I love artsy games. Sometimes it’s nice just to sit back and play a casual game that is a visual treat. Gris is one of these games. Like many other games before it, it offers tight gameplay but a short and sweet experience. There’s really no story here, and you have to make what you can of the story based on context only. You play as a woman who loses her voice to a dark force that seems to swallow up all the color in the world. It’s your job to get that color back and your voice back. That’s the only thing I got out of this entire game, story-wise. I wanted something more; there are games that have told breathtaking stories in just context alone, such as Journey, but what’s here is fine.
The game is broken up into three levels based on colors. In the color red, you gain the ability to weigh things down. You jump around platforms and have to figure out various platforming puzzles. Using your abilities, you must navigate the area to acquire stars to unlock the next section and finish the level. These are rather clever, and I never got stuck, but I was challenged. I had to think, and it quickly clicked after a few tries throughout the game on most puzzles. The controls are great and are not floaty or slippery. The girl has nice momentum with the ability to glide, double jump, and swim, which are all acquired throughout the game.
The second level, Green, is probably the easiest and most laid-back level. There aren’t many platforming puzzles, but there are challenges instead that require good timing. You find a woodland creature companion part way through, and you use him for a few challenges, but this level was not difficult. I acquired the double jump ability here, and this opened up more challenges.
The final level, Blue, is a mix of underwater and upside-down platforming, and the levels are labyrinthine and challenging. I didn’t get too lost in this level, but I did wander around a little more than I wanted to. You have to use everything you learned to beat this level, and that includes platforming challenges that combine all of your abilities and precise timing. This game isn’t quite a breeze, as it did work my brain a bit, which is nice. Throughout the game, there are a couple of scripted chase scenes with the dark void that took your voice, which changes the pace up a bit, but overall it’s very nicely paced, and I was able to play all 3 hours in one sitting and was sucked in.
While the game lacks in story, it makes up for it in gameplay with challenging platforming, some puzzles, and a gorgeous watercolor art style that is just a joy to look at every second you are in the game. This is Gris’ main draw: his eye-catching art style. I wanted to know more about this mysterious girl, but we just got platforming instead. Oh well, as it stands, it’s a must-play for fans of games like Journey or The Unfinished Swan. I had a blast, and while the game itself wasn’t memorable, the art style is striking enough to remember.
The Longest Journey is actually one of my favorite games of all time. It was one of the first PC games I played as well, and it was what pushed me to get into PC gaming. Adventure games were something that console players couldn’t really get. The rich stories, great voice acting, and detailed characters were something only a PC could really do. The longest journey impressed me with all of this, and I remember it to this day. It was followed up by Dreamfall, which pushed the game into a new generation with 3D models and backgrounds and brought the game to consoles for the first time as well, and it was also just as memorable. We now have the final chapters of this story, and I have to say I walked away quite satisfied.
You play once again as Zoe Castillo. A woman who is a dreamer and able to go between the dream world of Arcadia and the real world, Stark, You also play Kian, who is in Arcadia. The ex-leader of a racist and fascist human country is trying to exterminate all magical creatures. Both characters are strong and likable, and I really got attached to them through their journey. The many characters throughout Dreamfall are great, and it was a joy to listen to their great voice acting and find out more about them. However, the game does have some pacing issues, and I’ll get into that later. There is a lot of politics in the game that reflects real-world issues (more so now than ever), and the subjects get a bit touchy and might rub some people the wrong way, but I’m glad a game story is actually challenging these issues.
The biggest draw to Dreamfall is the choices you make during key events in each book. These will pause time, and you get a limited amount of time to choose a path. The consequences will usually occur later on somewhere, and these events are shown with a logo in the top right corner of the screen. This symbol means that the current action or event is a result of a choice you made earlier, but it’s never clear what choices lead to which events, and this is where I will state that the choice system is flawed. Later on in the game, the choices kind of blur and become unclear, making them seem less impactful. The first two books do a great job of making sure your choices are felt, but later on, I couldn’t tell anymore.
When it comes to actually playing the game, well, there isn’t much of one. You run around various areas, finding objects to use on other objects and talking to people. That’s literally it, with very few puzzles. The puzzles are stupidly easy or frustratingly obtuse. My biggest complaint about the entire game would be that the areas you explore are static and lifeless. Sure, they seem like they’re full of life the first couple of times you walk through them, but I spent so much time looking at maps to find the next area to go to just wandering by the same group of people, the same icon that lets you hear the character’s inner thoughts about that item, and nothing ever changes. I spent the first two books inside the same hub areas for each character; it became a drag just to get to the next scene. I would have liked to see more organic changes, more things to look at, and more inner dialog written as you spend a third of the game in these hub areas.
