1. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (265 hours total. Technically beaten, but there is still so much else to do in the game.)
2. Elden Ring (136 hours)
3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (116 hours)
4. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (108 hours to 100% everything in the base game, still need a second hard mode playthrough for platinum)
5. Assassin's Creed Origins (100 hours to 100% base game and all DLC)
6. Final Fantasy XVI (86 hours for platinum trophy)
7. Persona 5 (86 hours)
8. Viscera Cleanup Detail (85 hours for almost all steam achievements, all maps beaten)
9. Nioh 2: Complete Edition (73 hours to beat all main and side missions in base game and DLC)
10. Cyberpunk 2077 (70 hours for platinum and DLC trophies)

Games
1/04 Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line
1/11 AMID EVIL
1/15 Death Stranding: Directors Cut (Replay)
1/20 Silent Hill: Homecoming
1/22 Nioh (Replay - All DLC)
1/25 AMID EVIL: The Black Labyrinth
1/28 Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Pretty interesting month overall for my completions. I managed to wrap up quite a few replays from last month, while also completing a bunch of other crappy games. My favorite game this month was probably Amid Evil. Amid Evil is a super fun FPS game very reminiscent to Heretic and Hexen, and I honestly liked it more than both those respective series. The overall level design and gameplay was great, easily some of the best I have played in a newer boomer shooter. The worst game this month was a tie between Silent Hill: Homecoming and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Suicide Squad is probably the worst of the two games overall, as, despite a lot of garbage, there are at least a few cool things in Silent Hill: Homecoming such as the bosses, and some of the DNA it shares with the Silent Hill 2 Remake. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is easily one of the worst games I have ever played and there is genuinely no redeeming factors to it as a game.

Games
12/02 Little Inferno (Replay)
12/15 Tomb Raider
12/22 Three-Headed Santa: The Awakening
12/23 Tattletale
12/31 Wandersong

DLC
12/02 Little Inferno: Ho Ho Holidays
12/03 Vampire Survivors: Operation Guns
12/30 Tomb Raider: Unfinished Business / Shadow of the Cat

12 Days of Itchmas Completions
12/06 Arcane Beak
12/06 P.E. Noire
12/06 Lodge
12/06 Pipe
12/06 What Never Was
12/07 Creature Packets
12/08 Rental

Pretty busy month for me overall, and I didn't get around to as many games as I would have liked. That said, there were a lot of fun smaller game completions. My favorite game this month was probably classic Tomb Raider, which was not something I would have expected when I first started this game at the start of the month, but I really came to like this game once I got a good hang of things. My least favorite game was probably Tattletale, which doesn't surprise me as it's a pretty bare-bones mascot horror game. Anyways Happy New Years to all and I can't wait to see what this new year has in store.

Lately in newer games, I absolutely hate how the games will outright spoil puzzles for you before you even get to begin thinking of a way to solve them. This is particularly bad in God of War: Ragnarok and the Horizon games, where characters will just straight up blur the answer out before I even get a good look at what I need to solve. Stuff like this drives me crazy as I love to attempt to figure out puzzles on my own. I understand why some studios do it for accessibility reasons, but I think this really needs to be turned off by default, and be an option for those who need some extra help with said puzzles. Or maybe even something like the hint system for the uncharted games, where the game leaves you to your own devices for awhile, but after a bit once will give you a notification that asks if you want a hint on what to do.

Been playing through the Dragon Quest games on mobile lately on my commute to work. The mobile ports are pretty solid and even come with some nice tweaks to the original games to prevent stuff like needing to grind excessively.

11/01 My Friendly Neighborhood
11/09 Viscera Cleanup Detail + All DLC for it.
11/10 A Short Hike
11/27 Hylics
11/30 Sludge Life

Untracked Replays I did this month
-Devil May Cry 3
-Nioh
-The Evil Within

Been in a bit of a funk this last month and have been kind of burnt out of gaming in general for some odd reason. I initially wanted to play a lot more, but around the 8 or 9th up until like 3 days ago I just couldn't bring myself to play anything new that wasn't just grinding away at Nioh, The Evil Within, or The Binding of Isaac Rebirth achievements. Luckily, I think im back up to my normal self who wants to play just about anything. My favorite new game this month was a tie between Viscera Cleanup Detail and Hylics. I've been really into booting up Viscera Cleanup Detail along with a wide variety of youtube videos over the last few months, and I wrapped up just about every achievement for this game, minus some multiplayer ones I need to do in the future. This game was pretty relaxing and I really enjoyed a lot of the references in it to various different sci-fi horror properties like Alien, the Thing, Dead Space, Event Horizon, etc. On the other end of things, Hylics was such a weird experience of a game, that I think will stick with me for quite awhile. This game is such a bizarre blend of it's abstract claymation backgrounds, and it's complete nonsense story, but the short little experience it provided was quite interesting. Otherwise, the worst game I played this month was probably a Short Hike, but I don't really think it's a bad game in the slightest. I just wasn't personally into it when I tried it out, ontop of feeling burnt out around then with stuff. Anyways, I'm definitely looking forwards to trying out a bunch of new stuff this month.

Bloodborne PSX
https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx
No Players Online
https://papercookies.itch.io/no-players-online
Three-Headed Santa: The Awakening
https://germfood.itch.io/three-headed-santa-the-awakening

10/02 Nightmare Kart
10/03 Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
10/05 Janitor Bleeds
10/10 Silent Hill 2 (2024)
10/14 Super Meat Boy Replay
10/20 Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure Replay
10/24 Shadow Warrior (2013)
10/27 Dread X Collection 5
10/28 Super Meat Boy Forever

Pretty big month for overall completions for me. I played a lot of smaller games this month on PC, which was an overall nice change of pace. My favorite game was easily Silent Hill 2 (2024), which was an absolute suprise in terms of how great it turned out. I personally think it's on par with the original game with it doing various aspects better than the original and a few things not as well. I highly recommend this remake. The worst game this month was probably Super Meat Boy Forever, which was a pretty disappointing sequel to the original game. I can't believe they decided to ditch the very well controlling original game and it's quick and brutal level design, and decided to be an autorunner with randomized overly long maps. Though I think the new cutscenes are pretty good, the rest of the game is just not great.

Dread X Collection 5


Happy Late Halloween y’all and welcome back for what I think is the finale of the Dread X Collection series. The Dread X Collection 5 is the newest of the Dread X Collection’s and it was released in 2022. From then to now, there hasn’t been any other entries, which I think is a shame, but alas it’s time to wrap this series up.

