zekepliskin

If I was Whitelight and created a YouTube video essay, I would use the title “Returnal: Almost A Masterpiece" because damn, it's really really closeReturnal is one of the few games I have played on the PS5 that truly feels "next gen" even though it's technically just a very very good Soulslike Roguelike. Like any good member of that esteemed genre, Returnal rewards skill and punishes sloppiness. Movement feels really good and is very responsive, so just navigating the ever-changing biomes feels great, especially when you gain some proficiency with the combat system which can be incredibly deep and nuanced. There's plenty of variety thanks to upgrades and weapons, the shifting biomes keeps you on your toes as it makes the level design a little less linear and the entire production is highly polished overall. AI is mostly excellent and means no two fights with the same group of enemies is identical. Even melee combat, which is essentially just a one-strike lightsaber with a cooldown, shows some depth with a risk/reward element; yes it’s powerful especially if you take the Blade Enhancer perk, but misusing it can easily get your Selene killed. The game reveals it’s permanent upgrades really slowly and carefully, which inspires you to actually use them, rather than having a giant skills tree of boredom with some upgrades that are useless and others that completely break the game. The Soulslike design style is not just present in the gameplay but also the sparing use of story/lore. It makes you yearn for more, rather than being so inundated with story that you tire of it. For example, you're never really pushed to go into the 20ᵀᴴ Century House, you want to because you're intrigued about what happens next due to the mystery/thriller/horror elements so expertly woven into it. The shift into first-person for those is inspired too; makes it feel more personal to the player, I believe. The sound design and visuals are inspired, memorable, haunting, beautiful, sometimes chilling. The sense of atmosphere they impart is crucial to the immersion Returnal provides. It’s top-tier work on both fronts, with each weapon and biome having it’s own distinct personality. I have found some of the musical score plays on in my head hours after I’ve put the controller down; like the game itself it really gets under your **** plot is a mindbending mix of science fiction, science fantasy, thriller/horror elements, Groundhog Day time looping, Greek mythology in just about the most non-God of War way possible, an introspection into the afterlife and a general if mysterious study of how we handle and perceive death. If you want to go looking, if you pay attention to everything you’re presented with you might just about be able to decode it, although of course like any good story it leaves plenty of room for interpretation. However, it’s time to admit that Returnal is not perfect. Performance is a mostly solid 60FPS however some dips into the 30s-40s will occur when the game is streaming assets in for a new area which also happens to have dozens of enemies to engage. I only started to get these when I was rushing into new rooms having begun to master the gameplay mechanics. Returnal uses Unreal Engine 4 and Housemarque do show their mastery of it by minimising longstanding engine problems, which I’ll be honest means the rare times when the cracks start to show it makes me appreciate the many other times where it runs like a well-oiled machine. Some Selene builds can totally break the difficulty curve of the game. I’m okay with this because you, the player, have to learn the combinations that do it and then choose whether or not to use it. The fourth biome (Overgrown Ruins) is a bit ludicrous in terms of being able to farm the game’s persistent currency, Ether - one good run and you can usually max out at 30 or close to it. Later biomes betray the odd sign that they ran out of time to polish, such as plants spawning in midair or some of the semi-randomised level layouts getting a bit obtuse. — These minor “not quite a masterpiece” elements aside, it’s strong in so many areas we expect games to be that it’s more than forgivable. I played this close to game launch, too, and it was mostly stable before patches which is commendable in this “release now, patch later” era of gaming. There’s a bare minimum of fuss when you boot it up, it gets you into the game quickly so you can start blasting monstrous aliens right away. I love that. No MTX, no gambling mechanics, no update nags, no seasons passes. I believe Housemarque have created one of the best games I've experienced in about two decades. Highly recommended. One of the few reasons to own a PS5, that’s how great it is. I look forward to seeing if they capture some of the same magic with Saros.

