Red-Eyes

It amazes me to no end people still don’t understand why Dark Souls is so incredible. It is not the combination of individual mechanics like parrying, stamina management, rolling set in a difficult game but the refinement and perfectionism of each and every feature of the game to bring an experience unparalleled. Salt and Sanctuary never asked anything in the Souls translation to a 2D environment half-assing every feature that makes that series so great. Combat is boring and unidimensional as f*ck. Yes, Dark Souls is all about dodge rolling, positioning and attack but the 3D environment offers many options for you and the enemies making most encounters really engaging; this didn’t translate well enough when you can only go left or right and the fights become very limited. As a result, the “git gud” process doesn’t happen and by the third boss or so the player is already good enough to beat the game. Instead of looking to the vast catalogue of side-scrollers, the developers thought the combat was good enough since they were so hell bent in the stubborn quest for making an ipsis litteris copy of Dark Souls. The metroidvania-esque elements were right there but they chose to put the Air Dash move as the last power-up; the only obtainable mechanic that is useful in combat is received in the final portion of the game, un-freaking-believable! Dark Souls has no map so Salt and Sanctuary doesn’t have one either. However, the world is very different and each area recognizable with remarkable landmarks on the former opposed to 70% of the game composed of dark hallways and catacombs on the latter. “Oh I got this thing that let me jump on cloud surfaces, which of the 30 thousand dark corridors have one of those? I can’t remember, let me check the map…oh” this is basically the entire game. Not only the Vania progression power-ups are barebones the backtracking is impossible to remember (unless you take print screens of the whole game). The world building also ****, it relies way too much on the “this door doesn’t open from this side” to connect the areas; but it happens so much and they are so samey there is no way in h*ll you gonna remember each one. The game is also very dark (I swear half of the game need the f*cking torch lit and it’s still a pain to see) which adds to the frustration. At the end of the day you can only distinguish areas by: outside and catacomb ones. The game is extremely unbalanced. Everything is considered op, from Greatswords and Great Axes to f*cking Shields (that are basically unpunishable); stamina management is very mild and you can mash attack at will given the opportunity… imagine the methodic and precise nature of a soulslike combined with a beat-em up style; the leveling up cost difference is low (at end game it goes from 22k to 23k per level with each enemy giving you roughly 900 salt). The solution? Put some ****! Bad platforming (ledge grabbing only works when it feels like it), logs coming from the sky leading you to abyss, enemies that one shot you (unicorns in Pitchwoods one of the worst areas of the game) and the mother of cheapness: the fatigue mechanic. Each time you get hit your max HP diminishes, so by the time you are two or three heals left chances are your max HP is halved already. Game is still easy though The bosses all coble together in some sort of generic big dudes. The “hardest” ones rely on the almost ohko tactics like Disemboweled Husk shotgun and the infamous Witch of the Lake, a Megaman boss in a soulslike. If she combos the slow magic ball into the DBZ signature energy ball barrage you’re dead; it requires skill to dodge the first one but you just can’t escape the second while in mid-air; she is by far the most **** boss of the game. Salt and Sanctuary is not a 2D Dark Souls, but rather a 2D Code Vein or a 2D Lord of the Fallen or any other awful soulslike that fail to understand why From games are so magnificent.

