Recent reviews by Torllay

Project Re:Fantasy, now known as Metaphor Re:Fantazio, has been in the works for more than 7 years, and it shows. It always sounded interesting, especially with the many recommendations by Yoko Taro - the director of Nier.
From the team that gifted us Persona 5, a game that I deeply loved although my first real entry point to the genre, I had expectations of nothing but excellence, and I'm really glad I was right.

Extremely minor spoilers about the intro ahead.


The story of Metaphor Re:Fantazio is set in the fantasy world of Euchronia, a land that is deeply divided in racially-motivated political and religious conflict between the core 8 races that inhabit it.
Its political and social topics are incredibly contemporary, to almost an uncanny level. This world spoke to me in ways Persona never has. Maybe it's because I'm more interested in fantasy than contemporary stories, or maybe because of the current climate in the world.
As if releasing it before November was a way to strive and encourage change...

We play the role of the Hero, who's part of a resistance, on a mission to infiltrate the army. The objective is to learn more from a contact they have in it, in regard to a curse that has been plaguing the Prince of the land for more than 10 years, leaving him in a comatose state.

With us, the magical fairy Gallica serves as a guide in our adventure.
The Hero always carries, and is very attached, to a novel the Prince used to read with him, where a utopia is described: a land where conflict doesn't exist, there is no racial discrimination and everyone lives in harmony.
This land that eerily reminisces of our world is naught but fantasy for them, as this world is fantasy to us.

The story is narrated to us at points by a narrator, almost as if you'd be listening to an audiobook, and it's a beautiful way to really make you live the fantasy.
There's no shortage of good writing and twists, personally keeping me hooked the whole time.

The art direction of the game is one of the best I've ever seen, no wonder it won a Game of the Year for it. Each new area is stunning, from the great city of Gran Trad to the shores of Brileheaven, the game is polygonally and artistically superior to all other games in the Persona series I've played.

Worth mentioning is the music in the game, which while featuring fewer tracks than usual, is an extreme banger and is the only thing making me happy about finishing the game: I get to listen to it on repeat.


Coming from the same developers, I had somewhat of an idea of what the game would look like, and, indeed: Metaphor Re:Fantazio does follow a lot of concepts that are part of the Persona series.

Starting from the quotidian nature of its story, having the player follow the Hero not through a told X amount of months, but actually play and live them, day by day with rare time-skips.
Each activity takes half of the day to complete, with dungeons taking the whole day when coming back. Nothing can be skipped.

Confidants are back, with many people along our journey becoming close friends of ours and asking us for help in their disadventures. Each new confidant unlocks new powers, called Archetypes, and leveling the confidant up gives said archetype family more options.
These are especially improved in Metaphor Re:Fantazio, with none being a second thought or a rejection of writing. All companions were as good as some of the best in previous Persona games, and although there is not an option to romance any of them, part of me is happier. I'm sure the devs would have again limited who I could romance, so I'd rather leave it to interpretation, personally.

Archetypes, similar to Personas or Stands from JoJo Bizzarre's Adventure, are back as the main magical power we use to cast many spells and abilities, but compared to the other games, the limitation of having only the Hero being able to use all of them, is no more.
All characters can use all Archetypes, with no limits but their true final form.
I preferred this approach over Personas.
Leveling an Archetype unlocks some of its abilities to be purchased for an in-game currency to be equipped by other archetypes; i.e., I had my main Warrior stacked with healing abilities. Even at max confidant level, you can't completely erase the nature of an Archetype with inherited skills, because you'll always be limited to max 4.
On the other hand, in Persona you do this by using Skill Cards you obtain as loot from enemies, without any limits to what you can overwrite. With most, if not all, abilities being a Skill Card, I rarely found myself choosing a Persona over another instead of just "installing" all the abilities I wanted on the Persona that looked the coolest.

Additionally, although some fan-favorite designs are back, all enemies and Archetypes are brand-new designs, whereas Persona has the tendency to normally reuse all enemies and Personas from previous games while adding new ones.

The UI is again a masterwork, with incredible designs and animation for each menu, blending both 2D and 3D together. Perfectly fitting of the art style, and with an amazing sound design.

A feature to kill lower-level enemies in "action mode" of Persona 5 you'd get from a confidant at level 7 is expanded, making it now a base feature and expanding it with a dodge, movesets for each weapon family, etc. Therefore, over-leveling is a great choice if you prefer the action-oriented approach when exploring dungeons while keeping the turn-base for bosses.
Worth mentioning: in turn-based having the hero die in the fight won’t force a reset anymore!

OH LORD! Again, a-f-gain.
Nothing new, nothin' changed. Same old shi.

Reader, I'm going to level with you.
When I saw the first trailer of the Persona 3 Remake, I rejoiced they were using Unreal Engine, whereas normally I'm disappointed when devs do that - the industry needs diversity, over a messy unoptimized engine used by everyone 'cause easy. If it wasn't for the Fox Engine, MGS:V would have never run on PS3.

When I saw the first trailer of Metaphor Re:Fantazio and noticed the familiar shimmering of the AA my reaction was the same as in the above title.
Persona 5 has many positive sides: its engine is not one of them.

At the demo's launch, the performances were a mess, and overall the engine just doesn't stand the test of time in both feature and fidelity.

The worst offender is when traveling outside the city on a vehicle, with the areas around it being very scarce and low in density and detail.
Metaphor Re:Fantazio, again has an atrocious AA, helped by the option to render at higher resolution internally. Thankfully they patched in FXAA a few days after lunch; better than SMAA.

Textures are passable, but up close in some cutscenes, it really is a bit of an eyesore for a next-gen game only; some could have a higher quality.

I'm not sure if now all features available from the mod Metaphor Fix are in the game, but I strongly suggest using it for both skipping the intro, disabling the continuous camera noise which adds to the bad AA, and especially the depth-of-field and lines when sprinting.


Metaphor Re:Fantazio learns from the mistakes of Persona. It delivered a stunning package that spoke to my very core and kept me hooked the whole way through.
Not a better package, but one that stands with the best we've got so far, adding itself to that upper echelon of JRPGs you suggest to the people you really like, excited just at the idea you'll get to talk about it with one more person.

From the demo in September, to the release in October, to my month-long pause and return in December: this game lived rent-free in my mind and it will continue doing so in my playlist.

This story ended, but the fantasy? That lives on.

8.5/10

To say the world of Dragon Age is special to me, would be an understatement. I played DA:Origins for the first time now 4 years ago and that experience led me to the rest of the series, and finally to Veilguard: a game that while it's quite far from its origin, regardless of it's many issues, is a wonderful ending to this series.