Some good bits and innovations, but It's painfully overrated at this point. There are a lot of clever bits, sure. Do the tutorial and go explore the map, getting to the top of those often pretty challenging in a good way towers, unlock the map. Initially the variety of the shrines is engaging. Interactivity like being able to make your own shelter and fire from flint you found, scale any mountain you can see and have stamina for, prepare your own dishes. This sets a new standard for open-world games. The problem I found is, after a while it just gets repetitive and the flaws start to become obvious while the initial novelties of the gameplay mechanics start to wear thin. I did 30-50 hours on the Switch, put the game away and then never felt compelled to play it again. I got to the elephant Divine Beast, Ruta or whatever it was called, and was bored. I think what gets me the most is that basically all weapons other than the Master Sword break. No, you can't repair them. They all shatter. The Master Sword, while it doesn't have that problem, constantly needs recharging. I suppose if you own an iPhone you're used to that in the real world, but it doesn't make it acceptable in a game. Even if the weapons weren't constantly exploding, forcing you to kill the momentum of a battle by scrolling through your inventory looking for a suitable substitute, there isn't exactly a huge variety of enemies to dispatch with them. You'll see palette-swapped Hobgoblins or Bokoblins or whatever they're called all day long. Same old Guardians everywhere; when you learn the trick to destroying them that gets monotonous too. Lot of the bosses and mini-bosses get reused. I get it, animation is expensive, but I would have chosen a smaller map and more enemy variety, personally, spend the game budget there instead. You can tell it was designed for the dual-screen Wii U; there's a lot of legacy references to it left in. Nintendo spent too much money developing it to let it die on the Wii U, clearly, so they ported it here. Might explain the pretty poor DRS and frame rate issues; it's easy for the engine to get overstressed and start dropping those frames. The shrines, too, get overdone. Sometimes the biggest obstacle and most fun part is getting to them, only to find it's a rehashed Mini Guardian boss fight or some ever-so-slightly-different iteration of some puzzle that was only vaguely challenging the first time. Never seems like they get more complex or force you to think much, or combine the unlockable powers in interesting ways. The story is a bit thin, too. There's not much in the way of character development, or indeed many story-relevant characters at all. Zelda is somewhere between a cardboard cutout and a fairly standard warrior princess cliché; not much going on there. I'd like to say the music is memorable, but beyond reusing the standard Zelda themes and musical cues from older games I preferred (Link's Awakening, while pretty linear, was more fun than this is to me) I can't remember a note. I think I might have given the game a six or seven but the amount of praise heaped on BotW, I just don't get it, when people say "there isn't a thing wrong with it" and I can list a few things right away. A lot of the open world "innovation" is just stuff I thought you should always be able to do in games, and some that came before it had elements of those anyway, so I wasn't "blown away". Even reading through the most recent reviews it just reads like simping for the game while not even being able to articulate specific things they like about it before they hand it another easy 10. I wish it were better to me, I wish I was playing the same game everyone else was, but honestly it's a bit meh; certainly not terrible as there is stuff here to praise, but not the wondrous all-encompassing masterpiece some people seem to think it is. I personally think as hugely-praised and sometimes criticised for it open-world RPGs go, Skyrim and The Witcher 3 are the greater achievement. The Witcher 3 is dripping with fascinating characters, multi-part arcs, a nice balance of linear storytelling versus explore and find yourself. Stumbling onto quests and things in that game feels more organic, and I can tell you more about Zoltan and Triss from that one than I can about the lumps of unshaped clay that are the "characters" here. There's more world building, more lore. Actually the same is true about Skyrim, to an extent, and even though that's got a creaky old game engine powering it, was a more fascinating world too. I can't remember a lot about the questing I did in BotW, but I certainly remember things like the vampire DLC storylines, the thousand steps (and yes there are way less than a thousand) and Ebony Warrior character pretty well in that game. And you know the great thing? Both Skyrim and The Witcher 3 are also available on the Switch

Strike The Earth! Well well well, isn't this a distinctly brilliant love letter to 2D 8-bit retro platforming? There's humour, pop culture references, hidden things in the multiple paths through the levels, surprisingly varied gameplay within the format and a general brilliance and authenticity which starts as soon as the game does. Only the dual widescreen arrangement belies that we're dealing with a modern game rather than an old 80s one, really. Nods to Mega Man, Contra, Super Mario Bros. 3, Castlevania and many others can be seen clearly. These are influences rather than Shovel Knight being a pallid ripoff - it's much more than that. The difficulty is fairly well balanced, going from the easy opening levels to get you familiar with the controls and style before getting a little more punishing as you go through the campaign, demanding tighter timing and movement than before, not shy of throwing you a few potential death traps along the way. Fortunately you can buff up your stats throughout, increasing health, sharpening your shovel and improving your armor for speed or strength as needed. You can grind the first level if you need a few thousand more gold to push you over the point where you can afford that next upgrade, which is a touch I appreciated. I've played both 3DS and Wii U versions and must say as much as I like the 3DS one, since I have a modified Wii U and can play with a GameCube pad, which just feels that much more natural especially for this sort of game, I prefer this version. It's every good 2D platformer trope with almost no bad ones, what's not to like? Especially the music - through today's modern surround sound systems it sounds bigger and better than I remember almost any original period music doing. So what are you waiting for? Pick up thy shovel and Strike The Earth! 9/10

