Recent reviews by doodi

My favorite thing about Lies of P is it's potential for player expression. You're allowed to beat the game (mostly) however you want. You can 'Perfect Guard' every encounter, dodge every enemy attack, or do a mixture of both whenever you see fit. Typically, there are better approaches to every fight, but the game will meet you on your own terms and give you the freedom to choose how you tackle it. You're allowed to build any weapon you want by combining different blades with different handles or use any special boss weapon from the various fights throughout the game. If you want to stick a giant wrench to the end of a dagger handle, you can. If you want to put a greatsword blade on a rapier hilt, you can. This simple tweak to a standard weapon selection system adds so much variety between every playthrough and every person's experience with the game.

You'll encounter several boss fights over your 30-hour playthrough of the game. Most of them are good, if not great, while a few of them not so much. Bosses are incredibly aggressive, but readable and reactable, say for a few 'Fury Attacks' which require memorization in timing as opposed to testing of reactions. I was actually surprised to see how many fantastic fights this game offers. There are several bosses I would understand seeing at the top of someone's favorite Lies of P boss list. The game is also a lot harder than I was expecting with several bosses taking over an hour, sometimes up to 3, to beat.

Another thing to note is the game's story. I won't be giving any summary here, but I'm surprised at how invested I actually was in the characters and story surrounding them. It's a refreshing change to see a game in this genre with such a defined and explicit narrative. There were more than a few characters I grew to genuinely really like and feel for. Complementing the story is the great soundtrack through the game. This includes boss themes, as well as the vinyls you can obtain and play in the Hotel hub area. The songs used give the desolate and depressing world so much more life and context. The world of Lies of P is beautiful and feels lived-in and overrun by the puppets and corrupted roaming about. It could have done better with more impurities in the objects around the levels and architecture, but that's more of a nitpick than anything.

The game isn't perfect, however. It falters towards the end and stumbles in it's final act. After Laxasia , you feel like you're closing in on the finale, but then it sort of just continues for a bit too long before the actual end of the game. The reason I take issue with this area is because up until this point the game has done an incredible job at making every location feel fresh with new or remixed enemy types, level design, and area visuals. But this final stretch feels like a retread of the last few areas without enough of a difference to warrant being included. You could argue that this serves as a sort of down-time before the final fight, but the enemies here are just as aggressive as usual and you'll probably end up running past all of them at this point.

All in all, Lies of P is one of the biggest sleeper hits in recent memory and surpassed the expectations I had for it by a long shot. It's one of the best 'Soulslike' games I've had the privilege of playing, and I'm incredibly excited to see the upcoming DLC and whatever next game comes from this series.

Resident Evil 0 is a game I really wanted to love.

Conceptually, RE0 has a lot going for it, but falls short in execution and ends up in mediocrity. Just to get it out of the way, the ability to drop items wherever you want and pick them up is great, but the removal of item boxes was not a worthy sacrifice. It forces you to haul several items across the entire map, sometimes needing multiple trips because of limited inventory space.

The idea of having two characters to control is interesting. Being able to switch between Rebecca and Billy on a whim is seamless, but it starts to fall apart when both of them are in the same room together. Conserving resources becomes all the more difficult when trying to dodge zombies while your partner is following behind, because they're either going to start shooting or get caught by an enemy, forcing you to waste ammo to break them out. This can be remedied by taking each character through some rooms alone, one by one, but this just ends becoming more of a hassle, than actual engaging gameplay. However if I'm gonna be honest, it does feel very satisfying to go guns blazing on a room full of zombies with your partner, every now and then.

The best sections of the game are when Rebecca and Billy are seperated and you have to solve puzzles by sending items between both of them through item elevators and have each character deal with their own routes. Reuniting afterwards does give a nice sense of satisfaction. But that just makes me wish the game had more sections like these. I like both Rebecca and Billy, but they're probably the least interesting protagonists in the mainline games. This game also has some weird continuity with RE1, since Rebecca becomes a total badass by the end of RE0, but acts very differently in the mansion. And as far as I know, Billy is never brought up again, so his impact on the series is very minimal. This game is also home to some of my least favorite enemy types. To be honest, if they removed the leech men and the monkeys, I'd probably recommend the game more.

Anyways, to end on a more positive note, the game has great atmosphere, it's incredibly gorgeous to look at it, the train section is fantastic, and it doesn't overstay its welcome. There's a great game hidden here somewhere, but finding it is as difficult as the game is frustrating.

masterpiece.
favorite bosses and combat system of any From Software game.

i suck at this game and its good
bang bang

Dark Souls is a must play for basically anyone that likes video games.

This game has quite possibly one of the greatest first halves ever. It's sad to say that after a certain point, the game doesn't reach as many highs as would be expected following the first half, but that's not to say it becomes bad. If anything, the second half of the game is still an above average experience.

