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ggchamo · 4 months

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The 29 Games I beat in 2023

This was a year of a ton of new amazing games, and even though I tried dozens, I missed many new awesome games this year, which will always be part of the fun of gaming.

I tried IGN's Playlist app, which buckets your list of games into different categories that sound helpful - Playing, Beat, Quit, Paused, Wishlist, Backlog.

Because I wanted a lot of games marked as "Beat" - I felt encouraged to play some of those shorter, faster plays - many of the games this year were on How Long To Beat dotcom under 10 hours and came highly recommended

One attitude for me this year was "well, I'm not having fun playing this game in the moment, but let's power through since i'm almost done." - This attitude really helped with the motivation to finish to be honest - getting it done meant it's off the backlog and I can move on to the next set of games in my very curated backlog.

Another theme in the games this year was nostalgia and exploring my childhood, so we had good representation of Pokemon and first-party Nintendo

Besides these games, I tried quite a number of games on Switch, PS5, Xbox Series S, and PC for at least a little session - if I don't hit credits it didn't make it on the list, although don't hold me to that

For ongoing games, I played many hours of Gran Turismo 7, some hours of Valorant (140 hours less than 2022 which was definitely lower than 2021...), and the occasional Overwatch/Fortnite/whatever session with people getting together. 2023 was not the same as 2020's peak of playing with friends on a daily basis, but this year I embraced curating things to my taste

I loved the three games I played with my fiance - Paper Mario, Hi-Fi Rush, and Sackboy. Anytime we share an experience it makes the payoff multiple times better.

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla -

Fuck - I really wanted to beat this one, so it was satisfying to get this one ticked off my list. They wanted to design something hard and worth the challenge and time investment, and I think they did it. I consistently was making progress until the last thing was to beat the final boss, and once I watched a youtube video and tried a different strategy, it opened up. Experience was cool - God of War has a great set of combat features, one of the very best combat systems outside of the god-tier Dark Souls team.

Pokemon Black 2 -

Buying an Analogue Pocket triggered this exploration into my childhood, and part of that was getting into collecting the Pokemon games I missed and revisiting them. I found a copy of this game slightly discounted from it's $160 avg price on eBay and was worried about getting a fake but was relieved it was authentic. So how was this game, not just as a hype item but as an experience?

It was worth the effort. It had a ton of cool pokemon (although needed more water pokemon in my opinion) and it actually was tough to beat - I ended up losing once or twice and had some dicey gym battles earlier on, but I thought the game was an interesting chapter in the pokemon games. It was very story focused and wanted to build some lore and some characters, not just create a million new cool pokemon. Gen V was a big blin spot for me so it was cool to spend some time back in these games after beating Pokemon Black for the second time in the past few years in the pandemic era.

Rollerdrome -

I found the game very tough near the last three levels (it was just overtuned for a casual guy like me and got crazy) but I found it very unique and aesthetically very iconic. These devs took some of the muscle memory from Tony Hawk games and added that famous "bullet time" mechanic as another way to pace everything. It's a great combo - I can even imagine a game where the shooting has to go with the beat. I am happy they had assists so I could avoid hitting my head against the wall for 20 hours.

Super Mario Wonder -

Another GOTY quality game, in a year where we had a new Mario and Zelda come out in a sea of sequels and really well-done indies. I'm not done with this game yet. I hit credits, but there is more to play here in the future. This game is exactly my vibe - and we got to see the demo in person in Seattle which was fun!

Jusant -

Short and sweet with very fun unique climbing gameplay that I enjoyed playing through. It was straightforward and interesting, and I enjoyed that quality many Indies have where it had a huge imagination that transcends their budget and tech restrictions. I felt like that team did a great job and I kept thinking I want to see more games like Jusant, taking the concepts further.

Pokemon Crystal Version -

I was in the mood for classic pokemon with tons of moments of nostalgia and feeling memories from back during childhood - and Pokemon always delivers, I need Pokemon games in my life. I was proud to finish the game after transferring the file to a new 2DS XL and regretting my choice of Totodile as my starter 30 hours in. I had fun and this game is timeless - I will play it again and it will feel like the first time I played it again because that's what these games do. They always feel new because in the world of Pokemon, there is always more to learn.