This game is superb. It's a lovely throwback to the old 8 bit platformers so common in the NES days, but with the improvements in graphics, sound design and save states that most games lacked back then. Is it difficult? Very. One touch of something sharp and Meat Boy or Gish or one of the other unlockable characters will explode into a puddle of coloured goo. But it's not fake difficulty - the control method is sharp and for this type of game it would have to be, it's a question of testing your twitch control skill and finding the quickest route through the levels. There's a timer for almost all levels (boss dashes excepted) and it actively encourages mini-speedruns. There's hidden warp zones, collectible bandages to unlock other characters - this is the very definition of a simple idea done incredibly well and in short bursts which can easily turn into long bursts it's a very satisfying game. 8/10

I couldn't have been more disappointed with this game. It's nothing we haven't seen and done before in the series. It coasts by on a series of recycled elements and poorly executed new ones. Remember how Hugo Strange and Joker would taunt Arkham City to break the will of the inmates, or Batman? Here Scarecrow combines those two things… badly. Remember how stealth was challenging but rewarding? Now skill has been taken out of the equation. The Batsuit is upgraded: the first time you use it you can speed takedown three armed thugs at once with no effort. Remember the clever Riddler puzzles? Now he's into underground death races – why? The first challenge you solve is pressing the circle button on the controller. The Riddler hostage missions have been swapped for the Firemen rescue missions so that's not particularly original or interesting either. I laughed at the contrivance of the Riddler creating a perfect Batmobile sized elevator for entrance to his death race track though! In previous games Batman would get on the Batphone just enough. Here, like a teenager, it seems he's never off the phone. He even gets into a conference calls! He relies on Oracle so much that I started to think he should use his "genius level intellect" to do his own detective work. Let's talk about the Batmobile. It's AWFUL. It handles appallingly and the controls are counter-intuitive to every driving game. The game forces it on you by having entrances only the Batmobile can open. There's a rooftop jump sequence that wants to be like Batman Begins, except it's clunky and frustrating because it's so hard to pilot. It feels like a cross between GTA IV and a tank/mech combat title which is not a nice mix. The game shills it on you by flashing up [L1] ENTER BATMOBILE at every opportunity yet if you weren't forced to use it you could get the job done just fine with Bats on foot. The game shills it on you again by having the criminals chat about how cool it is, how they'd joyride it. I read that the final third of the game relies upon it, and I have to say after an hour in the city and repeatedly trying the first Riddler challenge I never want to use it again. The tragedy is that the Batwing would work well in a city this big, but once again it's just drops plot items. The Batwing could have been fun. The Batmobile isn't. The new Batsuit makes ol' Bats tougher and faster despite being heavier. Lucius Fox technobabbles about how and why but it's irrelevant. The grapnel boost/gliding mechanic of Arkham City required finesse but was satisfying. Grapnel Boost Mk II requires no skill as it punts Bats so high into the air. Allied to the same old combat (now with a camera more likely to get in your way) it feels like there's no skill to it. Before, a few bullets could kill Batman easily so you had to be careful. Here you can blunder in and not worry - where's the fun in that? The thugs might as well have Nerf rockets coming out of their guns. Their AI isn't significantly better, either. What is better are the graphics: better lighting, sharper textures and more fluid animation. This doesn't mean much as the story and dialogue are so crummy - if you've played the others you'll notice how much is badly cookie-cuttered from them. You still get some framerate drops too. Like The Witcher 3 (a better game) the text is too small; game developers need to remember not everyone has a huge TV and perfect vision. Arkham Knight was built up a lot. It's one of the reasons I bought a PS4, that and for the new Deus Ex title. But it just feels tired. Apart from the Crapmobile nothing I've done is new, it's all just on a bigger scale. It's a blockbuster game which feels as formulaic as any Call Of Duty title, even with all of Gotham at your feet. Missions are: go to point A, beat thugs, stand there and press X to make Batman do a thing (rescue a hostage, pull off a control panel), go to point B, meet one of your allies, finish mission, do it all again. I'm in the minority being so critical. But Arkham City - close to perfect in so many respects - set such a high standard that it was always going to be tough to follow. Everything feels less polished here, graphics aside, as if Rocksteady were making it all things to all gamers but even with a huge team couldn't make the different styles and story twists work. Kevin Conroy's usually masterful voice acting as the Dark Knight sounds tired, hoarse and forced as the character is even more moody, broody and humourless than usual. In a way this mirrors the Nolan movies, in that it gets too dark and po-faced to be fun. I don't understand how this game is getting 80-100% reviews in respected magazines and on top rated websites. Chances are, I'm just wrong and this is a brilliant game. It just doesn't feel like it to me, sorry. In my opinion save your money and go play Arkham City again - or for the first time if you're lucky enough to not have played it yet, because it's fantastic.