After suffering through Final Fantasy XIII where nothing happened, I didn’t expect the direct sequel to be any better. The first game of the “Lightning saga” wasted all of the potential it had in the mythology and themes, so I didn’t expect that Square Enix can somehow make it so the sequel fixes all of the problems. I was not ready for Final Fantasy XIII-2. It’s impossible to be ready for this game. It’s a bizarre mix of pleasant and unpleasant changes and new ideas that somehow manage to fit the conventions of the series.
Tag: game review
Thoughts on: Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII was released in 2009 and after the initial wave of praise, it started getting very different opinions thrown about it. I read all those opinions and had certain expectations, but… It’s Final Fantasy, come on! I played all of the previous titles, though have not finished any of the PS2 games. X just didn’t click with me at all, due to characters and the setting, while XII was completely almost 100%, but I got bored during the final boss fight and watched the ending online. Hopefully, it gets a re-release in HD someday, preferably on PC and I’ll definitely play it again. Anyway, I couldn’t skip FF XIII, all of the “Trilogy”. And it starts… well, atrociously.
Quick thoughts on: Pillars of Eternity (with The White March)
After supporting the game on Kickstarter (one of very few games I supported), after patiently waiting for two part expansion to get released, I finally played Pillars of Eternity in it’s complete current 3.x version and it was an amazing adventure to have. All of my expectations were met and exceeded and not just because we sadly lacked games with truly great stories for the past decade, but because even if there were many, Pillars would be just as great. It’s everything you loved about Black Isle, early Bioware, Troika and, of course, Obsidian themselves, but perfected, taken to a new level, despite the very nostalgic interface. It’s simple enough to get sucked into it, but complex and deep enough not to be a very fast food-ish feeling game a lot more recent AAA RPGs have become.
Read more“Quick thoughts on: Pillars of Eternity (with The White March)”
Thoughts on: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel with DLC
Is it a bad game? No. Not entirely, anyway. And it tries. And a lot of it’s ideas are actually superior to the ones found in Borderlands 2 and it’s DLCs. But “making it all work” is where it often fails and fails miserably.
Read more“Thoughts on: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel with DLC”
Thoughts on: Lords of the Fallen
Lords of the Fallen is a pretty interesting attempt at creating an aRPG that follows on the formula of Dark Souls, but with a more Enclave and Blade of Darkness feel to it. Where it succeeds it does things very well, where it fails it fails pretty hard.
Thoughts on: Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
Of all the 3d/2d Ys games made, Napishtim was the first to be made, yet the last to finally get a proper PC re-release. And while most of the good stuff that people loved about Felghana and Origin is still there (as it originated there), it does feel like a first attempt.
Thoughts on: Resident Evil 0 HD Remaster
One of the weakest of the best is still good, right? Resident Evil 0 is a rather mediocre entry among the absolute best classic Resident Evil titles, which means, it’s still way above a lot of classic survival horror wannabes. And in its HD Remake version the game got better. Not just visually, like it mostly was with REmaster (not like it was a bad thing, mind you) – RE0 HD is actually more fun to play than the original GC (and later Wii) release.
Thoughts on: The Book of Unwritten Tales 2
Original Book of Unwritten tales was a complete surprise – it was released at the time when it seemed that comedic adventure games were truly gone there was that game, looking good, voice acted good, with a restrained amount of pop references and very strong self identity and pretty good gameplay. Critter Chronicles, while not as good and clearly started as more of a short expansion made bigger for a full standalone release with pointless filler, was still a great game and I’ve had a lot of fun with it. The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 manages to be both much better and kinda worse than the first two at the same time.
Thoughts on: Her Story
This is not a game a lot of people will enjoy. It can probably be best described as an “interactive fragmented imaginary documentary film about a curious case that never got solved”, where “interaction” comes almost only in how you sort out the fragments of the story together. It’s a weird and interesting experience that feels a bit… lacking, but still satisfying.
Thoughts on: Read Only Memories
Read Only Memories is a game that I can easily recommend, yet not in the “you should totally play it” way and more in the “yeah, it’s good” way. It starts great, but ends on a rather “eh” note, which disappoints, yet still doesn’t feel like playing the game was a waste or anything.