Been a long while since I was in the mood to do a big write up for a game I've completed, but the mood struck today.
Samurai Maiden (Steam) - 3rd person action title that sees ordinary high school girl Tsumugi transported to the Sengoku era where she's told she's the descendant of "the Priestess of Harmony" & is tasked with stopping the revival of the Demon Lord. She is joined by a trio of Shinobi consisting of Iyo, Hagane, & Komimi.
Gameplay:
Surprisingly it's not as much of a Warriors clone as first glance would seem to suggest. Half of the main levels are linear affairs consisting of battle arenas separated by light platforming segments (each level usually has 3-5 chests tucked away as well, which either contain permanent inventory upgrades or concept art). The battle segments usually feature 1 (or more) mid-boss enemies who must be defeated before you can move on (they're usually joined by waves of mooks who'll constantly respawn until you defeat the mid-bosses)
The other half of the main story levels are straight up just boss fights (these MAY have one treasure chest to collect right outside the boss arena). The first few are just slightly harder mid-boss style encounters that you'd be used to seeing elsewhere, but most are one on one fights against ever stronger versions of the same two unique characters.
Tsumugi is the only playable character, with the other 3 girls effectively being items/special attacks you can (and are encouraged to) swap on the fly. Iyo can throw a wave of shuriken at enemies in front of you & can use items (she has to be active for you to use healing items, for example), Hagane has a straight line piercing attack & has a grappling hook like arm that can be used to swing across large gaps & pull objects/enemies closer to you, while Komimi has a hammer attack that acts as crowd control if you're surrounded & can pick up bombs in the environment to be thrown at enemies/switches (these come up surprisingly little though, especially as the game goes on).
You'll want to make sure you're using all the girls though, as increasing your affinity with them unlocks heart to heart conversations which usually grant you new abilities (Iyo's enhance basic attacks/combos, Hagane's strong attacks/combos, & Komimi's defensive abilities like parrying/arial recovery) or increase their special attack guage. Side missions (known as "Bubble Pockets") that can only be taken on with a specific girl equipped are also unlocked this way. At some point you unlock the ability to link spirits with the other girls for a limited time power up. The higher your affinity with a specific girl the more powerful this state becomes (and the more intimate the power up sequence becomes, with the girls kissing at max affinity).
Speaking of "Bubble Pockets", these are side missions that are heavily platform/puzzle heavy (usually centered around the abilities of the girl they focus on) and must be completed before obtaining any further affinity perks. If you get a girl's affinity to level 40, you can't get that heart to heart's perk if you haven't yet completed their "Bubble Pocket" that unlocked when you got them to level 30, for example.
The game has 27 main story missions & 15 side missions (5 for each partner), and once complete you can replay them on Hard & then Demonic difficulties. I could be wrong, but it seems like the only unlockables are even more weapons (which when leveled up will undoubtedly be more useful in the higher difficulties) & extra concept art (the harder versions of a level have their own chests to find). There very well could be an alternate ending or something for all I know, but I doubt I'm going to go through all the trouble to find out.
The in game currency dropped by enemies is called Inga and is primarily used to level up your weapons. In addition to increasing basic attack power, increasing your weapon's level also unlocks passive buffs at certain thresholds (such as increased damage to stunned foes, etc.), and also increases your HP pool (your HP amount is tied to the level of the weapon you currently have equipped, so keep that in mind). You can also level up the weapons of the other girls (which increases the effectiveness of their special attack, & unlocks other passive buffs, such as increased Inga drop rates). You can also buy new outfits for the girls, but so far this seems limited to pallet swaps of their regular outfits so I haven't indulged (the swimsuits you see in some screenshots are DLC).
Story:
Probably lacking the budget for much in the way of traditional cutscenes, much of the story is relayed in the form of a visual novel like format at the start, sometimes in the middle, and at the end of levels (plus the heart to heart events). These can go on & on (especially the ones attached to "Bubble Pocket" missions) and while dialogue attached to the main story can be interesting enough, the girls will often talk fluff elsewhere though (ghost stories, food, etc.). I believe these can be skipped though, and you're not subjected to them during replays or when retrying a boss.
