Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

Hollow Knight review I wrote back in March of 2021:

Hollow Knight starts off slow. The first area that the player discovers - the Forgotten Crossroads - is bland and ridden with the most basic of enemy types, accompanied by a sombre and melancholic tune that does nothing to pique the player’s interest. After a gritty and difficult fight against the game’s first of many spectacular bosses, the player emerges from the tunnels, ready to put down their controller and never return. When from the dust and ash emerges Greenpath, a lush and bright pilgrim’s path. It is in this second of the early game areas that Hollow Knight reveals its charm, beauty, tune, and atmosphere.

Hollow Knight drops you into the forgotten and ruined ancient kingdom of Hallownest. The player takes control of a mysterious and voiceless protagonist, only known as the Knight. It is up to the player to explore this desolate place and uncover the secrets and history of how it all came crashing down. The kingdom of Hallownest is made up of many different and unique environments, all interconnected in a maze of shortcuts and passages.

The bubbling swamps of the Fungal Wastes are a far cry from the cold and unforgiving mines of the Crystal Peaks, and exploring these unique settings is a joy, although the game's save system that respawns the player at the last bench they sat on, can be rather unforgiving at the start, especially when the player is less skilled and the world vastly unexplored.

Exploration and straying off the beaten path is meaningfully rewarded in Hollow Knight. Fighting and defeating optional bosses usually provide the player with interesting charms that be can be equipped to provide unique buffs during combat. Collectables found across the world can be used to upgrade the Knight’s nail - an equivalent of a sword in Hallownest - or be cashed in for some of that sweet-sweet Geo- the currency of the kingdom.

The Metroidvania design philosophy that this game employs ensures that the upgrades that the player receives almost always open up previously inaccessible locations, like a double jump for a ledge that’s too high to reach or a charm that allows you to swim through pools of acid. Discovering new sights and hidden locations are as satisfying as reaping the rewards they provide.

The combat is Hollow Knight is simple, yet it never got boring throughout the entirety of my 40-hour long playthrough. The Knight’s main weapon is its trusty nail which can be upgraded throughout the player’s journey. Alongside the nail in fights, the Knight has a comprehensive spell system that can be used by consuming soul- a meter that refills upon striking enemies. This same soul meter is also used to heal, opening up interesting combat scenarios where the player must decide whether to use the little soul they have to attack or heal. This system also encourages an offensive playstyle that requires constant retaliation in order to keep the Knight from dying.

Charms also provide passive or active abilities such as creating a shell to protect the player while they are healing or a charm that increases damage when only one health mask is left. The challenge in Hollow Knight’s simplistic combat system is ever-present, with intelligent enemies that won’t stand back in a fight. Mastery of the nail is essential and develops throughout the entirety of time one spends in this world.

Hollow Knight’s charm is present in its hand-drawn environments, animations, and characters. The environments have multi-layered backgrounds, animated to show the rustling of leaves or the scurrying of foes. The art helps make each and every room in Hollow Knight feel densely packed, adding to the aesthetic of this underground kingdom.

Simple actions like pulling out a map or swimming are immaculately detailed. It is hard not to notice and be amazed as the Knight pauses to pull out a map from inside of its cape or at how its cape floats while swimming. These tiny details add tons of immersion to Hollow Knight and really shows the amount of care and passion that developers Team Cherry have poured into the game.

Christopher Larkin’s work on Hollow Knight’s soundtrack is incredible. From the fast-paced tunes that play during boss battles to the background tunes that accompany exploration, every aspect of Hollow Knight’s score strikes home. Little sound effects like sizzling acid or the shrieks of pain released by enemies upon death help increase player immersion in this already incredibly realised world.

While there may not be any dialogue exiting the protagonist’s mouth, the inhabitants of Hallownest have their own language- a sort of yapping gibberish nonsense that is actually pleasantly fun to listen to. It creates comically hilarious moments, ones that are often sorely needed provided just how difficult this game can be at times.

When it comes to storytelling, Hollow Knight uses its world to tell the tale of the kingdom of Hallownest. Environmental signs and NPC dialogue are utilised to show a story, instead of just telling one. While I did not pick up much about the lore and history of Hallownest throughout my journey, keen and interested players can spend hours uncovering secrets of this kingdom and scouring wikis and Reddit threads formulating theories to answer the unanswered.

Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight is a modern classic. Its simplistic combat, deep and rich lore, and interesting expansive world are supported by great art and sound design. While a slow start is not the best impression on a new player, those sticking around will slowly but surely uncover all the great things Hollow Knight has to offer. And there are a lot of them.

Score: 4/5

@DominusPlatypus What a wonderful review! Thank you for sharing. I really like how you have described the experience and break it down for analysis. Having not played the game yet, I enjoyed how you describe the opening sequence and first impressions coming into the game and then how it evolves. Makes me want to play the game! One of these days I’ll get around to it. 😅

@DominusPlatypus Nicely thorough review of Hollow Knight!

Interesting to hear that your first impression of it was poor, although continuing to play it seems to have been the right call, as it's clear the game won you over pretty thoroughly.

While I'm not a huge fan of this style of storytelling, I do suppose it works well with cryptic feel the game is going for.

I also really enjoyed the Bloodborne-esque system of restoring mana via attacking enemies, which feeds into the sense of aggression with which many bosses need to be approached.

And yeah, the presentation is next-level for a game from a previously unknown indie developer. What an amazing first game to make!

Much as I'd really like to read your Elden Ring review Ral I've been on a media blackout and trying not to read or see the game as much as I possibly can.

I will say however I'm rather happy for you @Ralizah that finally seemed to enjoy a FromSoft/Souls title.

Did the map help you out as much as you expected for that?

Any chance you'll attempt an earlier FromSoft game again or is that still a bit too much without a map feature?

I'm afraid I'll have to say something similar to you @RogerRoger in regards to your Horizon: Forbidden West review.