The DA series is a pillar of the RPG genre.
DA:O stands the test of time and even 10 years later. It's a game that set the standard and is still looked up to by the market, from Cyberpunk 2077 lying about their origins being at that level to Baldur's Gate 3 taking direct inspiration for the dialogue style and the camp mechanic.
Setting such a high standard can be a double-edged blade, and in Biowares' fashion, much like for the Mass Effect series, things are good, yet not as much going forward.
DA2 and Inquisition move away from elements that made Origins so special. Inquisition especially suffers from a troubled development that started as an MMO. Many unfortunate choices made their way into the final product; like the War Table missions requiring real-world time to complete, and in general a rather poor usage of the Frostbite Engine due to time constraints, like the new "open world maps" not being able to stream fast enough, leading the devs to fake the sprinting of the horse[www.thegamer.com] and removing it from players altogether.

No other DA reached the peak that was Origins, yet they all kept building this amazing world thoughtfully, regardless of the issues the package it came in might have.


Veilguard starts again as an MMO in its development but was saved with less junk from that time, with the only notable remnant being the fact that our main character, nicknamed Rook, is not some sort of chosen one, but just the right guy for the job.
The formula returns closer to Bioware's origins, ditching the open world for a more linear interconnected map a-la Dark Souls. Smaller, mission-related maps make a welcome return, much like in DA:O. This allows us to explore a greater variety of locations across Thedas again, all brought to life through the game's amazing art direction.
Exploration evolves in a way I am particularly biased towards, with a Tomb Raider-esque platforming direction; this was great for my character who had a background as a tomb raider himself. This is alongside logic puzzles that much like recent God of Wars, offer variations of them, but can be a bit simple.
The gameplay takes a more action approach, with a very enjoyable, although as often is the case repetitive, combat system. All classes have three specializations, each focusing on a specific facet of it.
Gone is the ability to directly control our companions, replaced by a simple ability wheel to command them. A fair trade-off for the combat style, imho, but still something I wish was kept.
Loot is visually stunning, and randomized except in unique chests, and is kept interesting by a system that merges identical items to raise the rarity and level of it. Trying new things is easier than ever, and hunting chests never got old for me.


These games have often touched a multitude of subjects in each entry, always adding to it, but rarely giving conclusive answers.
The more I learned, the more I appreciated the title change, as I feel "Dreadwolf" would have centered it too much on one character that is already crucial to the entire story.
Veilguard, speaks of everything and brings all to a close thoughtfully. The biggest answers, given during a side mission of all places, shocked me and offered a completely new point of view on the events of all the games.

I know it's again not a perfect package. Would I have wished for the fourth DA to be exactly this? No, but I wouldn't have wished for DA 2 and Inquisition to be like they are either.
What Veilguard definitely does well is story and world-building and it brings everything to a close amazingly, regardless of how far from what a Dragon Age should be it is.
The ending of this game, especially, is what Mass Effect fans always wished for: a great finale that changes based on your choices, bonds, and actions, closing what the series has been about up to this point, showing how deeply interconnected everything was, leaving room for a potential sequel.


The companions are one of the best parts of any Bioware game, yet, even DA:O, wasn't perfect. While yes, Alistair and Morrigan are peak writing and could rival even against modern games, they do because the other's shortcomings help them shine. In Inquisition, I felt there were no companions at that level tbh, and ended up struggling until the end to find who I'd like to romance.
Even newer masterworks like BG3 have that one interaction that could have been written better, or one companion that falls short like Wyll, whose promising start and deep ties to the story were smoke and mirrors to a rather simple and on-rails personal arc.

Veilguard has issues, I won't deny it, but they have grown out of proportion in the online conversation. The game can be a little eccentric with its character writing, sometimes lacking nuance.
Overall I personally enjoyed the companions, especially getting attached to Davrin, Neve, and Harding, but Tash in particular felt the most out of place.

DA is no stranger to queer topics, and as a queer man, I recognize representation is important. I didn’t let the infamous cutscene of someone misgendering them and apologizing with push-ups influence my opinion; I kept an open mind and focused on understanding the character, and I ended up tolerating her.
I felt she lacked depth, and didn't truly grow from the events of the story, and her personal arc. They came across more as a checklist rather than a fully fleshed-out character. That said, I just left her behind and took with me companions I enjoyed.


For once this year, a PC game has come out with no optimization issues whatsoever, with a lengthy, but useful shader compilation, without DRM, and supporting a well-optimized, complete Ray Tracing feature set.
Especially impressive is the hair strand technology, which makes any hairstyle level up with amazing physics and extreme definition.
Reconstruction techniques are implemented correctly, and DLSS especially seems to be trained really well; it shines alongside Dynamic Resolution Scaling to keep a constant framerate.

Shout out to the Character Creator, amazing in its options, inclusivity, and implementation. I managed to create and fine-tune both a stunning Rook, and a faithful to my original Inquisitor. The previous game world state must be set in the CC, not imported from the Keep or save files. Bioware said they plan to revisit unused choices in the future.
I'm sad the conversation around the CC, much like for Starfield, was focused heavily on the character creator being too inclusive and woke because of top-surgery scars and pronouns.
Funnily, BG3 and CP77, also had many inclusivity options, but didn't get many complaints about it since the conversation was mostly about the genital options.
Wish they added them here too, I guess? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


In the end, I left this game emotional and heavy-hearted, knowing one of my favorite series had just ended. Not what I wanted, but happy I got it.
I am already missing its world. I can only hope that this is but a first step that paves the way for a new DA, even closer to its roots, to be greenlit.
Or a Remake, I'd take that too.

7.8/10

As someone new to the game, Persona 3 compared to 5 - which is my only point of reference - has a quite short epilogue after the final boss, leaving the player with many unanswered questions all the way to the last second before the credits.
The ending left a void within me that made me jump over my seay at the news[www.pushsquare.com] that The Answer was being worked on, under the name of Episode Aigis.
It's unfortunate that, to the risk of repeating myself, for this remake of Persona 3, Atlus has tried to squeeze as many coins from their fans as possible. The last thing missing is another 40€ Season Pass adding the Female MC, which would finally do what remakes normally do and make it a complete package.


The DLC is set a few weeks after the game events, and gives us control of Aegis, acting as an epilogue to the game's story. Time has stopped and a new threat arises.
Just like P3R, what could be improved has been improved to a capacity, however, the overall structure of the original DLC is its real weak point.
At the start of the DLC, the option of carrying over your compendium from the base game is offered but is sadly next to useless without proper preparation, as not only costs are prohibitive, but the level must also match.
This would not be a problem all on its own if it wasn't that all characters get reset down to level 15.
I would strongly suggest to anyone interested in starting the DLC to prepare a Persona around level 15, using skill cards likely obtained during the main story, with all elemental skills and Life Aid. This way Aegis will take care of most fights, recovering some SP each fight.


