Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@RogerRoger Those screenshots are taken from your cell phone? They look great! Every time I try to take a picture of a game on an older SDTV, it looks terrible.

Anyway, nice review, though I'm sorry to hear about the issues with the game design. The game's approach to difficulty kinda reminds me of Contra 4's passive-aggressive easy mode, where, right before the last stage, it literally stops the game and tells you: "If you want to see the ending to this game, play on a harder difficulty for a REAL Contra experience." A little annoying for some people, I imagine, although a Contra game making fun of you for playing on easy mode is rather on-brand for a series that prides itself on its Nintendo Hard reputation. At least that game wasn't artificially difficult, as this one seems to be. Getting the true ending to this sounds more annoying than anything.

Now finished Sonic Adventure 2! Here are some thoughts (keeping it as bullet points - I tried a fuller review but I realised I was having a lot of trouble just explaining the story!)

Keep in mind that I played this game to death as a teenager so this won't be a newcomer's perspective - actually, I might be overly critical in some instances because I've played the game a bit too much.

Story

• This game is remembered among Sonic games for its story, and I think that is for good reason. Probably the darkest and most mature narrative in the series.
• The game has three parts: a concurrent Hero and Dark Story, followed by a Last Story. The Hero and Dark Story is a great streamlining of the multiple story model from Sonic Adventure. Not only did it allow the writers to make the core story more compelling and memorable, but the characters being on two different sides of the game's central conflict gave more reason for the two stories to overlap (whereas things felt a little forced in Sonic Adventure - why did Big need to appear in anyone's story?)
• The Dark Story was amazing at the time for showing things from the villains' perspective. This was especially exciting because we hadn't really seen much of Dr Eggman in the games outside of boss battles. Shadow and Rouge were great additions to this too. Even today, I can't think of many games where you can play as established heroes and villains in opposing sides of the same story. Definitely a selling point of the game.
• The Last Story follows the heroes and villains teaming up to prevent their own death and the destruction of Earth. This is great - the stakes are high and it's thrilling to see Sonic work with the likes of Eggman. The final level, Cannon's Core, is incredibly memorable for having snippets of gameplay from almost every character. Also having every character playable in the Last Story helped make it, and its place within the greater structure of the story, feel a lot more meaningful. For comparison, it was quite anticlimactic for all of the characters but Sonic to have no role in Sonic Adventure's Last Story.
• I mention that this game has darker themes, and while I wouldn't want that in every game, I think that they are this game's strength and a unique selling point for it. Off the top of my head, we have: the darkest depiction of Dr Eggman in the games (absolutely no comical moments typical of other entries), a revenge plot involving mass annihilation of the human race, Eggman launching Sonic into space, and the apparent death of a main (playable) character. It's a real shame that they didn't stick to that last one though...

Gameplay

• This game has three core gameplay styles:
• Sonic and Shadow have platforming levels, building on Sonic's levels from Sonic Adventure. These are generally solid, and slightly refined over Adventure's stages. Stage design is alright - very difficult to critique as I know the stages like the back of my hand at this point. Personally I only find a handful of them to be particularly strong (City Escape, Metal harbour, Green Forest, Radical Highway, White Jungle) - these are the earlier stages which are focused more on speed and more straightforward platforming. I find the later stages to be more forgettable design-wise and/or bogged down in level gimmicks which aren't too fun for me (e.g. gravity and rail mechanics). New to Sonic Adventure 2 is rail grinding...I feature that I've not a massive fan of in any game, but I find it's executed quite poorly here, as it's all too easy to fall of rails or fall down bottomless pits when jumping between rails.
• Knuckles and Rouge have treasure-hunting levels, building on Knuckles' levels in Sonic Adventure. These levels are now purposefully built for treasure hunting, rather than in Sonic Adventure where they were just adaptions of Sonic's levels. Knuckles and Rouge feel great to control but, while I could get some enjoyment out of these levels when I was younger...I just don't enjoy these levels anymore. Hunting for emeralds one at a time feels tedious, and a massive distraction from what I came to play - Sonic. I might have been interesting if these stages focused more on platforming (Cannon's Core shows us what Knuckles/Rouge platforming could be like, to an extent) or traditional collectathon elements.
• Tails and Eggman have shooting levels, building on Gamma's levels in Sonic Adventure. Mechanically these feel much better than Gamma's levels, using the lock-on system for score building to great effect. Again, these levels are designed uniquely for Tails and Eggman, as opposed to being based on Sonic stages. These are quite fun - I like the balance of light platforming elements with the risk/reward system of longing onto many enemies without getting hit for a higher score. But I still much prefer the Sonic/Shadow stages, and I find a few of these stages to be tedious or unmemorable.
• While I appreciated that the multiple stories were streamlined into just Hero and Dark - the downside is that you are frequently alternating between gameplay styles. This is annoying if you favour one gameplay style over another - and I found myself groaning whenever a treasure hunting stage would come up. Only 11 of the game's 31 stages feature Sonic-style gameplay which is a shame.
• All have a ranking system. This would become a series staple moving forward - and I can see why. Sonic levels are inherently short and fast, so it's good to have a motivation for replaying them as skillfully as possible. Unfortunately getting an A rank for the treasure hunts can be frustrating, especially in later levels, if you don't know the level inside-out, as emerald location is random.
• All levels have 5 missions. I didn't try for completion on this occasion, so I completely ignored them. I have, however, in the past attempted this...and really not enjoyed it. While hard mode is a somewhat interesting take on the base levels, the other missions (coin collecting, finding a lost chao, speed run) are generally underwhelming and feel more like box-ticking than anything.
• The Chao garden is fun but can't hold my attention these days. Maybe I've played it too much, or maybe I just don't have the time I used to? Would still love to see a dedicated game of this though.