I've seen a bit more about that though compared to ER and dear god does it look pretty or what?! 😁

It's a shame to hear you weren't really feeling it much at the start. But I'm glad to hear it was a short lived hurdle and once you dove in properly you were swept off your feet (Even if your review of it is apparently quite harsh on it at times!)

I'll be sure to bookmark it though for when I finally get around to playing it (whenever I can be graced with the presence of a PS5 )

@HallowMoonshadow Planning on grabbing ER soon, then?

Yeah, I'm glad they released something I could properly enjoy as well. It feels less barebones than anything I've played by them previously.

Yes, the map was supremely useful (although setting waypoints could get a little fiddly in the overworld when I couldn't figure out where a point in the distance corresponded to on the map). What also helped was splitting up the game's major dungeons. Having games that are composed of nothing but giant, interconnected dungeons and no map system just did my head in.

I'll probably give Bloodborne another chance eventually. After all, I own it digitally, so I'll always have access to it.

Might grab Sekiro when it goes cheap enough as well. I like the ninja theme more than the grungy dark fantasy of Dark Souls, and the changes to the combat and traversal seem interesting.

@The3solution Thanks for reading! The game goes on sale often, so you should have no problem finding it for cheap whenever you want to play it.

@Ralizah Thanks! I might have exaggerated the dullness of the opening area, it's really not that bad. But yeah, it does feel kinda underwhelming in comparison to other areas in the game. Its clear a lot of effort was put into making the world rich with lore, but I enjoyed the game a lot even with the most surface-level understanding of the story.

@RogerRoger Thanks for reading! I've had a couple of friends who had no prior interest in the game, but then picked it up and thoroughly enjoyed then. But then I also have a friend who had no prior interest and still didn't enjoy it. It's a tough read with Hollow Knight, so maybe wait for a good discount before checking it out.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Review)

I played Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception over the course of about seven months. I initially started playing back in August of 2021, but I stopped after only a couple of hours. There was a simple reason for this- I was burnt out on Uncharted.

I had played and finished both Uncharted 1 and 2 in May and June respectively. Uncharted 3's gameplay was, and still is, by no means bad, but due to my unique circumstances, I found it extremely samey due to the fact I had just played fifteen hours of basically the same thing. The Uncharted formula had lost its appeal to me- temporarily at least.

Over the remainder of the year, I played the game in little bits and pieces. By the time 2022 rolled around, I had made my way to Chapter 7. Slow-moving, but progress nonetheless. At the end of January, Uncharted: The Legacy of Thieves Collection was released on PS5, a remastered collection of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: Lost Legacy.

Suddenly, people across social media and online forums were talking about Uncharted. The chatter was inescapable and the bandwagon too powerful. Spurred on by the series' newfound attention online, I made the commitment to dive back into Uncharted 3 and finish the game once and for all.

Now I mention all of this because my thoughts about this game are scattered and incoherent. For me to write a detailed review of a game, one that covers all aspects from gameplay to story to visuals and everything in between, I need to take notes while playing.

I did not take notes while playing this game, none at all. This leaves a gaping hole in my critique of much of the early and middle sections of the game. I also played the game over a long period of time, and this impacts how much of my thoughts on the early game I actually remember.

I'm saying all this because this isn't one of my traditional reviews. I am not going to cover all aspects of the game in as much detail as I would like to because frankly, I don't feel knowledgeable enough to do so. Instead, I have a few lines of notes I took down upon finishing the game which I would like to expand upon in this article. I will delve into these points in detail, but not all aspects of the game will be covered.

So with that preambulatory disclaimer out of the way, here are some thoughts on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.

spoiler warning

A Character Story

Just like both previous entries in the series, Uncharted 3's overall plot isn't very good. The search for a lost city that contains vast sums of treasure has been done before, both by other pieces of media and the first Uncharted game. While the draw towards finding this treasure exists for Nathan Drake and his companions, it didn't resonate with me all that much. What did resonate with me however are the characters and their relationships.

Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan are once again superb. Their father-son dynamic and witty one-liners kept me invested and entertained throughout the game. Just like Nathan Drake cares about Sully, I do so too, and this comes to fruition when about midway through the game Sully is kidnapped, and you (the player) must go find him. Not only does Nate want to rescue his friend, but you want to do so too, and there is genuine motivation to push through these sections of the game so that you can find and save Sully.

The game's second chapter is a flashback to Nate's childhood and provides much-needed clarity about how Nate and Sully first met. This is appreciated and gives players an interesting glimpse into the duo's past, while also tying into the game's main plot.

After her and Nate's reconciliation at the end of Uncharted 2, Elena's absence at the start of Uncharted 3 may come as a shock to some players. And while this may remain in the back of players' minds as they move through the game's early chapters, Nate and Sully are joined by two other companions. Chloe Frazer returns after her role in Uncharted 2, and she is joined by Charlie Cutter. Together with Nate and Sully, the four of them start the game off together in their search for the lost city.

Chloe is familiar to players of the second game, and her character remains much the same. Charlie is positioned as an old friend of Nate and Sully, and his character is mostly fine but doesn't possess the same stand-out personality that Chloe does. Chloe and Charlie are no Elena Fisher, but they do a decent job in her absence.

Charlie Cutter's reveal is a cool one, with the character posing as one of the enemy before the game reveals it was all a ploy and Cutter is instead working with our protagonists. This hoodwink manoeuvre was orchestrated so that the gang can get closer to Katherine Marlowe- the game's main antagonist. Marlowe is after the same lost city as Nate and the gang, and during the game, it is revealed that she is the leader of a centuries-old secret order that uses intimidation to get what it wants.

I am not going to dive too deep into the game's main narrative here - you can read a wiki entry to find out about that - but I am going to tell you what I think about Marlowe as an antagonist.

Marlowe is a decent villain. It's debatable whether she is better than Lazarevic from the second game, but I think she is vastly better than Roman from the first. Marlowe has the evil potential, and this is demonstrated when she sets fire to the platform Cutter is standing on - leaving him to break his leg while attempting a ludicrous jump to safety - and when she drugs Nathan Drake to get him to walk right into her hands. While she never directly comes to blows with the player during gameplay, she does exert an aura of power around her and fear onto her opposers.