The DLC features its own version of Tartarus, the Abyss of Time, that comes with HALF, 56.6% to be exact, more dungeon floors.
In the base game, Tartarus already pushes the limits of monotony but is luckily counterbalanced by hard stops after a set amount of floors, forcing the player out until the next full moon and story boss to proceed further.
In the DLC, on the other hand, this is not a factor because the main plot point is that time is not passing, and the team is stuck within the dormitory. Therefore, all daily activities that help lighten up those 264 levels of Tartarus in the base game, are now not present.
There is no need to sleep to recover HP or SP, instead, simply leaving the dungeon is enough to restore you fully. Not that there is a reason to, besides buying new equipment and maybe having a few inconsequential dialogues with our companions, with the occasional short event triggered by items found while exploring.
Most of the experience of the DLC sums up to going into the dungeon as far as you possibly can, abusing all characters until all of them run out of HP and SP, quickly go out and back in, rinse, and repeat.

In comparison to Tartarus, soft stops are found at the end of each block of floors, where we get to learn a little bit more about the DLC's story, this time - small win - as a cutscene instead of a note.
However, the reward for the time investment is not adequate, as it only opens the way to proceed further, over and over, with no breaks.
And, while I enjoyed the combat system of P3R, playing only that can be tiring.

The DLC's story aims at a high level towards its ending, like the base game, sitting above a minimum of 70, 99 for the secret boss.
While playing it, I did have the feeling that I was being rewarded more experience per each fight. Nonetheless, having to grind to level 99 again did not add anything to the experience, except more repetition.
Additionally, nothing but the compendium of the base game MC is carried over, from items to Tarot Cards for Shuffle time, so these are also things that need to be grinded especially when planning to fight the secret boss.
Lastly, Elisabeth comes with another 50 requests, with most being repeated.

On a positive note, the dungeons of the Abyss of Time have also been revamped aesthetically like Tartarus, with new tilesets and assets to make them more visually interesting.
Nonetheless, whereas Tartarus introduces a new design on each "block", never reusing them, the Abyss of Time shuffles the new designs without any specific order, featuring all of them by the time you get to the second block. This removes the intention behind it, but most importantly surprise in seeing the new designs, and very quickly they might as well have been the same one.

In Tartarus, there used to be a new addition of P3R, Monad doors, on a specific floor that would have unique boss fights in it with unique rewards. These are present in the DLC too, but in what seems to be a pattern, not as well implemented. Now the door can spawn on all levels instead of at a specific floor. Inside, there's a series of three bosses in one fight, that are not necessarily unique.
This makes Monad doors, not a unique activity, or a break if you will, at a specific point of the dungeon, but instead, something you'll have almost on every single floor, featuring the same three bosses of that block and some equipment as a reward afterward, again, adding to the repetitiveness.
I actually had multiple times Yamagishi suggesting that someone could go and explore ahead because the floor was cleared, only to find a Monad door somewhere on the same floor and have to complete it with only three characters, which is obviously harder.


For most of my time with the DLC, I felt like I would have been happier had I just watched a YouTube video with all the cutscenes, because that would not have come with a 20 hours tax of the same dungeon, to get less than 30 minutes of new story.
The DLC has all the improvements that were made for P3R, but because the original structure is so barebone, it suffers to an even greater degree.
The DLC forsakes any redeeming quality of the experience that the base game has outside of Tartarus and offers the bare minimum with a side of story that is spectacular, yet not worth the time it requires.
Considering the structure of Persona games, it genuinely made me realize why P5 expanded the way it did in Royal, over making a DLC such as this.

That said, although the journey is important, the destination also matters just as much.
The moment the Abyss of Time was completed, this DLC became what it should have been from the start.
It offered me an epilogue, a wonderful closure, and a reading key to the events of the base game that I will keep with myself forever.
At the end of it, I almost felt like it was all worth it, just to see how it ended. But this is a subjective emotion-driven opinion.

Objectively, besides this being a recreation of the original The Answer, there is no reason why it had to be done this way to begin with. Better short and sweet than long and sour.
IMHO, the DLC should have been 1/3 of the dungeon, shorter, but with more thoughtful fights. Our characters should have started from level 50 instead of 15, with the same limitations to the compendium. That would already have been a big difference to the experience and balanced the amount of story to the amount of mindless exploration, instead of dragging the beauty of the DLC behind all this filler content.
Although the finale was very special to me, one I think should be seen, the DLC is padded to make it worth 34€, and they knew it was not worth it that since it's part of a bundle with some costumes and soundtracks.

In the end, to the risk of repeating myself, the experience is what matters.
Experiencing it firsthand is not.

5.7/10

Calling Shadow of the Erdtree a "DLC" I believe is an understatement considering its size and overall quality of the content. I think "expansion" stands more appropriate, one that could have easily been a game on its own. With two years in between the base game and its DLC, while Elden Ring was a conclusive project on its own, more is always welcomed and with SotE, just like with the main game, my expectations were surpassed by a landslide.
Where can I even begin reviewing one of gaming's best DLCs that stands tall above all others with only a few by its side?


For the first time in From Software's games, this DLC's story unfolds alongside ours and is set in the present, allowing us to experience it live, instead of learning of it post facto. To start the expansion two specific major bosses, Mohg and Radahn, must be killed, and both are quite advanced in the game. Following that, we are able to access the Land of Shadow and follow Miquella's steps.
In the base game, we already learn of Miquella's many endeavors. From trying to become a God, to removing Outer God's influences and creating its own order to name a few: his importance to the lore is not to be undermined. Nevertheless, during the game's events, we see Miquella mainly as part of Mogh's story, who interrupted his latest plan to become a God, painting Miquella more like a background figure than a participant. In the DLC instead, Miquella is the focus and we follow their steps to see their finalized plan come to fruition.


With a map originally compared to the size of Limgrave, the starting region of the base game, by the director Hidetaka Miyazaki, the DLC sounded quite promising on paper since that's at least 20 h of gameplay. That said, I learned my lesson from the time when it was claimed that on a first run, the main story of Elden Ring could be beaten in 30h[www.gamesradar.com], gross understatement, and was quite skeptical about this latest statement too, raising those expectations higher for the DLC.
Despite that, it somehow surpassed them, having me genuinely amazed at not just the quantity but the quality of the content.

SotE is bigger than many whole games, being almost the size of a third of the base game, let alone Limgrave. The map design is some of the best From Software has ever done, with a focus on verticality, sometimes even double stacking areas on top of each other, offering more to explore than one would think at first glance.
Compared to the base game, rather than many but shorter dungeons, fewer but longer are present, followed by new activities like Ancient Forges rewarding unique weapons with skills that make them throwable a la Thor's Hammer, or Mausoleums with unique NPCs in it as minor bosses rewarding their equipment.