Karao
Karao is a fps horror game that is centered around the entertainment medium of karaoke. In this your character ends up getting lost looking for the bathroom in a karaoke bar and stumbles upon a weird abstract homeless encampment. Around here you encounter a ghostly female apparition and are left to try and piece together what her relation is to a disturbing song sung at the karaoke bar. Karao overall is a pretty good blend of elements that deliver a pretty good horror experience, but is slightly held back by some of it’s level design and some unintentionally funny scares. The overall main story is pretty decent, and I really like how you can piece it together quite early on by just paying attention to some of the details and the main song that the game is centered around. It’s simple and gets the job done quite well. One of my favorite aspects of this game is it’s sound design, which really excelled at a lot of points where it got under my skin. There is this one sound that plays when loading into a new area along with some dialouge that really fucked with me and gave me heavy Silent Hill vibes thanks to it’s industrial feeling. The main song that the story is centered around is a disturbing earworm that perfectly builds some tension and ties the story together well. I also really loved how this game looked and some of the visually impressive set pieces at play throughout. There are a lot of really fun moments that did creep me out, such as seeing the womans ghostly body float around and spell out a gate code with it’s own blood, and an overall great usage of lighting. That said, most of the scares here can come off a bit goofy if you can’t get yourself invested in this games mystery, due to how unnatural they look, but I still enjoyed them regardless. Probably the worst of the bunch was with the ending with the main song being played out at full, which I found to be unintentionally kinda funny due to the stupid Karaoke machine text with the follow along dot going absolutely wild to the depraved song. That said, I think it’s a great ending to round things out and it’s super memorable in it’s own creepy way. The gameplay for this game is pretty basic, but still overall fun. Most of this game is a walking simulator with some minor combat elements that I didn’t particularly enjoy. I found the overall level design to not work well with the combat, due to a few portions just dumping enemies on you with no reliable way to deal with them besides getting lucky while running away. The slide and rooftop portion in particular were just not good fun to try and play through. Besides some of these minor complaints, Karao was a pretty solid little horror game that I would highly recommend checking out in this collection.
8.5/10



Spirit Guardian
Spirit Guardian has your character venture inside a haunted daycare to investigate what bad thing happened there long ago. The entertainment theme this time around I think is Daycare, which is not what I would have assumed is a form of entertainment but ok. The story for this game is as barebones as barebones can get, as there is no fun twist or even substance to it. This game overall is pretty awful and definitely a personal contender for worst of all 5 collections. Gameplay wise, this is just your standard run around a spooky area game and solve basic puzzles while evading a stalker enemy. The level design is incredibly poor as it’s pretty much just a straight shot from where you start and to where you end. The puzzles are for the most part baffling and not fun in the slightest. The worst of the bunch is this egg puzzles where you need to balance an egg on a spoon and then deliver it to a shrine, but the controls are insanely finicky and it mainly just felt like I got lucky on my run where I delivered the egg. The main spooky monster of this game is a haunted nanny who is not scary in the slightest due to poor AI and an awful overall jumpscare and appearance. This game also just looks really not great as well. Everything feels very lazily put together and genuinely looks awful. This game also tries to add some cartoony elements to some of it’s visuals, which also look incredibly poor when used, and are overall quite lazily done and contrast greatly with the already crappy look of the game. This game is also glitchy as hell and can softlock quite easily thanks to the glitchy enemy AI killing you mid cutscene whenever it feels like and you can even permanently lose items needed to progress if you are not fully careful due to this crappy inventory system in place. I genuinely can’t think of a single positive thing to say about this game. It’s awful from start to finish, and honestly not worth playing.
2/10



Ludomalica
Ludomalica’s main medium it represents is board games. In this you play a mysterious board game that was owned by your grandpa who disappeared many years ago after playing it. There really isn’t much else here for a story, but it’s a fun little hook. Most of this game has you sitting around a simple little wooden board with various blank and question marked spaces. To play the game, you must abide by 3 rules at a time. Those being to make sure that you are alone, all lights are turned off, and that the door needs to be closed. From there you can play the game by just rolling the dice to see what happens. The premise is pretty good and definitely had me intrigued, but the end result in my opinion was very undercooked. Whenever you land on a question marked space, some of those 3 rules are breeched and you need to alleviate the problem before getting back to playing. This has you walk around a bit around your house and shut the doors and lights while dodging an entity, which is overall pretty boring. The scares mostly fell flat for me, as a lot of them end up being repeated over and over, and didn’t really achieve the effect I think they were going for. The entity haunting the game is very boring in appearance, as it’s just a black translucent figure with red eyes who just stands around you, which is a monster trope that I feel is very played out with most indie games I have played recently. Ontop of this, the overall objective of the board game feels very confusing as there technically is no end to it, nor any reason to really play as the main character. Besides that, there really isn’t much else to this game. It’s an interesting premise that just wasn’t expanded upon enough to really leave an impact. It reminded me quite heavily of this one game called Summer Night back in the first Dread X Collection, which I feel is a much more superior version of this idea adapted.
5/10



Beyond the Curtain
Beyond the Curtain is a walking simulator where your character falls asleep while watching a puppet show, and reawakens in a nightmare like plane made of wooden set facades and marionettes lifted by string. The medium chosen for this game is that of stage shows, puppetering particularly. Beyond the Curtain is a pretty decent mix of good scares and atmosphere and some boring moments near the start. One of this game’s biggest issues comes with a disclaimer given as you boot this game up that warns the player that running instead of walking though a large chunk of this game will ruin the atmosphere and scares, which considering that it is somewhat the case, I think is bad overall game design. A good scare in a horror game really should not be limited to a player not using features given to them for maneuvering the environments. I still ran though a great majority of this game, and was still able to catch just about everything and I personally glad I did so as I don’t think that mainly walking through it really all that worth it. The first part of the game in particular is just kind of boring, as you mainly just walk around some wooden facades that all look pretty close to the same with no real scares besides a foreboding atmosphere surrounding it. After than, the rest of this game is pretty good, and has a few of it’s own clever chase scenes and scares. The overall atmosphere is easily my favorite part of this game as the whole surreal vibe it was going for really is creepy. I also really enjoyed the music and sound effects that were quite tense in each part. I think its at it’s absolute best with the ending, which though I found predictable, the sound of it all happening was pretty horrifying. Overall this game is decently solid, though a bit slow and boring.
7/10



The Book of Blood
The Book of Blood was a lot scarier than I expected. In this one you play as a carnie who is helping close up a small carnival for the night when a mysterious book is dropped off at your location. Upon interacting with it and engaging with the rest of your closing tasks, you are confronted by a white masked person and are forced into a deadly game where you need to decipher the Book of Blood. This is another game that I think goes off theme, unless you would call getting jumped by demonic entity while closing a carnival a form of entertainment. That said this game is one of my favorites so far on this collection thanks to deciding to go for a more visceral style of horror, which is a nice contrast from the more psychological ones before it. This game is filled to the brim with jumpscares and I would be lying if I tried to say it isn’t scary. Most jumpscares occur thanks to the evil demon trying to hunt you across the level. The game begins mainly with you running around the small carnival area to repower the area after the power went out, and then shifts more towards having you decipher the book itself to try and find a way to get rid of the demon. The gameplay cycle is pretty solid for a small game like this, but does suffer a bit due to how much the game begins to wear aspects of its gameplay down. For instance, going to restart the breakers every once in awhile as you progress through the puzzle goes from terrifying to kind of boring as the game goes on due to how similar each situation feels. This is made worse by the undecipherable AI and overall behavior of the masked demon, which I could not figure out a great way to avoid encountering, but luckily it’s super easy to break away from it through QTE’s and there is a ton of healing around the map. There really is no stakes once you realize how easy it is to exploit the enemy, and the scares kind of drop off a clip. Otherwise, deciphering the book is fun, and I like the almost FNAF element to it where you need to keep watch to avoid having the demon from entering where you are shacked up. These situations could have been a bit better as they very rarely happen, and they always felt quite scripted, but in concept they are great and left me on edge. Finally there is the main story, which I forgot to mention, which I think is pretty awful. This is thanks to the awful voice acting from the main character, who is laughably cringe, and the basic story that’s really just comprised with it’s opening and ending. Ontop of that, I find it quite stupid that the main character actually went to the stupid book to perform whatever ritual was inside, when I don’t think it was ever mentioned that it wasn’t tied to whatever the demon was, and that it would pretty much just summon the devil. Then again, with the main characters voice acting being awful and obnoxious, it very much does feel in character for them to do something so stupid. Though I sound kind of negative about this game, I actually quite enjoyed it overall. It’s got some really fun scares, and the main puzzle gimmick of solving a puzzle in the book was quite fun.
7.5/10