Just to note in case it's of interest, when the game launched all mentions of "High School" in the dialogue were localized to "Gen Z" in the English text, however (at least on Steam) this has been fixed in a patch. It was never a big deal, but sometimes it was clear that she was talking about "Gen Z" like it was a place (one conversation discussing the transition from Elementary, Middle, High School, to University was localized to discussing the differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, & Boomers), so ultimately the dialogue does flow a bit better with it fixed.
Graphics:
While boss levels & "Bubble Pockets" are constructed of reused assets aplenty, the longer main story levels are actually pretty uniquely bespoke. It can actually be a pretty nice looking game at times too when it wants to be, with lots of colorful particle effects both when defeating enemies & naturally occurring in the environment (like sakura petals falling or embers rising from magma). There is even some fine detail like Tsumugi's uniform becoming slightly transparent when wet (such as a rainy level or when you run in water), or the characters becoming visibly scuffed up/dirty upon taking so many hits.
Of course given the nature of the game there are some ecchi elements as well (such as the aforementioned transparent uniform effect) which of course are of a very niche interest & thus are worth bringing up as a warning. The most blatant of these elements is the fact that the game flagrantly flashes Tsumugi's panties with almost every action (particularly during jumps or dodge rolls), though there's also the standard "jiggle physics" you can expect from such fare as well (this surprisingly applies to the character's behinds as well, though only becomes noticeable in the swimsuit DLC AFAIK). That said the game blacks out the underside of skirts during photo mode, so it does prevent players from being too juvenile with the feature.
Overall:
It's obviously not on the level of a Ninja Gaiden or DMC in terms of quality in the genre, but as far as ecchi games go it's a stronger contender than I'm used to from such fare. While the combat isn't as slick as in the better Senran Kagura games, I think the platforming/puzzle elements sprinkled in here & there make up for it enough to be a worthy competitor.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
@RR529 Nice write-up. As someone who enjoyed the early Senran Kagura games (where they balanced out the cheesecake factor with decent character writing), I've had my eye on this for a bit. I feel like this is the closest we're getting to a proper spiritual successor to that series. Although it sounds like the game manages to stand out on its own and mixes in some different action game influences, which is nice to see.
The way the game handles side characters, and the synergy between 'powering up' and fetishized lesbianism definitely calls to mind older PS Vita releases like Kenichiro Takaki's under-appreciated brawler Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni.
Definitely something I'll keep an eye on when it inevitably starts dropping in price during sales.
Untitled Goose Game Platform: Nintendo Switch Time to Completion: 1 - 2 hours
Here we are, the first game I've completed in 2023! I wanted to start out with something a bit light, and that I've been curious about, so I opted for Untitled Goose Game (UGG henceforth). Released in 2019, it quickly became one of those games that would get everyone repeating the same ridiculous jokes and phrases whenever it was mentioned, which quickly grew old for me. Now that the fad has faded, though, and one isn't suffered to wade through a small ocean of goose jokes and memes, the question becomes how the game has held up since its release, and especially for someone who isn't necessarily transfixed by the idea of playing as a goose.
While the marketing heavily emphasizes the chaotic or mischievous element of playing a game where a wild bird terrorizes people throughout a small town, UGG is actually a much more structured experience than one might expect. There's no plot or larger context to the events. The player is given a (vaguely sociopathic) checklist of goals to accomplish within each area, which ranges from the absurdly simple (drag a rake into a nearby pond) into more involved activities (one of the more interesting ones involves figuring out how to lure a shopkeeper out into the street so that you can record yourself on the store's security feed). UGG feels a bit like a Hitman game insofar as stealth is heavily required throughout the game, but also because the tasks you need to perform are structured like puzzles, and the bulk of the gameplay involves carefully manipulating factors in the world to achieve your goal.
