Stardew Valley (2016) by ConcernedApe

Stardew Valley is a towering achievement not in so much that it's a really fun game (spoiler: it is), but that it was made by just one person. And not only it that it was made by one person, but that every single aspect of the game was so expertly crafted.

The game looks and sounds beautiful, and from what I understand Eric Barone crafted both the art and the music himself. By itself, that's impressive. Then you consider that he programmed the entire game, balanced everything, wrote the characters and dialogue, and filled out this world head-to-toe with fun, satisfying, and interesting activities. If you have any interest in games as a medium beyond just playing and enjoying them, Barone's story is mindboggling.

There are numerous small examples of Barone's craft that make themselves known beyond what normal games of this type display. For example, the way people will allow you to pass them with a small shake if you press into them enough, or the sound effects that play when navigating the menus. These might seem trivial, but they're indicative of the quality of experience here. There is so much polish and character to every aspect of this game, and all of it adds up to make Stardew Valley a masterful experience.

Another example of this depth of quality are the character interactions. I'm a sucker for good character writing. In Stardew, each character that populates the town is expertly written, with deep character backstories that surprised me. Even the characters I initially disliked proved to have more going on underneath the surface. I went into Stardew expecting a pretty straightforward indie farm management experience and I got so much more.

Each pursuit is gratifying as well. I initially hated fishing, but soon grew to enjoy it once I gained basic acumen. Mine-diving and battling monsters provided a satisfying progression as well. And, of course, farming and building your home and land up from being overgrown to being a palace is not only incredibly satisfying but works exceptionally for what you'd expect. I put down Fallout 4 because its settlement system was so awful, Stardew Valley's--although it admittedly has much less going on--Is an absolute dream by comparison. And tying this altogether is the Community Center system, which requires you to plug in specific types of "loot" for various rewards. It's what finally got me addicted to Stardew, staying up way too late trying to catch that elusive catfish, or reading the wiki while at work so I could find out how to get specific Artisan goods.

If what you've seen of Stardew Valley has interested you in even the least, you should probably just give it a shot. I thought I knew what it was, but it proved far deeper and more polished than I ever expected a game made by one person could be. And if you liked its spiritual ancestor Harvest Moon, then you owe it to yourself to play this game. It's a phenomenal example of the power of a singular vision when creating art, and another example of the flourishing indie scene that's developed in gaming over the past decade or so.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fallout (1997) by Interplay

I just recently wrapped up playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey. In general, I liked it a lot, but couldn't help being greatly disappointed by its story and writing at nearly every turn. An otherwise great game is consistently marred by wooden dialogue, shallow characters, contrived plotting, and--perhaps most importantly--the illusion of choice.

After completing Odyssey I found myself wanting a quality writing experience to cleanse myself of some of the pitfalls of the game. I've already played and replayed the Mass Effect series and the Witcher series ad nauseam, so I decided to jump into a genre of game I have only marginal experience in: The classic cRPG.

I already own (but had yet to play) both Baldur's Gates and each of the first three Fallouts (1, 2, and Tactics), so I decided to start at the earliest release of the bunch: Fallout.

I fully prepared myself for a dated experience, as many of the game's fans caution that it has aged extremely poorly. And that is certainly true. The interface is obtuse and nearly unusable if you don't have the patience to constantly grapple with it. The graphics are obviously as dated as one would expect from a game from 1997. Friendly AI and the combat system, which resembles more a tactical RPG than what I expected from a classic cRPG, are all a far cry from modern gaming. That isn't to say that combat isn't fun at times, but it is quite shallow. I was surprised to see that the recent Shadowrun revival games seemed to draw strong influence from Fallout, though those games are quite a bit deeper than this one is.

Despite these negatives and the wear of age, Fallout is also unexpectedly modern--And even better than a lot of modern games--in other ways. The character building (which you'll be familiar with if you've played Fallout 3 or New Vegas) is superb, featuring deep perks and skills that allow you to affect the world in great ways. It reminded how solid the character building in the more recent Fallout 3 and New Vegas were, and how disappointed I was with the stripped-down system in Fallout 4. The roleplaying is also excellent, providing for different dialogue options that you aren't even aware of until you play the game with a different character build. Following this are the meaningful choices you're given throughout the game, something that even modern game writers are still struggling with implementing. I was shocked to see how refined and modern the roleplaying aspects of this game were, considering how badly its other aspects had aged, and after playing Fallout I was convinced that its fans are not just clouded by nostalgia, or living in the past, but completely correct that some of these cRPGs are truly the high-water mark of roleplaying video games. Fallout has left me excited for what's to come. I'll be playing its sequel, Fallout 2, in addition to Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II, and Planescape: Torment. I'll try and write reviews for each game.

In conclusion, the original Fallout makes it clear just how far video games have come as a medium. They're a far more polished experience, way more user-friendly, with most having easier-to-use combat that requires less imagination to become immersed, with flashier visuals, and far better user interfaces. However playing through this game has also highlighted how much games have not changed from the late '90s, and how much work they have to go to reach the writing quality of television or feature film. There are many games released only in the past five years whose writing doesn't even come close to the quality of Fallout's in terms of dialogue and/or plotting--Even other RPGs are seldom this credible in these aspects--a great example being BioWare's most recent Mass Effect Andromeda, which, although made by a company with a history of classic, great RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, suffered from the same poor characterization, contrived plotting, poor character building, and awful dialogue that I lambasted Assassin's Creed Odyssey--a game made by an action/open world studio--for having.

