survive in the process regardles of what difficulties the player may face. I think the key to making this game bigger and better is just making MORE of it. Adding even more encounter possibilities. Making sure that there's a certain counter to "meta" tactics to ensure the player stays on their toes and freshly engaged as opposd to resorting to the same old methods. I would absolutely love to see these developers get a 3rd crack at this sort of game. The original Curious Expedition is also available on PS4. I didn't decide to scoop it up since the art seemed paltry to this one by comparison, and the majestic artwork of this game is what prompted me to give it some run in the first place. Could you imagine what these folks could do with a 3rd game? I just don't know if the game has received the necessary love toe ven make that possible.

I love games that truly go out and do something different instead of sticking to "tried and true" video game formulas! Speaking of Paradise Island that you brought up, I played the game a few weeks ago and was blown away by how confidently unique it was. Just like you go on to say in your recommendation section, it doesn't matter to me if a game is a 10/10 'perfect' game if it provides a solid, unique experience.

The first Curious Expedition has a free online demo that you can check out, if at some point you feel curious but want to first see if it's worth paying for. Apparently the game was made entirely in HTML5 (or at least the demo), which blows my mind either way. The developers also wrote a really interesting case study about the success of their first game over the course of 8 years, and while the developers are not rich the game itself was profitable. They seem to have a strong PC base, since it took over 5 years before the first game ended early access and was brought to consoles, so we might be fortunate enough to see what they can do with a third game!

realm722 · October 27, 2023

Game: Minute of Islands (Mosey Adventure / Narrative)

Analysis: I bought Minute of Islands when it was on sale for $4.99 back in mid-September 2023. Back-to-back games from German indie studios is a neat coincidence!

Why Minute of Islands? As stated in my Curious Expedition 2 review, it takes some properly good artwork for a game to stand out amongst the hundreds to thousands I scroll through during a normal game sale dump. Minute of Islands had that special trait. I was curious what the girl with the long hair and yellow toilet paper roll tube top and her little companion would find on a journey. I'll admit that I will make purchases entirely based on artwork if I like it enough. Zero research as to the type of game or even so much as glance at a little 2-minute review of the game on YouTube because I know if I DID do that, I'd probably psych myself out of playing it and back off. Unfortunately, I kind of wish I had done so in this case.

Let Me Be Nice and Praise the Visuals - If you are somebody who is capable of enjoying a game that has virtually zero merit gameplay-wise and could be experienced in just about the same fashion via a YouTube Longplay, I think you could find yourself enjoying this game. The artwork is fantastic. Whether it be the whimsical islands and all of the colorful decor OR some of the gigantic creatures that roam the archipelago, the game on multiple occasions had me stop and say: "holy crap that looks awesome" whether it be passing through a dead whale who's guts had splattered outward OR running into some of the gigantic behemoths and their connected systems in the underworld. The art design 100% lived up to the hype I set for myself in my head, I just, yanno, wish they had actually done SOMETHING with it in terms of making it an enjoyable game.

The Most Boring Game I've Played In 2023 - I'm sorry y'all. I used the B-word. Which is just about the most damning statement a player can make against a game that automatically turns off others from ever wanting to engage with it. I am 100% okay with games trying to slow-roll their stories. I'm 100% cool with a game being primarily narrative-focused. I've played a handful this year. Last Day of June & Tangle Tower just to name a few. While I didn't LOVE either of those games, they each did a few things that I enjoyed. I can't name of a single thing that I liked in Minute of Islands apart from the visuals. The fact this game advertises itself as a "puzzle-platformer" is absolutely ridiculous. Where is the platforming? Where are the puzzles? I will describe what you will do for the vast majority of this game You only ever move in a 2D space with some slight verticality on platforms to reach new layers of terrain. Sometimes you'll be running left, sometimes you'll be running right. The game is incredibly straightforward and there is maybe 3 sections in the whole game that require any amount of timing to actually navigate past that could even liberally be called "platforming". As for puzzles, what? You do the same 3 moves every time in this game. Holt RT, click O, click it a few times to crank. Go over to the floor button. Hold LT+RT, guide O over to whatever you need to point the orb at and pulsate O a few times. THAT'S IT. THERE ARE NO PUZZLES. THAT ISN'T EVEN REALLY A PUZZLE. Honestly, it's a bit of a relief that this game doesn't try to pad itself with any gimmicks because somehow, they managed to make a 4-hour play-time for the platinum feel like 12 hours. It is so agonizingly slow. Who are these super long drawn-out boat ride segments with zero narration for? Literally every time you make me sit there and stare is just another window you're giving me to get on my phone and refresh r/NBA & r/NFL for more sports news. WHY IS THERE A STUPID DELAY EVERY TIME YOU ENTER AND EXIT A "CRAWL THROUGH" TUNNEL? It's small crap like this that makes your feel-good cutesy cozy narrative story turn into an absolute slog.

I've Never Had Less Patience For This Sorta Game - I'm sorry for being so mean. I don't like coming across as such a grouch. Especially for a relatively kind game like this that enjoys setting the table with it's pleasant narration and simple story beats. But I think I've realized I just can't play these sorts of titles anymore. I need to be doing something constantly to keep me engaged. I'm not going to write off ALL mosey adventure games, but it needs to be something like Firewatch that has received praise for enough years to finally get me to check it out. I'm going to be especially careful in the future over puzzle games as well. It needs to be something special like a Return of the Obra Dinn for me to decide to take a flyer on it. For as much as Aztech Forgotten Gods did not live up to the hype, at the very least it had a fun movement system that kept me preoccupied and ALLOWED you to skip past all of the dialogue. Minute of Islands doesn't. It wants you to stew through every slow second. And I HATE soup.

Would I recommend Minute of Islands? Absolutely not. If you're somebody who has the patience for these sorts of stories, I have nothing but praise for you. I wish I could enjoy them. But as the years have wore on, I think I've realized that anything that doesn't keep my thumbs preoccupied is going to have to be REALLY good to keep me from checking out mentally. OR there needs to be some incentive to pay attention such as a branching narrative where I'll have to make decisions at the very least as opposed to just gliding through the game without ever caring one iota about the story or the girl trying to get everything working again. In hindsight, I guess going 50% on hits of blindly being captivated by remarkable German artistic design isn't so bad in the grand scheme of things. We're winding down to the final two months of the calendar year. I'm going to bust out one more potential banger that I have in the backlog to see if anything can give Neon White a run for its money. (Spoiler: Nothing probably can but we've gotta keep the people guessing cuz that's show biz baby).

Panda Score: 5.21 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 1.6 / 10

Panda Time to Platinum: 4 hours

Cassylvania · October 27, 2023

11 hours ago, realm722 said:

Would I recommend Minute of Islands? Absolutely not.

Thanks for taking the bullet on this one. I had been looking at it. Graphics remind me of Adventure Time, which is probably what caught my eye, but I was holding off until I heard more about the game. I think I’ve heard enough. Game selection is too big these to settle for mediocrity.

realm722 · November 2, 2023

Game: The Fall (Puzzle / Action (Simple))

Analysis: I bought The Fall when it was on sale for $1.99 literally this very week. The incredibly rare purchase and play move by yours truly!

Why The Fall? Yea, there's absolutely no reason to overcomplicate this. I was looking through my backlog and realized that my 100% catalog has run damn near completely dry. It was either play yet another game from Lienzo (Hunter's Legacy) for another month in a row OR fork over some money for the DLC in the Little Nightmares catalog. Rather than doing either I scraped the bottom of the barrel from this most recent sale and got the cheapest 100% I thought could be completed fairly quickly. Hence, The Fall!

Menus & Interactions - The premise of the game is very straightforward. You play as a highly intelligent AI and are thrown into a world where you need to figure out what the hell is going on. This game was originally released back in 2014 believe it or not so it's damn near a decade old. That was the year other indie titles such as Shovel Knight and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter were released. So I shouldn't be too surprised to say: "damn, this feels a bit outdated." You always move in a 2D side-scrolling fashion but in order to actually interact with things you need to point your flashlight at it. The game is heavy on "look around for stuff you can pick up and reasonably use the thing you just picked up with this previous thing you couldn't interact with". Still, I'll give the game some credit. It has a pretty fun section where you're tasked with completing a number of domestic jobs. These include such options as going to get groceries, stopping a baby from crying, helping an old lady across the street, and so forth. The funny thing is, there are no "real" people in this game. They're all made out of cardboard. So the solutions to those problems are 1) leaving a rotting human head as a meal for the family which is still considered nutritious, 2) sucking up a baby into an elimination vacuum which does in fact stop the crying, 3) letting the old lady get hit by a car and then picking up the cardboard and taking it to the final sensor for completion. The game pulls off comedy pretty well with lines from the cardboard humans congratulating you for completing the tasks so creatively.

There's Combat In This? - Oddly enough, yea, there is. Whenever I play a game like this that's heavily reliant on puzzles or some "adventure game" elements I feel like it's a foregone conclusion that the developers punted on ever having combat or real-time action gameplay. Yet this game tries to pull it off! It's not very good of course, but I admire the ambition! Not too far into the game you'll pick yourself up a gun and by clicking inward on the right analog stick, you can switch between your flashlight and gun for when slow-moving robotic drones decide to fire back at you. Just go for headshots. They're really not ever all that threatening and even if you play super lazily never using cover and just standing out in broad daylight taking shot after shot, your shield and life pool regenerate enough that you should be fine. Heck, even if you do die, the game is generous with checkpoints with no penalty whatsoever.

