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.
I wrote this piece on Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition last month on a whim, and I'd figured I'd give it a small make-over and post it here now.
Xenoblade Chronicles is the first JRPG I ever bought. In the last few months of 2023, I became highly intrigued by this particular franchise due to the praise I’d been hearing for the third entry’s Future Redeemed DLC. It promised to tie up the narrative ends of the three games and mix them altogether into a glorious finale bringing this trilogy’s over-arching narrative to an end. As a fan of narrative writing in any form, I feel like it’s not that often this kind of joint resolution to three stories worth of different characters and narrative is attempted. The attempt and the apparent success of it is what ultimately got me to start it and experience the full journey, so that I will hopefully be able to experience the same level of delight and satisfaction by the end of it.
Admittedly, the game and I started off on a rocky note. The underleveled nature of my party compared to the very first enemies I was coming across made the combat feel like nothing more than an uphill climb with an unhealthy dose of RNG. The near-instant deluge of nameless NPCs giving me fetch quest after fetch quest filled me with a sense of dread only modern open-world games can match. The more than occasionally questionable voice acting gave me the impression that this might not be the kind of narrative I would be getting much fun out of. And so, after a rough three hours with a rather unimpressive first impression, I dropped the game. It was as I expected… JRPGs were simply not my genre.
Fast forward to about a year later, when I played Metaphor: ReFantazio, stealing the thunder as my first ever JRPG finished. I got along better with it to the point that I managed to finish the whole thing, which in and of itself is almost unheard of for me in recent years with the ungodly length of it. While the combat systems are entirely different, playing it did expose me to more of JRPG-style mechanics and the style of storytelling. And surprisingly, by the end of it, I was yearning for more. So, with my newfound appreciation of a JRPG game and a longing for another humongous undertaking, what other game could possibly fit the bill? How convenient I had a dusty cartridge of Xenoblade Chronicles sitting there just waiting for someone to plug it into a Switch.
I got the gang back together again, or rather the three or four characters I had met by the point I quit previously. I was quick to notice that something had changed within me. Something was not the same. The enemies I had trouble with just over a year ago suddenly were a total walk in the park. It was like I experienced real personal growth instead of living vicariously through my characters leveling up and upgrading their gear. I contribute that to two different ways in which I played differently. First of all, I made sure to actually level up to the enemies I was facing.
It might sound to an obvious fix to all of you role-playing aficionados, but as someone who had been exclusively used to playing the type of adventure or action-adventure games where keeping an eye on your level was mostly absent from the experience, going out of my way to keep my level on par was far from second nature for me. Secondly, which goes hand in hand with the first, is that I stopped trying to rush to the next big story beat and just enjoy my time with it. Long games, especially open-world games, intimidate me to the point I have often tried to limit the time spent finishing it as much as possible (and failing). Now that I had a, by my standards, ridiculously elongated playtime with the aforementioned JRPG under my belt, I felt less intimidated by it and left myself the space to just explore and get to the next waypoint on my own time.
The combat system itself is nothing to write home about. I appreciate that they tried to go for a different route instead of the usual turn-based mechanics of most JRPGs, but I think what they ended up with was simultaneously over- and underbaked with a sprinkle of RNG and far too many sprinkles of the same flavor. The endless tutorials you start the game with promise a probably hard to learn, hard to master set of combat mechanics, and that is how I experienced it at first. I had no clue what I was doing with any of the moves I had or what build I should even go for or where I should even stand. Add insult to injury that I absolutely hate creating builds for anything in any game and would rather just go ahead and play it. Arranging a bunch of moves out of many possibilities to create the most synergized set, deciding which armor sets fit my playstyle best, inserting my gear with the most beneficial thingamajigs to get the most power out of myself for combat situations… blah blah blah. I could not care less, and this game throws all of it in my face.
My solution was to simply ignore the thingamajigs aside from what I had collected from loot, just put on the armor with the best physical defense at any point, and stick with the default movesets the game decided for me whenever I’d receive a new character. I simply do not want to put more thought into it than that, and luckily, that was enough to let me mostly brute-force any average encounter without problems. The problem came in when I wanted to fight enemies slightly overleveled compared to my party, where I quickly realized RNG was a huge part of this game. You can get an enemy down to almost no health the first try, respawn, and somehow die without the same enemy having even lost a third of its health bar the second time around. That was incredibly frustrating, but luckily, I was barely ever in a situation where an enemy was notably higher in level than myself. And if they were, it usually meant I had no need to fight them in the first place.
