Homefront was a game I was expecting to be terrible going in, I was expecting myself to play and dislike it as much as the campaigns to Battlefield Bad Company 2, Battlefield 4, Medal of Honor 2010, Medal of Honor Warfighter and Ace Combat Assault Horizon but surprisingly, I got some enjoyment out of it, sure the game is a CoD clone to the point if you put a screenshot side by side of this and a CoD game from that gen, you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference. Yes, games like Freedom Fighters are much more realized and better executed game with a similar premise. And yes, this game isn't going to win over the people who don't like these style of scripted military shooters but I'd say Homefront is an acceptable CoD clone than an insufferably bad one like the aforementioned games. I'd say it's a CoD clone on par with the James Bond games from the Activision era.

Two of the big reasons as to why is that for one, it checkpoints well, rarely if ever has moments where the scripting becomes so obvious that it breaks the illusion like say prison to ski lift shootout in Battlefield 4 or that building sniper section in Medal of Honor Warfighter and the game is pretty short and goes by quickly like a movie does. Another good thing it does, and this could be as a negative for some but the game tells you during it's more scripted sections who to kill and what precisely to do during them meaning there be less restarts because of ambiguity of not being able to tell what to do during scripted sections.

The gunplay is pretty similar to CoD especially the CoDs in the 7th gen, you got the two weapon limit, grenades that will rarely be used since all you fight are human infantry soldiers, lots of interchangeable hitscan weapons where reliable aiming is through ADS and the difference between them being the various attachments, but it does replicate CoD's combat decently enough, at least weapons have decent firing sounds and damage animations to enemies have decent feedback.

However one thing I do like is that using the sniper does not require you to hold your breath and you can fire away with it which makes it a weapon I want to use. I also like that weapons run out of ammo pretty often even on easy meaning I have to use guns enemies use from time to time which makes combat slightly more dynamic.

There are some cool moments like battling on the San Franciso bridge, escourting multiple trucks while riding a helicoptor(this never got as obnxious as the protect missions in Ace Combat Assault Horizon), and fighting through a store where the infamous white posphorous scene happens.

Some negatives is that easy mode doesn't make a difference since your player character's health is pretty low even on that difficulty. CoD's easy modes does at the very least give you more HP.

The story also isn't that good but at the same time, I'm more annoyed by the silent protagonist since the characters talk to him a lot and he never says a word. I find the concept to be wildely outdated especially in games where the story involves characters interacting with each other.

There was glitch where an NPC was supposed to open a door but it wouldn't causing me to restart the mission and then have it happen when getting to that part again.

Overall, for a game I was expecting to be completely garbage, I kind of liked it, is it something you should go out of your way to play? No but if you want something to beat in an afternoon or weekend, you could do worse than this.

This was a weird one, I played on PS3 a few years ago and I recall dropping it pretty quickly, I might've learned that the game was one of the PS3's most expensive games at the time or later, but that doesn't really matter since the game now has a Nintendo Switch remaster while getting a PC remaster beforehand, and after beating it? My thoughts are pretty much the same, I can see why myself from a few years ago did drop the game and the only reason I was able to get to the end at all was because it checkpoints well and for the combat, you restart exactly where you died from pressing the L, R, and A buttons at the same time, more on that later. Outside of that, I find the game to be painfully mediocre in almost every respect. I intially played it at all because some called it an "underrated" game while terms like that are nebulous at best, I still don't think it's a good game or a game deserving of that reputation.

The good thing about El Shaddai or at the very least is the visuals, it might be the only thing about the game that geniunely stands out. If you are one the seemingly many people who love to complain about 7th gen games being "brown", "grey" and having "ugly" color palletes, this might be a game from that gen to capture your interest since everything is vibrant, colorful and has a nice cel shaded look to it. The environments have a dreamlike design to them and some of the visuals are so bizarre yet awfully eerie. If you are the kind of guy who really wants a game to look very nice and care about that more so than the gameplay or love to go on and on about how a game looks visually then check the game out because now I transition to the negative and not so good things about El Shaddai.

Before I do that, I'll also say music and voice acting is passable enough if nothing standout.

I'll start with the combat, and it's interesting on paper, the game apparently uses a rock, paper, scissors system of enemies being weak certain weapons but the problem I noticed right away was even back when I first played is that enemies are massive damage sponges, they take forever to die and taking them down just takes way too long, and btw, I played on easy and this is still an issue.

Veil was by far the best weapon since it does the best job at staggering enemies and it has a dodge command that is somewhat reliable, it's esstentially the Nemen Cestus from God of War 3 in that it's a pair of magical boxing gloves and it allows the character to move like a boxer but due to the enemies being damage sponges, it never feels as awesome or empowering as GOW3's Cestus.

Arch and Gale never really feel that great and just feel weak, especially the latter, I just whailed on the attack button with Gale and it chips away at enemy HP very slowly and it felt like what was supposed to be a 5 minute fight went on for 10 minutes. Arch just feels like a typical sword with not much standing out from it.

The enemy roster is also pretty weak, outside of the fact that the game stops introducing new enemies after you get Veil, their only threat to the player is how hp spongey they are. I wonder if having the ability to switch between the 3 weapons could make the combat more dynamic and enjoyable but I'm not sure.

So with all these issues, what helped me get through the game? Well, it's the fact that during combat Enoch can't get a traditional game over, like I said before just press L, R, X and A and you can keep respawning without redoing any content, this also works on bosses. They are also HP sponges and some are required to lose in order to progress the story but it doesn't really matter since you can keep respawning with no consequences.

However there is one problem, you can keep respawning after death during combat but not during the platforming, and this leads me into my second big issue with El Shaddai is that the 3D platforming is really terrible. There is 2D platforming as well, and these parts are okay, if nothing special but it does make the game feel confused on what it tries to be since the 2D platforming can feel jarring compared to the 3D sections and they go away entirely over halfway into the game.

The 3D platforming is just awful, some of the worst 3D platforming I can even recall, there are late 90s 3D platformers that control better than this. The best way of describing it is that what if Devil May Cry 1, had more platforming? This is what you get, the camera doesn't do the greatest of job giving you an angle on where to jump and the jumping physics never feel precise, half the time if I want to make it to a platform, it's a 30-50 guessing game, sometimes I'll land and at other times I'll fall off if I nudge the analog stick a little too much, and the game doesn't just have you jump to platforms, no, you got to dodge traps and moving platforms as well and it takes what was already bad and makes it worse since these controls weren't even good for the 3D platforming in the game without hazards. The game does checkpoint mostly well to make this bearable all though before a combat section with some of them and getting back to the platforming section can be tedious since combat is long due to the aforementioned issues of enemies being damage sponges.

Old God of War also had 3D platforming with a follow cam but Kratos' jump arc actually feels like I can predict where I'm supposed to land and it doesn't feel like 30-50 guessing of whether or not Kratos will land on the platform or not.

