[blog] churros are fried until they become crunchy, and may be sprinkled with sugar

As far as I could find, the Sands of Time Remake hasn't been canceled. It may have restarted development at some point but it's still going.

As far as I could find, the Sands of Time Remake hasn't been canceled. It may have restarted development at some point but it's still going.

🤞

I got sick for a couple of days and I wasn't in the mood to play anything serious or that required my full attention. I got this game with a discount and it seemed like the perfect mindless game for a sick day.

And it was great! Just what I needed, a stupid little game with easy controls that I don't have to think so much plus some old episodes of the TV show (my comfort food/guilty pleasure I guess). I played 4 out of the 5 campaign chapters and had a great time.

Then I got healthy again and went back to play the last chapter of the campaign. I couldn't stand how dull this game is. Retired.

Everything about the game feels underdeveloped, especially when you compare it with the other (great) RPGs available in the franchise. The combat lacks weight and they didn't figure out a way to do good visual feedback on the attacks. No matter how much nostalgia I have for that horrible N64 game, I couldn't play it to completion.

As a last note, to be fair, the game is designed mostly for multiplayer and to be played with friends, and I played it with bots. But on the other hand, anything is 'better with friends' anyway, right?

Result: retired

Rating: 7/10

Screenshots:


There is an abundance of pooping and farting references, as expected.


And vomiting.


Why didn't the toilet paper make it across the road? It got stuck in the crack.

¡Un forastero!

What can I say. It's RE4, it's RE Engine, it's Capcom doing great as they have been doing it nowadays. I love the progression of this game, both how different some sections feel (villa, castle, lab, etc) and how it becomes more actiony as it goes (saving bullets at the beginning, blasting everything at the end).

I still thinks the original RE4 is very playable (it's tanky but not as bad as the PS1 games), but it's hard to go back I confess. Moving around and aiming feels just right in here (as with the other remakes).

The DLC is pretty good as well and I tried my best to play it 'side by side', progressing on both campaigns at the same pace. I wish they could somehow do this out the box, like an official order of the chapters to go back and forth the two campaigns.

It's a very good game, really easy to recommend, but it's not my favorite Resident Evil. I'm one of the few that loved RE3 remake and I have it in high regard (I love how replayable it is). Village still takes the top spot for me (I want to replay it in third person so badly!).

Result: completed

Rating: 9/10

Pros:
+ controls well
+ great progression
+ weapon variety
+ good voice acting
+ cheesy cutscenes and dialog in a good way

Cons:
- (none)

I really wanted to love this game. I played Diablo 1 back in the day and absolutely loved it, both the gameplay and the unforgettable atmosphere. The tristan theme is my favorite video game music ever.

I skipped Diablo 2 because I didn't own a PC at those times (I played D1 on a PS1) and then I played Diablo 3 many years later (somewhat recently) with low expectations, it felt so different. And for sure it was, I found it too cartoony for my taste (that WoW look and feel) and I missed the simplicity of the setting of the first, ended up retiring it after few hours of play.

With Diablo 4 Blizzard went with a darker tone which got me a bit excited. In a way it delivered, I think the scenarios are gorgeous and sets up the mood perfectly (even though it doesn't match the simplicity of the first). The music is top notch. The classes and skills are interesting enough. Big open-world with lots of stuff to do. What could go wrong?

Difficulty. Or lack thereof. The game is just too easy. Shortly after picking up some few levels and unlocking what became my main skills, the game became a chore to play. I know ARPGs are not supposed to have complex gameplay (it's mostly a 'zone out' kind of game) but playing in World Tier 2 (the hardest available before beating the main campaign) felt like story mode.

I've picked the rogue class for my character and made a build about poison damage and setting up traps, didn't read anything on internet I simply picked up because it sounded fun. In my mind this was supposed to be a swift character, set up traps, attack with poison, dodge, and keep moving, right? Well, in practice, I felt like a tank. My armor bonuses that recovered life automatically alone were enough to take care of almost all the damage I ever took, no need to heal or to move away from the line of fire. I made a build expecting to keep jumping around on the screen and suddenly I realized that I just didn't have to move at all. The game was on story mode despite being on the hardest difficulty available.

So I decide to speed run the main campaign to unlock the World Tier 3. This choice of locking tier 3 difficulty behind beating the campaign kinda ruined the game for me. The story of this game seems pretty cool, but playing in a hurry (not taking the optional dialog options, skipping some side stuff on the cities in the way, etc) killed all the immersion.

World Tier 3 seems a bit better after I tested it out on a dungeon, felt like what Tier 2 should be. But for now I'm good with the game. I'll probably forget about it for awhile and maybe come back to it later, after a expansion or two gets release.

Oh, and last balancing thing that is kinda of atrocious: it seems that everything balances to your level. Leveling up and grinding fells a bit pointless if the entire game will level up together with you, right?

Result: completed

Rating: 7/10

Pros:
+ great graphics
+ great ost
+ great voice acting
+ interesting plot
+ vast world
+ quick to move around
+ fun character builds
+ easy to respec

Cons:
- too easy
- world tier 3 locked behind campaign
- always online
- greedy microtransactions
- repetitive