This is all achieved, mind, via a limited number of player inputs. You can waddle around (slightly faster if you hold the B button), duck your head, honk, spread your wings (which seems to exist purely to play into the simulation aspect of the experience), and interact with objects via your beak. That's it. But there's a lot of things you can accomplish with a beak and an endless sense of malice, whether it's luring people into traps and then knocking pots onto their heads, tripping and terrifying children, or snatching random articles of clothing from peoples' bodies and tossing them in the creek.
Once you complete a set of tasks in an area, you'll gain access to the next area of the game. And... this is it. Unlike most modern video games. UGG's scope is very focused and limited. You won't be heading to waypoints or unlocking new skills for your goose to use. You repeat the same gameplay pattern four or five times, complete one final task that takes you back to the beginning of the game, and the credits roll. There's actually more to do afterward: completing a few post-game task lists will reward the player with a meaningless trinket for their trouble. There's nothing else to unlock or progress in, though. The entire game can be comfortably completed in a single afternoon.
It's a simple experience, then, and not a deeply fulfilling one. In a way, this feels more like the skeleton of a larger experience. Nevertheless, the game does what it does well: levels are designed to encourage stealth and player creativity; most of the puzzle solutions make sense once you realize the steps needed to achieve them, and hints can be gleaned from how the townsfolk react to various player actions; the world itself is fully interconnected once shortcuts are opened to connect the areas, like in a Souls game; and it's clear that plenty of love and attention was poured into the simulation aspect of controlling the goose, from how it adorably waddles around to the ways in which it reacts to environmental stimuli. Less attention, unfortunately, was paid to the townsfolk, whose walking animations frequently broke throughout the game. Nevertheless, if you're in the mood for a short, unique puzzle/stealth game, you could certainly do worse than Untitled Goose Game.
@Ralizah Despite admitting that you found the whole experience slightly unfulfilling, it sounds like you had a much better time with Untitled Goose Game than I did, which is great (and whilst we're here, congratulations on getting your first game of 2023 completed so quickly)! As a fellow latecomer to the meme, I expected more than I got, which was ultimately a deep discomfort about the game's bully-based objectives. The fact that you've been able to accurately describe, discuss and analyse the entire thing in a handful of paragraphs (which are well-written as always) speaks volumes about the game's reputation being bigger than the game itself. Let's just say that I hope you didn't pay full price!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger It probably also helps that there really isn't just much to the game, is there? It's very basic. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like it when game developers can focus their design scope and deliver a particular type of experience, without catering to industry trends. With that said, my appreciation of this was somewhat distant. I think it's well-designed for what it is, but what it is didn't ultimately end up being massively enjoyable.
I actually expected more of a bullying tone than what I got, considering the tone of the marketing was literally: "lolol run around terrorizing people with this annoying animal!" I think the mission-based structure distracted from that element of the game a bit. You could have easily had a sandbox world designed for players to create chaos in, and that's more what I was expecting than a tightly-wound stealth/puzzle game.
I share digital libraries with my nephew, who actually bought the game new the moment he saw all of his favorite Youtubers were playing it, so this didn't cost me a dime! The quick completion time was a bit of a shock, I think, being the sort of person who is usually nose-deep in an 80+ hour JRPG epic. If I liked it more, that'd be a huge plus for me, since other short experiences like Portal, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Spyro the Dragon often felt endlessly replayable to me in the past. As it stands, not being a big fan, and not having invested any of my own money in it, I do also consider the short length of it a plus!
@Ralizah Yeah - I remember the buzz around that game was basically that it was "Grand Theft Auto" with a notoriously bellicose bird and definitely not that it was an objective based stealth 'em up (with a notoriously bellicose bird).
@Ralizah Definitely one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it games, that's for sure. Perhaps its simplicity helped it build its reputation, as it's kinda the ultimate "between games" game that almost anybody could play. The rest was likely thanks to the goose itself, and its offbeat sense of humour (although I seem to recall a whole Brexit thing which I steered well clear of, which might've played a part).
Ah, that's handy! Far less of a risk trying some of what your nephew has in his collection, then. Am glad it didn't cost you anything to check out, and that you managed to squeeze some free enjoyment from it!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Finished Ragnarok after 48 hours. Absolutely phenomenal experience and it's definitely up there as the most ambitious PlayStation first-party title I've ever played. So much great content to be experienced here.