Overall, El Shaddai could've been so okay, it's average but the platforming just makes me dread playing it. Remove these sections and it could've been just that.

Oh yeah, I beat Mortal Kombat 1 a week ago and in spite of the hate for it I've been seeing online, I do enjoy the game, it's not an amazing game but it's still pretty solid. The cameo system doesn't add much and the more I reflect on MK as a franchise and how people react to the series, I wonder what even makes a "good" MK game. It seems to be the Sonic the Hedgehog to Street Fighter's Mario. Won't be reviewing this one either, I'm not that great at making indepth thoughts on fighting games and only review them unless they do something unorthodox or different. Like Tekken's beat em up modes, Dragon Ball Fighter Z's campaign structure, or MK vs DC being the proto NRS game with it's story campaign. I'll probably review El Shaddai Ascention of the Metatron soon and maybe Homefront depending on how tolerable that game's campaign is. I know it's not going to be good. Gori's Cuddley Carnage will hopefully get me out of the mediocre games I've been playing post MK1

Oh yeah, I beat Mortal Kombat 1 a week ago and in spite of the hate for it I've been seeing online, I do enjoy the game, it's not an amazing game but it's still pretty solid. The cameo system doesn't add much and the more I reflect on MK as a franchise and how people react to the series, I wonder what even makes a "good" MK game. It seems to be the Sonic the Hedgehog to Street Fighter's Mario. Won't be reviewing this one either, I'm not that great at making indepth thoughts on fighting games and only review them unless they do something unorthodox or different. Like Tekken's beat em up modes, Dragon Ball Fighter Z's campaign structure, or MK vs DC being the proto NRS game with it's story campaign. I'll probably review El Shaddai Ascention of the Metatron soon and maybe Homefront depending on how tolerable that game's campaign is. I know it's not going to be good. Gori's Cuddley Carnage will hopefully get me out of the mediocre games I've been playing post MK1

I beat El Shaddai Ascension of the Metatron and Indika, the latter I just beat a couple of minutes ago. I don't think it will get a proper review either, it's a typical artsy indie game but it has Half Life 2 style physic puzzles and lots of walking and talking, I only played it because a mutual piqued my interest on it, there just isn't enough of an actual game in Indika to have me write a proper review, there's a reason I don't play these style of indies anymore. However it was a game mediocre enough to get to the end of. I certainly would rather play this than Tomba even if it is a super low bar. The length also played a big role too. If it was longer than 4 hours, I wouldn't even have finished it.

Unlike many, I tend to avoid calling games I got to the end to of all "bad" since games aren't like movies where they require a time sync. Any game I do however give a 5 is painfully mediocre and El Shaddai, the former game is that too more on that game later.

Medal of Honor 2010 - 5/10
Trepang2 Bladekisser - 7/10
Crow Country - 7/10
Super Mario RPG - 7/10
Naruto x Boruto Ninja Storm Connections - 5/10
Lego Star Wars Original Trilogy - 7/10
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - 8/10
Mayhem Brawler - 7/10
Timesplitters(2000) - 6/10
Tekken 4 - 6/10
007 Nightfire - 8/10
Helldivers 2 - 6/10
Ratchet and Clank Size Matters - 7/10

Worst Game: Medal of Honor 2010 and Naruto x Boruto

Best Game: Resident Evil Revelations 2 and 007 Nightfire

Pretty decent month, I managed to avoid dropping a game for almost 2 months when I dropped Burnout Dominator and F Zero GX back in June until I played the Tomba "remaster" recently and disliked the game so much that it broke the streak, it sucks but it was bound to happen. Not every game is a winner. I'm just surprised that I still don't even think Tomba is a good despite playing so many games later after the initial drop. With that said, I got varying degree of enjoyment from all the games I played minus the games I gave a 5 since I only beat them because they were sub par but were in a way that were short enough that I could get to the end at all.

I decided to play Size Matters again at all because it got added to the Playstation Premium Classics service and I heard the PSP version was better than the PS2 so it got me curious in playing the game again. I also have a soft spot for it since it was the first Ratchet game I ever played

As the game is, I wouldn't call the "bad game" so many hype it up as but it's not a great game either. It's pretty much middle of the road all though it's a middle of the road game that I had a moderate amount of enjoyment out of.

The best way of describing Size Matters is that it's an amalgamation of the 2002 game and it's sequels.

You have Ratchet being more self centered and dawning his 2002 look, you got the PDA, and you respawn with the amount of ammo and bolts you had before you died instead of at a checkpoint. It also has the nanotech health upgrades, the weapon upgrades, armour and strafe from 2 and 3. It almost feels like Ratchet and Clank 1.5 at times.

In the PS2 version what held the game back however is the awful camera, it zooms in too close and it jerks around too much when moving and when in tight spaces, and when too many enemies get on screen it becomes frustrating to dodge the attacks since enemies hit as hard. I'm not sure how difficulty in the older Ratchet games worked but it seems the more well you do the harder enemies hit and more ammo they take to die, if anything I'm glad this system was dropped in later games.

The PS5 version which is an emulated PSP version is interesting in that it comes with right stick movement and since the PS5 version lets you customize the controls through the emulator, it meant I can make Ratchet moved like he did in Deadlocked where left stick lets you strafe left and right. It's the way to play the game for me. The auto aim and by extension camera isn't that great since the autoaim follows the enemies and the camera moves along with him on top of being spazzy in tight spaces and with many enemies. So the PS5 version somewhat fixes a prominent issue but at the same time not really.

The mandatory races especially the first while have David Bergeard's awesome music, controls really awkwardly especially with how movement with the analog stick works. Boosting will send you flying upwards instead of on the race track. There's only 2 mandatory races which is fine.

The aforementioned difficulty can be an issue since enemies get so spongey by late game that that I just used the shield, rocket launcher and PDA combo to get past everything. This is towards the end of the game but things just got so unbearably difficult that I stopped using the other weapons. I do disagree with the common sentiment that enemies don't react to getting shot because they do, but they just take so many shots from non rocket launcher weapons that it isn't worth the effort. That and bosses are also spongey and some weapons just won't be able to effectively do damage so PDA spamming becomes prominent after a point.

However the biggest issue with Size Matters is that the game just feels the same game as the console Ratchets, it doesn't offer much you can't find from the PS2, PS3, PS4 and PS5 games. The game's selling point at the time might've been that it was, "Ratchet and Clank on the go" but when playing it on a console, the novelty wears offs. Games like Daxter offered more platforming than the Jak sequels did and the God of War PSP games offered a remaped controls like pressing L and R to dodge and magic shortcuts. Ratchet Size Matters on the other hand doesn't have much you can't find in other games in the series even the PS3 spin offs like Full Frontal Assault and All 4 One have more of an indentity.