Presentation

• Graphically the game is leaps and bounds over Sonic Adventure, and I'd maybe argue that it looks better than pretty much any Sonic game before Unleashed. The character designs are pretty timeless, and the animations, while often stiff and awkward, are tolerable and lead to far fewer awkward moments than in Sonic Adventure. I played the game in 3440x1440 60fps on PC and it looked and felt great for the most part.
• The music is great. In particular I really appreciate how each character has their own music genre - from rock in Sonic's levels, to rap in Knuckles' and jazz in Rouge's. The theme song is absolutely iconic, and one of my personal favourite tracks in Eggman's theme.
• The rest of the audio though? Urgh. The sound mixing can be bad - really bad - in both cutscenes and gameplay. In the former, music will often drown out dialogue, or dialogue will overlap. In the latter, some stages (typically the shooting stages) will have an overabundance of sound effects, which can be quite jarring (especially if you want to enjoy the music!)

Conclusion: This was yet another ambitious game from Sonic Team, and I'd say, for the most part, they succeeded. The gameplay and storytelling have been refined over Sonic Adventure 1 in almost every way. Moreover, the game offers a unique experience in its darker storytelling and Hero vs. Dark stories that isn't really offered anywhere else. For these reasons, I don't find it surprising that it is a favourite of many. That said, I find a lot of the game to be a bit of a slog. I would only go back to this one if you have nostalgia for it, are curious on Shadow's origins, really want to experience the Sonic/Shadow levels, or are fairly tolerant of the treasure hunting and shooting. All-in-all, if I were to grade it, I'd give it a C-.

@timleon I like the treasure hunting levels! Still my favourite Sonic game by a mile though, so much to do and varied gameplay. The soundtrack’s a bit of a meme but in a good way, I find myself singing along at times. Plus I spent sooo much time on the Chao Garden.

@timleon, nice Sonic Adventure reviews! I played the "Battle" variant of the second game at a friend's house back in the day (I think we took turns playing through levels) which was a good time, but that's really about all I can say about them, lol.

@crimsontadpoles, really interesting review of Fatal Frame 5! I haven't played it as I never bought a Wii U, but it's one of the exclusives that really caught my eye so I hope they find a way to port it to Switch.

@RogerRoger, an excellent review as always, and I too want to point out how excellent your screenshots are (if you hadn't of said otherwise I'd have never guessed that they weren't taken without some sort of native feature). Too bad the game never really clicked with you, and I know how frustrating it is to be cut off early & be chided for choosing an easier difficulty.

@RogerRoger Ah, OK, the HD screen probably helped. Even then, they're really nice screenshots. You did well when touching them up.

@timleon After I saw you mention the sound mixing, I looked it up online and, apparently, it's a well-known issue dating back at least to the GameCube version of the game. Lots of complaints about the Steam version, too, and some hilariously annoying videos showing off inexplicably loud background elements.

I know you think it's a better game than Sonic Adventure DX, but that one had the benefit of not assaulting your ears, right?

Good review, though. And, to address an earlier comment I somehow didn't see before, I was pretty out of the loop with Nintendo between the SNES - Wii eras, but I've always been extremely fond of Sega's consoles, so my experience with their 3D Sonic games ended with the Dreamcast. Still not sure why I didn't pick up SA2 on that system, though, considering my fondness for the first one at the time.

The mature storyline and weirdly high stakes seem interesting. Kinda reminds me of when I played Pokemon Y, and the big bad in that game goes full Narutaru and talks about his plan to use an ancient weapon to wipe out most life on Earth. That went from 0 to Global Genocide really quickly.

Ratchet & Clank (PS4) - The modern reimagining of one of PlayStation's longest running platformer franchises.