The 100% Completion Journey - There's a surprisingly large amount of trophies for a 100% list with 17 in total. I figured I'd make mention of a few of them. If you just want to breeze through the game in as quickly a fashion as possible, feel free to follow this 45-minute completion guide. Bro is incredibly straightforward and wastes very little time dilly-dallying. One trophy that gave me a bit of trouble and seems to also be a bit of a hassle for others is the "Military Machine" trophy which I'm still not entirely sure what the pop requirements are other than killing a series of enemies in VERY quick succession. What helped me the most was this video where the guy waits until pretty late before deciding to snipe one robot after another and the moment I did it that way it popped. It may take you a few attempts but it isn't glitched and should eventually pop with enough persistence. Aside from that, you're looking at a cakewalk the rest of the way outside of two-timing trophies. At the end, there's a decision that needs to be made that branches off. Shoutout to @i-kicked-a-brit for mentioning in the trophy thread that you can quit out as soon as it pops and upon returning still get the trophy for Merciless sparing you the need to do an entirely extra playthrough. Of course, you could always make a Cloud/USB save right beforehand and also earn it that way once you get one ending. I earned the 14.85% 100% completion in 1 hour and 56 minutes.

Would I recommend The Fall? Maybe? I don't think you're missing out on some otherwordly experience if you decide to pass over this one. The game definitely shows its age and despite some of the neat sci-fi elements, I don't think it's anything you haven't seen before. I'll probably most remember the game for getting a few proper chuckles out of me for the various tasks that needed to be completed. At the very end of the game, it says "congrats for completing Part 1" and I honestly thought the developers would be a one-and-done since I had never heard of the game before finding it deep on sale. I was wrong! The developers, Over the Moon (based out of Vancouver, Canada) are still making and creating games to this day! They even released The Fall: Part 2 back in 2018! They had a 3rd game, The Last Hero of Nostalgaia release exclusively on Xbox in 2022. Good for them!

Panda Score: 6.06 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.2 / 10

Panda Time to Platinum: 2 hours

realm722 · November 12, 2023

Game: Nobody Saves the World (Limited World / Action (Complex)) (10,000th Trophy)

Analysis: I bought NStW when it was on sale for $14.99 back in mid-April 2023 and paid an additional $4.99 for the Frozen Hearth DLC.

Why Nobody Saves the World? I've been looking forward to playing this game for quite some time! The developers, DrinkBox Studios, are the creators behind Guacamelee 1 as well as Guacamelee 2! Two Metroidvanias which I thoroughly enjoyed back in my far less experienced days of playing games from a variety of genres. To give you an idea, I earned those platinums back in May and July of 2019. The pandemic hasn't ocurred and Jimmy Butler had not played a single game in a Miami Heat jersey yet. I'll admit that back then I didn't really take any mental note of what video game studios created what games I enjoyed. Only much latter, when I saw the game being previewed as well as being reviewed in high regard, did I make the connection that: "oh hey this is made from the Guacamelee dudes? I've gotta check it out!". Hence paying a more premium value than I normally do for games.

I'm Immediately Overwhelmed - Hands down the sensation that I will most remember from this game when I first began playing it is finally totally out of my depth from the sheer amount of stuff you can feel free to accomplish. You see, the game is slightly structured at first making sure you learn the basic controls, but everything after that is really left to the player's discretion. Nobody Saves the World's big trick is form shifting. You don't play as just one, two, three, or four characters. You play upwards of 20. Each of these forms have unique movesets. Some melee, some ranged, some utility, along with varying skills and stats and passive abiliities. When you first unlock these characters, they'll all be "F rank" and with usage of accomplishing various goals the game sets for you at a CONSTANT flow, you can raise that character's grade up to S rank. It's also essential that you do this because by completing minor goals for each character, you obtain stars. Stars are necessary to unlock the doors to the biggest dungeons in the game. Without them, you can't progress the main story as they serve as a progress blcoker of sorts until you've used enough characters in enough varied enough fashions that they trust you to progress. The fact the game also lets you to choose whether you want to explore right or left and navigate many of the game's delightfully colored landscapes and intracacies is just another element you'll need to juggle amongst everything else.

Oh No, This Game Has Its Talons In Me - Once you get past the initial pressure of: "oh man am I balacing enough characters equally, am I doing any of this right?" you'll realize the game is remarkably generous with a lot of what it asks the player. Honestly, the path I went for is to try and get most forms up to at least C-rank and then from there do what was necessary to unlock the next layer of forms. I did all of this while exploring the open world, tackling side dungeons, and completing side quests from many of the oddball characters you'll encounter in your journey. Oh no, I realized. I REALLY like this gameplay loop. If you are someone who's brain absolutely loves being dripfed constant progression, quivers with the slightest bit of pleasure at having fully checked everything off a check-list, or quite simply loves seeing small number become big number, this game is for YOU. It's like the developers looked at everything from casinos to gacha games on what makes the human mind tick towards obsession but rather than use their powers for evil they decide to make this pretty awesome, relatively edible single-player game and I'm pretty thankful to them for deciding to fictionally save the world as opposed to using our reality to end some of it.

The Fun Mixing & Matching - Surprise! There's a very crucial core element of the game that I haven't quite talked about yet. So you know how there's that one form in your lineup who you don't really care for much outside of one ability they have? Nobody Saves the World gives you the option to switch and swap all secondary and terciary powers of characters at your own discretion. The amount of customization this game allows you to get wild with is mental. Now, this doesn't ultimately make all forms redundant either. Each character will maintain their signature move (either a melee or ranged attack, always costs 0 mana) along with one locked in passive ability. But everything else? You can flip flop to other forms to your heart's content! The game will occasionally challenge you with this when it comes to certain "puzzles" so to speak. I'll list one example here since I honestly had to look up the answer on google since I was perplexed and then everything clicked going forward since it was so early in the game. In The Knights Guild (which you can join very early on), there will be a character called the Rat Destroyer. He only fights rats. (There's a rat form y'all). It does not mater if you have full health, he will one-shot your character. Unless... you equip a passive ability you earn from the Egg form that makes it so that you can never lose more than 1/3 of your health from a single hit! Badda boom badda bing! The game teaching you that even outside of combat your build matters! Experiment! Get creative! See what works! Are y'all starting to see why I enjoyed this?

My Favorite Forms / Items / Power-Ups Ranked - For games that I particularly enjoy, I don't mind getting into the nitty gritty details about what strategizes I found myself having the most success with. It's honestly quite fun as years down the line, I've had the experience with past games where I'll remember having throoughly enjoyed it, but not what I LITERALLY did in-game. Then I'll read an old review and go: "lmao that's right I did do that, that was so OP". Therefore, let me just rip through my favorite methods while playing.

My Favorite Forms

#1. Dragon (the final 18th form you'll unlock in the main game. It has devastating talons for signatures, it flies, and you can tell why it's last cuz it feels OP)
#2. Bodybuilder (super fun signature to bash enemies into the wall, ridiculous ability to flex and do a ridiculous high amount of damage constantly while spinning)

#3. Horse (not for combat, but my fave utility character. Gallop is so much fun with how you FLY across the entire map, you'll use it on so many characters)

#4. Guard (I loved this form early on before it got phased out due to better characters later. Def my MVP in the early game cuz of Bravado+Stomp does wide range dmg)

#5. Rogue (Fairly quick character who throws out a ton of knives and being able to clock & dagger for huge damage is a ton of fun)

My Favorite Passive Abilities

#1. Fleet Footed (purchased from vendor) - (Oh my goodness I LOVE this. You can make the slower, bulkier forms so much more playable with this, MUST have)

#2. Quick Cooldown (purchased from vendor) - (Totally OP. You get your cooldowns reduced so extremely that it just cracks certain builds)

#3. Melee Mitigation (purchased from vendor) - (Just a good raw upgrade to any form, maxed out reduces damage by melee attacks by 30%)

#4. Ranged Resistance (purchased from vendor) - (Same thing as above except for ranged attacks, good since game lacks a dedicated dodge)

#5. Stun Power (Magician) - (Slowly builds stun on enemies with each attack, nothing better than piñata enemy to wail away at)

My Favorite Active Abilities

#1. Ravager Rocket (Robot) - (Unlocked towards the end of the game and so OP. Guaranteed crit huge damage from just a bit of diatance, ANNIHILATES bosses)

#2. Hat Trick (Magician) - (Familiars lowkey do mad damage in this game, with a strong mana pool, you can sit back and just let them destroy everything)

#3. Gallop (Horse) - (Allows you to absolutely fly through the map and it is so fun to see squishy enemies go poof by barrelling into them)

#4. Stomp (Knight) - (One of my favorite moves in the early game, has great AoE and nothing better than being surrounded on all sides and busting this bad boy out)

#5. Dodge (Ranger) - (Without another dedicated dodge button, the dodge allows you actually play somewhat defensively avoiding attacks vs. tanking hits)

#6. Water Spray (Turtle) - (Possibly my favorite light attack in the entire game, quick and you can rapidly rotate to break wards off enemies if needed)

#7. Flex (Bodybuilder) - (Another one that's great for quickly whittling down bosses or elite enemies with huge pools of health)

Let's Talk About the Difficulty - In a game so heavily built around progression and unlocking the next thing which is better than the previous thing... how does difficulty work in Nobody Saves the World? Well, if you're here for intense one-on-one fights where you need to learn attack patterns, you're not gonna find it. The difficulty found in the game isn't so much a skill based one as much as it is a puzzled based one. Many dungeons will have certain rules or wards that make them distinct. Your challenge is to find a build or multiple forms suitable for that challenge and the actual practice of carrying that out shouldn't be too difficult. Even though I understand this may be a detriment to some (I know it'd be a detriment to me if I hadn't played it), kinda think of this game as 2D Dungeon Crawler Dynasty Warriors. There will be HUGE swarms of enemies. But their attacks on an individual level aren't anything to fret over. You're MEANT to tank hit after hit. The question is if you can eat it and do enough sufficient damage on the other side. The game is also generous in the sense that once you get to the final room right before the boss fight, the game offers a teleporter. If you die at the boss room, you don't have to navigate the whole dungeon again but rather can teleport straight to the final fight upon reentry. That's so kind of them! If you're here for intense gameplay, you're not gonna find it. Some rooms can be challenging and there were absolutely some dungeon walls I hit where I died 5-6 times but by playing a bit more cautiously, you can always get through it.