There is some good with Size Matters with all this said, the story and character interactions are moderately entertaining and it got some laughs out of me, the game seemingly is an interquel between the first game or and any of the PS2 sequels despite apparently not being that.

The setpieces while cumbersome and possibly frustrating on the PSP analog nub are pretty decent and have more going on than the games Uncharted games do since you can't just hold forward while cool stuff is happening around you.

While it doesn't do anything out of the ordinary for the series the attempt at emulating the series is solid enough. The game really is carried by how much of a series fan I am and how this game was the very first I played.

Overall, I like Size Matters slighty more than I did when I replayed it 2 years ago but rewind and custom controls played a big role in this. I still wouldn't call this game "bad" in a million years since I played worse games but at the same time, its a fun game all though I'm biased towards the series which is another reason. I'm still bummed there won't be another game for years and Insomniac is the "Marvel Studio" now but that is a topic for a different time.

Helldivers 2 is a weird one, I've been a Sony first party games fan for a while and one thing I've always seen is that every time they would attempt a multiplayer game whether it would be only that or have a single player, they would never get the audience that they were looking for and never really broke out to mainstream success. They would have cult followings but never become mainstream. Enter Helldivers 2, the first game I ever recall where Sony published a multiplayer game that is apart of the Playstation brand where it broke out into the big leagues, I've seen people cosplay as Helldivers 2 characters at conventions and that was the final nudge to make me play this game. I had PS Plus for one month so I might as well jump in even though I still can't help but hold a grudge at the Xbox 360 for popularizing online paywalls for console multiplayer. That was a big hurdle to get past to play this game since PS Plus I didn't have much use for outside of the occasional sale.

With all that out of the way, what did I think? I wanted to like this game, I really do but despite having a lot going for it, the game to me is just okay at best.

What I liked about Helldivers 2 is the gunplay and weapon feedback. Weapons have decent punch and killing hordes of enemies felt gratifying to do. I like the look and designs of the game even if it can be derivative of franchises like Starship Troopers and Halo, everything in terms of moment to moment shooting and the aesthestics, the game nails. I also like that it even uses Metal Gear Solid 5's movement system like being able to crouch, go prone, dive, dive into prone, and shoot while knocked down, the fact that there is even a game that uses that uses MGS5's moveset in the context of a third person shooter is pretty cool. It was another thing that piqued my interest regarding the game.

However there is one thing that held the game back for me and that is the fact that it's a multiplayer live service game without a traditional campaign. I know me being the introverted gamer that I am I was better off playing a dedicated single player game but I'd argue that even games like the Sqaure Enix Avengers game did try to have a single player, it wasn't very good, but it could've been implemented to some degree with this game.

As it is without one, I just play with random people randomly through matchmaking and while I do get some fun out of it, I just get bored after extended hours since there is no story or campaign mode. I'm not the kind of guy to condemn a game for having a bad story but I tend to like games even gameplay driven ones to have some narrative.

So much of Helldivers 2 mainly just consists of doing of objectives on a map where it's "do x" or "destroy y" while fighting hordes of enemies and then waiting for a chopper extraction when done. It starts to get so one note and samey, maybe this is what live service games are all about, I don't know, I only ever played the aforementioned Avengers game when it comes to those kinds of titles.

The more I was playing Helldivers 2, the more I felt like playing 2 hours of the game felt like I have seen everything. Leveling up takes far too long if playing on medium difficulty or below which is worse for me since anything higher than medium doesn't even make me an effective helping gun or meat shield since I die so quickly.

Overall, I wanted to really enjoy Helldivers 2 for how popular it is and for being the first multiplayer Sony 1st party game with mainstream success but live service games really aren't my thing. Maybe if they ever add a campaign I could try to play it again which is doubtful, but as it stands, I certainly won't be touching live service titles, and at the same time since I won't be, it means I won't be one of those guys on the internet who whines about all the time knowing that those games aren't aimed at them and aren't their thing.

I tried playing this game on PS4 years back but I remember the lack of mission checkpoints annoying the shit out of me. It did seem to be one of Rockstar's better attempts at open world games even though I gave up after a point. I might revisit this game through emulation or something but eh, Rockstar was never really that great of a development studio even back in their "good" days.

Out of all the James Bond games I have played, this surprisingly has to be the best one, I wouldn't call the game an amazing game in its own right but out of all the 007 games I played, this was one was the most self aware about everything. It has it's own story and has better production values than Goldeneye does, it controls better than Agent Under Fire if you pick the "Nightfire" control options and the game just knows that it's style of combat whether it's just you fighting hitscan enemies with hitscan weapons doesn't make for combat that is super compelling so the game has constant mix ups.

You got missions like the exchange where it's decently open(all though this is early 00s awkward stealth mechanics so you aren't given enough information regarding guard awareness), several car driving sections examples being including one where you are in submarine like underwater level and then having Twisted Metal like car combat sections, a plane section where you are shooting things down from an aircraft, a stealth mission where you need to sneak into a building and install viruses(luckily you got a tranq pistol this time), sniping sections as well as one where you need to kill snipers while moving across a vast power plant of sorts, a level in an undeground complex where you need to avoid rocket burners during one of the sections and a level up in space.

007 Nightfire's campaign, very much feels like the over the top action film franchise that inspired it, no mission goes on for too long and nothing drags on for far too long to the point where the game ever gets dull. Everything about Nightfire just feels like the devs wanted to make an over the top action movie and they've done a solid job. They also know that the combat of, "point hitscan gun at enemy and shoot them" isn't compelling so they knew to spice things up. Out of all the Bond games I played Nightfire is the most self aware of this.

The story is just dumb over the top spy movie fare, all the parts where the women where fawning over Bond just made me laugh more often than not and over the top finale in space just felt like the devs wanted to ramp it up a notch.

The only major compliants I have with the game besides the stealth mechanics is that enemies don't react to getting shot which is something I would consider a game design sin but easy mode rectifies this and have enemies die pretty quickly. Also easy mode gives you more hints regarding gadgets so it feels like the mode first time players should play on. I remember not knowing how stuff like the Q Laser works or the grapple hook when playing on the supposed "normal" difficulty. Final issue is that the game does suffer from a problem many games from this era had where you would often have 5-6 minute levels bookended by loading screens and have sectioned off levels during the overall mission, for me constant loading screens after a few minutes of play can take me out of it, might not be so much of an issue with others.

Overall, Nightfire was a great time, it's weird how this was the Bond game I played in this "binge" of sorts and I ended up liking this one the best. If you are like me and where you mainly get mild enjoyment from games where you fight human enemies with hitscan weapons, you might have a good time with this one.

Decided to play some more Tekken games and I always heard this one of the weaker entries in the series. With that said, I both enjoy while also dislike this game.