Spider-Man 2 -

Consistently fun and with very rewarding platinum trophy that wasn't that hard to finish - I found the experience of playing this game rewarding, familiar and very polished, and the game did not overstay it's welcome with bad gameplay. Not too different from the first games besides some very cool new features and types of scenarios with the same core gameplay as Miles Morales and Spider-Man 1.

Forza Motorsport -

In a head-to-head comparison between this and GT7, GT7 has greater replay-ability and tricks the mind into feeling like you're in a simulation. But Motorsport is maybe the better designed game - since it took some driver activities and made them gaming features. But in execution, they don't make a material impact on the experience and don't add much immersion since the driver levels have no impact on gameplay. I enjoyed the larger assortment of cars and the tons of races to play - but I didn't see the same love in the courses, which are really the core gameplay "levels." So I feel like I'm saying that this very expensive and detailed gameplay was lacking levels, which seems like a weird place to be for a game. So lots of complex feelings after playing for over 40-50 hours - I definitely will play this again.

Super Mario World (GBA) -

Someone set me up with GBA online and this was the first game I played - very cool experience playing through my first game in one or two sittings on a big screen with my adult brain and skills without my child limitations.

The Last of Us Part 1 -

In the first few weeks of October, I was having a great time revisiting a game that I played a few years before the pandemic (may have just been 2018/2019....) and also was watching the HBO show at the same time. It still is an awesome experience and still touches those same great heights because the game has that iconic aggression and unique feeling that you feel from what it asks you to do and what it puts you through. No other game feels Last of Us games, and they're on a different league of their own.

Cocoon -

Weird game. The sound design and the visual aesthetic stuck out as iconic to this game, with the gameplay being just multi-faceted enough to encourage me to try to learn new things - I think there was almost one point where I had to look something up but I sat down and tried my best and was able to move forward. I felt very smart and impressed myself.

Venba -

Awesome game and only one or two sessions long - it told a story and it made me think. I liked how the recipes felt like puzzles which is what cooking feels like!

Lego 2K Drive -

In late September, needed something quick and fun to play before Super Mario Wonder/Forza Motorsport/Spiderman 2 slapped me in the face - this was very rewarding and was very satisfying to look at and play - deep enough that it was fun but still very easy to pick up and play with all the different type of cars. One or two kind of down moments definitely didn't weigh down my opinion of the experience as a whole, although it's nice that it's free for PS Plus people 2 months after I bought it for $70.

Paper Mario: The Origami King -

My fiance beat this before and agreed to watch me play and Sherpa me through the experience. It was pretty awesome, although the base gameplay is a bit of an acquired taste...not too long but still took some time investment to finish all of the worlds and once or twice lose a multi-turn boss fight due to some unfortunate misclicks.

Osu! 2 on DS -

Beating this was a spur of the moment and only took a few sessions, but I wanted to play through the "new" Osu game (although now the series over a decade old) for a long time and finally grabbed it off my brother. Iconic songs and I had a lot of fun - and I think I've gotten better mentally at rhythm games after more experience gaming and playing music in general. I was able to power through and beat it on normal without too much.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits -

Has been on my list for a while. I have no clue how. LOL like it may have been one of those rare PS4 games that got a nice PS5 upgrade in 2021 or maybe there was a good review that I saw. I think the game felt... unfair near the end. I ended up turning the difficulty down near the end and finalizing some of the later levels on my iPhone through remote play. Like I changed it to the story mode difficulty and just played through - not a great sign. It had amazing animation and just absolutely killer graphics, but maybe it was too much like God of War or Horizon Zero Dawn? I didn't come away like I gotta recommend this one to everyone, and looking back I liked that the game was short so I thought let's power through, which was a theme this year. I think I turned the difficulty down when I played on my phone just to give myself a better chance of pounding through the levels. Very beautiful though

Pikmin 4 -

dawg - my first Pikmin game. Absolutely fire, I enjoyed trying something new and I didn't find it frustrating or limiting at all, and I think I would play more of the post-game with the new planets and fill everything out in the future.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom -

Iconic and honestly this is the type of game that is on a different plane. Worth the 80-100 hours I put in to my first playthrough - an experience for the type of person that plays video games in the action adventure category, but it's good enough that it transcends genre and expectations. The game was as big as my imagination and I had some iconic moments in the game, like sequence skipping and also enjoying and exploring areas slowly and intentionally. It's worth playing again now that I think about it - just to do the depths again now with the experience of doing it the first time.

