So, I've collected all the Steam achievements for Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut. It'd be a platinum if such a thing existed on Steam (the one thing, really, that PS has over everyone else in that regard). Took me about 27 hours and countless replays of the game. Don't regret it at all: this is very much a top five indie for me. One of the most consistently creative and engaging indies I've played in a while. Some spoilers, but I'll try not to reveal too much.
Like another favorite of mine, Gnosia, StP is a game that is structured around a looping narrative. You always awaken in the woods, and a witty, sarcastic narrator informs you that you must venture to a cabin in the woods and kill a princess who will otherwise go on to end the world. You're expected to take him at his word, and he will urge you, with unshakeable resolve, to ignore the pleading and reasoning of the princess and carry out your grim task with haste. Taking clear inspiration from The Stanley Parable, it quickly becomes clear that "The Narrator" has his own agenda, which doesn't necessarily prioritize your well-being. Part of the fun of the game is slowly puzzling out what is actually happening, and deciding who you're going to trust as the twisty contours of the larger story take shape.
As you venture through the game and talk to the Princess again and again, emergent storylines emerge, along with "voices" who function as a sort of party. You begin with the Hero, but quickly discover other voices who arise in response to your choices throughout the various storylines: the broken, the cheated, the cold, the contrarian, etc. etc., who all embody a certain personality trait. My personal favorite is the smitten, who speaks with a princely gradiosity and urges you toward gaining the love of the Princess regardless of how... crazy things get.
And boy do things get crazy. While it's a bit unconventional, its listing as a horror game is well-deserved, and you'll need a strong stomach for some of the grisly material you'll see throughout the game. It mixes elements of body horror, psychological horror, and cosmic horror to great effect. Despite all this, the game still has a consistently fantastic sense of humor, and you'll find yourself cringing and laughing in almost equal amounts. So I guess tack on 'horror comedy' to the mix of elements in this game as well.
A given run of the game consists of five or six sets of loops, which will differ depending upon your choices in the first loop each time. Depending on which loop you enter, you'll see a different form of the Princess, which varies incredibly wildly. Every iteration of this character is fascinating, though, and plays with horror genre conventions in interesting and intelligent ways. One of the newly added routes to this edition of the game does one of the most interesting things I've ever seen in a video game by essentially transporting you into the body of the Princess and allowing you to see what your interactions with her look like from her end, and it's... incredibly disturbing.
Like a lot of my favorite adventure games, StP experiments heavily with the boundaries of interactive storytelling, making this another game that really couldn't explore its story or themes as well in any other format. I absolutely love when video games take advantage of the unique strengths of this medium, and this is a modern classic in that respect. Making this even more enjoyable is a sketchy, iconoclastic art-style and one of the stronger soundtracks I've heard in an independent production. It's also fully voice acted, which is an achievement given just how much dialogue is in this game.
If I had to criticize this game for one thing, it's that a lot of the choices needed to unlock certain CGs are a tad arcane, and the game doesn't give you clear enough hints. This is only applicable to completionists, though. I would also argue that certain routes, including my favorite one in the game are incredibly easy to miss. Actually, unlock conditions for similar routes can be easy to mix up. Thankfully, the game has tons of save slots that allow you to save at the start of specific routes so you can go back later and try different options, along with a text skip option to speed through dialogue you've already seen in previous playthroughs.
All-in-all, though? FANTASTIC experience. Certainly my favorite of 2025 to date, even if it's a somewhat older title. It'll be a while, I think, before another game clicks with me quite as well as this did.
In follow up to my Wilds impressions, I've now spent around 30 hours (ish) in Wilds High Rank.
I have beaten I believe every monster in the game at least once, and beaten the variants of the strongest monsters at least once, too.
And yeah my worries were in the end wrong I think, but maybe not in the way I expected.
This is because High Rank kind of remains a bit of a faceroll, overall. There are really only three monsters I would say in High Rank that feel like the level of difficulty you would experience in previous games, and even then, it is less so the monster itself, and usually just some kind of overtuned specific move you just need to avoid, and then otherwise the fight is still pretty easy.
As a result, after around 50ish hours, I feel kinda done with Wilds, to be honest. Now, I was never one of those who plays thousands of hours of a Monster Hunter title, so that context is important, and people are already bragging online they have put close to 150 hours into this (which means they must have spent almost every waking moment playing the game since release!) but for me, the pull just isn't there.
Don't misunderstand, there is some seriously refined game feel here, and there are excellent monsters in this one, but the roster is thin, the systems are thin, I feel like I am in the shallow end of a pool, the water only comes up to my knees, but I'm desperately trying to force it over my shoulders.