If I talk about the fighting game side of Tekken 4, the game is decent from a casual player's point of view. The only thing that really stands out the fighting stages having "walls". Admittedly this didn't bother me that much outside of getting some amusement of doing the sqaure and cross grab and pushing opponents into a wall and then chaining punches that would lead to wall bounces and getting free hits in all though this got harder to do furthur into the arcade story mode which I did for Kazuya and Jin since they are the only characters that really matter in the Tekken story, I would do Heihachi but that requires me to beat the game more and I don't have time or patience for that.

Other than than that, I looked up the movelist a few times and tried to understand the movelists for Jin and Kazuya more. The normal mode cpu difficulty is MUCH easier than Tekken 5's and it feels like something less experienced players like myself can handle.

I'm not a hardcore Tekken player but T4's fighting is "okay". Not as good as some of the later games like 5 and 8 due to the walls and some control changes but it's "fine". The music is also solid with authentic sky being one of the most memorable tracks in the series.

However what does really suck about the game is the Tekken Force mode, I always heard from some that this mode was "good" but honestly, from what I played of this and the version of it in T8, I never really got that sentiment.

Everything about this mode is pretty awful, it makes Devil Within from 5 look like masterpiece.

Some of the issues are the controls and camera, the best way of describing this mode is that Namco used the 3D movement in the one on one fighting and turned into a beat em up where you fight hordes of enemies. The problem is, the camera isn't that great, not really giving you a good view of the action and where the characters are supposed to be moving since it feels like a proto 3D over the shoulder camera but the D pad movement can often get in the way of you wanting to pick up healing and powerup items and trying to be precise on where to move.

It doesn't just end there either, enemies are damage sponges and block attacks way too much. I try to grab to break the blocks, a tactic you do in the one on one fights, but it would lead to enemies getting free hits in. That and it's basically just one on one fights with hordes of enemies, there isn't any crowd control attacks and many fights consist of you widdling down the health of one enemy and the worst parts are is that your health can be drained pretty quickly by one enemy alone and there are no checkpoints in the levels making this mode more of a mess. I wouldn't even mind the lack of checkpoints if the stages didn't drag on and on but they do, I'm done one really tough enemy wave and more enemies pop up.

There also isn't a dodge button either outside of using the 3D movement in one on one fights during horde battles.

I just gave up on the 3rd level and just let the game be with me beating Kazuya and Jin's arcade mode routes.

Overall, Tekken 4 is "okay" for the fighting side of it but the Tekken Force mode is just awful. I never thought I would think Devil Within from 5 would be better and somewhat retroactively appreciate it but I do.

I played TS2 and 3 and the reason why I'm playing this game at all is because it recently came to PS Premium Classics and now that it's on there, I decided to give it a look.

Outside of the camera control being inverted which I fixed in the PS5's emulation menu, I barely had an issues with the controls other than the fact that you can't open doors which is weird since I'm so used to FPS games giving you the ability to do it, I got lost on the first level because I thought you could open doors but you can't.

Other than that, the game is "fine". One thing I find fascinating about it is that the game feels like a "speedrun" shooter of sorts where you have to memorize enemy locations and know exactly where many of them are mitigate damage, the lack of a story and the fact that all of the levels can be beaten under 5 minute drives home this fact. There are also no checkpoints and that is probably there to counteract that you can beat the game in under an hour all though there is save states and rewind on PS5 to tone down potential frustration.

Sound design and damage animations are great especially for a game with a less realistic art style. Weapons have great firing sounds and damage animations feel decently exaggerated. The music is also really good and gets me immersed into the levels.

However there are issues like how enemies can kill you very quickly if you don't know the exact positions on where they are going to hit you and chances are if you were playing this on base PS2 hardware, many of your deaths came from getting attacked from random places not knowing where the enemies hit you. This goes triple for the Mansion level where melee enemies and firearm enemies can rip your health to shreds in seconds if you don't where exactly they are going to spawn and attack you from. That and the zombies can be very tedious to dispatch since you have to rely on the game's clunky manual aiming mechanic to dismember their heads or else they just keep coming back no matter how much ammo you pour into them. There is moments where you have to use precision aim on the sniper but easy mode meant that I could use it less since I can take more damage.

Levels also play out the same way, where you get an item and get to a specific part of the map, then it ends, I thought they were going to do what TS2 did where more objectives get added on higher difficulties but only the Mansion did this. Which was disappointing. The level design like the Planet X and Mansion can be a little confusing at time but if you have played games like this where they aren't linear and don't overly hold your hand, navigating them should be fine.

Overall, I might be a little too kind towards TS1 due to the PS5 version of the game, but the game is worth playing especially when going through the series for the first time. It's easy to get done on easy mode in an hour and for Free Radical's first game on PS2 and a first in a series of games, you could do worse than this.

This actually encapsulates how my brothers and I are towards these franchises- those of us who have played Legend of Zelda have been playing every game since 2006, and if you play Pokémon you were probably playing it in 2003. For us it seems that the nostalgic attachment really improves the patience you have with these series that are 20-30+ years old and not substantially improving.

Yup, at the end of the day, what you grow up with is what's going to determine your prefrences. Sure it's possible to get into certain games and genres when you are older but what you play at a young age determines you want out of media most of the time. For example, if you grow up with games that don't guide you that much, you will hate the hand holding of modern games but if you grew up with modern games, you might hate the lack of hand holding.

As a Zelda fun I have to say... Fair enough xD

I have to say I'm not sure what exactly pulled me into the series in the first place. Probably because the setting?? The inhabitants of Hyrule? Maybe Link from OoT, I remember being a kid and loving my wooden sword and the toy bow and arrow. Anyway, even if I inow each game has its faults, something they do (or a combination of all they do) just... Works for me. Except Zelda II, I can't for the life of me finish that one.

Now, for games that are popular and can't for the life of me get into... The Witcher III (is it the muted colors?? The higher fidelity?? How muddy it looks on the PS4?) is a game I tried and I just can't like. Also Genshin Impact. I do not enjoy it being a gacha game as a service at all. I like the characters, sure. But the amount of grinding you have to do, plus having a daily limit, plus the gacha making no sense story wise... Yeah, pass. I think BotW has a simplicity plus an art style I enjoy that the two aforementioned games lack. No levels, I can grind for materials if I want, or just get better at combat, or avoid it as much as possible.

Oh also. Persona 5. I've ranted ad nauseum about everything I dislike about it. But yeah, fuck it. It might be stylish, but the story and characters (specially the characters) just ain't it for me. I do enjoy Persona 4 though.

Zelda has that whole vibe that the Kingdom Hearts series does where it felt like I would enjoy it more if I grew up with the franchise all though it gets this vibe from me for different reasons.

Funnily enough I also don't like Witcher 3 but I do think Cyberpunk 2077 has pretty solid gameplay and the fact that it's shorter also helps too.