Pokemon X -

Set in a Pokemonized France and I played most of this game during breaks in my awesome French vacation this summer. Playing this game has connected me to my childhood, so I had a great time in my 30 hours. This would be worth multiple playthroughs - this was really the first game that I missed in the Pokemon series.

Playing this has been part of my recent 3DS exploration, where I am now trying to play the games I missed during high school and college times, because I was so busy to really play any games, especially not Pokemon. Finishing this game and seeing some of the subtle new changes they did after the Gen V era didn't fully register as these games were refined over decades, but I'm starting to make the connection between the recent games and the games from my childhood.

Pizza Tower -

this game was pure adrenaline. Holy crap. The polygon review got me onto this and I love 2D platformers, but the very unique and original presentation is what got me stuck to it. It was tough at times and also that fun type of creepy with the badly drawn kinda weird characters. I had fun, and I felt that was the game with

Sackboy: A Big Adventure -

Awesome game to finish with the fiance. It was a bit generic, not grounded on a specific character or point of view or set of values besides friendship and light vs. dark. but the multiplayer gameplay was what I was there for, and it delivered. It was a very fun experience playing the game with my partner and I always appreciate games that bring everyone in, not just a specific persona designed by capitalist-fueled marketing machines.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War -

Speaking of capitalist-fueled... I can't remember that many memorable moments but that is the point. the graphics looked amazing and I was happy to play game that didn't take a million hours to roll credits at. Another one that probably was padding for the list. LOL.

Tinykin -

this was another short one, and another one like Gears on Xbox. It was the first Pikim-type game I've played. Very original and once it got going it was fun to go through it. every now and then confusing but it was easy to knock out. I enjoyed the platforming and found it forgiving but not so easy it was boring. It felt tight.

Gears 5: Hivebusters -

Never found the Gears games rewarding enough to finish. Sometimes they felt too convoluted and I didn't feel comfortable. The reason we finished this one - it was short. LOL. it was enough though - felt like a proper experience and I actually enjoyed it. It's just not smooth enough for me to want to play another 60 hours, maybe one ady.

Stray -

a bit buggy, a bit sparse, but I was happy because it was short and sweet. Very creative and had great characters - but I couldn't tell you what their names were. I think it brought a unique experience with the cat features to very well trodden ground and the 3D platforming/exploration gameplay was refined but not as rock solid as the Nintendo types.

Hi-Fi Rush -

playing this game in January 2023 was a cool experience shared with my fiance and the game was incredibly unique and so so so cool. It was pure ecstasy when my girl beat the final boss after losing like 60 times. Hours of pain. When she finally beat it, it felt historic. What an icon!

Pokemon Violet -

yeah performance was ass but playing the new games, they are the best Pokemon games ever by definition. They always raise the bar and it's hard to appreciate until years later.

Metroid Prime Remastered -

I finally beat it like 10-13 years later, this was so action packed and familiar, guides really helped in moments.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury -

Short extra mode was a good time - so it was cool to start with a mario game this year. I remember it being not incredibly difficult but have forgotten some details since January it seems.

#2023 games #goty 2023 #game of the year

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ggchamo · 5 months

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Bro my collection…….

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ggchamo · 2 years

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Had this 5head moment playing KJ on Pearl - love the sound of an Ace with the Neptune Vandal :)

#killjoy #valorant #valorant clips #ace

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ggchamo · 2 years

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Review of Wilmot's Warehouse

Wilmot’s Warehouse is a relaxed game about being the sole employee in a massive warehouse. You organize up to 200 different items/square in said warehouse into whatever makes the most sense to you. The game orders you to pull from anything you have stored, which is where the memory element comes into play — it was a brilliant distraction from all the hardcore shooters that I played this year. After playing The Last of Us Part II, it was exactly what I needed when I played it this summer — a rat-brain game that supplied tons of dopamine while lightly massaging my brain to remember where things were stored.

I highly recommend this game for anybody — it requires a little commitment to organize and remember where everything is so it’s not immediately “pick up and play”, but it really was a special experience due to its laid back nature and very clean and satisfying aesthetic. I joked to some buddies that this would be my GOTY 2020, and here it is — a refreshing little game that is a must play!

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ggchamo · 2 years

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Hades Review

Undisputed king shit. At one point, after losing to the final boss so many times I just wrote in my journal “I am so close, what a rush. I NEED TO WIN.”

