Mera'din

Last year was a weirdly low count for me, having only completed 9 new games. I was imbedded in a handful of live service things and I have a decent number of games I've started but haven't completed due to lack of time and sheer volume of stuff releasing that I had to prioritize in some way. It also doesn't help that I played a lot of 100+ hour RPG type things, so I expect better numbers this year. Starting it off with one I was trying to finish before the end of the year, but missed the mark by a couple days due to work. Previous year list: 1.) Indiana Jones and the Great Circle I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. The trailers looked interesting and since it was on Game Pass, I decided to run with it after I finished the new Dragon Age game. It ended up being a really solid experience. It really feels like playing through an Indiana Jones movie, from punching Nazis to Troy Baker's absolutely uncanny voice work that had even the creative director didn't realize he wasn't listening to the sample audio of Harrison Ford when they were going through auditions. The writing, the story beats, all of it makes it feel like the sort of Indiana Jones sequel that people actually wanted. Even the side quests tied back to the main plot and didn't feel tacked on to waste time (though some of the collecting stuff did lean that way). The best way I've seen it described is that if you follow the main story path, it's like watching an Indiana Jones movie. If you do all the side quests with it, its like watching the Director's Cut of the same movie with all the deleted scenes worked back in. On the mechanics side, it was a solid experience as well. Stealth actually felt rewarding, and even if you were spotted it didn't instantly alert every enemy in the area. You could take an enemy out after seeing you before they could alert others in the area. Even if you didn't get to them in time, they'd shout and it would generally only alert enemies in the immediate vicinity. Wait too long, or if guns get involved, then you'd have a bigger mess on your hands though. The combat is a bit clunky, but as I got used to the mechanics for the fist fighting, I felt better about it. I rarely, if ever, used a gun as it seemed like the worst approach in most situations. The game was also much longer than I thought it would be. Part of why I picked it for my last game of the year is I figured it would be a quick 15-20 hour campaign sort of action-adventure game and though it maybe could have been (probably closer to 30 for me), getting sucked into all the side stuff turned it into a roughly 60-hour thing. Some of the areas are stronger than others (running around Vatican City, the first part of the game, being the highlight IMO), but all of them have some interesting things going on. The only thing that felt awkward there was it felt like they went out of their way to hit as many biomes as possible. XD Overall, this was a hell of an experience. It seems to be doing well too, which is good to hear. I'd be more than happy to play another one of these if this level of care and detail continues to be taken.

2.) Vampire Therapist The game was pretty well written and some of the characters were really interesting, but it became apparently pretty quickly that this... basically wasn't a game. The premise is you're a 200-something year old vampire who was turned during the old west and has recently arrived in Europe at the behest of a much older vampire because he wishes to become a therapist to help other vampires come to terms with their existence as he has managed to do. The older vampire has been experimenting with much the same thing himself and offers to train him. The game feels relatively educational and deals with real 'cognitive distortions' and how to spot them and you meet with a handful of clients and try to help them through their problems. The issue comes in to play in that if you pick the WRONG distortion, there's no negative effect for it. The ancient vampire is basically in the wings and uses his power to basically halt time and telepathically tell you that you done fucked up and you get to try again until you get it right. And that's it. For the whole game. The game goes on to add more distortions and has you pick the best ones for each session but this aspect never changes at which point you're basically just reading a literal visual novel. Even the end when it seems like there might finally be a consequence to not picking right, there isn't. It does the same thing. 😩 Unfortunate as, like I said, there are some interesting subplots going on in the game and the characters were fun. There's room for a sequel that could do something different as well, but it would have been a much more interesting game if it were... well... a game.

Animal Well and TUNIC both seemed interesting. Need to get them at some point when I knock down my backlog a bit.

