Recent reviews by Jellyman

Writing this review after reaching 100% completion (I am missing 1 achievement, which is the platinum achievement for unlocking all of the others. I believe this must be a bug, because I have definitely got every other achievement including the secret ones). It took me 30 hours to get to that point, but a lot of that time was spent exploring for completion in the late-game before the final boss. Retrospectively, I believe a realistic runtime for completion is anywhere between 20 and 30 hours depending on the player.

First here are some pros and cons:

Pros
- Extremely good execution of the Metroidvania genre with its own distinct twists on the formula
- Can achieve 100% completion in one playthrough, even if you fail the NPC side quests, including being able to achieve every ending
- Very satisfying and varied combat which does not force any specific combat style on the player, but rewards experimentation
- Bosses were all excellent and memorable. I wish there was an option to replay them!
- A lot of intriguing lore attached to basically every collectable item and spell that you find
- Exploration is fun and rewarding, even if you're not sure where you're 'supposed' to be going
- Amazing character designs and backgrounds
- Perfect soundtrack to match the visual aesthetic
- Very replayable, even though replays aren't required for completion
- Full completion and side quest objectives actually feel achievable and very rewarding compared to the first game
- This is a personal one, but this game seemed to have more Castlevania inspiration and references than the first one, which made me happy

Cons
- Extremely easy to get stunlocked by a lot of the enemies. Contact damage is too high also; not a good combination. Blocking attacks from charging enemies is a waste of time, because you don't get enough invincibility frames afterwards to move out of their hitbox afterwards, so then you receive contact damage....
- Personally, I wish it didn't instantly mark your map with where your next objective was as soon as you achieve the previous. For example, as soon as you defeat Boss A, the objective marker for Boss B's location instantly appears on the map. Takes away from the intrigue that comes from the open level design in my opinion
- In a similar vein to the above, I wish it didn't show in your inventory how many upgrades you are missing. I don't want to know how many there are left to find, again this removes some of the intrigue and drive to keep exploring
- No hard mode, even after completing the game. I know this will probably be added in an update along with a newgame+ of sorts, but I think this trend of only adding hard mode in DLC/Updates from the last few years is super obnoxious, and feels like a very artificial way to get players to return to the game months later to reignite the discourse around it. A minor thing, but a pet peeve of mine which I believe is especially relevant and detrimental to games such as this, where replayability is clearly going to be a core part of the experience for a lot of players, and with such a strong emphasis on combat skill and learning fights.
- No Penance system like in the first game upon replaying. Again, this will probably be in the inevitable newgame+ update, but it really sucks that players can't jump straight into this while their momentum from the first playthrough is still there.
- Some minor bugs. I received the animation for defeating Boss C when in reality I had just fought Boss B, and vice versa later on. The top half of a room was entirely white one time until I reloaded the save.

The first thing I want to praise in detail is how good this game is as a Metroidvania. I have been a fan of the Metroidvania genre for as long as I can remember, ever since I played Metroid Prime/Fusion as a child, and because of that I probably have some fairly specific qualities which I value in the genre and some games achieve them better than others. With that said, I loved the first Blasphemous, but it didn't feel particularly Metroidvania-esque to me. It was more just non-linear with branching paths, similar level design philosophy to Dark Souls in that respect. In contrast, I believe this sequel is closer to my personal impression of the genre, in that it retains this non-linear design but the different paths and secrets require specific upgrades, of which there are many, and the game won't necessarily lead you directly to them. You can spend hours exploring areas which are in the complete opposite direction of where the next major upgrade is to progress the story, and you may not even realise that you're going in the 'wrong' direction, but compared to a lot of its contemporaries (even including some of the most highly regarded examples of the genre such as Super Metroid), this never feels like a waste of time, because every area will contain countless secrets, NPCs involved in side quests, collectables, weapon upgrades and more, so you will always be finding something intriguing and retaining your immersion.

Not only does Blasphemous 2 better fit the Metroidvania genre than the original (whether that matters to you or not), but it also has quite a major twist on the formula which adds a lot of replayability and combat implications. At the start of the game, you are asked to choose one of three weapons, each with their own moveset, skill tree and, most importantly, traversal abilities. The weapon you choose at the beginning will therefore directly dictate which paths are available to you from the start, affecting the order that you will encounter the bosses and find other upgrades. This is like if upon starting a new game of Metroid Dread, you had to choose between the Spread Beam, Tracker Missiles or Power Bombs, and then had to progress through the game via whatever paths the item you chose allowed access to. it's a really cool idea and is executed mostly very well, but is only relevant for about the first 1/3rd of the game.

The other thing which stood out a lot to me personally compared to the first game is that the side quests actually feel like they make some sense and can be achieved by a person with average cognitive skills. I'm aware that some people think they are too easy now, but personally I completely disagree. Side quests in the first game, similar to my experience with the Souls series, feel like they are written to be abstract and confusing for no real reason, with not just clues but core objectives being hidden in barely decipherable fancy dialogue. In contrast, this game still keeps some of the vagueness and requires you to pay close attention to what you're hearing or reading (and often re-reading), but it's a lot clearer to work out which part of the clue is important, and if it is referring to a specific location or item for example. I would always have a handful of ideas for which location or item was being hinted at, and after a reasonable amount of time I would usually progress to the next part of the quest. One quest line in particular was especially difficult, following a series of letters containing riddles, and this required a bit more trial and error, but it felt like a welcome difficulty bump and a change in pace as opposed to the norm. I did require a guide for one part of this, and it turned out I had actually done the correct thing but was standing in very slightly the wrong place. That was a bit annoying, and for that reason I would say to not feel defeated if you end up requiring a guide for some of the quests in this. Overall though, the side quests felt like a really great part of the experience and made me genuinely want to find and complete everything just to see how the quests played out, compared to the first game where they very quickly became a background thing for me that I largely ignored.