I want to play Persona 5 one of these days but apparently from what I heard, the first 10 hours is basically a tutorial.

I played Resident Evil Revelations 2 twice over the years, the first time I recall liking it, the 2nd time I liked it less but now on a 3rd playthrough, Rev 2 might actually be one of my favorite games in the series. I played this for a 3rd time at all because Lambhoot made a video praising Rev 2 and called it the "Resident Evil game they keep remaking". He showered the game with praise and also said it was better than the recent Resident Evil 4 remake which is a game I really like. I also liked that he actually enjoys action RE besides RE4 so I decided to play Rev 2 a 3rd time.

First impressions were admittedly awful especially playing Episode 1 and 2 with Claire. I was constantly low on ammo and at times any at all to out enemies at all, the stealth hardly if ever worked properly, the game just overwhelmed me with numerous enemies waves while being underpowered for almost every encounter. The game would introduce stuff like gunk and bleeding that would cover up the screen adding extra steps to getting hit by enemies, and worst of all the dodge command needed to be upgraded in order to be anywhere close to be useful. I was getting frustrated and annoyed. The episode 2 mini boss fight that bookended Claire's section was enough to drive me into a rage with how you needed to deal with a mini boss, while enemies are attacking very little ammo was given.

What carried Episode 1 and 2 were the Barry Burton sections since stealth actually worked as intended, I actually had enough ammo to take on the enemy waves and I loved how it homaged Resident Evil 2 1998 where you would revisit previous levels you visited as Claire but now played out in a different way when you played as Barry and Natalia. On top of that, Barry's enemies were more interesting since with Revenants you need to worry about damaging them in the body and then have their weak spot pop and then you can kill it.

Gasps are an enemy that is going to be divisive among people since they can kill you with a single hit on full health but I found these sections to be tense I would often have to really be careful on where my shots would land while they are slowly getting close, and to counter act the one hit kill, these enemies go down in a few hits so it felt balanced to me.

Then Episode 3 happened, and the game starts consistently getting good. The Claire section in Episode 3 has an interesting enough balance of traps and enemies to keep you on your toes and my personal favorite design, the zombies you kill have a chance of turning into exploding monsters so I always had to watch out, the ammo distrubution started to get more consistent as Claire too. It makes fighting the Executioners and Vuclanbubblers more tolerable. The only big issue with the Claire section is that the Neil Fisher boss is a damage sponge and once you figure to use Moria's flashlight during the fight, he isn't so much challenging as does take forever to go down.

Then as Barry in Episode 3, I discovered you can just have bandages and disinfects be carried by your partner making this part of the aspect of the game more tolerable.

Slowly more aspects of Rev 2 I started to appreciate. Like it had the most refined movement in action RE. You can move while shooting, no tank controls of RE 2005, knife is a dedicated button, the inventory isn't awful like RE5 and 6, you have an actual dodge command that is useful when upgraded. My only big gripe is that killing enemies while they are down requires your partner instead of something the character with a gun can use.

Barry's section, I also like as down time where you fight zombies that are easy but it's more about finding where to go and solving puzzles to get Natalia across like the bridge and sewer sections.

A massive part of me was losing his mind towards the RE1 mansion homage towards the end of the game. While this mansion isn't as complex as the Spencer Mansion, it was a nice way to change up the game and a decent attempt at fan service since you are playing as Barry. The part where you had to navigate a poisonous gas mine was decent enough since you had to be careful on how long you can explore the level before you slowly reach a game over state, it helps counteract the fact that you lots upon lots of ammo in this part. I know I complained about a lack of ammo but later parts of the game showers you with it.

One major gripe I have with the game is that around Episode 4, the game starts to get a lot easier, the only geniunely challenging part is when there is collapsing building as Claire and you have to deal with gasps without Natalia. There were many cheap deaths since I would run into them since the level is playing out like a scripted set piece.

Alex Wesker's final boss is a pushover since I was rolling in ammo and herbs by that point. The sniping section was decent if one note.

Overall, Rev 2 is a really good game and gets consistently good once Episode 1 and 2 as Claire is over. This was a well made action RE game.

This game was a weird one, I only randomly heard of it through 13AM Games' Twitter promoting with a sale bundle for Dawn of the Monsters on PC and I already played DoM but this game looked peculiar. I saw it on a PSN sale and bought it.

There isn't too much to say on the game that it a solid 2D beat em up. If you played Streets of Rage 4, you'll certainly be familar enough with this game, all though Mayhem Brawler has some improvements I like for example the special move mapped to triangle has to be replenished instead of being a heavy attack connected to the health bar like SoR4. The controls are somewhat similar like double tapping the left and right d pad to sprint all though you can time weapon throws like in SoR4.

Other than that, it's traditional 2D beat em up fare. It's polished and the easy mode is accessible enough for me to want to play through it to the end. I'm also annoyed yet again that this game didn't do what the aforementioned Dawn of the Monsters did and have a dedicated dodge button. This is something that always annoyed me about 2D beat em ups in that avoiding attacks often feels like a game of chance and hoping I moved I pressed the d pad fast enough in time to get out of the enemy's line of sight and plane to get out of the way before the attack hits me. There is block button but I'm more of a dodging kind of guy in beat em ups since blocking requires patience and dodging it something I would rather instictively do. One strategy I did rely on was using weapons and regular combat on enemies and then using special attacks to interrupt an enemy combo before they even landed a blow on me or occasionally break out of grabs since many enemies grab you in this game, have scripted grab moves and you can't break out unless if you seemingly have special lined up.

The action is fast paced, polished and hectic enough to be entertaining. Doing some combos, then using special attacks, using weapons, throwing objects, none of this is anything that hasn't been done before but it's executed and polished well enough to make the game's 1 hour run time breeze by. I also like that you get more lives the more points you rack up making the game more fair. I only died on the last level on easy. There is some replayablity depending on what level order you take but I never cared for this stuff and would just prefer a structured linear campaign where it's just level by level instead of giving me a choice, I never cared for "replayablity" in spite of this game trying to have it.

However one major negative is the writing. The comic book asthetic, theming motifs is pretty cool and it's basically a game where you fight as a police force who are superheroes. There's even an X-Men Days of Future Past homage with one of it's comic book covers but what makes it really bad is how dated everything is. It already refrences social media sites like Twitter and I really don't want to be reminded of social media while playing games and the "hashtags" just feels like the game is trying to hip and modern. There's even Tweet thread next to the comic panel cutscenes which makes it hard to pay attention to cutscenes since there is extra information the game is trying to feed.

A lot of the characters try to sound "hip" especially the telekentic girl in a modern 2010s kind of way and it all it did was just make me groan because it's not funny now and it won't be funny 20 years later. Other than the refrence to "social justice warriors" which really made me zone out, I eventually just started to stop trying to pay attention to the writing and story. Luckily the cutscenes don't last that long which helps.