But apart from these two instances near the middle of the game, Marlowe doesn't really do much. We do encounter her again at the end, and to avoid spoiling the game's ending, I'm just gonna say nothing happens at the end to improve her as a villain. There is a lot of untapped potential here. Marlowe doesn't feature at all during much of the second half of the game. She is there at the very beginning, once again near the middle, and then right at the very end. I think the game should have been written with Marlowe playing a more prominent on-screen role.

Coming back to Elena's surprising absence, you do finally meet her in the game's 10th chapter. You are then, not explicitly told, but instead subtly hinted towards the fact that some time between the 2nd and 3rd games, Nate and Elena got married, except they ended up parting ways. This was likely due to Nate putting his obsessive lust for adventure ahead of their relationship, but its clear the two still have feelings for each other. The two largely ignore their troubled past and get on with the job, but their constant dialogue shows the player that the chemistry between journalist and treasure hunter is still there.

The two are then separated again when Nate gets drugged by Marlowe, but he eventually finds her again after a long sequence that involves him being taken captive by pirates, freeing himself, and then trying to rescue Sully from a ship where he isn't actually being held. This may sound confusing but in the game it makes sense. Finally, the two characters show that they actually care for each other, but before a happy ending can take place, they still need to rescue Sully.

Elena helps Nate get on board Marlowe's supply plane that's heading towards the lost city that Marlowe's convoy and a captive Sully are also on their way towards. For fans of the series like me, it was great to see Nate and Elena back together, and the game culminates in a beautiful sunset scene on a runway that is arguably more impactful than the ending scenes in both Uncharted 1 and 2. Heartwarming stuff.

That Airplane Scene

You know the iconic aeroplane fight/crash scene from Uncharted 3? Even if you haven't played the game, I'm sure you must have at least seen glimpses of it in trailers or random YouTube videos. If not, then maybe you've seen the recent Uncharted movie, because even that had a recreation of this scene.

The scene I'm talking about takes place in Chapter 17. Once you enter Marlowe's supply plane through its landing gear, you promptly end up falling asleep or passing out. I can't tell which one it is but it doesn't really matter because once you wake up/regain consciousness, you crawl through the air ducts to get into the plane's main cargo hold. Unfortunately, you crawl right out under a big brute, who slams you against the wall and against all good judgement, decides opening the rear loading ramp to throw you out of the plane while flying thousands of feet in the air is a good idea.

After a short fistfight on the rear loading ramp, you unhook one giant storage crate and it goes tumbling out of the airplane, taking the big brute along with it. Rather comically, this ends up detaching all the storage crates from the holding bay, so along with the rest of the cargo, you are promptly swept out of the plane, Luckily, the tethers connecting one bunch of cargo holds strong, so you grab onto the cargo that's now hanging out of the plane and begin climbing back up into the holding bay.

Once you climb back into the holding bay, the tether finally snaps sending the cargo crashing down to the desert below. Back in the holding bay, you engage in a short gunfight with some enemy soldiers which leads to some fuel barrels exploding and the plane catching on fire. Suddenly it's all chaos. The plane breaks into two and barrels down towards the sandy desert below. You are violently thrown out of the plane and fall into the path of a conveniently falling piece of cargo. The cargo's parachute opens and you slowly but safely descend down towards the sand dunes below.

Before I share my gripes with this entire set-piece, I think it deserves some appreciation. NaughtyDog nailed the cinematic aspects of the scene, with the shots of the plane flying through the sky and the view of the desert below. The physics of tumbling crates of cargo are also cool to witness, and the way you end up slowly descending down to the flaming carcass of the airplane while riding on a piece of parachuted cargo is extremely badass.

What the developers didn't nail however is making this set-piece interactive and different from the rest of the game. All you do is fist-fight, climb, and shoot from behind cover- three actions that are the staple of the game's gameplay loop. There is nothing unique about this, nothing that sets it apart from the rest of the game. There is the fact that this is all taking place in an airplane thousands of feet in the air, but simply having a cool setting isn't going to do all the work.

I wish the developers did something with the part where you are climbing back onto the plane. It would have been so cool to see Nathan Drake leaping from one cargo crate to another as they fell downwards, while at the same time having to shoot enemies on the loading ramp. There was so much potential to do something really fun and kinetic with the cargo crates as they tumbled out of the plane.

It's possible the technology of that time wasn't able to handle such intensive sequences, and maybe I am being too harsh on the game, but I just felt that the set-piece lacked something special. I am sure other people loved the set-piece, and to an extent, I can understand why.

There was another set-piece in the game which I liked much more. The caravan chase in Chapter 20 sees Nathan and newfound friend Salim chase down Marlowe's convoy across the Yemen desert on horseback. Controlling the horses is easy, and they actually run pretty fast, giving a good sense of speed. You chase after the caravan to rescue Sully, who is being held captive.

During this chase, you can leap onto trucks to take out enemies who are firing at you, as well as use the truck as a cover spot to shoot other vehicles from. Trucks eventually catch on fire, however, and you must quickly jump back onto your horse which is conveniently running right alongside. You make your way through the speeding convoy, taking out trucks, jeeps, and bikes along the way. A quick cutscene later, Sully is rescued and the chase comes to an end.

This entire caravan chase is exhilarating and action-packed. It sees you leaping from horse to truck, and trying your best to shoot down fast-moving targets. Its a lot of fun and elements of this sequence can be found in the famous car chase chapter from Uncharted 4.

Cool Environmental Effects

There are three instances during the game where I feel cool environmental effects are made use of. At the end of chapter 11, Nate is drugged by Marlowe, seemingly through a dart fired at his neck. This makes Nate hallucinate, and changes the way the player sees the game world. As the player runs through narrow market streets, the environment gets distorted.