A lot of discourse has been made in regards to the map being empty, but I disregard such comments as nonsense because so did the base game, and any open world to ever exist. Comparatively, a tremendous title like The Witcher 3 - which I love - pales with its points of interest, the "?" around the map, being frequently groups of humanoids or drowners, especially when compared to both Elden Ring and SotE who both offer a lot of varied activities to make exploration worthwhile and not as repetitive.
Plenty is the map to explore and dense are the amount of activities to do and ways to keep busy in the DLC. None felt like filler.
Lastly, one alleged "empty area" of this DLC is one of the most impactful I've ever found in a game, surpassing both the impact of DkS1's Anor Londo and what the community calls *plin plin plon*, imho.


Just like in any previous DLCs, the amount of equipment added with the DLC is incredible and easily matches, if not surpasses, in scale the previous work of From. With around:
30~ new Armor Sets
80~ new Weapons and Shields
40~ new Talisman and spells respectively
20~ new Spirit Ashes and Ashes of War respectively
new Consumables & Craftables
there are new options for anyone's taste and playstyle. Additionally, all categories have new options available to the player, and of those weapons, some belong to completely new weapon types: 8 of them!
From Great Katanas with a clean heavy moveset close to the Longsword of Monster Hunter, to Beast Claws like the ones in Bloodborne, to brand new Martial Arts, Light Greatsword, and Thrusting Shields, these additions are not only welcomed, but excellent.


Like for any release by From Software, the topic of difficulty never fails to come up when new players enter the fray.
To keep the DLC challenging and interesting, especially when placed in the final third of a massive open-world game, a new level-up system was added alongside the DLC, that works only within the DLC. Items scattered across the Lands of Shadow will allow us to strengthen our character and Spirit Ashes further, increasing our damage and defenses. Failing to meet these undisclosed requirements by ignoring most of the exploration will lead to a harder time during the DLC, especially during boss fights.

Bosses in the DLC, almost entirely new additions even for the minor ones, are a definite step up to the base game. Movesets are faster, dodge windows tighter, and HP pools are larger. In many From titles, bleeding has always been a bit of a crutch for experienced players, annihilating most build variety with its efficacy.
I still remember when with the final expansion of DkS3, the nerfs to bleed and rebalancing of weapons scaling hit some of my characters so hard I had to delete them and start from scratch.
Elden Ring - not that I ever agreed with - has had the infamy of being too easy since lunch compared to the other titles. With the arrival of the DLC, I was expecting again some kind of general rebalancing, so I was quite surprised when instead of that, the ante of each boss has simply been raised.
Overall, I stand my ground and will die on the hill that: it does not completely fall into the trial and error game design. Dying is part of the process and of the learning curve, but not required to succeed.

The bosses have been the highlight of the DLC for me, with one in particular finally dethroning my favorite boss of all time and taking that title home. That boss will now be an excuse for me to always hop in the game with a friend just so I can fight it.
I should change my name to "Let me solo Bayle".


When the news broke that composer Yuka Kitamura was leaving From Software after 12 years and working on all their recent titles, I started wondering what the new tracks of SotE and future games would be like.
These games heavily rely on their soundtrack to complete the painted picture alongside their visual design. I have brought some of these tracks with me for almost a decade!
Yet again, like for many things of this DLC, I was pleasantly surprised by amazing tracks for each fight, with even some of the minor bosses standing out, and a new set of tracks entering my playlist.


With even CD Project Red handing out the baton for best DLC rating ever[x.com] there are not enough characters left available here for me to express in detail how much this expansion is worth not just their asking price but the time it takes to complete. I can't keep constantly going back to add more, rework sections, or rewrite this review. Everything has to end, and I can say I could not be happier about what we got for Elden Ring's ending...for now.

10/10

An impressive showcase of Unreal Engine 5, when Hellblade 2 was announced in the now far 2019, it was already an impressive ambition, and since then it has been on my radar especially after the, for me, sleeper hitter that Hellblade 1 was. At the time, I hadn’t heard anything prior to playing it, only then to be pleasantly surprised. Not a perfect experience by any means, but an impressive feat for a AA indie from a small studio.
With the now-added budget of Xbox and the pressure from the many heavy hitters from Sony, my expectations were through the roof.


Saga is a sequel to the original Sacrifice, where Senua was a teen who had to come to terms with the trauma and grief while dealing with symptoms of schizophrenia. Her father, abusive, always depicted her as a problem and the cause of bad things happening around her, all worsened when her lover, Dillion, was brutally murdered by invading Vikings. Senua’s Saga delivers a more mature and collected Senua. Whereas in the prequel the voices in her head had more control over her, in Saga while still present, offers Senua a different point of view but don't dominate her choices. Instead of cowering in fear and panic when flashed by memories of her father, she now stands up to it. Saga follows her adventure on a northern island, nothing less than the one where the Vikings who killed her lover come from to kidnap people as slaves, and her too in this case, under guise to arrive on this island, and stopping further kidnappings. A simple plan at first, but one that evolves and changes after seeing this land with her very eyes, the people in it, and the situation.


Prior to launch, not much of the game was shown besides some entirely cinematic trailers, with little to no gameplay, and yet, this game is an improvement of everything the prior game did. From more interesting - and less common - puzzles to more intensive combat and better enemy variety. The combat system focuses on 1 on 1 fights, and at hard it reminded me of the older Assassin’s Creeds where I’d focus on deflecting attacks more than dealing damage. A time-slowing ability is also available after a set amount of good performance in the fight, alongside a very satisfying and responsive parry, that had me hooked from the start of each fight and for the rest of the game.
As already mentioned, the game is stunning to look at and uses every possible technology to it’s advantage. Starting with a wonderful HDR implementation, the game uses any possible technology UE5 it can for its end result: Lumen for global lighting, Nanites for stunning landscapes with photorealistic rocks, pebbles, etc. just to name a few. There is no doubt this is one of the most stunning games of the generation, with one of the best graphical fidelities ever seen.