RPGs seldom feature this kind of quality writing and worldbuilding, so I'd recommend this to anyone reading if you have a strong interest in roleplaying games. It's a worthwhile roleplaying experience, with solid plotting and great character building. However if you have trouble playing dated games and have found in the past that you can't get into them, then this game will certainly not be your bread-and-butter, as its UI is obtuse, its combat AI is abysmal, and its visuals are greatly dated.

⭐⭐⭐

Final Fantasy VIII (1999) by Square

I'm a huge fan of the Final Fantasies of the SNES and PS1 era. I've put hundreds of hours into the western games of this era and I consider myself a qualified opinion on the quality of each.

I've replayed all of these in the past few years, and though dated, they all still represent a high-quality experience that's worth exploring even now, decades after the original releases. All of them, that is, except Final Fantasy VIII. The things that make these games so great; the quality of their writing and exploration of serious themes, the beautifully rendered (though aged) backgrounds, the excellent soundtracks, and the quality JRPG gameplay, are all noticeably lesser in Final Fantasy VIII than in its brethren.

An accurate depiction of what it's like to try and make sense of
Final Fantasy VIII's convoluted, lugubrious plot

VIII is plagued by a tedious, grind-heavy draw system that grates on the nerves from minute one and cannot be avoided in order to progress through the game. The junction system could have been, but its reliance on this tedious draw system to be effective kills whatever potential it has. From the second you're given control of your characters, you are expected to spend several hours out of the initial town, continuously drawing spells from enemies with which to junction to your stats. It's a mind-bogglingly bad design decision, and it's going to immediately kill the drive of most folks who are dipping into this game for historical purposes.

Another negative is puzzlingly awful plot writing. There are several instances of enormous plot-holes that smack of being rushed. Seifer attacks President Deling at the Broadcast Station in Timber, and is whisked away by the sorceress. Deling, presumably, escapes. Our heroes were also there, and were culpable, but are somehow allowed to walk straight out the front door. But why? And where are all of Deling's guards? It's established that he was very well-protected in Timber before this, so how can we just walk in and out of the broadcast area without being stopped, or anything? There are no fights in this section, no guards at all. And even more puzzling, almost all of this happens off-screen. There is also a moment later that I won't reveal because it's a massive spoiler, but basically: There's a large reveal, which is nearly impossible for none of the characters to have known about. This is explained away to us as the characters believing they all have shared memory loss. I'm not joking -- It's actually that bad.

There are many instances in the story that make no sense whatsoever. It feels like there are huge portions of the game's story that were ripped out, or unfinished. My uneducated assumption is that the team had little time to finish these segments and were rushed to complete the game to capitalize on the massive success that was Final Fantasy VII, but that's just my guess. Either way, these Final Fantasies live and die on their writing, and this is an aspect in which Final Fantasy VIII fails miserably.

Triple Triad, the card game present, is at first intriguing, but also plagued by the same sort of tedious, logistical nonsense that the junction and draw systems suffer from. Certain regions in the game have completely idiotic rulesets, and these are only changeable through a massive pain-in-the-ass of traveling to different regions and succumbing to whatever the RNG gods tell you.

The Steam port is also pretty awful. Controller support is a must with these games, as several minigames rely on on-screen button displays showing the original PlayStation symbols. This is something completely lost in translation with this Steam version, which stupidly uses S, X, C, and V in place of the controller's face buttons. These is extremely clunky, and it makes the train mission when you first arrive in Timber (when you have to input codes of numbers aligning to these face buttons) almost impossible. It's completely broken on Steam if you're using a controller -- Literally. The display is actually incorrect on the screen. I had to break out a pen and paper and write which buttons went with which, and after failing several times, switched to the keyboard to accomplish the mission instead. It's an absolute mess.

I've put several hundred hours into all of Square's recent rereleases from this era on Steam. I've got nearly 100 in Chrono Trigger, more than 100 in Final Fantasies VI, VII, and IX. And I've got nearly 150 in Final Fantasy X. If Square ever releases Steam ports for Final Fantasy Tactics and Xenogears, I'll probably put 100 into those, too.

It's noticeable, then, that Final Fantasy VIII has seen only 30 hours of play from me. And that's over two playthroughs. I replay the other games once every few years and still love them to this day; 20+ years after playing them for the first time. However, I haven't replayed Final Fantasy VIII since probably 1999 or 2000, and I've tried to replay it twice in the past few years since the Steam port released. I can never get much further than Galbadia Garden. Last time, it was the relentless amount of drawing I was subjecting myself to. "Why am I doing this? It isn't fun," I said to myself before putting the game down. That was a few years ago. This time it was traveling back and forth between Timber and Dollet and attempting to change the Random rule out of Triple Triad in Dollet. This was taking me hours, before I finally just put the game down once again and figured it was time to whip up this negative review.

The Final Fantasies released in the '90s and the early '00s are nearly universally phenomenal games. But every series has its duds, and for this series, it is unquestionably Final Fantasy VIII that falls far short by comparison to its brethren.