Most of the game is talking and cutting scenes, however, and that’s what adventure games are all about. The voice acting is superb, the characters are fun to listen to and learn about, and I felt sucked into this magical world, especially being a fan of the series. However, that’s what this game is made for: fans of the series. If you haven’t played previous games you will most likely be lost and the story won’t mean as much to you. There are constant references to characters meeting in previous games and previous events, and they are never explained. The backstory from the main menu is pretty much pointless as well. The world just feels magical and wonderful, and it was a good time while I was in it.
The visuals are also pretty good for an adventure game; clearly last-gen, but this did come out in 2014. The facial animations are stiff, but overall it looks nice with great lighting effects and lots of detail everywhere. The game doesn’t seem well optimized, though, as certain lights will tank the FPS even on high-end hardware, so the engine needs a lot of work. The ending was also not as expected. It was good, as it made sense, but there was no crazy plot twist or anything like that. It came to a slow stop instead of full speed and made your head spin, as a good ending would. But, overall, Dreamfall Chapters is satisfying enough and completes a long-beloved series that will probably never get another game again.
The ’90s were a crazy and nostalgic time on the internet. Web pages full of low-resolution GIFs, viruses, profile pages, and overall teen angst. There’s no other time like the 90’s internet space, and Hypnospace captures that perfectly in an exaggerated style. Retro/Vapor/Synthwave-type aesthetics flood your screen with an actual simulated 90’s PC with HypnOS installed on it. From the crazy wallpapers, low-resolution everything, desktop pets, crazy profile pages, and cult/group pages. This game is fun for those who love to explore.
You play as a Hypnospace Enforcer who runs around the net, finding violations. This is quite fun, but it takes some getting used to figuring out how to use the desktop and OS. Figuring out shortcuts, the buttons, and everything that came with a real 90’s OS is part of the fun. You will get case files and have to report things like copyright violations, malware, harassment, and others. Once you do find the right thing to report, usually it’s through hints. To get you started, you have to read various pages and figure out where to go. This is Hypnospace’s biggest flaw. I was constantly lost and couldn’t figure out what to report, and nothing was very clear. There are a lot of hidden messages (literally) that must be uncovered, and using search terms to find hidden pages is also a must. Once I finally found the page, you just selected the right violation and smacked the hammer on the part of the page. It’s satisfying once you do, and once a user gains enough violation points, you can report their page.
After every case, you get coins, which can be used for various things throughout the net, which is mostly just for fun. Once you close a case, you get a bonus if you find all the violations. There are about 8 cases, and after this, the story starts evolving into a Y2K terrorist attack by a teen, but the evil corporation that HypnOS is run by is also in question. Once the final case is solved, you can optionally explore the archived files. A few people need help discovering the true reason behind the terrorist attack. This is very difficult, and I can’t even tell if I finished that endgame part, as I stopped getting emails in my inbox even after looking at a walkthrough. The main story can be completed fairly quickly unless you are constantly getting lost, like I was.
There are other small details like downloading files and installing programs, using antivirus (90’s anti-virus programs were archaic), exploring MP3 pirate scenes, getting viruses, and seeing them mess with your computer—even small details like going into the BIOS and changing the settings. There’s a lot of love that went into this game, and it shows at every corner. You can even drag things into a recycle bin and rearrange your desktop icons, and the best parts are when the system glitches out and crashes.
Overall, Hypnospace Outlaw is a fun game for those who grew up on the 90’s internet, and for younger players, it is a great insight into it. The game is full of humor, intriguing puzzles, and fun pages to explore and read. The biggest issue is just getting lost and not knowing where to go or what to do half the time. I loved the aesthetic of a virtual 1990’s PC, and this is definitely a game worth exploring for those interested.
Another open-world game. Yawn. A Sucker Punch open-world game. Okay, I’ll at least listen. An open-world game set in Feudal Japan against the Mongols. Okay, I’ll pay attention now. An open-world game that fixes so many quality of life issues that other games have not changed like Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, Crackdown, Saint’s Row, and even GTA? Okay, fine, I’ll try it out.
This was my attitude going into Ghost of Tsushima. As the game opened up and introduced all the mechanics to me I quickly got sucked in and was comparing the game to every recent open-world game released in the last decade, and how can you not? There are so many things you just expect from this type of game and when it doesn’t happen, or it’s done better, you actually notice. Let’s start with the combat. The game is easy to learn but hard to master and requires skill and timing. Button mashing or parry spamming won’t work here. There are light and heavy attacks, dodge, parry, and block. Yes, three different ways to keep yourself from getting hit and that’s where most of the challenge comes in. You also get four fighting styles that must be changed on the fly based on enemy types and there’s also archery?!
