Recent reviews by Tanioka

Crazy; it turns out that if you play a multiplayer game for long enough to realize that there's a pattern wherein its servers fumble on stability 99.7% of the time on day-one releases of both its expansions and seasons, and then act on that by not engaging with it on day one and instead queuing in a day or two afterwards, you get to experience the content you paid for normally and in the way that its developers intended! Unbelievable, I'm sure, but having tested this out myself, I can confirm - it is, in fact, a Thing.

Forgive the introductory snark, but I see that Mixed status and I know for a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fact that it's undeserved. One needs to get things off their chest before moving onto the meat of things. And speaking of—

This marks the first time that I have ever felt outright enamored with an expansion. It was an established fact toward the end of Lightfall that TFS was, off the bat, going to be an all-or-nothing deal. It had to land. It had to be sublime in its story, presentation, gameplay, sandbox, so on and so forth. It could slip up with a few minor mistakes, but otherwise, it needed to be perfect. To me—it is. My main critiques really just boil down to "parts of the campaign are pretty hard" but that makes sense because I was on Legendary, and "the big Dread guys tend to be annoying as hell" but Transcendence alleviates that for the most part, and Prismatic is what you should be utilizing throughout the whole campaign anyhow, so. Moot point on both. I can live with them. Beyond that; everything landed. Many goofy grins and a smattering of tears. No specifics, no details—experience it on your own time, and if possible, on solo. It's only right.

Grātiās for the good times over the last three years, Bungie. For as easy as it would be to default to smug condescension for all the misdeeds sprinkled in that span of time, the fact of the matter is that I ended up persistently coming back despite it all. There's some nobility in that, I'd say.

That outro could've used some more Paul McCartney, though, I'm not gonna lie.

Minato a cute! A CUTE!!

I've only played for a few hours (and am still in the process of doing so as I write this), but from the outset, this is an absolute delight. Having played through P3P several times—NG+ Monad grinding, my beloved—I had some relatively high expectations as far back as October which didn't stop me from pre-ordering anyway and it's living up to them pretty damn well so far. The character design touch-ups, the cutscenes, the new tracks (save maybe for Mass Destruction, I do miss Kawamura's vocals) with Lotus Juice jumping in unannounced on songs that used to have those filler German rap CD vocals instead, the friggin' UI design going hard at every turn, the VAs, the silly lil' classroom segments, Tartarus still being Tartarus (but, like, in a cool way)... This is it, man. This is The Experience™ I've been waiting for.

Absolutely worth grabbing way earlier than necessary. Can't wait to chip away at NG+ like a lunatic again.

Paused mid-session because I heard Once in a Lullaby. Felt compelled to raise the music volume up to 100 and kept playing. Heard the guitar kick in with such passion and fervency that I paused again, ten metres away from the teleport, and bought the OST then and there.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but his music really is electric.

The amount of emotional and psychic damage that this game inflicts - either by way of pure gameplay or some of, if not the finest storytelling that the survival horror genre has seen in recent years - is borderline criminal. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Zwölf von zehn. rose-engine deserves all the love and respect in the world for this title alone.

If I got a penny for every time I played a game where the only task is to clean stuff up at your own pace and leisure - and enjoyed it - I'd have two cents. Which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Despite being a bit light on content at the moment (I completed the full game in a little under four hours), it's still satisfying to go through and, more importantly, very comfy. I think my only real grievance lies in the lack of a visual hint system that points you to the last couple of things to water or clean up - which sounds kinda dumb, writing it out like that - as I was, on two separate levels, unable to make out what was left while trying to go from 99 to 100% cleanliness. (Mind you, going for the full 100 isn't necessary, but uhhhhhh OCD.) I'd thought about maybe adding the fact that it's "too simplistic" as a half-con of sorts, but like... it's a meditative cleaning game. It being simplistic is probably for the better.

Personal recommendation, though: swap the in-game music for any ambient album of your choice. I went with Hiroshi Yoshimura's Wet Land and it made the whole experience ≈27.3% better, give or take.

Unparalleled and borderline perfect to this day. The only real issue stems from the fact that Extended's damage modifier values are bugged, meaning some units / buildings will deal / receive either more or less damage than intended in the original 2003 release - though community workarounds for this exist, so y'know, not the end of the world.

