Review: Doom Eternal (PC) ~ Just A Little Bit More

I still remember when I had beaten Doom 2016, I wanted to play the sequel. Yet, for some strange reason, my PC which was strong enough couldn’t run the game. Now, I was planning to build a new computer and recently I did. Now, I have a totally new computer, and I got Doom Eternal for free via my Humble Bundle subscription. Currently, I have beaten the main campaign, not yet the DLC. So, was it worth the wait for the new computer, or should I have played other games first? Well, in this article, I’ll talk about my honest first impression of the game and what I thought of it. I only focused my playthrough on the main campaign. So, no opinions on the DLC and the multiplayer. Also, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Just A Little Bit More

Doom Eternal is a game where the core mechanics of Doom 2016 are taken and expanded upon. Kind of like Tears of the Kingdom did for Breath of the Wild. The first piece of evidence of that move is the story.

In this game, we play as Doom guy. 14 years after the ending of Doom (2016). And of course, we get no explanation why it took Doom guy so long or what happened during that period. We do get some amazing voice acting from an outstanding cast. But the story this time around isn’t the best. While yes, we don’t play Doom for the story… But, this story has some problems.

There is a lot of technobabble in the game. Various things you can understand from context clues, and I mean the word context here in any way shape or form. Others are never explained at all. Of course, we have the scattered lore documents… But, that’s not the way how you pace a Doom story. We don’t play Doom to read notes, we play Doom to shoot demons and save Earth. If there was a bit more: “This is such and such, a member of that demon race that invaded Earth after that energy source was discovered…” or amongst those lines, it would feel a lot less mediocre.

Also, the unexplained 14-year gap between both games isn’t doing the story of this game any good. Quite often I felt I was playing the 3rd game in a story driven series. Where in the second game, a lot a thing happened and step up this 3rd story.

I think the balance between not explaining and explaining things is off here. Suddenly we are hunting for Hell Priests now, why are these important? How powerful are they? Why are we hunting them and… Hold up… Is this taking the gag of not caring about the details of the story to an extreme? Maybe so. Yet, this execution falls flat on its face in my opinion when it takes itself so seriously.

The expanded lore is there through the sometimes quite hidden notes you can pick up. So, if you want to make sense of the story and the events, you can read them. But, like I said… We don’t play a Doom game for reading, we play a Doom game to play a badass and challenge ourselves in tricky arena’s.

Nevertheless, I think the story is okay. I’d give it a just passing grade, out of 10. I just feel that it could have been fleshed out a bit more. Not only that, but I couldn’t help myself compare it to the opening of some of the previous Doom games, where things gradually build up, and we get to learn what everything is. Just like how this game introduces all the returning and new enemies to us.

Oh boy, the enemy roster is quite expanded in this game. And some of the new enemies are fascinating. For example, the Carcass. This enemy can put up energy walls that serve as shields. And they are used to protect their demon kind from an attack. Also, the new Whiplash snake enemies are creepy. They are snakes with whips that are quite annoying to hit when they are moving on the ground. There are other enemies like the Marauders. These just frustrated me to no end.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. At the start of this part of the article, I said that Doom Eternal is an expanded version of Doom 2016. So, if you have played Doom 2016, you will feel right at home in this game. This game is still the action packed and tense shooter where you feel that you are locked in with the demons, but the demons are locked in with you.

Hectic micromanagement

Most of the gameplay loop is still here from Doom 2016. But, like in Doom Eternal tradition, there is more. The first big change is that there is no pistol anymore with unlimited ammo. So, if you run out of ammo, you’ll have to rely on the chainsaw.

You’d think that, like in Doom 2016, you’d use glory kills to refill your ammo as your health. But, oh no. In this game, that’s only for health. If you want ammo, you’ll have to chainsaw attack the enemies. So, it’s a good idea to keep the weaker enemies around to chainsaw them if you are running low. New in this game is that you don’t have to refuel the chainsaw when you are out of fuel. One piece of fuel automatically recharges. You can pick up more fuel if you want or have to chainsaw the bigger enemies.

Now, Doom Eternal got a lot more tricky compared to Doom 2016. If you are quite used to the Doom 2016 combat loop… Well, you will be thrown for a surprise here. This game is even more of a balancing act than before. You have so many options to kill demons, it’s a joy to enter an arena and fight your way through it.

Overall, Doom Eternal is quite linear. You go from A to B and overall, the path is almost always clear on what to do. And if it isn’t clear, a quick glance at the map will help you to figure out where to go next. At first, I was afraid that this would mean that secret hunting would be quite easy, but oh boy was I wrong. When I finished my first level and saw that I didn’t even find half of the secrets, I was surprised.

I can’t wait to replay through some scenario’s and try things differently or look at what I might have missed. Since, sometimes the secrets are quite helpful in your quest. And other times, they are fun collectables to decorate your ship.

Personally, I think this game can be a bit overwhelming. There is so much you can do in this game, it’s hard to keep track of everything. There are so many different types of enemies with their own unique weak points. You also have to juggle your ammo pool and on top of that, you have secrets to find… It took me until over the halfway point before I understood a lot of the finer mechanics of this game.

At a certain moment, the game just started to click. Yes, there is a lot in this game, and don’t expect to be able to find everything at your first playthrough. Unless you are using a guide, that is. Overall, this game took me 14 hours to complete, and I felt I found quite a lot of the secrets. There are several I didn’t find, but that’s for another playthrough.

The gameplay loop is mostly the same as Doom 2016. You go from arena to arena, shooting up waves upon waves of demons. If you stand still or let yourself get cornered, you’ll die. In this game, you can pick up extra lives. Now, these extra lives are extremely worth it. They respawn you when you die without you having to reload from a checkpoint. Let me tell you, if you think that this makes the game easier, oh boy… At the final three levels, I had close to twelve one ups in the bag. Even while being careful, I had zero of them at the final boss fight. This game will punish you if you don’t keep moving and prioritize certain enemies.

If you kill the weaker enemies right away, you’ll be in trouble. Since, it’s quite easy to run out of ammo. Even when you fully upgrade the ammo cap. Then, you’ll have to stagger the weaker “fodder” enemies to chainsaw them for ammo. Or blow up barrels for ammo. Sometimes I felt I wasn’t playing a shooter but an action strategy puzzle game.

Especially because this game becomes a sort of game where you have to make quick decisions. Remembering your controls and what does what is essential. I even mapped various things to my mouse for quick access. The trickiest thing is deciding if you chainsaw or glory kill the fodder enemies. Do you need health or ammo? Since, chainsawing fodder enemies gives you less health than glory killing. I do have one complaint about that, if you have the bad luck a stronger enemy comes in front of you, and you press the chainsaw button instead of the glory kill button, the animation of “not enough fuel” takes a bit too long before you can really preform your glory kill or chainsaw the right enemy… Or even shoot.

Outside the shooting, this game turns into something resembling the modern Tomb Raider trilogy. There is a lot of jumping and platforming puzzles in this game… So much so, that I even considered subtitling this review “Doom’s Identity Crisis” where I started to compare both games. In most cases, the way forward is very clearly signposted, so it’s quite rare to get lost or not know where to go. In very rare cases, it was not. It was either a swing bar being a bit too hidden or a switch that I didn’t know I had to hit. For example, in the later levels, swimming sections gets introduced. In these sections, there are tubes you can shoot into to shoot a button. Thankfully, I know from previous Doom games that this is a mechanic in the series, but newer players will have a tough time figuring that one out.

Happy journey

This article first started out as a first impression article. Since I played this game with a lot of breaks in between, I felt that I had to play this game again for a longer time to fully form an opinion. So, I played it quite a lot these past days and I even finished it.

I wondered if it’s better to play this game in one long sitting or in short bursts. To be honest, I don’t have a clear answer on that. The game is a lot of fun to play and when you get into the rhythm of things, it’s hard to put down. But on the other hand, I felt that this game was repetitive in longer bursts.

Now, during my research for this article, I noticed that a lot of people praised this game for it’s polish and smoothness. I do have to agree for the most part. Visually, this game is amazing. It’s gore and creepy in the right places and gorgous when it needs to me imposing. Very rarely I encountered some visual strangeness. Sadly, a few times I noticed some rough parts of the game. A door texture in the main hub here, a floating arm there.

Something that I felt that was off is when the Archvile spawned enemies, they don’t come alive right away. It’s an amazing effect to see them get “build to life”… But, quite often it took a few seconds for them to become active. As if the newly generated object was loading in the code of the AI for that demon. It felt jarring sometimes especially since this game runs so smooth. Just like me having the game sometimes not boot when I change my screen resolution.

Something that’s also quite impressive in terms of the visuals is the fact you can dress up your slayer as you wish. There are a lot a cosmetic options and skins you can unlock. Some of them ingame, others via cosmetic DLC. It’s amazing to see that all the cutscenes and reflections in game change as well. But, the cosmetics don’t give any buffs or change anything gameplay wise. So, having around € 90 of cosmetic packs in the Steam store, no thanks.

In terms of preformance, this game ran amazingly on my new computer. I had quite the smooth framerate and I have to agree that it’s optimized quite well there. Yes, the game is overwhelming and there is a lot going on… But, all sound cues and visual cues still give the player the information they need. Very rarely I nocited some input lag with the jumping.

The controls are quite good as well. Thankfully, the keys are shown in the UI, so you can quickly find what you are looking for at a glance. The UI isn’t “in your face” but gives you a lot of information as well. The only annoying thing in terms of the controls is that near the end of the game, you have to “use” some doors instead of what your are used too, runnig up to them and open them.

Now, I touched upon sound cues earlier. In terms of the music and sound effects, this game is just amazing. You’ll have a hard time playing this game without the sound. There are so many sound cues like low health or bosses charging up, it’s quite important. Thankfully, most of these sound cues also have a visual cue so deaf people won’t have trouble with this game too much there.

The music as well is amazing. The heavy metal tracks by Nick Gordon just pump you up for the action and add some amazing atmosphere to the game. During writing of this article, I have beene listening to my buddy Kovic his arrangement and I’m reliving the game again. I just have a weak spot for heavy metal soundtracks from shooters.

Now earlier, I said that I mostly agree that this game is extremely optimized. Sadly, I did encounter a few things that raised my eyebrows. First of all, sometimes after ammo depletion of one of my gun suddenly switched to the BFG. In the hectic fight, I didn’t notice that right away and the amount of times I shot a BFG round without wanting too, is just sad.

Also, I did notice some minor bugs. Twice, I clipped through the floor while climbing raising platforms. Sometimes I found a spot where I could clip into the level geometry. Yeah, some parts weren’t solid. Thankfully, these parts are very far and few between.