Like a painting, stunning to look at, the game offers very limited gameplay and interactivity with the world, so much so that, honestly, the first few hours were the hardest for me when it came to pacing, making me almost weary, until the story became much more interesting. Puzzles and fights kept everything always interesting, while in-between sections would still be quite sluggish, even when filled with dialogues.
I praised above the use of the many technologies of UE5, but not all are necessarily a good addition to its art direction. One of the features of UE5 is to procedurally generate a detailed map, and while that is not a new tool in gaming development, there are already enough games with empty open worlds, like Shattered: Tale of the Forgotten King, where after the prologue opens to an empty open world with barely anything in it. This is not the case for Senua, as the game is quite linear, but I could not shake the feeling that besides the beaten path, what was around it was quite yes, pretty, but lifeless. It makes sense to use such a technology for parts of the map that are not as important, but this comes at the tradeoff of design aesthetic, and many are the open sparse tundras with not much to see. Linear or not, if I saw a screenshot of Hellblade 2 I would have no idea where it'd be, while a game with a strong art direction like Monster Hunter Worlds or Elden Ring I would. Realism is great, but ages poorly compared to art direction.

For a game that, while better than the prequel, did not stray much from the original formula, I genuinely did not sense the 7 years' worth of wait. I’m sure they obviously worked hard on it, but that feeling was only worsened by the story, being quite extensive and detailed at first, only to go much faster towards the finale almost rushing into, again like in the original, an open to interpretation ending.
I enjoyed my time on the title, but more than a videogame I would define it as an experience and a great showcase of UE5, one that I enjoyed playing, and even go 100% for, yet, would not suggest it unless a strongly narrative experience is exactly what you’re looking for.



Necessary mention goes to the PC port of the game. What wonderful masterwork have they done on this title when it comes to optimization. Heavy? Yes. But it also supports many technologies and never faltered or stuttered even under heavy situations. It was a joy to see a game on day 1 running so smoothly after the plethora of disgusting ports on PC in the last few years.


I enjoyed this game largely but also felt a bit disappointed by the overall end result, expecting a sequel that would add more to the series like Spiderman 2, instead of just a technical and more refined similar game. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it, although I don’t know if I would suggest it at full price.

6.9/10

From the company that made Life is Strange and Jusant, since the latter, thinking DontNOD had found a sweet spot, my eyes had locked on Banishers: Ghost of New Eden and was awaiting it with high expectations.
I hadn't purchased it at lunch because, after informing myself, I decided to shelf it for the time being. The game was gifted to me for my birthday, so the choice was made for me.

The story follows the adventures of Red and Anthea, two banishers romantically involved, who invited by their friend and mentor Charles, go to New Eden, a community of Puritans, to banish a ghost he alone could not. During this mission, the ghost turns out to be exponentially stronger than expected, a nightmare, and Anthea dies and becomes a ghost herself haunting Red, with the tie to this world being her body. The nightmare being so powerful can only mean it was wronged gravely, meaning the people of New Eden have lied to them, allowed the team to underestimate the threat, and contributed to Anthea's death, only so they could keep their secrets. They must get to the bottom of it to learn the truth, understand and weaken the nightmare, to then make their way back to New Eden to face it again.
A choice is given to Red:
- Sacrifice the lives of these sinners to bring Anthea back to life.
- Ascend or banish the ghosts he'll find, instead, contributing to Athea ascending this plane peacefully, unlike the ghosts you banish.
The story sounds interesting and captivating...the way I presented it.
Instead, the writing POV keeps blue-balling the player by keeping the objective of going back like a dangling carrot, and the power of the nightmare is only speculated at first to be connected to the sins of New Edeners. The various stories you'll learn of, act only as padding to the story instead of a component of it, often resulting as frustration as more unlock.

The intro to the game is one of the longest I've ever played with almost 5h of playtime before the initial structure of the gameplay and its various systems is unlocked.
The game is simply too long for what it offers, and it's so stretched that even the banter between the characters starts repeating quite early.
Funnily, concept arts are used for loading screens, but besides the low quality and detail, some don't even feature the final design of the characters with Anthea being a different race.

Ghost hunting often sums up to learning what happened, then coming up with a verdict, and being able to peacefully ascend all ghosts you meet, even if they were extremely wronged and angry, and want to kill the haunted. Letting the player choose which ritual to perform, while interesting at first, quickly becomes a nuisance since only one is the correct one. It's just another extra menu on the way. I would have preferred to have a more interesting cutscene instead, maybe with more than one alpha mask model for the knife incisions done when drawing a rune since it's the same regardless of sand, wood, or rock.

The writing of the side missions is sub-par, often being quite simple or nonsensical, like during a quest, when following the tracks of a stolen cart and they go up a wall and over a tree trunk. It did not keep in mind the pacing of the story, often breaking immersion and the moment by changing gear completely.
Representation matters and as a member of the LGBTQIA community I was happy to see some forward topics like interracial marriage, girl bossing, or a queer couple at the beginning of the game and in the main story, but by the time I got to the end, it became a bit redundant with most stories featuring topics such as. I am again thankful for the representation, I simply wished the game touched on a larger variety of topics.

Exploration is limited to running around and pressing the interaction button for all parkour in the game, sometimes requiring to press forward alongside it.
Walking around from A to B is quite tedious, and the map while big, is quite empty of anything interesting in it, besides materials. The loot is next to useless having even most chests, including ones behind long optional puzzles, reward materials.
Missions, often point only at an area, forcing the player to waste a lot of time looking around for what they are looking for. Exploration is further hindered by most shortcuts connecting two relatively close points, while sometimes having ledges that can't be climbed back, forcing you to repeat a long round trip.
Map progression is Metroid-like, with abilities gatekeeping points of interest, and the map showing the shortcut icon before unlocking it. Exploration becomes confusing, especially when deviating from the main story path, and often the time invested towards a ? on the map is wasted.
One of the gates is roots that need to be destroyed, similar to runic chests in the new God of Wars, but compared to them these give no good visual hint to the player of how many there are to destroy, be that 2 or 5, often blending in making it not just time-consuming, but trial and error.
The worst offender for exploration though is fast travel, limited only and exclusively at and in between bonfires, of which there are not many.

Combat, while it might look interesting at first and somewhat inspired by the recent GoWs, is naught but a foundation of it. It has the same structure and depth as a game like Hellblade, with 10 times its length and frequency. Constantly, a barrage of enemies attacks you every few steps in your direction, but the enemy types can be counted on a hand. Not even bosses are safe, with the ONE less gimmicky - yes one - being reused for in-map activity.
Little to nothing is added to the formula going forward, making combat formulaic and the same from start to end with the ability tree simply numerical increases of the already existing abilities.

Equipment is at best scarce and at worst not rewarded for anything worth doing in the game. Every equipment slot has options, from armor to weapons, rings, brooches, and...the healing potion?
Everything is upgradable, and each upgrade costs a lot of materials, resulting in changing it or choosing to upgrade a big commitment. All equipment, besides a different passive perk, doesn't offer a gameplay difference and is only aesthetic.
Not everything has to be upgradable, and a system akin to the new GoWs where, for example, you upgrade one weapon, and then switch charms for perks would have worked immensely better and avoided having the map showered in materials and forcing the player to spam-collect at all corners.