Gameplay:

• A hybrid platformer/third person shooter, most levels have a linear progression, though of course there are hidden collectables right off the beaten path as well as the occasional optional objective that branches off from the main route. There are some attempts at non-linearity at times too, such as having a choice between which of the next two levels you want to tackle first, or one level that really opens up upon acquisition of a jetpack & is much more exploration based.
• The platforming itself never asks much of the player (outside of some of the later rail grinding objectives), but the shooting really mixes things up & there are tons of weapons play around with from your standard laser blaster, grenades, flamethrower, rocket launcher, & sniper rifle, to more fanciful fare such as the Sheepinator (turns foes into sheep), Groovatron (makes enemies in it's area of effect dance), & Pixelizer (turns enemies retro). You're bound to find a few that really click with you, though things can get annoying if you're in the middle of a fire fight and have to switch to a weapon that you don't have mapped for quick access, especially in the later game where you have well over a dozen to sift between. Of course, Ratchet also has a melee attack he can perform with his ratchet if enemies get up too close
  
• Occasionally there'll be some other sort of gameplay you'll be thrown into, such as ship dogfighting (pictured below), hoverboard racing, or some other mountable weapon, and while they do mix things up they usually don't come along too often. The most prevalent of these are laser based puzzles you'll need to solve to unlock doors/barriers (there is an auto-solve option for these if you don't want to get stuck on them, but I persevered on my own capabilities).
  
• At times Clank (who usually just functions as Ratchet's double/extended jumps) will be seperated from Ratchet & you'll find yourself tasked with more methodical puzzle platforming. These segments usually revolve around utilizing a limited number of "gagebots" (which can function as trampolines, bridges, or electrical switches) in order to traverse the environment. Sometimes you'll have to survive while fleeing a stronger foe as well (pictured below).
  
• In terms of collectables the most common type are Bolts, which you get for doing pretty much anything and are used to purchase new weapons (and refilling your health/ammo) at designated points. Otherwise you have Raritanium which can be found at single use harvest points & randomly dropped by enemies (use to upgrade weapons), & Golden Bolts (there are only 28 of them in the game, these coveted collectables unlock concept art, costumes, paint jobs, & even optional infinite ammo & invincibility toggles).
• The most in depth collectables in the game are the Holocards. There are packs of these hidden away at various points in levels (and they're also randomly dropped by enemies), and they feature art & information about various characters/weapons throughout series history. They are arranged in sets of three, and if you complete a set you'll get a various buff, such as a 5% increase in the amount of Bolts or Raritanium you earn (you can swap 5 duplicates for a card you don't have, helping you to complete your collection). The most coveted of the Holocards are the RYNO cards, of which there are 9 and unlock the game's ultimate weapon if you find them (they can only be collected by accessing their hidden locations, and aren't randomly dropped by enemies).
• Of course you often won't be able to access all of a level's big collectables on your first visit, so will need to return with new gear to access previously inaccessible areas. Also, in the second to last level there's an optional objective that will reward you with the ability to see the locations of all missing collectables on your map (which you can bring up by pressing the touch pad), if there are any that have eluded you.
• There are some light RPG elements included as well (as with pretty much everything these days). Ratchet earns EXP for defeating enemies (though you only gain more overall health upon level up), and weapons level up individually as well (they each have their own skill tree that grows in size upon level up, and you spend the aforementioned Raritanium to activate the nodes, which do things such as increase maximum ammo, area of effect, range, etc). You won't be able to fully upgrade everything on a single playthrough, so just focus on your favorites.

Story:

• A reboot that retells the story of the original game, it launched around the same time as a movie adaptation, & many of the game's cutscenes are straight up pulled from the film (you aren't allowed to take screenshots during such scenes, in contrast to events that happen in engine).
• A comedic take on an epic space faring sci-fi adventure, it follows a young Lombax engineer named Ratchet who is excited to partake in tryouts for the Galactic Rangers, the galaxy's premier super hero team. While he may not have the base brawn traditionally needed for the job, thanks to his mechanical know how & the assistance of Clank (a "defective" warbot that escaped the villainous Drex Industries) he's able to perform above his level, and along with the info Clank gives him about Drex's nefarious schemes, he earns a spot on the team.
  

Visual/Audio:

• It really is a lovely looking game, and each planet you visit (which are the game's levels) has a very distinctive vibe, whether it be a tropical paradise, metropolis, industrial, volcanic, etc. I just couldn't help myself and took many screenshots of the environments, many of which you can see below.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Performance is mostly rock solid on base PS4, though I noticed the occasional dropped frame here or there. Nothing I'd say impacts the experience though, and it's understandable as A LOT can be happening on screen at once.
• I wouldn't say the soundtrack stands out, but it fits the sci-fi adventure vibe the game has going.

Conclusion:

• This was my first experience with a Ratchet & Clank game, & while the core platforming isn't quite as tight as something Nintendo would put out (which was noticeable as I started this while still playing SM3DW on Switch), but it's still a high quality well crafted game, and the mixture with third person shooting with a variety of fun weapons really definitely makes it stand out in comparison to other platformers.
  
