Wineneeder

Fantastic, surpassing everything I expected. It's well-written, with beautiful and intricate art assets, and a deep and interesting setting. I suspect it has at least two or three replays worth of content. An amazing return to isometric RPGs, too... and there's not really an actual combat system. I just forgot it 'needed' one along the way, that caught up into it. The soundtrack is spectacular, forlorn and beautiful. The music sells the eerie, depressing bleak but beautiful setting. The voice acting is great, and even the sound design is pretty great, all in all a delight to ear. The story and content narrows as the game nears the end, I'm sure I had interacted with most everyone in Revachol by the 4th day, and most of the content by the 5th. Maybe one more unlockable section, and some more to do would have helped, for me anyway. It becomes quite linear, too. I understand it isn't a big studio, and you have to wrap up a story (especially one which can adapt to successes and failures). This might be the first game that I consider to be 'art', whatever that means today. Also, if they adapt it right, it might also be the only video game to transcend the impossible video game movie* barrier, without being incredibly campy/tongue in cheek or a guilty pleasure. *(Yes, I know the adaptation is going to be a 'TV show', but movies have lost the mandate of heaven for years now, unfortunately.)

I really want to like it, but it is incredibly campy. There's no teamplay and most of the time there's a painful amount of mic spam, worse when it's after map voting and you can't see who it is or mute them. Or it's somebody shouting the n-word now that a bunch of COD players have given up the latest one of those. It has improved much, but the devs have made some questionable decisions. Frontline has major problems, compared to similar modes in the last game/removed from this one. Sooo yes, I got to level 1000, but I wouldn't have even bothered if every other shooter series hadn't taken a major downturn. It's still a lot of playtime, sometimes it's fun and it works. Maybe in two or more years, they'll fix one or two specific angles in Outskirts Frontline and maybe it 5 percent less of a dry ass fisting for insurgents. I mean it worked for Crossing, now it's only around ~80 percent of a dry one if there's any number of absurdly high level players on the enemy team. They can't even headglitch spawn camp you now, just regular spawn camping! Basically everything is great, except the game types, the maps, the playerbase, the hitreg, and the balance... you get the picture. But everything else is chef's kiss, I do mean it. It's a good looking game, good sounding game. Anyway.

I like it, an Infinity Engine type game updated. The combat is good and the mechanics make sense (a nice change from third edition's THAC0, and other quirks). The paintings and art and design is alright, but the character models aren't great. Jagged, boring, lower quality, even too much so for a PC game from 2015. There's also way too much pointless writing... I know some of it is optional backer reward stuff, but it makes my eyes cross where other RPGs don't. Walls of text, and there's some weird desync in how text is formatted and how the spoken lines come out. I'm not sure I can describe this at the moment, I'll come back when I've finished the game. Anyway, I'm not very engaged in the story, but not dead bored and lacking direction, like in Baldur's Gate post mines. The world isn't exactly to my tastes, a bit high fantasy generica, with the big crystals, etc... it's hard for me to be engaged in that kind of setting, if I'm not actively roleplaying. I'm not immersed. A more involved story and mechanics that tie into it might have helped, but perhaps there's time, I'm not very far. On the flip side, you couldn't pull me away from Disco Elysium. Anyway, I'll come back to this and surely rewrite it when I'm done.

It's fine. I'd like to see less open world and more dungeons. Give me a big sprawling dungeon, or an open world undead parish with multiple routes. Also some of the bosses are incredibly unfair/based off of new gimmicks (mainly riding) and leveling, rather than skill. YOU spend the eight hours beating Ulcerated Tree Spirit without leveling, potentially the second boss you can run into. The first fight is also like ten times harder than Vangard Demon in DsS. Also some of the open boss fights may put the enemy in unfair positions during attack animations, and make something potentially undodgeable (mainly the dragon so far, though sometimes the knight bosses) Anyway, my feelings are complicated. I'd almost say it is a misguided effort, some of the new features aren't very useful or fleshed/thought out, however the gameplay works much better than it has any right to, certainly better than what happened with BOTW. I'm giving it a 10 because the user reviews here are insane.