Now, when the hell are we gonna get Rise of Legends as well?

Per an old friend:

Originally posted by oteek:

wrist arthritis

You have to give Fitterer credit. If I made the bar-none most accessible, comfy, and arguably sleekest rhythm game of the late '00s, I'd probably just take the money, live off that thing's legend, and maybe use it as a convo starter here and there. Instead, he just comes back and does it again, less than a decade later. It's kinda commendable.

Jokes aside; while it is engaging in its own way past a certain point, it's worth noting that Audiosurf 2 isn't exactly a "1:1 sequel" to AS1 (for lack of a better term), and some things might be disappointing if you got used to its bells and whistles. For example, default Mono no longer carries a handful of side feats for bonus points - e.g. filling up the grid with X blocks at any given point, clearing with no grays, etc - nor does it differentiate scores by way of medals, so no more aiming for the Gold. Now you only get a bonus if you clear a song with no leftover blocks on the grid, and instead of getting a feel for how good your score is through medals, you rely on... a high score list. Three of 'em, technically - divided by global, regional, and your friends' scores - but regardless. Workshop support's a thing, though, and some modders have integrated their own decently complex systems of score ranking (such as Endless Ninja, which uses an F to S scale).

That said, this is where AS2 is hit-or-miss for some, because while it DOES have a Casual mode, along with a couple of interesting puzzle-oriented modes which I still haven't played - call it a leftover habit from AS1 or something - it's arguably more competitive than its predecessor. On a personal level, I've found it both considerably engaging and, er... "inspiring," I guess? Because whereas my time with AS1's Mono was much more lax and straightforward with little care given towards the gameplay besides "get all da blocks," AS2's Mono and Ninja modes have both driven me to actually get better at strategically stacking stuff in the grid and mmmaaaybe improve my hand-eye coordination while I'm at it. I mean, the wrist arthritis thing takes precedence, I'll say that much, but hey! Silver lining all the same, y'know?

If you do end up embracing the competitive aspect of it - or, hell, if you just want to improve the experience by a fair bit - it'd be wise to snag the Community Patch[audiosurf2.info], which gives you a more "relevant" leaderboard, fixes the YT search and Song of the Day feature, and updates the game to be 64-bit, meaning that it won't crap the bed if you try to play any song past X minutes and Y seconds, along with a few other tidbits and niceties. It's pretty great.

Overall, a lotta fun and a lotta frustration in roughly equal measure. It may not follow its more-relaxed older brother every step of the way, but ultimately, I don't think that matters much. I'd obsess over it either way.




though probably not to the point of maining a mode called "ultimate true ninja," because who the FU—

"They have things like the atom bomb / So I think I'll stay where I 'om!"

A Pre-War relic defrosts like a microwave meal within a cozy and totally-legal underground Vault two-hundred-odd years after some nukes fell and a bunch of stuff happened. Now, with a dead spouse and a missing kid, venture into the Great Unknown (by which I mean Massachusetts) in order to completely forget about the aforementioned dead spouse and child within the first two hours, instead opting to complete menial side quests such as locating baseball collector's items or solving marital disputes by locating a bunch of cash and drugs, aided by grade-A companions such as your Pre-War robot which might as well be hanging by a thread, a perpetually cranky Irish chick, a squirrel-esque mercenary who also happened to be one of the most annoying Fallout 3 characters, a detective android who is equal parts Replicant and Deckard, and MORE.

From the perspective of narrative, it is damningly hard to fully embrace Fallout 4. Coming out of FO2 with a deep appreciation for its storytelling and approach to overall freedom, followed by New Vegas' ever-so-wonderful throwbacks to the former and its vast improvements on the outright godawful mess that was FO3, there's just something that never fully clicked with me when it came to FO4's attempt at writing a cohesive storyline with branching endings and impactful decision-making. Peek the wording; attempt at. There really isn't as much satisfaction in taking on FO4's larger side quests as there is in NV, where such quests and the outcomes thereof are portrayed in a way where it feels like it actually mattered. Remember that one time when you saved little Sally from getting eaten alive by twenty rabid Mole Rats without really thinking much of it besides "ooh, more XP"? Congrats, here's a slide dedicated specifically to and voiced by her, talking about how she eventually would go on to cherish your memory to the point of becoming a Courier herself. I'm exaggerating here, but you get the gist; there was more weight in acting either out of good or bad will within the Mojave. Not here. Commonwealth don't care, baby. And that's without getting into the nitty-gritty of how no faction is really worth fully helping out, or how the Minutemen are worse at nagging than the entire NCR, or how the dialogue options have been dumbed down to a four-choice wheel, or how the main big-bad is a wildcat of janky writing, or—

Wait, hold on. I'm getting ahead of myself here.