A certain white-haired lady ended up my go-to party leader, as I found her skill set to be the least difficult to play, in a party with a (weirdly too old for his behavior) furball and a bloke whose sword I’d unapologetically stolen. They dominated my party so much that by the end I would’ve probably forgotten other options existed if not for the constant reminders of them in cutscenes. None of them saved the combat scenarios from being overly repetitive, and I think none of the others would have helped on that front either, but it was a solid party to get enemies down with in a quick enough fashion that I could deal with the repetition.
The ambush of exclamation marks on my mini-map materializing themselves into NPCs wanting me to pick some flowers felt less off-putting by now too. I figured that at this point I’d dug many a rock or slain many an enemy for people irrelevant to my saving the princess. What’s another odd job between friends? I’ll take your request and see if I get back to it within the next hundred working hours. That said, I quickly grew an entirely new appreciation for the 449 side quests (stay with me here) to the point that by the time I finished the game, I probably finished 98% of them. This part has less to do with JRPG as a genre as a whole, but with the Affinity system the game smartly implemented.
Most NPCs in the game are named and will in some way be related to other NPCs you can interact with throughout each area, which is presented in an absolute nightmare of a statistical chart called the Affinity Chart. Through this chart, you can see the ways in which all the citizens of Bionis are connected, whether that’s through a romantic relationship or because someone stole someone else’s lollipop one time and they’re still super upset about it. The genius thing the side quests do is that they integrate themselves with this chart, where it will update whenever you finish practically any side quest with new information or events that happened that affect the quest-givers relationship to any person.
Suddenly a fetch quest felt less like a fetch quest and more like integrating myself into a community and happily learning more about the goings-on, even if yes, it ultimately still was a fetch quest where someone lost their favorite teddy bear on a remote island. I became invested in the people living in this city through the stories the Affinity chart and the only slightly narratively dressed-up side quests were telling. It no longer felt like a chore, but like a chore I had to do because I didn’t want to risk upsetting Dorothy by not giving her life advice after I got her shoe polished at another colony roughly weeks of traveling away. The fact that finishing certain quests and unlocking certain Affinity between different NPCs unlocked more quests that were directly tied to either previous quests or their relationship too, just added a bunch of depth to it that I couldn’t help but appreciate.
And my final initial reservation, the quality of the narrative and the voice acting. I can’t necessarily say that I personally did anything to make either better or worse, but I can say that the way I engaged with it was less instantly judgmental and let me end up loving the narrative and characters for what they are instead of what I’d make them. The voice acting has a certain charm when you get used to it, and there’s actually a fair few moments throughout the narrative where the actors are truly giving it their best and mostly succeeding. The plot also quickly won me over and despite some pacing mishaps here and there, ended up being an emotionally resonant tale of a group of people doing the thing that they seem to always do at the end of a JRPG... as is my now expert opinion after having played only two. The journey to it, however, was incredibly engaging and filled with many highs to keep my commitment to it ongoing.
I do have to say that it’s not a perfect story and there’s definitely a few things here and there I ding the ultimate scoring of the game for, which mainly is the characters. While they’re all charming in their own right and serve their purpose, with most having solidly written character arcs and some real over-arching plot importance, their personalities are nothing more than that. They’re charming and serve their purpose in the story, that’s all. Outside of the necessities of even wanting to engage with them at all, they’re rather bland and lack much depth. I enjoyed spending my time with them in the moment as virtual avatars for playing through the game, but they’re not characters I would hold on a high pedestal as being the peak of character work, because there is simply just not that much to them.
