Recent reviews by shooterboss

Really not a great first impression. I can understand the lack of gameplay. Resident Evil 7's demo was fairly empty, but the game turned out all right.

The biggest problem right now is tone. For a small child, the main character is almost comically nonchalant about what's happening around her, and it makes it difficult to take the admittedly good atmosphere seriously. Maybe it's intentionally from the perspective of a naivete kid to build dramatic irony, but I don't know.

The monster design is pretty solid though. I hope the devs focus more on combat and environmental puzzles in the final product because I have no interest in playing another walking sim.

Gotta say, what impressed me most was the writing and animation. All these one-liners fit the tone of the show incredibly well. Set pieces are simultaneously cartoony and elegant. A solid follow-up to Battle if there ever was one.

Resident Evil 6 is an excellent game marred by a terrible first impression.

The combat system is genuinely deep, with a firearm-melee combination that flows well together once you get used to it. It's a solid evolution of 4 and 5's, as melee can be used anytime instead of exclusively through contextual button prompts. And there are lots of different kill animations depending on the character, the weapon equipped, the type of attack, and the location of the enemy.

The problem is that the game is very light on tutorials and doesn't teach you about the mechanics much at all. I think the idea was that players could discover the combat system for themselves, but what ends up happening is first-timers just get knocked down a hundred times (quite literally because of the new stagger system) before anything seems to click. And even the inventory interface takes some getting used to.

But once it clicks, it's beautiful. I'm glad I stayed with it til the end. Even now, I'm still mastering the counter system, which I discovered by accident only after I completed the story.

The little gameplay that's here isn't enough for this game to escape the walking simulator moniker. Combat is just pointing your flashlight in the right direction, and any interesting events are completely scripted. The only goal of navigating the forest is to reach the next scripted event. I can get the same experience watching a playthrough on YouTube as I can actually playing it.

The only positive is the excellent atmosphere, but a game can't stand on that alone. The fact that this team is working on the Silent Hill 2 Remake just makes me sad.

A bit too heavy on the cutscenes for my taste, but the combat is satisfying and fun with an excellent balance between aiming down sights and hip-firing rather than relying exclusively on the former, which most action games end up doing.

Joystick aiming is also excellent with a creative application of aim assist that rewards a "good enough" attempt at aim without being too generous and handing out free kills. Hard to explain, but you'll get it when you try it.

Keep these PlayStation ports coming.

A real page-turner. It's not common for me to grow so attached to the characters in a story like this, but Highway Blossoms delivered in a way no other visual novel has before. Voice acting is top-notch too. Solid recommendation if you're even partly interested in this genre.

Overall an okay spectacle fighter.

The customizable combo system probably wasn't as versatile as the developers hoped. For the most part, I just kept damage, recharge, and health moves in separate combos and only changed them up maybe twice to match a specific boss fight.

The game is fairly short, and it's plagued with useless parkour sections where there's no way to go but exactly where the marker tells you. In fact, many attempts to vary the pace fall flat, such as the mandatory "stealth" against drones and the memory rewinding sections.

But still, getting into the rhythm of a long combo chain is fun. Finally getting to use a Focus move is satisfying, and the music is excellent and fitting for the pace of the combat. Remember Me succeeds when it tries to be a spectacle fighter but not so much elsewhere.

Ironically, it's not too memorable of an experience either. But if you get it on sale, it'll spice up a weekend nicely.

I've always loved the franchise for its Uncharted-esque combat, stealth, and set pieces, but this game dropped the former two in favor of the latter. Huge sections of the game are dedicated to just moving forward at a single, pre-determined path with little decision-making. It's almost a walking simulator now.

In fact, real action was so few and far between that I ended up skipping the cutscenes and ignoring all the side missions in hopes of getting to the next one. I can't see myself finishing this game unfortunately, as there's just not enough to keep me engaged.


Update:

So I ended up finishing it anyway, and the game almost redeems itself near the end starting with the oil refinery. There's a decent amount of combat, but, after about 5 hours of padding, I still can't recommend this game unless you're really patient and get it on an inevitable sale.

The combat and stealth simply haven't evolved significantly compared to the older two games. And it's still fairly easy even with Combat Difficult set to hard, largely because of the generous headshot system.

And by the way, I'm really not a fan of overpowered DLC weapons.

Surprised that this was more than just a visual novel. Pretty decent turned-based combat RPG system in addition to the time management aspect of interacting with your squad mates. It's also just challenging enough to keep you playing without being too frustrating in the long-term.

It takes a few chapters in before the gameplay evolves beyond a glorified walking simulator, but when the stealth and puzzle sections get going, it's a worthwhile experience.

I do want to point out that it's incredibly easy to accidentally overwrite your save file like I did once. The default option when you first launch should be "Continue" rather than "New Game."