Oh, but Uematsu's soundtrack is good. Really good. It's by far the best part of the game. So, you know, just go check that out on YouTube or something. And skip this. Because Final Fantasy IX is probably the best game in the entire series. Do yourself a favor and just play that instead.

⭐⭐

Playtime: 34 hours

Assassin's Creed Odyssey (2018) by Ubisoft

Judging whether or not you’ll want to play this game is most easily done by comparing it to its direct predecessor, Assassin’s Creed Origins, with which Odyssey shares a lot of its DNA.

I played nearly 100 hours of Origins but was surprised it received nearly universal praise. Origins is more polished than a typical AC game due to its extra year of development time, and the setting of Ancient Egypt is wonderful, but I found there to be severe flaws in the foundation of what that game does regarding stealth, combat, and story. Typically with an Assassin’s Creed game I expect a great core experience that often lacks polish in terms of stability due to the grueling yearly release schedule from Ubisoft that doesn’t allow adequate QA time to fix such things. With Origins, it was the opposite—The core experience was lesser than Syndicate’s, but the game was very polished. It ran okay and looked gorgeous.

The universal praise Origins received was only skin-deep, full of people raving about its wonderful setting and graphics while neglecting the deeper issues the game had at its core. Odyssey, then, reminds me a lot of what Syndicate was to Unity; an improvement of the core mechanics and the smoothing out of the previous game's rough edges.

If you liked Origins and want more of something similar, then you’ll probably love Odyssey. It’s just Origins with added light roleplaying, MUCH better combat, more practical skill trees, and some key new features to provide enough new territory that it doesn’t simply feel like Origins in a new setting.

The most hyped aspect of the game is its expanded RPG elements. Since Unity, which introduced customizable gear, there have been growing light RPG elements to the Assassin’s Creed series, including the introduction of skill trees in Syndicate. Continuing this trend, Odyssey has become a full-blown action RPG rather than just an open world game with some RPG elements. It’s clear the team was playing a lot of Witcher 3 during development as, superficially, roleplaying and story are more developed. However, a lot of this comes to naught, because most of the side quests are still boring, filler fetch quests, and a lot of the "decisions" you have to make are little more than window-dressing: the illusion of choice rather than actual choice. I reloaded saves only to realize that the same thing happens in most instances no matter which choice you make. While it's nice to have the option to select dialogue this time around, story and roleplaying still clearly need more work put into them to deliver on the promise of better story and writing.

Combat in Origins was one of my chief complaints. The animations felt stilted and artificial, and the combat itself was difficult to judge due to the unrealistic speed at which animations played. The game felt like it was aping Dark Souls without understanding what makes its combat great. Combat in Odyssey, however, has several more layers of polish. Animations seem more natural, dodging takes place over a judgeable distance, easy countering is back. Adding depth are Adrenaline Skills, which basically act the way the single Overpower skill did in Origins. There are a number of different Adrenaline skills to unlock within the skill tree, with each providing a different facet than the other.

The skill tree is greatly improved from Origins, which had few useful skills and a lot of what felt like unexciting padding that didn’t change gameplay greatly. Many of the abilities that were locked to gear in Origins have been instead relocated to the skill tree (different bow styles from Origins are now tied to skill unlocks), which gives you far greater freedom in customizing the way your character looks via gear. It’s a very good decision as the skill tree from Origins felt like something that was tacked-on because somebody on the team decided “we should have skill trees in this game”. The skill tree in Odyssey feels more natural and has a huge impact on gameplay.

A lot of the new abilities feel inspired by WB’s Shadow of Mordor series. Chiefly among this inspiration, though, is a fantastic port of what was obviously inspired by Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system. Odyssey takes place during the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC, and this war has a number of the different city states of Greece going at one-another; chiefly Athens and Sparta. Odyssey’s modified version of the Nemesis system depicts what feels like a living, breathing war going on around you. Athens and Sparta change territory through the story and your actions, with each city’s forces being easily identifiable, and each occupying different fortresses as they move. They have leaders, cities you can disrupt, money and materiel you can steal and destroy. There are various war leaders and mercenaries that function as the actual Nemeses from the Shadow games, and somehow the team has made this system feel more natural in an Assassin’s Creed game than the Lord of the Rings games which inspired it. It’s the main draw of Odyssey, and it’s a huge one. It all works smoothly, indicative of significant polish, and the game is worth playing just to experience it even if you were burnt out on Origins.

There are a number of more minor new features which fixed complaints I had about Origins. Number one of which is a dedicated (though limited to the open world) Quicksave feature for the first time in the Assassin’s Creed series. As a hardcore stealth fan I despise any game that features stealth without quicksaving and makes me rely on checkpoints. It’s too easy to experience a bug (especially in AC games) and have your entire stealth run of a fort become ruined. This alleviates it, and it’s a fantastic quality-of-life addition. There are also now non-lethal takedowns and enemy recruiting, deepening stealth gameplay.

History blurbs are also back! This eliminates one of my chief personal complaints about Origins: Ripping out these history blurbs and putting them in a separate gameplay mode from the main game. As a fan of historical fiction I want to learn about these settings as I play, and Origins taking that away really damaged the experience for me. They are now back as a map feature, allowing you to hover over map markers for a brief paragraph of background.