  Don't be sheepish, give it a whirl.

@Ralizah I totally remember both those exact moments in Sonic Adventure 2. The ear [removed] ends up being hilarious by the 4th or 5th time 😂

@RogerRoger @nessisonett @RR529 @Ralizah Thanks for the feedback!

I agree that context is important here, and some of my issues stem from overfamiliarity with the games. This is a revisit (I've not played the game much in the past few years), but in the past, as mentioned, I played this game to death - so perhaps I've just tired myself of the treasure hunting! That said, there are a few stages that I enjoy - I quite like Death Chamber and Egg Quarters - but can't stand Meteor Herd and Mad Space. Like Sonic's and Shadow's levels, I think the earlier levels tend to be stronger - but by nature of difficulty progression these tend to be over the quickest, such that most of my memories with the treasure hunting are the longer and more tedious levels.

@Razilah I've not looked into it, but it does seem the sound mixing issue depends on the version of the game to some extent? I've seen clips where it seems much worse than I remember, and I don't remember having such an issue with the sound effects in previous playthroughs on e.g. the Gamecube. Personally the sound mixing doesn't bother me too much, but it can take me out of the moment sometimes.

Haha. To be fair, complete world destruction isn't too uncommon in "family-friendly" stories, and a lot of it is to do with the overall tone of the storytelling. The original Sonic Adventure had some fairly dark elements which were overshadowed by it's relatively bright tone and frankly awkward presentation - whereas here they go all out IMO. The game is also literally quite dark in places - probably one of my complaints, actually. For a Sonic game there aren't many vibrant colours - I remember a UK Nintendo magazine printing a level guide at one point and you could barely differentiate the levels because of how dark the screenshots were! (Although I'd say the environments "pop" a little more in HD than they did in SD, from memory).

Concrete Genie
Platform: PS4
Completion status: Received the platinum trophy, so I did damn near everything there is to do

Concrete Genie was created by developer Pixelopus, which was established in 2014 and primarily consisted of University students who had been scouted out by SIE as part of their initiative to find smaller developers in the wake of thatgamecompany's critically acclaimed Journey. Their first game, Entwined, was... interesting, but not particularly memorable. Concrete Genie is the developer's second game, released in 2019, and while it represents a massive evolution over their first project, it also has conceptual, structural, and design issues that kept me from enjoying it as much as I wanted to.

Concrete Genie takes place in Denska, a formerly bustling port town that is now a deserted wasteland and being consumed by a Darkness. This Darkness seems to be a physical manifestation of the despair felt by the few people who still live there, brought about by both a lack of hope for future prospects and by the ecological destruction wrought by an oil spill years back. In the midst of this misery, a young artist named Ash, who is stalked by a gang of bullies throughout the game, stumbles upon a lighthouse that mysteriously grants life to one of his creations, a monstrosity named Luna. Luna conjures a magic paintbrush for Ash to use to will other daemonic doodles (genies) to life, and Ash sets out to graffiti the town, because... the game presumably requires an interactive element.

It's clearly an attempt at whimsy and creativity, but the game falls on its face for me from the onset. As the player, you'll run around various sections of Denska finding creation spots to conjure new spirits, which you'll need in order to complete environmental puzzles, as they can only move across connected surfaces, and sections of the game require you to manipulate bits of the environment in order to bring the creatures along with you. The majority of the game involves using your Epic Mickey paintbrush to splash designs onto buildings in order to meet creativity quotas required to progress the story. Well, that's only half the story. You don't usually get a lot of choice about what designs you are to use in this game. Instead, the wall-bound ghouls you magick to life will make wordless demands about combinations of designs they want you to mix together on the same surface, and your progress in the game is often held ransom until you figure out what they want. Which is usually fine and quick enough, but oftentimes the pictorial representations of their demands (which appear as symbols in word bubbles next to them) will become confused with the designs you already placed on the walls. More often than not, it's clear that the combined elements were supposed to create a particular mood or aesthetic, but my paintings would often be a shadow of this because I had to remove previously created elements in order to figure out what else the genies wanted me to do.

The player collects designs from pages of his sketchbook that were scattered to the winds, and they'll need to collect most of these pages in order to have the requisite designs needed to complete the game. The player can also collect pages that feature customization features for the genies, which I found to be fairly pointless; no matter how many different appendages I was allowed to attach to my genies, they always came out looking like Lovecraftian monstrosities. At first, I leaned into this and made them as alien and frightening looking as possible, but the game wants you to design so many of these stupid things, and at some point I just stopped caring: new genie creation point? Sure, I'll slap an antler on it somewhere and call it a day. My favorite, which came out of a moment of pure frustration with the game, looked like a deformed ball of antlers and arms that were growing out of a central mass at random. Unfortunately, when animating the genies, the game always opts for the least interesting solution and makes them humanoid and bipedal, no matter how you design them. If my ball of appendages could have rolled around the walls like The Blob, without eyes or a face, I would have been much fonder of it. Unfortunately, this game is creative in the same way that Telltale Games were full of moral choices: you're given options, but, at the end of the day, the extent of your input is limited by factors beyond your control.