Resver
Resver is a noir walking simulator game, where you play as someone attending a hidden nightclub underneath the Resver Deli. The entertainment medium this time I believe is that of nightclubs and concerts. It’s overall kind of hard to really describe what this game is all about and what it is as it’s so elaborate with it’s visuals and themes, but it was quite interesting nonetheless. I think what I managed to piece together from the story is that of one related to addiction as there is heavy emphasis on drug abuse and tripping at the club, but beyond that I can’t figure out anything else. This game is definitely one that focuses more on it’s style over having substance, which sometimes was cool, but in general led toward being a quite forgettable experience. There is nothing really to the gameplay besides just walking forward through some levels and watching trippy cutscenes. That said, this game does look really good, and the unique visuals and artstyle at play here is pretty cool. Overall, I really don’t have much to say about Resver. It’s got some cool aspects like it’s visuals, but besides that it really just falls flat.
5/10



Hunsvotti
Hunsvotti is definitely an interesting little game, with it being another walking simulator type game, though I think this one was a lot better than a majority of the ones I played so far. In it, you play as a young Finnish child in 1888 who is far different from the rest of their village due to various conditions that make them weaker and less accepted than the rest, when a midsummer festival is taking place to celebrate Juhannus. The entertainment medium this time around is based around a festival game that takes place called Hunsvotti. This game is mainly just a hazing ritual for the villagers, from what I was able to make of it, but I guess it’s entertaining to them. Your main goal is to collect 7 flowers, which you need to drop inside a well, which should reveal whom your true love is supposed to be. My favorite thing about this game is it’s overall focus on finnish culture and midsummer celebrations, which I’m not sure is fully accurate in this game, but it was cool to see regardless. It was cool to go around the game and find various little things to interact with to learn more about the celebration, while searching for flowers. While doing so, you need to avoid contact with the villages, and the ensuing activities, as the more you so the more hostile they become and eventually deem you the Huntsvotti they need to chase down since you are being a party pooper. The overall gameplay loop is pretty basic, but it’s decently fun, and I really like how the game goes from it’s super bright and cheery artstyle to something more dark and sinister the more you get in trouble. This whole game then culminates with the true love being what I think is the Finnish Devil, Perkele, and then a Carrie style rampage that you can go on as a fun way to wrap things up. I wouldn’t say that I found this game all that scary, but it was a pretty fun and entertaining game overall.
7.5/10



Rotten Stigma
Rotten Stigma is a third person survival horror game that takes a lot of inspiration from the likes of Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I’m glad that this game does do something different from the pack of games I have played so far, as so far there has been a massive lack of variety with the games I have played. That said this one mostly falls flat due to it’s bland and lazy artstyle, awful cliched story with some really bad usage of controversial topics as it progresses, and a really short but generally quite boring experience. The story of this game is based around our main character Neil, who is searching for his daughter that has gone missing at a local sports center a long time ago, and is now going after her at this place since he has gone crazy and was let go from the police force for how it affected him. At this place, you get to learn what happened to his daughter and the 11 other people who went missing as there may be some sort of cult like activity tied to it. The story for this game is laughably bad thanks to how cliched it is, with almost no element of what I just described feeling original in the slightest. It very much just feels like a mishmash of various franchises like Resident Evil and Silent Hill by just grabbing popular things from them and just mashing them together in a script. Ontop of that, the main story told through the rest of the game besides just the text crawls in the beginning and end mainly just come down to some notes found that describe the cult or whatever in full detail with no sense of mystery added to it, nor anywhere to even go as by the time you get to the end of the game after like 20 minutes, the whole experience has pretty much just been told to you and doesn’t even show up. I really hate how this game ends, with the main character finding his daughter who transforms into one of the weird mutated monsters found throughout the game, where he then has to kill her, followed by himself like a minute later due to not being able to handle the grief. It’s honestly just awful and borderline offensive with the suicide depiction at the end. Awful story aside, visually this game looks really bad, as it is mainly built around a bunch of stiff and not great Unity / Unreal assets, with a crappy PS1 filter put on it to try and make it look retro. This is something that has been driving me kinda crazy with a lot of indie horror games I have played recently, and this game is a great example of all this at it’s worst. The gameplay at it’s best is serviceable, but overall it’s not great, with the gunplay feeling very forceless and the melee being almost unusable thank to most of your attacks not even landing when hit. Overall, this game sucks and I don’t think it was very good.
4/10



Interim
Interim is another walking simulator horror game with some mild platforming elements to it. In this game, you play as someone named Alfred who is working for a studio that produces a TV show similar to the Twilight Zone called Interim. One day while Alfred is helping clean up the set, his boss is attacked by some otherworldly being and he is forced into a deadly game of cat and mouse as he appears on his favorite TV show. The concept for this game is really fun, though I feel like it’s execution was very undercooked. Like a lot of games I have played so far on this collection, it sets up a really fun premise and then proceeds to do very little with it and rushes to an overall unfulfilling ending. There is so little to this games overall execution and story to where I was left confused at what even happened once I managed to get the credits to roll in around 15 minutes. Ontop of that, this game is probably the most buggy and unstable of the bunch in this collection. I encountered quite a few problems involving FPS drops and freezes, which is pretty awful. The overall gameplay is pretty boring, and the platforming section near the end is pretty awful. Though I sound very negative so far in this review towards this game, I do want to highlight some positives here as there is some pretty cool things. For instance, I really like the little segments where they use a live action narrator in a similar way to how Rod Sterling was in the Twilight Zone. I mainly expected to just see these in locked cutscenes, but no there is quite a few moments where they appear during actual gameplay which was kind of impressive to see pulled off. I also really liked what they attempted with the ending, where the game gives you two choices and then proceeds to fake you out once into thinking that you choose the wrong ending by sending you back to where you can choose again, but this time you whatever ending you choose is the correct one. Overall, Interim is very mediocre game with a fun concept that could have been so much more.
4/10



We Never Left
We Never Left is a combination of both a walking sim/puzzle game and a text adventure. In it, you play as the cousin to someone named Michael who has been missing from his game development job over the last few days, and you need to visit his house and investigate. Here you find out what he has been up to, which has been the development of a point and click adventure game called Massacre: 1983. Your main goal at this point is to play the game and figure out what Michael has been up to, which may or may not be something scary. We Never left is an overall pretty solid game, with a few things that I wish it could have done to be a bit more interesting, but it’s definitely on of the better games in this collection. The main exploration aspects inside the house are pretty mediocre and mainly just boil down to you reading notes and listening to recordings. Things do heat up quite a bit once you find the text adventure game, which was pretty fun to progress through. I did really like the execution of these portions, and the way it builds up tension right at the end was fantastic. Though my biggest gripe with this game is the lack of real choice with the text adventure game, when there really feels like there should be. Particularly with the endings, as the solution to it all is very easy to figure out and the fact that the main character doesn’t just leave while stuff is going down is beyond stupid. Definitely a contender along with one in Ludomalica for the title of the dumbest protagonist in the collection. We Never Left is a pretty solid game, and definitely well worth playing in this collection
8/10