I do have some complaints, though. The balance of the game is off, requiring a bit too much grinding if you’re not clearing every map marker like I am. The leveling system is also far too rigid, turning enemies one level higher than you into health sponges. This should be addressed in a future balance patch. It didn’t affect me much because I’m always overleveled, but I could see how someone focused only on the main story would become frustrated.

The game also removed shields from combat, which is puzzling in a game about Greek combat—A style of combat based almost wholly on the use of a heavy bronze shield. I loved the shields in Origins and am puzzled and disappointed to see them go.

The game also runs questionably—my 1080 couldn’t hold 60 fps on ultra settings at 1080p. It needs a performance patch.

In the end, much of Odyssey looks the same as Origins: The user interface is nearly identical. You have a pet bird to scout with. The running and climbing animations are the same. The buildings look similar. The graphics are of the same quality.

But these similarities--like the critical praise for Origins--are only surface-deep.

Odyssey fixes Origins’ faults and adds solid new features. If you liked Origins or you’re a fan of the series then you’ll love Odyssey. It's the culmination of what the past 3-4 Assassin’s Creed games have been introducing, and it’s become one of my favorites in the series.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dishonored 2 (2016) by Arkane Studios

Dishonored 2 is actually very similar to its predecessor, though a bit more polished with systems and mechanics that are further developed than in the previous title. If you liked the first game then you should definitely play its sequel, as it features more of the same fantastic gameplay, level design, and art style.

Dishonored 2 is a dream to play due to how deftly it weaves between being an all-out action game and a tense, satisfying stealth experience. Like the first game, each style of play is ably rewarded, whether you want to be a violent psychopath, or a complete ghost sneaking through each level and leaving no trace. The flexibility the game provides its players is one of the best things it does and why it's so worthwhile to play, and with the new game plus mode added post-release it's even more satisfying, as you can pick either of the two protagonists and choose to play in a different style from a past playthrough. I do also greatly enjoy that Corvo is voiced this time around by the timeless Stephen Russel. The silent protagonist of the first game was always awkward in my opinion and regularly pulled me out of the experience.

The other thing Dishonored 2 does extraordinarily well is level design. Most stealth games require very well-designed levels to function properly, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that Dishonored 2 has perhaps the most impressive level design I have ever seen in a game. I don't want to spoil it, but suffice it to say that I've never played anything as mind-bendingly engrossing as the Clockwork Mansion or A Crack In The Slab. It's simply phenomenal; fun to play, and the spaces feel real and functional, as if they could actually exist rather than being specifically designed for a video game. The genius of these designers is undeniable and they're setting a standard for which the rest of the industry can only strive to approach. Brilliant work, the best stealth levels I've played since 2005's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

This game just feels good to play. The art style is gorgeous, the way you flow from one room to the next stealthily eliminating enemies, dominating all-out fights, or ghosting through via the use of gadgets and powers is almost always satisfying. If you screw up, you're still able to fight in a satisfying way, making save-scumming unnecessary. I prefer to play almost completely stealthily and I find myself losing hours whenever I boot this game up. The portrait work is fantastic, the soundtrack is eerily accurate to the tone of the game.

If there is a criticism I have, it's that the story feels very underdeveloped and seems as if it could have used some more polish. I was intrigued by the premise but too much of it felt contrived, and the ending is so abrupt and unsatisfying. I was fully enthralled by this game from pretty much minute one and never really felt any frustration or distaste until the very end of the game, which I found profoundly unsatisfying. One positive to note is the voice cast, which, like Dishonored, is filled with big name actors who do a superb job. Rosario Dawson is a particular standout, as is Vincent D'Onofrio.

Upon release the game ran incredibly poorly on my machine and many others due to Arkane's installation of the new Void engine in lieu of Dishonored's Unreal engine. It ran so poorly in fact that I had to put it down for several months while waiting for a patch. Thankfully Arkane have done right by their fans and not only added significant stability, but also added several features on top of this. I mentioned New Game Plus before but I want to mention it once more because it's a truly great addition to the game. The game runs very well now and is far more stable than upon release, so don't fret if you're worried about potential performance issues.

Dishonored 2 overcomes a threadbare story with amazing level design and satisfying gameplay and should be played by anyone with an interest in stealth games or bombastic combat. Excellent game continuing the tradition of the Thief franchise and I truly hope Arkane continues to make Dishonored games for as long as they wish.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Playtime: 79 hours

Prey (2017) by Arkane Studios

There are a lot of things Prey does really well that made me want to like it. I love its cousins, Dishonored and its sequel, and I was hoping for a similar experience when I picked up Prey. Prey features a lot of the same things that Dishonored does well and even though they're different games I couldn't help but to compare the two while playing through Prey.

Prey features the same stunning level design and environmental art that Dishonored does so well. Places function as well as video game levels as they do immersive areas. Each locale feels like a real place with functional design, looks beautiful, and works extraordinarily well as a level. It's an impressive feat pulled off by the developers. The graphics are fine, with some great lighting effects. And the story is just intriguing enough to keep you moving forward, though devolves into fetch quests and "go here to fix this door" a bit too often.