However, there were a few things that 2018 did much better. For starters, the boss fights felt more memorable. Ragnarok had tons of boss fights but very few of them stood out to me. The opening major boss fight in Ragnarok felt similar to the one in 2018. Same could be said about so many other events in Ragnarok. As such, there was little shock value this time around.
Secondly, the pacing was much better in 2018. It genuinely felt like they tried to cram in all nine realms in Ragnarok instead of adding the ones that had relevance. You're constantly going from one realm to the other in the fashion of a wild goose chase and it just felt bloated. But it's not like the content was bad. It's kinda like my experience with RE4, which I wish was shorter. Great content but they could've trimmed it down and it still would've been a great experience.
What impressed me about Ragnarok was the side content. So much fun stuff to do and it's all worth it thanks to the conversations as well as the rewards. Very good stuff here.
I also really liked the amount of characters in this game. Ragnarok made me like the older characters even more.
The story was a bit underwhelming though. There's all this build-up for Ragnarok to happen but the ending wasn't particularly satisfying. You can clearly tell this game is part 2 and 3 in one experience, but it honestly should've just been part 2 given how much build-up there was. They should've gone all out with a part 3, like they did in the original trilogy with God of War 3, which was absolutely phenomenal. But now I'm just left feeling a bit underwhelmed.
The combat could get a bit confusing in Ragnarok. Not only do you start out with two weapons, but there are so many skills to unlock and abilities for the side characters to learn. There's just too much to think about during battles that I felt like I would constantly make mistakes because I was trying to think too much about the next button input instead of just going with the flow. It becomes even more confusing later on as you unlock even more stuff. So this is one game that I strongly advise against taking breaks from during a playthrough as it's very easy to forget stuff. I'm even the type who has a good muscle memory for controls in games and even I struggled to play competently in this game after initially taking breaks.
The game overall was phenomenal though, albeit fairly overrated given how much praise has been given to it. Moreover, I'm super impressed that a 2022 game managed to run so well on base PS4. Major kudos to the development team. I'm glad that I experienced this wonderful game.
Hearing your criticism of the boss encounters concerns me a bit, as I already felt like GoW 2018 was one of the weaker games in the series in terms of the bosses. Also unfortunate to hear that you found the pacing to be off. The 2018 game was about at the point where I feel like it being any longer would have actively detracted from the experience, so we'll see how I feel about it when I get to it.
The side content was also my favorite aspect of the previous game, when you were let off the narrative leash and allowed to explore complex dungeons, challenge bosses, solve puzzles, etc. without the interruptions inherent in the game's cinematic stylings.
It is genuinely impressive how Sony can still get such good performance for modern games out of a, frankly, increasingly ancient console. Studios like Santa Monica and Guerilla are some of the most technically accomplished developers in the industry.
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Review) - A snow spangled spectacle.
I absolutely love 2018’s Spider-Man on PS4. The Insomniac developed title is my favourite first-party game from the last generation, beating out the likes of God of War and The Last of Us. To this day it remains the only game for which I have earned the Platinum trophy.
So when Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was announced in the summer of 2020, I was overjoyed. A spin-off adventure where you get to play as Miles with his own signature flair to the combat? Hell yeah!
I finally got my chance to play Miles Morales back in June and from moment number one I was sucked right back into things. Insomniac has hit a pretty high bar once again with gorgeous visuals, an intriguing narrative, and some of the best combat in a third-person video game.
But it’s not all praise and applause for this game because at times Miles Morales stumbles, and to an extent much greater than Peter Parker’s 2018 adventure.
Miles Morales is set in the same Manhattan from the first game. But considering that this game is a spin-off - essentially a Spider-Man 1.5 - I will let it pass. Insomniac however does add something new to the cityscape in this game: snow.
Miles Morales takes place during wintertime and Manhattan looks absolutely gorgeous in white. The almost greyscale ground floor of the city provides the perfect contrast to Miles’ striking fluorescent bioelectric powers.