Halo: Combat Evolved is the essential Bungie game, the pinnacle and probably the last real one. A long time Bungie fan, I can really sense the Bungie DNA here, and trace it back. It isn't hard to see elements of the Marathon series, but also Myth: TFL. You can subtly see even things that were influenced by the game being a tactical RTS in the development of the game. I wouldn't be surprised if how enemies strategize, how certain abilities are used, tactics of the enemy, the feel of this has been imparted by that. Even now, 19 years since the release, this is still a good game. It's fun, it just feels right and better than modern games do in some ways. The design is excellent and atmospheric, I MUCH prefer the original graphics to the remastered*. Even the exterior background images look better and fit the scenery properly. The art style is just better. *(which also get rid of several copyrighted symbols, the Marathon logo the biggest injury.) The story is of course terrible, you're just a big Marine guy saving the galaxy with your blue hacker girlfriend. Despite this, it has great atmosphere, I love the banter of the marines and enemies, but the story is just basic **** to the core. Where's the text terminals? Where's the lore? Where's the maniac AI waxing poetically about the universe ending, or the artwork of exploded alien carcasses outside the space station window? Cortana is just blue, snarky and forgettable. But the game is pretty good. Now, the gameplay itself is a bit of a problem. This was eventually turned into a console release, so as a shooter it isn't really that great, especially now on mouse and keyboard. The gameplay hasn't been resolved for this, it isn't snappy, you're not rewarded for having good aim much at all (consoles cheat for you like the ****), it's much easier with a controller. Backing away from that, the multiplayer I never enjoyed. There's not really much skill required, no precision, it ends up very rock paper scissors. It turned me off to the game way back when, I never played the singleplayer. Finally, we arrive at the source of the problems. Microsoft bought Bungie, released Halo: CE for Xbox, and it absolutely saved the Microsoft console division. I had other points, but I am going to wrap this up. This may have saved Xbox, but gaming is for the worse. Games really were dumbed down and stunted for consoles. The period of 2000 to like 2013, but especially the earlier half, games were disproportionately **** looking and closed in, simplified and worse. It affected the whole market, and in many ways. RTS games are gone, flight sims are only barely returning, rpgs are largely horrible, and on and on. So, I am enjoying the singleplayer, without nostalgia for it, but it is bitter sweet. Imagine Halo: CE released on PC. It might have, like every other Bungie hit, been released with a full, real editor. The most influential and modern shooter would have had mouse controls, a game editor, and top of the line graphics. I'm not saying today there wouldn't be **** DLC, or manipulative practices, or frustration mechanics designed to make you spend money, lootboxes, etc, that strain of horse **** in gaming, some of that comes from the MMO market, and so some of that is PC's fault. But we would be in a much better place. I can imagine downloading Halo user multiplayer map packs in 2001, or full custom campaigns, or haha, maybe even a Marathon total conversion. What could that have led to, that creativity, something so popular with those possibilities, a game that respected it's audience and wanted to see what they could make. We were robbed, and that will never again come to AAA gaming, not even a shade of how it was. If it doesn't make immediate profit for shareholders, then it isn't important. Bungie without Microsoft would have been truly something, and it is telling that every Halo game has been significantly worse, until here we are today. The later games are missing that magic and the weakest point of the original? If anything they have made the story and lore worse. Still, this one is a good game.

Lightsaber combat could have had more depth, but I still deeply love this game. NOTHING will ever come close to being as cool as completing singleplayer and then going to multiplayer with all the duelists. Loading up the young emperor Palpatine clone model mod I downloaded for the last game* and DESTROYING literally everyone who came at me, in a 32 players a server, while looking twice as cool anyone else. (*robed and disrobed versions! remember when games let you do this? Amazing.) I couldn't even believe it, I wasn't an accomplished duelist in the last game, JK2, but I distinctly remember thinking they were all 'reborn' to me... referring to the basic lightsaber enemy. The truth is, they were a lot easier! Something clicked with the double bladed saber for me, you could really mix it up with it, switching from super heavy combos and swings, to single bladed quick action. I was the big buck for a month before anyone was close to competition. Multiplayer was weird, but fun, at least up until everyone just started spamming the instakill double lightsaber spin. It basically created a sphere of one hit kill around them, no finesse at all, no controlling flip combos and spins into your enemy, trying to perfectly hit your enemy with the tip of the saber in their FACE, just press button for instant kill, ruined it when people figured out how do to that and everyone started it, four months after release. But being malicious to stormtroopers was pretty fun too. Loved the singleplayer. I would highly advise playing it for that, it can't be an expensive game now. This is from a time when LucasArts was royalty gaming and you could count on a Star Wars game. Now? lmbo, no. Even the movies are worse!