One thing that really felt “bad” is one boss fight. I’m sorry but the Khan Maykr boss fight is just silly. Just like others, I quite often ran out of ammo during that boss fight. Now, it turns out that when you shoot the new minion enemies in the head, they drop ammo. This is fine and all, but Khan Maykr eletricifies half of the arena and there are no fodder enemies. So, if you really run out of ammo… Though luck. That means you have to redo that boss fight. And how do we learn that these minions drop ammo? Well, from the codex page of course in the menu… Unlike all the other new enemies where you have an introduction screen with their weakspot.

This bossfight was needlessly hard and I honestly didn’t like to play it. Since, a few too many mistakes in your ammo management and it’s game over. Even all other boss fights spawn fodder enemies for you to heal or get more ammo. Why not this time? You can’t recover after a few mistakes and that just feels unfair. Especially when you read online that several weapon mods are quite effective… But, what if you weren’t focussing on these mods?

One other thing that I felt was disappointing in this game was that some mechanics are underused in the main campaign. During one moment in thte campaign, you can take control of a Revenant. You have a battle as that demon. There are also upgrades for that fight in your suit. But, this is only a short fight and once during the entire game. But maybe I can experiment with that more in the endless battles or the new battlemode that update 66.6 brought.

Now, I fully know that I haven’t talked about everyting this game has to offer. But there is just so much that this game has to offer that talking about everything would make this review take hours to read and weeks to write. So, I’m leaving various things as a surprise for you to discover when you give this game a shot.

Conclusion

The good:

+Addictive shooter loop.

+Amazing music and audio design.

+Great animations and visual presentation.

+Replay value in a linear shooter.

+Secret hunting is a lot of fun.

+Amazing controls.

+Great voice acting.

The bad:

-This game can be a bit overwhelming, so it’s easy to forget certain mechanics or features.

-Very minor visual hickups here and there.

-Presentation of the story. A bit too much reading for certain lore points and twists to make sense or have any kind of impact.

-Too many cosmetic DLC’s.

Conclusion:

If you enjoyed playing Doom 2016, you’ll love this game. This game is an amazing action game where quick decision making is key and central to the gameplay. I only have two major problems with this game.

First, is the story and how a lot of the lore and background information is explained in notes. Notes that are sometimes hidden in secrets. It’s a shame it’s presented like that since the pacing, writing and voice acting is amazing.

Secondly, the game is a bit too filled with content. This is a very tricky balacing act since as a casual player, you can only remember so much. The game is a bit too hectic to always remember that you have challenges and such. Thankfully, this makes the game quite replayable. Hopefully, the second time you play it in a different way so you unlock the other things.

Now, I’m happy that I played Doom Eternal. I can’t wait to start the two DLC campagins and explore all the mechanics and modes that I have missed. This game is amazing ride and an amazing follow up to Doom 2016. In my Doom 2016 review, I wondered if this game fixes a lot of the grips I had with Doom 2016. They set such a big step in the right direction. I honestly think that if in the next Doom game, they explain the lore eabout certain things more.. I think I’ll have a hard time finding flaws in this game.

If you enjoy action shooter games and don’t shy away from an interesting puzzle… This game is for you. You don’t need to have played Doom 2016 for you to play Doom Eternal. It wouldn’t surprise me that this game will be on my top 10 games of the year list. It is an amazing gamee with a few flaws but overall, these flaws didn’t hinder my enjoyment with this gem of a game. While the main campaign will take you 14 hours, I can totally see myself sinking a lot more hours in it.

And with that, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reaeding it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welecome you in another article, but until thene have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 90/100

Review: Persona 5 Royal (PS4) ~ Changing The World

Wikipedia – Official microsite

Exclusives are a strange thing. I heard quite a lot of things about the Persona series and how it captured the hearts of so many people. Persona mainly releases on PlayStation 4. Two years ago, I decided to bite the bullet and bought myself a PlayStation 4 Pro to play Persona 5 to see what the fuzz was about. Not too long after I had beaten the game for the first time, the ports to other platforms got announced. Oh well, that’s life sometimes for you. Now, I have another platform to play games on, and I’m glad I bought my PlayStation 4 Pro. At first, it was my Persona 5 Royal machine, even when I had a lot of other games for it. Now, why did Persona 5 Royal struck such a cord with me? Is the game really that good or am I just blinding myself to not feel buyer’s regret? Or am I just overlooking the flaws in the game…? Well, in this article, I want to talk this game that almost was my game of the year last year. I hope you are ready, since here we go, let’s dive right in the world of the Phantom Thieves, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Changing the world

To keep spoilers to a minimum in this article, I’m going to skip over various plot details and keep some parts vague. Since, this game is best experienced as blind as possible. Then, you get the most out of the story.

The game opens in a casino where you have to escape. Our main protagonist gets caught and detained by the police. The questioning starts, and you start telling the story from the beginning.

The protagonist got transferred to Shujin Academy in Tokyo after an incident where he tried to help a woman being harassed by a man. During his probation, he stays at Café LeBlanc, which is owned by a friend of his parents. Now, it doesn’t take long before the usual Persona story elements start with the Velvet Room. A strange app also appears on our hero’s phone.

After his first few schooldays, he gets in trouble with an abusive gym teacher. After that, they discover a Palace not too far from school. This Palace is a world manifested from warped emotions. In there, they learn who that gym teacher actually is, and things go from bad to worse.

In general, most of the story follows a similar structure. The main story is divided up into chapters. Each chapter introduces new characters and a new palace. The main goal of each chapter is to conquer the Palace in time before the looming treat stops you from doing so. This can go from being sued or expelled, the stakes are always high.

In terms of writing, the game sometimes gets quite predictable. Quite often I was able to predict what was going to happen. Now, does that make the story less interesting or thrilling? Heavens no. This story’s pacing and execution is extremely well done. Let me give you a few reasons why.

For of all, the voice acting. I already loved the voice acting in Persona 5 Strikers, and I love it here. I have nothing to critique nor complain about the voice acting in this game. It really pulled me into the world of this game and took me along for the ride.

Secondly, the theme of the story is wonderful. It doesn’t shy away from sensitive subjects and explores them. The character growth in this game is really well done and made me (want to) replay the game several times to even explore all the side stories with side characters.

Thirdly, the openness of the game helps the replay value of this game so much. You have more than enough time to beat the Palace in each chapter, so you can start exploring the world of this game. Making it so that you see new side stories each and every playthrough. There is also a way to romance the female characters, which also gives bonus scenes on certain dates.

And finally, the game does take its time. I mean, this game will take you over 100 hours to beat. And that’s if you know what you are doing. There isn’t a lot of padding either in this game, since each chapter brings depth to the characters and makes you appreciate them even more. Also, spending time with all the characters can be very beneficial during your playthrough.

The only negative I can say is that the new chapter and character in the expanded Royal version of this game is over before you know it. Let’s just say that the time you get in that final chapter is extremely short, making the character growth of the new characters somewhat shallow. Which is an extreme shame since the subjects it tackles are fascinating to explore and the new characters are extremely fun to use in battle. I wish you got a bit more time to explore around and use the new characters and your new abilities. But, that’s really the only thing I can critique about the bonus chapter, the short length of it.

Decisions, decisions

Unless you are using a guide, I think it’s quite impossible to experience everything that this game has to offer in your first playthrough. There is just too much content in this game, it’s insane. Trying to explain everything or critique it all in this article would lead to an extremely long article which might be a bit overwhelming to read.

So, let’s talk about some core mechanics first. At its core, there are two main gameplay sections in this game. Inside and outside the Palaces. First off, let’s talk about the Palaces. These are the dungeons inside the game, the main goal of each chapter. Each chapter’s story builds towards a boss at the end of the Palace and tackles a certain theme like abuse, greed or being self-centered. In these dungeons, you fight shadows in a turned based fighting style.

Now, explaining the whole battle system would create a whole article in itself. There are so many ways to tackle a battle, it’s insane. Having the correct strategy for a battle is half the battle. So, in the Palaces, you can make use of your Persona. These Personas are basically your ticket to being able to use magic. Normally, each character can only use one Persona. But, the main character can use multiple. So, you have to set up your Personas and your characters up just right to tackle the challenges of each Palace.

Not only that, it’s highly recommended that you discover the weakness of your enemies, since that not only does more damage, but you can also chain extremely strong combo’s with your allies. And let me tell you, these combo’s can mean the difference between life or death. Oh, but there is more. You and your allies also have weakspots, so you need to be careful with who you choose, since guess what… The enemies can also chain attacks when hitting weakspots.

If you played this game, you know that I’m leaving out quite a lot of things from the battle system here. From ailments to even negations with the enemy. Yes, you can negotiate with the enemies for more money, items or even joining your team. Oh, there is also a mechanic where stronger enemies can take your allies hostage and make the fight even more difficult for you.

The diversity in the battle system makes it that each new playthrough of Persona 5 feels new and unique. I have played through this game 3 times already and each time, the dungeons feel fresh even when I know what to do and solve the puzzle inside the dungeon. I’m able to prepare myself better in the Velvet Room to create the best setup to tackle the Palaces even faster to see more of the side content I haven’t seen, or I enjoy quite a lot.

Now, you might think that with all these mechanics I’m touching upon, the game is quite overwhelming. But, surprisingly, it is not. The first chapter of the game is an extremely well disguised tutorial. It teaches you all the mechanics slow and steady and let you get used to the mechanics without throwing them all at once to you. While there are a lot of mechanics, all of them stay relevant during the game since depending on your actions, you make certain things easier during your Palace investigation.

So, decisions are quite important in this game. Not only in how you tackle the battles and who you level up but also outside it. Basically, this game is also a simulation. You still have to go to school and live a normal life. Meanwhile, you can explore Tokyo and deepen your bond with other characters, tackle side quests, improve your skills, play mini-games, create better Persona’s in the Velvet Room…

All of these actions are quite important. Let me give you an example. If you deepen your bond with main or side characters, you improve their Confidante rank. There are 23 characters that have their own side story and seeing them through can give you amazing advantages. Things like not having to fight enemies that are below your level, cheaper healing items, more attack styles or even random stat boots during fights.

Keeping a calendar on who is around where and what actions you can do when is important. I even had a small notebook for taking notes next to me during my playthrough. Now, in all this chaos, it’s easy to forget that there is a bonus chapter in this game. Let me tell you, there is a way to unlock that chapter, but you have to prioritize certain characters that isn’t really well hinted at. Thankfully, there are spoiler free guides for it on the internet. It is the only guide I had to use, since I wasn’t able to figure that one out.