Insomniac keep up the visual splendour during the more intense parts of the game too. Fight scenes explode with colour as each individual animation from the falling snow to exploding lights brings even more bonanza to battle. The cinematics are exceptional too, both in their cinematography and graphical prowess.
However all these marvellous animations during combat lead to a steady stream of frame drops during intense fist fights. Usually these hitches only bring a momentary pause to gameplay, but at times can lead to halts of multiple seconds as my jet-engine of a PS4 struggles to keep pace.
Frame rate drops are also constant while web swinging in camouflage mode. Luckily the player is never required to do such a manoeuvre but the game’s overall optimisation still leaves a lot to be desired.
The UI in this game is a tale of two halves. The HUD during gameplay looks stylish and sleek. Everything looks a lot more modern and futuristic in comparison to Peter’s HUD from the 2018 game which fits the tone considering Miles is a younger main character.
Where the UI falters is in the menus. For some incomprehensible reason, Insomniac decided that, since Miles Morales is first and foremost a console game, it would be a good idea to make the players navigate the menus using a cursor. While the cursor itself wasn’t too small and never caused that much frustration, why couldn’t it just be a normal menu navigable with the D-pad?
Now for the best part of the game: the combat. Just like Spider-Man 2018, the combat in Miles Morales is goddamn amazing. There is clear and noticeable impact between Miles’ fists and the enemies you are attacking, ensuring the combat never feels floaty.
Instead of the wide variety of gadgets Peter used in the first-game, Miles’ arsenal is more focused on his powers of bioelectricity (called Venom) and invisibility. There is a small but rewarding skill tree to invest skill points into, giving you cool new moves and abilities the more you play.
With three branches of Combat, Venom, and Invisibility skills, you can choose where to invest based on your personal play-style. However since skill points are quick to come by, it is likely you would be able to max out the entire tree by the end of a playthrough.
If you were a fan of the gadgets from the first game, you can rest easy because they are not all gone. Miles has 4 basic but useful ones to play with: the classic Web Shooter, Holo-Drone, Remote Mine, and Gravity Well. This strikes a good balance where Miles has his own unique and brand-new abilities for the player to use, while also retaining the tactical side of the first-game with these 4 gadgets.
Miles’ combat (and web swinging) animations are also quite different to Peter’s. They take up a more expressive and wild nature, slotting nicely into the theme of Miles being inexperienced to the ways of a superhero. Some of the finisher animations are especially cool to witness for the first time and never got old during my time with the game.
What is odd though is how Miles already knows a lot of the moves Peter had to learn during the course of the first-game. A short training montage at the start of the game would’ve helped nicely tie up this loose end but alas it is just a minor nitpick.
Furthermore, enemy variety is excellent in this game. By the end of the Spider-Man 2018, the enemies you faced got a bit samey. In this game however they always felt fresh, large part due to the effort Insomniac put into crafting new and interesting foes for you to face and small part due to this games considerably short runtime.
Two minor nitpicks to end this section. The quick time events in this game (and there are a lot, just like Spider-Man 2018) have all the splendour they need but lack much interactivity. Button prompts are too safe and don’t adequately punish the player for being too slow.
Moreover, I just found Miles Morales to be really easy and not at all challenging. From all the time I spent with Spider-Man 2018 - from my first playthrough, platinum run, and DLC time - I knew I had a pretty good grasp of the combat. So before I started Miles Morales, I bumped the difficulty up to Spectacular - which is essentially the equivalent of Hard.
And I died a grand total of three tiles in the game: once because I ran up the side of a building and couldn’t see a brute with an energy sword at the top, and twice during the final boss fight. The game does throw a lot of enemies at you quite often, but once you get the hang of dodging when your Spidey sense goes blue, it becomes quite a cakewalk.
When it comes to the open-world activities and side content, I think Miles Morales does some things better than the first game and some things worse. First of all, it approaches this side of things differently to the first game.
The side quests are something Miles Morales does well, and noticeably better than the first game. There seem to be more of them, and the stories are more fleshed out than ever before. In Spider-Man 2018, I was innately interested in only a couple of side missions, while the others were done solely when I needed more XP or in my platinum hunt.