Overall Blasphemous 2 is an excellent game, sequel and Metroidvania. A direct upgrade over the original, which was already very good in my opinion. Worth full price and a solid 8/10

Scarlet Hollow is best described as a choose-your-own-adventure style horror visual novel. The player is constantly being faced with important choices and dialogue options, more so than your average visual novel, which resulted in me being engaged with the characters and story in a much deeper way than in a more linear kinetic novel.

One of the most noteworthy things about this game in terms of its decision making aspect is that right at the start, you pick two character traits out of a total of seven. These range from realistic traits such as physical attractiveness and intelligence to more supernatural ones such as the ability to talk to animals. Each trait gives you access to a different set of choices and dialogue options as well as changing the characters’ opinions of you. The range of these traits allows for a high level of replayability. There were many points in the story where I thought to myself “oh, I wonder how this scene would play out if I had picked X trait at the start”; each trait has many moments where it may be useful and they all seem beneficial to the player.

I felt the choices were frequent enough to keep me constantly engaged but they weren’t overly used for the sake of it. Each choice felt like it did have purpose and there were no moments where it felt like I was being asked to choose between multiple options which would ultimately lead to the same outcome, which was something I was worried about at the start. Some choices were a bit vague in terms of what impact they would have on the story, especially right at the beginning, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing and was likely intentional. I expect that some of the choices I made even in chapter 1 won’t have any fruition until the later chapters which have yet to be released.

Scarlet Hollow is what I would describe as a horror story, but most of the time there isn’t really any horror occurring, at least in these first two chapters. The majority of the story is light-hearted and fun, with a friendly and lively cast of characters, but it doesn’t hold back when it gets to the horror sections. There are some abrupt changes in tone supported by imagery which starkly contrasts the general comfort of the rest of the story’s atmosphere, and the more these things occurred the less comfortable that atmosphere became. By chapter 2 I started to feel a bit claustrophobic in the small rural town setting of the game, knowing by then that it wasn’t as safe as it first seemed. It has certainly left me wanting more and I can’t wait for chapter 3 to release later this year.

The characters are diverse and mostly likeable, but have realistic flaws which should be kept in mind when making certain decisions. However, there were some moments where the characters reacted to certain events in very unrealistic ways which made me like them less, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t intentional. For example, one of the characters hardly reacted at all to watching somebody they know die, as if it was just a slight inconvenience for them. For me it lessened the emotional gravity of the situation and damaged some of the shock value, as I was just confused by their unrealistically nonchalant reaction to something which from my perspective was a large tonal shift in the story.

The art style of this game is very unique and helps to create a perfect atmosphere for the story. At first I was slightly put off by the artwork, but it didn’t take long for me to grow fond of it. The backgrounds around the town are drawn in a way that definitely conveys the idea that something is not quite right, and the horror scenes are drawn in disturbing detail to confirm this. The music, while not particularly catchy or memorable, is very ambient and evokes a mood which matches that of the artwork. The game utilises high resolution sprites and backgrounds so it looks smooth and crisp on any size window or screen.

Scarlet Hollow pleasantly surprised me by presenting me with frequent choices throughout the story which had a tangible impact on the events that followed. The story never stagnated and had a constant strong atmosphere aided by its unique art style. It offers a diverse and inclusive range of characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses which affect how certain situations involving them should be approached, although this isn’t without the presence of some slightly unrealistically written moments.

I would recommend buying this game at full price if you intend to play these first 2 chapters more than once and don’t mind waiting for the others to be released, but otherwise I would advise holding off until there is more content available.

This is a short but sweet visual novel containing a small but likeable cast of characters, excellent voice acting and an intriguing story. Despite some slow pacing at times and minor technical issues, the story picked up in some interesting ways and managed to regain my engagement.

Tonally, the story is very varied. At times it is very cut-and-paste romance and feels like it goes a bit too far and melodramatic with the protagonist’s inner monologue which took me out of the immersion slightly, but at other times it is very effective and conveys their feelings of loneliness and introversion well. The story takes some unexpectedly dark turns at points too, which was an effective contrast to the tone of what came before and provided some effective mild shock value.

Due to the small cast of characters, some of the plot twists felt not just predictable but inevitable. Thankfully they were still effective in making the story more interesting, but felt a bit cliche regardless. There was a certain reveal in one of the stories which I didn’t even realise was supposed to be a reveal because I had assumed it was supposed to be known from the start. This may be an issue for some people as it does make the story feel overall a bit less creative, but I enjoyed it nonetheless and think it is still enjoyable if you are not expecting a hugely twisty and constantly gripping plot.

The sound design and music is nice, but strangely low quality. It feels like the sound files have been heavily compressed and are audibly fuzzy and distorted. It wasn’t off-putting, but was certainly noticeable and I had to get used to it. There are similar problems with the game visually; it became noticeably blurry if I ran it at a resolution higher than 1280x720, despite there being specific settings to run it up to a resolution of 1920x1080 which was too blurry and stretched for me to enjoy. I resorted to playing it in a small window in order to avoid the blurriness, which is a shame. Another technical issue I encountered was with the translation - I encountered at least 1 line of dialogue which was still in Chinese, although it was not at a major point in the story.

Overall, this is a decent romance visual novel which tells a fairly typical but interesting story supported by a small cast of characters who each have a clear role to play in the bigger picture, almost fully voiced by a great voice cast. There are some technical issues with the presentation which could definitely damage the immersion for some people, but not to the extent where it’d prevent me from recommending it.