Having now beat the game, I can say this is really just a pale imitation of the first. Aping it with no skill or understanding. I don't want to particularly go into my reasons, so I will say that the Matthewmatosis "Dark Souls 2 Critique" youtube video really sums it up and coalesces my thoughts and raw feelings into something more tangible. Long, but worth the watch, even if you like the game. (mild optional boss spoilers) Some areas I must mention, that really stood out to me (well or stunk) were the -gauntlets- to the boss fights Ancient Dragon and Smelter Demon 2: This time he's Blue. Oh and Frigid Outskirts.. ugh. (mild optional boss spoilers) Anyway, there are some good ideas in this sequel, pretty areas, but a whole lot of bad, terrible ideas and retreads from the last game. A shame because I find the quality never quite dips to the rush job that the lord souls were in the first game, mostly, but is overall just weak. I did enjoy the game, I found some areas to be of good quality and I did like some of it.. just really, really hated the bad parts and poor design decisions w/r/t game systems, specifically the total souls level/multiplayer matchmaking I can recommend this, most of the truly horrible gauntlet sections are optional, the multiplayer is probably not a factor at this time.

I like it a lot. It could use a little more depth (I haven't tried to the expansion though), seems like mostly you just try to keep their weapons disabled and the AI is pretty basic. But I had a whole lot of fun with this. Though the randomness can really **** you over. I do not regret donating to this kickstarter.

It feels like the first game with way too much hanging off it, doing very little. Grinding camp stuff with no clear objective, little reward or reason, locks on equipment for no apparent reason, on and on. Too much 'busy work', grinding, barf. The controls are clumsy, especially on PC, and there seem to be arbitrary gameplay things (number of carcasses, pelts* held, etc) that to me reek of bleed over from a very controlled multiplayer income environment, designed to frustrate and fleece you. Sure, you need to maintain your guns, care for your horse, change your clothes, you can call this realism and sure, it 'sort of' is. It's also functionally a soft lock on how much cash you can earn online. There are many things like this, harder locks would be animal spawn rates, job timers, etc... I shouldn't have to go on about the online. It's a horrible disaster and it has affected the singleplayer significantly. I am 100 percent sure the game was built with online in mind, after all, which is the bigger money maker for them? It's a shame, because there's the potential for a good game here, but it has a Nisshin Maru worth of factory ship build up around it to process money from whales. If you want to read about gold bars and thousands of bugs, you can find plenty of articles and posts about what's wrong with the online. That isn't my problem, just the overlap. There's a steely, red eyed terminator under the flesh of RDR2, built from the ground up to encourage you to spend actual money and even punish you for not. Even if you never go online, it's still present. Never forget that and you'll see the subtly of the machine everywhere. But I guess if you like grinding for crap, without much direction, in an open world game, then you might enjoy it. To me however it just feels hollow. END. *Pelts, once dry, realistically can last as long as the final product if stored properly. For example, in 'The Revenant' and the 2015 movie, the fur trappers/hunters stored their pelts, burying them, marking the location. They might not have returned for months and months, this would not decrease the value of the hides. In RDR2, pelts decay over a day, which is insane. This is contrived grind, a bottle neck. There's no meaningful way to mitigate it.

I really enjoy this game and my friends do too. I was tickled pink to see this game on PS4 on a 70 inch screen (actually it blew my face off) and I remembered that I actually helped this project exist years ago! So it was off to reclaim the Kickstarter reward that I had totally forgotten about!. Well, at home it was a lot less intense on my monitor, and the crummy anti-aliasing grates on me a little, also a little boring and repetitive after a while (without taking turns, my friends at the edge of their seats, giant TV, and a couple bowls of reefer). But still a fun thing to hop onto for a few goes every day. No regrets.

