Highly recommended – Page 2

In love with: Persona 5 Royal

22/07/2023 22/07/2023

The original Persona from 1996 was the first Megami Tensei game to receive a release outside of Japan and be localized in English, bringing new fans to the franchise. Persona 3 from 2006 was the first time the franchise achieved huge international success as a unique jRPG (however broad this genre name is). Persona 5 from 2016 was the first time the franchise reached a success that went beyond the genre boundaries.

Of course, the process wasn’t that rapid and sudden and this “every 10 years” view is incorrect – each new game built momentum, gradually growing in popularity. And it’s not even that every odd release of Persona games is meant to be an important milestone, because then we will have to discuss many re-releases, spin-offs or even the fact that there are 2 games called Persona 2, one of which is a sequel to another. What is important, however, is that Persona 5, in its Royal release now finally available on most platforms, is the first time I wouldn’t have any trouble recommending a Persona game to absolutely anyone. With no asterisks, links to wikis and complex explanations. Persona 5 Royal is just that easy to get into. And also really hard to stop playing.

O tempora: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

16/07/2023 16/07/2023

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

There are several well known sad “oh what if they had more time” stories in video game development, where it’s well known that the game was launched in a state that was viewed by its own developers as incomplete. Not necessarily even buggy or full of issues, but not containing everything that has been already prepared and shipped, but locked and normally inaccessible. And to me, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is the saddest example of them all. The first title of Obsidian Entertainment, a gathering of incredibly talented and experienced people from Black Isle Studios backed by new no less talented team members, it remains my personal favorite Star Wars story of them all. No really – there’s not a single other piece of SW-related media that is as good as this. Yet, even with a fantastic The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification (TSLRCM for short) that restores a lot of cut content in its current 1.8.6 version, the game occasionally feels incomplete and playing the game can be a frustrating experience.

In love with: Live A Live (2022)

20/05/2023 20/05/2023

Live a Live (stylized as LIVE A ƎVI⅃) has been a project I’ve heard a lot throughout the years. It was a jRPG from Square released in 1994 – that’s the same year as Final Fantasy VI, a year after Secret of Mana and a year before Chrono Trigger. But, just as Seiken Densetsu 3 (later officially and wonderfully remade under the title Trials of Mana), it was originally a Japanese-only title, so a huge amount of international audience only heard about it without good means to experience it for themselves. The concept for the game sounded wild – several unrelated independent stories with unique setting and gameplay mechanics in one package. All produced by Square at the top of their game and with the soundtrack from Yoko Shimomura, who’s soundtracks for Super Mario RPG and Parasite Eve would become much beloved just a couple of years later.

Unexpectedly, last year a “HD-2D” remake of the title was announced, first exclusively for Switch and now available on more platforms including PC, so I could finally experience this unbelievably sounding title for myself. And it’s genuinely hard to put into words just how surprising the experience was.

O tempora: Silent Hill 2 (with Enhanced Edition mod)

15/05/2023 01/07/2023

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

Continuing on with the classic Silent Hill titles, it’s time to talk about the highly revered sequel. Silent Hill 2 was quite a shocker when it was originally released, it took many people by surprise. And it is also the game that established the idea that Silent Hill games are first and foremost story-driven games simply because of how strong the story was and how many other games and also later “western-made” titles in the franchise attempted to copy it. For how much respect and admiration I have for this game… I also don’t particularly love playing it. It was the case when I first experienced it on PC in 2003 and even today, in its arguably best form with the Enhanced Edition mod I will also talk about, I still didn’t really love the act of playing this game. But is it still worth experiencing? Absolutely.

O tempora: Silent Hill

10/05/2023 10/05/2023

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

There are several games and franchises that I’ve replayed and continue replaying regularly for decades now. And because of that, I didn’t even consider them for my retrospective reviews, just because of how intimately I know them and how “obvious” it is that they did stand the test of time. But perhaps it’s time to change that. To attempt to take a fresh look at these titles and play them as if this is my first experience with them, re-assessing what I think about them. I’ll start with Silent Hill.

Back in the late 90s Capcom blew everyone’s mind with what they named “survival horror” and after a few years of delay, many “clones” have followed. Konami wanted a piece of that action too, which led to the creation of a title that managed to both feel like a continuation of ideas from Resident Evil, while also being quite innovative in many other ways. And, according to the pirate copy cover, it was “more awesome than Resident Evil 2”. That cover was quite correct.

In love with: Pentiment

03/03/2023 03/03/2023

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.

In love with: The Case of the Golden Idol

10/02/2023 10/02/2023

I’ll be honest, the first I saw of The Case of the Golden Idol, I thought it was a typical point and click adventure with an “ugly” art style to fit some sort of comedic/parody plot. I was so sure of it, that I completely filtered out the positive reception the game was getting up until very recently, when I saw it being compared to the amazing Return of the Obra Dinn. Confusion turned to determination to play the game for myself and I’m really glad that I did.

In love with: Dead Space (2023)

05/02/2023 05/02/2023

I’ve revisited the original set of 4 Dead Space games (and related media), starting with the still wonderful original, less than 3 years ago. The original remains one of the most interesting survival action (and almost survival horror) titles in history, while Extraction and Dead Space 2 were really awesome and memorable in their own right. And there’s also Dead Space 3. And after EA so unceremoniously ran the franchise into the ground and then closed Visceral Games, and no I’m not forgetting that, you’d think they would give up on the franchise. Yet, in a completely unexpected turn of events, instead we now get Dead Space, the remake of the original that is basically attempting to be Resident Evil 2002 (know as REmake) for this franchise. A remake that is both extremely faithful, but also expanding on the title and introducing elements meant to surprise returning players. And it is really great… if lacking in finesse.

O tempora: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena

16/01/2023 28/06/2023

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

I’ve replayed The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, in its PC “Developer’s Cut” release, back in 2004-2005 quite a few times. At the time and to this day, this game felt like an experience unlike anything else. Being an action adventure with stealth, quests, FPS, multiple solutions to problems, constantly changing situations it wasn’t quite an “immersive sim”, yet it wasn’t just a simple action adventure either. And I’d say that ever since then, the only other game that attempted to be something as varied and unique was The Darkness, a game also from Starbreeze Studios released 3 years after EfBB. A lot of the members from this team later went to form MachineGames that started with something more unique, the game being Wolfenstein: The New Order, but even that title has never been quite as varied as EfBB and all of their follow ups have been more and more primitive and generic.

The game was a critical success, remains to this day an example of how good tie-in games can be (this title was released to coincide with The Chronicles of Riddick movie) and in 2009 an extended version/sequel was released – Assault on Dark Athena. This new release contained almost the entirety of Escape from Butcher Bay content, but now on the updated engine and with some tweaks and rebalancing, and an expansion-sequel campaign that was about 2/3 the size of the original game. It wasn’t received as warmly, later had several strange attempts at digital release, including the DRM-Free GOG version which I’ve bought back in the day and replayed right now, but now it remains completely unavailable for purchase digitally. And since I’ve not played this game ever since 2009, I was curious to see just how much my opinion on it might change today.

In love with: Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection

21/12/2022 21/12/2022

It’s odd, isn’t it? To play Uncharted on PC. It’s far from the first big well known franchises to get from being a Sony console exclusive to PC, but something about Naughty Dog’s series that always made Sony hardware look like a magic box producing game flow and transitions no one else could achieve on any other hardware, makes this port feel extremely weird. But here we are, sadly, starting at the end of the franchise, or at least a big transition point, instead of the beginning.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, originally for PS4 from 2016 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, also for PS4 but from 2017, combined into one package and released first on PS5 at the start of 2022 and now on PC.