The Heart-to-Hearts, which are events meant to deepen the relationship between two characters in your party, do some lifting to add a bit more to the characters, but are too few and far between to have any meaningful impact. They also, as a side note, are very annoying to complete as the game will lock them behind a certain Affinity if you have not yet achieved it when you first find them, and afterwards will refuse to let you know exactly where this Heart-to-Heart was when you eventually do reach the threshold and search for it in your menu. I’ve heard the Definitive Edition makes a lot of quality-of-life changes to the map in regards to quests, but this is seemingly an area where a change would’ve been highly appreciated yet was skipped over.
Something that I never got far enough to explore my first time around was the exploration of the maps you’re given to freely roam around, which turned out to be one of my favorite activities in the game. My issue with many modern open-world games is that they don’t truly encourage you to explore for the sake of exploring outside of putting a god-forsaken number of markers on your map telling you there’s some bandits to beat up here or another [insert time period-appropriate tower] to go up there. I never find exploration satisfying because even if I do decide to explore for my own sake, many of these open-world games feel quickly repetitive in their locales or the architecture they decide to put on the map. This is where Xenoblade Chronicles does a way better job at keeping the exploration interesting.
The game is divided into many different maps you’ll be traversing through to reach your final destination of the narrative. Each one feels incredibly different and new, making it so that you won’t quickly be bored of the type of environment you’re currently exploring. The maps have hidden landmarks you won’t be able to find other than deciding to explore yourself, and more importantly… it has the most serotonin-inducing visual and audio cue that happens any time you reach a new area the game deems noteworthy. Sure, it serves the main purpose mechanically of being a new waypoint to fast travel to, but the instant gratification I feel when this visual and sound pops up made exploring in and of itself worth it. Maybe I’m just easily entertained, I’ll concur. But in a world where Survivor-like serotonin simulators are now a genre themselves, I feel like this was likely intentional more than anything.
This brings me to the finale of the game and my thoughts alike: Future Connected, a little side-campaign added as a bonus for long-time fans in the Definitive Edition. I was pleased to see that my favorite white-haired lady returned as the main focus on the campaign’s narrative, as I’d gotten most narratively invested in her arc. And also, because I would’ve hated to get to grips with a new moveset this late into the experience. At this point I want to hear nothing other than "summon Earth!" and "summon Copy!" and many blasting sound effects while characters are constantly screaming catchphrases out of the poor Switch’s speaker. It served as a satisfying finale to some of the plot points left untouched by the end of the main game and ended the full experience on a positive note. It doesn’t reach the highs of the game at its best, as I don’t imagine it was intended to, but it never drops into the worst of the main games’ weaknesses either.
The most notable thing I found mechanically in Future Connected was the removal of the Heart-to-Hearts in favor of the so-called Quiet Moments. They serve the same purpose as the Heart-to-Hearts, but are simply locked behind story progression instead of Affinity. Unlike the Heart-to-Hearts, they also include full voice acting, which I believe was both a blessing and a curse. I often resented the lack of voice acting for the main game’s Heart-to-Hearts. These are supposed to be building blocks to the characters’ personalities, which felt cheapened by the fact that they weren’t even given full resources to bring the best out of them. Here they receive it, but the Quiet Moments often felt lacking in their writing and overly long due to it. There are a few stand-out ones involving a sister that really do a lot to develop that relationship, but it ultimately just made me wish that the same level of effort and attention was put into the main game equivalent. Oh, and the Nopon inspectors were delightful.
***
Verdict: 93 hours later and I’m left with an incredibly positive impression of the whole game. It has its faults, surely, but the journey was narratively impressive at its best and mind-numbingly engaging at its worst. I ended the game with full-star Affinity for each of the areas, and some real investment in some of the NPCs I met along the way. I can’t name a single other game with that many different NPCs and quest-givers that worked together to actually form a believable community of people that I actively went out of my way to help out. And isn’t that ultimately the whole point of the game? Rejecting the old and finding new ways to co-exist and thrive together? I can’t help but feel it mirrors how my experience on a meta level went exactly. I rejected what I thought I wanted from the game and let me teach me how to love it instead, and along the way created the kind of parasocial relationships that made me want the best for this world and for its characters to be able to thrive. Enough with the “narratively”. It was personally satisfying, and that is the mark of a great game.
@Tjuz How did I miss this post? Anyway, great write-up! You'll be happy to know that XC2 vastly improves the Heart-to-Heart system, making it very easy to see those sequences without arbitrary affinity levels getting in the way, and XC3 changes up that system altogether.