Doki Doki Literature Club was the game which first introduced me to visual novels and got me interested in them as a wider genre. As a free game, it provided a very enjoyable and unique experience despite a slow expository start, and I felt it was ultimately worth my time despite some glaring but somehow widely overlooked flaws. The original DDLC is well worth the few hours of entertainment it provides - but does it hold up as a paid experience, even with added content?

DDLC is a visual novel unlike any other. It successfully picks apart and breaks down the dating simulator genre in a way which makes you question your role as an audience member. However, in order to achieve this, it employs lengthy exposition, initially boringly archetypal characters and an uninteresting setting for a large proportion of its story. All of this is intentional, but that doesn’t change the fact that it causes a fair few sections of this game to be mind numbingly dull and unengaging. For that reason, purely as a visual novel, DDLC pales in comparison to other visual novels I’ve read. Did it get “good” later on as promised? Yes. Did it have me thoroughly engaged and invested in the story and characters by the end? Definitely - but the slow sections, especially at the start, felt like they dragged on too long in comparison for it to really be excusable.

The story follows you, the protagonist (who you name yourself), joining your school’s literature club and befriending the other members of the club - Sayori, Yuri, Monika and Natsuki. Each day consists of typical dialogue and humour between each of the characters, followed by a poetry minigame in which you choose keywords to include in a poem in order to impress one of the four girls (this is primarily how the different romance options are chosen). The problem is that this story loop carries on for too long with little to no story progression occurring each day before things finally pick up. However, once the story starts focusing more on your chosen girl’s romance route, things do get more interesting. The characters slowly start to exhibit strangely extreme and aggressive behaviours at this point, and from then on it only gets more engaging, turning into more of a psychological horror experience than a dating sim. The horror is very well executed and succeeded in making me feel genuinely vulnerable and engaged, but to explain why would be leaning too heavily into spoiler territory for this review.

However, this leads into my #1 criticism of this game. It almost entirely sells itself on the gimmick which begins at this point in the story. It is to the point where I would argue that if you already know what this gimmick is, the main game is straight up not worth your time. I strongly believe that your enjoyment of this game will be very heavily dependent on how much you already know about the psychological horror aspects of the story past this point. I found that there wasn’t too much to enjoy about DDLC outside of this section of the game, and if I’d had it spoiled for me, I don’t think I’d have felt satisfied with the experience overall. As opposed to other games which utilise psychological horror in similar ways, DDLC unfortunately stands out to me as being the weakest of the bunch for me for this reason. It fundamentally sells itself too largely on one specific aspect (albeit a very well executed aspect) of its story to the point where it's almost the only enjoyable part of the experience.

Where DDLC shines for me, aside from the horror, is in its presentation. The game feels very polished and is graphically fantastic, especially with the fully HD sprites in this remaster. I played on a 1440p monitor and was able to run it in my native resolution with no problems whatsoever in terms of blurriness or letterboxing which typically occurs to some extent with other VNs. The background and sprite artwork are beautiful, colourful and crisp and every character has many different sprites. The soundtrack is famously good and I definitely see why. The music is utilised in some very clever ways later into the game which really adds to the tone and gets inside your head.

In conclusion, Doki Doki Literature Club is a decent horror experience which suffers from lengthy exposition and initially bland characters - intentional or not. The exposition may be worth it if you don’t know what’s to come later on in the story, but the experience loses almost all of its value if you are aware of even a couple of plot points, demonstrating an unfortunate overdependence on a single aspect of the game which significantly reduces its accessibility to those who have been spoiled. For that reason I believe it is quite overhyped, but it is clear why it has gathered so much attention.

The main chunk of new content comes in the form of 6 short stories which are unlocked via romancing the 3 main characters in the base story. At this point, I have read 2 of these stories and enjoyed them. They take place prior to the events of the main story and recount how the characters initially became friends. Certain themes present in the main story such as mental health are explored in a bit more depth in these short stories, which I was relieved to see. I got genuinely emotional at one of the stories and had to sit and think to myself for several minutes before progressing as it hit me pretty hard. The depictions of mental health in these side stories are both sensitive and realistic, which came as a surprise to me given the events of the main game. I was expecting this content to be very fanservice-y, but was pleasantly surprised; even if you were not a fan of the original DDLC, these side stories could still be enjoyed as they very much have their own appeal and identity. They even have their own complete soundtrack and CG scenes separate from that of the main game, and as such the total amount of content in DDLC Plus is seemingly double that of the original.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532861307

Collectable items such as songs and artwork primarily make up the rest of the new content. These include all of the songs and CGs from the main and side stories, but also include many secret CGs that are obtainable by meeting certain requirements in the stories (for example by selecting a certain dialogue option during a particular scene). These secret CGs range from concept art to entirely new scenes drawn by the artists. However, some of the requirements for unlocking these collectables are fairly specific and cryptic, and you can’t see what the requirements are for each image until after you’ve unlocked them. To unlock everything would require multiple playthroughs of the main story, which I can imagine would feel like a chore when there’s no indication of what you should be doing in order to unlock a particular collectable. Nonetheless, these collectables add a new challenge and even more replay value to the game, as well as a motivation to explore the different routes.

The amount of new content added to this version of DDLC is significant and in my opinion makes it worth the price tag despite the main story being available on its own for free. For existing fans of the game, this is absolutely worth the money, but I would even recommend this version over the original for new players despite the difference in price. DDLC is a game I think everyone who enjoys PC games or visual novels should experience, and this version of the game has only served to reaffirm that in my mind. The story is painfully slow at points, especially the start, but if you’re able to go in blind you will get to experience a romance/horror story like no other.