Everything is tinted red, and there's this haze with prevents you from seeing ahead clearly. The walls to your side and the road beneath your feet bend out of shape, all the while Nate's body is stretched out of proportion in some instances and squeezed tightly in others. Weird loud music plays in the background. It is an extremely trippy experience, one that makes the player uncomfortable. This is really cool and immerses the player into the experience. If my memory serves me correctly, this same thing happens towards the end of the game, but since the player has already experienced it before, it isn't as impactful as it was earlier.

The next cool use of the environment is in chapter 13. The player has to make their way across a bunch of moored boats and rafts while a storm is raging, leading to crashing waves and turbulent footing. This entire section is incredible. The work done to make the sea come to life is amazing, and shooting enemies while the boat you are standing on is rocking side to side is a real challenge. My pathetic description does this section a ton of disservice. Give it a watch yourself, it's really cool.

The third cool environmental effect is the sandstorm in the latter half of chapter 20. After the caravan chase I spoke about earlier concludes, Nate, Sully, and Salim make their way towards Marlowe's convoy, during which they run into a sandstorm. Here, Nate and Sully get separated from the rest of the group. Still in cutscene form, Sully and Nate stumble onto the tail of the convoy, where the player is tasked with taking out enemy soldiers.

The sandstorm is still raging on, which adds a new layer to the fight. Visibility is low, and it's hard to see where enemies are standing. While this makes it harder to hit your target, it also means enemies can't see you sneaking up on them, making stealth more viable. I chose to go all guns blazing since my stealth skills suck, and firefights in the swirling sand are adrenaline-pumping moments. While not as nuanced as the previous two, the sandstorm is cool in its own right, and it's certainly an interesting moment when you ride your horse headfirst into it.

General Improvements To Combat

I felt combat was better in Uncharted 3 than in both previous entries. Uncharted 3 had a lot more urban environments, and fewer shootouts took place in forests or the general wilderness. This worked well with the cover-based system Uncharted employs. Urban environments mean there is generally more natural cover. It also means that whatever pieces of cover the developers have placed in the combat arenas have more of a reason to actually be there. The slightly more indoor arenas also meant there was less sideways space to move into, meaning if I had to leave my original spot of cover, I had to push forward towards the enemy. This made the combat in Uncharted 3 more fast and aggresive.

I have no way to tell if this was an actual gameplay tweak made in Uncharted 3, but I felt as if the shooting and cover mechanics were less floaty and more grounded. I don't mean that Nate's actions were more realistic, I mean that Nathan Drake actually felt attached to the ground and to objects he took cover behind like gravity actually was a thing in this game world. I was able to move between cover more confidently due to the game's cover mechanics actually working consistently and not occasionally leaving me standing between two pieces of cover like an idiot. Vaulting over cover also felt much smoother and therefore more viable to use during intense gunfights.

The shooting and cover mechanics in Uncharted 1 and 2 felt very loose, and Uncharted 3 fixed this issue I had with the game's physics. Was this a real change, or am I just imagining things? I don't know, and there's no way to tell. Call me crazy, but I just liked Uncharted 3's combat better.

Another thing in the game that made combat better were the additional guns added to it. Uncharted 2 did expand on Uncharted 1's arsenal, but it drip-fed the player with new guns very slowly. Uncharted 3 on the other hand seemed to not only bring in a few more firearms but also introduce them much earlier on, meaning more time could be spent with each weapon.

The Supernatural Factor

In my Uncharted 1 and Uncharted 2 reviews, I complained about the inclusion of supernatural elements in the game. Uncharted 1 had those zombie-like creatures, while Uncharted 2 had the Shambala guardians. Uncharted 3 has the djinn- supernatural fire-wielding demons that Marlowe wants to use to control her enemies through fear.

Once again, I do not like the inclusion of supernatural elements in the game. I think they were added because all action-adventure media at that time seemingly had to have something like this. The story could've been just fine being about a hidden city with enormous wealth. I also think these djinns ruin the game's combat system, similar to the zombies and guardians from previous games. You have to use snipers and grenade launchers to do any substantial damage, and using the cover system is not viable as the djinn will just get close to you and burst into flames, dealing loads of damage.

It should be noted that quite a few people do like the inclusion of supernatural elements, so NaughtyDog hasn't gone all wrong here, but personally, I don't like their inclusion in the games and feel that they most definitely mess with the flow of combat.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is a superb conclusion to the original trilogy and a great game in its own right. It seemingly wraps up Nate and Elena's relationship arc once and for all (although Uncharted 4 bulldozed right through this), and provides even more of that Sully wit and charm we all love to see.

It does many things really well like combat, general gameplay loop, and environmental design, but also falters in similar places to its predecessors. Having now played all four mainline Uncharted games, it's clear how NaughtyDog's formula developed and improved from Uncharted 1 to Uncharted 3.

I strongly recommend Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception- just make sure you play 1 and 2 first.

@DominusPlatypus I'd hate to see the length of the review if you actually did take notes...

I'll be honest and say I didn't read the whole review, at least not yet, but from what I did it seems like a really good review. I'm not quite as positive on the game as you after replaying it last year, but it was a better experience with the game than I had with it when it originally came out. Expectations after the amazing follow-up to the original made it an uphill battle for the game right from the start, and I was disappointed in the end.

After my playthrough of it again last year, I'd say it is indeed a good game and is obviously better played when there are no huge expectations. It is still probably my least favorite of the series, but Uncharted is also possibly my favorite series of all time, so that's not exactly damning either.

Yeah I'll be grabbing the PS4 version soon enough I hope @Ralizah.

I've heard it's smooth enough there and it's not exactly a graphical powerhouse like Horizon: FW either where i'd really wanna get all them extra bells and whistles of the PS5 version. A bit more foliage and trees won't deter Elden Ring's imprsssive art style too much and I've (mostly) played all the other Fromsoft games at a janky 30 FPS!

Good to hear the map was useful (and even improved upon on the latest update to tell where npc's are too?).