The Definitive Edition definitely makes a lot of positive changes that actually allowed me to complete the game on my third attempt (tried the original on Wii and 3DS and struggled to get into it on either of those systems), but it's still a wildly flawed game. It's worth playing, though, even if it is my least favorite one in the trilogy, and yeah, once you get to Future Redeemed, there'll be SO many callbacks.
It's cool to see someone opening themselves up to JRPGs for the first time. Do you know when you'll get to the sequels? And are there any other Atlus games you're planning to get to besides Metaphor?
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
@Ralizah Thank you! I'm happy to hear that improvements are made to the Heart-to-Hearts in particular. I think they were a great idea for developing the characters, but just poorly executed in their current form. I've heard very divisive things regarding people opinions comparing the first to the second game, mostly in terms of the tone of each. I'm sure there's much that they undoubtedly improve though, and the fact that you prefer it overall gives me hope that I might feel the same! But yeah, I'm not surprised it was a struggle for you to get through initially as well. It seems to be a shared experience by many fans, but at least the ones who persevere are rewarded!
I'm not sure when I'll get the sequels. I'm an incredibly impulsive person when it comes to deciding which games to start when, and with over 70 games installed between my PC and Switch, it's hard to say when will be the time I press play. I think it'll be sooner rather than later though, but having just finished up The Outer Worlds 2, it might take me a few months to recover from one humongous game before jumping into the next. I don't currently have any other Atlus games on my radar, since neither Shin Megami Tensei or Persona have ever really appealed to me in terms of their setting. I'll admit I know a lot less about the former than the latter though, so it might be worth looking into it more at the very least. I think most likely I'll try to get into Final Fantasy 7 Remake next, but I've also been eyeing Octopath Traveler 2 fairly often since installing it! Whenever I get to a new one, I'll let you know!
The first entry of The Outer Worlds franchise was the first game I played and finished on my first gaming PC. Aside from being a fan overall, it holds a special place in my heart for that. Over the years, there's been a seemingly ever-growing contingent of people who criticised the original from everything to its writing, pacing and quest design. I refused to let it affect my rose-tinted view of the game, which was made especially easy by having never felt any of those issues to be true myself. I thought the writing was comically on point. The criticism of the pacing overblown. The quest design to offer narratively interesting arcs and consequences. No wonder that when they finally revealed the sequel in all its marketing glory, I was excited to recapture the love I felt for this pivotal universe in my gaming history. When reviews started pouring in calling the sequel everything the first was but better, I don't think my hype could've reached a higher stratosphere. Now that I've landed on the other side... they say to never meet your heroes.
It starts off well enough. The visuals are breathtaking. The combat is refined. From the very first conversations you have with NPCs, it seems like the role-playing mechanics are deepened and your choices in both your skills and actions will be more important than ever. In every way, it seemed like the reviews were right. This is an improved version of everything the first game tried to be, but ultimately didn't quite have the budget to achieve. It's a feeling that, despite my mixed reaction to the sequel overall, stays true for the full extent of the game. Everything feels more fleshed-out and of higher-caliber production. When people say money can't buy happiness however, it seems the case here all the same. All the extra money, time and effort undoubtedly put into the development couldn't buy the sense of true engagement that any video game aims for. I was playing it. I was going through the motions. Yet, outside of a few rare moments, it never went beyond that. I've had to confront if the criticism of the first was right after all. Was I blinded by the allure of running a newly released title on my newly built PC? There might be a case to be made there, but the larger issue seems to personally come down to one thing in particular: the narrative.
The Outer Worlds 2 sets you off in a new region of space called Arcadia. Outside of a merged company comprised out of two of the first game's factions, the characters and factions you will meet throughout are newly invented for this story. Newly invented might be a somewhat of a generous term, since the four factions are all varying shades of incredibly generic. Auntie's Choice serves as the returning player, but feels like nothing but a rehash of the same humor they employed for both factions in the original. The Order is a highly typical scientist society where all work towards the betterment of mankind with some predictably shady dealings in the process. These two are the only factions you build reputation that have any actual importance to the over-arching narrative and your choices. The Protectorate is the enemy faction, in that you will spend most of your time fighting humans fighting them. The black sheep of the galaxy, but for no interesting reasons. It is simply because they're authoritarian and territorial, which therefore paints them as the most evil. Sub Rosa exists as your black market network, but is never at any point related to the major goings-on nor has any depth. You could remove them from the game without changing anything else and nothing of value would be lost.