The first half of the game encompasses this "creative" gameplay alongside sequences where you run into your tormenters and your magic paintbrush will feed you a quick (if creatively rendered) cutscene explaining how a given child's home life is broken. Presumably, the function of these sob stories is to humanize your tormenters and explain why they've dedicated their life to making your character as miserable as humanly possible, which is important, because the second half of the game includes them much more prominently. At some point, they capture you and break your paintbrush, which makes the genies turn violent and wild, and proceed to capture the bullies.

At this point, it's like the designers have come to the realization that the game they were making was dreadfully dull, and opted to make something else entirely halfway through. The rest of the game abandons the painting conceit almost entirely, and becomes more of an action game where you're to track down down the genies and... engage them in battle... in order to bring them to their senses? It doesn't make any sense, really, and the worst part is that the game uses these sequences where you rescue your bullies from the daemons you created earlier in the game to try and forge a bond between your character and his tormenters. As it turns out, months or potentially even years of terror and abuse can be forgiven and forgotten because these budding criminals didn't have perfect lives. Now, don't get me wrong: I LOVE a good redemption/forgiveness story, but this just isn't it. This is a victim embracing his abusers the moment he proves useful to them and they decide there's more utility in working with him than making his life a living hell. That... I'm sorry, that doesn't strike me as the sort of timeless tale of childhood friendship the designers of this game clearly think it does, and I found the character dynamics here to be insulting as a result.

That's... A LOT of negativity, isn't it? Strangely enough, I didn't actually hate the game. There is actually some good here as well. For one thing, Concrete Genie handles extremely well: Ash is a joy to control, platforming around environments is fun, and, in the second half of the game, he gains the ability to essentially skate around Denska, and it makes traversal insanely fun. I actually really wish this ability to skate around environments had been around in some capacity throughout the game, as it feels wasted being limited to the second half of the experience. Another bright spot on the control front is that the painting, by default, encourages the use of gyro aiming, the the DS4 works really well for this purpose.

The combat and genie taming in the second half of the game is also quite enjoyable. FAR more fun than the painting gameplay in the first half of the game. It's a pity, as I feel like, again, this element would have been better integrated into the entire game. Running around and painting while engaging in combat with some sort of enemy would have added some much-needed variety to the gameplay. Maybe with an upgradeable meter that's used when skating around the environments. As it stands, Concrete Genie feels like two different game concepts that were awkwardly mashed together into one entirely inconsistent experience. It's a bit annoying, because it's easy to see how, with some tweaks, the game could have ended up being much better than it was.

Conceptually, the game could have been great. It's almost there. I like the magical realism and Ghibli-esque focus on the ways in which humans and nature impact one-another. But, narratively, the game is undercooked and ends up being ill-conceived as a result. The game WANTS to talk about ecology, and how other people shape who we end up being, and explore complex dynamics between groups of children, but it never realizes any of those ambitions.

I'm becoming sour again, but I do want to emphasize, before that mood takes over, that the presentation in this game is phenomenal. I LOVE the art-style in this game. The characters almost look stop-motion, and combined with the gorgeous particle effects and environmental design, it all comes together beautifully to create an experience that I always enjoyed looking at. Unfortunately, the frame rate on the base system can become a bit choppy at times, but the visual design is strong enough that, even when this happened during cutscenes, I wasn't really taken out of the experience. What took me out of the experience was the poor gameplay and narrative.

In my pursuit of the almighty platinum trophy, I found all of the collectibles in this game and engaged with the game modes outside of the core campaign. I think the experience actually comes together best in the post-game, as it combines your skating ability with the core gameplay of the first half, only now you're actually exploring your environment for secrets instead of constantly being held hostage by genie demands. Some of these collectibles are difficult to find, but looking for all of them helped me to appreciate the often excellent, multi-tiered level design. It's just too bad the game doesn't do much with these levels. It would have been fun to have platforming challenges in the main or post-game in order to actually utilize these spaces to their full potential.

The game has a "free painting" mode, outside of the core campaign, where the player can skate around splashing designs on walls in any way they see fit. This... seemed fairly pointless to me. There's no real gameplay or scoring system attached to this. I guess this mode would be nice for someone who gets their jollies creating murals in the game and screenshotting them, but... you can do that in the main game, too. There's literally no reason to do "free painting" instead of just playing the campaign's post-game. But you have to do something in each of the free painting levels in order to collect all the trophies, so I did.