I'll admit I'm actually weary of the open world aspects of ER... I'd rather have the intricately made and interconnected dungeons then have them split up between acres of bland open world myself 😄

I hope you enjoy Sekiro. I've not actually played it myself and don't know if I ever will thanks to parrying being a major mechanic in it... I'm so bad at it in the Souls games that I'm admitedly rather intimidated at the prospect of having to get good at it 😅

And rather then posting in the Danganronpa thread just a sentence... My new dog's called Ash

It's been well over a month since you wrote it but I finally got around to reading your Demon's Souls Remake review @Th3solution

What a review Sol. If it were possible I'd even call for encore as I enjoyed reading it so much! 👏👏👏

Not much I can really say other then I totally agree on World Tendency. It's a neat idea on paper but the way it's executed is a little rough, especially with dying in human form making it even more challenging.

Everyone else already praised them but yeah... The quotes were a perfect touch and really made the review stand out as well 😄

Not sure if anyone answered the question you had in one of your subsequent posts but Dark Souls Remastered runs at 60fps. Dark Souls 2: Scholar of The First Sin on PS4 also runs at 60fps.

You say DS2 is the most maligned of the series (which is true via fans but I think it's vastly overblown on how bad it is) and in fact until Elden Ring it was actually the best critically reviewed Souls game! (The original at least) 😄

DS2 is a bit different though I won't lie (Having a different director (and team overall from my understanding)). It's the only Souls game to actually shake up new game plus too with a few new items added, some new enemies and even different placements for Mimics!

It is a bit long though and the DLC's only extend that playtime even further 😅

Good luck with DS III, Elden Ring or whatever FromSoft title you decide to play next in the future!

@DominusPlatypus Nice write-up. Uncharted 3 was kind of a weird entry in the series. While technically better than UC2 in almost every way (I didn't actually notice the tightness of the controls being improved, but considering this series seems to improve from game to game, it would make sense), it was the first game in the series to feel like a very incremental upgrade, which, I guess, made it feel like a 'lesser' entry in the eyes of many fans. It's certainly not the evolutionary leaps UC2 and UC4 represented.

The supernatural aspect is interesting. While it's kinda still there in the game, I thought it was handled better, since they seem to be the product of Nate's hallucinations, and have an actual in-game explanation. Versus yetis just... existing in Uncharted 2. It felt more grounded to me.

I don't think you needed to take notes. Your discussion of the game was satisfying as is!

@HallowMoonshadow IMO, the open worlding provides a needed bit of downtime between the bigger set-pieces. Making them their own locations, and not tied up into everything else, also gives them a unique sense of identity. It's a different, more satisfying approach.

The open world is fairly empty, of course, but that's par for the course with Souls games, which feel empty in general. It's part of the aesthetic. Although there were actually more NPCs in this game than I expected. Better written ones as well.

Yeah, supposedly the PS4 version runs fairly smoothly on PS5. From Software probably couldn't get Elden Ring 2 running smoothly on a supercomputer. They need better programmers.

If parrying in Sekiro is as hard as it is in ER, I probably won't stick with it long.

I'm really hoping the success of ER has convinced them to shift over to open world game development permanently, and make their next game as accessible, if not moreso, than this game. If they improve the side-quests, focus on balancing the combat better, and double-down on introducing actual narrative elements, they could wind up with something truly special.

Ash looks like such a good girl. Pets can really help with stress in times like these.

@HallowMoonshadow Thanks for reading, and for the positive feedback! 😄 I’m glad you enjoyed it. I had a great time not just playing the game but also discussing it as well.

Over the last month I’ve come close to booting up DS3 a time or two. There’s an addiction to the From games and a general feeling of emptiness and longing when you finish a good game. Not to mention all the hype and chatter about ER made me want to get back into a From game again. But I worry about putting two of their games too closely back-to-back might risk burning me out on them. So I bounced around a few other games, hoping to find something else that will engross me as much as DeS and yet not be a FromSoft game. Finally settled on The Last of Us Part II now and it’s definitely filling that void. It might be my next review, although the game has been discussed, reviewed, and criticized ad nauseam so I won’t write one unless I really feel like I can add something new to the discussion or a new perspective.

But yeah — I do like quotes, and so I might continue to incorporate them into future write-ups. 😄

And Ash is such an adorable name for such a cute dog!

Hitman: Codename 47 (PC). The very first Hitman game, released in 2000. It's very much a product of its time, and hasn't aged well. As someone who is only familiar with the recent trilogy, it was tough to get into this game. I was determined to see it through to the end though, so I ended up speeding through it by dropping the difficulty down to Easy and making extensive use of a walkthrough.

As it's the first Hitman game, IO Interactive hadn't yet found the ideal Hitman formula. Due to this, many of the missions will feel very different to later Hitman games. The concept of being a silent assassin isn't a thing yet, and there's no non-lethal take downs. Sometimes stealth is expected, but other times a shoot-out is the only way to go. It's lacking the sandbox style of having multiple ways to complete a level, and instead often requires figuring out the one good way to proceed.

The game can also be very unforgiving, even on Easy difficulty. Enemies are very quick to shoot if Agent 47 does anything they don't like. There's generally no real feedback to explain what went wrong, leading to confusion. But the biggest frustration is that there's no way to save in the middle of a mission. There's a limited number of respawns available when Agent 47 dies, but since enemies will still be attacking you, it's not very helpful.

It's usually fairly unclear what you should be doing next. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if experimentation was easy to do. However, the lack of saves means that you basically have to go back to the beginning of a level again whenever you mess up.

The general clunkiness also adds to the issues. It came out before WASD controls were fully standardised for PC games, so its default controls are somewhat awkward. There's a bunch of other things as well, such as needing to get right up and close to something before interacting with it, almost as if Agent 47 has tiny arms.