I Actually Enjoyed Exploring/Discovery - In so many games, I find the exploration part to be one of the aspects that appeals far less to me than most other players. Yet for whatever reason, I really liked it in Nobody Saves the World. Once you have enough forms unlocked and get to the second set of obligatory main story dungeons, the entire map is free to explore. It was a joy for me to go through every rectangle divided part of the map and go scurrying up and down every map to try and find any paths I may have missed. The game will frequently hide some chests or a collectible away in a tucked off corner but never makes it so hidden that you'll be forced to resort to a guide. Well, at least outside of one instance. Aside from that though, going through hidden water passages as a turtle to unlock previous gates, finding a hidden bird's nest for the egg, or stumbling upon a goofy NPC, the developers made the open world enjoyable to explore that it's a compliment that while doing these sections I wasn't just thinking to myself: "gee I wish I could just fast forward to the next dungeon".

A Simple Story Told With Humorous Quirks - Honestly, my takeaway in hindsight is that I'm a bit surprised by how little story there is in Nobody Saves the World. I feel like there was somehow more in the Guacamelee! games than in this one, though that may be my memory failing me. I'll give you the quick plot. You're a dude, you get a wand from Randy's house, Randy's a bit of an ass about it, you're taught how to complete baby's first dungeon, you do the first star-required mission, you're then comissioned to do two other star-required dungeons but gotta do side ones to unlock enough stars, do that, unlock the second half of the map for two more star-required dungeons, do a bunch of side stuff, once you complete those, you're ready for the final boss fight where you discover Randy isn't all that bad of a guy in the first place. That's it. I can honestly think of only just 3 proper story sequences in the entire game and I'm kind of appreciative the game knows its place when it comes to that sorta thing. The humor in the game is solid. Randy's funny. I love how in a dungeon where all hits do x9999 damage, the boss dies as well in one hit. There's a lot of referential humor (Skyrim, Navy Seal copypasta) that'll vary depending on your cynicism.

Going For 100% Completion - I can happily report that there are ZERO missable trophies in the game. After defeating the final boss, you will be reloaded back to prior to facing him and can complete any final achievables as necessary. In essence, what you're going to want to do is complete a bunch of side quests, slowly upgrade every character's rank as much as possible as there IS a trophy for getting every form up to S-rank. I can confirm this does NOT include the DLC characters. Honestly, what I did for the end game when I had nothing else left to do but grind is go to the Belly of the Whale Dungeon(seen above) and just grinded that until I wrapped every character up. It shouldn't take TOO long if you've been judicious about using a wide array of characters throughout your journey. Gather all of the mana fairies. There was one in a video I linked here that I couldn't find since the entrance is hidden from full map view. Everything else should honestly come naturally. Progress in the various guilds (Knight, Thieves, Wizards) and with some basic problem-soliving skills you'll realize how to help each member of the clan. You can IGNORE the Impossible Dungeon. There are no trophies related to it. The dinosaur form is irrelevant and not even worth unlcoking, I know I never used it. Once you've mostly cleaned everything up, you should only have one trophy left before the platinum. But oh wait bloody hell there's DLC.

Frozen Hearth DLC - If you're anything like me, you'll see these two teleporters and wonder what the hell they are super early in the game and I immediately got the feeling without even reaching the townsfolk: "this feels outta place, I'll come here way later" and sure enough that zone was indeed the DLC add-on. Basically, for $5, you get two new forms as well as a series of challenges where you need to earn bronze, silver, and gold ranks to unlock the "36 Medals" trophy. I only bothered doing this after getting S-ranks on all characters as in order to earn many of the gold medals, you'll need forms maxed out along with abilities upgraded to level 3, sometimes level 4. This DLC really puts to the test your knowledge of knowing the full scale of abilities presented in the game as well as figuring out which form would be most suitable for a given challenge. If you enjoyed the problem-solving in the base game, there'll be more to enjoy here for you. If you'd rather just fly through the actualy "figuring it out" portion and focus more on the execution, a lovely user here by the name of @Llobster12 did all the hard work for us on this thread. What an immacuately curated thread. Short, consice YouTube videos that show you the build used and how to execute almost every challenge in under 2 minutes. Many can be outright cheesed with an OP set-up while others such as Power Defense and Whackamelee! took me 5+ attempts. It took me 17 hours to beat the main-game, 22 hours to get 100% completion and all of the DLC while ranking the 75 level cap. Use that knowledge as you may.

My New Game+ Run - In a game as relatively long as Nobody Saves the World, the "A world so nice I saved it twice" trophy comes off as a bit gratuitous. But don't worry y'all, I have a plan for you. In NG+, you retain all of your S-rank forms and abilities. You still need stars to unlock story dungeons, but you only gain stars(+10) by completing side dungeons. You need 20 for the first, 30+30 for the next set of story ones, and 55+55 for the final set of story ones. All in all, that's 20 side dungeons you'll be forced to complete! That sounds like it would take a REALLY long time. But allow me to offer you a solution. Pick your dragon form. Give him whatever enemy ward-breaking abilities necessary depending on the challenge, but make sure no matter what, you equip Ghost's "Etheral (Dark)" ability. This ability allows you to move through enemies and attacks without taking any damage. Yes, your mana pool will always drain, but the idea is most of these dungeons (outside of those that requires kill counts) merely require you to find the key in a level to umlock the gate or simply find the set of stairs going up or down. IGNORE enemies. Do NOT fight except to recharge your mana. Your only goal is to make it to the end, unlock the final boss teleporter, kill it, and with this method, you'll be able to fly through many of the dungeons in the game. You may have to alternate the form used (sometimes Necromancer, sometimes Robot, sometimes Monk) due to the signature move sometimes not recharging mana in certain dungeons but I was able to FLY through the entire game in 4 hours with this method. All in all, I earned the 29.42% rarity platinum in 2 weeks and 8 hours.

Would I recommend Nobody Saves the World? Absolutely. Listen, I can already tell you what the most plain criticism about this game is going to be. "Wow, this gets super repetitive." BUDDY. LISTEN. Does anybody complain that the game of football is "repetitive". "Sheesh it's the same rules every week." Yea, guy. That's the ruleset. The goal's the same. The execution varies slightly. Sometimes stuff is repetitive because it's good. If you enjoy the process, it's not a critique, it's a compliment. This game is not reinventing the wheel. It's a good ol' fashioned video game with a good bit of charm that I enjoyed and kept my goopy goblin gamer brain nice and moisturized for its complete run time. DrinkBox Studios can put another feather in its cap and you can bet your ass I'll play whatever they put out next.

Panda Score: 8.48 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 3.88 / 10

Panda Time to Platinum: 26 hours

Spoiler

Nobody Saves the World Notes
Date: October 27th, 2023

* Lmao okay first proper laugh was horsey love “the emotion you’ve been waiting for your whole life”
* Lmao one of the knights got the 400 confirmed kills copy pasta
* Okay 2nd day SUPER OVERWHELMED by all the characters and dungeons wandering about finally up to level 15 and 40 stars so doing left main story dungeon first
* Okay first proper dungeon that kicked my ass was the robot one sheesh died a fair amount and had to be careful with health
* Okay honestly really enjoying the game at the moment with all the mixing and matching of various movesets and unlocking so many characters
* Lmao the big gnarly dungeon boss dying in one hit cuz x9999 damage is brilliant
* Finished the main campaign but know there’s a fair amount elsewhere to take care of, good freaking game man
* 17 hours main game, 22 hours all trophies + DLC level 75 cap, DLC fun collisseim challenges not too long, now all I got left is the NG+ completion and we got ourselves the plat!
* 4 hours NG+, 26 hours total, 30 stars+30stars, 55stars+55stars

realm722 · November 12, 2023

Game: Death's Door (Action (Complex), Puzzle)

Analysis: I did not buy Death's Door. Rather, I got it free when it became available for PS+ Users during the month of August 2023. It's a double feature day for me!

Why Death's Door? Death's Door was a game I had heard received praise as a bit of an indie darling back in 2021. Yet what really made me intrigued to finally check it out was the fact the developers, Acid Nerve, had actually released their first game several years earlier in the form of Titan Souls! Yea, that boss rush / kinda puzzle game that was an ultra rare that I completed all the way back in August of this year were actually the makers behind this game as well! Hell, I made note of that fact towards the very end of the review mentioning that I couldn't wait to see how much they've grown between development cycles. The game definitely seemed to fit the mold of a more "normal" title with proper extended fights along with voiced story elements and some puzzle elements. Awesome!

A Game That Respects the Player - By far my biggest takeaway early on while playing is that Death's Door isn't going to sit around holding your little hand because you're a dumb little baby and it's a miracle you managed to find the button to turn your PlayStation console on in the first place. I'll give a few examples. While there are a few sign posts generally more or less leading your in the direction of where to go, the game encourages you to bumble about and find what you think is interesting. This game is gorgeous. Wonderfully handcrafted and the diagonal-down perspective works amazingly to create for many of the special secrets and "AHA!" moments the game has to offer. In combat, there is no healing. Heck, the healing system in this game is so unique from anything I've played recently. You can find "life seeds" gathered about the world. But these are useless on their own. You actually need to find places to plant them in the game that will most typically be found before, during, or after certain battle gauntlets. Only after you plant them will they produce a fruit allowing you to recover full health, but you can't cheese this system. In a gauntlet, you're going to have a certain limited amount of hits to take before you die and have to try all over again. The game only allows you to respawn from "hub doors" and that means lengthy walkbacks if you die a fair distance away from where you originally were smited. Some players will hate this. I respect it. It adds stakes to fights and makes it so you really don't want to die. In a world where so many players love to hate tutorials, Death's Door stays out of your way and it's one of the elements that will make it age gracefully as the years go by and is a direct by-product of the love for the Soulslike-inspired indie boom we've seen.