Archery is a blast and also requires skill, as you have to account for arrow drops over distance. Light arrows can be knocked faster but don’t do as much damage, and heavy arrows take longer, but you get less of them. You also get fire arrows and explosive arrows. These are key to the fight system, especially stealth combat. The game starts out hard and gets easier as you acquire new abilities and upgrade your weapons and armor via looting for materials throughout the game.
There’s so much to this game, yet it makes so much sense and doesn’t feel like fatty filler content. This includes combat. While you can wave at enemies and beat them up, there is also stealth in the game. Combat is incredibly fun, fluid, and intuitive, and the controller just melts in your hands. It feels natural, like it should, and is not shoehorned in. Jin’s animations are amazing and lifelike, and the game is satisfying to play. Each hit felt good, and then when you unleash a special move to swoop in and slice an arm of it, it feels good from the first time to the 500th. That’s how you make good combat. Jin also has resolve, which he can use to heal himself or for special moves. It’s a balancing act, and you don’t get everything handed to you, which actually makes this game challenging. Resolve is a precious resource, and it doesn’t just auto-generate after the battle. You must kill enemies to regen or go to one of the various onsen baths. Combat is incredibly balanced, and stealth is just as satisfying.
Jin can sneak around using a sense to let him see through walls, but this isn’t really cheating, as stealth combat is all about lining up the perfect shots. As you level up and acquire skills, you can stealth assassinate up to three enemies, shoot them with a light or heavy bow, use chimes to distract guards, smoke bombs, firecrackers, etc. There’s a lot at your disposal, and both frontal and stealth combat were not cut short for one or the other. The game favors frontal combat by allowing you to “challenge” enemies when you approach a camp or group. This goes into stand-off mode, where you must release the triangle before an enemy strikes, allowing you to gain some resolve. The other option is to sneak around and kill everyone without being seen. There’s really no penalty for either one, which is so nice.
Another combat element is one-on-one boss fights, and these are hard duels. These require you to choose the correct stance. There are four stances for spears, swords, shields, and heavies. You can’t use any extra firepower here. This is down to pure skills, and you need to either decide to block, parry, or dodge, and you get a split second to choose. Red flashes are dodged, and blue can be parried or blocked, but you must learn to time all of these to wind these duels. This is where your skills at fighting hundreds of Mongols will come into play. Switching stances on the fly and learning how to parry, dodge, and block are keys to winning any battle.
When you explore the game on foot or on Jin’s horse, you are mostly on flat land, and this helps drive the game away from so much climbing seen in open-world games. You can climb certain cliffs and towers, but that’s it, and it’s refreshing. When you explore, the majority of it is spent finding things like Hiku poems for attire, bamboo strikes, which is a button-pressing mini-game, onsen baths for health, and duals for resolve. There are side missions along with your main ones. I found it a blast to explore, as I spent most of the game doing that. I enjoyed exploring Tsushima and finding all the cool attire I could wear. Hats, headbands, sheaths, and some armor are unlocked in side quests. I also found crickets for new songs that you can play on a flute to change the weather, Mongol artifacts for reading, banners to unlock horse armor, and so much more. This game is packed with content, but it never felt overwhelming. It was so addictive to constantly run around finding a new area, and this is thanks to the wind gameplay mechanic. Swiping up on the touchpad makes the wind blow in the direction of side quests or pins on the map. You can also use the wind guide to bring you to every single side item in the game, which is fun.
The game also has a great story that shouldn’t be dismissed. The Japanese voice acting is incredible (turn off the horrible English dubs), and there’s tons of emotion and character in this game. Jin is a wonderful protagonist who is trying to win the love of his uncle (also a samurai) while battling between doing the right thing for the country and keeping his honor. The characters are great, and Jin makes many friends along the way, which I got attached to. While the entire story is only through cut scenes in the main and side missions, there’s still quite a bit, and there’s plenty to love in this regard.
The visuals are also quite striking. There’s a gorgeous art style here that blends nicely with a realistic look. Plenty of grays and browns contrasted with bright, vivid fields of flowers and gorgeous vistas. This is about as good as it gets on the PS4 Pro, with a nice framerate to boot. I just loved exploring Tsushima and its varied locales, and each one was strikingly different. That’s another thing that I compared with this game: the actual world is fun and different to explore, and it doesn’t all look the same and blend together. Bamboo forests, dead-burned-down forests, beautiful fields of various flowers, swamps, and icy mountains. There’s about every possible terrain you can imagine in this game.
With all that said, Ghost of Tsushima is a brilliant game and a once-in-a-generation type of game. I finished the game to about 97% completion with about 60 hours clocked, and I loved every second of it. It was the only game I played for 3 weeks straight.