My biggest problem with the game is that playing it just doesn't feel good. This is because there seemed to be very few efficient solutions to a lot of the problems it presents. In Dishonored you're given an ample amount of tools with which to overcome the different challenges the enemies provide, whether you wish to play stealthily or loud, lethally or nonlethally. However I couldn't shake the sense that with each enemy encounter in Prey I was doing something wrong. Bullet-sponge phantoms took multiple magazines to bring down, poltergeists left me missing them and wasting most of my ammo just to bring them down. I put the game down for a long time just 6-7 hours in because of this and picked it up again recently and put about 20 more hours before putting it down again for the same reason. There were times I'd try to sneak past encounters as well, treating the game more like horror, but even that fails to work at times as certain enemies seem to auto-detect you no matter how many skill points you have in stealth. I'd google strategies to kill certain enemies only to find that-- Surprise! There are none. Want to sneak by it instead? Well, the phantom patrols and now you're missing out on exploring and taking in good environmental storytelling and looting half the level, which is your driving force for exploring these spaces to begin with since the story missions are uninspired at best.

The game gives you an unlimited amount of tools to accomplish the problems it presents in clumsy, unsatisfying ways.

There's a reason many people complain about this game's difficulty. I played most of the game Normal, but even on "Story" mode enemies too often feel like bullet sponges. Something about playing it just feels off, whether you're tackling it as a shooter or a stealth game. Clearing a room just doesn't feel satisfying. Even after dealing with enemies and solving a problem presented by a monster in a room, I couldn't shake the fact that I had done it in the sloppiest, most inefficient way possible. This had me replaying rooms, trying different tactics; sometimes for half an hour at a time, but it always felt similarly unsatisfying. For a while this kept me pushing forward in search of unlocking new skills, until I had unlocked enough Typhon abilities to summon the Nightmare, another bullet-spongey enemy which I googled to learn would continue to appear every 20-30 minutes for the rest of the game. It was at this point that I lost my drive to play the game completely and finally put it down for good.

Dishonored felt fresh and challenging and even when I mucked up an encounter I could clearly see where I'd made my mistake, and would focus on doing better next time. And it was extremely satisfying to sneak past a room full of enemies, or take them out, or use the environment to my advantage. I never felt this playing Prey. Not one single time. I felt like a bumbling idiot, relying on my upgraded shotgun and combat focus to deal with nearly every challenge. While the levels can feel like a fun sandbox I ended up feeling that none of the tools they gave me to play with were very effective at dealing with any of the problems provided, so I resorted to smashing through it with the proverbial hammer (or in this case, shotgun) instead.

There are some other things that bothered me about the game as well. The sound mix is absolutely terrible, which I remember from day one but still hasn't been patched to adequacy yet. You can be hugging a wall in a room and hear electricity from a broken wall in the room adjacent and above you, or hear a fire that you passed 20 minutes ago still raging two floors below. Certain instances of dialogue are far too loud or sound like the mic was too close to the actors' mouths when they were recording their lines. Gunshots don't sound loud enough for what they are, and space doesn't sound quiet enough.

In addition to this, Mick Gordon, who was perfectly at home doing the Doom soundtrack, just doesn't feel like his music fits Prey. There are some nice tracks here and there but subtlety is definitely not his strong suit, and that's what I feel this game required. Though this is very much a matter of taste, and I am in the minority: Most folks liked the score.

I also had an issue with the annoying, lazy, scripted jump scares that permeate this game and was surprised that other outlets did not mention them. I'm not talking about happening across a mimic, which is an organic part of the game. I'm talking about scripted sequences such as the "Touch Me" calibration screen scene in Psychotronics, which was so infuriatingly lazy and offensive that it actually led to me to halt playing the game for the night. Or the theater screen screeching to life in Crew Quarters with no warning. There are numerous instances of this crap, and the awful sound mix only serves to deafen headphones users, which is where my key gripe comes in. It's not just startling, but literally painful due to the ineptitude of the sound mixers. If you crept up behind me while I'm at work and blew a damned air horn into my ear I'd probably jump a mile, too. Is that good horror? No. It's a lazy prank. It's annoying and infuriating, and it had me hating the moronic developers who'd think up such a rote, lazy tactic that's been ruining Hollywood horror films for decades now.

For the record, there are instances of real horror and tension in this game that are actually quite enjoyable. A great example is the morgue scene in which you're creeping along into the morgue only to see a suspended body slip off the rack and slump quietly to the floor. You're sure there's a mimic in there somewhere, so you cautiously creep into the room, searching for it, on edge the entire time and filled with suspense... Only to find nothing but some supplies and notes inside. This is great horror, and the fact that it's often mixed in with lazy jump scares only serves to show how frequently the game fails. It seems to me that the developers strove to add a horror element to the game, but were unskilled in specifically how to do it and perhaps unfamiliar with effective horror, relying instead on recent experiences they've had in theaters.

In a word I'd describe the game as uneven. At its best it's hitting the same heights as other great Arkane games, but at it's worst it comes off as incredibly lazy and uninspired, which is a shocking imbalance for a game that does so many original, inspired things. I had some great times with the game but couldn't shake the fact that it just did not feel good to play most of the time. If you're looking for a horror game then I suppose you might like this, but it doesn't feel great to play as a shooter or a stealth game, so I'm not confident in recommending it.

I do hope Arkane takes another crack at it with a sequel, because there are some really great ideas at the core of Prey that I'd like to see polished up a bit in another effort.