Simply put this is the best soulslike not made by FromSoftware. Although I have a lot to **** about it I really liked Nioh experience and already put the second game in my queue. Even though this is Dark Souls set in an Onimusha-esque world, Nioh differs in some key aspects. First of all: stats don’t really mean much in the long run, most people tell you to put every stat at level 20 first and then you specialize your build since the weapon scaling is not very strong. The caveat is to prioritize the stats required for the type of armor you’ll be using since Nioh is all about armor. Each piece of equipment has some random perks. Let’s say you’re using the Brawler Armor Helmet with a “Toughness +2” perk, you kill an enemy that drops the same equipment however his is 4 levels higher and comes with “Omnyo Magic +10,7% (for the Fire Shot Talisman)” and “Damage against electrified enemies +5,3%”; this happens constantly and by the end of each level it’s mandatory to go through your equipment list and sort what to keep and what not because there is a limit. I f*cking hate this mechanic! Leave this **** for Diablo or something! The looting is way too much; is not uncommon for a regular enemy to drop 4 or 5 items and 90% of them are pure garbage! Oh and for the effects used as examples: I’m not making those up, this is how specific they are; needless to say most of them are useless, just keep an eye for the more general damage buffs. Imagine equating all those perks (midgame gear can have 6 perks per piece alone) for 5 pieces of armor plus the 2 melee weapons and the 2 ranged, the Spirit buffs and the useless statuses (I don’t know wtf is Tenacity and I couldn’t care less)… it makes up for a deranged math game. The only sane thing to do is ignore everything except the chosen few effects that matter, namely Close Combat increase. It sure is a mouthful and getting your ass kicked left and right surely doesn’t help. The beginning of the game is freaking insanely hard, bosses are absolute sponges and 4 out of the first 6 have a one shot kill move (Nue’s lighting storm OHKs… so much fun!). You’ll bang your head against the wall until you reach Region 2 and gain easy access to breaking the game with the Bonus Set Armors. These armors gain passive boosts most of the good ones give you flat out 20% attack boost for 4 pieces equipped; so it’s a no brainer! There is absolutely no reason to wear a non-bonus set armor, throw 90% of game’s equipment in the trash right away. Warriors of the West is prominent in Region 2, giving you f*cking 25% close combat damage increase for the full set; you can easily use it to beat the game only shifting the pieces to the higher leveled ones you end up looting along the way. Nioh revamped the Bloodstain mechanic from Souls (AKA let’s see how this idiot died) letting you summon the dude to fight him as an NPC, succeeding yearn the chance for looting his equipment and since everybody and their grandma is using the aforementioned Warriors you’ll easily complete the set. The game also shoots itself in the foot by favoring the most popular playstyle, you’re more likely to fight Katana phantoms than Axe ones for example. Katana is heavily favored offline too since most bonus sets and special weapons are for Katanas. With Bonus Set Armors by my side and better understanding of the Guardians the game becomes a breeze and I defeated most bosses first try. I had little to no trouble until the final boss but it never felt like I became a helluva lot better as a player (as it happens in Dark Souls) but rather I was proper geared. The repetitive nature of the game doesn’t help either. There are only 22 different enemies in a 40-50 hours long game for NG alone. Yes, tongued Yokai was hard but after dealing with him 50 times I kind know his tells. Most sub-missions happen in a section of a main mission map; maps used solely for sub-quests are reused further on in other sub-missions even though you are in another geographic region. The game is repetitive. Period. After **** this much I must say: I loved the game. The flow of the combat with the amazing Stance Change mechanic that cleverly synergizes with the Stamina Recovery move is fantastic! Weapons have different skills for purchase, there are only five yes (plus 2 more types in the DLC) but they feel very different and there is a lot of thought with each one. You can make a mage ranged build specialized in Omnyo Magic, a Glock build (guns and bows are powerful af) or the lackluster Ninja one. There is even the journalist mode abusing the Sloth Talisman but we don’t talk about that; “I pLaY GaMeS fOr tHe sToRy” players item only. What really seals the deal is the atmosphere. The graphics are so beautiful and so colored playing through most main levels is a joy. Despite its problems Nioh is way worth it for soulslike aficionados.

Well, it is just another Uncharted game, as in, they are delivering the same thing for the fourth time with a different story. I don’t think franchises need to reinvent the wheel at every installment but given how shallow Uncharted gameplay has been it is baffling Naughty Dog manages to get away with how their games (movies cough cough) work. Automatic climbing and cover system shootouts as it always have been. You have a grappling hook now, that sounds awesome and perfectly matches the game right? No! When the “platforming” is so automatic it becomes unfulfilling; the grappling hook only works when you see a prompt button on the screen so it is just a fancy way to press X and see the game play itself. I’m not joking when I say the game should be an all-out platformer making rewarding to get on top of a big ass tower, but the challenge was never an option with Uncharted and it sure as h*ll wouldn’t be in the fourth game. The cover based shootouts returns again despite being the biggest sin when it comes to third person shooters games. Press the button that magnetizes you to cover and wait for the enemy to voluntarily expose their head, rise and headshot they yaaaay! It is funny when you don’t realize the correct flow of the fight and wanders all around the battlefield being showered with bullets until you find your precious piece of wood to protect you. If something, I feel like shooting is even worse in this game: the crosshair movement is off and if you pre-aim before hiding behind cover when you get up again your pre-aim is gone. It is easy to realize the gameplay is a mere accessory in Uncharted and the best example is the chapter 4, right at the beginning. You start at your attic and inspect some memorabilia reminiscent of Nathan’s adventures on the previous games (which is a nice fan service to be honest), then you play with a Nerf gun shooting some targets (for some reason) and your wife calls, a really mundane sappy moment worth of your everyday romance sitcom occurs and she challenges you to play Crash Bandicoot for PS1… which you do! From Nathan’s perspective watching the TV you have to beat Crash first stage, and this is the most challenging thing the game has to offer. The story goes on for the chapter but the only thing the player really has done is playing discount Crash for PS1! Remember desperately mashing the buttons to skip the cutscenes/story in older games so you can actually play the f*cking thing? I’m pretty sure Uncharted fans would do the other way around, trying to find a way to skip the gameplay sections instead. So yes it is a “sToRy gAmE”!!!! It follows the same Indiana Jones/National Treasure trope used in previous installments: a historic figure did something and hid clues to find something, then a clue leads to a puzzle that when solved leads to another clue and so on so forth until the mystery is revealed. This narrative model is pretty appealing (although in a cheap way) and the player is compelled to know what will happen next, even though the dialogues can be cheesy at times and characters are overall stereotypical. It is a clichéd text yes, but I can see it working with most people. Let’s wrap it up giving the credit where it’s due: graphically the game is a work of art! So many times you can stop to appreciate the scenery (the first scene in chapter 5… my God!) given how beautiful the game looks; the “world traveling” narratives also guarantees a lot of different landscapes to behold. And the facial expressions… I’m sorry for every company trying to rival Naughty Dog on this regard. So Uncharted 4 doesn’t surprise anyone and I wouldn’t buy this game to save my life! I only played because it was the PS Plus freebie of the month and had nothing to lose. However it remains as the most story based game of them all to the point where the gameplay doesn’t really matter, Naughty Dog frankly doesn’t care and neither do the fans. The fact Uncharted next project is going to be a straight up movie speaks volumes about the series, at least they’re being upfront this time around.