I was shocked when Tacoma ended as suddenly as it did. Before it even started I felt like it had ended and wanted to see more. You play as Amy Ferrier. Your job is to go to the space station Tacoma, find out why the crew died, and acquire the AI onboard as well. There is zero action in the game; this is an adventure game through and through with story only. All you do is interact with objects and read and listen to dialog play out.
This type of game won’t be for everyone. I love great stories and characters and can enjoy them without any action at all if they’re done right. Tacoma comprises three explorable areas, each with useless interactive objects, but once you get to an area, you use the AI to replay what happened in that area via holograms that walk around. You can fast forward and rewind the hologram play, and in between, there may be some holograms with HUDs that need to be interacted with, and these are marked as question marks on the timeline of the event you are watching. Finding these holograms and interacting with their display allows you to gain some insight into those characters. Honestly, it’s nothing super special or interesting. The issue is that the overall story and larger picture don’t really sit and integrate well with the characters. They feel like a side story.
Once you get through all three areas by finding hidden passcodes to locked doors and reading various terminals, there’s nothing left to do. You drop off your AI book at the front of each hub on a wall that downloads all the data in that area. This takes around 15-20 minutes to do, and in the meantime, you have to explore the area. Once it’s done downloading, grab it, go to the next hub, and repeat. Once you get the AI software, you head back to your ship, and the game is over.
I wanted to learn more about this world. The fact that an evil corporation is building homes in space against the law is intriguing, and there’s lots of potential here. I felt like I had no idea what was going on most of the time because I kept expecting the plot to move on, but instead, it just ended when most games would consider this the first chapter. I’m not a fan of short, incomplete games like this and don’t support them. I’m a fan of short games if they are sweet and memorable, and I have played plenty of those. This almost felt like a waste of an hour.
The visuals are decent, and the art style is nice, albeit forgettable. The voice acting is great, and there are some interesting concepts at play that are just barely touched upon and then abandoned. Tacoma doesn’t give the already struggling adventure genre any hope or appeal to gamers who shy away from them either.
I’m not the biggest JRPG fan, as I don’t like grinding or the typical tropes that go along with them. They are usually extremely bloated, with dozens of hours added just in battles alone, and this is why I only play them if they have a particular something that stands out, albeit the story or the gameplay. Trials of Mana stands out as neither of those, but it does everything in a neatly tightened JRPG package that cuts out the fat and streamlines the genre for the modern world.
The story is nothing to write home about, but it isn’t bad either. You can choose between six different characters, with three being in your party. Each character has class specializations, and this is important when your class is balanced out. It’s recommended to have a fighter, magician, and middle ground class. I chose Reisz, Duncan, and Angela for my playthrough, and it worked out perfectly. The overall story revolves around the typical JRPG plot of saving the world from an evil entity. The Goddess of Mana is being targeted by a particular evil force and wants to be the only existing god. There are other evil kingdoms racing to get the Sword of Mana, which is said to hold untold powers. Yeah, it’s trite and barely interesting, and towards the end of the game, there aren’t many cut scenes left. The English voice acting, in particular, is incredibly bad, so please do yourself a favor and enable the Japanese voice-overs. The characters themselves are very likeable with great designs, and they stand out and are somewhat memorable. They have typical JRPG hero personalities, but I grew to like them nonetheless.
Let’s dive right into battle. Trials of Mana is a real-time battle system played out in closed-off areas. Once you are in sight of a creature, the game surrounds you with a barrier that you can escape from by running toward or just fighting it out. There are heavy and light attacks, as well as the same while in the air. Once you progress far enough and depending on your class, you will unlock moves that are class-specific and consume MP, and then there are class strikes. These strikes use up stamina that is acquired as crystals that enemies drop when attacked. These strikes are powerful, and you get a new one with each new class. These must be strategically timed with boss battles, as they are essential to winning and doing massive damage. Battles overall are intense and fun, with the ability to adjust your AI mates in the Strategy section of the menu. Here you can adjust how often they use their strikes, moves, items, and how to focus on enemies. This is really important to adjust for later boss fights.
While combat is fluid, looks good, and is probably what you will be doing 85% of the time in the game, it is essentially very simple and may seem dull to people who are used to more Western RPGs with more action. While it works in the context of this game, it beats the hell out of random encounters. Leveling up also occurs rather quickly, and the use of cookies allows you to gain additional XP, but these are rare. There really isn’t much in terms of exploring or hidden items, as most chests contain standard items, seeds, and rarely armor or weapons. Seeds are actually an essential part of the game and are required in order to get Class 3. These seeds are grown in pots in inns or near certain Mana (save) statues. These range from item seeds to illusive question mark seeds that drop talismans needed to get to class 3 to rainbow seeds, which have high-end armor and weapons. You can level up the box by planting more seeds, thus dropping rarer items.