Vestige
Vestige is a pretty cool little game. In it, your character is home alone while their parents are on a trip for 2 weeks, and you stumble across an old game console of yours. Naturally, you dust it off and boot it up to try and play one of your favorite games growing up. The bad news is that it may be haunted by the spirit of your dead friend. The plot of vestige is pretty simple overall, but decently effective at what it wants to do. I really liked how this game gave out it’s plot details through the game itself and a few scenes when you wander the house. The biggest draw of this one for me was it’s gameplay, which definitely doesn’t disappoint. There are two main types of gameplay blended together in this that complement each other decently well. First there is a sort of point and click mode where you teleport around your house to interact with various objects, to either progress the story, or solve riddles or receive scares related to your game’s progress. The other style of gameplay is where you actually get to play the titualar game Vestige on an old TV. The point and click stuff is serviceable overall with a bit of missed potential in terms of how it controls, but the Vestige stuff is a real treat. Vestige is a game where you get to play a skeleton riding a motorcycle who is in charge of delivering mail to the deceased on on singular day of ther year where the dead can interact with the living. Gameplay mainly has you drive around a level dropping off packages and performing tricks Tony Hawk style while under a time limit. Though a bit jank, as somewhat expected, these little parts are an absolute blast to play through and get to become especially fun once some of the scary real world elements get blended into the fray. My only real complaint for this game is it’s sudden ending that felt very rushed, but did have a good bit of emotional weight to it if you found yourself somewhat invested in the story such as I. I highly recommend trying this game out.
9/10



Gallerie
Gallerie is the final game I needed to beat in this collection, and it was a pretty solid conclusion. It’s actually the longest game in this collection, with it taking me just barely under 2 hours to beat, which I think may also be a new record for any game in the Dread X Collection series. The main medium of entertainment for this game was art galleries and artwork, which is a fun idea as a whole. The premise for this game has your main character enter into an art gallery where people have been going missing to investigate, where you end up getting trapped by the curator who may have plans for you being his canvas for an up and coming piece for his collection. I really like the twist that the curator is actually an alien trying to study and understand humans completely, including stuff like their emotion through a scientific and not accurate lens to how we actually perceive emotion. It’s a really fun concept, and it’s execution is quite disorienting and uncanny. Another really great aspect of this game is it’s audio design, which does this super uncomfortable ASMR thing, where the curator speaks to you like your watching one of those weird youtube ASMR videos where someone whispers creepily into your ear. I swear I felt violated the instance that awful drippy voice tried to speak about how it perceives human emotion through artwork to me. The overall audio design past the curator stuff is also really well done and definitely left me feeling quite unnerved throughout. Visually this game is also quite interesting and quite hard on the eyes thanks to it’s usage of reflections and lighting. All the positives aside, the gameplay however is really hit and miss. Stuff like the chase sequences, translation puzzles, and QTE’s are fun on paper, but their execution here was very much annoying. The QTE’s especially since you get these absolutely unfair ones that you need to do on specific points to open doors, while being rushed down by various monstrosities. The translation puzzles however fall a bit too much on the over complicated and annoying side of things due to their vague answers that don’t make a lot of sense, and the brutal new timer addition added for the last set of puzzles. Besides some of it’s more annoying aspects of gameplay, I quite liked Gallerie, and would recommend trying it out.
8/10



Before wrapping things up, I want to mention the wrap around game for this collection, as I think it’s much better than the last 2. In it, you play as a young child trapped in a chucky cheese style arcade called Outpost 3000, and need to solve various puzzles inside to collect presents which contain each of the 12 main games for this collection. Though, there is also a monster running around that will try and get you during a few specific scripted moments, which was a fun way to add tension to the overall location. Besides some of it’s visuals looking a bit too cheap with it’s unity asset look, I really like how this hub was constructed and the puzzles were set up. The puzzles were a real highlight, as there are some real head scratchers in the mix. I also really like how this game handled it’s main wrap around story and do think it’s one of the better in this series thanks in part to it both not trying to continue the stupid over complicated lore that really no one cares about, while also not suffering from having a main character who just can’t shut up like in 3, and 4. The story is mostly told through comic books received after beating each game and completing puzzles in the overworld. That said, I wish there was a bit more freedom to how you can tackle going through the arcade as it very much feels like it’s on rails for how you solve the puzzles.

The Dread X Collection 5 is overall a pretty mediocre collection and I think a contender for the worst of this series along with 4. Only really 4 of the 12 games were stand out, while the others just generally tended to stink. Vestige, Gallerie, We Never Left, and Karao were the real highlights this time around, where as Spirit Guardian, Rotten Stigma, and Interim were the biggest stinkers. Though as of this moment, this seems to be the final collection of the series with no other’s confirmed to having been on the way, I do hope to see this series return. Thanks for reading this massive blog and have a wonderful Halloween.

Best to Worst.
1. Vestige
2. Karao
3. Gallerie
4. We Never Left
5. Hunsvotti
6. Book of Blood
7. Behind the Curtain
8. Ludomalica
9. Resver
10. Interim
11. Rotten Stigma
12. Spirit Guardian

Hi y'all, it’s been awhile since I posted on here, but I just wanted to give a little update on what I have been up to and as to why I haven’t been nearly as busy posting here. The last couple months have been pretty hectic for me, albeit pretty good. Over the summer, I was primarily quite busy helping my family out with tasks, trying to find work, and also helping my dad renovate our old sunroom attached to our house. With all that, I ended up not really having as much free time as I would have wanted to sit down and just write up my thoughts on the various video games I played. Ontop of that I just haven’t been feeling as motivated to write about games as I normally am. The amount of games I have played has been pretty big, although I just couldn’t get myself hyped up enough to write about them. Though the biggest culprit for everything just kind of coming to an end is with me getting accepted into the Disney College Program, which is what I have been busy participating in for the last month or so. I’ve been wanting to get into something like this for a while now, and getting this opportunity has been a pretty exciting moment for me. With this program, I have been incredibly busy with work, trying to attend various learning programs, and also just theme park exploration around Orlando, Florida to where I haven’t really had the time to really invest in a ton of games. I also don’t have access to my PS5 due to me traveling so far for this opportunity, which does limit me a bit on what I can play. Another massive thing I have been busy with has been a youtube channel project that I have been running for over a year now.

Another thing I have been busy with is a youtube channel I started up back in 2023. I don’t think I have ever really plugged it here in this blog, but the channel primarily is centered around archiving boss fight related footage in video games. For the last year I have been recording and editing together all of the boss fight footage from games I have completed and have been publishing them to youtube in a nice organized fashion for anyone interested in seeing and potentially borrowing footage from boss fights in all sorts of games. This project has been something I have been quite invested in, and for the time has been stealing a lot of my freetime, which also helps describe what has been up with me being missing. I’ve also been trying to make youtube shorts lately with fun edits of some of the videos, which is something I have been quite enjoying. As of the time I am writing this, I have just finished up editing all of my footage for every boss in Black Myth: Wukong, which has been absolutely brutal to edit and publish, but very fun regardless. Though I’m going to be reducing what I do here on this blog quite a bit over the next year, I do plan on keeping this channel managed and filled with new videos almost every day for anyone interested. The footage here is all able to be borrowed for any sort of video project you wish, I just ask that you please ask beforehand and credit the video in the comments and description.

So what exactly do I plan on doing now? Well I do have some stuff up my sleeve at least for here, but there will be a reduced quantity of stuff I talk about. I want to try and just briefly give my thoughts on some of the games I have played recently, which I plan on posting soon. I also plan on doing a few larger reviews for some games I have a lot to talk about like Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, and Silent Hill 2 Remake, but those are still up in question as for when I am able to do so. I still plan on being active on my youtube channel, and I might post some cool stuff I have seen in Orlando for the time being if I feel up for it as well. That said, everything is going to be reduced for the next year or so but I do plan on posting here from time to time. Thanks for jumping in to read this bit of ramblings, have a great day!