If I just gave you the impression that this game is easy, well, think again. This game made me think and strategize quite a lot, and if you don’t upgrade the right characters, don’t have the right Persona or don’t master the core mechanics, you will make this game quite frustrating. Thankfully, if you lose during the chapter boss fight, it’s possible to rewind a few days to give you the chance to prepare differently and maybe defeat the boss then.

Gameplay wise, the depth of this game is impressive. I highly recommend that you save your game quite often and make use of those different save slots you have. Outside the Palaces and in certain area’s of the Palace you can save. There is no autosave in this game and the prompting of saving is after certain important story events. While you can’t name your save files, the save file displays quite a lot of basic information for you to learn which one is which. Or you could take notes in an Excel sheet like I did.

Something I also want to mention is that the digital manual on Atlus’s website is also extremely well done. It explains the game extremely well and gives you general tips and tricks to understand everything and why certains things can be helpful to you.

Something else I want to mention is that there even a new game plus. When you reached an ending, since yes… there are multiple endings in this game, you can restart the game. Yet, there are certain things that carry over from one playthrough to the next. This article on PushSquare explains very nicely what carries over and what not. And speaking from experience, don’t go for the good and final ending on your first run in this game. Yes, the final chapter is short but unprepared it will kick your butt. Maybe I leveled the wrong characters but I had a way easier time after I started new game plus.

Personality everywhere

This game is dripping with personality. The visual presentation of this game is something of a masterclass. It’s bold, loud and proud and uses the anime and comic book style extremely effectively.

I find it extremely impressive how they worked the personality of the characters in the visual prestation of the menu’s and the UI. Everything brings it’s own charm and just brings the game more alive.

I’m also glad that I played the Royal version of this game instead of the original. Since, the Royal version of the game brings so many improvements to the game and it improves thee game even more. I have been skimming through this amazing list on Reddit and congrats to the everyone whole helped there since this is such a nice list. And these changes add so much to the personality and style of this game.

Now, the visual presentation of this game is proud and loud and this carries over to the animations as well. In various RPG’s I play, near the end I want to skip the battle animations but in this game, I don’t want to do it. Maybe I’m too invested in the story and presentation but I feel that even near the end, the impact of the attacks still keep hitting strong and statifying. Sometimes, it’s over exaggerated, but it always fits the personality of the character and just eye candy.

The visual presentation is always consistent and runs at a stable framerate. And on top of that, the soundtrack hits the spot extremely well. The opening theme and battle theme are two of my favorites. I never thought that a battle theme with lycris while hit so hard and not get boring or repetitive. Of course, it doesn’t play during all battles but still, the tracks with and without lycris are all amazing. They all enhance the current mood of the story fit the comic book artstyle of this game like a glove. They are so good, that I sometimes tried to make my attacks sync up with the lycris or just noticed myself signing along with it.

The sound effects are also extremely well done. The sound design helps to tell the story quite a lot and helps you during gameplay to get some useful information when enemies are nearby or give you more information. Some of the sound effects are well engrained into my brain so I know what action I need to take if I encounter it.

Honestly, I have a really hard time finding flaws in this game. The controls are amazing, the menu’s are a joy to use and there is some much depth that actually changes the story progression, it’s insane that this game works with one 1 crash in my 250+ hours of gameplay and I think that might have to do with my PS4 overheating on an extremely warm day… Also, I didn’t notice any bugs or glitches during my playthrough…

Besides the short bonus story chapter, there is barely anything to critique in Persona 5 Royal. Maybe the lack of an autosave can turn some people off but I didn’t had such a big problem with it. I have played games that have longer interruptions between when you can save… Corpse Party BloodDrive and Book Of Shadows, I’m looking at you. Maybe the predictable story can be a turn off for some, but personally, I didn’t mind that. Since, the way the story is paced, the writing, character development and the voice acting add so much personality.

I can understand that with the short additional story, players who first played the original and then the Royal version might feel cheated and might feel that this upgraded version is cheap and a cash grab. That’s a totally fair critism to make. Yet, I feel that it doesn’t make the whole game bad. It’s still the amazingly well crafted Persona 5 at its core.

Something I personally found a bit undercooked was the Thieves Den. Besides playing the addictive card game with the main characters you unlocked, I feel that besides a glorified showcase of your achievements, a sound box and a gallery… It just feels like bonus stuff from a collectors edition in a nice jacket. It’s not bad, but in my now 4th playthrough I rarely visit it. Besides being able to play cards with the main cast, I felt I had no real reason to go there. Maybe if it had a bit more gameplay like being able to play all mini games outside the story or more card games, that would have been amazing. The basic idea is there and it’s an amazing way to rewatch all the cutscenes or listen to the music in game instead of it being in a menu… But, it feels lacking in some area’s.

Now, when I look online to other reviews, a lot of people who didn’t like Persona 5 compare it to previous entries in the series. Currently, I’m also playing through the other Persona games and I enjoy them quite a lot as well. While I can see the argument about the theme of Persona 5 not clicking well if you first played Persona 3 or 4, but I just see it as a new world/setting with the Persona mechanics. A totally new take on formula and setting.

I actually talked about my biggest gripe with the game earlier. I personally highly disliked the way to unlock the bonus chapter in this game. It should have been better hinted at since if you start on it too late, you lock yourself out from it. So, if you want to go for the 3rd semester, please read a guide on how to do it… It isn’t difficult but you’ll need to make time for it.

And that’s everything I want to say about this game for now. I left a lot of gameplay mechanics out for you to discover if you are interested in this game. But, I gave you a general idea on this game and I think it’s high time to go to the conclusion of this review.

Conclusion

The good:

+Excellent story

+Addictive gameplay with loads of depth

+Extremely replayable

+Very diverse gameplay in each dungeon

+Top notch visual presentation and art style

+Amazing soundtrack

+…

The bad:

-Thieves den is a little bit undercooked.

-The bonus chapter of Royal could have been handled better. (Too short, not enough time for the character development like in the main story)

-The way how you unlock the addtional chapter is too hidden.

Final thoughts:

Oh boy, Persona 5 Royal. Last yeaer I had a very difficult time deciding if you or Desperados III would take the crown as my favorite game I started in 2022. One of my main reasons why I wanted to buy a PlayStation 4 was because I wanted to experience Persona 5. From those who played it, I heard so many great things and I can honestly see why now. In 2022, I had a hard time not playing this game, since I wanted to review other games on my blog as well… But, I have spened so much time on it.

It won’t surprise me that I’ll play through this game every so often like I play through my childhood favorite Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. Personally, I can highly recommend this game to everybody who enjoys playing JRPGs or turnbased RPGs. This game is one of the best games I have played in recent times.

I mean, all the cosmetic DLC is now free on PS4 ever since the release of the ports to the other systems. While I played it on the PlayStation 4, I looked at the review on other platforms and it’s doing amazing.

I didn’t want to finish this game, since I didn’t want the ride to end. It’s rare that I feel as strong for a game. I remember that for games like Zero Escape or Nightmare Reaper. This game and its world really pulls you into an amazing adventure that really pulls on your heartstrings sometimes and doesn’t let go. I played this game from start to finish 3 times now and I’m thinking to play through it again for a 4th time during my fall break in a few months.

Thank you Atlus for creating this amazing title and I’m so happy that I experienced it. I had quite the hard time in writing this article, since I honestly didn’t know how tackle it since there is so much to talk about. It’s mindblowning how much and how much deepth this game has with barely anything feeling shallow. If you play this game, do like the loading screen says. Take your time, enjoy the game and relax.

With that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article eand I hope you enejoyeed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 100/100

First Impression: The Legend Of Zelda – Tears Of The Kingdom (Switch) ~ Where To Now?

Wikipedia – Zelda.com page

In 2017, Nintendo changed the open world adventure game genre forever with Breath of the Wild. We got a game where freedom was the central mechanic in the game. You could play it however you want and have your own unique adventure. Two years after the release at E3 2019, we got our first teaser that a sequel was in development. In May 2023, that sequel finally released. Now, is this sequel worth our time and money? I played this game and after several hours, I’m ready to give my opinion on the game. I haven’t beaten the game yet, but I’m quite close to the ending, hence why I place this review in the first impression category. So, let’s dive right into Link’s latest adventure and let’s take a look if it’s a game we should be playing or if it’s one that we are overhyping since it’s getting high scores across the board from other reviewers. Here is my honest opinion, and if you want to say something about this game and/or the content of this article… Feel free to do that in the comments down below! Enough stalling, let’s go!

Where to now?

In this game, we take control of Link. In this story, Link and Zelda are investigating strange tunnels underneath Hyrule. While exploring these tunnels, they come across some ancient evil. This ancient evil awakes from its slumber and after a small battle, Zelda disappears, Link gets wounded and the Master Sword almost gets destroyed.

After that, Link gets rescued by a strange figure who heals his wounds. But his arm was beyond saving so that strange figure gives his arm to Link. After that, Link walks out of the cave where he was recovering and finds himself in the sky, ready to explore the new world… so he can start his quest to try to find and rescue Zelda.

Since you can experience this story at your own peace and order, it’s difficult to review this story. Due to the fact you can experience it out of order, some dialogues have to be kept vague and generic. Since, writing separate dialogue for each possible option would be a nightmare to write, program and debug.

Yet, I feel that in this game… The story and world building is more present this time around compared to Breath of the Wild. In Breath of the Wild, I felt that each town was its own mini-story with only the main plot holding those stories together. But, in this game, there are a lot more things in the world that gives life to the world. The main and side story segments are more spread around on the map. I can’t really put on my finger on exactly why, but I felt that Hyrule was more alive this time around compared to Breath of the Wild.

Something that can also make or break your story is the voice acting. In this game, apart from your grunts and things of that nature, we have a silent Link. The voice cast for the English version is extremely solid. Overall, I find that the voice acting in this game is good. Here and there, some scenes are dancing on the line of over acting, but I don’t dislike it. I think that the biggest issue is that a lot of people were used to the characters being silent. When characters are silent, you tend to put your own voice and tone on that character. This makes it impossible to find a voice for the character that everybody will like. So, I can understand why people dislike the voice acting in this game.

Honestly, the voice acting still drew me into the game. I feel that they are going on a good path forward here, and Nintendo should start to experiment with putting more voice acting in their games to see what works and doesn’t. Since, I that’s one big thing I missed in a game like Pokémon Scarlet and Voilet. Granted, the grunts of the NPC’s make them adorable, which fit this game nicely.