Of course, you can buy most things in towns and the single-night market, as well as reset your skill points there. Leveling up is a big deal in this game, and you can allocate points towards various stats like strength, stamina, intelligence, and so on. I highly recommend leveling up where you want your character to be strong and saving your points once you reach the cap for that class level. Once your class is up, you will have tons of points to advance your character even further without wasting them on stats you don’t need to focus on. Getting a higher class also grants a new costume and access to higher-level weapons and armor, in addition to more ability slots. Leveling up stats grants abilities that add passive stats, such as healing after battles, additional damage when entering them, sacrificing HP for additional damage, etc. The great thing is that these abilities are shared amongst all characters once unlocked, allowing you to really customize your style.
Exploring the Trials of Mana is fine, but not wholly necessary. Exploring only gets you basic items, and the very rare weapon or armor piece and the question mark seeds in Chapter 5 are needed to get to class 3. Grinding is also very minimal in this game, as you will mostly stay just behind or ahead of the current area demand. I recommend staying above two levels of the next boss; it will make life much easier, and you will chew through fewer healing items. The levels are very linear as well, and it’s hard to get lost as a golden star will always lead you to your objective as well as on the map. I have to commend Square for implementing this, as one of my biggest issues with JRPGs outside of random battles is never knowing where the hell to go. This allows you to just enjoy the game and not worry about whether or not you’ve been going the wrong way for the last hour.
With all of that said, Trials of Mana also looks fantastic. While not groundbreaking, it has bright visuals, detailed textures, high-poly models, and great animations. The effects are slick, and the bosses are very well designed. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of regular enemies as they are just standard JRPG fodder like rabbits, slime, knights, dragons, and various fantasy creatures, they do require strategy as each has different attacks and debuff effects. So with that said, Trials of Mana won’t change the minds of those who don’t like JRPGs, but those who love them will truly enjoy it. I finished the game and even continued to the additional optional chapter that can grant New Game+ if completed. This is one of two Super Bosses and requires a level 75 party. This final dungeon is about an hour long and combines a piece of every area you have visited in the game into one mega-dungeon. It’s a challenge and fun, and I recommend completing it. Trials of Mana is one of my favorite JRPGs of the last decade, and I can easily recommend it to most people.
Well, what a treat! Modern Warfare 2 is considered the best game in the earlier series, and the campaign was most definitely the best and most memorable. The game takes place right after the end of the first game, with the Russians invading the United States for World War III. You play as various soldiers in this war and bounce back and forth trying to stop the bad guy, Makarov, but the story takes a crazy twist at the last mission.
The question here is: is there anyone asking for these games to be remastered? Most people usually only stick around for multiplayer, and it’s rather strange to only remaster the campaign and release the multiplayer section later. Most Call of Duty players skip the campaign and only bother with multiplayer, and it’s not like the Call of Duty campaigns are anything to write home about. Sure, they’re entertaining and exciting, but they don’t last long, and the story is a trite modern military train of nonsense, so who is this game for?
That’s going to be hard to answer, but I’m one of the few who plays the campaign first and usually goes back for seconds later on. I played the original on Xbox 360 and spent more time in this game’s multiplayer than any other in the series. The maps were perfectly created, and the balance was fantastic, but it’s long dead now, so all we have is this campaign. Thankfully, it’s only $20, as you get about 4 hours of gameplay out of it. It’s literally fun for an evening, and it’s over. The game does have some crazy scenes, like seeing a nuke detonate from space, and the battle in Washington, DC, through the White House is pretty awesome. There are more stealth missions with Captain Price this time around, and overall, we get a good range of different types of action. The boots on the ground mowing down enemies type, the special ops missions, then the stealth missions.
What I would have liked to see was more on-rails stuff. There are a couple of chase scenes in the game and one helicopter ride in which you get to snipe enemies, but I wanted more of these. They’re exciting and just a lot of mindless fun. I did find the game’s difficulty poorly balanced, as I’d blow through a couple of missions and then die over and over in one spot, particularly as Roach in the U.S. Marine levels. There are wide-open areas, and they usually have you running around trying to take down vehicles and large waves of enemies. There is never a dull moment, however, and I had a blast through the whole thing, but it does feel shorter than the first game. The infamous and controversial “No Russian” mission is present but allows players to skip this level entirely. While at the time of release it may not have seemed like such a big deal, mowing down people in an airport as part of a terrorist attack is all too real these days, and there are thousands of people in the US who have fallen victim to shootings or have been near one. It can be a seriously sensitive topic, so good on Beenox for adding this option.