But in Miles Morales, I actually wanted to do these side missions because their plots were just so much more interesting. They revolved around characters you meet throughout the game, which gives you a personal motive for actually helping them out.
Out in the open-world though, Miles Morales follows the same blueprint laid out by 2018’s Spider-Man game. There are collectibles to find, enemy camps to clear out, and challenges to complete (in the first game they were laid out by the Taskmaster; this time they are Peter’s doing).
There are also crimes and world events to complete, which are provided to you through an app on Miles’ phone called FNSM (Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man). The world events are triggered by performing various actions around Manhattan, and reward you with small amounts of XP and some activity tokens.
Alongside these events see the return of crimes. Except this time there are only 11 across the city. You get a single token from these crimes. Crimes were the most plentiful open-world feature from the first game and I actually quite liked them.
They gave you an incentive to stop swinging and engage in some combat every now and then, while also providing you with tokens. And you had to do a serious amount of them before you finally stopped receiving tokens. I think many people will prefer this new system for open-world stuff but I have a soft side for the old one.
At the start of the game, after an initial fight with Rhino, Peter informs Miles that he is heading to Symkaria to help MJ in her journalistic work. Miles is now, temporarily, the only Spider-Man New York has. The base sets up a story of Miles’ coming of age, and how he matures into the hero the city needs.
It’s a solid narrative, one that pits a large energy corporation called Roxxon against a pro-environment rebel group called the Underground. Insomniac weaves in characters from Miles’ personal life into the larger plot, such as his old friend Phin as the leader of the Underground, his Uncle Aaron as the Prowler, and his mother Rio as runner for city council - whose electoral campaign serves as a backdrop for the entire game.
What is lacking is a large cast of villains for Miles to come up against but given the smaller scope of this title, the shortcomings in this aspect are a little more understandable.
Insomniac also pulls of an MCU-esque move of having a duo of superhero and best friend, with Miles and Ganke a striking portrait of Peter and Ned from the latest movies. Overall the plot is good, but kinda funny facial animations and some questionable dialogue writing really damper the emotional impact of more serious scenes.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a solid standalone entry to this wonderful series that Insomniac is building. The changes made to the open-world structure don’t quite hit the mark every time, but Manhattan is once again a joy to swing through and quite a marvellous sight to take in.
The story doesn’t quite hit the heights of the first-game, let down by some questionable facial animations and writing, but just like it’s predecessor, the entire package is held together by some absolutely stupendous combat that the player can go bananas with.
In my eyes at least, the 2018 original is the superior game, but 2020’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is great in its own right and cements Miles as a Spider-Man to fondly look back on.
2018 had fewer boss fights than Ragnarok for sure, but the ones that were there were unique and memorable. So if you prefer quantity over quality, then I think you'll like the boss fights in Ragnarok. Otherwise you might get disappointed like me.
I also thought 2018 had the perfect length. Not too long, but not too short either. Ragnarok is unfortunately drastically longer than 2018.
@LtSarge The fact that Ragnarök runs well enough on a base PS4 for you to be able to speak so positively about the experience you enjoyed so much... frankly, it blows my tiny mind. I was equally astonished when I saw Forbidden West running on a base PS4 last year, but I figured that it'd surely be the console's last hurrah. The wizardry of Sony's first-party studios never ceases to amaze me, and I'm pleased to see that it afforded you such an enjoyable and memorable experience! That being said, it's always more beneficial when somebody can remain objective and constructively critical in the wake of such delight, and so I appreciated your analytical discussion of some of the game's details. Cheers!
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@DominusPlatypus Great to see you back! Although darn it, having just praised Sony for making sure that their latest exclusives run well on PS4, I'm sorry to read that Miles Morales didn't run super-smoothly whilst forcing your console's fan to work overtime. It's also a shame that the gameplay didn't give you the challenge you were looking for, even on its higher difficulty settings. I guess that's always been the curse of licenced games, especially ones with such broad appeal. They'll also need to assume that everybody's a newcomer (which is where I felt Miles' limited arsenal helped).