In a genre where having a strong narrative is one of the driving factors in the quality of your project, having an unimpressive collection of groups to deal with is one of the worst sins you can commit. There are no twists and turns within their characterisation. No insightful commentary into the inner workings of the stereotypes they portray. What is there is entirely surface level, with possibly a few ethical or philosophical debates thrown in to momentarily convince you there might be some deeper writing at play here. It feels reactionary to say it's elementary school-level of thesis writing, which it's obviously not, but it doesn't shake the feeling that it is. The moral quandaries they will try to throw at you are that only in name, because there is always a best option if you have skillfully built your character or gathered enough information to get the best outcome. For the most part, anyone coming into any confrontation prepared will not leave it with a surprising or disappointing outcome. Disappointing only if you expected better, which I do from a studio with decades of experience behind them.
You might hope that even if the main factions are weak, the overall narrative and companions might jump in to save the whole ordeal. I've never been more disappointed to say that it's equally not the case. The main story evolves over time from a typical revenge arc to your usual saving the galaxy trope. I'm always in for a good revenge arc, but the writers seemed to have missed the necessary prerequisite to pulling it off successfully. Mainly, making the player genuinely invested in getting said revenge. The story will tell you that they're a traitor to your cause. It will tell you through its companions how badly they want revenge on them. It will tell you how much it's of utmost importance to stop them from committing more heinous acts. You're actively being told how to feel about this person, but the groundwork was never laid to elicit true emotion from the player. You barely know anything about this person at all, which is not something that's slowly rectified as you play more. Sure, you learn about their motives, but I couldn't tell you one thing about their backstory after having just finished a good 65 hours playing or why I should hate them beyond the basics of what they want you to feel. There is nothing to react to on a personal level. Only impersonal plot points.
I became slightly more interested with what the game eventually turned into with its narrative, but it wasn't a very notable difference. Saving the universe is an easier motive to grasp onto than having to feel betrayal from a person you only just met. The end-of-universe scenario presented is somewhat interesting, yet they could've done more with it. I will say that it results in an exciting finale hinging on the paths you chose to take in the story, which was a great highlight to end the full experience on. The ending slides presented to you before the credits roll also seemed to cover most of what I was wondering about and served as a thoughtful epilogue to the actions I've taken over the course of my journey. On that front, it satisfyingly ended an underwhelming narrative, but it didn't do anything to elevate the thoughts I have regarding it as a whole.
As for the companions, they get better treatment than most characters in that they are by far the most fleshed out. The issue with them remains however, that standing out in a game full of unmemorable characters is hardly the most difficult of tasks. I liked how the companions felt like they were truly committed to their own view of the world and not instantly amenable to seeing things your way. The way they develop over the course of the action while staying true to their own character was well-executed. They simply are not particularly memorable. None of them will be likely to enter the pantheon of the most beloved companions for any person playing. They have a good enough diversity of personalities between them and some of their quests are the highlights of the story, but they're far from expertly crafted characters you just want to root for. They fulfill their purpose of helping you along your journey, but I'm not very invested in what will happen to them afterwards other than seeing whether my own actions had any effect on their future. This is an issue the first game shared however, which itself had no companions that truly stood out in the broader gaming landscape.
It's a shame that I've had to be so negative about the writing. As I've said, the game does ultimately feel like it's an improvement on the first game in almost all of its areas. It's exactly what's made me question my memory of the first entry. If I agree that almost everything is better in this one, is it simply my own external feelings that I had around the previous game that's making me think more positively of its writing as well? It's possible. I'd like to say that I don't think the writing is necessarily of piss-poor quality at any point. It's not. It's (mostly) competently written, but that's about the nicest thing you can say about it. You could say it's still better than a lot of video game narratives. The problem arises where this game is supposed to rely on it. If there's no story to want to role-play in, then what am I playing a role-playing game for? Other stories may be worse overall, but they often have other mechanics they either focus on or lift them up entirely. Even if everything else in this game is above average, that simply doesn't cut it for this genre.