8.) Dragon Age: The Veilguard I honestly really enjoyed this game. I was skeptical early on because some of the dialogue is... questionable, but the overall story was really good and I loved the companions and their personal stories. There were some great story beats and they really went above and beyond answering most of the lingering questions from previous games while setting up for some interesting stuff that could still come if/when they do another. Getting filled in on a lot of the deep backstory type stuff was something I wasn't expecting too so that was a hell of a lore dump. The combat was a lot more fun that I thought it would be from what I had seen/read before the game came out, and though there is more I wish they would have done with it, this ended up being a LOT better than I was worried it would be after Bioware's last couple games. Basically, as a fan of the series since its inception, I have to say that some of the stuff they missed on stood out pretty starkly and where they had to cut corners stood out quite a bit and you could almost feel where they pivoted on design or story elements part way through development, but the stuff they did right made up for that pretty soundly. I was really happy with it overall. 9.) Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory Visual novel w/ some RPG elements. It is a sequel to WtA: Heart of the Forest, and though it felt shorter than its predecessor, it was still pretty enjoyable. Not the best of its kind I've played by any stretch, and the ending felt really rushed and abrupt but it seems like it has decent replay value which is always nice. I think I liked the first one more overall, but I still enjoyed this one as well.

7.) Vampire: The Masquerade - Reckoning of New York 3rd in a series of visual novels that have been pretty good overall, if a bit light on choice. This particular entry exceeded the original, but doesn't quite compare to the 2nd one, I think. Really like the characters and the updated visuals in it but the story left a bit to be desired with the way it was set up. I still really enjoyed it, but was hoping for a bit more after the 2nd game.

6.) Werewolf: The Apocalypse - The Book of Hungry Names Bound and determined to at least hit 10 by the end of the year. >_o This is one of the 'interactive novel' style titles that has been getting put out for the World of Darkness games. Despite the simplistic appearance though they're mostly really great. This one especially is hands down the best one I've seen. Probably had to sink a solid 40 hours into it to get through it once, though I'm not the fastest reader. There's so much to it I think I'd be hard pressed to see everything in it even with multiple play throughs and the story was a lot of fun. Vampire: The Masquerade has always been my go-to with WoD stuff, but this one really made me appreciate Werewolf a lot more.

5.) Persona 3: Reload I'd watched the anime for this one previously but never played the original. I really enjoyed 4 and 5 so figured I'd give it a go. I only know a little about the original version, but as far as I can tell, they did a lot of upgrading to it to make it feel more like Persona 5. Overall it was a solid story and interesting characters and I had fun with it for the most part though it did feel like it was dragging on by the end, at least in part because there's too much shit coming out that I want to play and don't have NEARLY enough time for most of it (as is apparent by my abysmally low finished game count this year). Don't have a whole lot else to say about this one. I liked some of the character scenes, but I think I preferred the overall stories for 4 and 5 more.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice definitely felt like they had 2 movies that they decided to smash into 1. Like, it wasn't even a matter of them not having quite enough story for either. Those were two potentially full length movies that could have each been solid in their own right and they just went 'fuck it' and squished them both into one 2 hour movie. X_x

Went to the theatre a couple times this weekend. Saw Trap which was pretty solid. It was an interesting movie overall and Josh Hartnett did a hell of an acting job in it. Movie was better than I was expecting overall. Also saw Borderlands. The reviews are pretty much nailing it. It was not a great movie. Not even sure I'd call it a good movie. Most of the casting choices felt odd, the movie thought it was way funnier than it actually was, and the story felt awkward. I don't even know much about Borderlands and I could tell they royally fucked with things for what seemed like no particularly good reason. Whoever wrote this also felt like they had a passing familiarity with most of the characters, at best. I recall there were some hiccups with production that involved whoever was writing it originally having their name dropped off the credits, and reshoots being done a couple years after it actually wrapped filming by a different director, so I'm guessing all of that is related. XD I went in with pretty low expectations, so it didn't disappoint per se, but it certainly didn't feel like it was even trying to do more than that either.

Just watched it earlier. What a fantastic movie. So many little details and fun cameos (both character and actor-wise). I really hope Disney/Marvel were taking notes with how big it seems like this movie is going to be considering it appears to be smashing more than a few records with no signs of stopping. It managed to reference a lot of active MCU concepts without getting bogged down by them, and that's something they seem to need to relearn based on some of their more recent films.