Persona 5 is a mix of a visual novel high school and a turn based “dungeon” crawler RPG… doesn’t seem very exciting but it’s one of the best games of this generation. But how does such an uninteresting premise makes for such a great experience? I’ll try to explain It’s hard to pinpoint why Persona 5 is so good as a lot of factors have a role, first of all and most obvious: the story. If I had to summarize why the narrative is so engaging I would simply say “It’s because it’s a Japanese story”; the game doesn’t shy away of dealing with some heavy stuff: first chapter has a girl attempting suicide over being sexually harassed by her PE teacher, can you ever see something like that flying in an American studio game? H*ll no! The game has a distinct anime humor mixed with some pretty serious stuff from time to time, as a result you never know what’s around the corner and the narrative surprises you every step in the way. The dialogues follow along as they are never boring. There is always a joke, an unexpected moment… there is always something different to keep you going. The characters really steal the show as their psyche is diverse both in the main roster as well in the side characters that you meet. Each one has a personality, a goal, a behavior that make them unique. You can roughly encounter 2 characters per day to make their story move forward, granted most of the times you’re gonna select the one that benefits you the most gameplay wise but I’m pretty sure players went with their preferred character from time to time. Now let’s talk about the dungeon RPG sections: the Palaces. This might be the only turn based combat that I really liked. It all comes down to your Skill Points or SP (like the Magic Points – MP – in every RPG) since the game is VERY STINGY with SP recovery items so it is all about managing this resource, playing in Hard Mode makes for a better experience in this regard. The most reliable way to recover SP is calling it a day, but you have a deadline to finish the Palace so the ideal is to make the most of each day in other words making the most of your SP as they are integral to the fights for using the Personas. Personas are basically Stands (was that a JoJo reference?). Each character in your party has a Persona and each one of them is specialized in an element; so basically a good character is determined by how good is their Persona. The main character Joker, however, can host a bunch of Personas so feel free to customize your team as you see fit; if you’re feeling underpowered you can fuse them together culminating in even stronger Personas and this is the best thing ever! There are so many and their designs are so awesome and diverse that you’ll be changing your team every time you can The enemies you fight are called Shadows but they always materialize in, you guessed: Personas. Most of them have an elemental weakness, exploiting it grants you a bonus turn (One More) that can be chained and it also downs the enemy, if all of them are down you can make an All-Out Attack for massive damage or engage in a negotiation to finish the battle earlier and even obtain the said Persona. If you go for the latter you gain less experience points however by finishing the battle earlier you save some SP, so here enters your management. The Palaces are huge so don’t expect to finish them in an in-game day alone. They have also some puzzle mechanics of sort and here is where the game should be better as I would love to see this enhanced. I’m not saying the game should have like Zelda puzzles or something… actually scratch that! That would’ve been awesome! Why games don’t rip off Zelda? What I’m trying to say is: make better puzzles and make them more prevalent. Making the Palaces more action oriented would be a dream too - instead of climbing when the X button prompt appears give the players the liberty to do so and figure out things for their selves. I don’t think I need to say he obvious about the awesome anime graphical style so I’d like to focus on an aspect that’s been dying in modern gaming: the music. Much of the experience is enhanced by it as each Palace has a different incredible theme. A battle theme music with lyrics? Yup, Persona manages to pull it off splendidly! The song of the final fight (Rivers in the Desert) is so amazing I put in my playlist. Still in the audio department: a huge shout-out to the voice actors (I played in English) as this is THE BEST voice acting I’ve seen in a game; particularly for Ann and Ryuji actors. Persona 5 sure is a slow burner and it’s a different game. I remember hating it my first try ditching it in the first Palace; I returned one year later with another mentality and didn’t want the game to end. So some patience is required until it clicks but is a game worth giving a shot (but buy Persona 5 Royal instead since it adds another chapter and more Personas)

