Recent reviews by Johan Erickson

Dragon’s Dogma is that game that had so much potential that was left unfulfilled because it just fails in pretty much every department except for combat. The game’s biggest selling point is its’ combat, which if you like fast action, is fun. Unfortunately, everything else in the game is so atrocious that the game is left standing on the merit of it’s combat alone.

Now this would be okay if the other stuff was decent, but it’s not. It’s downright… bad. The characters are like walking 3D models at best. The world-building is next to nothing. Enemy variety is the same pretty much the whole game except for a big monster here and there. The dragons are fun but few and far in-between. The story is pretty much non-existent. You just fight and become strong and face the dragon in the end, that’s it. That being said, I still had more fun with this than that *ahem* other dragon game that’s being ported to microwaves and everything that’s electronic.

The environments are just… drab and ugly. There’s green and brown. That’s it. I get why it’s rated low. It’s a pity because if the rest of the stuff was just slightly better, there would be a game to recommend. At this state, I just find this a hard recommend. The quest design is just downright boring mostly involving fetch quests and ‘slay that monster’ quests. The side quests honestly only exist to level up your character by sending you to slay random enemies.

Even the combat, though fun, suffers in many departments, because the pawn AI is downright retarded. Even after fighting the same enemy multiple times, the AI would prefer using some useless spell instead of the most powerful one I have equipped, and melee-based AI pawns would just mindlessly attack even if they are doing no damage. This alone dragged fights for longer than it would have if the AI had just used the frickin’ comet spell instead of spamming a low-level fire spell repeatedly.

The UI is easily THE WORST I’ve seen in a videogame. Someone decided they would give a separate menu for EACH thing. That’s right. You want to combine items? Extra menu. Want to withdraw? Different menu. Deposit? Different menu. Equipment? Different menu. Hell, even status checking is a different menu. The amount of time you spend in the menu is just atrocious even for an RPG.

Don't even get me STARTED on the save slot. That's right. There's ONE save slot. For autosaves, manual saves... everything? And the game IMMEDIATELY saves over it. You wanna redo a boss fight? Nope, too bad. Save overwritten. Wanna create a separate save? Nah, sorry, we don't do that here. I don't know why they couldn't do something as simple as this.

There are a lot more complaints, like the non-existent world building, hollow clay-like characters and pretty much no story except the start and the end. You know people grumpy about too many cutscenes? This game has a total of less than 30 minutes of cutscenes and even that is stretching it. That just highlights how poor the story is.

At the end of the day, an RPG is about the story, the characters, the world-building, the exploration and great quests. All of them are sorely missing in this game and the combat alone elevates it slightly above mediocrity, and even that is not without its’ problems.

The list of complaints about this game is so long it would take me a week to write up on all of them. I get why people call this underrated, but Dragon’s Dogma is underrated for a reason.

Still, underneath it all, there's a decent foundation, especially the bosses, and combat, that can be built upon for a good sequel, but they must fix the other areas of the game that were sorely lacking.

Final verdict: I wish I could give this a positive rating but just can’t bring myself to do it. RPGs are time sinks and because of that alone, this trip isn’t one worth taking. A disappointing 6/10.

Perhaps F.E.A.R WAS a decent game back in the day, but now, it's just a testimony to how far games have come.

There is pretty much zero level design here. Levels consist of basically boring repetitive narrow corridors with such piss poor lighting you spend half the time turning your flashlight on and off. I understand the devs were going for the horror aesthetic but making the player blind as a bat by not lighting the environments is just annoying.

The combat itself is fun at first, especially with the way the enemies rag doll when you blast through them with a high-impact weapon, but because weapon variety is scarce, it starts to get old fast. The game doesn't change it up until much later unfortunately and there's only so many times you enjoy slow motion bullet-time before it gets monotonous.

It honestly reminded me of the first Max Payne which was basically just a shooting gallery through cardboard-looking environments in the first place. It still could've been a good game in 2021 if they had put some care into the level design. There is one area (the office) which just drags on and on with so much padding (which occurs in all levels). You spend around 50% (or around 4 hours) of the game in that one area with the same drab office interiors not knowing which way to turn because the corridors just keep looping in on themselves because the right corner was hid without lighting. I spent more time being lost in a maze of never-ending looping corners than actually moving through the place. That level alone makes this game a chore.

I wish I could say this game is a classic but it isn't. Even the narrative is non-existent where you just chase this one dude from the start of the game to the end, so there's basically nothing to say there.

All in all, it's boring, even by 2000's standards. I only played this for completion's sake before moving on to the sequel.

Final verdict: 4/10 by today's standards. Maybe 6-ish by late 90's standards. There's nothing to see here.