Despite my low expectations due to the “mostly negative” review score at the time, Sutekina Kanojo still managed to disappoint me. If this VN was any longer I would have dropped it by the time I thankfully finished it, if not sooner. There is not much of note to say in terms of positive aspects, but the negatives are blatant and varying in severity.

The main complaint I have with the story of this VN is the severe lack of balance in its pacing. Since it is a short VN, it’s of no surprise that it moves from scene to scene very quickly and doesn’t dedicate much time to characterisation via prolonged dialogues. That much is fine and does not warrant a complaint, unless you are looking for a longer story. However, the changes in tone between certain scenes are so abrupt and lacking in build-up that I wondered if I had accidentally skipped a chapter or two somehow. The main character is a mentally unstable university student and swaps between personalities frequently, but the way this is written in practice results in some very jarring and confusing storytelling. By the end, it had gotten to the point where it was annoying, lost any effective impact it may have otherwise had and made it hard to sympathise with the character. This is especially true for the majority of the endings, in which the protagonist’s “evil” mind takes over and causes her to perform one of various non-consensual sexual acts to her love interest, which are indefensibly presented as porn; using real world mental issues as an excuse for immoral fetishism and audience pleasure.

The story was a lot less dark than I had imagined, based on the majority of the other reviews here. Is the subject matter dark? Yes, but not to the point of being disturbing, and the atmosphere is too indecisive for it to feel that way. Are there visually disturbing scenes? Depends what your fetishes are, because they are all presented as porn. If you are looking for a genuinely dark and disturbing story which will leave you feeling uncomfortable, this is not it. It hardly even makes the effort, other than via some trivialised and disingenuous depictions of what it means to have a mental illness. The writers clearly could not make their mind up about whether they wanted to depict mental illness in a realistic and sensitive manner or as something fake which only exists as a form of attention seeking. For me, as I’m sure would be the case for many others, the blatantly insensitive aspects take precedence here and negate any positive message. With that said, the story does provide a perspective to suggest that the character’s actions aren’t her fault, which is more than I had been primed to expect.

After some boring cut-and-paste romance between the two main characters, the story did start to introduce some interesting concepts and intriguing peeks at what may be going on in the bigger picture. Some of these moments were introduced via the character Doc, the protagonist’s faceless and voiceless online friend who provides advice for her throughout the story in the form of dialogue options. There are a couple of things that Doc says which made me stop and question things, as well as some dialogue options which seemed very freaky and as if they were hinting at something bigger. I was looking forward to these being followed up later on as they likely could have redeemed the story if handled well, but I ended up being disappointed. For some reason, these plot points which were obviously intended to provide a mysterious spin on things were not concluded, or even followed up for that matter, no matter which route I chose. Unanswered questions sometimes serve as a way to form your own interpretations and promote discussion, but in this case they felt pointless and may as well have not been introduced in the first place.

Most of the endings consist of various immoral h-scenes before an abrupt cut back to the main menu. The rest of the endings were pretty much the same thing, but with a small amount of dialogue after the porn. I followed a guide in order to complete all of the routes and I collected all of the achievements, so I am pretty confident that I experienced everything the story had to offer. None of the endings felt like the “correct” ending due to the frustratingly neutral nature of them, with the running theme being a complete lack of resolution. In a lot of cases it can be fine to end on an open-ended note or to not have a definitively correct ending as long as they are all well written, but here it just felt like the writers couldn’t think of a way to tie things up. At best, the endings introduced more questions, and at worst they were nothing more than self-indulgent sex scenes which insensitively utilised mental illness as a means to that end.

I hold a lot of importance in the soundtrack of a game or visual novel, and in that regard this VN does deliver. I have yet to find a visual novel which I don’t enjoy the soundtrack of, so it’s fairly par for the course, but this is another example of that. Yes, the atmosphere is all over the place to a fault, but the soundtrack is still very successful in enhancing the mood of any given scene in isolation. However, all of the endings use the same BGM, which became repetitive and only served to further highlight the mundanity and lack of thematic variation between them.

The art style for the sprites is very nice, but only the two main characters actually have sprites despite the existence of other semi-major characters. The sprites are also nicely animated and are constantly moving rather than just looking like static PNGs on a background. This is arguably one advantage that this VN has over many others, but isn’t necessary and doesn’t contribute (or rather, make up for) much in the way of immersion.

For a visual novel, one of the simplest types of a game to program from my understanding, this one has far too many technical issues which introduced themselves from the moment I launched the game. First of all, there is no framerate cap, which caused my GPU to get unnecessarily hot due to the fact that it was outputting over 2000 frames per second. The game provides no settings to limit the framerate manually, but since it is a visual novel there is no reason why it should not have been limited by default and is almost definitely a programming oversight. I had to fix this via the use of an external program. Another complaint I have is that this VN cannot be outputted at any resolution higher than 1080p. For a game released in 2021, many users (myself included) are likely to be using 1440p or even 4K displays, and being limited to 1080p means that I had to choose between running the game in a smaller window or in a very noticeably blurry fullscreen mode. I also encountered a sprite duplication bug very often throughout, as well as at least one glitched line of dialogue which happened to be triggered by loading a save file.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2491843092

Sutekina Kanojo is a mess that kept me engaged for 3 hours by pretending it was going to eventually get better. Excessive and obnoxious changes in tone, combined with a multitude of technical problems, ensured that I never felt immersed in the story enough to care about what I was seeing and its insensitive depictions of mental illness meant that I was only left with reasons to dislike it. If you want to get the most out of this VN without having to experience its bad points, look at the screenshots on the store page and watch the trailer.