This is how you reboot a franchise! Doom 2016 manages to retain the same fast-action paced adrenaline filled gameplay of the originals, completely reviving one of the most important titles of the gaming industry. This game doesn’t f*ck around! Use your baddass arsenal to slay demons! As you progress though the levels you are showered with hordes after hordes of different types of monsters, increasing the difficulty as it goes on; after killing the waves, exploration is pretty welcome as there is much to uncover with some cool items that really can make a difference gameplaywise. Those items are basically your upgrades “fees”, letting you maximize your health/ammo, giving you great passive effects and my favorite: weapon mods. The balance between the intense horde and exploration makes for an amazing experience and although the game is around 15 hours-long it does seem longer since there is no “downtime”. As expected from a Doom title, the game is pretty challenging. I played on the hard mode (Ultra-Violence) and I died a lot, especially at the beginning as my inventory was lacking and I was still learning the ins and outs of the game. As they advise you: standing still is death! So I changed the controls in a way I could jump with L1 making it for a much better fluid gameplay as I moved like crazy during fights. The ammo is something you must manage so changing weapons and using your entire arsenal is a necessity and very fun since the weapons are all great, very diverse and have their own niche of usage. Doom also reminds the lazy developers of other games how good music enhances the experience. The heavy metal it plays fits perfectly with the chaotic nature of the game and its gruesome fights; so much better than the current trend of having no music. As for the downsides: the game could use some puzzles despite finding keycards to open gates and there should be more bosses as there are only four, they are very challenging but they could use some work. Another thing that I don’t like is that sometimes the game arbitrarily halts your backtracking by closing a gate or something impeding you to 100% the level. I understand when it’s a cliff you can’t back up but random gates popping up are annoying. All in all Doom is an awesome testosterone filled game! No microtransactions, no downtime, no ****, just run‘n gun using your badd*ss arsenal to send demons back to the depths of hell!

This title is built upon the absolute blueprint of how successful Triple A games come out to be. They MUST be Open World and have good graphics, check and check; if the previous conditions are fulfilled the story will be treated as a good one regardless of the plot and characters. The gameplay can then be whatever you want it doesn’t really matter anyway. Horizon crank this formula up to eleven displaying a clever twist to make it even more marketable than it already was, despite being much inferior than any game in the genre. Games like these are the ones that once made me wonder: why the f*ck is this Open World? It is in past tense because I eventually found out the answer: they fool people easily and sell a lot. This has got to be the emptiest open world game I’ve ever seen! Despite some villages in between there are THREE things to do: find people to prompt side quest, kill robots and looting bushes for unspectacular items. You have beautiful landscapes as the scenery yay, but it’s f*cking 2017! If you’re still impressed at staring at nature in a videogame you haven’t played any game since 2010 The game heavily relies on the graphics/facial expressions/voice acting to stand out so whenever you find an NPC there is this stupid dialogue tree mechanic so feel free to ask useless questions to bore you to death even further since the dialogues are mostly tedious as h*ll. Also since the game is pretty vanilla for thirteen years old the writing is very cliché, chances are you’ll default to selecting the option that ends the conversation as your first choice early on. Voice acting and facial expressions means absolutely nothing if the content is lacking Its structure rips off Witcher… a lot! Even if you’re the Wicther’s fan number one I don’t think you liked walking up to bushes and pressing X to gather useless items. Well… Horizon “enhances” this mechanic by having a minuscule inventory for you to manage and given how the resources must be crafted with each other to give the real items (like potions, consumables and stuff) there is no way to know what to keep.. But to grind you’ll mostly need to kill stuff and surprise surprise: Horizon’s gameplay is f*cking awful. I know innovation is good and all but “bow and arrow against robotic animals” is a concept doomed from the start. One might wonder: how is an arrow supposed to pierce and damage a machine? I don’t know, but the game treats it as if the metal carcass is just a sturdier flesh, you don’t have to damage the inner circuits or cut some wire; attacking the carcass works somehow. Kinda works, the robots have some weak points:, if you land a shot in the precise pixel it does five times the damage, and believe me: you gotta land that shot! Because shooting arrows anywhere other than the weak point takes forever to kill You must be sneaky in combat, the game’s notion of stealth is as follows: the player can duck on tall grass to be completely concealed from enemies… that’s it. Horizon stealth is just that. If an enemy sees you they can “telepathically” warn the others, this can make some sense with machines but even human enemies have this unexplained power. When you are discovered you have to back off until the alert goes down; you can’t brute force your way through, making the gameplay unidimensional as f*ck. Let’s take Metal Gear 5: you can plan meticulously your route but sometimes you just want to go balls to the walls and Rambo everybody, the game offers you so many options. Horizon is f*cking bow and arrow man! So crouching on tall grass it is. Needless to say: the game is super boring. You’re up against machines with a much weaker sniper rifle/semi-automatic weapon; the game is not built to be a shooter as cover is scarce. You have a spear that works as a slow sub-weapon, but it should clearly be the other way around with melee combat as the main. The story isn’t good enough to engage me, the world-building is lame and the characters are awful, stereotypical and super safe ones. The matriarchal society and the female protagonist are the cherry on the top. Given how plastic and by the books the game is, I’m pretty sure the strategy of surfing on the feminist trend was the very first decision they made. It’s just there to be more marketable and please your typical “journalist” who complained about killing black guys in Resident Evil 5 (despite the fact the game was in Africa). Well, clearly their strategy worked. I don’t trust the Critic Reviews in the slightest but their bribed reviews managed to deceive most players who totally shut their brains off and went with the flow. Fifteen-year old CoD/FIFA players might think this is the best game ever but if you played any open world game you won’t be tricked here. Horizon is the absolute worst example of a Sony exclusive and a total celebration of how f*cked up is the state of gaming industry