I finally played this. It is somehow worse than what I expected. I know that is Blizzard's thing, take a genre and streamline it **** and give everything humanoid Chris Metzen style steroid gorilla build and massive shoulder pads. While the ladies might as well be a different species. At the same time a straight ripoff of Warhammer. But I figure, this game was so incredibly popular, and we might even know if it still was if Blizzard didn't hide the numbers are soon as they faltered. Hey but new friends are playing it, perhaps the game deserves the benefit of the doubt. Oh boy... Wouldn't it just make sense that Blizzard, taking the already gameplay bankrupt, skeevy, and monotonous MMO genre, would create something so completely basic, so utterly unchallenging, bafflingly bland and boring. I have no idea what is wrong with you people. This is becoming a theme in my life, but come on. I won't even speak anymore on gameplay. I shouldn't have to, why the f*** would I? It is absolutely a joke and condescendingly simple. I imagine you might eventually have, wow, hoo, an actual choice with regards to gear at some point, but up until then a child could figure this game out. Progression is one hundred percent linear, designed for SPEDs. Don't argue, because you're wrong. So then, the art design and overall graphical appearance is pretty much a blown up version of WC3's graphics. Even on the highest settings, in the year of our lord 2018, the textures are very low quality, many things are very cheaply done (flat, etc). I have honestly actually seen WC3 maps that ARE more visually stunning just emulating the over the shoulder cam in a sixteen year old, top down RTS game. And again, by the way, nothing unique. Wholesale robbed from Games Workshop. This is written history, Warcraft was going to be a Warhammer game, but the deal fell through. So they went ahead with just apparently changing the names, because you can't copyright goofy character design. This is baffling to me. All I can figure is that this is popular because of the accessibility of the gameplay, art and story. You don't have to try anywhere. And too, that somebody they knew was playing it. So a popularity contest for dumbells. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. This was not a new experience for 2004. In the late 90s to early 00's I played MUCH, MUCH more engaging MUDs. I can't even begin to describe the main three here without going on a massive tangent. Rest assured the text based games were a hundred percent more open, customizable and interesting than WoW. Why is this relevant? Because there's a direct lineage, in fact they are essentially the same, just lacking graphics and usually UI. Strip that away, WoW, EQ, any early MMO is just the generic MUD gameplay that any good game in that genre strived to get away from. Only you don't have to type your special attacks. In 2002 NWN was released and the persistent worlds there offered a much better "MMO" experience for free, ranging from an intimate 8 to 10 players, to fifty constantly and as many vying to join, and all of them ready to interact with you, people still play on these (god help them). Anyway, the most popular and influential MMO is a giant pile of ****.

the blandest game idiots online like. take the already bland gameplay of the first and retread the plot and characters, worse try to redeem the original villain, who was comic book evil. the same exact look and setting, likely stolen from the fallout series, and the same braindead writing, only this time, the protagonist is also braindead. this is the biggest pile of garbage, from a massively overhyped series and a true waste of time/money.

This is the effing game everyone liked in 2007? It looks like **** for the time, the textures are that xbox 360 low res crap and the gameplay is horrible. No wonder RPGs are all horrible now.

Melee Left 4 Dead without any of the nuance. But they added lootcrates! Oops, that means there's no subtle level balancing with regard to weapon dispersement. I knew this was a stinker when this game's version of a tank appeared, a big mouse. It was an absolute meat barrel of hitpoints, there was no finesse to dealing with it. Just tanking damage, can't dodge in the tiny area it spawned in, and no weaknesses beyond just slugging it out like an MMO fight. This is like you described Valve's masterpiece series to somebody and they really **** it up between the A and B. For god's sake, lootcrates. And yes, the levels and environments are all the samey. Just see what everyone else has to say about this that isn't a solid 10, they are mostly right.

This actually gets an eight from me, but I don't feel like reviewers treated it fairly. It isn't perfect, some maps are very imbalanced on some modes, there's cheaters and laggers. Missing too are expected quality of life features, like savable server filters, stuff like this. But for gameplay, besides the occasional cheaters and laggers, it is absolutely fine. A **** tactical shooter. This is the only game where I feel guns have the right stopping power and range if handled correctly, but not totally painfully simulationist crud. Realistic, but still a game. There's room for many different play-styles, I my self am successfully able to run and gun, but then, if need be switch fire modes and peck off a sniper, if he hasn't seen me first. So if you want a tactical FPS with smoke grenades and fire modes, but don't want to get repeatedly killed by aircraft, exploded by personal UAVs or somebody with a mortar, then this is for you. I imagine it is fairly easy to run on most computers, but it could use prettier graphics. I think this is my shooter of the year 2018, and I do not doubt it will be long before I'm regularly 3 k/pd.