The visuals are amazing, using modern techniques to make the game look like it was made and released today. Fantastic lighting, textures, models, and other effects that PC gamers will love. It runs flawlessly without a hitch, and every moment was a blast. I will say that there is no reason to go back, however, and that’s going to be the deciding factor for people. There’s zero replay value here as Battle.net doesn’t have an achievement system, and while you can find 45 different Intel laptops, what’s the point? There’s no reward for doing so, and there are no extra modes either. There’s a neat little museum mode that lets you see various panoramas of each level, but there’s nothing to do besides pressing a button and having all the character models jump at you and attack. It’s neat but seriously pointless, so no one will probably bother exploring.
Overall, Modern Ware 2 Campaign Remastered is a blast while it lasts. It’s only 4 hours long, with no replay value, extra modes, or a reason to even go back. It’s a game you go back and play every 5–10 years for nostalgia, and that’s it. Newcomers will have a blast and may play through a second time, but that’s all your $20 is going to give you: one fun evening. The visuals are fantastic and look amazing, but that’s about it here. It really is the best campaign of the early trilogy, but what does that mean to anyone? I guess it depends on how much you love linear shooters.
Oh boy, this review has been 22 years in the making. I have been trying to finish this game since I was 8 years old, but I just could not do it. I will admit, I’m not the best JRPG player, as I don’t have the patience to do insane amounts of grinding and play into the earlier Final Fantasy game’s crazy summon hunting. FF8 eluded me for so many years because of one thing: the junction system. I absolutely love the characters, art, and story in this game, but the Junction system nearly ruins it for me. And yes, I had to play with cheats and boosters activated, and even then, I almost couldn’t finish the game.
I did, however, play the game normally. I collected spells, tried to get Guardians when I could, leveled up a good amount, and finally got past disc 2! The issue lies in the overall complicated nature of FF8‘s systems. You no longer just buy weapons and armor and change them out when you get to the next town. Instead, you collect spell cards that are finite, and they can be traded amongst other members. In theory, this sounds fine, but it’s hard to strategize a specific player role when everyone can use magic. Some argue that you can give certain spells to certain characters and break it all up the way you want, but this is flawed because if you don’t collect cards found throughout the world or stolen from enemies, you don’t get to use any magic.
Weapons are only upgraded this time by using parts found on monsters, but a lot of these parts are hard to find, and to upgrade to a new weapon, you must find a magazine to unlock the weapon. This just keeps piling up the frustration as it hinders progress. Characters also have overdrives, which are powerful, unique moves, but some characters, like Rinoa and Quistis, can only acquire new ones by using certain items or finding magazines. FF8 heavily relies on exploration and patience; this is not a game you can just blow through in story mode like previous games. The Junction system also functions as a way to equip Guardians, which are bosses found hidden throughout the world. I only found about half, as the other half requires exploring the overworld map and finding their hidden locations. Accompany this with insanely frequent random battles, and you will spend 2/3 of your time in the game just battling.
If this doesn’t sound complicated enough, there are hidden features not explained in the game, such as being able to “Card Mod” only using Quezacotl’s ability. This allows players to turn found enemy cards into items that are then used to turn into weapons, but this is a very obscure out-of-the-way thing for such an important gameplay element. FF8 is riddled with things like this, and learning the Junction system is like learning math. It was boring, not fun, and incredibly frustrating, and just imagine that as a kid, there’s no way I would have understood any of it. Even after I finished the game, I still felt I hadn’t quite grasped it all and had missed something.
Outside of the awful (or good) Junction system, the rest of the game is standard Final Fantasy. Turn-based battles allow you to do various attacks and use items, and there’s an option for real-time battles or waiting. Players also need to make sure they equip actual functions for each player; otherwise, you can only attack. GF use, items, and magic are all optional attacks that you can choose, but you can only have 4 menus. Another irritating thing about the Junction system. You must sacrifice GF use if you want to use items and magic, for example. FF8 is also standard, with an awful overworld map. This map has no camera controls and is horribly designed. It’s a 3D map, but eventually, you get into a ship, then a car, then a giant flying ship to traverse faster. This is when you can explore more and find guardians.
Let’s finally talk about the story and characters. FF8 has some of the most memorable characters, including Seifer, Squall, Rinoa, Quistis, and Selphie, just to name a few. They are all well-written and designed characters, and I cared for them greatly throughout the entire game. There are long written dialog bubbles that go on for dozens of minutes sometimes, but the mix of pre-rendered cut scenes with real-time models on top is a trip even to this day. There are some imaginative scenes in this game, and it’s a shame it’s hindered by the disc space of the PS1. The story in itself is one of the most controversial in the series, with no real ending being explained, and it is open to fan theory. I won’t get into those, but after reading some theories online, they made a lot of sense, and it’s a good story to talk about long after finishing.