This game’s premise is that you play as Zagreus, a sexy son of a God (lol) that needs to escape Hell and your overbearing papi Hades. The story evolves and grows into a massive Greek myth epic, whose details are still being revealed even after I did over 90 runs. I know this game got its hooks in me once I started learning the mechanics and combat and realizing that the game was continuing to award my gameplay with even more story, and more things to do/unlock, and more “loot”/weapons/trinkets to chase — it really has everything. It’s a modern classic that is built like a service game with a massive amount of content after being in early access for two years.

The final boss fight is nerve-wracking the first few times, because the whole premise of a roguelike is to beat the final boss. Yet, the game requires you to do this multiple times, so you’ll see new dialogue options every single time you go. There was a moment where I was very nervous before the fight that I took a deep breath, and then I saw that the player character, Zagreus did the same. That moment was so carefully orchestrated - the designers really thought about how the player would feel in that moment. It was amazing, and just one of many of those moments I felt while playing the game, like the game really cared about me as a player. Highly recommended, even if you think roguelikes are not for you — this game changed my mind.

#hades supergiant #hades

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ggchamo · 2 years

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Thoughts and Reflections on Overwatch (2016)

The pandemic hit the world, and I REALLY got into Overwatch a 6v6 team-based character shooter. I don’t even know how to describe it succinctly - through grit and grinding, I became a part of the Overwatch community, a monolith that is now almost 5 years old. Coming into this community late came with some big frustrations — a key one being comparing myself to others in the community. Because the game’s skill ceiling is so high and the community is so focused on “getting good” and playing well, I struggled to fit in first starting out as a trash player.

I thought I wasn’t any good and would apologize for making mistakes even though it’s impossible to not make mistakes in this game — there are over 30 characters that all play very differently and the game is extremely deep. I didn’t feel like I really was adding anything to my team, mostly worried about not making mistakes and providing some value.

Yet, I appreciated the depth of the game and had a ton of fun with the game when I got my sea legs and stopped caring about wins and losses. With all my free time, I joined the Overwatch subreddit, and got into Overwatch Twitch streamers (yeatle, harbleu, jake_ow, FRAN, just to name a few) and I really enjoyed and followed closely the esport by watching Overwatch League. Yet, the insecurities caught up with me during the darkest time this year — when I was trying to get a gold gun.

Long story short, getting a gold gun is a massive grind that requires winning over 130 “Competitive” games. People in the community either grind for the guns or wait until they naturally get enough points by playing a few games of competitive over a few years. As someone who was new to the community, I assigned so much value to having a gold gun. This is where the pain began, lol. My win rate for competitive is south of 50%, because the game is fucking 5 years old and even someone like me who plays a bunch, I’m still fucking trash compared to the people in my lobbies.

Grinding for the gun all in one go wasn’t a mistake in retrospect, but it was a massive effort that forced me to learn some hard lessons about finding joy in accomplishments would be down on myself when losing, even my relationships with friends were strained when playing together and having long losing streaks, even the game chat proved to be toxic given how ugly unfiltered conversation during a team-based shooter can get.

As soon as I got the gold gun finally, I achieved clarity — that wasn’t fun and I don’t want to play it anymore. I put the game down and haven’t really found much reason to pick it up again. The game is pretty dead because Overwatch 2: The Squeakquel comes out in a few months. But I will remember that this was the year that I played a ton of the game and really became part of a community.

#overwatch #overwatch 2

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ggchamo · 2 years

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Review of the Uncharted Series: Uncharted Collection and Lost Legacy (2015, PS4)

I was so hyped for Last of Us Part II, that I played through every Uncharted game this year in preparation, given that they were the first games by Naughty Dog, one of the most respected and well known video game developers due to their games’ movie ambitions and life-like graphics. I had initially played Uncharted 4 last year as one of the first games on my new PS4, so I bought the Uncharted Collection and kept it on the backburner for quite a few months.

The excitement to learn about Naughty Dog’s development style and practices gave me the drive to finally play through the (very similar) first three games that can be found in the Uncharted Collection. I also played through the short but sweet Uncharted Lost Legacy, which had side character Chloe as the protagonist and blew me away with what Naughty Dog could fit into a 6 hour game (we need more games like this.)

My main takeaway on the Uncharted Collection is that these games have affected all of game design and AAA development. It seems like every game that I’ve played is trying to be as cinematic and as tightly-designed as what Naughty Dog produces (Gears of War 5 and Jedi Fallen Order come as examples of games that were heavily inspired by the Naughty Dog formula), so playing the first few Uncharted games made for a great experience in seeing what the original blueprint was before the continued iterations.