I was hoping with the SPOILERS ahead, introduction of Tempered and Frenzied monsters it would at least give me something aspirational to drive myself forwards. But they also don't offer any meaningful additional challenge outside of very specific monsters and scenarios. And you might be thinking... who cares? Pizza, aren't you are always crying about how hard games are?! Firstly, I would say that is a little rude, but you aren't really wrong. However, this lack of challenge kind of breaks the entire Monster Hunter loop for me.
Like they have hold onto the grindy, honestly kind of tedious, material grind to craft new weapons and armour. In past games, the payoff to completing these extensive grinds was self evident. You overcame the strongest monster you could, with the best gear you could, to upgrade your gear so you could go back to a monster that used to bully you and absolutely mollywhop them. It was a satisfying staircase of difficulty you slowly climbed, to give your grind a purpose. This is just completely missing here, because you can beat the highest tier Tempered monsters with a completely incoherent build, full of random decorations and not a single armour sphere used.
This leaves you asking then like... sowhat then even is the Monster Hunter Wilds loop? And the answer is, I don't really know. There is no need to chase for more power, when you have all the power you need. The roster isn't big enough to have a truly varied play session from one to the other of different hunting experiences. So I guess you just beat every monster once and you are just done?
The other thing I used to like doing in a Monster Hunter game when the content started to run dry, is switch weapons, as it kinda of resets your whole progression loop, and some weapons can create completely fresh experiences in Hunts, as you engage with monsters sometimes surprisingly differently from weapon to weapon. However, this is another thing I just don't really love in Wilds.
Wilds "gimmick" is less the focus mode in practice, and instead more of its switch to new "perfect" moves. Perfect guarding. Perfect dodging. Perfect rhythm. Perfect parrying. Whatever. Now, I suck at these kinds of things, so weapons I once loved like the Lance, I just find really frustrating to use now, because you need to be absolutely perfect with your mechanics, or you cannot access the weapons strongest moves. And you could argue that who cares if the game is so easy, and you would be right, but it feels bad to know you aren't using the full capabilities of your weapon.
So yeah, I dunno, really. The enjoyment of hunting monsters with a buddy or two still remains a unique joy to the Monster Hunter series. The moment to moment gameplay is still some of the best we've seen in the series. But I can't help but just feel a little whelmed by the whole experience, being honest with you and now I'm seemingly just sorta done with the game for now, I can't help but feel quite unsatisfied and a little empty about it all.
Just finished Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 after about 50 hours of playtime. Pretty much did everything in the game besides gathering the "insignificant" collectibles. I seem to be missing some trophies connected to shrines, bamboo strikes and so on, but I think that's because I'm playing the Director's Cut, which includes the Iki Island DLC, that also has these things, so that's most likely why the trophies haven't popped. I think I'll play through the DLC soon and then try to go for the Platinum as I'm only missing a couple of trinkets. I typically don't care about trophies but I enjoyed this game so much that I'll happily play more of it.
As for the game itself, I find it to be the best game Sucker Punch has made and one of the best first-party games from Sony. The story was really engrossing, I'm an absolute sucker for historical and Japanese settings, so this one was perfect for me. I also like that there weren't many story missions but tons of side missions where you get to spend more time with the characters and you got to build together your own crew so to speak. It made me care more about the characters.
Moreover, it truly felt like you were at a place that has been invaded by foreign enemies. There were damage and destruction everywhere, cruel management of the civilians and just sheer brutality with no remorse whatsoever. It felt very real. The battles in the story that you fought alongside your group were very exciting and intense. I also loved the development of the "Ghost" reputation that you gain throughout the story. Stuff like that makes you feel more special and cool in a game.
The gameplay was engaging, fun and varied but not too varied as in a lot of Sony's first-party games. I absolutely abhor this aspect in games like Spider-Man and God of War, where there are dozens of different combos you need to learn in order to be good at the game. Ghost of Tsushima keeps things relatively simple but there was still enough variety to keeps things interesting.
The open world was a joy to explore and the main reason why it took me 50 hours to complete the game instead of half that time based on HLTB. Most of the things you found were actually helpful, like health upgrades or accessories with useful perks. The resource management was fun but it became obsolete halfway through the game for me as I had pretty much upgraded everything at that point due to me exploring the entire region before moving on to the next one. Furthermore, since the plot was about a region being invaded by another country, I was motivated to clear out enemy camps as I felt like I contributing to pushing out the enemies. The map was also not that large but still densely packed with things to do.