I backed a Kickstarter for a bunch of minis for the Stormlight Archive book series and also want to paint some of the ones from the board games I have, but haven't had the confidence to really dig in yet. I got a big batch of them primed, but haven't managed to pull the trigger on actually starting the painting. I'll eventually have watched enough YouTube tutorials that I'll finally get fed up and dive in. XD

4.) Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth Kind of mixed feelings on this. I absolutely loved 90% of the game. The attention to detail and the way they adapted the original story were mostly fantastic and there was a lot of great content throughout. Having said that, similar to the first game, I'm really not a fan of how they did the ending. The took a concise and impactful moment from the original game and made it confusing and obtuse for the sake of spectacle and as much as it still had a decent emotional impact, it really felt like they missed the mark overall for no particular reason, and excised one of the most iconic scenes from the original version in the process. I assume we'll see the "real" scene play out in the final game as part of Cloud coming out of his fractured mental state, but it made everything feel off. This isn't fucking Kingdom Hearts, god damnit, stop trying to act like it is. This is also one of the few times I have no interest in trying to 100% the game or complete all the achievements. They went way too far overboard with the minigames. I enjoyed them all, but when it forces you to revisit them, often twice, it gets really tiring really fast. Plus the combat system is not so fun that I want to be forced to play through this shit on Hard Mode or fight some ultra difficult boss that's more frustrating than interesting. I'm too old for that shit at this point in my life.

3.) Still Wakes the Deep Have been waiting for this one since I've always liked the games that The Chinese Room has done. Was particularly interested in seeing how this one played though since it's a mostly new staff at the company now and wanted some frame of reference for how their other game, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, might turn out. Overall I was pretty impressed with the game. It was more "game" than their previous titles had been, with some simple stealth bits and such, but still very much felt like one of their games. Great atmosphere, solid story, well written dialogue and just all around enjoyable. They handled the horror genre pretty well. Playing it gave me some major The Thing vibes. Not a lot of surprises to the story, so it was pretty straight forward ultimately, but I enjoyed myself. The visuals were solid all around with some truly well done body horror bits. Sound design was where the game really stood out though. Even when there was no real danger in a given area, the sound design managed to keep the tension strong.

It seems interesting, but as much as I love H. Jon Benjamin, the voice over seems weird. I don't know if it's just because I'm so used to hearing him as specific characters already and it's just the same voice he's done for most of his "big" ones (Coach McGuirk is Archer is Bob Belcher, etc. ) but it felt off. Edit: Looking it up, it seems like he didn't narrate in the original release of the movie that was shown at film festivals. Skarsgard himself did it originally (and supposedly did it really well), but they've changed it for the big release of it for some reason. Might be part of why it seemed weird to me but hard to say without seeing both versions. Still interested in it though.

2.) God of War: Ragnarok - Valhalla Counting it as a separate thing because it certainly felt like it was. XD Anyway, for being free, this DLC was really fucking good. Not super long, but even after the credits roll, there's more story stuff to get if you want it. It's basically God of War turned into a mini-roguelite game that reminds me of Hades at times with how they handled story progress. The story built into it serves as a vehicle for Kratos to be forced to face and come to terms with his past and is handled really well, and in the process you're able to learn more about some of the side characters from the main game, such as some of the Valkyries. There's a bit of a surprise guest appearance too that was pretty fun and tied into Kratos facing his past. The whole thing was set up well enough I actually did a number of runs past the core story finishing to finish up some of the side stories and wrap up the trophies. Getting Kratos' classic look as an unlock was really cool too.

1.) Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Fuck that was fantastic. I had pretty high expectations going into that and was still impressed. Strong pacing and balance despite the open world sandbox aspect, side-quests and collectibles that didn't feel oppressive or chore-like to find (mostly because there wasn't too many and they generally felt like there was a purpose to them). Fun combat that felt like it had been improved upon nicely. Then there was the story. They packed SO much into that that I was not expecting it to get into, but it didn't feel rushed or awkward generally. A few things here and there that managed to catch me by surprise as well, with enough story threads left hanging that I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the next one since there are like half a dozen possible plots they could lean into or mix and match with how they left things. XD They outdid themselves with the outfits again too. Probably the ONLY thing that felt awkward for me was the number of resources they had you juggle to unlock stuff. Tech parts, RARE Tech Parts, City tokens, Hero tokens, etc. Felt a bit overwhelming and annoying at first, though things flowed and unlocked steadily enough just playing things as you came to them that it was only a minor gripe. I like that they kept the score/time/combat challenge type stuff to a minimum compared to the first game too, and what they did have didn't require you to get the highest score on all of them to unlock everything which was a relief.

