Recent reviews by Sol Neutralguy

So, I finally beat the game after going at it one chapter per night with some rest days between. It was a hell of a ride and in my opinion it would have been THE horror game had the last five chapters been as amazing as chapters 3-10. When the final tally was spinning I was terrified that I'd entered into three digit death territory after my 21 hour playthrough. I would have been legit ashamed, but thankfully (somewhat) I only died 88 times on survivor difficulty.

The bosses in this game can be the worst if you aren't observant. I tried to kill Laura for a good while at first because I wasn't paying full attention to my environment and her weaknesses. Really, this game is all about watching the bosses, watching the environments and moving constantly. Fire is your best friend in this game. If you are fighting a sub-boss or a boss and you are staying still it won't be pretty. The agony bolt REALLY showed it's stuff in the later boss battles with the capabilities of the flash, lighting and freeze bolts. If an enemy couldn't be flashed then it probably means you can freeze it or paralyze it for a few seconds to reload your weapons and make some spare explosive bolts. I probably died forty times to regular bosses and 3/4ths of it happened before chapter 10 because I moved, but didn't observe and I shot, but I didn't think to use anything more than explosive bolts regular weapons. The bosses are creative/tough, but very beatable once you realize how useful the other bolts really are.

That said, up untl chapter 10 TEW was amazing and chapters 13-14 got sort of close to that feeling again. Chapter 15 was okay, but the highlight really was the final boss fight because until the finale stone face Seb just couldn't react to any of the crazy ♥♥♥♥ in the final chapter until Ruvik went all Kaiju on his ass. Ruvik really managed to get a reaction out of Sebastian with that. Clearly the game is begging for a sequel because neither of the major two stories (Sebastian's and Ruvik) had a satisfying conclusion. Kidman's role in the story is also still shrouded in mystery.

The lighting, sound, enemy variety and resource management were tuned to literal perfection. I feel like these were the things Tango did best. Every chapter had gorgeous lighting with blacks that weren't crushed, appropriately revealing lighting and beautiful lighting effects on water, foliage and architecture (especially humid indoor environments). The sound design was particularly on the dot. Chapter 13 was particularly good about it (the hallways full of haunted and fake R****). Did anyone else notice that killing the first fake R**** and moving forward a bit caused more haunted to appear behind you? Very very few games actually do a good job of giving enemies proper sound direction and placement. The Evil Within on the other hand passed that test with flying colors and probably saved me quite a few times since the amazing sound reproduction warned me when someone was coming from 3 o clock, 9 o clock or 12 o clock. My only complaint was the tiny sound produced by the magnum which sounds tinier than the pistol. The enemy variety complimented the scarcity of resources perfectly too. My only complaint was the low number of invisible haunted. I'd have liked for the total number in the game to be more like 10-12 instead of the 4-5 we got. This game was chocked full of regular haunted, but it never got tiring thanks to regular appearances by slightly higher level opponents and challenging environments (multilevel, trap laced, open and tight spaces were all available). Every chapter started with a handful (or two at best) of bullets for your pistol and a handful for the rest along with a bolt or two of each type and I played very conservatively with lots of headshots and group burnings via matches. By the end of chapter 6 anyone playing on survival difficulty should be an ammo saving pro at any game.

The real weaknesses for me were the characters (or lack of), the gigantic bars, chapters 11-12, minimal movement abilities, the weak story and storytelling devices. Sebastian just didn't react at all even though things around him were going all Dead Space by chapter 14 and it can really take you out of the mood when someone doesn't react to this craziness. Kidman is another one. We heard almost nothing from her. I think all her lines could be written on a standard notebook page in extra large font. Joseph was sort of mundane, but I can sort of see from his personality that it's what they were going for. Unfortunately the game rarely (if ever) took a chance to move the story along with storytelling devices. Resident Evils 3 and below all did wonderful jobs with the creepy journal entries/lab notes (Metroid Prime also managed to instill a slight feeling of dread with the scanning storytelling ability), but Ruvik kept details a bit too vague in the audio logs. Now, the more technical gameplay weaknesses to me were on full display in chapters 11-12 (except 11's mannequin scene) and after experiencing them chapters 13-14 lost a bit of their luster. Somehow I was completely in love and I had almost forgotten the black bars until chapter 11 in the city. These stupid bars are downright fatiguing and I finally began to understand the complaints when I found my head hurting after a lot of squinting up/down to get a full look at the gradual destruction of Krimson city. Thankfully the headaches never came back for chapters 13 and over. The uncomfortable feeling I and a lot of other people have gotten from the camera would probably be helped by regaining that huge 30( ) percent of screen real estate taken up by those bars. Reducing the bar size and increasing the FOV will be the first order of business when I finally start my NG run. The movement in the game was also way too stilted for my taste. A simple roll like the one in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls combined with a basic manual cover system would make this game's combat scenarios almost perfect if they came with better (i.e. less exaggerated) melee animations. Some of the boss fights and all the group battles in this game would be immensely more fun and fluid if Sebastian could dance around them a bit and dodge dramatically when a boss is about to crush him or drag him to his death.

Based on the demo I'd have never expected anything less than an 8/10, but the version I played sits at the best 7/10 a game can get. I expect FOV and bar fixes will push it up to a solid 8, but all the modding in the world isn't going to improve the admittedly great (but not perfect) combat and weak story/characters. If ANY game needs a sequel it's TEW. I really hope this holiday season was great for Bethesda and Tango because a little more heat and pressure is going to give us a real diamond if they decide to follow up and polish what needs polishing. I got the game for $16 thanks to GMG so I should probably buy a season pass for the DLC (never bought a season pass for a game before) in order to show my support for the IP and Tango.

Even my modest i5 2500k setup held a solid 30FPS with everything maxed at 1080p with SMAA. Anyone with a GTX 580/660 and above should be able to play TEW at 30FPS even without overclocking. Those lucky 4GB card owners should have no problem downsampling the game too. The PC version is the way to go with this game, people.

EVERYONE buy Long Live The Queen. Calling it a "tactical princess Fatality Simulator RPG" seems fitting. The basic premise is that Elodie (the princess) is trying to maneuver her way to the throne of the Nova kingdom without getting squashed, poisoned, assassinated or conquered by invading armies. Upgrading her skills (by visiting different areas of the castle grounds and learning from many different teachers) can change the outcomes of several events interspersed throughout the game in your favor and leveling up enough can even unlock special clothing that boosts your stats in particular areas. So far I've been poisoned and beaten in war. I feel like it's my Reccetear this year in the sense that it's completely new territory for me and I only get to play it because of Steam shoutouts. So far I'm only three hours in, but I'm expecting to triple that by the end of January. This is one indie gem that no one can afford to overlook.

God save the queen!

This is probably the most challenging platformer I've ever had the pleasure of playing and it is why I recommend it to the other poor souls who have steam AND reside in my friendlist.

The challenges are clever, well placed and the game never takes itself too seriously. We could use more games of this quality and design in our steam libraries.

Just stay away from stimulants while playing this game haha.