But, also like Final Fantasy games, it’s heavily unbalanced, with the final boss having four whole phases and requiring you to be an insane level towards the end that normal story progression won’t get you towards. Even with boosters activated, I still got stuck and was required to level up normally, and the game could easily take 50+ hours just to finish properly. I can’t bash the game for this, as there’s a huge audience for it, but it’s not for me. One of the few things I won’t knock this game for is how much of a hardcore RPG it truly is. This is a game you must play exclusively for days or weeks and just grind out, and some people love this. The story is thankfully rewarding enough, and after finishing a tough boss, the satisfaction is exemplary.
Overall, FF8 is a strange game indeed. With an awful or good Junction system that changes everything you know about the game, one thing can’t be denied: it’s too complicated. The game looks fantastic, with amazing pre-rendered scenes, great enemy design, a superb music score, and classic gameplay. For me, there’s just too much that keeps it from being fun outside of the story. I often gave up on this game for years, and even with boosters, the game is still a grindfest. However, if you like those things, then you will love this game. When it comes to the remastered part of the game, it disappoints. The game suffers from the same issues as the Final Fantasy IX Remaster, with updated character models on upscaled original backgrounds. It’s a lazy remaster with only new music and some boosts added. There’s no widescreen support or anything else.
America loves to romanticize the police. Despite the political environment we are in, the only way we can really satisfy our lust for crime and murder mysteries is to put ourselves in the shoes of the police. L.A. Noire is set in an almost historically accurate 1940s Los Angeles, right after WWII ended. You play as war veteran/detective Cole Phelps, solving a drug mystery and many murder mysteries within.
The game starts out like any typical open-world game by slowly introducing gameplay elements to you before opening the world up. You are Cole, a beat cop who is called to a murder scene. You chase down a suspect, investigate some clues in an alley, and you’re so good at what you do that you magically get promoted to traffic detective. L.A. Noire has a few core elements, and it mostly sticks to these throughout the game ad nauseum. The first element is crime-solving. This is done by picking up various objects in an area, examining them, and moving on. This sounds interesting in theory, but 90% of all objects in this game are completely useless and really don’t need to be picked up and examined. There are maybe one or two objects that are puzzle boxes and a couple of documents that require you to tap on certain information. It’s cool the first time you do all of this, but after that, it’s boring and feels pointless. Make the objects I’m holding more interesting, or allow Cole to do more than twirl them around.
The next core element is interrogations, and this implements Team Bondi’s groundbreaking motion capture technology that actually makes facial animations lifelike, but in a creepy, uncanny valley type of way. Sure, you see neck muscles move, eyebrows twitch, and it all looks nice, but on hardware that couldn’t run the engine very well, these realistic life-like faces look odd on low-textured and poly-counted characters. The whole point of an investigation is to use these facial expressions to determine whether someone is lying or telling the truth, and it never works as intended. There is no set thing that the game gives you to look for, and it always becomes a guessing game or a crapshoot. Most of the time, the logic never makes sense based on what the game wants or is hyper-specific. A certain question may seem like selecting Good Cop would be a good idea because that’s what your guts tell you, but instead, you were to accuse the suspect and pick a piece of evidence that you never would have guessed. The interrogations are an awful guessing game, and I never felt engaged like the developers wanted.
The next part of L.A. Noire is about exploring and gunplay. Firefights are mundane and feel pretty lifeless. There is a cover system, and the weapons shoot, but they all feel the same, and there’s no feedback or satisfaction from firing these WWII-era weapons. Each firefight is a whack-a-mole-style shooting gallery of enemies popping their heads above cover. When you’re not shooting, you’re chasing people or driving around. Driving is one of the worst parts of the game as compared to Rockstar’s other offerings; it feels stiff, slow, and lifeless, and I had no fun driving around the city. Sure, Los Angeles looks pretty good with some great landmarks, but having a piece of a fence bring my car to a complete stop is nonsense. I can ram through a fire hydrant, but a wooden fence will stop my car dead in its tracks. The driving is inconsistent, and even car chases are no fun.
There are 40 side missions called “Streets of LA,” but these are just various car chases, shooting galleries, or on-foot chases that repeat and become stale and annoying. Thankfully, there’s a fast travel system that allows your partner to drive to the next destination to skip all the boring driving. I understand this is a realistic game, but Mafia did it much better. There are 95 different cars in the game, but they honestly all drive the same, and it just becomes no fun after the first hour of the game is over. There are other side objectives, like finding hidden badges, all the landmarks, and trophies, but why bother? Anything outside of the story cases is just completely boring and stiff; there’s a layer of polish that’s seriously missing.
