game review – Page 19

Happy about: Myst (2021)

14/04/2022 14/04/2022

Myst is such a huge and important title in not just the adventure game genre history, but the history of videogames overall. It’s legacy remains strong, affecting games and creating new genres to this day. And I have never finished it until now. In fact, I’ve tried playing the original game, it’s re-releases/remakes and sequels over many years and they’ve never clicked with me. And the majority of its influence on adventure game design was, frankly, terrible. With many titles abandoning any attempts at good design, opting to push cool visuals and obscure “puzzles” instead.

But I really wanted to get what Myst is about. And in this new 2021 remake of the game, I think I finally got it and was able to enjoy the game.

Happy about: Ghostwire: Tokyo

09/04/2022 09/04/2022

I remember when Ghostwire: Tokyo was first announced and everyone thought it looked really cool but also had no idea what the game is supposed to be. Turns out, it’s a first person perspective open world action adventure with an immersive sim flavor which plays rather well, even if not without many flaws. But it still looks really cool.

Revisiting The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Anniversary Edition)

04/04/2022 04/04/2022

Well, it’s been more than a decade since I’ve played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim originally and over 8 years since I’ve played the “Legendary Edition” with all of the official DLCs. The “Special Edition” has been released 2 years after that and last year, another 6 years later, the Anniversary Edition got announced and released. The amount of ports and re-releases of Skyrim has long since became a widely known joke… and yet, here I was playing Skyrim again, spending dozens upon dozens of hours on a game that I’ve completed twice before. A game that doesn’t have that much of a compelling storyline or involved and exciting mechanics. Why is it that Skyrim still has a strange addictive charm to it and its legacy is still felt through all of the open world titles released ever since?

O tempora: Final Fantasy VI (Pixel Remaster)

28/03/2022 28/03/2022

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

Well, the Pixel Remaster journey ends with Final Fantasy VI. It’s almost a shame, really, as this collection has been so wonderfully made that I can only hope more classic titles are given this treatment. But at least this collection ends with one hell of a game.

Happy about: Gnosia

16/03/2022 16/03/2022

On one hand, Gnosia is a mix of two genres I don’t particularly care about – a social deduction game and a visual novel. On another – it’s so shockingly fascinating and well put together, that I was engaged until the final ending of the game.

Thoughts on: Scarlet Nexus

11/03/2022 11/03/2022

Playing Scarlet Nexus was a bit of a rollercoaster. It looks great, it has nice tunes and its combat system looks stylish and fun. But then, the more of it I’ve played, the more I grew frustrated and bored. And in the end, even though I’m a huge fan of games where you have two playable characters going through two parallel storylines, I couldn’t keep on playing with the second character. I just didn’t have it in me to play more of it. Yet, what a fascinating project this is.

Read more“Thoughts on: Scarlet Nexus”

Disapprove: Wasteland 3 (with DLCs)

04/03/2022 10/11/2023

Even though I’ve still never gotten in the mood to try and conquer the original Wasteland, as with many other cRPGs of that era, I did enjoy Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut quite a lot. Back then I said that it didn’t feel like a Fallout game not because it couldn’t be one, but because it didn’t want to be one. It had its own take on a post-apocalyptic tactical turn-based RPG that still remains enjoyable today despite some flaws.

Wasteland 3 aims to be… different? Frankly, I’m not sure what it aims to be, but the result is not great.

Thoughts on: Firework

27/02/2022 27/02/2022

Ever since its original release, which was Chinese-only, Firework has received a lot of praise. And with the official English translation finally out, I was interested to see what’s all the buzz about. And, well, it’s a good game. Not anything special, but good.

Quick thoughts on: Terminator: Resistance – DLCs

23/02/2022 23/02/2022

Slightly over a year ago I’ve played Terminator: Resistance, which in itself was released a year prior to that. And I liked this surprisingly good movie license videogame. It knew what made the original two movies work and managed to translate that experience to a videogame. Later that year a free DLC allowing you to play as a Terminator was released, to coincide with the next-gen release of the game. And recently a new paid DLC campaign was also added, telling a story that happens in-between the chapters of the main game.

Happy about: Blasphemous

20/02/2022 23/08/2024

I’ve played Blasphemous about 2 years ago, just a few months after its initial release, and decided to stop my playthrough. As a fan of more exploration focused metroidvania titles, I didn’t gel well with the action focus of the game, especially since it was also going for the “Dark Souls inspired” challenge, seemingly. But a few months ago I’ve seen other people play it on streams and realized, that the game wasn’t exactly what I first thought it would be. So I decided to give it another go.