Finally, I thought the ending of the game was very well done. The vast majority of games these days have a happy ending but in this case, it was more of a bittersweet ending, which I commend the developer for. You can't always get what you want in life. It also made me realise how much I can relate to the protagonist as a person who wants to follow their own path in life and not let other people tell them how to live their life. That's a huge reason why the ending really resonated with me.
All in all, Ghost of Tsushima has become one of my favourite first-party games from Sony. I enjoyed every aspect of this game and it's one of the few times I genuinely wanted to play more of a game. I cannot wait to start up the Iki Island DLC soon!
Nier: Automata (Steam)
Time to fight for humanity.
Gameplay:
Combat mixes the snappy fluid dance of a CAG with Sh'mup elements of all things, and wraps everything up with a (J)RPG leveling/progression system. It's a really unique mixture I haven't seen anywhere else & it won't take long before you're swiftly weaving between foes & projectiles alike as you deal damage.
the world/exploration has a pretty typical JRPG setup to it, with you unlocking new regions to explore as the story demands. Some of them can be quite large/open while others are tiny, but in general you'll move through them in a linear fashion from a story perspective (of course there are a number of chests scattered throughout the map, and of course side quests to partake in). Oh, and a fishing mini game if you want to relax for a bit. There is a bit of an "open world" illusion as there's not usually any noticeable loading between regions (usually there'll be some sort of tightly enclosed path, like a sewer, between regions, where the outside world is probably loading in the background).
it doesn't have that many locations that I'd really refer to as a "dungeon", though it does have a couple, and it's just as likely that a chapter/region will end out in a prolonged Sh'mup segment instead.
It definitely has a bit of an auteur's touch, as gameplay systems & quirks are mixed in to make sense from a narrative perspective, and this is probably the most unique thing about the game that makes it insanely memorable. For example, the game opens with you initiating an assault deep into enemy territory, and you aren't allowed to save at all during this opening 1 ½ hour segment. If you die at any point here (or shut off the game) it's right back to the beginning to start a new game. It's tense, it's bombastic, it feels great to clear, and it'll make sense narratively once you get past it. The game has a lot of elements like this, and although to say too much would be spoilery, let's just say I saw things through to the [E]nd.
Outside of that opening gauntlet I didn't think it was all that difficult a game though (granted, I only played it on Normal, & apparently the highest difficulty is instant OHKO for any damage). Apparently it does the "Souls" thing of making you retrieve your belongings from where you last died if you want to keep them, but I never had to face this. At the end of the day it's pretty standard difficulty for a JRPG, so as long as you don't run past most enemies & keep up on doing side quests as they pop up (there are a few you can't do immediately though), as well as remember to stay up to date with your best equipment (here in the form of computer chips that boost your stats & give you other boons), before you know it you'll always be at least a few levels above what's required for the main story content. Honestly there was only one boss in the middle of my third "playthrough" that had some real bite, but by then I was so awash in restorative items (which I hadn't had to use much since the opening gauntlet) that I was just able to cheese my way through it with tons of items to spare.
Story:
the story follows 2B & 9S, androids sent from a base on the Moon to help reclaim Earth from an army of Machines that are part of an alien invasion (what's left of humanity ran to the Moon). The war has been going on for centuries with no end in sight.
It honestly has some great twists & background lore, and although I knew some were coming I rarely guessed correctly what they were going to be. Likewise I really grew attached to the characters, which was a double edged sword as this isn't a very happy game to put it mildly. That said there is the occasional moment of levity, so it's not (completely) doom.
It can be a dreary existence in this world.
Presentation:
It's not exactly cutting edge (especially today), but it has a clear vision that really holds up with a great atmosphere. It uses a lot of the typical theme tropes (desert, forest, & so on) but has enough of a personality of it's own that it infuses into them. The real standout though is the Amusement Park region. You can definitely feel the auteur touch here as well, whether it be the monochrome hues of your home base or the Gameboy inspired aesthetics of it's various digital datascapes like the world map (and more...).
Music is a real standout as well, with some beautiful theme music that really hits home with the game's melancholic vibes.
Conclusion:
This is definitely going to be a game that sticks with me a long time. I doubt whatever I play next would ever have a chance of hitting the same kinda highs as this, so I'm not even going to try (I've started up Valkyrie Drive: Bhikunni, which is very much "B-game" quality, so I don't expect too much from it, and it's also much more of a bright & preppy game, which is a nice change of pace). Anyhow, Automata is definitely in the running for the best game I've played for the first time this year, and ironically enough it's biggest competition is South Park: the Stick of Truth, which while also a top tier RPG, couldn't be more different in terms of vibe, lol.
