Recent reviews by T'Kaia

It is the best 3D platformer I have played alongside Super Mario Odyssey and it's certainly a massive improvement over the first game in every aspect given that it came out 16 years later. Just like the first game, the setting is so original and the storytelling is so great that it makes you feel like you are in a Dreamworks Animations film. Although I'm usually not fond of Unreal Engine when it comes to platforming, the gameplay is absolutely spotless.

My only complaints are the game's length and the fact that there are too many cutscenes. While most of the platformers take 10-ish hours to beat, Psychonauts 2 took me 14h which made it overstay its welcome for me around the tenth hour no matter how I loved the game. The main reason is that the sheer amount of cutscenes and the fact that every little thing is stretched to the core make you think that you came here to watch a film and it sometimes gets interrupted by the gameplay while it should be the exact opposite. Seriously, the last time I felt this way was when I played TW3 and P5R which are already known for being infamously long.

I personally loved the setting here more than that of Rise of the Tomb Raider but it still sticks to the exact same formula with another disappointing story. I think overall, it's an average game. You won't have a bad time with it but it doesn't offer anything significant either.

The first game was great. But the follow ups are only offering more of the same. So I can only recommend it to kill some time.

I'll keep it short. It's pretty much the same as DOOM (1993) and DOOM II with surprisingly better visuals given that this was developed for N64. The soundtrack is I'm afraid, quite a bummer. After the heavy metal beat in the previous games, the slow ambient music just doesn't fit into a DOOM game.

I should be rating this game on IMDb instead of Steam. Because it's the best film I've ever played. Ergo the thumbs up.

This game's gameplay is literally like a SNES era Final Fantasy game of my dreams and I do wish all the old FF classics were remade in this style.

Instead of a certain main character and a story, Octopath Traveler II decides to take a different approach and tells 8 different stories of 8 different party members. A thief, a cowboy, a samurai, a cleric etc. Although it was a bit confusing to understand how to progress in the game at the beginning for this reason, figuring out how man should progress did not take long: gather all party members first and then, follow their chapters corresponding to your level. Nowadays, this type of JRPGs rather come from indie studios and as a result, you don't get to see any voice acting at all. However, Octopath Traveler II being rich in this field is fantastic. A game that is actually not indie, but made with an indie spirit.

I'm afraid I have to shelve the game for later because I currently am not in the mood to play any JRPG.

I mainly prefer modern boomer shooters but I actually quite enjoyed DOOM (1993). And DOOM II is more of the same thing as the first game. But I must say, the backtracking is quite tedious.

Although Stellar Blade has become mainstream due to the main character EVE’s attractiveness, the game excels at offering more than just EVE’s appeal. The first thing you will notice is that how heavily the setting got inspired from NieR Automata and Matrix. NieR Automata as in the hack ‘n’ slash-ey combat (albeit the comparisons to Sekiro), each map, an appealing main character and Matrix as in fast travel via payphones with keyboards and some names such as “Orcal” and “Xion”. One thing I like about the game is that it is not really a soulslike (or Sekiro-like). It rather plays like a hack ‘n’ slash with a parry mechanic inspired by Sekiro and L1 and R1 moves. Although the ‘L3 moves’ are unfortunately tricky to execute, it’s still nice to see such a variety in combat. Lastly, when it comes to EVE, although her sex appeal (or as I rather call ‘her inner beauty and character depth’ as a gig) has been controversial since day 1, it is still great to see a female character who is pretty, talented and strong at the same time and I do think such characters prove that pretty women are not just looks and all women can be pretty and strong at the same time too.

Performance wise, the game runs and looks amazing since it’s developed with Unreal Engine 4 with only few problems I will lean towards later on.

That being said, the game also comes with its own downsides. First of all, the cutscenes are not skippable. Given that the game allows you to skip boss cutscenes when you die for the first time, it is obvious that this choice is intentional which makes man think that it is a cheap trick to extend the playtime rather than taking the story too seriously. On the other hand, all the side content is Ubisoftey without any exception which made me ignore all of them in the blink of an eye. “Go bring me an item” or “Go clear out that area” or “Go climb that Ubisoft Tower”, these are all just filler content that got started by Ubisoft in order to extend the playtime and to look like the game is full of content. Another thing to mention is that the last parts of the game turns into a boss rush in which your main objective becomes killing bosses one after another with several mobs in between. Not to mention that these bosses could be considered as sponges compared to the ones in the rest of the game. Lastly, there are two desert maps in the game where the main quests are literally a copy paste of one another. Not to mention that the open zone Oasis map also comes with performance dips in many parts.

With the return to the traditional turn-based combat by the removal of the ATB system and the addition of interchangeable party members, FFX manages to offer the best combat in the golden age of Final Fantasy. Despite my personal FF fatigue and the fact that it is the easiest FF game I have ever played, it excels at providing a fun gameplay that still holds up in 2025.

Instead of an Overworld, FFX opts rather for a linear gameplay for the better in some parts and for the worse in some other parts. While this approach avoids the reuse of each area just like in FFIX, this allows the game to take a more story-driven approach. While the overall voice acting is decent for the time it came out, man must keep in mind that Yuna's VA fails to meet the average VA quality in the game. When it comes to visuals, although the character animations clearly show their age, compared to games came out the same year such as Max Payne, GTA3 and SH2, FFX's graphics are such a treat to the eyes for a 24 year-old game.

On the down side, however, although FFX's story isn't bad, it is clear that the story is stretched in order to meet the 40h mark for JRPGs in that era which causes the game to throw at the player more cutscenes than the actual gameplay. As a result, this causes the formula to get old by 1/3 of the game as it goes as:

Cutscene -> Gameplay on a linear path -> Arrival to a place and the search for other party members to trigger a cutscene -> Search for another party member to trigger another cutscene -> (Sometimes) solving mediocre puzzles through spheres -> Another cutscene -> Repeat

If the cutscenes were skippable, man could beat the whole game in only 10-15 hours. On the other hand, the blitzball mini game also fails to meet expectations which, honestly, might be considered as insignificant as Final Fantasy has never been great at the mini game department.

I like the art design. But neither the puzzles nor the platforming is as good as people exagerrate. The game doesn't explain anything at all which makes it impossible to beat it without a guide online. And I really am sick and tired of seeing horrible UI maps, spikes and 2-inch platforms in every single metroidvania.

Although many aspects of the game aged poorly and Capcom did a pretty lazy job remastering it, DMC3's combat itself still holds up pretty well even today and offers a great experience by putting the fun aspect of video games above everything. Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. But this game's combat is exactly what I had in mind for an ideal hack 'n' slash combat.

After the overkill amount of enemies blocking and many recycled bosses in DMC1, DMC3 managed to surprise me with various unique bosses and cool characters (mainly young Vergil).

Like I said above, the only downside is how badly many components of the game aged (especially the bad camera angles) and Capcom's lazy job in remastering it.

Just skip the first 2 games and you won't lose anything apart from the achievements.