Truth be told, this game actually gets a 3 from me, but I give it a 1 because Bethesda deserves that. Now, there's a lot of prettiness here, some excellent art design at points, and also modelling. Stuff just looks good! Now, does a lot of it make sense? Well, no. The Commonwealth looks closer to a particularly bad Earthquake than it does a living world 210 years after global nuclear apocalypse and also need I mention, TWO HUNDRED AND TEN YEARS. Brick and wood houses are still standing, bottles are still upright, skeletons are still boning it up and clothed, .. there's a lot of little problems like this. It seems, again, Bethesda's design really was thinking a world 5 or maybe 10 after the bomb, but wanted to have a time frame including the events of the first two Fallouts when designing Fallout 3. So this is a holdover The gameplay isn't really good. I do admit, I had some fun early on walking through the world conserving power armor energy, praying my next encounter would yield a fusion core. Popping out to snipe targets and stealth around, running back to the frame when I got caught. This worked, this was fun for a while. But then it just got too easy. By the time I had met the Brotherhood proper, I had 37 fusion cores, combat had gotten laughably easy despite me leveling non combat, social and settlement traits and having a charisma/int build. I couldn't find a single enemy worth cheesing or even cheating over and I know all the console commands. And I was still 21 levels from the goddamn jet pack. Oh and the writing was making it clear it wasn't going to get better on a storytelling or characterization front. I cannot believe how bad the main character is and how dumb and hysterical. Your lines are terrible. the dialog wheel choices are worse than Mass Effect, often don't matter or make no sense, and they rarely lead to different outcomes. This becomes extremely blatant if you get a "full dialog choice" mod and you can actually see what you'll say. Or more often they just railroad you into their outcome after a snide remark. I am tired of ranting so I am just going to say I cannot believe this is in the same family tree as Fallout 1 and 2. I am aghast. They were roleplaying games in the original sense. You could design a character, your character, and you had so many more ways to be it. Now what do we have? This is pretty much the same plot line as Fallout 3, only this time the guy with the beard and white lab coat is technically your son, but they still call him father. Man I don't even know the ethos and doctrine of the Institute, and I just did their questline.. aye yai yai. I know and understand the Master's points and maneuvers. I get Gizmo's philosophy even if i disagree with it. I understand the FO1 Brohood and sympathize with them, even if they are wrong. Even the Vault City and the Enclave from FO2 make sense, although they are evil. I wish I could get a refund, I wish I could summon back the world where Kirkbride and others did Bethesda's writing or better yet revive the real Black Isle Studios, people who knew how to make a goddamn game and did make the best of them

It is ok. The gameplay won't blow your socks off, the writing is a little.. internety. But it was pretty good for the price I got, it is pretty good for an indie 2d rpg with no graphics.

I already reviewed Skyrim. Basically it went something like.. this TES barely let's you effect the world in any meaningful but especially personal way, nothing about your character matters (besides annoying quips from guards), and the dungeons were mostly an improvement over Oblivion's five or ten layouts per theme, but enemy variation was pitiful and themselves all pretty dull (lol dragons and zombies). Aside from some legitimate complaints about bad writing, enormously nonsensical quests and bland setting choices, I also complained that the mod community hadn't quite stepped up to Oblivion/Fallout 3/New Vegas level of quality. I gave it a "5" for being half **** in my honest opinion (not yet somewhat salvageable with mods, a familiar tune). All these still stand. So this gets a fat effing zero for the possibility that garbage releases like this may cost me actual money. Oh I guess I would also add after having now played good games like Dark Souls and **** the combat system is very, very bad, magic is boring and usually weak when you use it, the setting is stock fantasy and I never completed this game because the quests were only getting worse.