How do you think Spider-Man 2 will incorporate both Spideys into the gameplay? Do you think there'll be a chance for extra difficulty options there, somehow? Like maybe, playing as Pete is tougher than playing as Miles, based on their comparative superhero experience?
Obviously, I fully agree with all of your positive points, and I'm glad you enjoyed the game overall!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@LtSarge I just hope there aren't too many DBZ-esque fights like the one that started off the 2018 game.
Otherwise, I tend to think God of War is best in terms of bosses when it's leaning into spectacle, like it did with the dragon and Magni and Modi.
@DominusPlatypus Hey, great critical analysis of Miles Morales! I was actually also under the impression that the game ran well on PS4, so it's disappointing to hear that's not the case. I was thinking I might pick it up if I end up liking the first game (which I'll hopefully play this year), but if performance is like that I'll either grab it on PC or wait and see if I end up getting a PS5 first. I'm used to Sony meeting certain standards of quality with their first-party releases, even on weaker hardware.
It's interesting that you had only obtained the platinum for Marvel's Spider-Man beforehand. Out of interest, did you set out to actually obtain it, or did you happen upon it naturally as a part of fully exploring that game?
INSIDE Platform: Nintendo Switch Time to Completion: 4 - 6 hours
The aesthetic and gameplay of developer Playdead's INSIDE will be immediately familiar to anyone who played their previous seventh gen indie hit Limbo, which this game acts as a sort of spiritual successor to. In both games, you play as young, unnamed male children traversing dark and creepy locales, although the discerning player will notice a progression in the style of horror that is drawn upon: Limbo was about a fear of the dark, of monsters, whereas INSIDE occupies itself with, if not more realistic, at least more distressingly humanistic fears. The monsters it traffics in are explicitly of the human variety; less Lovecraftian, and more Orwellian. It wouldn't do to spoil the exact nature of the game's emergent plot, but much of the experience draws on the inherent horror of structural dehumanization, and the fear of being controlled by others.
As with their previous game in this style, INSIDE is heavy on stylization; an ominous atmosphere is cloaked in film grain, long shadows, and bizarre imagery give it an aesthetic not unlike that of German expressionism. This goes a long way to lending a sense of personality to the game, which, as an ostensibly simplistic 2D puzzle-platformer with little in the way of music and virtually no dialogue, is already working with an extremely limited set of design elements. How effective all of this is, I imagine, is highly contingent on how immersed the player allows themselves to become in the world. One could presumably play this in the chipper height of a spring afternoon, but that would seem wholly uncharitable to the sort of experience the developer is attempting to share. For my part, as I've begun waking up increasingly early in recent months, I made this my go-to middle of the night game for a few evenings. Finding myself unable to descend back into a peaceful slumber, I'd curl up in my bed and play this with a pair of headphones plugged in, going from more organic nightmares to INSIDE's more artificially constructed one.
I nabbed this hoping it'd be a showcase for my Switch OLED, and while I'm not entirely sure that turned out to be the case, the screen's ability to showcase true blacks definitely helped the game to fully actualize its stark visual aesthetic. The game itself runs adequately on the hybrid system (the game's finer details are actually a touch soft looking, like it's running at a lower resolution, but the visual design of the game minimizes the impact of this), and is an equally good fit for handheld and TV play, although I stuck entirely to playing on the tablet.
INSIDE is, at heart, a puzzle game, where you have to interact with level elements in order to progress through various eerie environments. Your young protagonist is only really capable of pushing and pulling, but the game makes ingenious use of environmental physics and creative fictional tools to add layers of depth to the puzzles. It's not always immediately apparent what needs to be done in order to progress, since the game never actually provides tutorials or explanations for how to engage with new mechanics, which can be a difficult style of game design to properly realize, since you run the risk of confusing and alienating the player, but INSIDE does a good job of making it readily apparent which details in its stark environments can be interacted with, and stealthily introducing basic examples of new puzzle mechanics that'll go on to be explored in more depth as the game progresses.