Yet, the dated gunplay (the first Uncharted came out on PS3 13 years ago) holds back these games from being timeless classics, their treatment of female characters has not aged well (also really wasn’t good then either), and their set pieces have now been obviously outclassed by the PS4’s Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. But as someone who missed out on these during their PS3 heyday, it was awesome going back in time to prepare for Naughty Dog’s latest and greatest, Last of Us Part II.

#uncharted #naughty dog #uncharted drake's fortune #uncharted 2 among thieves #nathan drake

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ggchamo · 2 years

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Review of Animal Crossing: New Horizons (switch)

Not a surprise it's awesome — the game was a smash success, coming out very early in the pandemic in mid-March. I cannot overstate this, this video game was my life from April until July 2020. It affected almost every one of my digital relationships and it even led to reconnecting with old friends and family, something that was sorely missing during this pandemic and life in quarantine.

In short, you live on an island and can pay off your mortgage for your home. It’s got fashion, home design, flowers, crafting, relationships, exploration, looting, absolutely everything you would want in a game.

I can’t even describe the gameplay without taking into account that I shared my island with my girlfriend (who at this point we were only living together physically for about 6 months). We struggled in the beginning — stepping on each other’s toes making decisions on the island, bringing in villagers became a discussion on whether we liked them, and even decided who was going to play the switch when was another thing to take into account.

The conceit was splitting the island in half, which eventually turned into splitting the island up into 75% her and 25% me. After we got the highest accomplishment of having a 5-star island after a collective 300 hours in the game, I fell off hard. My gf persisted, and eventually my area became more closed off and fenced in as she kept expanding and bringing in new villagers.

When I came back, I saw my house filled with cockroaches, overgrown flowers, and half-finished projects, as well as some new villagers that I didn’t recognize. Yet when I look back, I have so many fond memories of discovery, accomplishment, and a feeling of being a part of a community at a time when we were forced to be home away from friends and family. This game is tremendous and was a huge part of my life for that period of time — I’ll never forget the island of Wickerr!

#animal crossing #new horizons

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ggchamo · 2 years

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Review of Last of Us Part II (PS4)

So many thoughts about this game, but let me start with I would not recommend this if you haven’t played the first one, Last of Us (Remastered). Play the first one and see if you like it and then pick this one up. It builds from the characters and story from the first one to make a full-fledged sequel (and then some) and also builds on the initial one’s gameplay to create a very detailed and lush game world.

So my high-level thoughts are that this game is a chore. It requires so much effort, commitment, and grit to get through its depressing, hard-to-swallow, and tremendously long 36 hour single player campaign. But no other game’s story this year has impacted me more, especially how Naughty Dog has perfected bringing you as the player directly into the cutscenes and the story. It was a chore because I as a player was forced to play through some of the hardest moments in the story, commit brutal murders and do things that I disagreed with as an audience member. This dynamic has rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way given how the game handles violence as both a theme in the story and as the main mechanic in the game. Overall, I think it was amazing and has a story that only can be told and experienced through video games as a medium (let’s ignore the just-announced HBO show for a second, lol).

For me as a fan of the first game that had intense hype for this, I am left accepting the direction that they took the second game and what happened, even though it was disappointing that it didn’t reach the heights of the first game. What it did instead was flesh out the world and the gameplay even more so to really solidify this type of game as its own genre.

Now here’s a hot take — I don’t know if we need a Last of Us Part III. After playing this massive game I’m left wondering — what is there left to say about this story and this world now that they’ve gone and expanded it over three playable characters with different movesets, guns, motives, styles, etc.? There is space to reboot and move the theme to something else, take the gameplay systems that they’ve created and go to a net new story with a different focus.

Overall, this game really is up there in terms of some of the best storytelling, even when it’s a horrible story to tell. I think after playing this, I can stomach almost anything.

#last of us #the last of us part ii #the last of us #tlou #tlou part 2

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ggchamo · 2 years

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How I learned to love Mess: my Kingdom Hearts III review

These past few weeks, I’ve learned that sometimes you have to love what a piece of art is trying to do, and love the spirit behind it. Can intention and spirit be more important than execution? Kingdom Hearts III taught me to stop caring and embrace the mess. I think what’s important to define about mess is that it feels like it needs to be organized or in some way fixed. Whether it be Marie Kondo giving you the tools to organize your life, or in how many people video games, movies, and TV as pieces of content that could be improved through criticism and feedback. I’ve been in that world a lot, trying to organize my own life through self-help videos and also learning how to give and receive criticism at work and other spaces. While well-meaning, I’ve learned that it can potentially make it hard to enjoy certain things.