⭐⭐

Playtime: 32 hours

Darkest Dungeon (2016) by Red Hook Studios

I was drawn to Darkest Dungeon almost immediately upon first hearing of it back when it was in Early Access. The art style is incredibly well-crafted and perfectly to my tastes, the narrator is amazingly written and performed by Wayne June, and I'm a sucker for team- and base-building RPGs like this one. However, I was always turned off by complaints of rampant RNG and excessive grinding during its endgame; two things that always manage to turn me off of games. I thus avoided this game for nearly three full years until finally purchasing it this summer sale for just under $8.

The complaints about RNG and grinding are completely warranted. They both plague the game. If there were no Radiant mode and no mods with which to lighten the impact of these two features then I'd probably really dislike this game. However, with a few mods to soften the impact of RNG, and with Radiant mode to lighten the grinding, I'm finding great enjoyment playing this game.

Even though it's not a tactical game, I can't help but compare it to XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2.They're very similar in the way you upgrade your base and level and manage your squad, and they both see you growing attached to certain characters simply by playing the game and seeing them in action. You begin to remember times when somebody nailed an insane crit to save a fight, and the flavor speech they use after such moments and when at rest in town really adds to my enjoyment of the game. Growing your characters into true bad-asses (and the threat of losing them) reminds me a ton of tactical RPGs such as the aforementioned XCOM games and old Japanese "SRPGs" like Final Fantasy Tactics, and slowly progressing on improving your hamlet, and seeing the amazing results depicted in this phenomenal artwork as your town goes from a squalid, ruined squat for homeless heroin addicts into an 18th century proper English hamlet is so satisfying. I haven't felt this way about base management since Assassin's Creed II's Monteriggioni -- And Darkest Dungeon's improvements are far more deep and game-affecting than AC2's once you get under the surface. Going through missions and slowly upgrading the town and seeing the characters change are probably my favorite aspects of this game, and what gives me unmanageable "Just One More Mission Before Bed" syndrome. Seriously, I'm losing sleep here.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the heavily stylized, thick-lined artwork that somehow still manages to remain colorful despite being supergrimdark. I know the art is a great selling point right up-front, but I really can't rave about it enough. This game is a pleasure to look at in every aspect. The characters and monsters are exceptionally well-designed and thoughtful. I'm wowed mostly by the fact that the team seems to have taken great pains to ensure that there are no generic classes in this game. There's no "soldier, archer, mage" or anything like that. Instead you have a Crusader who's fought many holy wars, an arbalest with a crossbow, a plague doctor specializing in curing and inflicting ailments. You get a Houndmaster, whose only real ability is that he has an awesome dog. Instead of a tanky solider-type class with bulky armor, you get a freaking Leper. A guy who is literally dying of leprosy. And all of these class types bleed over into their actual abilities, both in combat and when camping. For example, the Leper has the option to segregate himself from the squad, which will reduce the squads' stress levels (presumably by worrying less about catching his leprosy), but increasing his own by sleeping alone in a dark, scary place. This sort of singular design and the depth with which its accomplished are seen throughout the game, and it separates this game from other dark fantasies, which have become a rote and overdone genre, especially in RPGs.

Another huge positive is the sheer amount of depth that's been put into this game. I'm always surprised with just how many systems are at work. You're not only engaging the enemy in combat, but you're also battling to keep your characters sane as well. Fights become about more than just hitting the enemy until they die and healing your own guys. In addition to raiding dungeons with the goal of killing bosses, you're also collecting journals for worldbuilding flavor, and you're unlocking more superb June narration upon setting out to fight each boss. You're learning how to deal with each enemy in each area, yes, but you're also learning how to interact with objects to gain loot, or abilities; and they're vastly different in each area. There are set bosses for each, and other sub bosses which either roam the entire game looking for you and can chance upon you at any moment, or can be summoned by interacting with certain objects. This game could have survived and sold plenty just based on its great art, its narrator, and its promise of near-masochistic levels of difficulty. But the team that kickstarted it really went all-out and added as much depth as they possibly could to this experience — And they're still adding it with DLC. There are layers upon layers here that serve to keep the game fresh as you continue to dive through dungeons and build your team and your base. I didn't care much about the story or the world, at first, but after reading the journals and hearing more about the narrator's story, I found myself becoming more interested.

I do have some complaints, though. I'm really not a fan of the soundtrack, which struck as falling into the same generic pitfall of overdone dark fantasy that the class designs do a great job at avoiding. I ended up muting the musics and just listening to my own only 10ish hours into the game. And, as mentioned before, the punishing grind and the excessive RNG are just not for everybody. But if you like RNG, grinding, and punishing difficulty, or are willing to dampen those features with the use of Radiant mode and/or mods, then this game should absolutely be played — Especially if you have an interest in turn-based RPGs, or the art style appeals to you. Bonus points for fans of dark fantasy as well.

It took me a while, but I'm very glad I finally took the leap and tried out Darkest Dungeon. Kudos to the team over at Red Hook: They have obviously given it their all to make the game they wanted to. It's unapologetic, exceptionally well-crafted, and worth playing. But it's definitely not for everybody.

⭐⭐⭐

STEINS;GATE (2009) by 5pb and Nitroplus

I'm not sure I've ever played a game as poorly paced as STEINS;GATE. Maybe I just don't like visual novels -- The only one I've ever played before is Doki Doki Literature Club. So that could definitely be the case.