Combat Against Normal Enemies - Another thing I appreciate about Death's Door is the overall simplicity of its gameplay mechanics yet it utilizes them so well you don't feel bored or as if you're limited in some way. You have a dodge roll with invincibility frames, a distanced attack (arrow, fireball, or bomb), and finally a melee attack int he form of many weapons. You have a limited amount of charges in your ranged attacks and you only regain these by hitting enemies or items with melee attacks so it's a pleasant song-and-dance you have to play between enjoying doing distance from afar while also balancing getting in close and finding the right window to damage enemies to regain those charges. For normal enemies, it's never going to be too difficult unless you have A LOT on screen at once. For melee guys which you'll find in damn near every level, what most frequently got me damaged was my lack of discipline. I'd know for a fact I could only get 2 attacks in on a guy with my umbrella before he'd hit me. But sometimes, out of greed, thinking he was close to death, I'd go for 3 or even 4 and of course I'd get burned. Ranged enemies aren't too tricky and typically have far smaller health pools. Some of the knights can be tricky and the closest this game gets to proper 1-on-1 duels. The game keeps you on your toes and engaged throughout without ever getting TOO difficult and that's all I want out of a brisk, enjoyable experience.

Combat Against Bosses - There are a solid handful of boss fights in Death's Door, I thought I'd dive into some detail about a few of them. 1) Guardian of the Door. It's kind of like you're fighting a house. They've got a spin move and a laser phase that you have to be wary of. Not too bad and I only died to it twice. 2) King of the Swamp. Has the joke that made me laugh the hardest in the game. There's a missable trophy while fighting him. Honestly super easy once you realize you can hit the pink spear when he's turning around to regenerate all of the vanishing pads. 3) Witch of Urns. Oh no, this kind old lady turned out to be kinda evil. She also has a missable trophy. Honestly a fairly easy fight as well just keep your distant when she's sending her purple flames all over the place, dodge the falling urns, and you'll be fine. 4) The Grey Cow. Not all that tough honestly. Only died once to it. More of a theatrical boss fight with the setting above all else. Dodge and weave, fake him out like you're a matador taking on a bull and you'll get his atack pattern down. 5) Betty the Yeti. Of all the fights before the finale, Betty kicked my ass the most. Her roll attack is SUPER fast. I was stuck on it for a fair while. I just didn't feel comfortable between attack patterns to get in close and hit her with my melee to charge my ranged attacks. Think it took me like 30 minutes to finally beat her. 6) The Lord of Doors. The final boss fight. In order to reach him, you need to get through some platforming gauntlets as well as mini-fights against him. The final fight is fun. It's just a combination of a move you've seen from all previous bosses without adding anything else too tricky. Even as I died a handful of times I kept saying to myself I had it and just needed to be more disciplined and I eventually got it.

I think splashing gigantic text on screen is a great way to set the mood for a game. When the game then subverts this with jokes like this it just lands perfectlly and is an example of humor done right

Wonderfully Ridiculous Secrets - I've seen some peopel compare this game to "Tunic" (a 2022 indie darling) and that kinda worried me. I've never played Tunic and don't have any plans to. But from what I've heard it has drawn a lot of inspiration from Zelda and has a big fancy map that requires a lot of big braining and I'm just... not built for that. I don't play games for that sorta enjoyment. I played it with a guide. We'll talk more about that in the following paragraph. Yet the reason why I mention all of this is because if you are the kind of player who IS into that sort of thing (making discoveries, looking in odd places, thinking outside the box) boy do I think you can get a lot of enjoyment out of this. (SPOILERS NEXT SENTENCES) I see it most perfectly exemplified in the task given to find the secret tablet with Jefferson the Squid. Discovering you can change the world from day to night by hitting the ball. Going and getting the squid. Navigating through the landscapes to get to where you need to get to and the game having dialogue for things you'd encounter with him on your back. The fact this game does all of this encouraging players to seek out the true ending it's all just... this sort of stuff is not for me but if it IS I can't imagine how much a blind player must have loved their time with this game since it is a genuinely special trait that so few games have to offer.

@Optinooby Is My Guide - Ladies and gentlemen, I'm officially declaring the debate over. The GOAT Trophy Guide Creator is this wonderful man. He offers you both a text guide or video guide for your pleasure. He kindly provides commentary over these videos in that lovely accent and narrates the game and guide in a fashion that makes you feel like you're on a journey to completion with a buddy. They do the especially kind thing of ALWAYS vocalizing multiple times whenever they scoop up a collectible so you don't accidentally bypass over any thing. They also provide the unintentional hilarity of sometimes playing remarkably poorly (rolling off into water accidentally, failing to hit a target with an arrow on multiple attempts) that their dismayed commentary at their subpar performance can't help but get a giggle out of me. I would not have enjoyed this game as much if I went in blind and needed to figure out some of these obtuse secrets for myself. But getting to enjoy everything the game has to offer while also benefitting from its neat secrets without any of the headache-inducing experimenting? Always thank your trophy guide creators y'all, they provide a marvelous service.

I Just Like This Game - In recent years, I've made it a point to think critically whenever I'm enjoying something. I think it's very important for an individual to be able to vocalize WHY they like something. In the same vein, if something critically acclaimed ultimately disappointed them, they should be capable of explaining WHY as opposed to the far-too-freuent and often pathetic: "it just wasn't for me". Yet even I have to admit that I fall into this trap. Occasionally, even while I can voice why I enjoy something, some things in life will have a special "it" factor that I can't quite pin down. Death's Door has that quality. I dig the gameplay, the look, the secrets, the humor, the fact you play as a crow, and the structure of it all wandering through an old manor to traversing old sewers. It's charming as hell. But... there's more to it than that. I wouldn't call this one of my favorite games. But I just really like it. I really like "Desert Child" and "No Thing" when looking back on my catalog. Yet I scored each of them a mere high 6. For movies, neither "Croupier" nor "Closer" scored above a 7.5 and yet they pop into my memory more often than many movies I've scored a 8+. Maybe I'm obsessed with Clive Owen. Another actresses face I can't help but be mesmerized by is Zoey Deutch. For athletes, I loved Naz Reid from the day I saw him at LSU during March Madness and remain enamored as he's become a fan favorite in Minnesota. I still think about Emilio Bonifacio and Jorge Cantu despite the fact they were replacement level players at best for the majority of their careers. Toss in Davone Bess if you want an example in football.

Would I recommend Death's Door? Absolutely. Whenever a game enters the stage of just being something I really like the essence of, it's always going to be an automatic recommendation. Just to see if that spark lights itself in the hearts of anybody else. It also just has so many other practical user-friendly elements such as showing you your completion % each time you start up the game from the main menu or showing you in which hub world you still have collectibles to find by displaying a red border. I'm so glad this small team out of the UK managaed to hit a homerun in their 2nd major title after hitting some success with their debut release. All in all, I earned the 26.76% rarity platinum in 3 days and 8 hours. I've played two games this month who's previous releases I also enjoyed. Why not make it a third?

Panda Score: 7.55 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 4.64 / 10

Panda Time to Platinum: 7 hours

Spoiler

Death’s Door Thoughts
Damn bro early on wanted us to kill him and we didn’t have the strength to do it
Solid first boss fight a house which I died to twice then killed
Aight I’m enjoying the game, bit unforgiving with the runbacks but fun
Very enjoyable game, good mix of tough combat no healing inside and light puzzles
Okay that Betty boss fight kicked my butt a fair bit! Nice!
I love the Lord of Doors “Worst’s Best Lord” mug
Lmaoooo Frog King’s subtitles are GOATed
Pretty good final gauntlets, platforming, and final boss fight
Lmao I like the banging tune song
Ooptinob is the GOAt for that guide, this squid trophy is crazy
7 hours

Edited November 12, 2023 by realm722

Aceterix · November 20, 2023

Curious expedition 2 sounds like a must play, great review - I won't get to it this side of Xmas but next year I certainly will. Thank you for both taking the plunge and then lovingly and compellingly relaying it to all those that lurk in these caverns of yours so that we might get to experience it too!

realm722 · December 8, 2023

RealM722 Reviews The 2023 Game Awards

Hello everybody! Much to my biggest hater's chagrin, I am in fact not dead. I've been on hiatus for around the last month or so for a multitude of reasons. When you've been going on this for as consistently as I have since 2018 or so, sometimes it's good to take an extended break to reinvigorate your love for the hobby. While I do have my own End-of-Year Awards that I'd like to present before the month of December is over, I figured now would be an excellent time to reflect on the best in games of 2023 at our Oscar's equivalent in Geoff Keighley's creation, The Game Awards. I've covered this before in 2022. I'm here to do the same again, but I have a little extra treat. Do i actually know what I'm talking about or am I just talking out of my hat most of the time? I had my predictions for the award winners as soon as the nominees dropped. Let's see how accurate I ended up being.

The Game Awards 2023 (LINK)

(4:40) (WP) (Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remaster) - This is one of the oldest games on my account. Glad it's getting a remaster!

(6:05) (AWARD) (Best Family Game) (Super Mario Wonder) - Called it! You know daddy Nintnedo would have spanked Geoff if they lost. 1-0.

(7:20) (WP) (Pony Island 2) - HELL YEA BABY! I'll play anything this dude makes after Inscryption honestly. Looks sick. Dead pandas? Awesome announcement.

(9:00) (WP) (The Rise of the Golden Idol) - HELL YEA! Have also heard great things about this as a comp to Return of the Obra Dinn. Back-to-back great calls!

(9:50) (WP) (Usual June) - Doesn't look bad. Looks unique. Like the action combat. I'd have to wait to see more.

(16:30) (AWARD) (Innovation in Accessibility) (Forza Motorsport) - Called it. You knew they weren't gonna let daddy Xbox away without winning anything. 2-0.

(20:30) (AWARD) (The 5 eSport Categorizes) - I do not care about this hence why I didn't even make predictions for them. Congrats to the winners.

(22:25) (WP) (Windblown) - NEW GAME FROM THE DEAD CELLS DEVS???? That's freaking awesome. I'm sure it'll be great. Coming to PlayStation circa. 2026

(24:05) (WP) (Thrasher) - I haven't even played Thumper yet! I wanna play Thumper. Then I'll know if I want to play Thrasher.