During my everlasting research about mystery murder games, Danganronpa was a name that I always stumbled across. I finally decided to try it after seeing a massive discount on a Playstation Sale and the game positively surprised me The game is a visual novel with a pre-determined path as the player passively watches the story unfolds, doesn’t seem very exciting in the surface but the narrative is so freaking good that gets you hooked from the very start. A little rundown of the story: fifteen students find themselves captive in an school building until Monokuma, a mysterious talking plush bear – you heard it right, shows up and explains that the students must murder each other without getting discovered in order to be allowed to return to the outside world. So every chapter deals with a murder, the subsequent investigation and the class trial. Besides each murder stories that is also the mystery behind Monokuma, the school and the outside world in a compelling and addicting narrative that only Japanese storytelling could provide us. The game works on an anime style with still images and dialogue boxes as the storytelling media (as I said it is a visual novel). During the period known as “Free Time” the player is given freedom to interact with one of the characters and learn more about them; basically you walk toward someone and press X to engage conversation. Here is the weakest part about the game: the Free Time should be more developed and at least give us more exciting things to do. Don’t get me wrong the conversations are entertaining and have that typical distinctive anime style with a bunch of humor thrown in between but ultimately they are meaningless to how the plot unfolds. The true highlight of Danganronpa is the Class Trials, where you gather the clues from the investigation and discuss with your classmates whodunit. The best and most utilized mechanic is the Non-Stop Debate: as the dialogue unravels you have to pinpoint the contradiction/lie in someone’s speech and use either a clue you gathered from the investigation or something a character said as the correct counter-argument; the difficulty range from easy to straight up guessing as some contradictions are a tiny detail that you pay no mind. The class trials have other mechanics like the Hangman’s Gambit (basically a hangman minigame… this ****), the Bullet-Time Battle (a rhythm frantic battle where you must press the correct button at precise times to win) and, another one of my favorites, the Closing Argument where you revisits everything that happened during the crime using the correct panels to describe the murders. A warning: Class Trial are long as f*ck. They take at least one hour and a half, you can save anytime you want but I like to do the trials in one sitting. There is a break between the investigation and the beginning of the trial. After you get the final clue the game sends you to a corridor, opening the door ahead triggers the trial, what I like to do here is to revisit every clue and see what I can make of the crime (how it happened, my main suspect and whatnot) before having the game unfolding it in the Class Trial itself. And don’t be fooled with the cases, although the first one murderer is really obvious and **** the subsequent cases are absolutely nothing like it and leave you completely in the dark. I would say that from the third case onwards I had little to no idea of what happened. And the writing of the cases is the best thing about Danganronpa, as they are surprising and really clever. The game is all about the narrative honestly so if you happen to hear a spoiler your experience is basically ruined. The second game works just like the first but in a different setting and with a different cast. If one thing, the cases of the second installment have slightly better writing although the overall main mystery of the first one was better. Class Trials are much better though as they add more mechanics and improve old ones: for the Non-Stop Debate you can also consent (instead of just counter-argument) and the Hangman’s Gambit turns into an awesome minigame now. Danganronpa really surprised me with its amazing narrative. I’m a 100% gameplay guy but even then this story based game managed to captivate me. It’s basically an interactive book where you press X to pass text boxes and while I do think that is a lot of room for improvement (mostly the Free Time sections) I assure you the story is so much f*cking better than any American triple A game could ever dream of.

I must have played around 15 metroidvanias throughout my life, mostly from Metroid and Castlevania franchises (surprise, surprise). I can safely say the following without a shadow of a doubt: Hollow Knight is the best metroidvania ever made and by very far. The game has this unique and captivating charm exposed by every bug you encounter, even more so for the NPCs they have more charisma than any Triple A character could ever dream of. Of course the Knight itself is a shining example with his baddass-cute duality. Graphically, the game is beautiful! Every area of the gigantic map has its own theme and again the line is blurred between creppy (Deepnest) and jolly (Greenpath). The awesome graphics and overall atmosphere pumps the player will to explore every area, no wonder this is one of Hollow Knight stronger features. It is possible to pin the map for rooms you feel like need a given power-up to access, which you’ll gladly return to once you acquire them since the exploration is super rewarding. When you find something, is something that REALLY matters gameplaywise. It’s not like “Hey my 79th missile expansion, yay!” or “Another sword that deals 3% more dps than my current one”; it is something like a charged attack or the Abyss Shriek spell, in other words: things that completely change the way you play. The inventory and power-ups are amazing and the game opts for a more minimalistic approach (instead of 2000 items in Castlevanias) as a result they are much more meaningful; it is such a better system. For example your health: you start with 5 masks (5 hit points) which you can max to 9, they work in a Zelda’s Piece of Heart format for each 4 shards you gain 1 mask; as such when you earn another HP you feel accomplished. The same approach is used for the nail arts (the “sword” special moves) and spells, however the crowning jewel of your inventory are the Charms. There are 40 charms with its own weights and they are responsible for the customization of your character. Do you wanna extend the range of your nail, have more hit points or maybe some minions to help you in combat? Just equip the Charms accordingly but watch out, you just have so many slots and the stronger the charm the more notches (slots) you’re gonna need for them (for the most time…there are some hidden gems with only one slot required). This system is f*cking amazing! You adjust your character according to your playstyle but must make sacrifices to accommodate them and the phenomenal combat will ensure you to try different things since the game is far from being easy. Here is where Hollow Knight sets the bar from other games of the genre: the combat. It is not clunky as in Vania nor boring like Metroid, instead it works like the best action games of the genre going for a more fast-paced rhythm. Take Shinobi, Strider, Mega Man X using Zero or Shovel Knight; Hollow Knight draws more on these games than anything else. Besides the aforementioned offensive options the movement skills and power-ups are also essential to keep you alive improving the experience a lot. With an amazing combat like that, no wonder the bosses are incredible making each fight unique and memorable but they don’t f*ck around. So…it is hard, but the difficulty scales perfectly as the game goes and you’ll be in for a real treat with the last bosses. If you are insane though there is the Godhome area where four different boss rushes are available and you can also train against them individually in three difficulties (being the last one a One-Hit Kill option so good luck with Oblobble); if you succeed the final challenge is unlocked: the Pantheon of Hallownest. This last challenge consists of a one life try on a rush containing every boss in the game as well as having a new boss at the very end; and keep in mind this last boss is by far the hardest in the game… it took me around THIRTY HOURS of practice and failed runs to finally beat the last Pantheon but once I did it I was in the top of world man. Perfect combat, rewarding exploration, a unique charm, likable characters, incredible power-ups, fun customization system and to top it off a vast and beautiful map. Hollow Knight is the absolute zenith when it comes to metroidvanias; if you are a fan of the genre prepare yourself to be amazed.