To say that there was hype for Kingdom Hearts III for me, would be oversimplifying the unique experience of being a young video game nerd that has always done more watching than playing. When the original Kingdom Hearts games out in the early aughts, I didn’t have the resources to play the big fancy 3D console games, but I did have Disney Adventures.

My young old self picked up the February 2004 copy of Disney Adventures in the Walmart checkout and was whisked away to the fantasy of having a PS2. Kingdom Hearts was my GOAT game - a large scale adventure game set in all my favorite Disney movies. As a young immigrant, all I knew of American pop culture was cartoons and Disney movies.

Cartoons were everything to me when no one else at school could understand me - I even learned English by watching SpongeBob and Disney Channel. Kingdom Hearts was the epitome of what I was into back then, and I was obsessed. There were no prospects for me getting a PS2, that shit cost like $300 and no way my parents were gonna go for that. So I fantasized, read reviews online and watched people play video games like that for most of my young childhood. Over 10 years later, privilege has gifted me the opportunity to buy the sequel 10 years in the making, Kingdom Hearts III.

So if you don’t know what Kingdom Hearts is, the only way I can describe it is a multi-layered and complex universe in which somehow there are some fantasy characters who go to Disney worlds. Knowing nothing, I tried (with absolutely no success) to prepare by watching one or two summary videos on the complex, multi-tiered, Disney universes that the 13 different games had created. Of course, they made no sense so I ignored that shit and booted the game up on Day One.

So after five hours, I made the unconscious decision to move on to something else. 5 months later, I gave the game a second chance and played almost 30 hours in two weeks. What changed? I started loving mess.

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Playing the game for the first time:

The game is drop-dead gorgeous - it starts with this beautiful opening cinematic featuring these perfectly animated extremely-good lucking Anime bois playing chess (okay…..) and has some of the stylish menus I’ve ever seen. This is when the mess started - I start a save new file and then watch a cutscene for about 20 mins. Dope, I am ready. I then take control of Sora, who controls like a gun on a scooter, and am given a text pop up with details on mechanics without context. Sweet.

Then, I am then thrust into another 20 minutes of exposition on the complicated lore of the game through referencing characters outside of the scene, as well as recapping things that just happened. Alright.

After about an hour of exposition and set up, I can choose to go to one the most iconic Disney worlds ever - Toy Story! OKAY. - the 10 year old me is screaming.

As soon as it starts, I am shocked to see that the gorgeous level is mostly empty and very confusing to navigate. I decide to take a break because something felt wrong. I come back and the confusion kept coming “Where do I need to go? Why did they just interrupt me mid-fight for a long cutscene?” After another 3 hours, one of which was getting lost in the Tangled world’s lifeless green world, I put the game down for four months.

I left with a bad taste in my mouth, and perhaps even worse - a super forgettable experience! I had so much to complain about: incoherent cut scenes, uninspired and confusing level layouts, and literally dozens of half-baked mechanics that felt like boring when compared to the much more flashy and exciting combat.

Flash forward 4 months. After watching Season 8 of Game of Thrones, a rushed and disorganized end to what I used to consider the perfect TV show, I started to understand that sometimes you have to let go of expectations.

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After my realization:

Once I turned my critical brain off and started enjoying the animations, the story, and the environment, I found myself looking past the game’s obvious flaws, learning to love the intention and spirit as opposed to only focusing on what could be improved. Controlling the main character is a guessing game as to where the game’s camera will go and where my hits will land, and enemies (specially big bosses) sometimes teleport around and reappear behind you, which makes fights feel like DBZ-esque fights that feel like the tides could turn at any moment. While annoying from a gameplay perspective, the fights look like gorgeous chaos, with complicated animations and flashy graphics.

Of course, I have some legit criticisms that can’t be wished away by being nicer to the game - levels are boringly linear and sometimes have unclear objectives. Oftentimes, the worlds feel empty and "samey" throughout, which makes the game feel like a relic of the past but with today’s technology - a PS2 game made for the late PS4 generation.