Concrete Genie is a game I wanted to love, but couldn't. At the same time, it does certain things right enough that I can't properly hate it, either. It's not a terrible game, and I do find it impressive how much of an upgrade this is over the developer's first game. It LOOKS like a premium experience, and the game design is a few altered decisions away from actually being decent. Unfortunately, I have to take games as they come, and Concrete Genie gets a 4/10 from me.

@RR529 Nice Ratchet and Clank piece! This reboot was also my first experience the franchise, and I also came away mostly happy with it. Granted, it never blew me out of the water, but you seem to enjoy it in the same way I did: as a gorgeous action-platformer that's good, simple fun and has decent weapon variety.

Love the screenshots, too. It really is a pretty little game.

@Ralizah I totally agree with that review. On basically every point. I’m ashamed to say that I couldn’t even finish the game, my PS5 arrived and I just kinda thought ‘what’s the point?’ as I really hadn’t been enjoying it. 4/10 is the same as two stars, which people really wouldn’t be as annoyed about on this site if PS gave reviews in that vein.

@RR529 glad you enjoyed Ratchet and Clank! Do you think you'll try out any of the other titles? (A shame that most of them never made it past the PS3...but I guess there's also PSNow!)

@Kidfried Haha, believe it or not, I didn't actually sit down intending to flame this game (unlike most of my pieces, this was written in one session, with little to no editing). And I tried not to. It's not trash. As I pointed out in the review, and as you re-iterated, it's so close to being a really good game in many respects. It's actually kind of frustrating, because all the ingredients are here for an excellent adventure. It LOOKS like it should be excellent. I wanted it to be excellent. And it shows a lot of promise. Despite the low score, I'm still impressed with it, in some respects.

And yeah, that redemption narrative... I'm glad they want to tell a meaningful story, but they need to hire a new scriptwriter or something, because it was wide of the mark, and clearly I'm not the only person who felt that way.

Thanks for reading and engaging!

@nessisonett Yeah, I've been trying to engage the entire scale when reviewing games. Still amazes me how professional reviewers only grade on a 7 - 10 scale for almost everything, as it defeats the purpose of a 10-point scale in the first place!

Not sure you should feel ashamed for not finishing the game. If you're not feeling something, why commit to it? Our time on Earth is limited, after all. But, like I said in the review, I think the post-game collectibles clean-up was probably when the game was strongest for me, as it combined the core gameplay of the first half with the traversal of the second half and forces you to engage with the level design more. The levels are well-designed! It's just too bad you do almost nothing besides splash designs on walls in 90% of them. This is a competent platformer that seems to hate that it has any platforming elements at all.

I am glad I stuck with it, even if the final product wasn't quite what I would have hoped for.

Thanks for taking the time to read my piece!

@RogerRoger I actually liked the combat, but it was so weird and in opposition to the design of the first half of the game. I do recall you saying that this game would have been almost perfect for you if it'd stuck with the pace and gameplay it showcased in the first half! While I don't quite agree, you might be interested to know that your viewpoint has an ally in my nephew. He was excited to play the game, and burned through the first half for hours, clearly pretty enraptured, but dropped it like a hot potato once the twist happened. I questioned him about it, and he told me that the switch from chill art game to some weird, dark boss rush thing killed his interest in it.

I think the painting would have worked better for me if it had leaned further in the direction of freedom or scoring. The devs didn't want to score peoples' art (pretty sure I read that in an interview or something), but, at the same time, they hold you hostage until you slap down exactly the designs your genies demand, and give you no leeway in terms of making your own designs. It's like the game was afraid to commit too far in either direction.

I am glad you enjoyed a large portion of the game, though, even if the last portion of it soured you on it a bit.

And thanks! I wanted at least a few striking screenshots that weren't captured from cutscenes. It's a beautiful game, and I wanted to capture that. I didn't spend a ton of time in photo mode, though. I have more screens, but these are the only non-cutscene ones I felt were worth sharing.

As always, I appreciate the dialogue!

@RogerRoger Such an enjoyable read on Miles Morales. I think it’s the first full fledged user review on the game, so I was particularly interested. I haven’t yet made the purchase, but it’s one I will eventually get to when the mood strikes.

My only disappointment is that you mention the platinum requires a NG+ playthrough, which, as you know, I’m not apt to do. Nevertheless, it sounds like a near perfect follow up to one of PS4’s highlights.

Did you end up playing most of the game in fidelity / graphics mode then? Or did the performance mode lure you to enjoy the more responsive frame rate?

@Ralizah, great Concrete Genie review (and thanks for the read of my R&C review!). It's a game I've been mildly interested in, but thanks to your (and some others') words on it, I probably shouldn't be in a hurry.