I have begun to hate this attitude when discussing the Muv-Luv trilogy, and I really don’t know why it’s encouraged here. It’s true that Muv Luv Alternative is the #1 ranked VN of all time on VNDb, and that is certainly for good reason. It’s also true that Extra and Unlimited serve as a foundation for Alternative, which is where the majority of the story takes place. But that doesn’t invalidate the merits and purpose that is served these first two entries, which are certainly enjoyable in their own way.

Extra is often cited as the weakest entry in the series. Personally, it’s the entry which I have the biggest desire to re-read.

This VN is probably the most enjoyable typical high school slice of life that I’ve read or watched. The comedy is genuinely funny and made me laugh out loud at several points, which is very rare for me when it comes to anime humour. The comedy and the characters are almost parodic of the genre itself; the events of the story are unexpectedly over-the-top and nonsensical for a story of this scale and setting, and the character designs are wild. At first I was very put off by them, but I soon realised that these characters are a perfect match for the chaos of the events that are occurring around them.

The core plot follows high school student Takeru Shirogane trying to learn more about Meiya; an extremely wealthy and mysterious girl who he woke up next to one morning, having never met her in his life. Meiya exclaims that she and Takeru are fated to get married which is why she came to him. Where she came from and why she has this fixation on Takeru is a mystery which is unravelled as the story progresses. There is an ongoing competitive dynamic between Meiya and Sumika - Takeru’s next door neighbour and childhood best friend - which drives the majority of the romance and comedy in this game. They both have strong romantic feelings for Takeru and believe they are entitled to his love over the other. Sumika is always trying to win Takeru over with sentimental gifts and gestures while Meiya tries to impress him with wealth and extravagance. This competitive relationship builds up as the story progresses, providing humour along the way in a lot of typical but fun slice-of-life scenes, but culminates in some truly emotional moments which made me care for the characters in a way that I didn’t expect to.

There are also plenty of other characters with their own optional routes. These characters are just as fun and well written as the main two, and their routes each become relevant in Unlimited and Alternative, though aren’t necessary for understanding and enjoying the story in those games. Not all of these routes end in romance/H-scenes - character writing and exploration is the priority here, and that’s where Extra stands out.

Regarding the sexual content in this VN, compared to others it is executed in a way which has real purpose and surprising relevance to the character development. A typical dating sim type VN offers its characters as sex objects to the protagonist, and by extension the audience. There are definitely certain implications of this trope which Extra begins to subtly acknowledge and bring attention to on some level. Takeru is a horny teenager surrounded by a harem of attractive girls. This VN asks the question, “how would the protagonist *really* be affected by that situation?” Being the most light-hearted and colourful entry in the series, Extra mostly explores this via jokes and sexy CGs drawn from Takeru’s perspective, but the meta commentary on sexualisation that exists throughout this series definitely begins here.

This section of the review is going to vaguely describe some major spoilers that occur during the first section of Unlimited. I personally recommend going into this series blind.

In my opinion, Unlimited is retrospectively the weakest entry in the series when considered in isolation from Extra, but it's very effective as a direct sequel. This game is very different in tone than Extra and takes place in a different setting now that the characters have graduated from high school. The way this transition is handled is very effective in my opinion but to an extent this game relies too much on the initial shock of this change to keep you engaged until the end; as a result, Unlimited has the weakest re-readability of the entire trilogy. The characters from Extra are all still here, except for Sumika who is mysteriously missing, and for some reason none of Takeru’s friends remember who he is. This creates a very interesting dynamic between the characters which completely juxtaposes their relationships in Extra. Takeru still views his harem in the same way he does in Extra, which includes his implied objectified perception of them. This warped view of his friends is more overtly demonstrated and built upon in Unlimited and is only worsened by the situation he finds himself in.

The plot revolves around Takeru trying to solve the mystery of why Sumika is missing while also dealing with a constant threat which is much more serious than anything found in Extra. This creates an initial sense of urgency which unfortunately wears off by the end, but returns and is much more relevant in Alternative.

The true worldbuilding that this series is known for begins here now that the story has extended beyond a teenage highschool life, but scarcely has much bearing on Takeru’s story yet as he doesn’t get directly involved in the core struggle very much. As a result, this entry in the series ends up feeling more like another slice of life; a surface-level introduction to the new setting and plot rather than an intriguing and political story that the initial setup might lead you to expect. With that said, just the setting alone raises a lot of questions that linger in your mind until the end, creating a constant undertone of nervousness and even fear - the polar opposite of Extra. To me, Unlimited's main strength is that Takeru is depicted very realistically in the situation he finds himself in, having come from his idyllic and carefree high school life. He doesn’t magically know how to act in the adult world. He’s not suddenly mature just because he’s in a more “serious” setting now. He never truly comprehends the situation he is in, constantly questioning the reality of it, and as a result struggles to develop into the person who he needs to be to get by here.

There are various character routes in Unlimited which unfortunately all lead to a very similar ending. This was clearly done because there was an obvious intended setup for Alternative and this way you can’t really get a “wrong” ending that doesn’t correlate with the beginning of the next game. Regardless, this is a downside of Unlimited which doesn’t exist in Extra.

Extra’s primary purpose is to introduce you to the setting and characters and to get you to care for them. It achieves this remarkably well, while also serving as the starting point for a few deeper themes which become increasingly important as the story moves into the later entries of the series, and remains lively and engaging throughout. Unlimited is an excellent and more serious followup to Extra and develops its plot, characters and themes in some very clever and satisfying ways, however falls short in other aspects when judged in isolation and in terms of replay value.