Overall, solid 2D beat em up, not going to be anything you haven't played before but it mostly plays well and is polished enough to fun for the 1 hour you can beat the game in. I was expecting myself not to like this game at all since I'm not a big 2D beat em up guy but I had a good time.

This was a weird game for me to play. I only tried it out at all because it was one of the games that got added to the Playstation Premium Classics catalogue and I was kind of watching some of the older Star Wars movies and decided to play this.

It's a pretty enjoyable game, this is of course typical Lego game fare where you need to be familar with the source material the lego game is based on to understand anything that is going on in this game but I already knew that going in.

One thing I will commend the game for is that the PS5 version on Premium Classics is based on the PSP version and the PSP version is a decently made game, it has the cutscenes, decent visuals fiedlity and a solid framerate for what is basically a console game on portable. Since Lego games use a follow cam you don't need camera control on the right stick.

Other than that, the game mainly just consist of your usual lego game fare, there's so many of these games but essentially what the game boils down to is that they are escort missions with multiple characters and the name of the game is to escort all of the characters you play as across the level by switching between characters to use each of their abilities to solve puzzles to get past a certain part of the level. There is combat and it's pretty basic, I'm not sure if this is in the other versions of the game, but the hit detection for lightsabers feels off and if I'm not using jump attacks, the enemies don't really react to attacks with any geniune feedback.

Blaster characters felt better to use but the side step dodge rolls are contextual and most of the time, I'm better off just tanking hits and then respawning right after since there isn't much pentality for death in Lego games most if not all the time.

Much of the meat of these games is to smash the environment to pieces and then make new objects out of them in order to progress the level. There is also switch pulling, lever pushing, vehicles to activate switches, use them as a jumping off point to reach higher places or using them to destroy bigger lego objects. Characters have special abilities too, Jedi like Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan can use the Force and can double jump, Leia and Han have grapple hooks to reach higher places and Droids like R2 D2 and C3PO can interact with certain doors while R2 D2 can glide.

The gameplay is pretty simple just smash things, build new things, switch to characters where you can use contexual circle button commands, some light platforming, and combat but what makes this formula so endearing is that it's simple enough to be stimulating and engaging but not overly confusing enough to be obtuse and offputting. It's not going to be the best designed action games with adventuring but they are competently made that I'm bored when I'm playing.

My only major gripes with the game is how much combat there is for how not so good it is, there is many moments in the game where you have to wipe out a wave of Stormtroopers that seem to be come in endless droves. If combat wasn't so sub par, fighting these hordes of enemies would be enjoyable but instead it's an exercise in tedium where I need to mash the shoot button or with Jedi mash the attack button and jump to kill enemies, die respawn, rinse repeat.

That and another thing that might be exclusive to this game I dislike is Stromtrooper disguise puzzles where you need to put on a helmet in order to fool the scanner to progress the game, this would be fine but considering my above mentioned issue the game having too much combat and enemies on top of not being hit once will remove the helmet makes these sections annoyingly tedious.

Final complaint is that the vehicle sections aren't that great and mainly just consist of mashing and the fire button and pressing circle to throw some purple orbs at a target, it's an okay distraction but so many of these vehicle sections play the same way. It's a good thing there's a few.

Overall, it's a solid Lego game, you played one of these games especially before the Skywalker Saga you played most if not all of them but it is a decent enough formula that is reliable enough to support so many games. I had a good enough time with it even if the game isn't mind blowing. It's the original SW trilogy recreated in a Lego game format and the game never strays away from that.

I normally don't like talking about movies since I would rather enjoy the show rather than discuss them critically but I really do think the David Lynch Dune movie should be studied in how not to make movies or write narratives. It takes the movie getting to the halfway point just to establish the basic stakes and the actual plot of the movie of Paul Atredias fighting some evil Baron. The last 54 minutes of the movie is the actual plot and it takes over an hour to establish something which could've been done in 10-20 minutes. The narrative pacing is poor and it takes the movie over an hour just to get to the next plot point. I tend to judge movies based on how quickly characters complete goals, and how quickly narrative beats are established within a short period of time, while being presented in a way that is engaging this is what makes movies better to watch than shows and playing games. Making me feel like I'm an adventure while I'm supposed to sit down for almost 2 hours.

Most of the Lynch Dune movie is just non stop exposition with character very rarely speaking with their actions. While the sets and costumes aren't too bad, the close quarters fights just look laughably bad. I will admit, I can tolerate exposition dumping to varying degrees, anime in particular depending on the show can be heavy on exposition but at least those have good background music to immerse me into the scenes. Dune doesn't even have that, it's just talking, talking, talking or inner monologues which is stating things you already could've figured out on your own. I'm so bored that I'm not even done the movie yet and I'm ranting on here.

It's rather funny how a movie like The Room is how not to write a narrative and make a movie but manages to be one of the funniest things I ever seen while Lynch Dune is that and is just super boring. If I'm being really honest much of my complaints for this Dune movie can apply to the HBO Last of Us series too except the latter is loved while the former no one really likes that much.

RTS games are definitely an acquired taste. One of the reasons I like them is because 2 of the 3 games on my family PC growing up were Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth, and C&C Generals Zero Hour, so I spent a lot of time with them. And the genre just isn't for everyone either.

Fair enough, I don't think every genre is really for everyone. I don't get how people can dislike stuff like Doom and FPS games, I get disliking the genre if you just played dull hitscan games like CoD. Stealth, survival horror and the older Tomb Raiders have people who dislike them too. I'm just willing to except that RTS games aren't my thing or maybe I need to find that *one* RTS game that could win me over. Brutal Legend's RTS mini games just scarred me from ever playing the genre again.

Looks a lot of people are throwing out genres as well as series in this thread. In that case, with a few exceptions, I can't really get into RTS, tower defense, fighting, puzzle, point and click adventure, beat/shoot 'em ups, arcade, sports, hidden object, or sim/management games. And yes, I looked up the Wikipedia page for video game genres to help with the list. RTS has too many things going on at once and I feel like I wouldn't be able to effectively attack and defend with all my units at the same time. Tower defense seems too passive. Fighting games have way too many combos for me to remember and get good using. Super Smash Bros with friends is an exception here. I'm too dumb to figure out most puzzle or point and click adventure games. Portal is one of the few exceptions for puzzle games I enjoyed. I'm really bad at all shoot 'em ups I played and beat 'em ups seem too arcadey. Speaking of, I don't like the endless nature of arcade games where you're just going for a high score and there's no story. I want a definite conclusion so I can move on to something else. Similarly, sports games are infinitely replayable which doesn't appeal to me. Hidden object games are boring. Management games feel too much like my job staring at numbers all day. Sim games cater to very specific niches that I feel like I don't belong to.