So, overall, with a world that feels way more alive and a story that’s more present while you are exploring the game… I feel that they improved that over Breath of the Wild by a more than a mile. Yet, I feel there is one issue at the start of this game that I didn’t have with Breath of the Wild. I quite often asked myself, “where to now?”.

After the tutorial sky island, we get dropped into Hyrule. So, we think that the world just has some sky islands now. And then suddenly, you learn about something in the underground. So, you think… Oh, caves. But then you find a hole that goes deeper and deeper… Almost to the center of the world. And then you find out that the map almost doubled in size. I felt overwhelmed at what to tackle first and where to go next.

Is this an issue or a blessing? Well, that depends on your playstyle and how you want to tackle this game. I see this game as a giant playground that we can explore and have amazing adventures in. Like I said earlier, the world now feels way more alive, so there is a lot more to do and explore. Yet, if you want some guidance, the main quest line does an excellent job at pushing you towards your next objective. But, do explore around in each area, you never know what you’ll find.

How shall we do this?

If you asked me to talk about each mechanic in this game, both old and new, we would be here for a while. A long while. The amount of things you can do in this game is so vast, it’s like asking which games you can play with a few balls.

At its core, this game is Breath of the Wild with a lot of new mechanics. And I really mean, a lot. Let’s start by talking about Link’s new abilities. In this game, you have four new abilities. First is the Ultrahand, compare that with Magnesis from Breath of the Wild… but this time you can pick up almost anything. And then, you put two logs next to each other, and you notice that some green liquid puts them together. And then it doesn’t take long before you learn that you can build a ton of machines by putting a lot of things together.

And then you wonder what would happen if I put a rock on your sword? Well, why not use the second new ability, then? Fuse. This ability is just insane. With this, you can create various new weapons and just do unique things. It’s a lot of fun to experiment and learn which things do what.

We do have two other abilities as well. Let’s talk about recall first. With this ability, Link can rewind time on an object for a set amount of time. I’ll explain it with this example. Image an ice-cold river where rafts are flowing over, yet you have to reach the other side. Well, when you hope on the raft and use recall… the rafts goes against the flow back to its previous position, helping you to cross the ice-cold river.

Finally, we have the Ascend ability. This ability feels like a sort of cheat, since whenever there is a flat surface you can stand underneath, you can ascend through the ceiling to the top. And it’s used so well in this game, it’s insane.

You don’t have the abilities from Breath of the Wild anymore, but these just open a whole other way to interact with the world and sets the two games apart and makes both of them unique. Now, I haven’t talked about all abilities, but let’s talk about the new champion abilities.

This is where I have one problem with the game. The new champion abilities are fine, while I miss Revali’s gale. But, the way to activate them is annoying sometimes. After you have completed a champion quest, you unlock their ability. Their spirit runs next to you and when you want to use their ability, you have to get close to them and press “A”. Now, this is where the issue lies.

It’s way too easy to press “A”. Often, I activated one of the abilities by accident. You don’t want to know how many times I activated the Sage of Wind’s ability and saw my sweet loot go over a cliff edge… Or my trying to find the Sage of Fire since I want to break a break-able wall, so I don’t have to use my weapons or a bomb flower. At the other hand, it’s a blessing that they help you fight, and they helped me to get out of tight spots… But, sometimes it works against the player.

Sadly, this isn’t the only small problem this game has. Another annoying problem in my opinion is that when you enter a shrine where all your items are taken away to have a special and unique challenge… Don’t pick up the enemy loot when you want to keep it. Since, when you get your items back, you don’t always get the loot back you picked up. I learned that the hard way. Since, I wanted to charge my battery for Zonai devices.

Oh yeah, that’s another big thing. Remember the Master Cycle Zero in Breath of the Wild? Well, that’s back in a way. But this time, it’s way more than just a bike. Earlier, I talked about how you can build machines with Ultrahand. Well, with Zonai devices you can do some much more stuff. Image making a raft and placing a fan on top of it. Put that raft on the water and activate the fan and away you go. And this is truly the tip of the iceberg on what you can do. Let me just say that people already build things that allow them to fly or make tanks. Yes, tanks.

While there are a lot of build tutorials online… personally, I highly recommend toying around with it yourself. I feel that this game is the strongest when you go in blind and try to do your own thing. I don’t mean that you can’t inspiration from others, but I’m saying that you should make your own adventure in this game. Just like if you want to use the duplication glitches in this game. Yes, there are duplication glitches in this game. While Nintendo is trying to patch them out, a new one or ones are discovered not too long after. Personally, I’m not using these duplication glitches since they would ruin the magic of trying to use what I find for me. But, that’s the beauty of this game… You are free to play it how you want.

Making steps towards the end

I know that I’m leaving out a lot of mechanics from this review. To name just a few: the improved stables, the return of the koroks, the whole depths, the wells… There is so much to do in this game, it is insane. Maybe a bit too much since some things can feel a bit undercooked like the main Gerudo quest before the temple.

Everytime I play this game, I feel like I’m taking more steps towards completing this game. Personally, I try to avoid following guides as much as possible since I love the feeling I get for discovering the solution myself.

Yes, sometimes I run into small little problems like having to fight to remove an icon from the map and place another… But, apart from some minor issues, I have a lot of trouble finding negatives in this game. The controls of this game are excellent, responsive and a joy to use. Sometimes I struggle a bit with rotation and Ultrahand but this happens so rarely and most of the time going out and back into rotation mode fixes it for me.

Also, the game is less silent during exploration. The enviroment sounds are much more present and we get the clamic envoriment tracks being played more often. In this game we get a mix of old and new music and the soundtrack of this game is just amazing. I have to admit that I listen to it while I work from time to time. It just brings back memories of me playing the game.

The game isn’t short at all. According to Howlongtobeat.com, this game will take you at least 60 hours to complete if you don’t use a guide or use speedrun strats. But, have you seen that avarge for 100% completion? That’s close to 230 hours.

On top of that, this game isn’t a cake walk. There are a lot of area’s where you really need to be on your guard. It’s a game that where when you learn the mechanics and how to world works, the easier the game gets. Yet, you have to be on your guard. There are ways to make things a lot easier, but these still require either skill, grinding or both.

Now, visually this game is stunning for the Nintendo Switch. Compared to Breath of the Wild, this game is a huge improvement in terms of the visuals, presentation and animations. GamingBolt wrote an amazing article comparing the visuals of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Honestly, I have to agree with GamingBolt on this one. Visually, this game looks a lot better than Breath of the Wild but the Nintendo Switch is showing it’s limits sometimes. But, these moments aren’t too frequent and mostly fix themselves.

Now, this game runs at 30fps. Stable, I rarely to never actually noticed frame drops. Now, some people are saying that this game should run at 60fps or higher or “look better”. I even hear arguments that this game look like it’s stuck in last decade. Please, don’t let these comments pull you away from this game. This game runs smooth and 30fps is still very playable. Also, having a higher framerate (then 30) doesn’t mean that the game runs smoother. For some people, they don’t even notice the difference between 60pfs and 80fps. Why does it matter as long as the game runs smooth? As long as you don’t have any visual glitches and everything reacts like it should without delay? I just want to enjoy playing a game with a stable framerate than worrying about how high that framerate number goes. And that’s what Tears of the Kingdom really delivers in both handheld and docked mode with a minimal amount of issues. But, I honestly think that most of these issues don’t come from the 30fps but more from the aging hardware of the Switch.

You might have noticed that I compared this game a lot to Breath of the Wild. That’s because this game is promoted as the direct sequel to Breath of the Wild and it has a lot of subtle references to it. Just like there are a lot of easter eggs and references to previous titles. Yet, I feel like the two titles can’t be seperated. If you enjoyed Breath of the Wild, you will have a blast with this one.

Honestly… When I started playing this game, I was afraid that this game was going to be more of the same. That it would be a rehash of Breath of the Wild with a new story. But no, what we got is more than that. We got new unique mechanics, two new layers in the world, a more alive world, a lot more side quests and side content… Nintendo raised the bar again. Now, I’m honestly worried that the sequel to this game might become too big for it’s own good.

If I have to be overly critical, then I do have a few things I would love to see improved in the sequel. First of all, make the core mechanic of the temples/dungeons more unique. Please, stop with the “active x amount of terminals” since it just doesn’t help to make them unique. I feel like this time around they blended in more since you didn’t have the interactions with the Divine Beasts. The quest before entering the dugeon is a lot more memorable… But, thank you for letting us enter the dungeons after beating them.

Secondly, while this game brings a lot more to the table compared to Breath of the Wild, the core structure is largely the same. Weapons that brake easily, no real “dungeons” where you find a new unique item anymore, a ton of shrines dotted around the map… And on that level I totally understand why some people are seeing this a sort of DLC to Breath of the Wild. It’s a fair point to make. Something Nintendo can do for example is have less but longer shrines in the sequel. Or maybe even have the abilities in the big dungeons instead of the tutorial area?

Thirdly and finally, I’d love some quality of life improvements. A search bar on the map would be amazing for example. Also, give us the ability to pin a side quest AND a main quest to the map instead of abusing beacons for that. And if I’m allowed to really nitpick, I feel that in this game the visuals of a discovered shrine and a not yet discovered shrine are too similar… I “rediscovered” shrines quite often compared to Breath of the Wild.

Tears of the Kingdom took the new formula in Breath of the Wild and expanded on it. It added a lot more depth. If Nintendo takes this formula and polishes it even further and change things around they’ll have an instant hit on their hands. Don’t get me wrong, this game is incredible but it has some flaws that can’t be overlooked. Some critisms like it being more of the same are in a way valid, yet if that bothers you… is up to you.

I honestly feel that this game totally deserves it’s score. It’s one of the best games I have played and will play this year. I highly recommend it to everybody who enjoys playing Zelda games, action/adventure games and open world games. But, I feel like Tears of the Kingdom blows me more away then Breath of the Wild. But, that might be because I’m now more used to the new Zelda formula compared to the previous time.

In any case, that’s everything I wanted to saw about this game for now. Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article and until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impressions: Sherlock Holmes – Crimes and Punishments (XBOX360) ~ Hipster CSI in Ye Olden England

Wikipedia entry

I can’t really explain why, but sometimes I really like to play detective games and trying to solve a crime. That’s why I’m really into the CSI games. Now, when one of my neighbors in our yearly local garage sale started selling his XBOX360 and PS4 collection, I saw he had Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. While I’m well aware that this game got a port this year onto the Nintendo Switch and Steam, I chose to play the XBOX360 version. Mainly since it was €4 at the garage sale and the Switch version would have set me back way more for just a bit of visual upgrades? Well, I wanted another excuse to boot up my XBOX360 once more. But, did it stay on, or did I start looking toward other games and/or consoles? Well, let’s talk about it in this article, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the content of the game and/or this article.