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Right now these reviews are flooded with reasons why you *shouldnt* play Cyberpunk 2077 instead of reasons why you *should* play Deus Ex. This is uninformative and tells you nothing about the positives or negatives of this game. The Cyberpunk genre is handled entirely differently on a thematic and aesthetic level in both games, and don't really compare.

Deus Ex HR is a stealth game first and foremost. People often praise this game for giving you the option to go guns-blazing if you wanted, but I actually feel like that's a fairly undeserving and slightly misleading praise to make. There's nothing stopping you from gunning down every enemy in sight and ploughing through to the end of the level, but it's extremely unrewarding compared to taking a stealthy approach and makes every level the same. If you go guns-blazing, there's only really one strategic option - shoot, cover, shoot again, move up to the next bit of cover, etc etc etc. which is super boring. The game is very clearly intended to be tackled with at least a somewhat stealthy approach, and that's where the game shines - there are countless options available to you with this playstyle: hacking terminals to deactivate cameras, robots, turrets (or even turn them on the enemy), unlock locked doors, reveal hidden passageways and more - and that's just the hacking aspect. There are many different paths to take in every section of the game if you take the time to sneak around and look for them.
There are vents hidden behind boxes, walls that you can punch through, tunnels in the floor that you can sneak through, support beams on the ceiling that you can walk across over the top of the whole area, manhole covers which lead to various sewer systems (in the open world), and more depending on the area youre in. 99% of the time there will be a way to sneak through an entire level without raising any suspicion if you're clever enough. There are also various other approaches which aren't obvious and allow for a bit of thinking outside the box due to the Half Life - esque physics objects. For example, one time I snuck through an area with a camera by stacking several boxes in front of it so that it couldn't see anything. Another time, I deactivated a turret by hacking it and stacked it in a doorway along with a vending machine because I had alerted the guards and knew that they were coming, blocking their path. Another time I killed a man by throwing a fridge at his face.

The augmentations in the game are also very obviously mainly designed to aid stealth. You can turn invisible, mute the sound of your footsteps, display enemy cones of vision/the noise you make/your last known location on the minimap, stealthily take down 2 enemies at once, enhance your hacking ability in many ways, along with many more examples of augmentations which you can unlock via levelling up. There are only a few aggressive augmentations I can remember which would aid a more violent playthrough. These would be the skin upgrades which enhance your defence (basically essential if youre playing non-stealthily on the hardest difficulty, because otherwise you die in a few shots) and the Typhoon explosive system (launches several explosive projectiles in a circle around you). Because of this, I feel like upgrading would be a really boring part of an aggressive approach to the game, because you'd have to prioritise defence so much on the harder difficulties that you'd fall behind on the more interesting and frankly more *fun* augmentations. There are also a few movement-based augs such as simple sprint speed/duration increases but also one which allows you to jump much higher and one which allows you to survive a fall from any height. These, along with an aug which allows you to carry heavier objects, open up way more options for you in terms of exploration in the open world as well as mission strategies. This is great because it gives you much more of a reason to return to previous areas to see what new things you can find and if you choose to do a New Game+ it allows for more options in the earlier levels (you retain all augmentations in NG+ but lose all equipment and money).

There is also a dialogue element to this game which there are also augmentations for (to analyse a character and help deduce what dialogue options may be optimal). I found this aspect of the game fairly interesting but I also struggled a lot with it and found it very hard to judge which dialogue options would be "right" or "wrong" despite having the social enhancement augmentation from the start. In one particular case this meant I failed an entire side quest because I was unable to persuade a certain character to reveal some information. This was a bit disappointing - it would have been better if I had been offered some sort of alternate method to reach the end goal of the quest even if it meant getting a worse reward, rather than just ending the quest there and then. I found myself sighing whenever one of these dialogue option minigame sections started because it felt too much like a gamble and there are only ever two outcomes - the good one or the bad one - you either persuade the person or you don't. In the best case, losing one of these sections will mean you have to take a more difficult or less desirable approach, such a having to fight the character instead, but in the worst case it can directly impact the main story and limit your options for endings, side quests, etc. which I think is too extreme for simply failing a dialogue scene due to not having the correct augmentation or judgement of the characters. You should be rewarded for passing these, not punished for failing them - this isn't a talking simulator.

The story is very good and definitely keeps a very linear core plot while also presenting you with many smaller choices and moral challenges. These affect the story in more indirect ways which (as far as I know) don't affect the ending (apart from a few obvious examples which you'll come across towards the end of the game). For example, a certain action you make may determine if a side character lives or dies and whether theyre still present later in the story. Side quests generally tend to offer you loads of different options too in terms of how to handle them, which will have different outcomes that don't affect the main story at all but will affect your relationship with the relevant characters and allows for a decent amount of replayability. In this version of the game, there is a section towards the end which is apparently part of the DLC. It comes with some story criticisms of its own. There is a very big moral dilemma you are presented with at the end of this section, but your choice doesn't matter at all. I thought it would affect the ending of the game because of how major it was, but it doesn't. It only really affects the dialogue in the next 30 min or so, but doesnt affect the ending of the DLC or any later part of the main story. This leads into my main complaint about the story which is the ending - well, all of the endings. I will not spoil how many endings there are, or the prerequisite for each of them, but they're all fairly self explanatory once you reach the final area of the game. None of the endings feel satisfying though. Each of the endings are vastly different and offer you a completely different choice in terms of morality, but you don't get to actually *see* the result of any of the choices you make. You are only given a vague idea of the outcome of your choice and don't get to see what becomes of the characters, just some vague philosophical narration. This is actually a very minor complaint though compared to how engaging the story is overall.