The low point of the game has to be the Columbia levels. The first part takes place in a huge, foggy jungle, with a lot of running back and forth. Despite the fog, enemies will still shoot you from a mile off if you do anything suspicious. The third part starts North of a compound. The only entrance is on the South side, so there's a solid minute of running around it before you can do anything interesting. And with the lack of mid-level saves, there's a lot of repetition whenever you need to restart.

There are a couple of good levels in this game, that actually feel like a Hitman prototype. One takes place in a Hong Kong restaurant, and the other in a Budapest hotel. These focus more on stealth, costume changes, and interacting with other NPCs, with ways to avoid the shoot-outs. Though even in these levels, there's a sequence of steps that's the best way to proceed, with different options being fairly limited.

I'm not sure that I can say it's a bad game. However, anyone coming into it with the same mindset as me (i.e. someone that has only played the recent trilogy and wanted to see how the series began) is going to have a bad time. It was interesting to see the game that started the Hitman series, but the gameplay sure doesn't hold up today. Unless you've played similar games in the past and really want to see Hitman's beginnings, I wouldn't recommend this game.

Despite my scathing impressions, I am interested in trying out Hitman 2: Silent Assassin one day. That supposedly has aged much better, and its focus on stealth instead of action makes it feel much more like a Hitman game. Plus it has mid-mission saves, the lack of which made Hitman: Codename 47 way more frustrating than it needed to be.

@velio84 Thanks for the review and very informative. I’ve read others who have mentioned the poor balancing of the encounters (either too easy or too hard). I had not read much about people being unhappy with the open world, or with the recycled enemies and locations. I’ll keep my expectations in check. It is probably difficult for both HFW and ER to have come out so close to one another and each will forever be compared to the other. I’ve played neither so I can only go from screenshots and videos, but HFW’s environments appear to be peerless in their beautiful design, so I can see how ER’s open world would feel bland by comparison. And yeah the performance is probably the most common downside I see mentioned. I suspect it will get better with a few more patches hopefully by the time I play it.

All in all it sounds like it’s still a great game, just not without flaw. I gave Demon’s Souls an 8.5 so if it’s near that quality then it is still fantastic and worth experiencing.

@crimsontadpoles Oof! I've never played the very first game, having jumped into the series with Hitman 2 on PS2 (and Blood Money!). I can attest that the sequel is a much more fully realized version of the Hitman formula than the original apparently is, although it might still feel clunky or limited in certain respects compared to the modern trilogy. But certainly nothing like this!

Some series seem to take a game or two before they really find their footing. Especially older 3D games made back when people were still experimenting with new concepts and gameplay styles.

Fantastic read! I've always wondered if I should dig into the original on PC, but this sounds... painful. I think I'll leave this one in the past.

@velio84 Nice! Another good critical review. And pretty much all of the gripes are very fair.

I agree that the game feels like it was designed to be played with two players, with spirit ashes fulfilling that role in sp. Also, yeah, the game doesn't make it easy to experiment with new builds thanks to the stat-heavy nature of damage scaling, which indeed did mean most weapons just ended up cluttering my inventory, because it wasn't worth respeccing to experiment with them.

I found the open world design was variable throughout, with Limgrave and The Weeping Peninsula representing some of the densest areas in the game.

@velio84 Interesting writeup and I can say I have definitely felt some of the frustration you experienced myself even though I’m nowhere near the end.

I'm not a souls vet and have only played Demon's Souls remake so far but thought that was an amazing game and still remember all the bosses and most of the levels. The size of this game definitely takes away that shine and uniqueness about each of those battles. Like you alluded to on the other thread if you had less higher quality bosses then that might have checked that box, but instead I'm finding that a lot of those that I've been taking on lately have been very similar and I’m beating most things in a similar way. My strategy has basically been attempt boss by myself first and then if I’ve not done it within say 5 attempts I’m just unleashing the spirit ashes and using that as a distraction to batter the hell out of it. I've struggled with a few still but using the ashes makes it so much easier in most cases.

I'm also getting tunnel / cave overload. There's so many of them which look so similar and there's a few I've had to check again because I couldn't remember if I'd completed them or not. It's probably tough to create enough totally unique places to fill a world this size but now I see a cave I'm like "uh not another one!".

My biggest issue though, which I’ve alluded to in other posts, is that I find it really hard to follow the thread of what’s going on and talking to people and finding out how to further those quests to completely unlock the thread isn’t obvious enough in a lot of cases. I talk to someone and then instantly forget them and crack on exploring, as you do with open world games, and then I'll meet that person later on and have no idea where I've met them before. Perhaps it's because I'm finding that all the characters are quite bland or that in a lot of cases they only really drop hints as to what you are supposed to be doing etc. either way it just feels like a backwards step to me and takes away from the story telling. I then just generally care less about the characters and what's going on. I can perhaps put this down to the amount of time I’ve got to play the game and my bad memory, but I don’t struggle with other games this way as they at least have a quest log that I can use to recap what I've been doing.

Regardless it’s a great game and I’m still enjoying it and feel that I will for a while longer, at least until I meet something really frustrating which you’ve suggested is coming 😬

The World Ends With You
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: Square-Enix
Publisher: Square-Enix (2007 in Jpn; 2008 in the West)
Playtime: 12 hours

I like to think my gaming habits are healthy, and have long decried the functional irrationality of people who will persist in playing games long after they should have stopped in order to feed some neurotic impulse to "complete" everything that would probably be better solved by scheduling a few visits with a local therapist. But, in truth, I'm often no better, and time and again will return to spend my precious, limited hours on this Earth on software I don't really enjoy out of some irrational belief that I am doing something unfair by not giving them a 'proper chance' to improve. Well, I'm done with that, and that actually leads me into a discussion about this game.

I wanted to like The World Ends With You. If nothing else, it can't be faulted for a lack of originality. It's a cult classic Nintendo DS game that imprinted itself on the minds of a generation of young Nintendo fans with its stylish presentation, hip modern setting, and unique themes. You can arguably see how it might have influenced the design of games from other developers, like Atlus' Devil Survivor and Persona 5.