Technically, the game is made in Unreal Engine 5, but compared to many other releases lately, is merely an import of a UE4 project without taking advantage of any new technology like Lumen or Nanites.
Accessibility options are barely existent, with a forced narrow FOV that could cause motion sickness to some players, topped with an aggressive camera shake that can't be disabled: a killer combo, BEWARE!
Thankfully, the awful menu parallax effect can be turned off.
The auto-saving system of the game is lovely and can really save you at times, from the game-breaking bugs and unpatched bugged quests.
What wasn't well done, especially for users with mouse and keyboard was dialogue selection, not including the mouse pointer as an option at all.
In general quality control did not seem high, with typos making not just release, but many patches.

This game speaks about curses, and when it was gifted to me I felt like it came with one. I felt forced into playing it because it was a gift and because on paper: I should have liked it. With hindsight, the original hunch I had that the game might be too long for what it offered was correct.
This was one of those games that would have stayed on my wishlist until deleted years later, and I would not wish it to anyone gifted, let alone purchased.
I'm sure it's great for someone, just not me. There's a demo: TRY IT.

4/10

A series that I always wished to get into, after my initial 25h playthrough, the last time I tried to play DD1 was right after a date was announced for DD2, and when I inevitably dropped the prequel again, needless to say, I was not holding my breath for the sequel.
Still, I came across the advertising on socials and could see the huge hype the community had for it, and when the Character Creator Demo was released, I obviously had to try and make my beloved characters.
Regardless of my history with the series, this sparked my interest, but what really put the nail in the coffin was the gameranx Before You Buy video, where he compared exploring in DD2 to Elden Ring.


The story revolves around the main character, the Arisen, chosen directly by the Dragon who steals its heart binding the two together.
The Arisen has then the objective to become inhumanly powerful to challenge the Dragon, win its heart back, and save the world, with the help of human-looking immortal otherworldly beings known as pawns, that respond exclusively to the Arisen.
As long as the dragon lives, the Arisen cannot die.
The main pawn of the Arisen can be created freely, while the other two can be hired to have a group of four. The Arisen is not a one-man army and requires the support of a well-made team of pawns to succeed.
In the setting of DD2, Arisens are now by default the king of the city of Venworth, yet our journey begins as slaves, after having lost our memory.
That being said, the story of the game is not the primary focus and has low roleplayability when it comes to choice-making. The subplots especially in the second half, leave a lot to desire. The "bigger picture" of the world does the heavy lifting, being the more interesting part.


What DD2 does amazingly, is feel like a breathing world with a plethora of NPCs that can give quests, often responding to our actions.
The Vermundian Forest and the Batthali Desert are the 2 biomes available with cities and occasional new structures or areas in some specific parts of the map.
Besides fighting, questing, and the 240 collectibles around the map, caves/dungeons are one of the few activities available in the open world. These can be as small as a few rooms, to medium-sized, but usually share the same style and design.

The enemies' variety, although fun to fight against, is almost identical to DD1, making it blatant that, ignoring re-skinned variants, there are roughly 20 enemy types in total, including bosses. This lack of variety is extended to loot, with some chests rewarding equipment, but many offering consumables.
All this is somewhat aggravated by the constant barrage of enemies the player has to fight, to the point of making one of the alternatives to foot travel, hard to use.
The first time I took one of the carts that go by the main roads I wanted to sit and enjoy the whole trip, instead of taking a nap. We were attacked 5 times back to back and the cart was destroyed for taking too much damage.
Moreover, these carts although not supposed to travel by night in the lore, some travels are so long that if awoken, it'll be night. A simple fix for an immersion-breaking mistake.

Like in the aforementioned example, the beautiful and dynamic world of DD2 does not communicate to the player its lore with its design, enemy placement, or loot. There is often no special reason behind why a certain group of enemies is there, or why that greatsword was in that cave, instead, the world is simply where everything happens.

One of the design points that is both controversial and well-known in the series, is that fast travel is not easily accessible, by design. The creator believes that fast travel is a crutch for a bad world design and that it's a reflection of a boring world.
I could not disagree more.
While yes, fast travel can be a crutch to a less interesting world design, providing that commodity does not make the world less interesting by default.
Forcing the player to walk everywhere and constantly fight enemies didn't incentivize me to explore every corner, just like Elden Ring's fast travel did not deter me from it.
Where in Elden Ring I found myself going from A to B, having as the incentive the much more varied world, loot, enemies, etc. in between, in DD2, it's how dynamic the experience of going toward B that motivated me, because what happens during the travel often counts more than the destination.


This game shines in its combat system and the interactivity that it offers. Vocations, or classes, can be changed on a whim at no cost and completely change the fighting approach complimented by amazing animations.
Vocations have their own weapon, with a starting moveset just as complex as any From Software game. These level up only when using them, and unlock both core abilities, active abilities - basically 4 additional weapon skills, and passive abilities - that can be used on any vocation.

I started the game as a fighter using a sword and shield and later moved to the warrior with a two-handed greatsword. By the time I unlocked the magic warrior with a twin spear, my mind was set to only level up the vocations that I was interested in. When I noticed that my main pawn as an archer had unlocked a passive to deal more damage to weak points, I changed my mind and decided to level all of them.
One of the core abilities of a fighter is to absorb fall damage by landing on the shield. Right after changing back to this vocation a griffin attacked near the town's exit, and during the fight tried to fly away while I was on its back. I proceeded to attack it until we both fell from the sky, but the griffin being bigger fell faster, so with my death impending, I remembered I could land on my shield to hopefully dampen my fall, which was funnily right on its head, dealing a lot of damage.
Another highlight was how at some point I was exploring a part of the map and noticed that where I wanted to go was inaccessible to me because of a high cliff. From the near high ground, I then noticed a cyclop was sleeping not too far from the edge of the cliff. Since I was playing archer, I hit it at a distance to lure it closer, and once weakened it, pushed it against the wall of the cliff, climbed on its back, and used its height as a way to reach the top of this cliff.

All these interactions happened not because they were scripted but simply because different systems in the game worked together. If you think you can do it, you likely can, and that's the real magic of this game.


A lot of rightful noise was made at the game's release because of microtransactions and PC performances, and don't get me wrong, I denounce both.
Not to be devil's advocate, but when it comes to microtransactions, while it's disgusting they included them, it is of the lesser ugly of sorts, with items that are easily accessible and available in-game. Even rift crystals used to hire pawns are readily available, and useless since hiring current-level pawns is free.
Just like for other recent Capcom releases, it's mostly a scam to less savvy players.
Stunning as it might be, the PC port runs poorly and even with my hardware, I had to fall back on DLSS Frame Generation to have a stable frame time inside the city and avoid VRR flicker. The game's graphic options do little to nothing for performance gains, with a major visual impact.