@RogerRoger, great Miles Morales review from you as well! I know it's also available on PS4, but I think this is one I'm going to save for when/if I ever get a PS5. Looks like a treat! Also, to answer the questions you & @Timleon asked regarding R&C, while I now do have a general interest in the series, I think I'll just wait to play Rift Apart if I ever get a PS5.

One Piece: Unlimited World Red (Switch) - A launch year action tie in to the hit anime series (I believe previously released on 3DS & Wii U).

Gameplay:

• Conceptually it's a pretty standard dungeon crawler. It has "dungeons" based upon the various locales featured in the anime wherein you gather various loot, and a centralized town you return to inbetween where you can use said loot to upgrade your characters, equipment, and the town itself.
• Combat is pretty basic "beat 'em up/hack & slash" fare, and while you can button mash your way through most mobs of enemies, it encourages you to utilize various combos in your arsenal via a combo list in the lower right corner of the screen (seen below), as pulling them all off before taking too much damage yourself (which resets the list) causes enemies to enter a "Break" state where they're easier to stun. It also features system where a button prompt to dodge or deflect an attack will let you avoid incoming damage (this can change based upon who you're playing as, as Luffy can deflect gunfire, while Nami will dodge instead, for example), & by pressing "L" you bring up a list of a character's specials, which you can engage if you have a special bar filled up (if all characters have a special bar filled, you can also choose to activate a flashy team attack, which you can also see Nami activating below).
  
  
• While fights against the various mooks are nothing to write home about, the boss fights are surprisingly bombastic & challenging. Take an early boss as an example (pictured below), which ocasionally summons a giant sword of sand that'll cleave the battle area in two.
• Loot itself can be found by destroying objects in the environment, in treasure chests, dropped by enemies, and pictured below you can pull your best Animal Crossing impression by catching critters with a net or going fishing at designated spots (both of which require you to input some sort of QTE). Some loot can only be accessed (or is easier to access) depending on who you have in your party. For example getting enemy drops is easier with Nami as she can steal from downed foes, chests behind gates can only be accessed by slicing the gates with Zoro's sword, and distant islands can only be reached by Brook being able to run on water.
  
  
• Back in town you can only play as Luffy (who, pictured below, can "Spider-Man" himself about the place), and by using the loot you collect on your adventures you can open up new locations such as pharmacies that offer a wider range of healing items, a tavern which is used to take on sidequests (one of the first things you open), as well as a host of other establishments (a library for example, lets you view character models/bios). There are also various optional minigames dotted about the place, most of which take the guise of Game & Watch like fare (pictured below), though you can also collect balloons randomly puked out across town which can be traded with a girl for (random?) items.
  
  
• Of course characters level up as you take them into battle & there's no EXP share here, so characters not in your active party will get left behind if you don't use them (you have a total of 9 characters, and can only use 3 at a time when heading out). It's not too big of a deal though as (other than Luffy) the game doesn't require you to use specific characters to clear the story & only the character you're directly in control of takes damage, so it's safe to take a low level character into a high level area to power level them. To further strengthen your party, once you have the restaurant in town built you can have dishes made (as long as you have the prerequisite loot) that permanently raise HP and/or Attack stats of whomever eats them (there's no limit to this as far as I could tell, though the boost a dish gives does diminish a bit each time you feed it to the same character).
• Unique to this game are the "Strong Word" & "Item Word" systems. "Strong Words" are quotes spoken by a character in the anime that you can equip to said character to give them a stat boost or some other boon. While this may sound confusing it's literally just a replacement for the standard equipment system you usually see in JRPGs (instead of equipping different pieces of armor, you equip different quotes). Each "Strong Word" has a cost associated with it, and the higher level a character is the higher cost cap they'll have, letting you equip multiple (or higher quality) quotes to them. "Item Words" are exactly what they sound like. They as well are quotes, but instead of equipping them to the appropriate character they act as items you can use while out in a dungeon while controlling their related character (they have unlimited uses, but have a cool down timer so you can't spam them). Also there is an NPC in town who, if you have the required loot, can upgrade the effect of both "Strong Words" & "Item Words".
• For an RPG the main story doesn't last too long, in fact if you really stuck to it you could probably run through it in under 10 hours. The real meat of the game lies in the large selection of sidequests. These are all timed challenges, though usually generously, and range from the typical collect "X" number of this item, or defeat "Y" number of enemies, to remixed boss fights or boss gauntlets, and even feature bosses that don't show up in the main story. I imagine you could probably get 25-30 hours out of it if you really got into the sidequest content, though I only did some of them. Also, a "Hard Mode" for the main story becomes available once you complete it.

Story:

• The Strawhats find themselves arriving at the sunny shores of Trans Town, and while the gang starts out in good spirits (as you can see below), they discover that the town has been ruined & they soon find themselves engaged in a plot orchestrated by the infamous pirate Redfield (an game original character, but explained as being equal to the most powerful figures in official lore) who is trapping them within illusions of adventures past for his own mysterious purposes (it's essentially Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for One Piece, narratively).
  