But... look. A while back, I had a discussion on here about quality vs quantity of content in games. I argued that some games liked to toss in stuff to distract the player from the shallow design of the core gameplay.

Truth be told, when I wrote that, I was thinking of this game.

TWEWY is set in modern-day Shibuya. Or, at least, it ostensibly is. Protagonist Neku Sakuraba, the world's most generic teenager who spends half the game whining about the world around him like an anime version of Holden Caulfield, awakens in an amnesiac state and finds himself drawn into a bizarre death game known as The Reapers' Game alongside another teenager named Shiki Misaki. The two are pushed to join forces and complete tasks each day in the Underground, an alternate-dimensional version of Shibuya that is invisible to but exists parallel alongside the Realground, where ordinary people reside. Together, they learn of the existence of other Players trapped in this game, as well as the Reapers who will erase them from existence if they fail their tasks.

So, interesting, right? There's a lot more to it, actually, but that devolves into spoiler territory that's unnecessary to talk about. The tragic thing about TWEWY is that the plot is actually super interesting... in concept. In execution, the game never feels like it actually properly fleshes out the concepts it introduces. This is a problem conceptually and mechanically. TWEWY is almost the ideal illustration of the concept of something being a mile wide, but an inch deep. Plot-wise, it continues to layer in new concepts, characters, etc. But in the absence of properly developing these, the player is never given the opportunity to latch onto anything, and major plot twists wind up having no impact whatsoever. So none of the underlying existentialistic and psychological themes end up mattering at all, because they're in service of nothing meaningful.

What really holds TWEWY back is the gameplay. Both the flow of it, as well as the mechanics themselves. The game is well-known for its thoroughly bizarre approach to combat, so let's start there. Throughout the game, Neku will pair up with different characters, and always enters into battle with them. You control these characters simultaneously. On two different screens. Neku will fight enemies on the bottom touch screen, and his partner will battle on top. Neku is controlled by using different touch controls on the bottom screen (some enemies might need to be poked, while other abilities require a swiping motion, or for the player to draw specific shapes, etc.), while the partner is controlled entirely by inputting combo attacks with the D-Pad on the top screen. The D-Pad combo paths are randomized each time, but you have to push them in the correct order to collect points that can be used to trigger a screen-clearing special attack, which is pretty much a necessity against most bosses. It has to be the most poorly-conceived and chaotic battle system I've ever encountered. Presumably the player is somehow meant to divert attention between the two screens, but enemies are often so aggressive that it doesn't work out this way. This game wasn't designed to be played by human beings. Our brains don't work this way. So, what ends up happening is that you HAVE to focus on the top-screen, most of the time, because otherwise you'll do sub-optimal damage and won't be able to collect enough points to consistently trigger your special attacks, which will also be your primary method of restoring HP in battles most of the time. So, while you're focusing on the top screen, you're reduced to scratching, stroking, and poking with maddening randomness at the touch screen, because you can't look at it, because, again, the top-screen demands all of your attention. The game rewards you with a score for how well you performed in battle, and, I've found, the only consistent way to score well is to exactly this: press the D-Pad in randomized ways over and over to collect points, and abuse your DS/3DS' touchscreen like a madman with random inputs that still end up triggering attacks most of the time.

So, yeah, combat sucks. I did like the build variety in this game, though. The player will gain different pins in battle throughout the game. These pins are both your primary means of making money (money pins can be disposed of to gain the value in them) as well as the weapons you'll be using throughout the game. Pins have a variety of effects that can be used in battle, and you'll have to equip them in a specific order on your character, as pins in lower slots activate before pins in higher slots, which means you'll need to consider how the effects of these pins harmonize in battle.

Even this element quickly becomes overcomplicated, though. TWEWY' hip modern Japanese setting is one that's also inordinately obsessed with fashion, so the designers thought it wise to introduce a mechanic where different pins would work better or worse in certain areas of Shibuya based on who their designer is. You can actually work around this, though, in the most tedious way possible: if a certain designer is less popular in a certain area, you can actually increase their popularity by grinding enemies with those pins. Sounds fun, right? Grinding battles using one of the worst RPG battle systems I've ever encountered to get around a mechanic that should never have been included in the first place? This is actually REQUIRED in certain parts of the game to advance the story. Enjoy!

More interesting, and here's another tiny little bone I'll toss this game, is the way it handles difficulty and rewards. Being an RPG, the main character will level up throughout the game as they gain experience points from battle, but a system was implemented whereby the player can actually gain greater rewards from battles (including rarer dropped pins) by temporarily reducing the the character's level, which obviously makes battles harder. This gave an interesting risk/reward element to combat that I wanted to enjoy, but when combat reduces to 'scratch the touchscreen and follow tedious on-screen prompts with the D-Pad,' this made it difficult to properly appreciate.

The game also features thoroughly bizarre systems related to powering up your characters and buying stuff from stores. When you go to a store, there'll be these "quest" items that you're unable to purchase without trading in the right pins. Of course, as far as I could tell, to even gain access to these in the first place, you'd first need to raise your friendship levels with various shopkeepers by spending money on crap you don't need, all in service of gaming access to crap that you do need. It wouldn't be a problem if the game wasn't so controlling about gating the ability to equip new clothing behind stat thresholds.

One way to increase your stats enough to equip these items (assuming you can; each character only has four equipment slots, and they're also gender-locked, in a game where you have no control over which partner you're with at any one time) is to eat food. You... equip food to a food slot on your character, and then, for the item to have its effect, they have to digest it. How do you trigger the digestion process? You fight battles. So you'll also be grinding battles needlessly in order to digest food so your character's stats can increase and you can hopefully equip a piece of equipment. I couldn't make this stuff up even if I wanted to.