My youtube channel!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCgyYgGeFDy3OCSERgonm3Q


Notable Games that I played and would recommend

I personally count them as fresh completions since they are a different version of an already pre-existing game. For instance, with the Silent Hill 2 remake, I have almost spent as much time with it as I did with my first playthrough of the original and I only just reached Brookhaven. Most of the time with remakes, they do things a bit differently and thus I do think they are something different. It's definitely more debatable with remasters and ports however as sometimes they may just be the same thing with a minor bump in graphics, or worse performace.

9/09 Dragon Quest
9/19 Black Myth: Wukong
9/29 Mummy Sandbox
9/30 Half-Life 2

Pretty busy month for me, and I didn't have a ton of time to really play games. My favorite game was easily Black Myth: Wukong, which was a pretty good soulslike. My least favorite was probably Dragon Quest since it is a bit too basic and grindy of an RPG overall for my enjoyment.

Games
8/01 Devil May Cry (Replay)
8/05 Goat Simulator
8/06 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
8/10 Devil May Cry 2 (Replay)
8/28 Doom 64

DLC
8/05 Goat Simulator: Waste of Space
8/28 Vampire Survivors: Emergency Meeting

Not a ton of completions on my end of things, mainly due it part to me moving away for a work opportunity and not having the time to really play all that much, besides some Black Myth: Wukong. My favorite completion this month was Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which is fantastic and I recommend everyone check it out. My least favorite game that wasn't a replay was probably Goat Simulator, which was still pretty fun in it's own right, albeit a bit frustration with some of it's performance bugs.

Games
7/05 Observer: System Redux
7/07 Folder Dungeon
7/07 Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
7/08 The House of the Dead: Remake
7/11 Oceanworks
7/11 Mr. Platformer
7/14 Dead Rising 2 (Replay)
7/14 Pretty Coo
7/14 Panzer Dragoon: Remake
7/15 Day of the Hampster
7/17 Red Snow
7/17 Mobius
7/18 The Surge
7/22 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
7/25 Blair Witch

DLC
7/03 Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
7/16 The Surge: A Walk in the Park
7/25 Goat Simulator: Goat MMO Simulator
7/28 Goat Simulator: GoatZ
7/28 Goat Simulator: PAYDAY

Insanely massive amount of completions for me this month. This is mainly since I have been focusing on a lot of smaller games that I know I can beat quickly before I leave next month for a work opportunity. I also participated in the Itchmas event held on this website that happened last month with also led to a lot of game completions. My favorite game this month was probably Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, which is technically a DLC, but a really incredible one at that. Besides the obvious for me, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Dead Rising 2, and Observer: System Redux were some pretty big highlights for me. The worst of the bunch I played were Pretty Coo, Panzer Dragoon: Remake, The Surge, and Goat Simulator: GoatZ.

I'll nominate Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

I just wrapped up 7 of the 9 games, and overall had a pretty good time with this event. I skipped Yurivania: Uhaul of the Night mainly since I didn't like the controls and the fetch quest nature of the game. I also skipped playing The Moon Looks Beautiful Tonight, as it's a visual novel, which isn't a genre I particularly like. This is probably how I would rank the games I played from best to worst.

1. Red Snow
Red Snow was pretty basic overall, but really fun for it's concept. I liked the absurd gameplay and the general humor that this game had. The gameplay was pretty fun, albeit a bit basic. Super fun concept that I would love to see expanded with it's full release

2. Mobius
Mobius was a pretty fun platformer with it's mobius loop gimmick. It definitely had some annoyances with the camera and jumping physics, but overall this one was pretty fun. Definitely worth checking out.

3. Folder Dungeon
Folder Dungeon is a little roguelike, which though was pretty simple and easy to beat, was still a lot of fun. I really liked the whole folder gimmick and the approach to navigation with the whole heat mechanic. I definitely am quite interested in seeing how the full release ends up being as there is some good potential here.

4. Day of the Hampster
Day of the Hampster is a pretty solid point-and-click game. I like how it emulates older point-and-click games, such as ones from LucasArts and others such as King's Quest. The puzzles were mostly fun, if not a bit obtuse at times to figure out. That said, I hated the Hampster maze puzzle, and I think it is a bit too annoying for an already short game. Definitely well worth checking out if you enjoy this genre.

5. Mr. Platformer
Mr. Platformer was a pretty fun Rougelike platformer. The platforming felt really good, and I like the approach it attempts to take with the order of levels and how you go through them being somewhat randomized. That said, this one was pretty basic otherwise and not nearly as interesting as the others I played above it.

6. Oceanworks
Oceanworks was a pretty fun ocean survival game with a heavy inspiration with stuff like Subnautica. I overall had fun with the gameplay, and this game's general length is perfect for what it wanted to do. That said I had some issues with the game, such as with it's underwhelming endings, and the exploration elements overall lacking. The worst issue I had was with crashes, as I had this game crash on me 3 times, which resulted in me having to restart this game 4 times before I could finish it. For a game created in a 72 hour gamejam, its pretty solid, but besides that is a bit disappointing.

7. Pretty Coo’
Pretty Coo' was really disappointing overall, as this one had a ton of potential to be amazing, but just kind of flounders it's potential with incredibly janky and confusing gameplay. I really liked the whole pikmin concept it wanted to do with the pigeons, but this game ends up doing it very poorly thanks to the pigeons having really awful overall AI, and most of your mechanics to either call the pigeons or send them off to do something being borderline unresponsive. Ontop of this, the overall objective to traverse the level was pretty boring, and made worse by this game extending it's playtime out quite a bit by just making you wait for sometimes minutes on end for pigeons to finish up an objective. I liked this game's artstyle, but besides that I didn't find this game enjoyable in the slightest.

6/07 A Plague Tale: Innocence
6/18 Assassin's Creed: Mirage

Definitely a lot less completions then I expected myself to do this month. The best game of the bunch was easily A Plague Tale: Innocence. I really enjoyed the story that it told and the super dark and gloomy environments that were absolutely nasty to wade through. The gameplay was really hit and miss, but that tends to be the case with story games like this. Assassin's Creed Mirage was easily the worst game, and I generally quite disliked this game. The gameplay was somehow worse than assassin's creed games over 10 years older than it, and the story was super undercooked. I also found the game incredibly buggy with me getting softlocked twice with certain assassination missions, and also 2 separate save corruptions that I could gladly circumvent thanks to Ps Plus. I hope to get some more sizable completions next month as I'm getting close to finishing up Elden Ring's DLC and also Guardians of the Galaxy. Also itchmas is happening on the forums this month, so that should be another solid 9 completions.

Huh, I thought it was more. Still super excited regardless

Dang, were only doing 6 games this time. Anyways here are my nominations

Red Snow
https://charliedolphin.itch.io/redsnow

Nightmare Kart
https://b0tster.itch.io/nmkart

Rise of the Ronin


Rise of the Ronin is an open-world soulslike game created by Team Ninja, who are behind my favorite soulslike, Nioh 2. This game was definitely an interesting experience overall as it’s so much more different than the Nioh and Wo Long series, and I would argue that this game is a lot closer to something such as an Assassin’s Creed game. For this review, I played through the entirety of this game and achieved the Platinum trophy, due to how much fun this one was.