For a sequel, the title builds on the already solid gameplay base of DD1 and adds some, resulting in a magical gaming experience that I won't forget and motivates me to play the prequel and to keep playing. Although flawed, the game stands as a unique experience; one that I strongly suggest.

9.8/10

Ever since enjoying P5 Royal and Strikers, I was ecstatic about the rumored P3 remake.
I did not, though, appreciate the shady release of P3 Portable months before the announcement of the remake. P3 has many versions out there, and normally, remakes are complete editions of said game, yet, this lacks the female main character route, and the DLC/epilogue of the game at lunch.
This is an expensive game all things considered, especially in its Deluxe Edition; but I still went for it thinking this was a one-time purchase as they openly said they had no further plans for the game. Although I am happy and will look forward to The Answer aka Episode Aigis coming to Reload as well, considering it's almost the same price, had I known, I would have spent that money on the literal epilogue of the game over a few costumes and DLC Personas...
I know these choices are not up to the developers, but I still think Sega and Atlus should have aimed at delivering a full experience, instead of squeezing every penny from their exhausted community to the point of specifying there won't be a "Royal" like version of this game.
That said, each penny was worth it and this game left an impression on me.


P3R follows the adventures of the, canonically, Makoto Yuki, and his friends. In this world when midnight strikes, some people can exist within what's known as "Dark Hour", a time in between days when normal people transmogrify into a coffin and don't perceive it unless they have the potential. The potential is not only to exist in the dark hour but to wield a Persona; a reflection of their own self, that gives power to the wielder, similarly to a stand in Jojo.
Whereas in P5 they'd awaken their persona by accepting themselves, in P3R, persona-users normally use a fake gun called an "evoker", and symbolically shoot themselves. I like to think it's because of an understanding of life, acceptance of death, and sacrifice - as these are themes recurrent in the game - but the fan-base consensus seems to be that this is just a way to summon their power without too much explanation or depth into it, unlike the mask in P5.
The main character, as a staple in Persona, can wield multiple of them at the same time, making them the chosen of our story. During the Dark Hour a giant structure known as Tartarus appears, with our objective being to understand its connection to the Dark Hour.
In short: what an amazing story!


As in P5, the appeal of the game to me is the dailiness, allowing you to really live in these character's shoes for months at end. It's not possible to rush through the story, as each day must be experienced besides some story-related time skips, even if only by going home early after school and going to sleep early. Because of this, going out with friends - social links - or doing activities, while it does make the experience longer, is the best choice.
I had the impression confidants were not as memorable as in P5, but the game is simply a late bloomer, with many of the most interesting social links available in the second half of the game.

In P5 for each main boss, there is a unique dungeon with unique mechanics. As a side yet required activity, Mementos is a procedural extensive dungeon that is unlocked as you progress through the story.
P3 obviously being older, in simple terms features only Mementos. Tartarus is a finite procedural dungeon that gets unlocked as you defeat the main bosses. Tartarus as well is mandatory, but in this case, is also the only dungeon of the game, with main bosses happening in other locations on their given day.

I decided, knowing the format of the game, to use a non-spoiler calendar guide, only to make it easier to keep track of everything and go for 100% on my first playthrough. When it came to Tartarus, I thought the guide was just trying to optimize my days as much as possible, but that's not the case. Tartarus' design invites the player for longer sessions, with bonuses given when exploring that will stack during the same session, and when maxed out, will raise the quality of rewards. This leads to binging to the next block, with a strong change of pace, and especially difficult early with fewer characters.

When it comes to the dungeon itself, I must give my kudos to the developers for doing as much as they could to zhuzh-it up, making each block of Tartarus different in its aesthetic and tileset. Still, this does not change the exploration is quite limited to running around, attacking enemies, and opening chests. Compared to Mementos, there are also a lot of important dialogues within the exploration of Tartarus, demanding your attention during a repetitive task.
I overall enjoyed it still, but dreaded the long session change of pace sometimes.

The combat flows amazingly, and boss fights are interesting from the get-go. Each boss is unique, without falling too much into crutches of artificial difficulty. I'm sure they have rebalanced a few of the fights as P3 was well-known for some unfairly broken fights.


Although a newcomer to P3, I informed myself on some, but not all, of the additions of the remake after completing it.
New is the ability to pass the turn to allies when matching weaknesses or doing a crit, and new are also special abilities - like ultimates - for each character.
Much more of the game has been dubbed, and more activities have been added to pass the time.
Should you forget to save, a great new addition is the "Rewind" mechanic, similar to autosaves, that keeps a few savegames made before an activity was chosen; say you enter Tartarus and forget to buy new equipment, you could just rewind to the start of the evening should you have not saved in a while. I hope this will come back in future games!
Many additions were made for Tartarus too, adding a "Shuffle Time" when fighting well, allowing you to choose for some bonuses like ability cards, more XP, money, etc.
New are also destructible statues around the map that when destroyed can award items of any type, from gems that can be sold for money to HP/SP restoration items.
Taking from P5, the UI has been completely redesigned and while it does not reach the same heights, it does fit the game well and is stunning.
All soundtracks are either new or have been rerecorded to fit the new package better. I can guarantee you many will make their way into my personal playlists as it happened for P5.


Last, but not least, I just want to make a note for the game's optimization and polish. While graphic options may not be many, the options are there, with unexpected ones like ray-tracing on all glass/wet surfaces.
When playing at 1080p I had the game's internal resolution at 125-150% to avoid aliasing with the many straight lines the game has, but when I moved to 1440p, the game looked fine at 100% internal resolution. Still, it would have not hurt to have DLAA, or any of the image reconstruction techniques like DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, as an option. Regardless, the game runs great with no issues that I could notice.
The idea that for Metaphor: Re Fantazio I need to go back to the same in-house engine as P5 makes me cry. I have never seen Persona look so good, lit so good, and run so well even in busy environments.


In conclusion, Persona 3 Reload is a wonderful remake of the roots that led to masterpieces like Persona 5 Royal, with the potential to be called nothing less than that.
It is sadly not the complete package, lacking an entirely different path for the main character and epilogue that I think should have been there from the beginning.
As the first of its genre, it's rough around the edges on many things, that the remake has tried to smooth out.
I'm happy I had the chance to play this, and I'll be begrudgingly waiting for The Answer in September!

7.9/10

I was there on day one, at 4 am my time when Sekiro got released. I still remember vividly being awake because I was extra nervous for a job interview the same morning at 9 am. Could not sleep, picked up my phone and a friend told me it was available. The wait for the unpacking of the preload was torture!