15.) Alan Wake 2 I loved every second of this game. I came to Remedy's games pretty late since Max Payne wasn't something that stood out to me, and I always thought Alan Wake was a regular survival horror type game so never paid it much mind either. Quantum Break interested me when it came out, but the Xbox/Microsoft Store only shit had me avoid it. It wasn't until to Control that I finally got one of their games and played through it and it probably stands as one of my favorite games of all time still. With all the references in it to Alan Wake, I finally went back and played that and the little mini-sequel "American Nightmare" and ended up really enjoying them as well, so when this got announced I was pretty excited since it's a story I never thought they'd be able to finish, and having the FBC from Control factor into it as well helped despite it being more of a horror game than the first was. Gameplay is pretty much the same as what the first game had. Use a flashlight and a gun and shoot the bad things. The storytelling is on a whole other level though and is really what their games excel at, alongside really fun gameplay segments tied to music (which this game also has, though I still think the one in Control is the best one they've done). Ending was a little more open ended than I care for, but they just released a free New Game+ patch that has a new ending to it, so I'm going to play through again and see if that covers things a little better. Really close to the Platinum as well, so probably going to hit that during the 2nd time through. Definitely looking forward to whatever they do next already.

14.) (PSVR2) Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice This was pretty fun. Not the most polished VR game I've played, but was made by a relatively small studio. Very stealth heavy game that made me think of Dishonored a bit, just in VR. There are some fun upgrades throughout the game and it was fun looking for some of the collectibles. Had some really neat puzzle elements as well for a few of the levels. As a VtM fan, I found the story engaging and though it was a little simplistic, it still had some interesting twists to it. Game is still a bit buggy, but manageable with audio issues being the most prevalent for me, which was pretty annoying for a stealth game. Might go through again to do the optional challenges some stages have for not taking damage or not killing anyone, etc. and to find the rest of the collectibles and maybe go for the Platinum. The dev for this game has done another VR World of Darkness game (Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife), and though I couldn't play that one for long because of the shitty control setup on the old PSVR, it was still an interesting game that felt like they put a lot of thought into the world and this one definitely has that same care taken with it despite some of its shortcomings. It's not the best VR game I've played by any means, but I enjoyed myself the whole way through.

They've been throwing up a Dev Diary every couple weeks since the announcement talking about different aspects of the game, and just did a longer video interview type thing yesterday talking about the narrative and a little about game systems. I'm liking most of what I've seen so far, and the things I don't care for are far from deal breakers. Some of the main things revealed yesterday were that the main character goes by the name "Phyre", they've been in torpor for 100 years. You have some notoriety and legends about you that people are aware of and you can lean into that or skew peoples perceptions of you based on what they think they know. You woke up with your power suppressed presumably via a series of sigils branded into your body (probably via some Blood Sorcery or Thin-Blood Alchemy shenanigans) and are trying to find out what the hell is going on. To top it off, you have a constant companion in the voice in your head, belonging to a Thin-Blood named Fabian. It has not been revealed how you got stuck with him, but likely it relates to the aforementioned Shenanigans, or you ended up eating him when you were first woke up and you didn't completely absorb his soul. Or possibly both. You will be able to choose some background/origin stuff for the character, their clan, gender, and it seems like at least some stuff will be customizable for the character based on in-game and concept stuff shown. Outfits for sure though, and they mentioned that the outfit you where can affect how some people treat/talk to you. It sounds like they've cut back more on clans though. It will be 4 at launch now, with at least 2 added via DLC. It was mentioned that the 4 still in don't necessarily match up with everything that was there in the first iteration, so we could see something different than what's been done before which would be nice. Dev Diary #1: Introducing the company and giving some basic info on the game. https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/news/welcome-to-the-chinese-room Dev Diary #2: Narrative Atmosphere & Themes https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/news/narrative-atmosphere-and-themes Dev Diary #3: Neo Noir Art Style https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/news/neo-noir-art-style Narrative & RPG video interview:

Yeah, the combat gameplay is the biggest thing holding it back by far. It wouldn't even be BAD with a few adjustments, but still feels very anti-Final Fantasy in its execution. There were two better ways to do it, and FFXVI and VII Remake are excellent examples of them both that they could have looked at as you noted. You'd think the guy that is known for saving FFXIV would have had the wherewithal to keep party management, of all things, in mind. XD

13.) Final Fantasy XVI FINALLY got through this. Had abandoned it for a while due to Baldur's Gate 3 (which I'm still working on), but with Spider-man 2 and Alan Wake 2 imminent I decided to focus on it and get through. Overall I really enjoyed the game, there's a lot to love about it, but also a fair bit of stuff I found annoying. I know a lot of people liked the first half of the story, but I found it the least enjoyable part (though I didn't hate it). Just didn't have much of an FF feel a lot of the time. Felt more like Game of Thrones or Dragon Age narratively, which is fine I guess. Just wasn't expecting it. The last half really starts to take off and get into that weird Final Fantasy magic bullshit that I wanted to see. This game is a spectacle visually, and I loved every second of it. My main gripes come from a couple places. I hate a lot about the combat honestly. I don't mind an action RPG, but the fights (especially a lot of the mini-bosses and bosses) felt very rote. You just cycle through your abilities that are off cooldown and chip away at their HP and it was kind of boring until late in the game when the time spent in each fight was a lot more manageable with upgrades. Not being able to pick party members was all a huge drawback. Recruiting party members and choosing who to take with you is a big part of what makes RPGs fun and everything was preset in this when you were actually allowed to have anyone in the first place other than the dog. Even XV being a set party the whole game felt better than this because they were always there and it felt like they were actually part of the fight. The other characters in this game felt less necessary than Donald and Goofy in a Kingdom Hearts game. >_> My other main gripe was the accessories. Aside from the fact that their major accessibility "options" were tied to accessories, the other accessories available in the game were downright boring. Nearly everything was for one specific ability and just reduced the CD or increased the damage of that specific ability by x amount. At that point, it was more interesting to use the accessibility stuff because they actually felt like they meant something. The only other ones that felt worth using until end game were the ones that gave you more XP, Gil or ability points each fight. The main story was fun, batshit crazy FF shit, and the side quests had some really solid story to them even when they mostly amounted to fetch quests. They were interesting and well written and often gave you a lot of insight into the side characters. The combat had its moments despite its flaws, and the crazy Eikon fights, even though they were mostly QTEs, were a hell of a roller coaster. Voice acting was really solid most of the time too. However, there was a line near the end of the game while fighting the final boss, that I just don't think I can forgive. I had to pause and just let it sink in that they actually did this.

Really happy that this is back. After Secret War being pretty much a shit show, I was really hoping this was still going to hold the quality that it had previously, and so far it definitely looks like it does. I definitely missed this show.

OMG. That was him. Holy shit. ?

I enjoyed it, I just think they pushed too hard to fit certain things into the first season that it threw off a lot of stuff despite how well they handled many of the things they did. Casting was wonderful. I feel like they should have got an Asian actor for Vicious too, but ultimately I didn't dislike him as a choice by the end I just think there were probably better options. Faye was often hit and miss for me. Spike and Jet were perfect, and they did a great job with a lot of the other bad guys they used. I definitely had the same feeling of wanting to rewatch the original after. I actually did end up doing that once I finally got through the live action one. XD I wish they could have done another season, but at the same time I'm not bothered that they didn't mostly because of the bit at the end.

I'm tentatively looking forward to it, but what they show in the coming months will be a big part of it. The trailer doesn't really give us much to work with. What they have shown certainly looks better than what HSL had though in terms of actual in-engine stuff, so that much has improved at least. The story is something we'll have to see on, but at the very least I like the elder awakening from torpor starting point better than the Thin-Blood one, personally.