Hipster CSI in Ye Olden England

It’s no real surprise that you take on the role of Sherlock Holmes in this game. Together with your trusty best friend Watson, you are solving strange cases left and right in London in the Victorian era. This game takes place in 1893. In the first case, you investigate the murder of an old captain with a vile reputation. Explaining any more of the plot would ruin the story.

The cases in this game aren’t that long, and they are somewhat unrelated. So, if you are looking for a game with character development or growth… This isn’t the game for you. The writing in this game is more aimed at players who want to relax and enjoy a fun murder mystery like an episode of CSI. With some familiar characters, but each episode is a different case.

The writing itself is quite enjoyable. I really feel that I’m in a Sherlock Holmes story, and I’m enjoying every minute of it. The story really scratches that itch, I have to play some more detective games but only this time, it isn’t with modern technology.

The voice work is also quite good. They made the atmosphere of this game come to life. Every line of dialogue and thoughts are voice acted. Now, there is one thing I’m a bit on the fence about in terms of the voice acting. Maybe it’s because I have been reviewing games for so long and know a bit about developing games as well, but I had times when I felt like some lines were a bit generic.

For example, when you are searching in Holmes’ archives and find the piece you are looking for… It’s always the same line. Sometimes recording more than one line, and randomizing it, helps with the immersion of the game. Otherwise, you are running the risk of it all blending together and making some mechanics feel a bit boring. Or why does doctor Watson nearly always ask where to go next. It’s as if they didn’t record other lines for him. Maybe some fun banter or remark about the location. Like, in the first case, about the well-kept garden. I wouldn’t mind it looping, but something more than “Where to go next, Holmes” and Sherlock not even replying. Since, now, the line feels a bit out of place to me. Thankfully, these moments didn’t bother me too much and are overall quite rare.

I’m well aware that perfection doesn’t exist, and thankfully so. Thankfully, this is the only problem I have with the writing. Very few lines are a bit generic or out of place. And maybe I really notice them because I wanted to review this game and the overall quality is quite high, and I wondered if there was something to critique about the story.

Pop! Here I am!

Visually, this game looks good. The environments are quite detailed and look amazing. But, it isn’t perfect. This game suffers from popping issues sometimes. Especially when you go from a cut scene to gameplay, where some textures just take a bit longer to load, and it just looks weird. I had one especially bad case of this when Holmes’ case book didn’t load the correct texture for like 30 seconds. And I was wondering what the text was on the book.

This happened to me while I was in the “load screen” wagon between two locations. During the loading screen, you can view your case book or enter your thoughts’ menu. And, to be honest, I highly advise you do, since the background scrolling during these wagon scenes don’t always look great. I even saw moments where the background suddenly restarted. And the backgrounds are such lower quality compared to the rest of the game, it’s a shame. Just like the small screen tear issues this game sometimes has when exploring around.

The animations of this game are good as well. They make the game come to life that much more. Yet, sometimes I feel that some characters move a bit too slow or lack a few frames of animation to make it look like the game it’s dipping in frames. But that isn’t the worst issue I have with the visuals and animation. That dubious honor is for the fact that sometimes when exploring, Holmes can “raise up in the air” on an object and when you move the camera just a tiny bit immediately snap down to earth. This happened more than once, but thankfully it didn’t cause any game breaking bugs by for example placing me out of bounds.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on the game. I mean, image the amount of work the developers had to put into the visuals. Especially when you are able to chose if you want a first person camera or a third person camera by the press of a button. This goes so seamless it’s a surprise to me that this works so amazingly well.

Also, you can dress up Sherlock Holmes as you want. The amount of different variations is just silly and adds to the impressive visual possibilities that this game has. Dressing up is just one of the mechanics this game has. You’ll need it sometimes to trick a character into talking.

Now, what exactly is it that you do in this game? Well, you investigate a crime and you look at the crime scene for clues. Sometimes you go back to Baker Street to preform experiments or the search in your archive. While you are exploring the locations, you can also talk to suspects to gather more information about the case.

During your research, you’ll find a lot of clues. Some of these clues need to be interacted with. In your notebook, those clues have a special icon so you know that you need to research in your archive or preform certain experiments with them. Also, the task list is quite handy to keep track of what you still should investigate.

During your research, you’ll be able to use your imagniation. This is a sort of “recreation” button for some scenes in the game. Or when a clue is quite hidden, you can use the strong observation skills of Holmes. To avoid these mechanics becoming a needle in a haystack story, you’ll notice those icons at the top right when you need to use those skills.

Another important mechanic is what I call the “connect the logic dots” mechanic. Here you need to connect two clues to form another clue. It reminds me a bit of Time Hollow which has a similar mechanic, but explaining that would spoil parts of that game. When you connected all your loose clue’s, you can try to make sense of them all. Connecting the right dots will lead you to a conclusion. But is it the right one? Who knows? Be sure to think it over more then once. Since, seeing if your theory is correct is a lot of fun to see play out.

Something that this game does a lot better compared to the CSI games is that this game gives you some freedom. You can actually explore the area the crime took place and look for clues. Some of these areas are huge but expertly crafted, making it a breeze to explore them.

The responsive controls make it quite fun to walk around and explore those areas. Thankfully, Holmes has infinite stamina, so you can also run around when you find his walking pace too slow. And when you forget how to control the game, you can just press the two joysticks of your controller to bring up a handy chart of the games’ controls.

There are two things that controls a bit awkward at first and that’s searching in the archives and searching in your case book, but it doesn’t take long before you can get the hang of it when you know that almost every button has a different purpose, and you look at the buttons that are displayed on the screen.

Skipping the skip

One big difference compared to the CSI games is that there is no hint system in this game during your case. If you are stuck, you can’t get any hints from somebody. This is something that some people like and others aren’t really fond of. But, just like the CSI games, this game has mini-games and puzzles.

Now, you can skip most of these puzzles and mini-games by the press of a button. It barely has any influence on the game if you played or skipped the puzzles, but it’s a nice addition that it’s there. When you just want to get on with the game instead of figuring out one stupid puzzle that otherwise would have locked you out the rest of the game. Something that would make it even more perfect is that in the end of the case, you can see how much puzzles you have skipped. That way you can make it an “honor” thing where people who completed the game without skipping any puzzle get an achievement or something.

Speaking about the ending of the cases, you can come to the wrong conclusion. If it has consequences or not, I won’t reveal to not spoil the game, but it’s great to see that you are able to redo it when you want to see the other endings OR want to correct yourself. You can also choose between either reporting the criminal or letting the criminal go. And that’s also everything I wanted to say about that mechanic. It leads to some quite interesting things.

This game isn’t too difficult. The biggest difficulty in this game is when you overlook a clue and reach the wrong conclusion. If you are stuck, I highly advise you to go over your case notebook and imagination. Since, you might have missed a clue. Only once I had to look up the walkthrough, and it turned out that I was doing two things in the wrong order. Apart from one puzzle in the 3rd case, this game doesn’t have any “moon logic” puzzles. The puzzle in the 3rd case isn’t hard, but it takes a while to click with some people what the idea behind the puzzle is.

This game has achievements. And it’s quite a lot of fun to go for the achievements in this game. They don’t add a lot of replay value since this game doesn’t have a lot of replay value. Unless you decide to start speedrunning it to see the endings you missed since you didn’t start over when you choose your moral stance.

Usually in my reviews, I write about the audiovisual presentation right after the visual presentation. But, since I had some more things I wanted to talk about in the visual presentation department, I’m talking about the audiovisual presentation later. And I can be very short about it, it’s nothing special. Don’t get me wrong, the music is good and fits the atmosphere like a glove… But, it doesn’t stand out to me. I find the music a bit to the generic opera side of things, and I would have a hard time matching it with Sherlock Holmes outside the game. I think the main issue is that it doesn’t feel like a “song” or “track” but more like a 10 or 20 second melody that’s repeating in somewhat different tones for 3-ish minutes.

Now, the sound effects are used amazingly well. While exploring, it really adds to the atmosphere sometimes. Really listen while exploring that one area at the end of the 3rd case, and you’ll understand what I mean.

Before I go to the conclusion, I want to talk about the game’s preformance. A big complaint is that the load times are quite lengthy sometimes and honestly, I have to disagree. I have played games with longer load times and the load times in this game didn’t bother me at all. It was the ideal moment for me to sip of my drink or to think about my theory of the case.

The game ran always at quite the stable frame rate (apart from some small moments in cut scenes). But, there is one thing that should have worked differently. I find it a strange decision that when you are waiting for a door to open since the game needs to load the area behind it… You can move away from it. It gave me the impression at first that my input didn’t register. Locking Holmes in place would communicated that a bit better to the player.

Anyways, when you read this article you might think that this is a very flawed game. If you got that impression, you reached the wrong conclusion and didn’t see all the evedince I left in the article. You might want to think it over and you might reach the intended conclusion (which you can always see at the press of a button when you have beaten the case once).

I fell in love with this game. I totally understand why so many people see this game as one of the best Sherlock Holmes games. It does so many things right that it’s still so much fun after 8 years later, this game is still a blast to play through. Of course, the XBOX360 release has some issues. Especially in the visuals department where the preformance can be spotty sometimes and in some places the game really shows its age.

But did those problems bother me? Oh heavens no. I still enjoyed myself and I was quite happy that I was able to pick up this game for quite a cheap price. It also made me quite curious to play the other Sherlock Holmes games in my collection and that’s perfect since my summer break just started.

So, if you enjoy mystery adventure games like Professor Layton, CSI or Ace Attorney AND/OR if you enjoy point-and-click adventure games like Deponia or Broken Sword or Monkey Island… I think you owe it yourself to check out this game. Since the port earlier this year, this game is on so many platforms and quite easy to get so if you want some better preformance, I highly suspect that the PS4 and Switch versions’ll outpreform the XBOX360 version. But hey, the XBOX360 version is still worth playing!