When it comes to the other aspects of the game, it's worth talking about them. The combat feels very polished and fun to play. There's many different weapons with exciting gimmicks, though I've personally not used much of them. The stealth attacks feel very satisfying to pull off even if I only realised a long while from the start of the game that it worked with guns too. I did find companions within combat to be rather useless. In almost every battle, there'd be one of them that would instantly go down. I'm not sure if I missed anything besides upgrading their levels and choosing their mods that could've avoided that, but if I did, the game never pointed me in the right direction. I was often left to fend for myself, which is maybe the first time I felt like a ''Lone Ranger'' in a RPG game without having choosen that type of perk equivalent. The difficulty of the fights is well balanced and I never felt like I ran into a really difficult spike, nor did I feel like I ever became overly powerful. The enemies were always able to keep up with my team and I as much as I was able to keep up with their scaling health pools.
What wasn't scaled as professionally was the levels of your character. I reached max level a long time before I ever came close to the end of the game. You could say that that might be a personal thing because I explored too much, but I've seen the same sentiment expressed by almost every player of the game. There was a good one-to-two dozen hours where I gained absolutely no experience, and thus no reward was given outside of currency (which I already had way too much of) or guns (when I had already settled on my favourite way to engage combat). It removed incentive from a game that desperately needed it in the moments where the story was lacking. My insistence with clearing my quest log was enough to incentivise me to do them still, but I wish that feeling wouldn't have had to come externally. I did like how it is fairly brutal with the amount of skills you can specialise in and actively use. The skill checks can be unforgiving, and you might simply be out of luck with doing some things here and there. That made the way I built my character feel important, which is always a benefit in a game like this. I've seen sentiment expressed that they could've been more loose with the points given, but this is one place where I personally wouldn't have changed a thing.
As I've mentioned before, the visuals are indeed breathtaking. Plenty of stunning vistas are offered to you throughout the course of your journey. The art directors absolutely understood the assignment like no one else on this project. I'm sure the capabilities of the controversial Unreal Engine 5 were also a very helpful tool there, but it still takes the people working with it to make the best out of it. That they did. Not only is it just beautifully directed, but the fidelity of the textures are also top-notch. I can't say I've noticed any stretchy, blurring textures throughout my whole playtime. They had a lot more time to bring this world to life visually and clearly optimised it to the best extent. I will also add that I noticed none of the trappings that Unreal Engine 5 games are usually accused of, such as stuttering. Technically, a very well optimised and gorgeous game which I can only wish had better bones attached to it. A case of style over substance, but not due to a lack of trying for the latter. The only thing I would've asked for graphically is the sorely missing photo mode.
Another thing I want to mention as being actually impressive is the quality of the animations. I have exclusively played in first-person mode, so I will only be able to comment on the animations from that view. The few times I switched to third-person only to make certain screenshots, they did seem a lot more janky, but it's not something that affected my experience on a regular basis. In first-person, they're buttery smooth in the way both your body moves and how it interacts with objects in the environments. From simple actions like performing skill checks such as hacking, engineering or to reloading your gun, it feels really good and satisfying. Unfortunately, the NPCs are limited to generic movements for the most part unless the dialogue calls for something specific, but the pool of those is wide enough that I didn't necessarily mind. The quality of those often reused animations were not quite on par, but not enough to distract from the high-quality nature of the rest.
***
Verdict: All in all, it's hard to call The Outer Worlds 2 an actively bad game. The sum of its parts includes a lot of good on a mechanical and visual level, but it's all dragged down by the mediocre writing of the game's characters, narrative and factions. It's disappointing that after a long wait and a prospective successful franchise, they seem to have shot themselves in the foot with making this sequel the worst of all: largely boring. It's not going to convince anyone who didn't enjoy the first to become a fan. I will assume it will only validate their feelings of the first one. For me, it made me question my views instead of validating anything, which is easily a worse feeling. I think many people who will come into the sequel who enjoyed the first will similarly be disappointed, but I genuinely hope their mileage will vary for their own sake. It's a shame when a game does not live up to your expectations, even if I may have put them unreasonably high after all. I had a hard time deciding whether I should grade this game a five or a six, but ultimately a five felt more appropriate as I consider that to be a truly mediocre game. Sadly, that seems the most appropriate word I can use to describe this one. A mediocre game with certain strengths in all the worst places for its genre. Alas, may we possibly meet again in future under better circumstances.