Rise of the Ronin takes place during the tail end of the Edo Period in Japan. The story has you create your own set of characters called Blade Twins, with whom you choose one to play and one to have as your Twin. Upon getting split up during a botched assassination, your main task is to try and find out the fate of your Twin while also getting dragged into a massive revolution to shape the future of Japan. The time period this game takes place in is quite interesting and not one I ever expected to see tackled in a game, but it was really neat regardless. The whole aspect of centering the story around this period of time when Japan as a country was dealing with an identity crisis where the residents were faced with the decision to dispel Western influence or get with the times and embrace change was really interesting. I’m not doing a great deal of service as an explanation here for this game's plot, but it was surprisingly decent. The Team Ninja games that I have played have often had some pretty mediocre overall stories that I have never been able to get invested in, but this game is an exception. This is thanks to the various opportunities to interact with and do quests for all of the various historical figures that are in this game. I found myself a lot more invested with certain characters like Ryoma and Shinsaku, who are major side characters, in comparison to someone like Tokichiro from Nioh 2. Another aspect that made this story pretty decent was the inclusion of giving the player the ability to make decisions impacting it that may cause a much different alternative to that of what happened in real life. Having the ability to make choices, despite most not mattering all that much really helped me get somewhat involved with what I was playing, rather than just praying for cutscenes to be over so that I can slay bad guys.



The gameplay for Rise of the Ronin is also pretty great, which wasn’t really that much of a surprise considering Team Ninja’s reputation for great gameplay. This game plays very much like Sekiro, but with a lot of different things to differentiate it. For instance, there is a ton of possible build variety present, which really did a great job at making the near 60 hours I spent playing it feel worth it. There are 9 different weapon types ranging from your normal Team Ninja affair like Katana’s and Spear, but also a few really unique weapon types such as the Bayonet and Sabre’s that were an absolute blast to play around with. Unlike something like Nioh 2, there really aren’t any major build restrictions that limit you to playing with only a few weapons during your playthrough, but rather you can use any weapon you want at any time. With each weapon you can use, they all contain a minimum of 3 combat styles that can be switched into on the fly that offer different ways to use that weapon along with some more dangerous attacks. The styles offer a sort of rock-paper-scissors aspect to battle, where properly managing what style is best against particular enemies will help greatly with some of the tougher encounters. To defend against attacks, there is all of your average soulslike stuff such as blocking and dodging, along with a deflect mechanic called countersparking. More or less, when an enemy is about to land an attack, you can then attack back at that moment with a counterspark which slowly builds up ki and can break an enemies stance. Out of all of the soulslikes I have played with a deflect mechanic, countersparking is probably my least favorite of the bunch mainly due to the button placement feeling pretty weird and there being something about executing a counterspark attack that just didn’t feel as good as something like Lies of P or Sekiro. Along with your basic combat stuff, there is a ton of different tools at your disposal such as usable items, firearms, and a grappling hook that can all be super helpful for more tricky encounters. There is also stealth which was also pretty fun to use and felt quite good to execute. Overall I did really enjoy the combat of this game, but I would definitely place it on the bottom end of things when it comes to those from Team Ninja’s games. A lot of it was heavily simplified to something like Nioh or Wo Long, which isn’t a bad thing at all, especially since it’s a lot easier to grasp for those not wanting a super tough soulslike, but it just didn’t please me nearly as much as that in something like Nioh.

The open-world sections of this game remind me quite heavily of the recent Assassin’s Creed games that are a lot more RPG-focused. Most open-world tasks boil down to what are normally boring tasks such as liberating bandit outposts, grabbing collectibles, and visiting points of interest which I can see a lot of people heavily disliking. That said, despite not normally loving this style of open-world activities, I had a blast grabbing nearly everything I could find. I think the main reason for this, whereas I tend to get bored with other games doing the same thing comes with how strong the overall gameplay is. Whereas something else like Assassin’s Creed, taking down an enemy camp just tends to feel like the same old ordeal of stealth-killing enemies and maybe fighting some others when I get caught, taking down an entire bandit camp in Rise of the Ronin is a lot more fun thanks to how threatening the enemies are due to a lot more threatening enemies and highly varied combat that really made things fun. On top of that, most of the collectibles are really simple and only take a few seconds to grab while on the path to another mission. I never really found my time wasted when just bolting around Japan on my horse grabbing everything I could find. Also one of the main collectible types is literally just your character petting cats, which is honestly peak collectible design.



The open world is actually split up into three sections correlating with each of the 3 acts making up this game's story. Though not the most graphically impressive, each section does look generally quite good thanks to the great use of color and layout. There are a lot of really beautiful-looking locations that if you can get past the last-gen visuals that are quite cool. The open world is also quite fun to traverse thanks to stuff like your horse, grappling hook, or glider. My favorite of the open-world sections was probably Kyoto since it had the largest overall focus on vertical city structures rather than larger stretches of mountains and open areas. Besides the open world, the game itself is primarily built on a mission like structure, where you travel to a location to start the mission, with there usually being a boss fight at the end of things. These missions play a lot like a normal level from Nioh or Wo Long, although much smaller. There really isn’t much to write home about them. The bosses often at the ends of each level are usually pretty decent, though never really all that memorable.

I also want to bring up a bunch of the accessibility and quality of life features that Rise of the Ronin has since they really do a lot to make this game very enjoyable. Though being a soulslike, this game can be quite easy thanks to the addition of multiple difficulties. I played on the hardest one available at the start called twilight, since I like a challenge with these types of games. This game is a lot easier overall than most soulslikes, and I would recommend trying this game out if you want one that’s a lot easier than many. On top of that, there are a lot of really great quality-of-life features such as making worrying about filtering loot almost obsolete thanks to how large your inventory now is. There is also something called the Testament of the Souls which gives you easy access to redo any pivotal moment again if you don’t like your decision or outcome, which makes replaying this game quite easy.

Overall, I would recommend checking out Rise of the Ronin if you want an overall simple open-world game with complex combat. It does have some of its own problems such as having overall uninteresting open-world activities and main missions, but besides that this game is really fun. I would personally rank this just behind Nioh 2 as my favorite Team Ninja game thanks to it being a lot more fun than both Nioh and a lot better put together than something like Wo Long.
8/10

I'll nominate Monster Hunter Rise

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth


Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was easily my most anticipated game for this year and it fully delivered. FFVII Rebirth is the second game in the FF Remake project, with one more game to complete the story in the following years. I loved the first remake, and so I went into this game fully hyped to see what was in store for Cloud and the gang. For this review, I completed just about everything I could find around the open world, including a majority of the minigames, which in total took me around 113 hours, which is pretty insane to think about. Though I absolutely loved this game, it wasn’t without its small problems that didn’t fully bother me, but I can see them being issues for many others trying to play through this game.

The story for this piece of the overall FFVII journey follows Cloud and the party attempting to find a way to stop Sephiroth and Shinra. It’s kind of hard to write a brief summary of the events of this story as it’s weirdly directionless for the first 2/3rd’s, but I think it worked really well for the game. I loved how the majority of the story plays out almost like a giant extended adventure/vacation for the party as they travel all across Gaia trying to find a way to save the world. This is normally a bit of an issue I have with middle pieces of media in a trilogy, where it just kind of acts as a way to bridge the first and third entries together, but I really like how it was done here. I love how each chapter of the game helps show off the world in a somewhat casual approach before locking in for the insane final 3 chapters. This game also does an amazing job at using each section to flesh out each member of the party. I already loved the party in the first entry, but this game really made me love them, even more, thanks to how much this game expands each of their roles and shows of their stories. Characters such as Cloud, Tifa, Red XIII, and Barret were some really big highlights for me here. I also really loved how this game expanded a lot of the different returning and new side characters from the last game. Certain characters that I didn’t love such as Roche were given a lot more new material that was really awesome and really redeemed them in my eyes. The story itself was a really great time overall, but some problems did start to arise as the game began to reach its close.