Time for a nice break.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Was disappointed with the ending battle between Robocop vs Robocop 2 (old man). Would've been better to end it after killing Wendel, and Robocop and Anne Lewis responding to the disturbance at OCP HQ. It is highly recommended to see the 1st and 2nd films before this, as you won't get all the references / easter eggs that's thrown at you every 5secs.
There's one thing that Teyon either overlooked or didn't think it's great as a gameplay thing. Robocop replenishes his organic parts with baby food. Where was the baby food dispenser at the holding cell? Couldn't Teyon implemented that in there? Maybe, it would be silly to have jars of baby food lying all over the place eg. sewers, steel mill, old Detroit, etc.
Overall, I had a great time with this old-fashioned kablammo, with Batman-style scanning for clues gameplay thrown in. This and the Indy game are two of the best licenced film franchise games that I've played this year. Even the skill tree and auto-9 upgrade systems were great.
Apart from the Robocop sequel coming out, I look forward to what other project Teyon would make. Either another licenced game or an original IP. If another licenced game, they have loads to choose from.
Die Hard
Aliens
Dredd – which one, the Sylvester Stallone or the Karl Urban one?
another crack at Rambo
Lethal Weapon
Blade Runner
Just finished Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo on Switch after about 10 hours of playtime. This is one of the best visual novels I've ever played. The story was so captivating from start to finish. A horror setting during 1980s Japan is right up my alley. Due to the horror setting, there are tons of cheap but effective jump scares.
Furthermore, it was fun experiencing the story through different characters, which I really liked, that eventually cross paths. The bite-sized nature of the story in terms of episodes made it more thrilling and your progress more clear. Also, sometimes there would be requirements in order to progress, for example doing something with one character and then switching over to the other character to fulfill the necessary criteria.
Moreover, the way you interact with the story through external means was really cool. It's a bit unfortunate that the true ending was really hard to figure out on your own as the rest of the game was fairly straight-forward.
I can't forget to mention the phenomenal soundtrack. The main theme instantly sets the vibes for the game:
All in all, this was an absolutely exceptional game. I haven't experienced such an impressive visual novel since Steins;Gate, which I played years ago. If you like visual novels, you absolutely have to play this one.
So yeah I recently played, and well beat Ninja Gaiden 2 Black some time ago. What did I think about the game? Well I think you can say that it was a very cool game with some interesting characters and moments.
I am not sure if it had something to do with the fact that Tamco Namco, or Team Ninja, used Unreal Engine 5 for the game which I guess can have contributed to make Ninja Gaiden 2 black look very nice, and well good imo.
Other than that I find the main story in Ninja Gaiden 2 Black cool and I can also state that I find the extra material in the game somewhat interesting as well. Not sure how many who have taken the time to explore it but I can very much recommend folks to have a look at it if they have a chance becuse it might be something something. Over what most ohter games have to offer . Its something with the game and franchise.
I feel lots of “good” things tend to happen on the screen when you play Ninja Gaiden imo:) So yeah guess it would maybe be something of an understatement to state that that the games look cool to me.
Beside the graphics and controls, I find the choices you make in the game are very cool. Because it very much opens up the game(s) in a kind of an (un)expected way . Its like chapter inself to me tbh. Elements .
I also think the characters in the Ninja Gaiden games, is cool as well. And underappreciated maybe. Not least from a graphics or animation standpoint of view so to speak. Not least the femele ones tbh are cool to.
I guess you can ask if the animations in Ninja Gaiden are one of the better in industry? Even if there is of course some competition in the space or market.
One question I have asked many times when it comes to Ninja Gaiden is btw why the franchise is not more well known then it currently is. It does not feel like Tamco Namco or Team Ninja never get that credit for the work they do which I do find kind of unfortunate in a way. Not least if we look at things such as animation and the general systems which exist in at least in the modern Ninja Gaiden games. To me it's like a little bit of a mystery in some ways because I understand that Tamco Namco is not like a major crop but I guess a quite small studio at least compared to some other studios in the video game business. To me Ninja Gaiden is something special. And a series I dont want to foregot about.
I picked up Labyrinth of the Demon King since the reviews have been solid. I’ve played about two hours of it so far and it’s really interesting. The act of walking can feel a bit stiff, but everything else is good, and sometimes even great.
The atmosphere is incredibly unsettling. It’s set in this gothic Japanese locale, and features that retro PS1 graphic aesthetic. It’s essentially a first person survival horror adventure, with elements of Sekiro (parry system) and Dark Souls (enemy designs).