And with that said, I have reached my conclusion about this highly enjoyable game and where shall we go next–

Thank you for reading this article so much. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impressions: The Hive (Steam) ~ War With And Of Bugs

thehive Steam Store page

One of my favorite game genres is RTS games. The satisfaction that you get from building up your empire, setting up an economy, and preparing yourself to defeat the enemy. It can be such a rewarding feeling. Games like Age of Empires II, Rise of Nations, or Rise & Fall – Civilizations At War are just three of the amazing games I have played to death when I was a kid. Now, when I got a mail from the fine folks over at Skydome Entertainment with a press code for The Hive and full freedom with my article, I was extremely excited. This game has been under development for several years now. The first development blog posts on the Steam Store page date all the way back to December 2014 and the latest patch has been released on March 9^th, 2020, which is version 1.203. This is the version I’ll talk about in this article, so if this game got an update, it’s possible that some things in this article or no longer relevant. So, without further ado, I think it’s high time that we take a look at this game and it’s worth your time or if you should skip this game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article down below.

War With Bugs

TheHive2 Something happened to the world. The story of this game starts off in 2175, where our planet Earth got attacked and destroyed. Humanity was able to build a ship and leave Earth before it was completely destroyed and went off a journey to look for a new planet to life. After a human lifetime of searching, a new planet in a new solar system was found. The humans were taken out of their cryogenic sleep to start-up life anew in the harsh climate. But, something is alive underneath the crust of that planet. Something awakens in the City Of Ancients that might prove a big issue for the humans and the catch is, it’s you that takes control of the new species and try and help to find it’s old glory.

You play as The Hive and you are the leader of bugs living in The City Of Ancients. The story gets more interesting in the further chapters but I’m not going to spoil it. To be honest, I got some Overlord vibes from the story. Maybe because both games are about minions you control and have their own unique abilities. The atmosphere is similar to a certain degree. The plot of this game is quite enjoyable and it didn’t disappoint at all.

One thing I should mention is that this game has no skirmish mode as far as I know. So, that means if you finish the 12-ish hour-long campaign, you basically have beaten the game. You could try to beat it on a higher difficulty to challenge yourself but outside that, the game has no real replay value after defeating the campaign.

Now, this game also has voice acting. The voice acting in this game is quite impressive. The production value is impressive for being an indie title. It feels that the voice actors put their heart and soul into the characters and gave them a nice personality. I especially liked the effects they put on the voice for the Insect Advisor.

While this game takes place in a magical universe, there isn’t a lot of technobabble. For those who don’t know that term, it means that everything has its own name and there are a million exposition dumps. If you have played an RTS game in the past, you will know right what to do and the war of the bugs can begin.

War of Bugs

TheHive1 So, the gameplay loop in this game is that you have to explore the caves underneath the planet to find a way up. You learn a lot about the War and the fight against the other species that took place. While most levels use the usual RTS gameplay loop of build city, build the economy, build an army, find enemy, attack the enemy army, destroy enemy base; a few puzzles and unique twists are thrown into the mix.

In terms of gameplay and mechanics, I have a mixed feeling. There are things that I enjoyed quite a lot and there are things that baffled me. Let’s do a round of good thing – bad thing to sum a few things up.

So, while building your empire, you can not only rotate around the camera but the buildings as well. Man, I love features like these. It makes it less awkward when I placed a barracks in a corner and my units spawn out of a wall from the building. Alas, the building of buildings has one thing that I found frustrating. I have gotten so used to the fact that you can cue up buildings to build, but that doesn’t work in this game.

The gathering of resources works in a unique way. Food doesn’t rot away and workers don’t have to walk back and forth to the hive. A special cart rides out from the nearest gathering point to collect the resources. So, your workers put all the gather resources on a pile and these carts come and pick it up. The resources don’t even rot away and you don’t have to do anything for it to collect it. The only “downside” is that you can only use one worker per resource gathering point. Now, what’s the bad thing here?

Well, there is a soft-lock potential. The resources aren’t infinite. Now, imagine this scenario in the Age of Empires II. There is no more wood on the map but you need wood for your archers. What can you do? Well, you can build up a ton of farms and trade that food over for gold to buy wood at the market. This avoids the issue that if everything of one resource is gathered, it’s impossible to get. Now, in The Hive, there is no such thing as a market or a farm. Meaning that every decision counts. Thankfully, you really have to make bad decision after bad decision in order for you to soft-lock yourself but the fact that the potential is there always worried me.

The UI of this game is pretty impressive. The options menu is something that I can only praise. An explanation of what key does what? It’s a feature I’ll miss in other games. If only, a similar explanation appeared for the graphic options, but hey, that would clutter the UI of the graphics options a bit too much. Yet, I have two things that I disliked about the UI. First of all, if I may nitpick, I found the text on the buttons on the pause menu a bit hard to read since the text color and the color of the buttons are somewhat close to each other. And second, the visual design of the menu’s that you open using the pause menu are so different in design… I mean, the pause menu has a sort of cave theming like the UI in-game, and suddenly, a more space / modern UI appears for the options menu.

The fact that your vision cone appears on the mini-map is a great feature and it even rotates with you when you rotate the camera. Yet, I do have a complaint. It doesn’t change size when you zoom and/or out and especially, it always appears a bit underneath the place where you click on the mini-map. I can understand why this happens since the location of the camera isn’t where you click but a bit underneath that spot. But, it gave me a feeling I wasn’t able to click where I wanted on the mini-map.

It’s great that you can skip cutscenes and even have subtitles. But why aren’t both possible in the opening cutscene? A minor nitpick is that there are some minor grammar errors in the game (“Click of the paintings” instead “Click on the paintings” in the second level)

There is this unique mechanic where you can find treasures to upgrade your units to dissolve them for DNA points to unlock special upgrades for your units. It’s a perfect balancing act since you need to decide if you are going to dissolve the treasures and get an upgrade or use them to improve your unit(s). If only that would be explained in some sort of tutorial, which the game somewhat lacks.

Just a bit more

giphy If you read the previous section, it might look that I’m ripping this game a new one. That there are so many things missing or wrong with this game, that it’s not a great game to play. Well, then I think you got the wrong idea. I loved my time with the game and I found it a bit disappointing that some features I expect weren’t there.

Also, the price for this game is only 15€. So, it would be wrong of me to compare this game to big titles with way bigger budgets behind it. The thing is that I enjoy this game so much, that it frustrated me that the potential that this game has is unused.

Take for example the visual presentation. The artwork, unit design, level design… they all look amazing. You really feel like being in an abandoned cave where an old civilization used to live. The animations really make the world come alive. It’s so adorable that your workers dig into the ground to create a building and that it rises up like a sort of mole hole.

The audiovisual design is outstanding as well. This game has an orchestral soundtrack that reminds me of the reboot Tomb Raider games, Rise & Fall – Civilizations At War, and other similar games. It sounds familiar on one hand but new and fresh on the other hand. It’s a blast to listen too. The sound effects only add to the great atmosphere. The audiovisual design is so well done that I can excuse that some things don’t have sound effects or voice lines like when you click on an option where you don’t have enough DNA points for or certain interactions in your inventory are silent.

This game is a blast to play but you have to take into account that there are some things that don’t really work or work in the way you expect them to work. I have given several examples in the previous section, but here is another one. Why does your cursor not change when you hover over a resource or why don’t your worker acknowledge that interaction is going to happen?

This is why I said earlier in the article that I feel quite mixed about the gameplay. I enjoy playing this game but the final touches are just not there in certain cases. Now, I’m not saying that this game is unpolished or anything since there is a lot of attention to detail in most mechanics but not in all of them.

I think that this game could use another major content update or update that just focusses on making the game a bit more accessible. I think if a tutorial is added, something to avoid the soft lock potential and the functions that miss sound effects or voice lines are added; that this game gets even better.

So, I can’t wait to finish the final 5 levels I still have left to play. Since I really enjoyed my time with the game. I highly recommend this game to everybody who enjoys sci-fi games, RTS games, and even to people who enjoy adventure games. This game is quite enjoyable to play and experience. It’s an enjoyable RTS experience that I won’t soon forget. Congrats to the small Finnish team of 6 people who put their heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into this game since I have to say, the end result is something to be proud of and it shows a ton of potential for future games and/or more adventures in the world of The Hive.

And with that, I conclude my first impression. I want to thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Publishing: Silicon Dreams – A New Kickstarter Release

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Hello there, dear readers. Jonez here. Before I let you enjoy the presskit of Silicon Dreams, I want to give you some background information. This game is under development by Clockwork Bird. This studio is the studio that also brought us Spinnortality. A game I took a look at in the summer of 2017. Today they are presenting their new game and the Kickstarter to fund the development. At first, I wanted to write an article about it but due to the lack of time, I was unable to get an article out before the end of the Kickstarter. That’s why I’m publishing the press kit for now. But don’t worry, you will get an article on this game later down the line since the idea behind the game interests me and I’m looking forward to telling you what I think about it. But in any case, without further ado… Here is the press release!

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Short pitch

Interrogate androids in this cyberpunk conversation sim. Question androids, manipulate their emotions, gain their trust. Will you expose their secrets to the company, or risk everything to help them achieve independence?

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Long pitch

Artificial intelligence: it’s never been more advanced, more convincing or more affordable! Believable humanoid androids are as common as smartphones. A lawful and subservient android will be treated fairly. Renegades and non-conformists, or those that glitch too often, will, of course, be terminated.

It is your job to tell us which is which. Company policy encourages:

Investigation: delve into an android’s life story to truly understand them.
Emotional manipulation: if an android trusts you it is more likely to share its secrets; if it’s angry, it may let something slip; or, perhaps it could be frightened into obedience?
Diagnosis: does the android conform to manufacturer specifications?
Action: should this android be wiped, or is it fit to return to service?
DO NOT allow glitched androids to escape. Our top priority is easing customer anxiety about “rogue androids” and “liberation movements”; we cannot afford to feed into that panic.

Company note: sympathizers who throw around words like “exploitation” and “slavery” will be terminated.

Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1870604859/silicon-dreams-interrogate-androids-in-a-cyberpunk-future

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Demo: https://clockwork-bird.itch.io/silicon-dreams

Trailer: https://youtu.be/X7tOQh3r7ao

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Screenshots

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First Impressions: Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition (Switch) ~ Grand Adventure

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Nintendo.com microsite – Wikipedia entry

Today we are going to talk about a game with a lengthy title. It’s also a quite lengthy game to boot. I mean, this game clocks in at giving or take 60 hours of playtime. Now, in the past, I talked about other games in the series like Dragon Quest IX and Dragon Quest Builders and it’s sequel Dragon Quest Builders 2. But now it’s time to look at and talk about the newest game in the series. The 11th entry got an expanded edition on the Nintendo Switch and that’s what I have been playing for the last couple of days. And I think I’m ready to give my opinion on the question if you should spend your time, money and effort in this game or that the adventure isn’t worth it. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below.