There are some forced elements in the game that seem frustrating and out of place for today - i’m thinking about the gummi ship, the linear levels that look so fucking samey (Arendelle and Corona worlds) and the aspects of getting control of Sora for a moment and then all of a sudden being in another cut scene. But the game has so much charm, polish, and heart - it’s almost as tho they forgot to check if the game all worked together before shipping it.

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Overall, this game might be the best example of a super polished game that had so much effort and love put it into it and still came out like a mess. It's almost as tho two different teams made the game and they forgot to talk until the last moment, when it was way too late to make any significant changes. Looking through the credits, I saw that they had separate directors for Story, Presentation, Combat, Levels and so on… but playing the game felt as though all these directors never really sat together when developing the game. The lack of cohesion made a game that was much greater than the sum of its parts, where focusing on any individual part of the game e.g. graphics, gameplay, music, is not particularly engaging, but as a whole it makes a game that really resonated with me and tugged at my heart strings.

#kingdom hearts iii #khiii #kh3 #sora kingdom hearts

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ggchamo · 2 years

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Link's Awakening Impressions

Link’s Awakening is a 2019 Switch remake of a 1993 Gameboy Color game of the same name. Most reviewers of the game played the original, and much of the discourse online was from the perspective of longtime Legend of Zelda fans and those who know the game well.

I have not played any 2D Legend of Zelda 2D games before, with my first Zelda game being Skyward Sword on the Wii and my most recent experience was the fantastic Breath of the Wild on Switch. I’ve no nostalgia for this or any other 2D Zeldas - they are brand new to me! Which made jumping into this one that much more exciting.

The biggest compliment I can give the game has been that it’s opened my mind to the genre, and made me curious of all the 2D Zelda games I’ve been missing. In about 15-20 hours, you explore ever-more complicated dungeons while picking up tools and abilities along the way.

The gameplay loop consists of:

being introduced or pointed to a new area

finding what is stopping you from exploring further (i.e., either you find a gap too big to jump from, a rock that is impossible to move, or water that immediately makes you drown)

Even though I had seen some of these abilities, tools, and roadblocks in some of the 3D Zelda games before, I found the loop addicting and the act of finding a new tool exhilarating. Once I found an item that allowed me to swim, my mind immediately went to all the water that I had passed during my adventure before that dungeon - if I went back and went through everything with a fine tooth comb, would there be a new area to explore or new secrets to find?

Speaking of the dungeons, I found them to be robust and challenging, asking me to remember details about the large labyrinth while figuring out it’s puzzles. Dungeons are usually composed of:

micro puzzles (puzzles that involve figuring something out in a room)

macro puzzles (bringing learnings/items from one room to the other e.g. unlocking closed doors)

While early dungeons are pretty straight forward, one of the later dungeons was composed of four different floors with distinct layouts and puzzles, sometimes navigating through floors without stairs and through magic. Oftentimes, subtleties in the dungeon’s layout or the use of a tool where the main crux of my challenges, which is where my inexperience showed during my playthrough.

Both in navigating the open world and in some dungeons, the loop of looking for an item/tool that will enable you to move was sometimes broken or unraveled by the game’s lack of instructions on how to move forward or the subtle nuances.

Outside of dungeons, the path forward is found either through optional dialogue with NPCs or clues given by beating bosses. More than once, I found myself going to the first spot that I thought of, find an obstacle, and then mess around and go through the map in detail. I would eventually give up and look at a guide, which showed that I needed an item somewhere completely different in the map!

Thankfully these moments were few and far between, but I found myself really needing instructions to get through some dungeons. That being said, I think that part of the fun for a lot of people in playing Zelda games is using guides to find secrets. I have to assume that the reason my playthrough took almost twice as long as reviewers online was for this reason.

The game’s open-world reminds me of a series that introduced me to video games: Pokemon. The different areas of the game have small differing factors such as a different elevation (shown through climbing up stairs and subtle 3D background changes), changing climate (going from a mild/neutral climate to dessert), or the iconic dungeons in Zelda. One thing that I appreciate was how comprehensively detailed the map was (which I frequently referenced and could add markers to), which coupled with the amount of exploration that the game requires, enabled me to have a firm grasp on the world.

Overall - Recommend, but only if you are itching to play some Zelda. Deaths' Door and Tunic are some examples of more recent games that innovate and built from the Zelda template.

#link's awakening #switch #the legend of zelda #zelda

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