"You've got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive / E-lim-i-nate the negative..."

So the narrative sucks more often than not. A shame. But that's where the important part comes in; besides the possibility of vastly better engine optimization and less weird AMD-specific bugs, Fallout 4 arguably couldn't be a whole lot better as a game - as something you simply pick up mid-day to roam around, take potshots at whatever feels like attacking you today, improving a settlement once in a while, telling Preston to buzz off, and so on and so forth. On the whole, the gameplay is streamlined enough to make Obsidian raise a brow or two, and certainly more than enough to make the FO3-era Bethesda blush. And, on that note - It's a Bethesda game. For all its downsides, there's really no end to all the mods you can slap on it in order to improve the experience from anywhere between "I guess it's playable now" to "why's the Sun rising outside?". Your mileage WILL vary here. Maybe you'd just like a more optimized experience with a few extra options and tweaks to suit your preference of difficulty or style. Maybe you want an ENB, eighteen weapon replacers, fifty extra pieces of unfitting armor, a much greener map, and one of those mods that gives every female NPC a pair of questionably large knackers or buns (or both). I don't discriminate. Taste's a harsh variable. But my point stands; the options are there, and believe me, they're all yours for the taking.

"Well, I ain't kiddin', I ain't gonna quit / That bug's done caught me and I've been bit"

I can't fully embrace it, but I sure as hell can't hate it, either. Of all the games in Bethesda's catalogue, it shines in a way I can't quite describe, being second only to Morrowind. There's something irreplicable about listening to songs of love and bombs as you dodge bullets from on high and balance the increasingly-worrisome amount of junk in your backpack, reassuring yourself that the damage boost you'll get from turning seven tin cans, a gas canister, and the bottom half of a motorized pony into a better receiver for your rifle is worth it. And it is.

A solid 8. Base game's all good on its own, but GOTY Edition's significantly more preferable; a good deal of mods have some form of reliance on (one of) the three main expansions - Automatron, Far Harbor, and Nuka-World - though some might require the Workshops as well, for whatever reason.

No. No, no, no.
That might as well be the whole review, but let me expand a bit for reasonable detail's sake: the only two things worth purchasing this DLC for are Eyasluna and Gjallarhorn. That is it.

Eyasluna is, at the time of writing, the only obtainable Stasis HC - the only other one is Vulpecula, and you'll only see that one mmmmaaaaybe in Xur's weekend rotation - and it can roll Rangefinder / Outlaw + Headstone, which (I'm told by Stasis users) is "utterly bonkers." I can't speak from experience here. I get my kicks off of Void.

Gjally is Gjally. Gjally + catty = nasty. Nasty to the point where it's still the bane of everyone in any Gambit match, an annoying once-a-blue-moon piece in Cruci, and admittedly a solid helper in PvE. But it's just... It's the vanilla of Exotic RLs, y'know? It's an understandable pick, but it's expectable and boring and yawn snore zzz. You get the gist.

And that's... Yeah. That's frankly all there is to it.

• Matador 64 and 1000 Yard Stare aren't half-bad, but it's not like other Arc Shotguns and Void Snipers don't exist. A Sudden Death, Found Verdict, Xenoclast, Dead Weight, and Prophet of Doom in case of the former; Frozen Orbit and Fugue-55 in case of the latter. Are these alternatives not 1:1 with the M64 and 1000YD? Yeah. Are some of them harder to obtain? Yep - Found Verdict and Prophet are both Raid shotguns, which doesn't help their case. But their respective DLCs - if they have 'em; this only really applies to Prophet at the moment, lmao - are actually worth their salt.
  
• Grasp is... not a very fun Dungeon. The Ogre encounter is annoying even with a comfy fireteam, the Sparrow segment feels like it was made for Always On Time, and the final boss is fine (though it's unhelped by the fact that Bungie left it in a state of broken-ness during the first week or so of Haunted). The Wilhelm lore is... there. Kind of Borderlands-y, which I get - it's meant to be somewhat silly, after all - but eh.
  