Lastly, we come to the story and characters. Nearly every character is completely unlikeable in the sense that they are just plain boring. Cole Phelps is a goodie-two-shoes who can do no wrong and has zero character flaws, which makes him very unlikable. His partners on the four desks you work on are also just as poorly written. I hated them, but not because they were written so well that I wanted to hate them. They were just so average, too, Mary Sue. One partner was just a lazy asshole cop and never budged from that stereotype; another was just corrupt, and the issue is that there was no development. There is no back story to any of these characters, and Phelps’ flashbacks to WWII did nothing to make you care for him, as he acted just as stubborn and perfect as he did as a cop. For the game being a noire, there is zero character build-up or any reason to care. The overarching story doesn’t actually pick up speed until the last few cases, as each and every case drones on and on and is exactly the same as the last, just in different orders. I never once felt interested in or attached to any one case. Give me fewer cases and build up the victims within so I can feel like the boring twists are worthwhile.
And that’s where I conclude with L.A. Noire. It’s just “okay.” Each of the many cases feels rudimentary in the end and mundane, and I felt like I was just checking off boxes (literally) and had no reason to care for the first or last murder case. The driving is painfully stiff and slow, and despite 1940s Los Angeles looking nice, it’s stale and boring with nothing going on inside. You can’t even shop for clothes or buy weapons. It’s just a giant hub to get from point A to point B. Streets of L.A. side missions are just randomized gameplay loops of chasing, shooting, and driving, with neither of the three being particularly interesting in their own right. So, is L.A. Noire worth playing? Sure, it’s a fun game, and some of the cases are decent, and I did want to see what happened to Phelps in the end, but just barely. After getting so far in the game, I felt like I had to finish it, hoping it would pick up in the next case. The game plays and looks great on Switch, but it has performance issues and bugs that require game restarts. The framerate can dip into single digits in certain spots, but it’s still very playable.
The superhero video game renaissance all started with Batman. After the Hollywood superhero films grew up and became an epic universe taking over the entire industry, the video game versions feel a little more nuanced and personable. Rocksteady really hit it off with the Batman: Arkham series, and the game just got better from there. Telltale took the storytelling of superhero comics and turned it into an epic original story.
The Enemy Within follows right after the end of the first game, with Bruce having defeated Lady Arkham, The Penguin, and Catwoman. The Enemy Within feels more epic, has a larger overarching story, and has more villains in place. We get Bane, Riddler, Harley Quinn, The Joker, and Mr. Freeze all wrapped up in one big Batman package. The story from Telltale is one of the most unique and interesting I have seen in the Batman universe to date. It feels tightly knit and has resolution at the end instead of spiraling out of control into a million different spin-offs. Main characters can die, and Batman can even break his own code if you choose.
This game is probably one of the only Telltale adventure games that cuts out all the fat from the choices part of the game. Even the dialogue option has meaning and makes a difference towards the end goal. There are larger moments that can turn the story around and fewer twists and surprises in this game, but the overall story is a slow burn rather than starting and stopping as in the first game. Some episodes are slower-paced, sometimes too slow, and this game really has too few action sequences and mini-games for my taste. I like the story, but some of the cut scenes can be nearly 20 minutes long with very little input. Again, this is another “interactive movie” with very little gameplay outside of some quick-time events and even less puzzle solving.
What we get is an origin story that doesn’t go too far back. We get to see how The Joker became insane and hated Batman, how Harley became a psycho herself, and how the relationship between Batman and Catwoman grows or falls apart depending on how you play. We also get to see how Riddler became the way he did, and one thing I need to point out is that this game feels more like it can happen in today’s world. Less magic and fantasy stuff from the villains. Everything looks and feels like it can be explained somehow in today’s world, which I love. All the villains are just normal humans with a slight scientific twist to them.
I will say we don’t really get a backstory on Bane or Mr. Freeze. Mr. Freeze isn’t used all that much, and Bane is just an annoying bully through the whole thing. We do get a new entity called The Agency, which is an original faction used in the game to counterbalance The Pact (all the villains), and it’s up to you to decide how The Agency is towards Batman. Amanda Waller is a love-or-hate kind of character and mostly one-dimensional, but we get to see Lucius Fox’s daughter Tiffany, and the game eventually plays into the psychological aspect of Joker and Batman’s relationship like the comics do.
At the end of the day, we really feel like we know Batman, Alfred, Joker, and Harley all too well. Telltale did an amazing job of getting you inside their heads and making you really feel like you’re controlling Bruce’s fate and story. While the game is too light on gameplay and a little slow-paced, I couldn’t stop playing as I wanted to see what happened next. I really weighed my choices and felt that at the end, everything from the first game to the end of this one was satisfying and meaningful. This is clearly the best Batman game to play if you want an amazing story.
The Shadows Edition adds some enhanced visuals, better textures, lighting, and a noir style that I played the game in that makes everything black and white except certain colors like red, green, and various accents of the character’s iconic colors. The game’s upgrades look great, and I didn’t run into any bugs like I usually do with Telltale games.
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good