I also remember losing my first 5h of playtime to my mother opening yet again the laundry machine and oven, on top of my PC, the fridges, etc.; a killer load for our electrical system. My UPS had recently died, my PC went off during a save and it corrupted. Don't get me wrong, my 5h were less than 1 when knowing where to go and what to do, but it still scorched me so bad I keep setting hourly backups of all the active games I play! 😂

For reasons I can't even understand, I'm five years late for this, but it's time I get around to reviewing Sekiro.
And what better time than now, right after playing through it again? Shoutout to Chad of Astora for the video about the intricacy of the maps in From Software's titles, as that reminded me how wonderful Sekiro is.


The main character, Wolf, is a servant to Kuro, the Divine Heir, who is blessed with the ability to grant immortality to those who serve him. An ability that shapes the world of Ashina into obsession, considering it's so rare. Said blessing, is the lore explanation for why we as the main character can die and resurrect at least once during a fight, but also at the familiar idol checkpoints in the game when failing, but not without a cost.

Being a shinobi, Sekiro can't win a strength contest but excels in ability and agility. Sekiro's mobility is one of the best parts of the game. The grappling hook feels amazing, and the wall jump, plus grab ledge ability, really gives complete freedom of movement.
Gravity is not deadly anymore, and fall damage is a lot more lenient and can be canceled by anchoring where possible with the grapple, regardless of height.

The world's interconnectivity, heavily inspired by Dark Souls 1, is second only to the aforementioned, and Elden Ring. It's possible to explore and do so much before even completing the first objective after the prologue.

The stealth mechanics and the ability to assassinate from behind walls, above, or behind enemies are so fun and well executed! The game is better at assassin's-creeding than any of the last games of the series.
Combined with all the shinobi tools you're given, unlockable skills, and shinobi arts, there is a good amount of customization and build-making available while keeping all the options viable.

Lastly, the collaboration with Activision has given us a great introduction and tutorial.


Although set in feudal Japan, Sekiro is surprisingly varied when it comes to its environment and design, with plenty of cultural nuances. It's sad that for a foreigner many remain obscure because of a lack of cultural understanding.

Sekiro is extremely transparent with its story and is probably their most story-driven title to date with plenty of cutscenes and dialogues. It leaves little to speculate, and descriptions take the place of instructions for usage, more than pieces of a puzzle.

Compared to Western tropes, it seems to me some subjects are dearer to the Japanese narrative, and are often included in many mediums. For example, the cyclicity of a world/universe can be seen in Dark Souls, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Dragon's Dogma, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and Evangelion which I can think of. Much like the Moonlight being present in almost all From Software titles in one way or the other, some subjects and mechanics are bound to be improved and reintroduced in new ways.
The subject Sekiro focuses on is stagnancy, accompanied by a familiar mechanic that had not been seen since Demon Souls, abeit less punishing.
I mentioned all this because, for the longest time, the Dark Souls community was stuck in the misunderstanding - caused by a flawed translation - that the flow of time for those games was "convoluted" when the actual translation was "stagnant".
Stagnancy in Sekiro is so excruciatingly explained that in the process, it gives a better idea of what that looks like in Dark Souls.

In Sekiro, my favorite example that sent me into a rabbit hole of research is the character "源” used for the name of an area. Although translated correctly, it also translates to Minamoto, the most powerful and important clan out of four great clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods, who in the Genpei Wars crushed the Taira clan, which the Ashinas were related to.
It's a small history nuance, and not as major as the translation flaw in Dark Souls hindering the understanding of the world, but sad nonetheless as a history buff, when the main setting of the game is Japan, and we could have been exposed to more things like this.


I consider myself a From Software veteran, but there is one boss, my favorite actually, I would say I know like the back of my hand. I can easily tell exactly what it'll do next, and take perfect spacing from its attacks.
I don't say this to boast myself, but to depict a picture of what killing any and all bosses in Sekiro is like. Mistakes are heavily punished, while ability is greatly rewarded.

Learning a fight and its pattern is, for lack of a better example, like learning a track on a rhythm game. It's not just about knowing the song, but knowing how to execute it to a level that will allow you to complete it.
When you learn how a boss moves, the objective shifts from using their windows to damage them, to using what they do against them.
Deflecting attacks will slowly chip away at their posture, giving you the opportunity, if well executed and with enough aggressivity to perform a death blow on a boss with almost all its vitality intact. At the same time, taking some of the vitality down will make their posture recover slower during breaks.
Not all attacks can be deflected, some must be avoided and others must be countered, and it's this intricate dance you do with each enemy that is the magic of Sekiro.

This rhythm, the bosses' ability to dodge or tank after consecutive hits, and the moveset of your attacks being a 4-hit combo with a long recovery on the last move, make the game a souls-lite, although it misses many key components of the genre.
The moveset combo idea worked well in Bloodborne, fast-paced and with low stamina usage, and made its way into Sekiro. The new posture system and rhythm of the boss attacks solve both the attack and roll spam Dark Souls 3 suffered from. All this then made its way into Elden Ring, making it the peak of their work yet.

I never lost a fight without understanding where my mistake was and learning from it, and I was never victorious without feeling like I could do it again.
Sekiro's punishing yet rewarding gameplay is what made me celebrate audibly for defeating a boss I had already defeated in the past, just because I didn't learn it so well at the time, but mastered it now.


After winning GOTY - might I remind everyone against Control, Death Stranding, and Resident Evil 2 Remake - almost a year after, a patch was released that added both a boss replay mechanic and three boss rush modes that award different outfits for Sekiro.
This is something I always felt was missing, and I'm glad made its way into it, although breaking a LOT of mod compatibility in the process. This also added some asynchronous online functionalities, like player ghosts and messages.

Although seemingly more restrictive at a glance, Sekiro offers some of the best visuals, gameplay, and movement in gaming.
It all builds up to the best reward for skill and ability of any of the From Software titles, and it makes me hope the true ending is nothing but a nudge to a sequel that would be more than welcome.

10/10

> adds Enigma DRM to RE: Revelations
> gets backlash
> removes it
> adds it to MH Rise

WTF Capcom? Leave the f*cking game alone, and leave older games alone.

F*ck off with your DRM, and f*ck off ruining modding communities.
People say mods might still work, but this is a trend that should not be encouraged.
We did not get DRM free MH World to have it added years later, and it will get there at this pace.

I did not buy Rise with Enigma, I don't want it added sneakly years later.
So ashamed of themselves they did not even include it in the patch notes!

Capcom might have a kink for being shamed, and shame them we shall.

To think just yesterday I was thinking it was about damn time for me to write a nice review for both games...