From the standpoint of quests, choices/effects, and enemy variety, this is the least salvageable Bethesda Software open world game to date. I have legit not seen a quest line I consider even passable. The dungeons, while a fair improvement over Oblivion's couple strains of layouts, are mostly populated by the following: Bandits, more bandits, necromancers, Falmer, Falmer-to-dwarven-ruins, Dwarven ruins, and irrationally savage natives on the west side of the map. Bland. This game is in some ways so watered down that even the obvious racist factions do not care what race your character is. In many ways this game is unbelievably sterile. I think it is because they stopped letting Kirkbride be lead writer, artist, and designer. God knows it would have killed him to continue that amount of alcohol and drug abuse, but the setting is ever the blander for it. Anyway, in my honest opinion, the setting jumped the shark when the lore books started to directly contradict the setting, entirely to make an inoffensive, voice worked, familiar game. What do we have now? A setting more generic than the first EverQuest? Prove me wrong. Now this isn't fair to judge these games off the bat. They have always, at their best, been about user content. But we're lacking the 'big' mods, like Mart's Monster Mod, Obscuro's overhaul, Fransceso's, the Tamriel Rebuilt, etc and ever the poorer for it. So it has to be half a score. There is nothing insanely dense and creative, the writing has pooped itself, and the creators are pushing an MMO. Holy crap what a downturn. Imagine if the game series we had in 2002 had continued on with no sacrifices made to the gods of expedience or so your neighbors idiot kid would play it for more than an hour or two. The ending of the words is ALMSIVI, ****.

For me, this was the best of the franchise until BF1. It came at a time where console games were dumbing down most genres. We're better now, though rest in peace flight sims and RPG writing, and for some reason they are trying to make RTS titles into mobile games. Don't get me started on their mentally challenged mutant offspring MOBAs. This title didn't suffer from that. hile I feel like Titan mode and some other little things weren't polished or fantastic, I deeply enjoyed this one. There were some balancing issues.. one of the assault's last guns is hyper accurate and shoots mini-rockets to boot (pretty much never died to anything but the voss and that's why i remember the name). It was never a HUGE deal, but still irritating. You can still play it, but there's this thing about old games where only the worst servers survive, like roaches. Yeah it is pretty cool when the clan who runs the server has placed a bugged invulnerable squad spawner in your uncapturable HQ and is constantly vehicle stealing/shooting behind your lines hurr hurrr..

All in all, probably the best game I ever owned. PVP was good, if you had a functional team, and even co-op could be intense. There were also plenty of variant modes to keep you occupied. Modded servers were almost always awful, though.

I like the game, I really do. Fun and often challenging, but it has near-enough no story and less charm than the original Rayman title. Yes okay you can play like 20 different characters, but even Mario games can afford to give them different abilities, enough to change the gameplay. Now I haven't been with the Rayman franchise's evolution, but the open, exploration platformer that the first game was is nowhere to be seen, taking a faster, quicker and linear pace; even in the non-action levels. So the game is good but not quite exceptional. Fun but it has lost something important to me, over the years. Close but no cigar. But i'd smoke it.

Forced online, are you kidding me? I can't believe this is making the same mistakes and I can't believe this was released so unfinished. I just don't get it.

I haven't played this recent enough to really evoke what I was feeling then, but I will say I enjoyed it overall. It just got a little tiresome. I couldn't force myself to complete it. The story wasn't particularly good and my actions weren't having much of an effect. Too much console feel, ultimately linear, graphics were dated even for 2012, other things that don't come to me now, but a lot of the powers are kind of useless.. stuff like that. What I did like was it felt like Deus Ex (2000) meets Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. In a way, what I could have hoped for a spiritual sequel to their gameplay. So to end what is a rant, I did enjoy this game. It let me play like Thief, or a no-kill/sleep dart run of Deus Ex and reminded me of VTMBL. But it suffers from many problems

A disaster. This is unacceptable. Will Wright is a goddamn moron for thinking it is fine to releasing a game this unfinished, bad and buggy (in 2016, when I played it). Now, ignoring the creature creator, imagine five different types of games. Now imagine they were released on mobile by someone who liked all the worst parts of those games. Now imagine those five garbage games were ported to PC badly, then died and were Frankenstein's monstered together. This is Spore. It lives up to the name because it is worse than a mold. A goddamn moron, but well, he voted for Bush.

Not even close to a 90, there are many glaring problems with the gameplay, graphics, writing and setting, but this one is okay.. for a console game. Certainly not the sequel the 2000's series deserves.