If INSIDE has any major failing, as with Limbo, its in the unsatisfying narrative arc that the game adopts. Its art school commitment to suggestion and innuendo is neat, but it doesn't do enough with that to build up any sense of investment in the character or his situation. This failing is most keenly illustrated during the game's anti-climactic final hour, which gets increasingly weird, and then just sort of... stops. No explanation, no resolution. What's the sense in building up so many mysteries, only to do so little with them in the end? Even the character you play as remains a mystery in the end, with no real conclusion to whatever journey he was on. While I mostly enjoyed my time with INSIDE, and appreciated its expert approach to puzzle design, it did end up leaving me feeling a bit cold in the end. It's highly possible that was intentional, but that knowledge wouldn't improve my experience with the work at all. There is also a secret ending, but it's a pain in the butt to get, and it actually left me feeling more empty than I did during the default ending, since it amounted to little more than a cheap gimmick.
Ultimately, INSIDE is an interesting and expertly crafted little experience, but, unfortunately, not one that becomes more than the sum of its parts.
@RogerRoger Thanks for reading! Based on the trailer we've seen, I think Spider-Man 2 will have you playing as both Peter and Miles (no option for co-op though). However I would rather it be solely Peter, with Miles eventually getting a second game of his own. I feel it would allow Insomniac to invest more time into the player's moveset because there would be only 1 instead of 2 to design. As for difficulty options, sadly I feel it'll be same as the first two games but I think I'll get enjoyment out of the combat nonetheless. Thanks for reading!
@Ralizah I may have oversold the game's poor performance because it's honestly not that bad. If it's buy on PS4 or don't buy, I would say go for it on PS4. By the time I finished Spider-Man 2018 in March 2020, I was around 75% completion. Then in early last year, I decided why not go for the platinum since I liked the game so much and honestly just wanted to finally get one. The platinum is basically just clearing the map and doing side-quests so it wasn't that hard or time consuming. Thanks for reading!
@Ralizah Interesting thoughts on Inside. It’s a game that I really enjoyed, but I think you nailed it regarding the emptiness of the narrative. I couldn’t say it any better than you did there. Excellent review and breakdown.
Do you think you liked Limbo better? I think the consensus around the gaming community is that Inside is the superior game, but I’m not sure I didn’t prefer Limbo. It’s splitting hairs really, as they both are really good games, but the first one seemed to hit a little harder with its total narrative arc. Like you expressed, I felt that final stretch of Inside was just bizarre seemingly for the sake of shock value. Fortunately neither game is very long and the artistic style of the games is wonderful.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Thanks! It's a bit of a difficult game to write about, since there's not really anything explicitly 'to' it, and you also don't want to spoil its gameplay surprises. I'm glad the piece read well in spite of that.
INSIDE did feel a little more scattered (especially in terms of the ending; despite being anti-climactic in both, INSIDE's just sort of comes out of nowhere and doesn't amount to much of anything), but I feel like its gameplay and puzzles were also unambiguously better, and the mysteries it introduces are more interesting, even if nothing happens with them. So I'd probably vote in favor of INSIDE, although, to be honest, I don't maintain a massive preference for either one.
Another cool connection is that I also first played Limbo on my OLED PS Vita. Just another way in which my Switch often feels like an accidental sequel to Sony's final handheld.
@Ralizah I played Limbo on my OLED Vita also, and then played Inside later on my PS4. Perhaps part of my fondness for Limbo is the experience of playing it on the handheld. 2D platformers feel at home on handhelds. Also, the novelty of the macabre themes really impressed me, along with the sharp black and white visual graphic design. And so when Inside came along it wasn’t quite as unique and imaginative feeling, so that may have also made it less impressive to me.
@Th3solution Agreed. It's why I didn't pick it up on PS4, despite owning one. Some games just feel better when played in the more intimate handheld setting, especially if you can curl up with them in bed.
I'm in kind of a 3DS mood atm, but I'd love to get back to my Vita before long. I still have a few games to play on it. And now that I installed cfw on it, it also doubles as a portable emulation device for SNES, GBA, and the PS1 games Sony never made available on PSN in my region.
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