Word count used up; TLDR very good *stealth* game, one of the best I've played in terms of choice and freedom of strategy (much like MGS 5). Guns-blazing approach is much less rewarding though. Core story is great overall but some story choices feel unimpactful. 8/10 game.

It’s hard to know where to start a review for a game like this. XIV feels more like an open-ended world than a game and each expansion, side story, raid series etc could easily have its own review. There's so much content in this game as of now that you will probably not even experience all of it anyway. I’ve been playing for almost 7 years and there are still so many activities which I haven’t unlocked or completed yet, because there’s just so much of everything else to do. Once you get past the initial tutorial section of the story, the game doesn’t stop opening up; I’m still discovering new features which I didn’t even know existed after 1800 hours of playtime. With significant amounts of new content being added for free 4 times a year, on top of the major expansions (effectively a full games’ worth of story and side content) released every 2 years, this endless sea of high quality content will only become more overwhelming for new players as time goes on.

There are currently 3 expansions on top of the base game, meaning there is a lot of story to get through, but that’s not at all a bad thing. Compared to other big MMOs, XIV has a much stronger emphasis on story which is unsurprising given that it is a Final Fantasy game after all, and should be enjoyed at the player’s own pace.
A Realm Reborn, the base game, is definitely the part which feels most like a traditional FF game in terms of story, tropes and aesthetic. The plot revolves around magic, crystals and evil deities, and you just so happen to be the chosen one; the Warrior of Light. ARR takes place two years after The Calamity; an apocalyptic event that destroyed the world at the end of the failed FFXIV 1.0.

The first expansion, Heavensward, is widely considered to be one of the best stories in the game. It follows a traditional medieval aesthetic which is much darker in tone than the vagrant forests and sun-kissed beaches of ARR. The plot mostly revolves around the Dragonsong War, a thousand-year war between the city state of Ishgard and a faction of dragons. The Warrior of Light gets tied up in the conflict in an attempt to bring peace to both sides, but these things are never that straight forward. Compared to ARR, HW is a lot less lighthearted and focuses more on emotional storytelling and sophisticated worldbuilding.

Stormblood is the second and the weakest of the expansions. The aesthetic is based on traditional Japanese architecture and culture and in this regard it is extremely strong and consistent. However, the story is very unoriginal and, contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, I found both of the main villains to be very annoying. The plot follows the city of Ala Mhigo which is under the control of an oppressive force known as the Garlean Empire. The Warrior of Light joins a resistance effort to help liberate the city - you’ve heard this one before. Stormblood unfortunately doesn’t make any interesting contributions to the overarching story of the game other than introducing a new main-ish villain who I don’t feel was developed well enough for me to care about. With that said, Stormblood has some of the coolest cutscenes in the game and was a clear turning point for the game in terms of visuals and animation.

The most recent expansion, Shadowbringers, had a very successfully executed story and many of my friends consider it the best so far. Tying directly into what was originally an optional endgame raid series in ARR, this expansion re-introduces an old friend of the Warrior of Light known as the Crystal Exarch, who has travelled back from the future to try and prevent a second calamity - in an alternate world known as The First. Shadowbringers is the most emotionally driven story so far and ties in to the previous entries in some incredibly satisfying ways. Despite being set in a different world, this story contributes to the worldbuilding in the most interesting and mind bending ways so far.

When it comes to levelling up classes, FFXIV never feels like a chore. For your first class, you will level up very quickly without much external effort just by doing the main story quests as these are the best source of XP in the game. As you reach higher levels, you unlock more and more ways to earn XP, mostly in the form of Duty Roulettes. These are activities which drop you in a random instance from its respective category, for example Trials Roulette will drop you in a random Trial (boss fight) from the ones you have unlocked. These give a hefty XP bonus which resets daily and do not take very long to do, making the levelling process very clear and streamlined. Roulettes on their own are definitely enough to viably level from 1 to 80 in a reasonable amount of time, but aside from them there are also hunting logs, countless sidequests, optional dungeons, field events and more which all reward decent XP. Because of this, I would not consider XIV a very “grindy” game at all at its core, less so than many single-player JRPGs in fact.

With that said, there are certain parts of each expansion’s endgames which are intentionally very grindy. Notably this includes the Relic Weapon quests - a large grind which along the way rewards a very pretty weapon which is upgraded as you progress the quests. These weapons are not at all the best weapons in the game so this grind is entirely optional even if you want to get the best gear and stats.

One of the main appeals of the endgame is the raid series. Each expansion (along with the base game) has two main raid series: Normal raids - 8-player boss fights which are typically harder than Trials, and Alliance raids - 24-player mega dungeons with several boss fights throughout. Normal and Alliance raids both have their own full-length stories associated with them which aren’t just there to add context to the fights - they’re absolutely great stories in their own right and typically build on their respective expansions’ stories in meaningful ways. Normal raids have a (much) harder difficulty equivalent called Savage, in which you fight the same bosses but with a much more difficult attack pattern, and typically require many hours of practice per fight with a dedicated group. This is generally what is being referred to when people talk about “hardcore” or “high-end” endgame content and as such requires a genuinely thorough understanding of how the game works as well as your class. These raids are hugely satisfying to overcome as a group due to the fact that they require you to genuinely improve as a player to complete but are completely optional in terms of experiencing the raid’s complete story.