But man this game is a drag.

All of the hearsay and reviews have informed me that the narrative gets great around the 4th chapter, but at this point I'm not sure I can make it that long. The sheer amount of exposition being thrown at me seems to dominate somewhere around 75-80% of all the text boxes, and that's further slowed down by a "tip" feature (which is basically just a codex) that inexplicably does not allow you to simply click the popup to relocate directly to the tips page, but makes you cycle through the entire damn menu to see the new entry that popped up. So whenever I want to find out what something is, I have to leave the already-boring-me-to-tears game to navigate through a clunky, poorly designed menu. Ugh.

The attempts at humor in this game that I assume many of its fans find quirky and charming is completely lost on me. The characters haven't really been given any depth yet, leaving not much to sustain my curiosity so far. The music is incredibly generic and fails to set any sort of interesting tone. And there has been literally no gameplay aside from a few dialogue choices via e-mail so far. I'd be able to deal with all of this if I were a couple of hours into the game, but I'm nearing 6 hours at this point and I'm not foreseeing any drastic changes in the near future. There are bits and pieces of the narrative that I find intriguing, but they're too few and far between to keep me wading through heaps of the main character's dry, expository inner thoughts, or his fat creepy friend's weird crushes, or his almost literally retarded "little sister" friend's ADD addled musings. This game is about as exciting as a meal of cardboard so far.

Overall though, the main reason I'm confident I can recommend against this game is because it's a downright awful port, which I haven't seen mentioned in many reviews. The resolution tops out at 1080p, the menus are obviously not optimized for a mouse and keyboard and the mouse and keyboard controls are wonky to begin with (plus there's a delay in switching between the two), it doesn't alt tab well, etc. All the hallmarks of something that was poorly ported from a console to PC are here. I've had a couple of crashes as well which have forced me back a ways thanks to the game's archaic save function.

I'm going to try and keep playing but figured I'd post my thoughts so far in case I decide to give up on this game. I'll update this review if I play more and change my thoughts. If they're all like this then perhaps visual novels just aren't for me.

Edit: Just went back after alt+tabbing to write this review and the game froze, causing me to lose 30 mins or so of gameplay. I'm done, just going to watch the anime instead.

⭐

Playtime: 6 hours

Final Fantasy XII (2006) by Square Enix

I first played Final Fantasy XII upon its release in 2006. I was a college senior at the time, too preoccupied with my longtime girlfriend and my brand new (and godawful) full-time job to really focus on video games. As a longtime Final Fantasy fan since childhood (I had first played Final Fantasy on the NES with my father as a child), I expected to love the story but was enthusiastically unenthused by what I'd seen of the gameplay demos. No turn-based combat? Pshaw! Nonsense! I ended up being entertained by the interesting gambit system and disappointed by the dry story and monotonous pacing. I never finished Final Fantasy XII. Life got in the way and I wasn't driven towards the checkered flag.

Enter 2018. Square-soft -- sorry, Square-ENIX -- has released a remastered, HD version of Final Fantasy XII. I'm now in my mid-30s, comfortable in my career and my life and greatly enjoying gaming again. I figure I'll give XII another shot.

Probably the most important thing every fan of the original game wants to know: The remastered graphics are pretty fantastic. This isn't just a cheap, shoddy port like Steam's Final Fantasy VII. The team has upped the resolution on all of the environmental textures, and the settings look great. The art has an oil painting feel that comes from upscaling the resolution and blurring the lines just enough. As a result: aside from a few overly square corners, the game looks like it could have passably been released this year. The animations are passable but the models are beautiful. If you loved Final Fantasy XII on PS2, you'll love it on Steam.

I am such a fan of good music in games, and I'd be a fool not to mention XII's brilliant score right up front as a huge pro. I had forgotten how beautiful it is. It's so wonderful, that it'll make you blink twice when I tell you it's not by Nobuo Uematsu. Wait, what!? That's right, Uematsu sat this one out and ceded his nearly 20-year stranglehold on the reigns of the Final Fantasy series' scores to Hitoshi Sakimoto. And boy does Sakimoto absolute slay it. Sakimoto turns in -- no hyperbole -- a veritable John Williams effort. This is one of the best scores I've ever heard in a game, up there with Amon Tobin's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory or Jesper Kyd's Assassin's Creed II. It's been fully reorchestrated and remastered specifically for The Zodiac Age, and it's even better than the PS2 OST from 2006. The track Eruyt Village is a particular standout.

The combat system is good. I remember hearing that it was real-time back before the game released in some preview coverage and being disappointed that they were moving away from Active Time Battle, but it works. No JRPG since has managed to succeed with the fast-paced, exciting system that Final Fantasy XII tries for. Ironically, the game that most closely accomplishes this is Dragon Age: Origins; BioWare's last private hurrah from 2009 prior to being staked through the heart by EA. If you were a huge fan Dragon Age: Origins' combat system and feel you can put up with some JRPG tropes, you'll appreciate this game. I always preferred Origins for its story, though, so the combat system of Final Fantasy XII was not quite enough to keep me playing the game by itself.