(29:40) (AWARD) (Content Creator of the Year) (Ironmouse) - I felt so bad for bursting out laughing but the video caught me off guard. Congrats to her.

(30:50) (WP) (World of Goo 2) - I've never played the original. I know it was a celebrated indie back in the day. Good for those who loved it in the past.

(40:30) (AWARD) (Best Performance) (Neil Newbon, BG3) - This was a STACKED category. I picked Elba. That was stupid. He was the only one not there. 2-1.

(45:45) (WP) (Exodus) - I like Matthew McConaughey. Dress up for the show, bud. Trailer looked pretty mediocre for such an alleged big new game.

(57:30) (Musical Performance) (Senua's Saga Hellblade II) - Is this game ever coming out? The original was released back in 2017. LeBron was still in Cleveland.

(1:03:48) (AWARD) (Best Narrative) (Alan Wake 2) - CALLED IT! Super freaking well deserved. Sam Lake is a baller. Glad they got rewarded. 3-1.

(1:09:30) (WP) (No Rest for the Wicked) - Oh hey this from the dudes who made the Ori games! I'd play that!

(1:15:00) (Muppets Appearance) - Geoff will be 67 years old, and drudging his corpse on stage he'll still be doing muppets bits. I'll enjoy it.

(1:17:09) (AWARD) (Best Debut Indie Game) (Cocoon) - I picked Pizza Tower but it's way too freaking niche. Cocoon screams a 6.5/10 game I don't enjoy much. 3-2.

(1:20:15) (WP) (Sega Games) - That's pretty freaking cool. Jet Set Radio remake? Crazy Taxi remake? Honestly pretty amazing announcement.

(1:24:30) (WP) (Visions of Mana) - Are the Mana games any good? Pretty sure Secret of Mana was good at the time and a SLOG to get through now.

(1:28:15) (AWARD) (Best Action Game) (Armored Core VI) - I FREAKING CALLED IT! Couldn't let daddy Fromsoftware away without winning one piddling award. 4-2.

(1:28:30) (AWARD) (Best Art Direction) (Alan Wake 2) - Huh? Really? I preferred the art style in a game like Hi Fi Rush way more but to each their own. 4-3.

(1:28:53) (AWARD) (Best VR/AR) (Resident Evil Village VR Mode) - Again, freaking called it. People love having their blood sucked by a giant ass woman. 5-3.

(1:29:10) (AWARD) (Best Mobile Game) (Honkai Star Rail) - 3 IN A ROW BABY! I knew they wouldn't let daddy Chinese conglomerate MiHiYo away without winning. 6-3.

(1:32:50) (Hideo Kojima Jerk Off Session) - "It's not a game". Kojimmy playing both sides of the Xbox/PlayStation collab. They get Jordan Peele outta bed or something?

(1:44:45) (AWARD) (Best Audio Design) (Hi-Fi Rush) - Goofed on this one. Hi-Fi in hindsight is the obvious winner with the music mechanics. 6-4.

(1:49:05) (WP) (Black Myth Wukong) - That game looks sick and freaky as heck. Like a Chinese Sekiro? Too bad it will probably never get released.

(2:00:55) (AWARD) (Games for Impact) (Tchia) - I voted for Terra Nil. If you had let me vote 3 more times, I wouldn't have picked Tchia. Sorry. Cool to see Yoshida! 6-5.

(2:04:00) (WP) (Tales of Kenzera: ZAU) - This dude was cool. He wears his passion and heartfelt emotion on his sleeve announcing his game. Good job Geoff.

(2:09:00) (Musical Appearance) (Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth) - A musical performance for the theme of a game not even out yet.. daddy Square Enix made the call.

(2:13:35) (AWARD) (Best Score & Music) (Final Fantasy XVI) - Called it! For all your criticisms about that game's design, the music is a BANGER. 7-5.

(2:13:50) (AWARD) (Best Independent Game) (Sea of Stars) - Called it! I have to play it myself to figure out if the game is actually mediocre or up my alley. 8-5.

(2:14:07) (AWARD) (Best Community Support) (Baldur's Gate 3) - Called it! BG3 was a wrecking ball this entire season, it wasn't losing man. 9-5.

(2:14:26) (AWARD) (Best Fighting Game) (Street Fighter 6) - Called it! If any of those 4 other games had beat Street Fighter, I would have lmao'd. 10-5.

(2:14:43) (AWARD) (Most Anticipated Game) (Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth) - 5 in a row baby! I know I can't freaking wait for it. My Future GOTY Contender. 11-5.

(2:20:25) (WP) (Blade) - Oh hey Arkane Studios... they made that Redfall video game... that sure went over super well last time..

(2:26:25) (AWARD) (Best Ongoing Game) (Cyberpunk2077) - Anthony Mackie was so off the molly it made me cringe so hard. It's a joke Cp2077 won. 11-6.

(2:38:40) (Musical Performance) (Alan Wake 2) - Probably my favorite bit of the entire show. They were having so much fun with this. Greatly enjoyed it.

(2:52:15) (Show Annoucement) (Fallout) - Ahh yes. My favorite video game. The Fallout TV Show on Amazon Prime Video. Thanks Geoff.

(2:54:13) (AWARD) (Best Adaptation) (The Last of Us) - There was no universe where TLoU didn't win. LMAO @ the guy saying game tho. 12-6.

(3:02:20) (WP) (Light No Fire) - Sean Murray is still out here with a baby inde game dev team selling the fact he can make MAMMOTH video games. Does he know?

(3:08:38) (AWARD) (Best Action/Adventure Game) (Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom) - Daddy Sony didn't put in the call? Seriously? I'm stunned. 12-7.

(3:11:00) (AWARD) (Best RPG) (Baldur's Gate 3) - Truly stunning. If BG3 didn't win this, how would it win Best Game? 13-7.

(3:11:15) (AWARD) (Best Sim/Strategy) (Pikmin 4) - I wonder how Nintendo feels knowing they won all the baby awards that don't even get much shine. 14-7.

(3:11:30) (AWARD) (Best Sports/Racing) (Forza Motorsport) - This category is still such a joke... get it fixed Geoff. Give these games actual shine. 15-7.

(3:11:50) (AWARD) (Best Multiplayer) (Baldur's Gate 3) - BG3 absolutely curb stomping the competition this year. Can't say it's not deserved. 16-7.

(3:18:50) (AWARD) (Best Game Direction) (Alan Wake 2) - Actually stunned they didn't give this to Zelda. Happy for Remedy Studios. 16-8.

(3:27:00) (WP) (Monster Hunter: Wilds) - I guess good for the people who enjoy the Monster Hunter games. They'll never be for me.

(3:31:18) (AWARD) (Game of the Year) (Baldur's Gate 3) - There was no other possibility. BG3 was the game that stayed in the culture. It was special. 17-8!

Final Record: 17-8

Criticism (PRE-SHOW): I honestly felt like the pre-show this year was pretty good. There were some great reveals. Sydnee Goodman crushed it as the host. I feel like in past years she's been super dry even with the extremely bad jokes, but this year something as simple as "I'm a huge eSports fan, just like my father, and his father before him" got a huge belly laugh out of me. In terms of the reveals, damn near every single was up my alley. That's INCREDIBLY rare as I've covered in past showcases announcing games. Hell, that's evident of the very games announced DURING the main-show which honestly didn't capture too much of my attention.

Criticism (MAIN SHOW) - I really like the introduction of the show. Geoff, unlike the Oscars or other Award Ceremonies, doesn't go up there and monologue for 15min in brutal fashion while making potshot jokes. Instead, he shows off a number of faces from the industry that we all know fairly well and it's honestly still cool to see a medium so relatively young have a bunch of famous creative minds together under one roof for one night. Ultimately though, I have to ask... while I think it's dumb to say: "the Oscars doesn't debut new movies at their Award ceremony" it is fair to wonder what the hell we're actually doing when 4 straight awards are rattled off in under a minute 1 hour and 30 minutes into the show and then we dedicate a full 10 minutes to a game that's not even really a game and probably won't be debuted until 3 years from now by Hideo Kojima with his Hollywood buddy director. It feels wrong. I understand that in the early days, Geoff had to accept any and all advertising revenue to get this thing off the ground. It costs money. Tons of money. Probably more than most players could imagine. I'm willing to sit through a few ads here and there about staying off Nicotine as well as have Fortnite collaborations shoved in my face all night long if it lets us honor the best minds in an industry I love. Yet when you're shuffling off after just 2 minutes of an Award acceptance speech the guy who LITERALLY won Best Performance in order to make sure you have enough time for later in the show for the Google Play, Samsung, Fortnite, Ubisoft, Xbox, DLC drop announcement for some other Live Action service... it comes across as of less than crass. It feels like The Game Awards is the Two Children in a Trench Coat Equivalent of an Award Ceremony. "We're legit everybody. Take us seriously. Please. Look at this fancy theater and Geoff's baller suit. We love this industry! Now buy more DLC and look at this Las Vegas sphere Google mobile game ad. Thank you!"

I don't say these things to be mean or poke fun at the show because everybody loves being snarky and getting on their high horse about how much better they are to be in their boxers in bed making fun of everything. I just want the show to be... better. I mean, look at the total joke of a sequence from the 2-hour mark onward. Do you see how they just completely blew past the award for best MUSIC? At a show where they LITERALLY TAKE THE TIME TO HAVE MULTIPLE MUSIC PERFORMANCES??? For what? Those huge jump in timestamps aren't dead air. I just can't be fussed to include every advertisement for Helldivers II, some Exoborne game, some other Mech game, and it just comes off across as so pathetically amateur that even as you're approaching the alleged CLIMAX of your Award Show, you're still announcing new games and telling people to buy more crap with zero tact whatsoever.

