I have a relatively complicated relationship with the original Resident Evil 4 from 2005, but as of now I really like it. It’s crazy varied, its influence is still felt in modern games, the soundtrack is extremely memorable and while the game is not very welcoming, when it clicks with you, you can’t stop loving it. A remake of a game like this sounded incredibly pointless – apart from QTEs and a couple of moments nothing in the original required a redo. Now, having played a couple of playthroughs of this alternative Resident Evil 4 from 2023, I have to say – yeah, it is kinda pointless. But fun nonetheless.
Tag: game review
Thoughts on: Immortals Fenyx Rising
Oh, Ubisoft, can you just make a good game a good game and not ruin it for a while?.. Immortals Fenyx Rising is a Greek mythology based action adventure in an open world that attempts to marry The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to the Assassin’s Creed formula from Origins to today. And the concept is genuinely solid as are the basics, but… Well. It’s Ubisoft, so despite liking the game a lot, I’m writing this exhausted and after deciding not to play the DLCs.
Thoughts on: Crysis Remastered Trilogy
I’ve revisited the original Crysis and Crysis Warhead just 3 years ago and that was the first time these titles at least somewhat clicked with me. As I’ve mentioned – I never found any of the titles in the franchise, apart from Crysis 3, to be all that fun. But replaying the first games, as rough as those original games are today, made me understand why someone would like them. Now that all numbered Crysis titles have gotten a Remastered release (sadly, Warhead was not remastered), I decided to play them and see if I can actually enjoy the experience.
Happy about: Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
I’ve always admired how Japanese adventure games manage to combine lots of elements and different gameplay ideas into something that looks and feels quite consistent and stylish. That said, I also always disliked the tendency of these games to overexplain plot points, require you to click on literally every tiny thing on the scene before allowing you to proceed with the story and, if they have lots of potential story timelines in the chart/timeline, being grindy about it. So I was a bit cautious about Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo because I’ve enjoyed far fewer games of this sort than I’ve tried. Luckily, this one is genuinely fun.
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Thoughts on: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
When Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered finally arrived on PC last year, I couldn’t believe how much I was enjoying it. Despite being a more “typical” example of an open world game formula, it managed to feel fresh and exciting nonetheless and, most importantly, made the open world itself be fun – usually more fun than linear story-driven segments. So, even though I felt that the DLC package The City That Never Sleeps was absolute garbage and stopped playing it midway through the second one, I was still excited to play more of the same with Miles Morales. And now that I’ve done that, I’m glad that I did. Even though it does feel like more of the same.
Disapprove: Resident Evil Village – Winters’ Expansion
Two years ago I’ve completed Resident Evil Village and while my first playthrough of it was very entertaining, it turned out to be the least replayable RE game for me. I got bored on my third playthrough, while trying to unlock more stuff as I usually do, and found myself so utterly bored with the game that I stopped and haven’t looked at it since then. That is, until Winters’ Expansion, a new DLC, got released and I’ve finally decided to play it. At worst I expected this to be more of the same and, following this logic, at least fun on the first playthrough. But no. It wasn’t fun even the first time around.
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In love with: Pentiment
Pentiment is a new RPG-ish adventure game from Obsidian Entertainment that, honestly, came out of nowhere for me. I had to rub my eyes when I first saw it in stores, first to figure out what am I even looking at and then to make sure I am seeing the name of the developers right. And I’m really glad I’ve finally had a chance to play it.
Happy about: Like a Dragon: Ishin!
Have you ever considered how a “shot-for-shot” videogame remake would look and play like? Well, now we have the answer – Like a Dragon: Ishin! is, for all intents and purposes, a remake of the 2014 Japanese-only title Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin! (and to avoid confusion the Japanese title of this remake just added Kiwami, just like with previous remakes). But unlike the Yakuza 1 and 2 remakes, this one feels, looks and plays almost exactly the same as the original game did. Is it good? Is it bad? Probably neither, but the result is a pretty cool entry in the Like a Dragon franchise that, however, does feel like it’s from the past in more ways than the setting.
Happy about: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion
Being not much of a fan of Final Fantasy VII, I was never in a rush to try out any of the related games or media that Square Enix dubbed “Compilation of Final Fantasy VII”. So I did watch Advent Children back in the day, and thought it was quite crap, but have not looked into 2 internationally released games in the collection – Dirge of Cerberus (for PS2) and Crisis Core (for PSP). Yet, while Dirge wasn’t particularly liked by anyone, Crisis Core did have a lot of positive reviews. Which might be one of the reasons that Square Enix decided to remaster (on a technical level – remake) the game for modern platforms now called Reunion. And I’m glad they did, because this title is pretty neat.
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Happy about: ASTLIBRA Revision
I did not expect what Astlibra Revision would turn out to be. When I first saw it and ignored it. When it was brought to my attention again and I’ve decided to play it. Even as I was playing it. It’s not some inventive never before seen mix of genres or anything, it’s just that it’s so constantly full of surprises. And huge. To a fault, really, but still, we’re talking about a game that looks like this lasting 60 hours and still finding ways to introduce some new stuff in the last hours of itself. But it’s also not without many issues.