• The Marathon armor ornaments, Traveler bless their material souls, are locked behind Dares. This doesn't seem like much of a problem on the surface, but it'll sure feel like it once you start making your way to the higher ranks of Xur's Strange Favor. I just want my friggin' Security Officer looks, man. Come on.
  
• Shaw Han. Full stop.

Money is a hell of a thing. I find it kinda funny, thinking of it now - Wilhelm being a character of progressive greed and loathing in a twenty-five euro DLC that should've been free from the get-go is pretty fitting. It's also depressing. Get one of the expansions on sale instead. You can thank me any time you want.

2/10. Y'know, 'cause Gjally and 'Luna are the only thing contributing to this being decent.

And, um, maybe the emotes.

... I guess the couch party one's pretty nice. Bump it up to a 2.5/10, what the hell.

Everyone and their mother have already mentioned this, but let me double-down on it for ya just in case: Given the nature of the Destiny Content Vault, this will (almost certainly) eventually go away. By "go away," it could mean that the campaign'll be gone, but Europa'll stay. Or maybe both of them will cease to exist, leaving only the Exotics and maybe relaying the weapons to Xur or whatever. Who knows. The point I'm trying to make here is, get this on sale. 50% or more'll do. Less painful that way.

Got that? Great! Let's get to it.

Beyond Light is Destiny 2's fifth expansion (third if disregarding Curse of Osiris and Warmind), set on the icy moon of Europa. Following the events of Shadowkeep, and more specifically Season of Arrivals, a trio of rogues related to the Vanguard have decided to embrace the Darkness as a tool in hopes that they can not only better prepare themselves for a path that may be fraught with peril, but to understand what attracts their enemy to it. Join a smug game-mode host, a likely-insane Hive addict, and an Exo that doesn't have time to explain why she doesn't have time to explain, as they weaken and defeat the Kell of Darkness and take back Europa, one grindy quest at a time.

Story. Seven, maybe light eight out of ten. Although the post-quest side of Beyond Light is a bit tedious, unhelped by the fact that certain elements are unnecessarily time-gated, the base storyline and its tropes are pretty good. One of its stronger suits, I think, lies specifically in the exposition; we get to hear and learn more about the Exo Stranger, and we get to see more bickering and banter between Eris and the Drifter. It's neat. Hell, it's cute. Trust. Aside from that, the Lore tab has an unfortunate tendency of being ignored, but give Beyond Light's books a read once in a while if you've got the time. The Once-Shipstealer and Your Friend, Micah Abram are both interesting peeks into the lives of certain characters.

Gameplay. Ehh. It varies oddly from six to eight out of ten. Back-and-forths, a bit of Triumph grinding, Public Event-esque stuff in the "Empire Hunts," and a few neat boss fights. Europa has an interesting little activity - the kind you'd see in a Season - where Variks will provide you with quests that result in the liberation and improvement of Europa (see: extra currency drops, better gear, yadda yadda). Good for boredom and for spicing up the usual gameplay, but it's admittedly not for everyone.

Loot. Very brief on this one: Salvation's Grip is for OOBing and comedic purposes, The Lament's great and rocks even after three nerfs, Cloudstrike's specific but neat if you get the hang of precision shotting, Subzero Salvo and Biting Winds are both very neat. The rest I kinda forgot about. I hear Varik's armory is all good with decent rolls, though.

Stasis. The fourth subclass. You know the one. I had my doubts, but while it is a bit lackluster at first, the aspect and fragment grind makes it rather nifty. Speaking as a Hunter, the grenades are a bit strange in terms of getting-used-to, but the double-melee and Super both make up for it; more than you might think. It's good. Be prepared for a bit of a slog, though - as of April 2022, Bungie still hasn't removed the two-fragments-a-week limit placed on Exo Stranger. You'll know what I mean (if and) when you see it.

Overall. A bit forgettable here and there in retrospect, quest-wise, but being able to explore Europa in full, kicking Eramis et al.'s ass, and getting some of that sweet, sweet exposition was worth the eighteen bucks. Seven outta ten.

"Prepare for your arctic adventure with the very best in Bray outfitting!" —Excerpt from the Eventide Welcome Guide