Zelda, by way of Ubisoft. This feels like Farcry tried to be Zelda. It has a lot of the quirky Zelda things, it has the art design, it has the characters, but there's things that are deeply wrong. For starters, there's no dungeons. They've removed them, as far as I can tell and I'm like four hours in. No dungeon, in a Zelda game. Instead, what they've done is cut everything away from them, except puzzle room, and turn them into shrines. No bossfights, no thematic change to them, no new opportunities from finding new items or completing them. Every shrine is essentially the same and there's 42 of them, so far they have all ended the same way and only two have had me do anything more complex than a physics puzzle and that was just memorize their floors and teleport back to sort them. Also these two are on the way before you unlock the camera, so I had to go online and cheat the floor pattern, because I messed one of them up. Greaaat game design. Speaking of the slate, now instead of new items and abilities and everything that was to the Zelda experience, you are off the bat, within the first 20 to 40 minutes given: bombs, ice power, magnet power, stasis power and a ****. Five dungeons worth of equipment, hours of play, are given to you in the starting area. These are the last real utilities you will get. Instead now, you manage weapons, shields and bows, and food. They break, all the time. You will swing the early weapons, 3-4 times and they break. This is pretty irritating. You upgrade slots and HP by randomly finding leaf guys or following beeps to a shrine. Honestly I don't feel like going on and i feel I've made my point. This is the least Zelda-esque of all Zelda games, maybe even Spirit Tracks. This game is so beyond anemic. I will just drop some unsorted comments here. There's 120 to collect, but they just give you more stamina or health, what was always quite dramatically given to you after a boss fight, traditionally in Zelda. (I guess there's armor unlocked at the end, but who really cares.) There's NINE HUNDRED korok seeds, which just upgrade your inventory slots, which is useful since you'll go through a ton of weapons, greaaat. I've found about 4, randomly in the wilderness. And that's what this game is, everything just barfed out in one big world zone. The closest thing to this would be the gold skulltula's from Ocarina, but even those were often found together, along the way and later versions reduced the number of those considerably. It is pretty telling too, that all the story goes on in the past. The current world is open and generic, it feels brain dead and lacking. You'll fight the same enemies over and over for really no reward besides parts or their crummy weapons. It wants me to find 11 places from pictures Zelda left on her iPhone and after the first one, there's no hint as to where. I don't want to travel around and find them. That sounds like busy work, like most of the game. I don't want to go on, in this rant of a review or the game. This is a Zelda in the way Hyrule Warriors is, brand only. What this should have been is another big concept change, like Wind Waker. Or something as dense and foreboding as Majora's Mask, this time with a larger budget and not rushed. I haven't even mentioned the farce that is Amiibos in this game, and if I was to type it out, I'd probably want to sell my Nintendo Switch. It is that much of a joke. It is not only ineptly handled and impossible to find (people are making fake ones out of circuit stickers!), but DLC at the absolute, ABSOLUTE worst. This series used to be about completing dungeons and heroic tasks, and being rewarded with new tools in the world. Now you just upgrade your health or inventory space. It was based of the childish play Shigeru Miyamoto, wandering and pretending to be a hero. I think it is pretty clear he wasn't in charge of this, or involved at all. What we have here, is Zelda pretending to be Farcry. My Disappointment Is ****

An exceptional game that does retro-graphics right, everything is simple but beautiful, with interesting use of color and animation. The music is retro too and quite charming and there's plenty of it. I'm sure they were more hardware limited than I imagine, but if Cave Story is the best SNES game not on SNES, then Shovel Knight is the best NES game of 2015. This takes all the best gameplay features of platformers, metroidvanias, and even modern games (dark souls-like "money" loss and retrieval, etc) and makes a wonderful experience. And HELLO!? There's three freaking expansions to it. I am only maybe 2 3rds done with the first, but it has been very fun and very much different from the original gameplay, even if some levels are full on reprisals. There's also even more unlocks, attacks, double jumps, triple jumps, powers, gadgets... It can be difficult to make them work together at first, but once you do, Plague Knight is a bouncy, exploding, firey bat of hell. 9/10, not perfect for the levels being largely unchanged, though there is new content. This score may change as I finish the expansions.