Disclaimer: I honestly don't give a rat's ass about not having a National Dex and I never played (nor intend to do in the future) Pokemon PvP. Just to get another elephant out of the room: graphics are terrible, mostly in the Wild Area where Onixes pop up left and right and pokemons animations are anal. Done! What I liked: the Wild Area IDEA is good but the execution is terrible (having multiple wild areas would have been much better but Game Freak usual lazyness kicked in). The Dynamax/Gigantomax mechanic is muuuuuuuch more balanced than the no-penalty Mega-Evolution one, however it's aesthetically awful; the ideal system would be: the looks of Mega Evolution with Dyna/Giganto mechanic. Changing your team on the fly is nice too, but, since you can, why not mantain the HM system since now you can have a HM slave with no penalty. Now the infinite number of cons! Worst thing for me is how they manage to streamline and make the game easier even further beyond! At this point, Pokemon games just test your ability to read and nothing else. They even took out the articial difficulty of knowing the type of a Pokemon and attacking its weaknesses, now the game just tells you right way which of your 4 moves is super-effective. It's baffliing how this franchise has a target audience that ranges from 8 to 40 year-old people but they still make the game solely for children. Just put a difficulty option! Create gym leader strategies similar to what people use in PvP (or at least a goddamn Whitney's Miltank kinda strategy)! A New Game+ option, just do something! To streamline the game even further the map is not in a square format with bifurcations and routes conecting everything anymore. Now is in a tree format (think as if the main route is the trunk with some branches to connect some cities) with a multitude of dead-ends. In the few ocasions where a bifurcation is presented instead of needing a HM to proceed through each path now you have two guys that pretty much say "Nah! You can't pass"; that's it man! No clever obstacles just the game literally saying 'you can't pass'. I don't feel like talking about this garbage anymore so I'll just throw in other problems: new Pokemon are lame as **** and if you find a cool water type design you win a ball, it has only ONE ****ING CAVE IN THE ENTIRE GAME, worst possible Rocket Team iteraiton ever (now they are just one little girls fans???), godawful story, stereotypical lame characters (your friendly rival Leon takes the cake as the most annoying one), dumb clothing system because why not, no grinding system for the stronger TMs (you randomly gain them in the Raid battles, I got f*cking Dragon Claw in my first one without any effort whatsoever), no cool minigames to take a break (like Voltorb Flip, yes, I loved it), worst Battle Tower iteration and a multitude of other things. The Postgame? I don't know. I just beat the champion and couldn't take it anymore I didn't even start the quest to capture the legendary doggo on the cover. That is it. Game Freak really outdid themselves with this masterpiece. I'm done with this franchise