Maybe it was good once upon a time. But in 2020, it's not worth it. Just way too boring and repetitive with next to no gameplay mechanics and just terrible level design. I thought I'd try it to see what the hype about Half-life was all about. I must say I came away VERY disappointed. I did give the game a fair chance at 5 hours but I just couldn't bring myself to carry on. Sorry, but Half-Life 1 is just old bones that didn't survive the millenium and that's not going to change no matter how much shiny paint you put over it.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is a bit of a yawn. It's a standard metroidvania stripped down to bare bones. The interesting art design while fun at first, gets quickly stale as the game wears on. The worst part about it are the clunky controls which really start being a pain in the butt towards the end and especially the final boss. The new weapons serve very little purpose except for opening up new areas. Honestly, there's nothing to see here and you're better off playing so many other games that do this same thing much better.

Final verdict: 6/10. Thoroughly forgettable.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a testimony to how far first-person shooters have come. There's nothing here to see except a mediocre shooting gallery where you run around shooting the same weapons at the same enemies the same way for 8 hours. The level design is especially atrocious and you'll be forgiven if you couldn't tell one from another. I had an okay time with it but there's not a single thing in this game or story/characters that's going to stick with me when I uninstall it. Even by 2009 standards, there were way better shooters out there.

It must be said that playing games like this does make me appreciate the craft a lot more. As for this game, there's nothing in it that I can warrant giving a recommend unfortunately. It's best left buried like its' infamous gold of Juarez.

Final verdict: 6/10. Thoroughly forgettable.

P.S: I did like the gunplay enough to give Call of Juarez: Gunslinger a try though.

Superbrothers is quirky, short, abstract fun. I don't recommend long playthroughs but a little bit here and there. Don't wander too much (backtracking up and down take the fun out of this game), keep it tidy and there's a unique little experience to be had here. The music is easily the best part and the pixel art design is a nice touch. Gameplay is barebones but the game's atmosphere and writing will stay with you after you're done. Recommend.

Final verdict: 7/10.

Blackwell Legacy is where the vision behind the more popular Wadget Eye games really starts to take shape.

While The Shivah was completely rough everywhere, Blackwell Legacy is a lot less rough around the edges. I say 'less rough' because this is still an unpolished game. The very first puzzle in the game requires using the walking mechanic akin to the infamous goat puzzle in a certain other adventure game I'm sure fans of the genre are familiar with. Besides that, the rest of the puzzles were fairly standard to the genre. The notebook system is pretty easy to follow as long as you keep careful track of the names thrown around. There are item puzzles but the inability to use objects makes it a little one-dimensional. This can especially get cumbersome if you don't familiarise yourself with the game's controls some of which it doesn't teach you (I didn't know how to examine objects till the last act of the game). There's also one UI bug that crashes the game which was never fixed but nothing game-breaking for me because you could just workaround it.

The main draw of this game however is the intriguing premise of the story which involves sending ghosts on their way to a peaceful afterlife using the main character's medium powers. The characters are generally well voiced and writing is solid. These reasons are mainly why I recommend the game more than its puzzle elements.

I will definitely check out the rest of the Blackwell series.

Final verdict: 7/10 by the standards of the time it was released in.

Got bored because I'm not a five year-old. Buy if you need to distract your kids while you watch football. Also, -1 for not letting me hand over a woman to a merchant so he can sell her in his desert store.

Final verdict: 'It's for kids' out of 10.

Toki Tori has a cute, little yellow bird for its' mascot. You might think this is just a simple children's game but it is anything but.

It basically involves collecting a set number of eggs across levels using different abilities and clever platform navigation. It starts off easy enough but soon ramps up the difficulty as it progresses. There were some levels I was stuck in for more than an hour. Most of the puzzles rely on object placement than they do on any deep puzzle-solving which is the only thing negative I can say about the game. A bit of music variety would've have helped too. Nevertheless, the challenge this game poses will leave you feeling smart about yourself when you beat it even on the normal levels because the latter part of the normal levels are anything but normal. You honestly shouldn't even bother with the more difficult levels. They aren't worth the effort since they are as good as unapproachable because of how obtuse they can be.

Toki Tori isn't a classic puzzle game nor well-known. I didn't even know it existed till I combed through some indie recommendations. It isn't a must-play but if you're looking for a brain scratch, Toki Tori will suit you just fine. Be warned though: It can get hard and you'll need that patience muscle as much as you need the brain.

Final verdict: A 7/10. Good game.

I picked up this game to see how it all started for Wadjet Eye Games and also because I love Monkey Island. This was a rough start for sure but there are still glimpses of a good game in here. Still, it's not enough to warrant a must-play though. This is the kind of game you play to see the humble beginnings of video games. People only see the tip of the success iceberg but there's so much underneath, especially where it all starts. As a point-n-click adventure fan, playing this game reminded me of that.

As for the game, it has good writing and great voice acting, especially the main character. The game itself isn't really fun to play and the puzzles are basically just juggling words to match their corresponding context. Nothing really to see here other than the voice acting. Puzzles require next to no thought except one where I had to use the initials of a name to solve (needed to look up a walkthrough). Graphics have aged terribly but this is expected considering how old it is.

Still, a decent afternoon's fun. A slightly above average game. Final verdict: 6/10.