One thing that did make me a bit worried about the first remake was its decision to break away from the main canon with something called the whispers. I don’t hate the idea of the whispers, but the ending for part 1 did bring up a few small things that had me quite worried. The largest worry was the inclusion of a multiverse that may intertwine with the main plot. Luckily, this concept was barely even addressed until this game's ending, which I think was great since this kind of stuff always muddies the media I consume, but its inclusion with the final chapter of this game was pretty awful. I seriously still just don’t understand why every piece of media involving Tetsuya Nomura has to include this kind of garbage. All of the multiverse stuff offers absolutely nothing to the main overall story, and all it did was make things overly confusing here. It all just feels like a device to provide Zack fan service for all of his fans, and in my opinion, really takes away all of the emotion of his death. I also feels somewhat mixed on the way Aerith’s death was handled in this game. On hand, I really like the idea of showing Cloud hallucinating Aerith still being alive, as it really shows how messed up he is at the end of the game, and I think will lead to a very satisfying conclusion with the third game. I don’t mind that they obviously left out scenes from the original depicting the water funeral, as I can tell it’s going to play a big part in Cloud’s mind hopefully healing. But on the other hand, the way her death was handled with the scene itself was way too confusing. At first, it looks like Cloud stops Sephiroth from skewering her, but like 2 seconds later, some multiverse bullcrap happens and now Aerith is dead. The scene is shot in this really awful, confusing manner that takes what should be an insanely sad moment and makes it incredibly jarring and frustrating. That said, Aerith’s death did hit me hard with the Jenova Lifeclinger fight immediately afterwards thanks to the fantastic use of her theme in that fight. Though I personally didn’t love the ending as a whole, it did leave me very interested in where the story goes with part 3, and I’m fully in for the finale of this legendary story.

One of the biggest new things that this remake does is have an open world. Though personally, I’m kind of sick of every game needing to be open-world, I absolutely loved how this game integrated and used theirs. There are 6 regions, those being the Grasslands, Junon, Corel, Gongaga, Cosmo Canyon, and Nibelheim. Almost all of the regions are perfectly sized and were incredibly fun to explore and complete. I did find myself a bit burnt out by the end, but I did play this game for almost 2 months straight with there not really being any other games I switched between at the time. 113 hours is an insane amount of time for me to put into a game, as I tend to burn out on most games at the 60-hour mark, but I was thoroughly hooked on this game. Each of the regions felt overall quite unique and were a blast to explore. My favorite was either Gongaga, or Junon to explore. I really enjoyed the jungle theme of Gongaga, and I didn’t mind the initially confusing mushroom jumps to get around the area. Junon was all around really good and felt like just the perfect amount of content to where I didn’t find myself feeling slightly bored. The worst to me was easily Cosmo Canyon, thanks to the stupid flying chocobo gimmick that made exploration incredibly frustrating. If I had one complaint overall when it came to the settings, it mainly comes down to there just being too many desert / rocky canyon regions overall. Besides that I loved how full of life each section was and how cool the world was to explore. Being able to fully explore places such as Kalm, Costa Del Sol, and the Golden Saucer was amazing and one of the coolest things in this game.



Each region is filled with a ton of fun activities that though are somewhat basic, I did still really enjoy their inclusion. I understand that many may not enjoy many of the different objectives since they somewhat replicate the played-out Ubisoft open-world game tropes, such as having intel towers, but I found their inclusion here to be a fun way to break things up from the more linear main story. Most open-world objectives are tied to the ever-so-annoying Chadley as he wants our group to gather intel on the world around us. I didn’t mind doing things like interacting with lifesprings, doing combat challenges, or even the infamous Ubisoft-style towers, mainly due to their rewards all being quite great, and them being just a simple occasional distraction from the main path. You don’t have to do any of this if you want to play the game, which is nice, but I can understand why others may not love these types of activities. My biggest issue with these bits of extra side content mainly come with Chadley having to ring up Cloud and talk to him after doing literally anything, which gets incredibly annoying fast, but besides that, I found almost all of this stuff to be fun.

Side Missions are something I quite disliked with the last remake, due to how repetitive and generally uneventful they were. Going back and reading my review on the first remake, I somehow forgot to talk about them, but I generally quite disliked them. My biggest gripe with them comes with how missable they were, which is luckily not the case in this game. Almost nothing side-content related this time around is missable, which is something I’m incredibly thankful for. The side missions this time around were actually quite great, which I’m super glad about. I really liked how they helped show off more aspects of the world and also allowed for us to see more of the lesser side characters from the last game, who appear in this game. Their rewards are also quite good (Final Fantasy XVI take note) and fully felt worth doing. Some of my favorite side missions included the one where Cloud and Aerith went on a pretend date and the infamous chicken one. There is also some other chain of quests that appear in each of the regions called Protorelics, which partially brings me to one of my biggest negatives for this game. These protorelic quests have the party search for protorelics in each region, where they often end up getting into a long string of minigame-based quests that I often found incredibly frustrating. I don’t mind having expanded minigame questlines, but the way that they were included here was awful. The minigames here are overly complicated for what they were and leave little to no margin for error by the time you reach the last mission. The worst of it to me were the Gears and Gambits, and Cactuar crusher questlines, that were honestly awful. That said, doing them was well worth it as they led to the amazing superboss fight against Gilgamesh. The minigames as a whole are what slightly dragged this experience down for me.



I don’t hate minigames overall, in a matter of fact their inclusion really made this game’s experience a lot more fun. My biggest issue with them comes with the sheer amount of them, and the fact that a lot of them are just not a lot of fun to play or complete. There is a grand total of 28 different minigame types, which is quite insane. Some of these minigames are really great such Queensblood, which is this card game that reminds me somewhat of Gwent from the Witcher series. This minigame is absolutely massive and there is a ton of opportunities to play it all across the game. I went into this one kind of dreading it, as card-building minigames like this are not exactly my strong point, but I absolutely fell in love with this minigame. I love how this minigame starts out somewhat simple as the game begins, which was a great way to ease someone like me into it, and gradually introduced new mechanics and modes as the game progressed. It’s also got this entire quest line tied to it, which was really fun to go through. I also really enjoyed some of the smaller 1 or 2 time minigames that would appear at places like Casa Del Sol, and the Golden Saucer such as Run Wild, which is kind of like Rocket League but with Red XIII, and Galactic Saviors, which is an on the rails arcade shooter. I also really liked the Parade, Loveless, and Chocobo Racing minigames. The more expanded minigames, primarily the ones tied to Protorelic missions, were pretty awful. Most of the time, these ones border the line between being really great conceptually but also end up suffering due to how basic they are since they are tied to small questlines. Gears and Gambits and Fort Condor both have a lot of potential to be really great but end up sucking hear due to how stripped-back they are mechanically. I also think the completion requirements for most minigames also ended up souring me greatly on them. Ones that were initially fun like 3D Brawler, and Fort Condor, end up becoming absolute nightmares to complete, and ultimately left me very bitter on how I felt about them. The worst of the worst when it came to side missions were the returning gym one, and Gilde De Chocobo, which are genuinely some of the most miserable things I have every played and beaten in a game. I don’t think a lot of these minigames were fully play-tested since they were where I found the most bugs and glitches in this game, and some of the objectives are borderline impossible due to incredibly poor design. I don’t mind a challenge with minigames, but the ones here absolutely destroy all enjoyment I already may have had for a large chunk of them. For the third entry in the series, I would personally like for there to be a bit less minigames overall, but rather focus on fleshing out some really great ones that make me feel like completion of them is worth it. This all said, I did like the inclusion of minigames overall, I just really don’t recommend going for completion on all of them.

