game review – Page 43

Thoughts on: The Walking Dead: A New Frontier and Michonne

25/07/2018 25/07/2018

Unlike quite a lot of people, I wasn’t too fond of the first season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead game. Even only could finish the game on my second playthrough as I simply got bored of it somewhere in the middle of the second episode or so. But it had it’s moments and I did like the second season quite a bit more, despite a lot of its shortcomings. Because of that, however, I was never really looking forward to playing further games in the series until “eventually” and that eventuality finally happened.

Thoughts on: The Mummy Demastered

19/07/2018 23/08/2024

Licensed videogames are known to be mostly miss than hit. There are few notable exceptions of games being good, and even rarer exceptions where the game was superior to the product it was meant to promote. I heard that last year’s The Mummy reboot was bad. Yet, somehow it managed to lead to this tie-in videogame. Is it great? No. But it’s quite decent and has an amazing soundtrack.

Thoughts on: Nioh: Complete Edition

13/07/2018 25/07/2018

There are rare cases where I hate most of my time with a game, yet somehow, whenever by using easy modes, cheats or just clenching teeth, I still finish it because there is something about the game that makes me interested. Nioh was that case – this is not a game I can enjoy, yet I can see how it can be extremely loved by a specific niche of people.

Happy about: Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth

06/07/2018 28/06/2019

Despite playing and reviewing adventure games from the German development studio Daedalic Entertainment for quite a few years now, I’ve been mostly acquainted with their comedic titles. So a story driven point and click adventure game based on a historical novel wasn’t something I expected much from. Especially since I’ve not read, or even heard of, the said novel or the seemingly well received TV miniseries based on it before playing the game. Well, I was very pleasantly surprised.

Late thoughts on: Life is Strange

30/06/2018 29/01/2020

The reason I’m writing my opinion on Life is Strange is really simple – I hated my first hour with the game 3 years ago. The writing, the characters, the pacing – it all felt wrong, badly written, all “how do you do fellow kids” and I just quit. But there’s just so much love the game has I tried to guilt trip myself into getting back to it several times. Only now did I completely open myself to going through it as much as I can, and went through the whole game. And I’m actually glad I did.

Thoughts on: Metroid: Samus Returns

15/06/2018 23/08/2024

Metroid is one of my absolute favorite game series. I’m quite new to it, to be completely honest, first trying Super Metroid when the emulation on PC became pretty good. But it immediately became one of my favorite games and most of my experience with the series has been full of excitement and joy. It’s very hard to pry me off a controller when I’m playing a Metroid game for the first time, and it was true even for the dreadful Other M. Metroid: Samus Returns, an official remake of Metroid 2: Return of Samus, took me about 4 months to complete. Not because the game is particularly long. Because I really didn’t want to continue playing it.

Happy about: Tyranny (with DLCs)

03/06/2018 28/06/2019

Obsidian Entertainment are known for making amazing story-driven RPG games and rarely disappointing. It’s been just 3 years since their amazingly successful Kickstarter project Pillars of Eternity was released and rather unexpectedly, while the expansions for the game have been in development and sequel was mentioned as being in pre-production, a completely new game was announced. Though, the reasons for why Tyranny came “out of nowhere” are rather simple – the concept for a game like this was developed in the studio since mid-00s and the finished product was just one of many iterations of the idea, finally given life. Yet, this seemingly quick development cycle of the finished game left a mark.

In love with: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA

20/05/2018 28/06/2019

In just 4 years I went from “What’s Ys?” to being a huge fan of these action RPG series by Nihon Falcom that is finally starting to get proper recognition outside of Japan. I didn’t like all games I’ve played so far equally. Origin and the story arc it preludes (covered in I & II) used to be my favorite – it had the perfect version of the gameplay mechanics that the series had in mid-00s, it had really interesting memorable story with good characters and it was quite short and to the point, covering every important and exciting aspect of itself in the best possible way. And I wasn’t super keen on the new gameplay ideas introduced in Ys Seven, the template currently used by the series, so I was a bit cautious about VIII (and still is about IV, which I will play later this year when it’s ported to PC).

Now, some of my concerns and fears were justified. But Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA might be my favorite Ys game so far and one of the best examples of action RPGs I’ve ever seen, both mechanically and narratively.

Thoughts on: AER, Lara Croft GO and King’s Bounty: Dark Side

12/05/2018 12/05/2018

It’s that time again when there are several games I have something to tell about, but not enough to need a separate post for it. Which doesn’t mean that the games mentioned aren’t worth checking… Well, one of them isn’t, but you’ll see.

Thoughts on: Danganronpa 1, 2 and Ultra Despair Girls

07/05/2018 28/06/2019

Just like the Zero Escape series, Danganronpa has been a series I’ve been curious about for a very long time now. It has gained a huge following outside of Japan years before getting an official localisation for its quirky dark humour, fantastic soundtracks and curious approach to mixing adventure game visual novel elements in rather novel ways. But are they really that great?