The licensing board, differing from our North American release in 2006, is the biggest argument to try this if you didn't like the original release. It's a better twist on the original, open board. However, that brings me to another huge criticism: You're forced to choose your job for each character almost immediately, without knowing what the pros and cons are between them, and without being able to change, ever. It's simply asinine that the designers didn't have some sort of respec system in this game. It's impossible to choose the correct job combinations (you're later able to choose a second job for each character to compliment their first, which is, of course, not even hinted at when you first choose the job for each character) led me to spending literally 4 hours researching online before I even played through my first hour of the game. It's one of the worst design choices I've seen in a game.

After playing through a few hours what I was most surprised about my first playthrough of the game back in 2006 was just how fantastical the environments in this game are. Final Fantasy XII is one of the best games in the series at putting a fantasy twist on medieval settings. The only other title that really comes close to making you feel like you're in an oddly realistic, yet foreign world is Final Fantasy VII (or perhaps Final Fantasy XIII, but that game has a ton of issues aside from its setting, and its Steam port is awful, so I wouldn't recommend it). XII has cities reminiscent of the Dwarven thaigs from Dragon Age, but with humans living in them, it's got long-abandoned mechanical derricks pumping oil from the ground, and entire armies floating around in zeppelins. It has Zeal from Chrono Trigger, powered by supercharged magicite from Final Fantasy VII, populated by Yang Fang Leidens from Final Fantasy IV. While nobody will mistake this for a world designed by Mervyn Peake (nothing is quite like Gormenghast, anyway), it stretches the imagination in the right ways and depicts some of the better non-epic fantasy worlds that have been shown in video games. So if that sort of thing floats your boat, you might find this game worth playing.

My biggest criticism of the game, and the reason I can't recommend it to anybody, is that the pacing is downright awful. Between narrative cutscenes you're going to travel through between 1-3 different locations, each with 5-8 different maps, filled with maybe 3-5 different types of respawning enemies each. These areas, while sometimes inspired in their design, are almost universally way too large, or cramped and repetitive, and the combat in these areas consists of repeatedly killing loads of generic bad guys you have to hack through dozens of times before you get to any dialogue or story once again. There are literally hours of this gameplay with no dialogue. And the story isn't good enough to carry this.

This game, overall, is a slog.

If you've played Final Fantasy X, think of the feeling you got when you first got to the Calm Lands and start to run across it, only to hit random battle after random battle, over and over. If you liked that, then you'll probably like Final Fantasy XII. If you, like me, hated it, then stay far, far away from this game. Because it's basically just that in every single area.

To me, it is absolutely monotonous and will cause all but the most hardcore of fans to put the controller down around 35 hours into the game. It's a real shame because it starts off so well, paced alright with some good story beats, but falls apart in this boring agony of running into the same generic areas, hacking the same generic enemies to death numerous times around the time you depart for the Dawn Shard.

I started this game enthralled at enjoying what I was never able to finish before, and I'm now trudging through the seemingly endless maps of the Ozmone Plains, nodding my head knowingly, and mumbling to myself: "Yup, this is it. This is why I stopped last time. I remember now." It's a huge disappointment to me -- a rabid fan of Ivalice -- And it left me wanting to go back to Final Fantasy Tactics and devour a game set in such an interesting world that wasn't plagued by such absolutely awful pacing and monotonous gameplay. The first few hours are intriguing, but the pacing gets worse from there. I can only recommend this to the most hardcore of fans, and even then, your time is better spent elsewhere.

For me? I'll replay Dragon Age: Origins instead.

⭐⭐

Playtime: 52 hours

Doki Doki Literature Club! (2017) by Team Salvato

Those of you familiar with my reviews know I almost always run up to the character limit in every review I write. I'm not going to do that this time, because I can't really review this game in-depth without spoiling everything, and I believe going in completely blind is imperative to ensure that this game has the biggest impact possible upon you.

What I can say is that these characters are incredibly well-written, to the point where even though I'm a Visual Novel neophyte I'd assume that they would stand up to characters in other games of this type. This game dives quite deeply into the themes it chooses to explore. It doesn't rely on any sort of cheap gimmick to heighten its impact, it has such an impact because it builds from the ground up using great characterization as its bedrock and taking things in unexpected directions from there. If you find the game a bit tedious to begin with, just continue playing. It will surprise you with its depth in the second hour, and it'll surprise you with some truly innovative story and writing beats afterwards.

In terms of the medium, this is one of the most inventive games I've ever played. I don't particularly care for the majority of horror subgenres, be they slasher, monster, body horror, etc. I have always, however, been a great fan of psychological horror (eg. The Shining, Rosemary's Baby, Psycho). And I can say with confidence that this is the single best psychological horror game I've ever played in my life. I'm an "old guy" among online gaming communities (I'm in my mid-30s and have been gaming for over 30 years) and I can confidently say Doki Doki Literature Club! is absolutely one of the most unique and worthwhile experiences I've had with a game, period.

Not a fan of anime or manga? Neither am I. Never played a dating sim or even a visual novel in your life? Me neither. And I still went through this experience in absolute disbelief of what Dan Salvato and co. were able to create here. This is a mind-bending, genre-defying treat, and the fact that it's free boggles my mind.

Don't read any other reviews, don't read anything about the game. Download it and play it through to completion. Demographics don't matter, tastes don't matter. Everybody needs to play this game.

Get out of my head.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Playtime: 6 hours