One of my favorite aspects of the last remake was the combat, which hits this perfect level of being fast-paced and engaging, while also offering an excellent layer of strategy that keeps me on my toes mentally. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s combat is pretty much the same, but much more expanded. One of my favorite things about it is the inclusion of a few mechanics from the Intergrade DLC for FFVII Rebirth. I’m super glad that perfect guards and teamwork attacks returned, and their inclusion really helped change up the combat for the better. On top of that is a new type of limit break-esque attack called synergy attacks, which have two characters in your party team up and perform a heavy attack against an enemy. Each of these synergy attacks has its own benefits besides the attack such as giving you unlimited mana with both characters for a short period. All of the new inclusions really flesh this combat system out even more and mostly avoid being a bit too much to handle. I do wish the teamwork attacks did a bit more, like those from the DLC, as I tended to forget they existed while playing, but they were fun regardless. I also really enjoy how this game brought back many missing materia and other mechanics not present in the first remake, but rather in the original game, as I felt a lot more prepared for them this time around thanks to my prior knowledge from the last remake. I’m also glad I get full control of my party this time around and can create my own party configuration instead of just relying on the game doing it for me. Over my 113 hours, I experimented a lot with my party makeup and was able to create some fun loadouts, My favorite being Cloud, Tifa, and Cait Sith. Speaking of your party, FFVII Rebirth technically adds two new party members, three if you didn’t play the Integrate DLC in the last game. First, there is Red XIII who briefly appeared in the last game, and is now fully playable here. Red’s combat style is primarily based around perfect blocking enemies and then buffing up your party by charging up his vengeance meter. I personally didn’t love playing as Red the most, due to his play style just not being my favorite, but he was a lot of fun regardless. Finally, there is Cait Sith, who is pretty rough to figure out how to play initially, but is incredibly fun once you get used to his controls and a lot of his luck-based attacks. There is also Yuffie, who appeared in Intergrade, but if you want to hear more about her I recommend reading that review as she plays nearly the same here. All of the returning party members have received a lot of new changes as well to their combat to allow for better usage against stuff like Aerial enemies, or even some new overall changes to how they play, as with Aerith having a larger slew of wards. Everything has been improved greatly in terms of gameplay in this game, and I can still easily say that this is one of the best combat systems ever made for a video game.



Before I wrap this up, I do want to mention the enemy and boss variety which is absolutely amazing. I’m pretty surprised that roughly 90% of the enemies in this game are all new, which is crazy to think about, but also that there is just so many different types to fight in general. I think that there is well over 100 different enemies, which is something I really have to commend this game for, as enemy variety is a bit of a problem in most modern games I play. The boss fights are also really great once again, with there not being a single bad one amongst the roughly 40-50 I found in the game. My favorite fights were Gilgamesh, Gi Nattak, Rufus, Red Dragon, Demon Gate, and Jenova Lifeclinger. My only real complaint bosswise comes with the final Sephiroth Boss Fight, which I feel is way too long. The fight, including all of the phases, is well over an hour long, which is just too much for a final boss fight. By the time I was able to finish it, I found myself quite bored or it all and just wanted it to be over. It also played a pretty negative impact on the overall emotion of the scene before it. I also want to mention the soundtrack a bit, as it’s really amazing. From what I saw online, there are roughly 400 different tracks that make up this game, which is quite insane to think about, and all of the music here is amazing. Whether it be fun remixes of already existing songs, or brand new exclusive pieces to this game, this game’s soundtrack rocks. I love the large variety of tracks such as with some of the more goofy, throwaway tracks such as the Stamp song that plays with any mission involving following a dog around, and the flamboyant jazz piece that plays for a single scene involving a minor character called Gus. Besides the fun tracks, the soundtrack really nails all of the emotional moments it strived for, while also offering a great amount of epic songs to accompany your party in combat. This is easily one of the best soundtracks ever created for a game, and will be a part of my music playlists for the foreseeable future.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an amazing game that I absolutely recommend checking out if your either a new or old fan of the franchise. This game is an incredible experience overall thanks to it’s insane amount of great side content and a meaty story that almost masterfully connects the bridge between the Remake and the inevitable third game. Though I did have some minor annoyances with aspects of the late-game story, and the minigames, those aspects were minimal when taking in the full picture. I can’t wait to see where this game’s story goes with part 3, which should hopefully release within the next 3-4 years.
9.5/10

Games
5/01 Unsorted Horror
5/07 Buckshot Roulette
5/10 Rise of the Ronin
5/15 Resident Evil 6
5/19 Stellar Blade

DLC
5/24 Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of the Fallen
5/28 Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide

Lots of time to play and complete games this month thanks to my classes wrapping up earlier on. My favorite game was easily Stellar Blade. This game is a fantastic, yet somewhat flawed character action game with absolutely killer combat. I also want to mention Buckshot Roulette, as though it wasn't my favorite game this month, it was still a really good horror game regardless. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Resident Evil 6 was easily my least favorite game this month and was just an overall terrible game. I'm glad the RE series went back to it's roots after this game because whats here is genuinely quite awful.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder


Super Mario Bros. Wonder was definitely a surprise to see released last year, and a welcome one. I personally haven’t been a fan of the more recent New Super Mario Bros. games for a large multitude of reasons, such as with their boring level design and overall quite formulaic feeling that just felt like I was seeing the same game regurgitated repeatedly from each entry to the next. Luckily Super Mario Bros Wonder is not that, and an excellent evolution of the 2D Mario formula.

The biggest star of the show with this game is the brand-new inclusion of the Wonder Flowers. When you interact with these in levels, Mario and the crew go on a crazy hallucinogenic trip where all sorts of wacky stuff happen until you can pick up the wonder seed. These sections range from Mario transforming into all sorts of things somewhat akin to Super Mario Odyssey, or the entire environment transforming around him. I love how this mechanic changes up each level and the overall gameplay. It does a great job at breaking up the monotony of just platforming from point A to B, and it really does a good job at giving this game its own identity. Each of the available worlds are also quite good thanks to them drastically changing up the regular themes from what I am used to with most Mario games. Instead of just having say a normal lava bowser’s castle like most of the other games, in this one you can travel through a lava-filled grotto. My only complaint when it comes to level variety comes with there just being a few too many desert-themed worlds for my taste. I believe there are roughly 3 in total that have a rough desert feeling to them, but they all still do a good job of feeling different.

The overall gameplay for Super Mario Bros. Wonder is quite similar to many of the past entries with a few twists. This is easily the best feeling out of all of the 2D Mario games I have played thanks to it overall feeling the most refined out of them all. Another really cool feature that is unique to this game is badges which can be equipped before each level. These badges offer up some pretty sick gameplay modifiers that can completely change up how you traverse a level in a good and bad way. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this initially, but I love the inclusion of the badges. My only real criticism of the gameplay comes with its difficulty and an overall lack of powerups. When it comes to the difficulty, I’m not asking for it to be tough like something like Super Meat Boy, but I would like for it to be a bit harder than what it was. I would put this game about on par with a Kirby game with how tough it is, and that for me is just a bit too low. I also wish there were a few more power-ups besides just the 4 that appear in this game. They wouldn’t have to be all unique as it would be fun to see some things such as the ice flower and tanuki suit return, but I just wish that there were a few more as these 4 get kind of stale by the end. That said, I really did enjoy the new power-ups quite a bit.

Besides all this, I don’t have much else to say about Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It’s a fantastic game and platformer that is well worth checking out if you enjoy 2D Mario games. It’s a fantastically creative entry in the series that really impressed me as someone who doesn’t love most modern 2D Mario games.
9/10

I'm going to nominate Half-Life 2 again.