When I learned there was a weeb souls-like I was sold. The mixed reviews threw me off a little but the combination of two of my ultimate passions should’ve been enough to keep me going. The anime part is alright actually. Waifus pop up left and right as NPCs, my highlight goes to Io, like… damn! The guys are awesome too with their super baddass designs. The customization is one of Code Vein’s most celebrated features and although the body types and clothes options are very lacking, one can easily waste hours on the face and the accessories. What I like the most about the customization is the possibility of being able to change your character anytime, and you can save up to 10 profiles so you can load them if you wanna go back; this is an amazing feature that should be the norm in every game. However the true value **** is in its gameplay, even more so for a soulslike, and here is where Code Vein drops the ball… Starting up with the core of a soulslike: the combat. It ****! Parry timing is so inconsistent that I’ve ignored it since level 3 or something and the backstab only works when it feels like it. The heavy attack is not worthy it and I only used it as a wake-up. The enemies doesn’t help either because their animation never proper convey what they are doing and every thin enemy has the cheap teleport or charge attack to cover distances in the blink of an eye; one miss judgement and they combo you to 25% hp, and since this costs more or less like 3 heals (the maximum heals you get is 10) the player has no incentive other than abuse the same strategy over and over in order to conserve health. As a result I exploited the **** out of the game using the most common build you can think of: the Ultra Greatsword. Pressing forward + light attack launches the lunge, the range is not great but it sends vast majority of enemies to the ground then you can charge the heavy attack as a wake up; either that or abusing the light attacks staggers. These strategies trivialize most levels and given how broken the game is I’m pretty sure there are some Caster, Hammers or whatever builds exploits too. Changing builds comes from the game signature mechanic: the Blood Codes. Instead of carefully leveling up the stats of your character to make your build, Code Vein has those presets classes that you can equip on the fly. Do you wanna use big weapons? Equip the Berserker code. On the mood for a Dark Magic caster build? Go with Harmonia… so on, so forth. There are like 40 different codes, so I’m pretty sure most builds are covered regardless of how creative one could be if it was a souls traditional level up system. Overall, I think the Blood Code is a neat idea however I prefer being responsible for building my character instead of “renting” ones. Also, since your equipment is heavily dependent of the code, there should be a way to save the code with the equipment attached so you can quick load them; instead everytime you have to manually select your weapons, armor, passive and active skills (Gifts). The enemies are overall generic one-trick ponies and 90% of them are variations of a fat strong sponge or a thin agile warrior; you see the enemy for the first time and you can pretty much describe each of its attacks beforehand. The bosses **** in the same proportion, most of them are variations of Velstadt (from Dark Souls 2): big warrior, generic armor wielding a big ass generic weapon; as a result most encounters are forgettable. When you remember them it’s due to some bull**** mechanic like Butterfly of Delirium flying away from you and applying insta-poison or unavoidable AoE magic attacks (looking at you Virgin Born), speaking of which: everytime the game tries and AoE magic it ****, the hitbox is super random and the animation is awful and don’t convey well enough what is happening. But the worst thing by far about Code Vein is the level design. It is just unbelievable! It feels like it was purposely built to piss of the player. Every stage is a bunch of narrow corridors cobbled together with an abundant use of copy-paste leaving no landmarks and nothing that stands out. The awful graphics don’t help and you’re likely to be completely lost, remember the Prims Stones form Dark Souls? Well you gonna need them (Chemical Light) more than ever here. I really can’t remember a level design as awful as in Code Vein, if you think I’m exaggerating go watch some Cathedral (worst stage of all times) level gameplay. All in all, Code Vein is a bad game. I only finished it because the game is pretty easy (except for two or three bull**** bosses) and wanted to justify my purchase. There are so many things to improve that would be better to start the project from scratch. Which Bandai Namco surely will not do since the fan service was enough to alienate the dumb anime audience thus I’m pretty sure the sequence will be just more of the same, in other words: garbage.

Didn’t you say Witcher 3 was the best game ever? CD Project Red took that feedback and decided to apply the same formula in a new IP. A brilliant decision actually! “So: a boring empty open world full of smokes and mirrors but little to none to interact with, awful and unresponsive gameplay and generic enemies with dumb AIs. But most importantly: great story, amazing characters, customization and jaw-dropping graphics. Let’s do it guys! We only have EIGHT YEARS!” Exclusive and real excerpt extracted from CD Project Red board meeting. Nothing could go wrong really. They pumped the hype to eleven with a gigantic marketing campaign, they had **** Jonny Deep as a character (come on dude! You can’t get any cooler than that) and eight years to smoothly develop the game. So what went wrong? CD PR absurd megalomania that was. They promised everything to please everyone! Even with the development time they had it was impossible to deliver, so a lot of things were cut from the game: reputation system, the subway lines are in the game but can’t be used, Pacifica area was mostly cut and a f*ck ton of other things. This desire to hold everything led to Cyberpunk mismanagement in an area that couldn’t be f*cked up: its awful graphical performance. Game couldn’t reach 30 fps, graphics looking like something out of PS3 at best, glitches running amok, characters falling through the world... Things that can’t be unseen and can’t be masked. You can mislead your audience with a more subjective aspect like an awful gameplay if you rely on the story/characters/graphics gimmicky (hello Witcher 3). But something as flagrant as a graphical subpar performance can be perceived by the most stupid gamer on Earth. And that was their main flaw: they failed on something that couldn’t be masked; not even the totally honest and not biased critics could help CD PR on this one. With players frowning upon first impressions of the game, the light was shed upon the problems that were present since Witcher 3. Oh so the combat ****? What a surprise right, I could never see this coming! I dare to say if wasn’t for the graphical performance and bugs, people would be praising Cyberpunk as much as they did with Witcher 3. Cyberpunk 2077 disaster is the perfect case of everything that is wrong in Triple A gaming industry. I always perceived the project as an overhyped GTA but they delivered something much worse and ruined the entire company’s reputation. Remember their **** moral grandstanding speech about microtransactions? “We leave greed to others” yeah right. Also I would love to salute the special dudes who pre-ordered the game despite a lot of red flags; really my boys, congratulations! The mediocrity in which the industry is depends heavily on stupid people like you to give them money. And you better hurry! The pre-orders for the new FIFA and Call of Duty already started