@Tjuz I have fond memories of the first, too. But I never finished it. I think the studio is perhaps stretched a little too thin now. I love them and their creativity, but they deserve bigger backing, more time and staff/resources. In a way i'm kind of thinking maybe I want to mess around in this game now (or go back to the first)
Would you say, as an RPG and Sandbox where you can just do stuff without worrying about the story or factions or anything, that it is still a bunch of fun and has its moments unlike other games?
Maybe they should make a detective game (Well, I suppose they did in Pentiment) Or lean heavily into the detective elements rather than factions. They are good at those little stories hidden within the world, the conspiracies and investigations that help them unfold. And the way those type of stories unfold is usually quite user-driven and interesting, too. Was there an element of that this time?
@Tjuz XC2 has a lot of anime cringe in it, unlike the other games in the series (and even XC2's expansion, Torna: The Golden Country), so that was very off-putting to a lot of people. The gameplay and presentation also have a ton of rough edges, so I'm really hoping it gets a remaster at some point like XC1 and XCX did.
That said, despite its innumerable flaws, the things it does well it does so well that I had a great time overall with it anyway. Primarily the character growth and how well the overall story comes together, which resonated with me in a way that XC1's plot and character trajectories just didn't.
Which seems to jive nicely with that Outer Worlds 2 review you just posted. Plot and characters are so important to most RPGs: you can forgive so many flaws if they grip you, whereas, if they're lacking, they'll bring down an otherwise extremely competent game, as seems to be the case for you here.
TOW2 does seem to have landed with a bit of a thud this year, which, yes, does make me question peoples' reaction to the original game. I still need to play the original, so I'm hoping to get to it in the next year or two. It does feel like people are slowly cooling on Obsidian between the reactions to Avowed (which seems to have vanished from the public consciousness like a fart in the wind lmao) and now this game.
@Ravix@Ralizah Yeah, I am surprised by the output Obsidian manages to have despite (to my knowledge) still not being a huge studio when it comes to its employee count. Having three big-budget games between Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded 2 release within one year from the same studio is practically unheard of nowadays! It's a shame that both of the former haven't really connected, and I don't know enough about the latter to be able to say whether people are into the sequel. I think you're right though Ralizah, that it seems many people are getting somewhat disappointed by the studio nowadays. I haven't played enough from them overall to have any fully formed opinion on the studio, but it's a shame to see them have such a big year while at the same time a disappointing one overall.
@Ravix I'm sorry to say I don't think treating it as a sandbox without worrying about the narrative will make it a better experience. The worlds are densely packed with content, but a lot of it relates instantly back to either main quests or companion quests. You can do stuff like clearing out encampments and such before getting to the quest that'll require you to go there, but it'll be nothing more than a shooting range for the time with maybe some good loot then. There's not really any random events happening like you might expect from something like Fallout and the world state is barely alterable, whether through exploration or any big decisions. Despite having something around every corner, I wouldn't say it's particularly exciting content for the most part.
There's not much of a detective/small arcs element here, but there are a few exceptions. One of the quests where you can recruit a companion is a little "murder mystery"-type deal, which was fun but doesn't last for a very long time. I think mostly the companion quests are the ones you can point at as having those little arcs that try to do something different for a little bit. When it comes to anything that ties into the main quest, it comes across more as either a fetch quest or completing some type of task.
@Ralizah I wonder how I'll react to the more anime cringe tone. I do love campy stuff, so maybe I'll be totally fine with it... but of course anime cringe is still a far cry from what westerners see as campy. I have heard only good things about the narrative itself barring the tone, so I'll definitely get to it at some point sooner than later. It'll probably take me a while to complete it anyway, so I might as well start!
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