Aside from raids, there is countless side content to get stuck into once you reach endgame. There’s way too much content to talk about here and to get the best experience you should discover this content at your own pace anyway. Endgame is also the perfect opportunity to have a go at playing some of the other classes that interest you, which can be swapped between whenever you want. You can unlock and play all of the classes in the game on a single character, which is easily one of the best advantages of this game over WoW and other MMOs.

FFXIV’s overwhelming amount of things to do absolutely justifies its subscription cost and has a very welcome emphasis on story and casual content compared to the other big MMOs. The constant addition of new content means that you’ll never stop discovering new things to enjoy about the game, whether you are an avid hardcore raider or simply an enjoyer of the abundant high-quality casual content.

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Detention is one of the best pieces of horror media I have had the privilege to enjoy. As a big fan of Silent Hill, this game hits a lot of the same notes and constantly keeps a focus on the things that matter when it comes to horror games despite its simplicity in design. Detention is not only excellent in its execution of the horror genre, but with the way it utilises that horror to its advantage to tell an effective and multidimensional story, forcing you to engage and empathise with its characters in ways that you otherwise wouldn’t.

Detention mostly follows the typical structure of a point-and-click adventure puzzle game, but features some unique survival horror-esque gameplay mechanics. I did not have much trouble with this game in terms of difficulty; the majority of the puzzles are fairly self explanatory as long as you take the time to read the collectable notes and the descriptions of each item you pick up. However, there are some more cryptic puzzles later into the story which remind me more of the more… unique riddles from games like Silent Hill 2 and 3. There are at least a couple of examples I can think of where certain items needed to be used in seemingly unrelated places, resulting in some trial and error puzzle “solving” before I was able to continue progressing through the game. Ultimately, there aren’t too many possibilities to try for any given puzzle in the game, so if you get stuck it likely won’t be for long.

Especially in the early stages of the game, there are monsters lurking in many areas of the map which must be snuck past. You cannot fight anything in this game, so you have to hide, hold your breath or distract monsters in order to get past them. I personally felt like this aspect of the gameplay was slightly unnecessary. The monsters have fairly interesting designs and were clearly created with a lot of symbolism in mind, but after the first two or three monster encounters, they were no longer scary and served more as annoying obstacles to slow down exploration. Thankfully, later into the game, these monsters are not present and exploration is a lot more enjoyable.

The ways in which Detention scared me were very varied as each section of the game appealed to a different kind of fear. This ensured that I never reached a state where I was “comfortable” with the oppressive but ever-changing atmosphere and was constantly in a tense state of mind. At the start of the game, a lot of the fear comes from the typical things you may expect from a haunted school setting. You are alone, it is dark, and there are many supernatural happenings. This kind of fear can be overcome, however, and this game is aware of that. The focus changes from surface-level jumpy horror into a much deeper sense of hopelessness that grows within you as you gradually learn more about the story and characters and move on from the school setting. At the same time, the imagery slowly becomes more and more disturbing and representative of the protagonist’s darkest thoughts. This resulted in me feeling a much deeper level of empathy with the characters than I would have if this wasn’t a horror game, as I was forced to literally face some uncomfortable truths about what happened to the characters prior to the events of the game. In that way, Detention utilises horror elements very effectively in order to aid its storytelling, which in my opinion is the best way for this genre to be used.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=847313868

Detention is set during the White Terror period of the 1960s, where thousands of Taiwanese civilians were imprisoned and even executed due to accusations of opposition to the Chinese Nationalist Party. The story of Detention specifically focuses on how this period affected Taiwanese youth at the time. Players who are familiar with the movies of Edward Yang will draw parallels here with the movie A Brighter Summer Day, which is set during the same period and shares many of the same themes. The game does a great job of explaining the political context as well as its significance to the core story in the form of collectable notes scattered around the map. The story managed to make me care a lot about a period in history which I had never heard about before and made me want to read up on it afterwards.

The story starts with the main character, Rey, waking up after school alongside her classmate Wei. They are unable to leave due to a typhoon and Wei tries to find a phone to call for help, only to vanish. Rey is trapped in a purgatory-like state and unable to leave the school. What happened to the school prior to the events of the game as well as Rey’s personal backstory are slowly unravelled and explored throughout the story, beyond the point of becoming uncomfortably dark and invasive by the end. This game certainly went further than I thought it would with its depictions of social and interpersonal horrors and never stopped digging deeper into its uncomfortable themes of loneliness, oppression, identity and insecurity.

What starts as a simple and almost stereotypical premise gradually turns into one of the most unique and well thought out stories I’ve experienced in a horror game. It is not overly complicated and is very easy to understand exactly how all of the separate plot threads contribute to the bigger picture, but the ways in which they come together are as disturbing as they are satisfying. The story achieves such a clear message and detailed character writing in such a concise way, with the game approximately taking only 3 to 4 hours to finish. This may seem short but in my opinion it ended at the perfect point and the only reason it isn’t any longer is because nothing dragged on longer than it should have. However, if you leave the game wanting more, I strongly recommend the TV series of the same name. It is not only a surprisingly great adaptation of the existing story, but manages to continue it in a way which genuinely makes sense and shows an understanding of what made the game so good; an extremely rare feat for video game adaptations.

Detention is a game which immediately left a big impression on me upon finishing it several years ago and sparked my interest for horror in games. Since then, I have come to respect and enjoy it even more in retrospect, and greatly enjoyed playing through it again recently. The simplicity of the gameplay makes it easy to become immersed without interruption from frustrating controls or unnecessary combat options, despite some annoying monster encounters in the early sections. It doesn’t use horror to scare you for the sake of it - rather it purposely puts you in a state of fear and a prime mindset for absorbing its dark and emotionally driven story which will leave you with a lot to think about after putting the game down.