Meanwhile, you’re traversing castle grounds, underground caverns, and cramped buildings with finding maps and solving puzzles akin to Resident Evil, all the while using your sword to kill enemies. There are also side quests, where you can upgrade your weapon(s). I’m not sure if there is a variety of weapons, but I’ve found various items that suggest there are.
So far, just in this short amount of time, the game has been great. I think my feelings will change, whether positively or negatively, on how long the game is, and if it will lose its luster. Right now, however, it’s worth the $15.00. It’s on PlayStation, but I picked it up on my Switch.
A sort of review of Division 2 in 2025 as a returning player / a sort of review of the Battle for Brooklyn DLC:
To this day, there is no game I have put more hours into than the Division 2 (unless you count like, maybe games like Monster Hunter World or Destiny, where I played them on multiple different platforms, but then you are fudging it a bit). But it was very clear the WONY DLC and the corresponding season were really meant to be the end of the Division 1 and 2 experience, ready to lead us into Division 3.
I'm not sure if it is because of the pandemic or something else, but it didn't play out that way, with the Division 2 moving into a multi year seasonal model, that was clearly extending a story beyond the limits of where that story was ever meant to go. They introduced new gear, new modes were added, along with new story developments but none of it was very substantial, and most of it was just a lot of remixing of what was already there.
To the shock of everyone I think, five years on from WONY, Division 2 got a second, true, expansion. Battle for Brooklyn. It brought back an old Skill from Division 1, injected the pool with both new, returning and reworked gear, offered us a new open world space and a collection of new story missions. All priced less than the premium season pass bundle to be clear, so I think they set expectations fairly around what exactly you were getting with this DLC.
This is the confusing part, because after beating the DLC, I feel really whelmed by the whole experience, but it is almost like for the price they set, they've sort of made it critically bulletproof, because how high can your expectations really be, with a price tag like that? My issue more with this though, is not really in the content offering itself, and more that I had hoped this DLC would be set up ready for us to step straight into the Division 3, but that isn't what this DLC is. Instead, it is a fairly meaningless side quest, broken into a few story missions which can be cleared within just a few hours, filled with muted, difficult to follow story execution, that leads basically to nowhere.
In addition, for someone like me who fell off of the Division 2 probably around 3 years ago the game is almost impregnable as a returning player. From a story perspective, it seems almost everything definitive up to the end of WONY has now been undone and Battle for Brooklyn makes no concessions for those who haven't played through every season. As such, villains I had killed in previous content were now alive, and we were on the same side, so it just gave me extreme whiplash and pulled me out of it. Using Wikipedia to catch myself up, as there doesn't appear to be anything in game I can use, I see the desperate need to keep extending this story beyond its intended shelf life has mostly required an extreme jumping of the shark. Now people can come back from the dead. Use AI and deepfakes to fake their own death or allow basically anything to take place, with a magic undo button. This for me basically kills all story investment, because the story can never have permanence ever again.
In addition, from a gameplay perspective, while truly meaningful content has been rarely added to the Division 2 over the years, there is still a lot of game here which you'll organically learn you way around as you go through your journey with the game. Coming back though, there is no reminders, nor anything to point out what may have changed, or been added (there are a mountain of pop ups you have to wade through when you log back in for the first time, but they aren't driven by context, so you'll read a bunch of stuff you won't understand, close the pop up with no clear how to access it again and then when you finally end up at a point where you may need that information, it has only left your brain. This means huge amounts of the content available for you to do in the game is buried within menus, under sub menus, within even more menus making it completely unclear what the long term loop is beyond the new campaign missions.
In addition to this, while it is neat the game lets you play legacy content from past seasons (if you can find it, which is no easy feat) this content is absolutely dead from a matchmaking perspective, so you either gotta hope you have friends who will play, or be willing to lower the difficulty right down (meaning terrible loot) as this game's tuning is now no longer single player friendly.
Yet, despite how negative this probably all reads, playing this game again just reminds me of why I fell for this game in the first place, and gave up hundreds of hours of my life to it. No other looter feels closer to an ARPG in terms of its robust systems, and mechanics. Even with huge chunks of the depth being torn out by Gear 2.0, there is still no looter that sets the mind racing with a drop quite like the Division does. Each build forming effectively an ARPG class of its own, offering new ways to play and engage with the game, offering you a new dynamic within a team, and with three years + a DLC worth of new gear to add to my collection, I'm sure I've got plenty of hours ahead of me, as I once again absolutely lose my life to this game.
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