One of the greatest things about Dark Souls is the interconnectedness and verticality of the world, even though it doesn't stay as high quality throughout. In general it is good enough for me to say that Lordran is one of the best worlds in gaming.

Of course with this game being the first in a trilogy, things like combat and especially boss design don't hold up compared to later titles in the series. The combat is alright, but can be pretty clunky and frustrating at times along with the camera (Capra Demon).

If you look at Dark Souls as a game on its own, the boss fights are decent for the most part (except for the reused fights), but if you compare the bosses in this game to Dark Souls 3, for example, then you can see that the bosses are pretty lackluster and actually boring in comparison. I'd go as far to say that some of the worst the worst bosses in Dark Souls 3 are better than most of the bosses in Dark Souls.

In terms of music, Dark Souls has quite a few amount of standouts in its OST. Music is used very scarcely throughout the game to make the big moments even bigger. The sound design does its job well at setting the atmosphere of an area and making the impact of hits feel effective.

Even with complaints, I can say that without a doubt, Dark Souls is not only a fantastic game, but a spectacular experience.

4/5

This game gave me Stockholm syndrome.

4/5

DmC: Devil May Cry is a modernized reboot of the original Devil May Cry series. Yes, I like this game.

DmC has some of the best level design I've seen in recent memory. Almost every level feels so memorable and well-crafted. The way walls and floors twist and turn at the command of your foe really is a sight to behold. It really does make every moment have its own defining quality. The graphics of the game hold up surprisingly well even for today's standards.

In terms of gameplay, DmC has it set. Combat, while being easy, can still have it's complexity when you try to chain together combos and build up your Stylish Rank. Fighting flows well with nice animations and well-telegraphed enemy attacks. The OST suits battles very well and really sets the energetic tone of combat the game is going for. The sound of your weapons clashing with the bodies of enemies is very satisfying. Speaking of enemies, this game has some phenomonally memorable boss fights packed in its 10 hours of gameplay.

What about new Dante, though? How does he compare to the old one? In short, he doesn't. You can't compare them since they're basically completely different people in terms of traits and personality. Was this drastic change of the main character really necessary? I don't think so, but I don't hate this Dante. I just can't really connect with him that well with his scummy personality that he flaunts everywhere. Most characters this time around feel like shallow husks of who they once were, including Kat. While she does serve purpose in driving the plot forward, she doesn't add much else at all to the game.

The plot was decent at best. Not very well thought out in my opinion, but it did what it needed to do.

My last complaint has to be with the weapons system. This game gives you way too many damn weapons that don't serve much purpose. You have your standard sword, a demon battle axe, a pair of demon fists, an angel scythe, a pair of angel spinny blades, a pair of pistols, a shotgun, and some sort of explosive launcher or something. Let me just say that the firearms are close to zero in terms of usefulness. 8 different weapons that you have to switch between at moments notice along with combos for each. It becomes kind of hard to keep track of what you're doing sometimes.

All in all, I enjoyed this game even with it's shortcomings.

3/5

RWBY: Grimm Eclipse is a vacuum-sealed sack of disappointment thrown off a 100ft cliff into a cesspool of unplayable, buggy and unfun gameplay.

Nothing about this game was redeemable, from the annoying and obnoxious voice acting to the "spam left-click" "gameplay". Even as a somewhat fan of the RWBY show, I did not enjoy any of this game. I thought playing with friends would at least make it sort of fun, but it really didn't add anything to the "experience". I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone looking for a game worth their time.

0/5

Super Ledgehop was quite a fun experience.

The OST was great and I can't wait to hear it again on more playthroughs. The fact that the beat of the OST ties into the gameplay was a really interesting concept to me, and I think it was pulled off well. The absorb and reflect feature was a welcome addition to the standard bullet hell concept. The gameplay really shines especially in the multiple boss fights throughout the game. You have to make use of the game's mechanics to find out ways to take out your enemy efficiently and take the least amount of damage.

The level design was nothing too inspiring as it was a normal "kill enemies, go here, fight boss" sort of deal. It almost felt like the points in between boss fights were kind of useless, however the fun gameplay does make up for it.

The plot of the game isn't difficult to wrap your head around. It is a generic save the world story.

Now where the game really shines for me is the characters, and more specifically their interactions. The dialogue between everyone was always interesting and a pleasure to see. The comedic moments aren't something that should be overlooked in this game. It was also able to pull off serious moments aswell, which was nice. The character designs we're pretty alright for what they were and served their purpose.

My main complaint of the game is that it's too short and there's basically no character progression/level ups. However, I think the shortness of the game can help towards potential speedruns (and achievements).

Overall I had a pretty good time playing this game for the low price of under a dollar. I look forward to seeing more from these developers!
(and yes I did find out about this game from the deltarune video lol)

spoiler: the hidden area after the hero fight was very unnerving and really well done. i'm definitely invested now

3/5

Good times with good friends and good game.

3/5