Out of all the genres you listed, I also agree with RTS. I played Halo Wars a while back and that was supposed to be the genre for noobs but I was confused and had no idea what I was doing. So much of the RTS genre is waiting, waiting and more waiting. It's like stealth games but those games have more agency for the player by comparison.

Zelda and Grand Theft Auto off the top of my head. Zelda for being a series that never really excelled at anything it tried to do nor does it do anything better than other games. Everything the Zelda series does I can name another game that does it what it does better. Combat isn't that great, level design is nothing special, and the puzzles aren't very interesting. This goes for both linear and open world Zelda. I really do think if many of these Zelda games came out today, not many would even like them or have the following they do now. I had to force myself to finish every mainline Zelda I played except BOTW, that game started to bore when I got into combat or did a main quest.

Grand Theft Auto is just a series that is basically popular for how "edgy" the game are more so than actually being good, it's not really all that different from the early Mortal Kombat games except at least MK has interesting lore and characters. GTA games never did open world better than other games. It's do scripted missions and have open world be completely open. The driving and car chases are the best parts of these games but the on foot gameplay is boring, dull and is lacking mechanically. As much as I criticize Jak 2 and 3 to death at least the on foot gameplay in them are kind of fun since it has the movement system of Precursor Legacy. Every time I play a GTA game game I'm either frustrated, bored or wish I was playing other games instead. GTA 3 was a frustrating mess when you got off the first island and GTA 5 is a game I wished I never finished at all, Rockstar's mission design might as well just have it be a cinematic linear game. Saints Row at least has better combat since it's basically just the same combat system as Volition's Punisher game.

Outside of those, I'll casually throw in Borderlands and Dishonored, the BL games are unbearbly padded and I hate the looter shooter stuff they popularized. I never liked it in the BL games either since I would rather just have them be straight up shooters than have all that RPG stuff. Dishonored's stealth mechanics are just complete garbage and I would rather play either Thief or Dark Messiah instead even if the latter is unpolished beyond belief. I never really cared for the "immersive sim" style of design which to me is just much like GTA, "do 3-4 things and do it with mediocre execution".

I'll admit, these franchises, probably have their appeal but they just never appealed to me due to the reasons I mentioned.

Those are the two off the top of my head, I would shove in series like Assassin's Creed and Uncharted among some others but I do at the very least enjoy some of the games in those franchises despite me thinking those said games are just decent.

Making a top 10 or top 15 is impossible for me. I'll just link my favorites list yet again:

https://howlongtobeat.com/user/Civilwarfare101/lists/25158/Favorite-Games

Ninja Storm Connections was a game I wanted to like, I wanted to have some fun from since the very idea of a Naruto game where it covers the titular character's life as a kid all the way up to the final battle with Sasuke on the Valley of the End with all of the Boruto content being optional since well I think Boruto is a cash grab and you got to pay me to watch it but besides that, I primarily played the Ninja History Mode and everything about this mode is hastily put together and lazy. It might be harsh to judge the game primarily based on this, but this was a big reason why I played Storm Connections, but due to reasons I will state later, the execution is severly lacking.

Before I start heavily criticizing the game, I won't call the game outright "bad" since I got to the end of the game at all and rolled credits on this mode and if I were to rank this game out of the CyberConnect Ninja Storm games I played, I would say it's better than Storm 1 and Generations but not as good as Storm 2-4.

With that out of the way, everything about this game is hastily put together, copy and paste rush job.

First thing I notice right away about the Ninja History mode is that it's very cheaply made, there's no in engine cutscenes like in Storm 2-4 instead it's actually still images from the Naruto anime with voiced narration and occasional voice lines from other characters. What's worse is that not all of the chapters and "episodes" are voiced adding even more to the "cheap" nature of this mode. I wouldn't mind major events being skipped over especially since I wouldn't want a war section to be even longer but the lack of geniune production values in this mode just adds to how poorly put together it is.

If that's not enough, I was going to commend this game for having the setpieces, QTEs and bosses unlike Storm 1 and Generations but there is just one big problem:

Most if not all of these are reused from past Storm games. This might not be a big issue if you didn't play Storm 2-4 originally but since I did when I got to Kakashi boss post timeskip, I was like, "did I play all this before?" Some bosses like the Kakazu fight is even removed and if just a generic one on one fight. This just adds even more to rushed hastily put together nature of Storm Connections.

The biggest kicker to all this is that the game is just way too easy for about 95% of the game, I'm not asking every game to be super hard but due to the easy difficulty especially if you choose to play the tutorial is that fights last less than 5 minutes 95% of the time. So what you will be doing is engaging in fights that last less than 5 minutes than watch 10-15 minutes worth of cutscenes, and this is what this mode will consist of. On top of all this, the game pulls a Wonderful 101 and CC2's Demon Slayer game and you can die as many time as you want but get a worse rank making death trivial which adds even more to the easy nature of the game, all though a part of me thinks this could be a blessing in disguise since I can get the game done faster. As a whole, this mode is basically the Bouncer minus everything that makes the Bouncer hilariously bad but endearing since that game is about 1 hour for the average first time through while my play time for Ninja History was 11 hours for me and 6 hours if you look up longplays. If you skip the cutscenes, it's even shorter.

However what's the final nail in the coffin for me is the fighting mechanics along with the easy difficulty. The fighting system of the Storm games have never really been "deep" but I always felt at least with Storm 2 and 3, they at least broke up the pace with exploration and beat em up sections. With Storm Connections, the specticle is reused from past games and most off the fights consist of is mashing circle, then pressing triangle and circle to a special ninjutsu or ultimate attack, and then occasionally pressing L2 to a substitution move to break out of a combo in case if the meter is full to do 4 times. You can pretty much do all these tactics to win every fight in the game and if you don't care about ranks, you can keep doing this.

The only exception to this is bosses but once again, if you don't care about ranks or 100%, you can keep dying until you get their health down to zero.

Overall, this game is very much the definition of a chore, I wanted to play this since I already played Storm 2-4 already and I wanted to play something "new" but instead this was just a greatest hits collection of games I would rather play instead. I wanted to find some good in this game and this mode in particular but instead, I was just bored throughout most if not all my playtime and was just happy when I rolled credits. The game is mediocre and forgettable as mediocre and forgettable can get. It's shocking licensed games of this quality comes out in today's day and age.

I always heard about how "good" Super Mario RPG was, I was almost considering emulating the original game years back but lost interest in doing it, at the same time over the years I always heard how "good" the combat in Mario RPGs tend to be and how Mario RPG along with Chrono Trigger tend to be some of the best RPGs the SNES has to offer. On top of all this, I stopped playing RPGs a while ago back in 2019 and I only occasionally dabbled in the genre like with Cyberpunk 2077 and Dragon Ball Kakarot. I wanted Mario RPG to be the first one to slowly get me back into the genre especially with this remake and after all this rambling, what do I think? The game is pretty good and I'm surprised I got to the end at all but I wouldn't consider it to be great.