• You'll naturally get the most out of it if you're an established One Piece fan, but as someone who'se mostly neutral on the series I still had a pretty decent time with the mostly likeable cast. Every major face seems accounted for & is represented well.

Visual/Audio:

• While the game's age/budget shows a bit in spots, thanks to the vibrant art direction it still looks pretty good, and the unique locales pulled from the anime (many of which are pictured below) keep the dungeons from falling into the cliché tropes for the most part (though Alabasta is 80% generic desert).
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It mostly runs solid, though there are occasional frame rate drops. First I noticed was in the Drum Island dungeon (a snowy biome) in an area with a heavy blizzard effect active, though there are like two tiny spots in Skypea's jungle area that cause the frame rate to tank for reasons I can't think of.
• The soundtrack fits the series well. I'm not a huge fan of the show, but I think I recognized some tunes from the anime.

Conclusion:

• Not a must play game, but still pretty solid if you're into the anime or characters.
  Setting sail for new adventures.

@RR529 Nice review. Also dig the ample selection of screenshots. I'm mixed on the aesthetic of the game: the vibrant colors are very nice, but it also has those... unique One Piece character designs.

It sounds fairly short, and the lack of XP share is... unfortunate for an RPG. And the equipment and item systems... so, if I'm understanding this right, you have them say different quotes to improve their stats...? Am I getting this? I've literally never heard of a system like this before.

Well, it sounds like you had fun with it. One Piece isn't my thing, but at least it's not another arena fighter, like so many licensed anime games seem to default to!

I believe there are also One Piece musou games you can play. Have you tried those, or is this your first One Piece-related game?

@Ralizah, yeah, the character design can be off putting & is one of the reasons I never really got into the anime (he wasn't in this game thankfully, but there was one arc I saw back when it was on Toonami that featured a villain that looked like a vampiric bowling pin, and it was hard to take seriously). It's okay in small doses though, and I'm fine with (most) of the core cast.

Again, the "Strong Word" system sounds confusing, but it's really not. Instead of going into the menu & equipping Luffy with an Iron Sword or some such, you'd equip him with "I'm Going to be King of the Pirates!" instead. What probably muddies the waters are the "Item Words", which are also quotes, but these go in your item bag (rather than being equipped to a character) and are used as an item. Maybe it is kinda confusing to explain, but in practice I didn't find it all that hard to navigate.

Also, I did play One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 a couple years ago on a whim, and probably enjoyed it more than Fire Emblem Warriors or Hyrule Warriors surprisingly.

@RogerRoger As a newbie to the franchise, I enjoyed reading your Hitman 3 review and appreciate both the palpable love for the property you convey, and the fair caution you mention to newcomers.

I’m not surprised that the game is best experienced as a culmination of the prior entries and I believe I’ll stash the game into the back of my potential future projects, behind Hitman 2. I’m seeing H2’s price be extremely reasonable (currently on sale for $12) and so your thoughts have me thinking that I’ll go that direction when/if I proceed in Agent 47’s journey. By the time I get to and through the second installment, H3 will likely be on the cheap. In fact — I wonder if IO will ever consider just putting out a trilogy pack, with everything in one purchase and with all the levels neatly bundled so as to avoid the complex porting of DLC styled movement of previous game content over to the new engine. If they did that in a year or so, I might be on board with paying a little more for the convenience and simplicity of the package.

Regardless, even with my shallow knowledge of the series, I agree with your notion that the series has unfairly flown under the radar a little bit and the gameplay offers something quite unique and ingenious. In a sea of copycat games, what IO has accomplished is really worthy of praise.

@Th3solution Well, you can already buy Hitman 1 and 2’s levels through Hitman 3. It’s a far more expensive way to do it than just buying the first two games outright and porting the levels over!

@RogerRoger Nice review!

Despite having been a fan of the PS2 entries years back, I think you kind of touched on the elements that have been keeping me away from the new trilogy of Hitman games that, by all accounts, is excellent. An always-online requirement for something single-player is just... well, anyway, I've also been continually confused by this thing where you can import the levels from previous Hitman games into the latest one. I guess I'm getting the sense from your piece that just playing previous games on their own is the way to go, though? I'm not much for most Western-developed AAA games, but Hitman is in a class of its own on a game design front.

Love the screenshots. It's too bad the photo mode sounds underwhelming. This is a beautiful game, and I can only imagine the hours you'd put in with a photo mode more in the vein of the one included with HZD.

A few questions:

• About the first two Hitman games: aside from the time-limited missions, is there post-launch content that can be played now? Or are you just limited to the core game content that shipped at launch.
• I remember reading something about a VR mode in this game. Is that a thing?