In an ideal world, I'd tell you what my sort of show would include. I'd still keep SOME world premieres. Let's be honest, the video game award show does not have to match to perfection the movie or music industry. We like new games getting announced. That's okay. But... maybe I'd hit a cut-off point where I wouldn't be rushing through 5 award categories at a time in order to get to this new FPS game that looks as generic as hell as the next. I understand Geoff must make a small fortune from accepting these offers from these companies to show off their games. But c'mon man... class the joint up a bit. I'm FINE with the Fortnite and major brand advertisements. These shows don't make themselves. But at the very least when it's a huge corporate brand, I can tune it on and turn a blind eye knowing that Geoff is just doing this to keep the lights on. I'd stop with some of the Hollywood desperation getting Timothee Chalamet to go announce GOTY since... what the hell does he have to do with GOTY? Get proper industry veterans for this. Peter Molyneaux, Eric Barone, Toby Fox, Hideo Kojima, etc... to hand these awards out. I know many gaming audiences won't know their faces and just wanna see famous actors they know like Al Pacino last year but it'd be some instance of the show some honor to the games that laid the groundwork to get where we're at today. I actually thought the award winners were pretty stellar. A few disagreements here and there and I only make jest of these big studios "putting in a call" to get an award as the majority of them deserved what they won.

That's all from me for now. I'm sure next to nobody cares or even thinks to write about this as much as I have. Until some other time in the somewhat near future!

pelagia14 · December 8, 2023

I agree that not showing the award for Best Music was a huge miss. They go to the effort of having the symphonic orchestra play a medley of the GOTY nominees (which I always look forward to) right before announcing the winner, so they understand that music is important... but screw the award, I guess. I did love how Flute Guy™️ was jamming again this year.

While the "Oscar music to end a speech" joke with Chris Judge was funny, I was very frustrated that there seemed to be a precise 30-second timer or something for the award speeches. I watch the Game Awards for the World Premiers and the celebration of creatives in the industry, and last night was terrible for the latter. Heck, if I just wanted to watch World Premiers I could just find them online today to watch.

One thing I think is completely unnecessary is having people like Kojima or Sean Murray on stage to introduce/explain their 'big reveals'. That's better suited to E3, in my opinion, and the minutes gained by removing these on-stage speeches could go to things like the Best Music award. That kind of dovetails into my frustration at the focus towards shoe-horning in Hollywood actors into the award show. This isn't the early oughts when the videogame industry was widely looked down upon - now, anyone who has looked at the industry for more than five minutes can see how much creativity there is to celebrate. We don't need the shiny Hollywood celebs to bring viewership to the show, that's what the world premiers are for.

For example, Al Pacino was such a weird choice last year. He wasn't a part of any videogames made in the previous year, and even if the previous year's winner (Maggie Robertson for Lady Dimitrescu) was unavailable to present the award, they could have found a previous nominee or something to present it. Timothee Chalamet in comparison has at least played videogames, but he wasn't super effusive about it on stage, so I was left wondering if his presence was some sort of subtle marketing promo to remind people about Dune 2 and Wonka coming out in a few months. The only Hollywood celebs I want to see at TGA are those who were actually involved in video games through stuff like mo-cap or voice work, like Simu Liu last night.

Finally, I completely agree that GOTY should be presented by well-known industry veterans. Sure a lot of casual gamers might not recognize these individuals, but Geoff usually introduces each presenter anyway, and the audience for this show isn't solely aimed at casual gamers.

realm722 · December 10, 2023

On 12/8/2023 at 2:28 PM, pelagia14 said:

While the "Oscar music to end a speech" joke with Chris Judge was funny, I was very frustrated that there seemed to be a precise 30-second timer or something for the award speeches. I watch the Game Awards for the World Premiers and the celebration of creatives in the industry, and last night was terrible for the latter. Heck, if I just wanted to watch World Premiers I could just find them online today to watch.

Yea... the counter you'll always be hit with if they removed the World Premieres is: "nobody would watch then!" which like... were people watching this the first few years back when huge game studios weren't announcing their brand new games? I feel like despite how incredibly tacky the show was with MTV sponsorship and ads up the wahzoo, people still held out because they enjoyed this thing. I think the show could definitely slice back on the CONSTANT advertisements and give the Award winners more room to breathe and it'd still retain a solid audience. I dunno. It's up to Geoff ultimately and he's gotta organize this thing and get funding on board so hey.

On 12/8/2023 at 2:28 PM, pelagia14 said:

One thing I think is completely unnecessary is having people like Kojima or Sean Murray on stage to introduce/explain their 'big reveals'. That's better suited to E3, in my opinion, and the minutes gained by removing these on-stage speeches could go to things like the Best Music award. That kind of dovetails into my frustration at the focus towards shoe-horning in Hollywood actors into the award show. This isn't the early oughts when the videogame industry was widely looked down upon - now, anyone who has looked at the industry for more than five minutes can see how much creativity there is to celebrate. We don't need the shiny Hollywood celebs to bring viewership to the show, that's what the world premiers are for.

See... while I complained about it in my post, I'm actually OKAY with having Kojima & Murray up there. I just wish it wasn't so egregious the time disparity between their segments and that of the Award speeches. I actually think it's pretty cool Kojima is celebrated as one of the premier GUYS in the industry. The man is 60 YEARS OLD and out here still making games and has a passion for his work. In another 20 years or so, I think it's going to be pretty awesome to say we celebrated him when we got the chance, even if it this pretty awkward "hey this is an Award show but announce your new thing". Same thing with Murray. The only way you get gamers familiar with faces behind the names is putting them on stage... maybe... in the year 2040, The Game Awards won't ask X Gen Z actor to announce Game of the Year Award, but rather, Sean Murray, all because he was featured on stage and audiences may actually know who he is.

E3 is also dead dead so that's no longer a viability.

It's an interesting conundrum. The more I thought about the post after making it is that there's so much more the show could be. There could be years with themes celebrating old consoles. Celebrate the Dreamcast. Have a "Lifetime Achievement" award for a guy like Toru Iwatani who literally made PAC-MAN & Libble Rabble. Take advantage of the fact this industry is so young and almost everybody relevant who made all these pillars of the industry are STILL ALIVE and you can have them in the public eye before it's too late. Have a segment dedicated to the importance of Game Preservation with all the eyeballs on your event. Maybe Geoff avoids this stuff since he doesn't want to step on any toes. Maybe the big suits in the shadows don't care about any of it and just want to see money number get bigger. I cannot fathom the time and organization it must take to pull the event off in the first place and it's easy to criticize from afar but yea... maybe next year will be better.

pelagia14 · December 10, 2023

3 hours ago, realm722 said:

Yea... the counter you'll always be hit with if they removed the World Premieres is: "nobody would watch then!" which like... were people watching this the first few years back when huge game studios weren't announcing their brand new games? I feel like despite how incredibly tacky the show was with MTV sponsorship and ads up the wahzoo, people still held out because they enjoyed this thing. I think the show could definitely slice back on the CONSTANT advertisements and give the Award winners more room to breathe and it'd still retain a solid audience. I dunno. It's up to Geoff ultimately and he's gotta organize this thing and get funding on board so hey.

I agree that the World Premiers are needed - even if it's just to convince advertisers that their paid ads during the show will get eyeballs. My point was more that if the show isn't going to *also* properly celebrate the incredible minds in the industry... then why should I tune in?

I know there were a decent amount of ads in the show, but since I was multitasking I honestly didn't notice a lot of them. 😅 And while there are a lot of ads in order to pay for the show, at least they are tailored to gaming, so it doesn't feel as much like cable TV when you get random commercial breaks of totally unrelated stuff.

3 hours ago, realm722 said:

See... while I complained about it in my post, I'm actually OKAY with having Kojima & Murray up there. I just wish it wasn't so egregious the time disparity between their segments and that of the Award speeches. I actually think it's pretty cool Kojima is celebrated as one of the premier GUYS in the industry. The man is 60 YEARS OLD and out here still making games and has a passion for his work. In another 20 years or so, I think it's going to be pretty awesome to say we celebrated him when we got the chance, even if it this pretty awkward "hey this is an Award show but announce your new thing". Same thing with Murray. The only way you get gamers familiar with faces behind the names is putting them on stage... maybe... in the year 2040, The Game Awards won't ask X Gen Z actor to announce Game of the Year Award, but rather, Sean Murray, all because he was featured on stage and audiences may actually know who he is.

E3 is also dead dead so that's no longer a viability.

I suppose my big issue with Kojima and Murray was the time disparity compared to the award speeches, which you identified much better than me. At the same time, Geoff now runs the Summer Games Fest which I feel is more suited to the "announce your thing" if The Game Awards is going to have a dozen world premiers alongside the actual awards. When it's trying to do all three things (plus ads to pay for the show), things like Award for Best Music and speech length are the things that get sacrificed first. Try doing too many things and then you end up doing nothing well.

3 hours ago, realm722 said:

It's an interesting conundrum. The more I thought about the post after making it is that there's so much more the show could be. There could be years with themes celebrating old consoles. Celebrate the Dreamcast. Have a "Lifetime Achievement" award for a guy like Toru Iwatani who literally made PAC-MAN & Libble Rabble. Take advantage of the fact this industry is so young and almost everybody relevant who made all these pillars of the industry are STILL ALIVE and you can have them in the public eye before it's too late. Have a segment dedicated to the importance of Game Preservation with all the eyeballs on your event. Maybe Geoff avoids this stuff since he doesn't want to step on any toes. Maybe the big suits in the shadows don't care about any of it and just want to see money number get bigger. I cannot fathom the time and organization it must take to pull the event off in the first place and it's easy to criticize from afar but yea... maybe next year will be better.

There truly is so much that could be done to celebrate the industry. I think about how the Oscars will often pick one 'trade' of the film industry to highlight in a short segment, like costume making or set design. One year you could have a 2-minute video that shows the audience a fragment of what goes into sound engineering, right before you announce Award for Best Sound. The next year could be a 3-minute video on all the work that goes into being a Game Director followed by the Award for Best Game Direction. Segments on game preservation, lifetime achievement awards... It would even be fun to have a 1-2 minute video that highlights some of the biggest games that came out 20 then 15 then 10 then 5 years ago, perhaps as a segue into game preservation.