I decided to play on Breezy Mode for this playthrough since I'm not really familar with turn based RPGs or how Mario RPG combat worked, and it's a good enough mode for a newbie, it gets more challenging towards the end but it never felt impossible or that I needed to grind at any point, the weird thing about the game on this mode is that the first boss and the early game were the hardest parts of the game, once I got past the first boss everything slowly got easier.

The battle system in the game is surprisingly engaging for a guy who never really plays RPGs and especially turn based games. You essentially have to time button presses for attacks and defensive and because of this battle give you much more agency than the games of this genre usually would and it made more engaging for me as a result. Not all attacks enemies throw are blockable so I had to watch out.

All though one issue, I did have is that fodder enemies were a bit too easy with the occasional enemies about 25% of the time where they take a considerable amount of damage before dying.

The bosses are more interesting, playing on Breezy probably detracted from the challenge but I did like how bosses did make the player switch between characters and make me use items. I used a lot of maply syrups, Peach was the primary healer and Mallow's Thought Peak ability came in extremely handy for weaknesses, I never thought I would need to use any of this on Breezy but the game slowly taught me into using them and I didn't need to look up a guide and I commend it for that.

Outside of the battles there are occasional mini games, these do an okay job at breaking up the pace but nothing too special, they at least are never mandatory so makes them tolerable by default. The level design for dungeons are mostly "fine" if nothing special, they get the job done with the occasional obtuse moment here and there but there at least wasn't so many that I had to look one up every few seconds.

However one major negative is the jumping sections, I get that Mario is a platforming series but these parts felt forced. One the jump physics never feel precise and it's easy for me to miss jumps and the platforms can be easy to miss on top of easy to fall off since I will be pushing the analog stick to make it to the platform than accidentally fall off. There isn't too many sections like this but the ending section with the 6 doors requires you to do at least one of these platforming sections or do the trivia sections but I find the trivia sections even worse so I stuck with platforming and it makes these sections even more insufferable since it's either do bad platforming to progress or awful trivia puzzles to progress, doing either felt like I had to pick my poison. This was by far the worst part of the game, luckily I only had to do 4 out of 6 doors, if I had to do all 6, I would've quit the game.

A big issue I have with the game is the story, I know expecting a well written story out of a Mario game is basically going to get me mocked, and while the story in Mario RPG isn't "terrible" it felt like it could've been more. What carries the game is the character interactions, they are endearing enough on a surface and Mallow is an okay character decent development but that's kind of the thing, the story is just midly interesting enough on a surface level. What could've elevated the story is probably Smity actually doing things to make me dislike him whether it'd be doing henious acts or the worf effect. He's just typical final boss that barely does anything. The story in general lacks any kind of clear stakes, no one dies and I guess you could say it adds to the saturday morning cartoon nature but outside of the gameplay, the story was just "there". It's not good enough to be remarkable or bad enough to make hate seeing the cutscenes happen. It just felt like it could've been more than being an "okay game story".

The ending is also pretty weak and it's basically just collecting 7 stars and that's it. I felt like the story could've been a bit more interesting.

Overall, Super Mario RPG was a solid game for a genre I don't even actively engage in. I might play and try to finish more RPG because of this but who knows.

This was a pretty interesting survival horror game of sorts, as far as indie games are concerned, it's not as good as Tormented Souls and Signalis but still a pretty good game in it's own right. I randomly heard about the game and since it had a console and PC release, I decided to give the game a shot.

The best way of describing Crow Country is that it's the original Resident Evil but on a theme park rather than a creepy mansion. There isn't many horror games that I'm aware of that even take place on theme parks so the setting alone is enough to make the game stand out a good deal all though like many of the these recent horror games, there is some Silent Hill inspirations like the monster designs, the fact you have unlimited inventory space and an emphasis on puzzles. The asethetics are much like a PS1 Final Fantasy game particularly FF7.

Good things about Crow Country is the level design and unlike many horror games of it's type pretty much of all the game takes place on the aforementioned theme park, areas of interest, puzzles, and items to collect that might be relevant early game might be more important more so the furthur you go into it. There is a late game puzzle in the theatre that you actually discover early on in the game but can't solve until the final few sections. You can even do many of the sections in a random order, once you get the silver key, you can unlock many of the games optional resources before you even touch a major section of the game. You can do the power generator area and get some secrets and the game doesn't really slowly start to wrap up until you get the Gold Key and you can many of the secrets before then. There is also a lot of shortcuts and a decent amount of routes to get from place to place on the map. Level design is the most impressive part.

The map is pretty useful and is better than Tormented Souls' map at least. For one, on PS5, you can look at the map by pressing the touch pad as opposed to TS where you need to multiple presses just to activate. One thing I didn't like was that trying to find secrets on the map required a second button press on the map screen and I discovered this late game unforunately, but credit where credit is due. I even got most of the secrets by the end of the game too, but I needed a walkthrough for that.

Story is surprisingly engaging, I'm glad it isn't mostly hidden behind notes and the story is surprisingly direct for a horror game, cutscenes give you enough information on what is going on and while I would've liked voice acting, the characters are okay, I wouldn't call this story anything super amazing, I did pay attention to it a lot more than I was going to.

Issues I have with the game is that combat is a little too easy, on the medium "survival horror" difficulty, enemies go down within less than 10 shots, I don't want this kind of combat to be too challenging but I argue games like Tormented Souls did a better job at feeling underpowered but powerful enough that you are barely scraping by since in TS, the player character moves a lot slower and enemies take more shots with melee being a good way to save ammo but also risk getting attack by enemies getting up from the shots you gave them. Enemies in Crow Country including the final boss barely put up much of a geniune fight, the only hard part is aligning the analog stick fast enough and make sure enemies don't come too close since you can't move while shooting, most enemies will go down with a few shots from the pistol and shotgun, I only used weapons like the magnum for fun. Grenades make the already easy combat even easier even if I accidently throw them from time to time.

The biggest threat in Crow Country are going to be the traps since many of them you will not see coming and will happen to hit you out of nowhere a lot of the time. This where the bulk of your healing items and antidotes will be used on more so than the enemies.

I also found the game a little too puzzle heavy, this might and I dislike to use the term here, "subjective" but I'm not big survival horror puzzles and I'm more in it for the level design and the barely scraping by action, this might not be an issue for others, but the biggest challenge of Crow Country really comes from how much patience you are willing to put up with regarding puzzles and getting hit by traps.

Overall, Crow Country is a solid game in a line of well made indie survival horror games. If you already played Tormented Souls and Signalis and are looking for more, Crow Country is worth looking into.