Every EA game should have an automatic "ZERO". Sports' games have became the absolute lowest tier of gaming genres, designed to milk the consumers to the fullest with their microtransactions by regurgitating the same product year after year. Anyone who buys this **** is a straight up idiot

In an industry plagued with microtransactions, mediocre open-world games and bribed critic reviewers commanded by the likes of EA, Activision and the likes I feel FROM Software is some sort of Batman to give us at least some hope, and again they deliver the goods with Dark Souls 3. The combat is the absolute best, you can't ask for something better than this. Attacking, managing stamina and dodging at the precise time are a gaming art as the punishment for being overconfident is right around the corner. Bosses aren't as memorable as in Souls 1 but they are still good (my highlight is the Nameless King, visually, lorewise and the fight itself) in the main game and astronomically awesome in the DLCs (Midir, Friede and Gael). Changing builds add a lot of replayability because a section that is easy for a caster maybe harder for a melee and vice-versa. You can respec your status 5 times per playthrough so if you don't feel like going to NG+ with the same guy, just change your build before going. The online system is the same from other games however now you can summon 3 guys to co-op. Being ganked by 4 dudes when invading is not the greatest thing in the world and if you don't have an insane ability (mastering spacing and parrying to the fullest besides pivot and rolling back-stabbing) and patience you're gonna die and get frustrted. But you can always play at certain soul levels to avoid ganks (they are rarer at SL60 for example and it is a popular level for PvP) or just jump straight into the arena for a one-on-one honorable duel. Anyway, this is just what you would expect form a Dark Souls game and although some might say it doesn't reinvent the wheel, I'd argue that the execution is so perfect that they don't have to push boundaries (besides you can always check Sekiro or Bloodborne for a "different Dark Souls tone"). Beating a hard boss after trying for hours by memorizing their combos and exploring their weaknesses it is still the best thing one can experience in a video game; the feeling of getting better and overcoming a hard obstacle not because your character is stronger but because you, the player, became stronger is still done perfectly

Absolutely **** perfect! I cannot believe a game from this generation could go straight into my Top5 side-scrolling games as fast as this one did. The gameplay is perfect balancing platforming and combat as one entity like bouncing on enemies to reach higher places. Each level has its own little twist in the gameplay to makes things fresh everytime: from the exploding estructure at the Explodatorium to the bouncing jellies (yes, bouncing jellies) at the Lost City; every level is unique and you never get bored. The bosses are amazing and each of them has its own different m.o. to fight. And considering the game signature charm and style, chances are you'll remember those battle for a long time. The icing on the cake is the perfect soundtrack. it is the best soundtrack I've ever heard in a 2D game! Remember how we used to play super nes games humming the music while going right? That's how I replay this game. All in all this is one of my favorite games of the newer generations, if you grew up with Mario, Donkey Kong, Megaman and stuff and like a good challenge I'm pretty sure you'll find enjoyment here

First things first: this game is a roguelike action game, it has no elements to be called a metroidvania (go watch Ingenious Clown ytube video about it if you wanna know more). With that out of the way the action sections (the combat) are awesome! It's a constant barrage of enemies and the adrenaline rush is surreal when your reflex skills are tested everytime, there are so many weapons, sub-weapons and weapon types that the combat never feels old; the very nature of a roguelike might force you to choose a different tool for the job each run making it fresh every time. But the roguelike aspect is also the main flaw. The idea of a random generated level is **** Instead of having a thoughtful level design with good platforming and stuff you just gonna charge a random algorithm to do the job instead. That's ludicrous! As a result the levels are boring, the platforming is super flat and besides the excellent combat there is nothing else. I also dislike having only 4 bosses. In a game like this there should be a boss at the end of each level. I finished the game once but I have no desire to complete the weaponry, get every item let alone getting platinum and the random level design is the sole reason why

Worthless game I've ever played in my life, I'm dead serious. You just walk from point A to point B in a desert, sometimes there are ruins around and a dude joins you to overcome the tasks (and by tasks I mean: WALKING). A complete joke! I got this trash as the free game of the month at PS Plus and even then I feel like I was cheated. Just another proof the "CrItIc ReViEwS" section is a bunch of guys who received money to praise a game.

Worst combat system I've experienced since PS2 era: it is super clunky, Geralt seems to be stuck in a grid when fighting and you can best anything with light attack - light attack - dodge - dodge rinse and repeat; it is baffling (regardless of the difficulty you are on, the difference is that in hard mode you'll do that 15 times while in hardest you'll repeat the process 115 times). The controls are bad and unresponsive, the simple act of facing a chest and pressing X to loot is a dreadful chore because it is super hard to get Geralt to aim the correct direction. A big disappointment because I liked the world, the characters, the story seemed good, the side quests are entertaining and the Gwent card game is a fantastic idea (easily the best thing in the game). If the controls were somewhat decent I would be on board but they are insultant to the point I couldn't go further and it is no like "the game is old" kind thing, Bloodborne was released the same year and still have one of the best combat system ever made. The universal acclaim this game had tells a lot about how deplorable gaming industry has become