These are the kinds of things that could be brought to TGA if they prioritized celebrating the videogame industry, and perhaps having a max cap of 8 world premiers or something. Focusing more on the awards probably means that there is less advertising money to fund TGA, but maybe you could have the 3 minute industry snippets sponsored by big brands like Coca-Cola, so Geoff mentions the brand in the intro to the segment (and, as much as I would hate this, maybe their "sponsored by [logo]" shows on screen for 1-2 seconds before the segment starts).

I definitely agree that it's important for us to keep in mind that criticizing an event is infinitely easier than planning, organizing, and running and event. At the same time, I want TGA to be a must-see event that is all about celebrating the industry, so that is always where my criticism comes from.

realm722 · December 12, 2023

Game: Hypnospace Outlaw (Point-and-click / Experimental)

Analysis: I bought Hypnospace Outlaw when it was on sale for $9.99 back in January 2023. It took damn near a full year but I finally got around to it!

Why Hypnospace Outlaw? I love weird video games. There is something insatiable in my thirst for them. I still think about No Thing. I am always captivated by the segment in Tim Rogers' video where he talks about mesmerizing old PlayStation 1 games. At some point or another, I looked at Hypnospace Outlaw's trophy list when it was on sale and it immediately jumped out in my mind as something that could be up my alley. I remember holding off for a bit due to the unusually tricky platinum % rate for a game that was alleged to be glitched. After it was patched, I bought it on sale and held off for the longest time until it jumped back to the forefront of my mind when my favorite streamer, Joseph Anderson, decided to take it for a whirl. He had an absolute ball of a time with it. Knowing that the game was not only odd but also GOOD and genuinely hilarious at points reassured me to eventually give it some run before the year was over, so here we are!

You're an Internet Janitor in the Late 1990s - The premise of the game is incredibly simple. You are tasked with moderating an imaginary version of the Internet long lost to the gallows of time. The late 1990s. Your task is to handle a variety of assigned cases dealing with reporting violations from copyright infringement, harassment, illegal activity, unathorized payment methods, etc.. While in search of these violations, you get to bask in the joy of what was an absolutely deranged, simpler time on the internet. Far before the days of SquareSpace and standarized internet web pages, you'll come across many websites that look like the digitalized embodiment of a ransom note from a serial killer clown. Many pages will have their own music blaring at full throttle as soon as you select it. Loading times can be laborious, that is of course unless you shake your mouse cursor which in fact DOES speed up the time it takes to load the page! Find breakers of the law. Stomp them out. Enjoy wacky hilarious web pages. I just sold you the heart of Hypnosapce Outlaw in 3 petite setnences.

Nostalgic for a Place I Never Was - Your enjoyment of this game will likely be largely influenced if you were around and using the internet from the time the game takes place. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you all. I didn't use the Internet back then. My own date of birth is one of the few playable days in-game. I say all this because in every review I've read about the game and from hearing Joseph himself talk about why he enjoyed the game so much, a HUGE factor of a lot of player's enjoyment is enjoying a blast to the past. Going back to their teenage years. The MySpace era. The "download a mouse cursor that's a butterfly" era and piss off your mom by downloading some file off a sketchy website that irreversibly damages the home computer. My early memories of the internet come from a fair bit further down the line. That being said, I can still see so much of the enjoyment of playing this game if you enjoy experiencing things from a time before your own. A sort of "DAMN people used to live like THIS?". When you start to engage with things that make other people reminisce, you can't help but be swept along with them. I thought about playing 3D Pinball Space Cadet. About the Disney Channel Website in 2007. About the YouTube Layout in 2011. We like to think of those days as the "good old days" when things were simpler because we had far fewer responsibilities. Less cynicism. Maybe we weren't so jaded about life. I'm sorry if this comes across as overly melancholy. I'm normally not like this. Maybe I'd have something to smile about in my life if the Dolphins could hold a goddammn 14pt lead with 3 minutes remaining of a Primetime football game. Let's move on.

My Favorite Pages in Hypnospace - The amount of web pages available to visit in this fictional ancient version of the Internet is a little bit mindboggling settling in over at a solid 500+ with variations and minor changes considering pages can be alterated after you visit after some weeks have passed. Briefly, I'd love to mention a few that stand out in my memory. 1) The Gumshoe Gooper Art Saga. Your very first case will involve copyright striking a young girl's website and her obsession with this American icon. Little do you know the persistence this young woman would have. Several weeks after copyright striking her, she will redesign her web page and spam Gumshoe Gooper EVERYWHERE saying that you are SUPRESSING HER FREEDOM OF SPEECH and she will literally quote Abraham Lincoln back you fighting for her 1st amendment rights. 2) Over in Teentopia, you have to deal with all the ridiculousness and cringe of teen bullshit. It is hilariously funny. All of us went through this. "IT'S NOT A PHASE MOM". I had my emo era listening to Eminem music nonstop. Visiting these fictional kid's websites where they're bashing one another and calling each other lame and a doodoo head is hilarious. I particularly loved the overly edgy "T1MAGEDDON PAGE" that tries to scare innocent users. 3) The Dark Twilight. When I was 7-years old, I genuinely thought the "choose-your-own-adventure" was the highest form of media in existence. Like, nothing was cooler in my mind. You're telling me I can CHOOSE an option in a story and see what happens? Dark Twilight is an incredible manifestation of the craze for that genre amongst kids in digital form. 4) Everything about the Chowder Man. I'll talk more about him in the next paragraph. 5) Lookout Ministries. I legitamately burst out laughing when I stumbled upon this page. It's that incredibly old school, apoclayptically awful graphic design hyper religious fanaticism from the early internet days. The page that made me laugh the hardest was talking about the all new popular "SquisherZ" and how they're actually demonic and they quote the Bible book of Revelation at you. "Not so cute now are they?" Just a magnfiicent recreation of the evil Pokemon scare from back in the day.

A Genuinely Banging Soundtrack - Perhaps I haven't been able to convince you to play the game yet based simply on reading a bunch of old web pages and hoping you find them as humorous as I did. Fear not my friend. I have one last card up my sleeve. The soundtrack in Hypnospace Outlaw is BANGING. I say this as somebody who very frequently totally forgets or ignores soundtracks all together that others will delcare as being "unforgettable". It is a behemoth coming in at nearly 5 hours. I'll just rattle off a few of my favorites. Dimensional Voyager has me feeling like somebody is smashing an old CRTV in the background and it somehow isn't grating on the ears. There's the positively cheery Millennium Anthem. But enough of that crap. Let's get to the real star of the show. I AM THE CHOWDER MAN. I AAAAAAAAM. THE CHOOOOOOOOWDER MAAAAN. I AAAAAAAAM THE CHOOOOOOOOOOWDER MAN. This will be stitched into brain. Thank goodness he eats healthy snacks. Then just as your mental faculties have recovered, get ready for SQUISHERZ ARE REALLY COOL. ARE YOU HAVING FUN YET? I KNOW I AM. COUNSELOR RONNIE REPORTING FOR DUTY. FOR DUTY. DU-DU-DUTY!

My Guide to the Platinum - In terms of actual "difficulty", nothing in Hypnospace Outlaw will give you any hassle on the reflex/ability front. Many of the trophies will be popped through naturally playing the game, though there are a few specific missable trophies during certain dates while you're on the job. Thus, you have a few options. You could play the game completely blind and just bask in all its wonderful art and come back for a clean-up playthrough while would only honestly take you an hour and a half since you can fly through this game once you know what you're doing with this handy guide. OR you could just do research on the missable trophies. This guide on steam is pretty straightforward in labeling which are missable and which aren't. You may be wondering to yourself... thus far, I've done nothing but wax prety poetically about how wonderful this game is. It sure seems pretty awesome! Wait... why does he have one entire paragraph dedicated to one specific trophy? Oh no.

The "Thanked" Trophy Grind - Yea... so let's just get this out there. You need to visit every single web page in Hypnospace Outlaw from every playable date in-game. There's only 4 play able days, but given there are 300+ pages for 3 of those 4 days, you start to realize how this trophy quickly obtained the "grind" label. Even if you're absolutely loving this game and going through and reading each page meticiulously, you're still likely looking at a fair amount of clean-up in the post-game due to the "Hypnospace Archival Project" which is what this trophy encapsulates. Just the 1st day along takes nearly 2 hours to get through via this trophy video. But there is a way to speed this up. With the "H.A.P. Capture" opon, you can flip through all the playable dates when you're on a web page and that archives it. Rather than going through each page a single day at a time and then having to do it all over again for the following playable date, you can flip through them all at once. This will save you some time backtracking. Of course, there are unique pages available only during certain dates but you can pluck those out using either this steam guide OR this steam guide to individually search and look up the necessary terms in order to access. This trophy is essentially the only reason the game's platinum is as rare as it is since it is admiteddly quite a chore even as somebody who enjoyed the game thoroughly. I recommend loading up some podcasts to zone out if you're willing to go through with it. I ultimately earned the 22.46% rarity platinum in 1 day and 3 hours. That makes me the 7th fastest achiever of all-time!

Will We Miss This Era of the Internet? - While Hypnospace Outlaw initially triggered me to look backwards and think about my past, bringing this review to a close, I can't help but also think about what it means for our future. What is the internet going to look like 10 years from now? 20 years from now? I made my account and this thread back in 2016. We're a month away from 2024. That puts us just 2 years away from 2026 and this account being 10-years old. It'd be eligible for 4th grade. Will PSNProfiles exist 5 years from now? I'd like to think so. But maybe server costs go way up in the future and the plug is pulled. YouTube will likely endlessly eternally fight off its own YouTubers with regard to copyright law due to the suits in congress not wnaitng to update archaic laws. Will Twitter exist? (For the record, you don't have to call it X. You really don't. People will know what you mean if you just say Twitter) My inclination is to say yes... albeit in a battered and somewhat downward form. Kind of like how Facebook is considered today. Maybe popular in some countries yet it's mainstream appeal in the U.S.A has far faded. I fear what the next decade of widespread use of Artifical Intelligence means if it's not properly contained and regulated. I fear a global internet outage that leads to huge masses of the old Internet being lost due to a lack of data space and all we'll have to reminisce is the Internet Archive Wayback Machine which is unfortunatly under attack way too often all the time. Oh no. There I go being melancholy again. If only Bradley Chubb didn't throw his goddamn helmet.