Grand Classical Adventure

In this game, you play as a nameable hero. You start off in the village of Cobblestone where you partake in a coming of age ritual. It doesn’t take long before things start to go south. Well, it turns out that you are the Luminary, a legendary hero chosen by the world tree Yggdrasil to save Erdrea from evil.

Now, here is the catch. You go to the King to provide your services and things go even more south. The King accuses you of bringing evil upon his land and throws you into the dungeon. So, the stage is set for a grand adventure to prove yourself and save the world before the actual evil entity destroys the world.

The main plotline itself is nothing to really write home about. After playing Dragon Quest Builders 2, where your building was illegal, I felt that I already experienced a similar story in the franchise. Maybe I’m looking a bit too deep into this. Yet, the actual pacing and storytelling are way more enjoyable. The story turns into a journey from town to town where you have a smaller adventure in each town. It’s almost like an anime series where the hero and crew travel around the world.

The writing of this game is just amazing. From medieval speak to people speaking in English with a foreign accent, it’s just lovely. What I mean with a foreign account is that you clearly see the Spanish influences in the made-up language that they speak at some beach cities.

The voice acting really adds a lot to the personality of the characters. While some of the characters really follow some stereotype arcs, I really enjoyed the mix of characters in this game. The characters are written that well, I even started to shout right at some of the characters when they did something frustrating.

Currently, I’m not even halfway in the adventure and I have been enjoying myself throughout the story. I cannot wait to see where the story is going to take me next since the whole world seems massive and a blast to explore.

The Confused Light

What is a massive world to explore without an interesting visual presentation? This game doesn’t disappoint in that area. One time I played Dragon Quest VII on my PlayStation 2 and I found that game extremely pretty. If you take that game and give it a 1080HD facelift, you get the visual presentation of this game. The world is colorful and extremely detailed to explore. It even has a day and night cycle that makes the world come alive.

Yet, it pains me to say it but I do have some things I disliked about the visual presentation. First of all, there are a few details that were missed while designing some towns. For example, in one of the towns, they forgot to add in a door at the backside of a store. I have posted a video about it on my Twitter. Notice how inside the store, the door is present and when you run behind the back, the door is suddenly nowhere to be seen.

Thankfully, these moments aren’t too frequent and overall, the world is extremely detailed. But, something that is somewhat broken is the triggers to change the lighting. Now, the lighting changes when you enter a building. That isn’t a problem until you start walking to edges of buildings and the light level already changes when you are still outside and next to a wall. Just look at this video I posted on my Twitter, where the ending shows off what I mean. Sadly enough, this problem occurs extremely frequently. Especially at night time and even more when the roof sticks out of the building or when the pathway has a roof itself.

It’s a shame since this is a problem that puts a damper on the excellent animation. I was extremely surprised to see characters actually react surprised or angry when you raided their cupboards or their belongings. Or the fact you can turn the camera around while in battle and see everything from every angle you wish.

Now, I think that the next issue I noticed has to do with memory management for the Nintendo Switch version but the render distance isn’t the best. This is something I can personally forgive since it affects the far off objects that get less detailed render. You can clearly see more detail appear in the frame when you walk up to it. On extremely rare occasions, the detail appears when you are just up close.

Automation

This game plays like every other J-RPG and especially like most previous Dragon Quest games that came before it. I haven’t played all the Dragon Quest games, so I can’t tell you what’s unique in this title compared to the previous entries in the series.

If you haven’t played any of these games in the past, let me quickly explain it to you. While you take your party on a journey throughout the land, you fight various battles to make your characters stronger and let them learn new skills. With each won battle, your characters gain experience points. When they gain enough experience points, they gain a level. For each level, they get points that allow them to open up a skill in their skill tree.

There are a lot of different character classes that spice up the fighting style and gameplay. From characters that are meant for healing to characters that act as a sponge for all the attacks, better known as a tank. So, you have to choose your equipment wisely as well. You buy a strong shield for your tank and a strong wand for your healer.

There are two ways of battle encounters and this game has them both. On the overworld, the monsters are visible and roam around, so you can pick and choose your battles. Alas, while traveling in places that aren’t the overworld, like the sea, the battles are random and can happen at any moment. Thankfully, in most cases, you see the enemies so it’s not a mess to understand where which system is used.

So, during the adventure, you also have to solve puzzles where you have to look around the environment and dungeons for clues. These puzzles can range from conquering a dungeon to do a fetch side quest to using a monster to climb a crumbling building. A tight control scheme is essential for this type of games and I have to say that this game doesn’t disappoint. After you get used to the control scheme of this game, I have to say that it’s a blast to use. Some features are a bit too buried in menus for my liking but that might be the biggest complaint about that.

Everything is paired together with an amazing soundtrack and sound design. Now a lot of the soundtrack and sound effects sound extremely familiar when you have played previous games in the series. This isn’t a bad thing since this really helps to put the game into the Dragon Quest universe. Plus, the music still fits the atmosphere quite well and doesn’t get boring.

And with that said, I think I have said almost everything I wanted to say about this game for now. Because I’m not even halfway done with the game, I’m not going to talk more in-depth about the game for now. When I have finished the game, or put more hours into it, I might write a more in-depth review. But, at this moment I already reached a conclusion.

This game is one of the best games I have played on the Nintendo Switch when it comes to RPG’s. The expansive world and the amazing story is an amazing journey to take part in. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the adventure will bring since I’m enjoying myself with this adventure. I also highly recommend this game to every Dragon Quest fan, RPG fan, adventure game fan and people who are looking for a lengthy and expansive game to sink their teeth into. And if you want to know if the game is for you, you can download a free demo in the Nintendo eShop to try out the game before you buy it.

So, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game (for now). I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Game Quicky: The Touryst (Switch) ~ Vacation With Adventure

Nintendo.com microsite – Wikipedia entry – Official website

In the world we live in today, it’s not too advised to travel. To protect the risk groups from COVID-19 that is. So, that’s why I’m going to talk about a small indie game on the Nintendo Switch called The Touryst, where we can have a virtual vacation. But hold on, is this a holiday worth going on? Since, the holiday picture you see as cover art spells doom. It might go wrong pretty quickly. But, is that wrong as in, story-wise or wrong as in… a bad game? Let’s find out together in this game quicky article! And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the content of this article and/or the game in the comment section down below.

The good memories

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Just like in a vacation, the story of this game takes somewhat of a backseat. The story is there to explain certain things that the people of the island do. But what is the story of this game? Well, in this game you play as a guy going on a holiday. He discovers a way to enter a strange alien looking temple and when exploring that temple, his adventure is afoot.

While there is no voice acting in this game, the writing in the dialogue boxes is pretty good. Especially since there certain effects to some dialogue parts to put more character inside the dialogue boxes and on top of that, the characters of the game.

Something I really love about this game is the variety. There are so many things to do and puzzles to solve. While the main quest takes you on a journey through various temples and you solve various platforming challenges, the other puzzles and side quests take you on a journey through a beach party, jazz club, art museum and many other places.

It’s quite impressive that in a game that’s only 6-ish hours long, that there is so many different things to do. I have even seen speedruns of people completing this game in under one hour. So, this game is quite speedrun friendly.

The controls of this game are quite close to perfect. The are easy to understand and extremely responsive. I was able to understand all my abilities even after a month or so of not playing the game.

The UI and “TO DO list” is one of the best I have seen in a while. It logs almost everything and it’s easy to navigate and find. Per island you get a list of the tasks you still can do to progress either the main story or a side quest. The only minor complaint I have is that the load game feature is under the options menu. I just wish that this was it’s own menu with a sort of “save and quit” feature as the first save file or something.

The performance of this game is mind blowing. The game runs smoothly at 60FPS and I can’t tell you one spot where it dropped lower than 60FPS. Together with the impressive visual design, this game is a technical master class for other developers. The visual presentation of this game is something I really enjoyed. It reminds me of a sort of smooth Lego-ish vibe with the stunning voxel graphics.

The animations are wonderful to look at as well with the steady and high frame rate. To me, it was extremely immersive. I really loved going onto the islands and exploring around to see what the game had to offer. I loved how the footprints stayed in the sand or how the lighting of the sun changed when you moved the camera around.

Couple this with an amazing soundtrack and sound design together with the rather relaxing and sometimes tense atmosphere of this game and you have another reason why I feel that this game deserves a lot of praise. But, there is something… something dark lurking while I’m praising this game.

The bad memories

TheTouryst-IL1 Sadly enough, this adventure isn’t perfect. There are some mistakes in this adventure that I think could have been better. The first thing that I found a big bummer is the fact that there can be only one save file in the game.

Speaking about saving, something I found a bit disappointing was the fact that when you choose save and quit in a monument, that you have to restart the whole monument. So, better put the Switch in sleep mode than choosing save and quit.

Now, something I talked about in this article earlier were the controls. Some of the controls still need some fine tuning like the aiming controls. I had to wrestle with the aiming controls more often then not. This is such a big shame in my opinion. Also, this might be just me but the ledge grabbing mechanic didn’t always work for me.

There were some mini games and platforming sections that were a tad bit too difficult in my opinion. Especially when some tricky jumps were involved. It was so annoying when I fell into a pit just because I jumped a bit too early. Thankfully, you do respawn quickly, but the whole room resets. So, yeah, if it’s a puzzle involving a lot of steps… Let’s just say it’s extremely irritating.

The fact that there is no real hint system is a bit frustrating. In some boss battles I had to find the solution by complete accident. There is some trail and error in this game. While I didn’t find this too big of an issue, I can see that this might be a turn off for some people.

With that said, I think it’s time we reached a conclusion. Don’t you think as well? Should you go to your nearest Nintendo eShop Travel Agent and book this holiday or should you avoid it?

Travel verdict

This game is a hidden gem. While it’s quite short, it’s a blast to play and explore the worlds that were created for this adventure. But, there are some cracks in this gem that might turn people off from playing it.

It feel like some parts weren’t polished enough and that made some sections a bit too frustrating. Thankfully, those moments aren’t too frequent and spread out quite a bit.

This game is a joy to beat but a nightmare to complete. I can only agree from what I have read from other reviewers, there are some (optional) sections like the surfing and soccer game that make this game almost a rage quitting affair.

Well, I think that this game is highly worth your time and money if you enjoy exploration games, puzzle games, platformers, indie games… There is a huge audience for this game I think. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if this game didn’t click with everybody. Since, this game can be frustrating but also a bit repetitive.