TWEWY's issues extend to the way the game flows as well. It's hard to describe, but the pacing of it is so controlled, environments are so small and lacking in interactivity, and the game is so intent and constantly introducing new mechanics that it winds up feeling like a never-ending tutorial. Maybe in the last few hours of the game I didn't play, it lets go, but, more than 2/3rds of the way through, it has never once truly let me off the hook. It feels like the game never actually begins. And, given how ill-advised much of the game design is, it's hard to blame them. If they did allow the player to just play the game without introducing new mechanics or railroading players into new text interactions ever three minutes, what would be left? As mentioned, environments are tiny. There's a mechanic where you can tap on people and read their thoughts, but outside of a few story moments, nothing ever comes of this. It's just meaningless flavor text that rarely relates to anything involving the actual gameplay.

So, the saving grace of this title are the aesthetics, right? It's famously stylish.

Well... no.

The character designs are awful. I'm sorry, I know some people really like the over-the-top designs in games like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and so on, but TWEWY takes this to the next level. These people look parodies, frankly. Why does the main character wear giant headphones, a sleeveless purple shirt with a gigantic collar, and look like there's no place for his internal organs to go? Why does his hair jut out at every possible angle? These people all look like they were vomited out of a particularly ill-fated fashion accessories store. Which is possibly fitting, given the game's fixation on stupid teenagers who think they're fashionable.

But, OK, I don't like the way these characters are designed, but it's fine. I can live with that. What I can't deal with the horrible, droning pop music that drowns out everything in this game. The audio design is awful, because dialogue will be happening, but all you can hear in this music playing at full blast, no matter the situation. Characters are having a meaningful personal discussion? Droning pop music. Someone is mourning the death of a friend? Droning pop music. It never lets up, no matter what's happening on-screen. It's like the developers decided that, by god, this track will play when dialogue is happening, context be damned! The game apparently has a large number of tracks, but it feels like 90% of the time I was listening to the same few crappy tunes.

I'll link a few. Imagine the first couple of tracks blasting when anyone is talking in this game, and you'll hopefully understand why I often felt the need to mute the audio:

Those are my feelings about the game, I suppose. Usually I compose these reviews over the course of several sessions, but this was all composed in one fevered session as soon as I woke up. Truth be told, it has been weeks since I've played this, as I've been dreading returning to it. So I decided to drop it. Before doing so, though, I wanted to properly express my frustration with it, and to exorcize the negative feelings it has caused to well up inside of me, so you'll please forgive me if this piece ends up sounding like little more than angry rant.

It's hard to rate this game. Objectively, though, it attempts a lot of interesting things, and, truth be told, has a rather fascinating (if poorly told) story, so there is some redeeming value to it. I genuinely don't understand its status as a cult classic, though. This has been one of the most thoroughly unenjoyable games I've ever played. It fails as a game on almost every level, frankly. Despite that, I'm still interested in trying the sequel, which I copped for a pretty low price after launch, but I'm going in with very low expectations now.

3/10

NOTE: Screenshots in this review are drawn from the Nintendo Switch remaster, and not the original Nintendo DS release. Just imagine the same scenes, but much lower-res.

Nice write-up buddy . I see the same complaints from other to many users on metacritic & especially steam which you pointed out thoroughly.

@Ralizah That's a shame you didn't enjoy TWEWY. As it's a cult classic, I had always assumed it was a hidden gem, but that doesn't appear to be the case. The controls and gameplay do sound frustrating, and it's disappointing how they didn't make the most out of what could have been a great story.

@RogerRoger I don't think I'd go lower than a 3/10 for this. After all, there were no obvious bugs, performance issues, and, ill-advised though they may have been, every system in this game seems to have functioned as intended. I also found it interesting enough to suffer through for 10+ hours. That's more than you cay say for a lot of AAA Western blockbusters out there.

I actually liked the premise of TWEWY. Especially considering it predates most other stuff that's conceptually similar to it. But... at the end of the day, execution is what's important, and the game really missed the mark in that respect. I've long maintained I prefer interesting failure to functional mediocrity, and that's still true, but there are limits. If the game's experimentation makes it no fun to play, that's the point where I lose my patience with it.

You won't be surprised to learn the battle system in this version has a lot of defenders, then. I actually opted for this older version of the game primarily because people talked up how much better the controls were, but now I have to wonder. Kinda wish I'd tried the Switch version when it was free for a week on NSO now, if only so I could compare the controls. Then again, the rest of the game would still be the same, so maybe not!

Yeah, TWEWY does a lot of weird, insane stuff mechanically. Which I kind of admire, but it didn't work well here. I agree that a lot of games in the DS era went way too far with the hardware gimmicks. The phrase "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" comes to mind. At least this game didn't make me play it with the system held sideways, though, which is more than I can say for some DS games!

Haha, I'm not surprised you feel that way about the tracks I posted, considering you already have an established preference for music without vocals, but, if I'm being brutally honest, I still prefer the caterwauling in this game to whatever the heck Sonic Chronicles was going for.

Of course, at some point, this becomes the rhetorical equivalent of "which arm would you prefer I break?" Well, one would be worse than the other, but it's still an awful choice to have to make either way!

Thanks for reading what amounted to an angry blog post! I do recall a while back hoping I'd find a game bad enough that I could unreservedly rant about it, and I guess I found it, but... I dunno. I kinda wish it was just a better game. y'know?

I'm just glad to be done with it. I actually borrowed it from a friend, so, thankfully, no money was wasted on it. Only time, which is inarguably a far more valuable resource, unfortunately.

It's kinda funny. Both the best and worst games I've played so far this year were developed by Square-Enix. Hoping to talk in depth about the other one soon, actually. I never replay games, and I'm already in the middle of my second playthrough of it. Out of a planned three.

@crimsontadpoles It still has a lot of fans, so maybe I'm just an outlier opinion that regard, but... yeah, I dunno, I expected a lot more than I got. I really wanted to like it as well!

It's the weirdest combat system I've ever encountered in a game. Not necessarily the worst, but it definitely helped to spoil the experience.

I might check out the anime to see if it's any better. It's an interesting setup and world. There are some (theoretically) cool twists. But they really fumbled the ball when the time came to actually deliver the goods.

Thanks for reading!