Would I recommend Hypnospace Outlaw? Yes. I know, I know. The more correct answer is most definitely "maybe" as your mileage with this game will vary greatly depending on if you're nostalgic for the the era from whcih the game takes huge inspiration. You also may not care to sign up for a multi-hour data archivist project for a digital trophy. I don't care. When a game makes me write and think about the things I've written in this review, it's a damn good video game and one I'll forever consider a notch in my belt going forward. I cannot believe that the developers, Tendershoot, are from Germany. Damn those Germans make for some good video game developers. I'm up to 49 games played in 2023. Let's get one more to cap off the year at a proper round number and then we'll get to the Award ceremony and reflect. Until then!

Panda Score: 7.33 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.23 / 10

Panda Time to Platinum: 8 Hours

Edited December 12, 2023 by realm722

realm722 · December 16, 2023

Game: Toem (Mosey Adventure / Puzzle)

Analysis: I did not buy Toem. Rather, I got it for free along with many other PS+ Users during the month of September 2022.

Why Toem? My decision to finally play Toem after having it sit in my backlog for well over a year was fairly straightforward. I've completed 49 different games during the course of 2023 and wanted a simple one to wrap up the catalog so I could end with a perfectly round 50 before getting to my end-of-year awards post. While I had a few other games that I could have dabbled with, Toem's sweet simple aesthetic appealed to me and I figured I'd take a gander to see what all the fuss was about given it received a 10/10 rating on Steam!

A Simple Game About Taking Photos - The game's structure is extremely simple to explain. You play as a wee boy and have a camera. Take photos of interesting things, animals, and people while you help them solve their various woes. This can include photographing specific things they have requested or figuring out simple puzzles with the use a few mechanics such as a honk and splash that you'll receive over the course of your play-time. Do this around 4-5 times across different zones and before you know it, the journey will be over! That's honestly all there is to it. I find the game to be... fine. It's cute. There are a ton of animals to photograph and occasionally you'll come across a humorous NPC but I'm just a tiny bit perplexed by the overwhelming praise the game has received. When I think of another "cozy" title such as Unpacking, I can understand why that game would be beloved by somebody despite its simple mechanics. Toem is just kinda... less unique? It's fun to take photos. You can even add filters and the game is appreciatively brisk not wasting much of the player's time with confusing quests or puzzles but I just thought it was decent and didn't find it to be particularly memorable.

My Own Enjoyment with Photography - What the game did spark in me was a desire to talk a bit about photography in general. There's a line I somewhat frequently think about from Scarlett Johansson's character from Lost in Translation. "Every girl goes through a photography phase." I'm not a girl. Nor do I think my appreciation for photography is a phase. Rather, I enjoy taking photos of people above all else. But not posed photos. Candid ones. (Of friends, not strangers). Not when they look ridiculous either or trying to catch somebody in a bad light. I think there's a very special, evasive quality that simply cannot be captured about somebody who they know they're being photographed. It's that genuineness I try to capture. I don't do it creepily. (Then again, I guess that's not really for me to decide?) I don't publicize these photos anywhere. I keep them for myself. Sometimes I make fun miniature movies out of them with my amateur video editing skills. They're typically a pretty huge hit. This has on one hand garnered me the reputation of somebody you have to be wary of in case I catch you in a slipping. But as they know it's all in good fun, I've never had anybody form too much of a fuss over it. Here are my photo/video-taking rules. #1. Always shoot horizontally. Shooting vertically is disgusting. I always frame my pictures for a big-screen TV, not somebody's phone. #2. Get in and get out. Don't linger. You can take multiples if necessary but spending an eternity for a specific, perfect shot is chasing futility in the wind. #3. Never put filters on people in your photos. People have pores. Let people exist in truth of themselves.

My Journey to the Platinum - Didn't mean to get so sidetracked from the game there. Honestly, this is a super straightforward platinum. I believe there are just a handful of trophies you'd save yourself some trouble and look up the requirements/recommendations beforehand so the road to completion is as simple as it should be. If you're somebody who prefers a visual aid, this guide by The Welsh Hunter on YouTube is sublime. Seriously, I've used this guy for other games and he's fantastic. He stays with the player throughout the course of the experience providing some commentary that can keep you mildly entertained even as he dips into some of the same pockets humor just a tad much for my liking. The game also comes with a free "Bastos" DLC which is just some more of what you already completed in the main game. My favorite part of it was the carnival where you can play a few mini-games such as a rhythm one, firing range, and match-the-face. All in all, I earned the 64.77% rarity platinum in 4 days and 1 hour. That marks my 39th and final platinum of 2023!

Would I recommend Toem? I honestly think you can pass on this one. If you're purely looking for games that offer cozy experiences, I think you can do better than Toem. That being said, spending only 3 hours or so to get a platinum will likely be enough intrigue for most to dabble in it and I don't think it's a regrettable time either. While I don't think I finished my 2023 Year in Gaming on a triumphant note, it's not a wet fart either. All in all, I think I've had a pretty decent year in games and I think that'll be reflected in the Awards ceremony. Aside from that, I'm still recuperating from the Monday Night implosion the Dolphins suffered. Though I'm optimistic we'll get back on track against the Jets this Sunday. I'm up to 196 movies watched in the year. I'll get 4 more in the bag to get the nice round 200. 50 video games played and 200 movies seen in a year ain't bad, eh?

Panda Score: 6.2 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 1.7 / 10

Panda Time to Platinum: 4 Hours

realm722 · December 16, 2023

How Accurate Were My Metacritic Predictions for the Biggest Games in 2023?

Back in February of this year, I decided to give myself the little challenge of trying to predict the Metacritic score for all the biggest releases of 2023. 2023 has largely come and gone. It's now time to see how accurate my "vibes" meter was for how I thought a title would ultimately be scored. This is of course focusing on the Critic score, not the User score, and depending on the game I will clarify for which platform it was released. As a treat, I also have the predictions of @Platinum_Vice and @serrated-banner9 who decided to play along with me and make their own predictions for each of the games I included in my post. I don't know whether to thank you guys for making me look better by comparison or be mad that you guys outperformed me in my own thread. Let's find out!

Thoughts on the Results: WOW! Am I a genius or WHAT? No, but seriously, I'm pretty impressed by how well I did by just sorta shooting at the hip from my gut instinct when reviewing some of the biggest games set to be released. Shoutout to Vice for nailing to the Hogwarts score. I was a bit more tentative on scoring it given all of the JK-off-the-game drama but the game has sold like hotcakes and will undoubtedly get a sequel. The biggest criticism I've heard from it is that they should have made the school portion an even bigger focus for the player rather than stuff outside of the school. Atomic Heart I was essentially on the money. The game looked INCREDIBLE in its debut trailer. It did not live up to the hype. The game frankly received so little coverage upon release that I forget why it ultimately failed to deliver. I PERFECTO scored Wo Long. It's by Team Ninja. It looked solid. I gave it a damn solid score. Badda bing badda boom.

Moving on to Crime Boss, not even myself in all my cynicism could have predicted it scoring in the low 50s. In Vice & Serrated's defense, they had never even heard of the game hence the scores in the 80's. Don't trust games that aren't from big studios that market their hired voice talent above all else. Look at 12 Minutes as another example of this! Star Wars: Jedi Survivor was a hit. While I will admit, the PC score is dragged down to the high 70s due to the tremendous amount of performance issues, there were more critic reviews for the PS5 than for PC so I feel comfortable making the PS5 85 the default. Sadly, all 3 of us were woefully wrong about Redfall and did not realize how much Arkane fell off. That game was BAD and I saw YouTube videos of people talking about how bad it was. That's pretty stunning from a studio with such a good history. Hopefully, they bounce back with that Blade game to win back some of their reputation.

Tears of the Kingdom I somehow managed to UNDERRATE despite giving it a 93. Something in my soul tells me that some people's opinion of the game is going to sour a bit as time goes on. Suicide Squad game did not come out. They did another trailer at The Game Awards 2023. They delayed the game outta 2023 after the way it was lambasted in review scores. It's such a shame that a studio that gave us the ARKHAM TRILOGY has had their talents wallowed away at something that I can't quite fathom scoring much higher than the mid-70s. As for Final Fantasy 16, I'll admit I took the bait hook-line-and-sinker. That intro for the demo was INCREDIBLE. Game of Thrones + Final Fantasy + Action Combat from FF14 Bros? Seemed like a perfect match. Then I watched Joseph Anderson stream it while on vacation in Puerto Rico. While entertaining for its spectacle, I miss the party members of old Final Fantasys and uhh... woof there's just a whole lotta SLOWNESS in the game from the atrocious side quests to lengthy melodramatic scenes. Serrated deserves to be me with an 85. Silksong still isn't out. I kinda nailed Starfield but that game has been OBLITERATED by fans on YouTube. Seriously, my entire feed is just people talking about how much the game sucks and is outdated, even by Bethesda standards. I think in the long run, Vice & Serrated's scores will more accurately reflect how the public feel about it. Finally, Spider-Man 2 was predictably a very good sequel and I can't wait to get around to it one day.

This was fun! I plan on making a 2024 Metacritic Predictions thread when we tick on over to January. If you enjoyed this, feel free to poke in then and compete with me!

RealM722's Trophy Cabinet

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

realm722

realm722

realm722

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in

Recently Browsing 0 members