Thankfully, there is a demo. So, you can try before you buy. My advise is that you first give the demo of this game a try and if you feel that it’s your cup of tea (or coffee, or beer or …) then you buy this game. Since, it’s a joyful adventure with some weaker spots that’s a blast to experience.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 80/100

Game Quicky: Spirit Roots (Switch) ~ Two Halves Make A Whole

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Nintendo microsite – Drageus Game page – Developer website

Today I want to talk about a game that I got a review code for from the people over at Drageus Games. In this article, I’ll give my 100% honest opinion. For this review, I’m reviewing the Switch port. The original game was created by FireArt Games and released on mobile platforms and Steam. More information can be found on the developer’s website. But for now, let’s dive right into Spirit Roots and let’s take a look if this game is worth your money or if you should skip this game. And as usual with these articles, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Editorial note: this review has been written for v1.0.0

The good

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In this game, you play as the unnamed main character on a journey to save your planet. For the purposes of this review, I’ll call him Jos. Just because I don’t feel like being creative now and looking for another name. Now, Jos’s task in this game is simple. He has to save his planet that’s at the end of the stellar system.

This planet has a unique cirque. Because the planet had several hundred years of conflict, the two remaining parts of the fighting planets got stitched together to form one huge planet. Now, peace rains on the planet because both parties agreed to never cross the border. Well, that’s going to change. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have an interesting setup for a game, wouldn’t you?

The story is just amazing. The whole concept is lovely. There are so many things you can do with this idea. You can explore the concepts of who rightfully owns the land because the planet has been stitched together. Or you can explore the idea of two nations that had years upon years of conflict living together. But, more on the story later.

The audiovisual presentation is a blast to hear and see. Visually, this game looks amazing. It looks quite cute and impressively detailed. The world looks alive and quite colorful. It was a blast to play through it. The soundtrack of this game reminded me a bit of Fantasy Life on the 3DS, a soundtrack that I really enjoyed.

The levels are quite enjoyable. The game can be pretty challenging if you aren’t careful. Thankfully, the game is pretty generous with checkpoints, so you don’t have to lose a lot of progress when you die. The game also comes with three difficulty settings, that increase or decrease the challenge of the game. The game is also available in 7 languages.

The game is also quite lengthy. There are 50 levels divided over several worlds. In each level, you have a certain goal to gather all the souls. You can keep track of that goal by watching the counter at the upper left of the screen.

You don’t need to complete all the levels. When you are stuck on a certain level and have enough golden souls, you can move on to the next world and try your luck there. In order for you to reach the last world, you have to gather 44 of them. So, you have to finish around 15 levels completely before you can reach the final world. This allows you to continue the game without being frustrated because you are stuck on one level.

It’s quite clear that the game took some inspiration from games like Rayman Legends. The souls remind me of lums and the art style looks quite similar too.

The bad

NSwitchDS_SpiritRoots_02 Now, I said earlier that I wanted to talk about the story again. Sadly enough I have to do that in the negatives section. You want to know how I learned about the interesting story? Not through the game, but through the information that I found on the microsite of Nintendo. Even the developer’s website is quite sparse with information. It’s a big missed opportunity. I would have loved to see how the story was used in this game. But alas, when you start the first level, you are dropped right away in the first level without any explanation.

That’s one of the biggest drawbacks of the game. But sadly enough, I found a few other problems with the game that I would like to address in this review. The first one is the jumping. Sometimes when I’m on moving platforms, I fell through them. Also, after using your slash attack, the jump doesn’t always work. This lead to various deaths that could have been avoided.

The game’s use of the term “health points” is a bit misleading. There is a 1-hit system in this game like in the Mario games. So, the health points just mean how many retries you have from the checkpoints. When you have to retry a stage, well, then you lose all your progress since the last checkpoint. But, that isn’t too big of a deal in my opinion.

Something that I found extremely silly is the fact that you have to wait for three seconds when you open the pause menu to resume playing.

Apart from that, the game lacks some minor polish. There a few animations and little things that are missing. It would be a bit too much if I sum them all up one by one but here are a few.

When you reach a checkpoint, only the arrow disappears. No real fanfare. In the village. The ones in the swap have an animation. But only barely, the light just switches on.
When you die closeby an enemy that throws projectiles, the projectiles land at the other side of the enemy, even clipping into walls.
The sound can hang when a tutorial appears on the screen. Especially when you slash open a change.
On some levels, like the 3rd one, you can see the top of the level… And it looks quite flat.
The texture of a door you can slash through and one you need to flip a lever for are too similar.
When you shoot a bullet, it keeps traveling until it’s off-screen. It doesn’t break on the walls.
The death animation is a bit too long in my opinion. It would have been better if you were able to get back into the action more quickly.
When you choose to exit a level, it tells you that it will take you to the main menu yet it takes you to the level select.
…

Due to these things, the game feels a bit unfinished to me. Like it’s in a state where it’s almost finished and ready to go but it’s not there yet. If the developers would put some finishing touches on the game, it would have been perfect.

But, something that I really missed in this game is a system where you can somewhat move the camera. Various times, I died to a moving spike that I wasn’t able to see coming because it came from off-screen. It would have been a big help if a similar system was implemented to avoid things like that.

Conclusion

Spirit Roots isn’t bad nor is it a good game. During my research on this game, I came across a video review by Defunct Games. I have to agree with almost the whole video. Due to some pretty major negatives, this game isn’t the best it can be. The same goes for the review by PocketGamer.

This game shines in the audiovisual department but lacks some major features in the platforming department. So, I have a hard time recommending this game. If you enjoy B-grade platformers, I think you might enjoy this game.

But, I think that a remake or a remaster would better suit this game. It’s just a bit too stiff, a bit too rough around the edges. While I did enjoy my time with the game, I don’t think I’m going to finish this game in the near future. Maybe when I have some downtime, but we shall see.

Anyways, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 60/100

Game Quicky: I Spy Spooky Mansion (Wii) ~ An Unexpected Remake!

Wikipedia page

Sometimes you don’t expect a game to get a remake. One of these games is “I Spy Spooky Mansion”. I have fond memories of playing this game on my aunt’s computer when I went over to her place. A few years ago, I was able to snag my own copy during a garage sale. Now, when I was browsing eBay for cheap old Wii games, I found this game. I got confused. I honestly thought that somebody mislabeled this game. I thought there was no way for a game from 1999 to get a port to the Wii in 2010. But, the truth is quite different. This game did get a port in 2010 and got released to the Wii in North America. I say North America, but it’s quite possible that this game also got released in the EU, but I haven’t seen a copy in the stores. Now, I played this Wii port and this article will talk about my opinions on the game. Maybe in a future article, I’ll talk about my thoughts and opinions on the PC version of the game. But, now I kindly invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

The good

The story of this game isn’t 100% the same. Well, sort of. You are still trapped in the spooky mansion together with Skelly and you have to escape. But, the method of escaping is different in this version of the game. I won’t spoil it, but I enjoy the original and the new endings to the game.

The sound design of this game is amazing. Compared to the original, this game feels more alive. There are a lot of obvious “spooks” in the game, like when you are upstairs, you hear somebody going up the stairs. Not to mention, the voice acting for Skelly is amazing. I personally enjoy the voice acting in this game more than the original. Well, I also have to compare a dubbed version of the game with the original English voice work now, so take that how you want.

The gameplay is mostly unchanged in this port of the game. You still get an I Spy riddle where you have to find a handful of objects inside a certain area. With easy to understand controls, you have to find these objects in the scene. The big difference with the original is the fact that most of the scenes are in 3D or are bigger than the screen itself. In the original, you have a 2D picture to “stare” at, to find all the objects. I quite like this style and it allowed the developers to put more details in the scene and hide the objects in more creative ways.

Apart from that, there are some gimmick Wii minigames where you have to make a certain motion with the Wii remote to win the minigame and find the hidden object. While you can’t really lose these minigames, they are a nice distraction from the hidden object quest. One minor thing that annoyed me was the fact that I couldn’t skip the tutorial speak and that the tutorial box stayed a bit too long on screen in my opinion.

While it would have been amazing to freely walk around in the mansion, sadly enough, that’s not the case in this game. You can walk around by pointing and using the A button to go into a moving transition. This minor change compared to the original makes the mansion feel more alive. In the original, you had to click on a door and you immediately moved through it. In this game, you go through a, sadly inescapable, cut scene.

The hidden object scenes are quite easy to spot. While exploring through the mansion, the scenes where you can play an I Spy riddle play a small animation. While some areas are the same compared to the original like the dining room and the kitchen, there are a few new rooms like underneath the bed and a board game in the living room. Fun times!

The bad

While the explore able mansion isn’t that large, I think it would be great if a map feature would have been implemented. Once or twice I wanted to go to a room and I forgot if it was downstairs or upstairs. Then again, this is only a minor problem since you were able to get quickly up and downstairs.

Something that I could also critique in the original and that’s still present here is the fact that you can still access the puzzles you have completed. This makes it quite annoying when you are looking for that final piece of the puzzle to beat the game. Now, I totally understand the reason for that decision. In the middle of the game, you need to look for pieces of paper and those are hidden inside parts of the puzzle.

Now, I might be spoiled by playing a ton of casual games/hidden object games but a hint button would have been an amazing addition. Sometimes I got stuck because I wasn’t able to find one hidden object and I restored to spam clicking the entire screen. In addition to that, it would be nice if I had some sort of sound effect or something on-screen when I reached the end of where I could go. Some puzzles go from left to right but not the full 360°, so either make the player hit a wall or give a visual clue that you can’t continue to move the camera.

While the sound design is really well done, the music is a major letdown. While there is some music in the game, it’s nothing to write home about. Most of this game is played in silence together with the great sound design. It’s a bummer since a lot of horror or horror-themed games have amazing soundtracks and I really missed it in this game.

Conclusion

This port surprised me. In a good way. While this game isn’t perfect and could use some polishing, I enjoyed my time with this game. I wanted to complete this game to see what they changed in this version and how it played. The differences with the original PC version of the game are refreshing changes to the formula.

If you enjoyed the original, puzzle games, casual games or hidden object games; this game is a perfect short title to play through. I highly recommend it when you are into those style of games. Now, if you didn’t get interested in this game during this review, I would highly advise you to stay away from this game since the repetitiveness gets boring really fast.

I’m so glad that I gave this game a chance and didn’t write it off as another piece of Wii shovelware. It’s an enjoyable title for young and old. While I could totally understand people not really liking this game, I argue that this game has a lot to offer and enjoy. I might not go replaying this game in the near future, but who knows… Maybe one day.

And with that, I think I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you so much for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 70/100

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