Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@Pizzamorg I’ll be interested in your Before the Storm thoughts, as I actually liked it more than the original LiS. I’m not exactly sure why, but I think the Chloe character made a lot more sense in BtS than whatever was going on with Max in LiS. Like you say, the ending of LiS makes all the clumsy storytelling and poor character development worthwhile, but in BtS it seemed like the narrative was more evenly balanced throughout. I don’t know. It’s been a while since I played them.

As for LiS2, I was initially concerned by what appeared to be not-so-subtle political jabs at US race relations, but of course since the game came out, reality has turned out to be stranger than fiction in that regard, so I doubt it will be any more disconcerting than the actual news has been. And several users here have confirmed it’s a well done storyline that focuses more on sibling relationships than anything. I suspect I will like it if I can ever get around to it. I’m caught in a 2023 release schedule vortex right now, scared that I will be held hostage by a flurry of awesome AAA games that take 100 hours to complete. 😅 Nevertheless, the LiS games make for really good palate cleansers between large open world action RPGs.

Funnily enough, I am one chapter down on Before the Storm and have more appreciation for Chloe in that one episode than I did through the entire of Life is Strange, even with a noticeable voice actress change. I think Deck Nine are just better at doing characters than Don't Nod. In Life is Strange, Chloe is Max's Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but to me Chloe came across more of a brat than charming, that constantly dragged Max into the mud with her. Chloe had her motivations for being a brat in Life is Strange... kinda, but I feel like a lot of that really wasn't meaningfully explored in that game to properly give me sympathy.

Here, straight away, we get all of Chloe's dimension pencilled in properly. A lonely, grieving, vulnerable, teenager lashing out at the world which has done her so much wrong. I think if I ever replay Life is Strange again, it'll be really enriched by what they have done here.

I also think that opening chapter does a really interesting thing with Rachel and her characterisation, given everything we knew about her was third hand information, it is nice that the reality is a lot more complicated than the black and white, binary, renditions of her memory given via various characters in the first game.

It probably helps, as it looks like Deck Nine properly mocapped the performances, so now even with their limited detail, faces actually move! We get to see people express with their eyes, eyebrows and their mouths. It sounds like such a simple thing, but it does so much to bring these characters to life, versus the mannequins they are in that first game.

Also holy crap that ending to episode one of Before the Storm? Completely made me rethink the entire Life is Strange core game.

That first chapter also seemed generally better paced than the core game, too, with the only mechanic being Chloe's argument thing (which is actually pretty fun). No stupid rewind puzzles to grind everything to a halt this time.

I've still got two chapters to go though, so who knows, they may blow it all.

It is me again, back with another Life is Strange Review. This time for Before The Storm, I bet you are all so excited 😂 I am just so glad I have this space to get my emotions out so I'm not jus crying myself to sleep. 😂

Life is Strange is a special game to a dedicated core group of superfans, however, the original LiS didn’t resonate with me in the way it has with others, not on the first playthrough all those years ago, or through any subsequent playthroughs like my most recent one. In fact, the franchise in general general wouldn't reach that mythic status with me like it has done with so many others until years later when I played True Colors for the first time and experienced more emotion in that ten or so hour runtime than I might have experienced in my whole life up until that point. Sort of only half joking.

I start there, because I get why Before the Storm divided the fanbase and still does to this day. Square Enix took something that is basically held sacred by people and handed it to a completely different studio. There are those who out of principle were always destined to hate Before the Storm before even the first line of story was written, and while I think that is unfair, Deck Nine do themselves few favours with BtS, especially when it comes to continuity. The mistakes in that regard are almost too numerous to list, creating plot holes for the core game it is meant to be a prequel to and is just simply not the way a new studio goes about endearing existing fans.

That being said, when all was said and done, I loved Before The Storm and in fact I would even go as far as to say I like it more than the core game. It is a fallacy, maybe, but as much as I am irked by it's continuity failings and unnecessary plotholes, it makes decisions which enrich the core LiS game, in ways often so obvious you wonder why Don’t Nod didn’t do it themselves.

Chloe, a once somewhat flat and abrasive manic pixie dream girl twinkling in Max’s eye is brought to life in dazzling technicolour here, giving her all the depth, charm and charisma the core game often told me about, but rarely showed. And so in turn I now have the emotional connective tissue and sympathy for her that I sorely needed throughout the core game.

Rachel, at least in the core game, is far more of a concept than she is a person. We learn things about her during the course of the game, there are developments, twists and turns, but they are all held at arm's length away from us, because everything we know about Rachel is third hand, we never truly knew her. And by design, accounts of her are disparate depending on the source, angel or demon, so we are never able to truly know her based on these accounts, either.

Deck Nine were given a seemingly impossible task here because of this, to turn all those disparate third hand accounts of Rachel and combine them together into a flesh and blood cohesive human being. One who feels real and tangible. One whose gravitational pull can have a profound effect on those around her, like we were always told it did. One who could give the impression of angel, or demon, equally depending on the audience. And honestly, I think they ***** nailed it. Rachel is all of these things, and more.

It has a profound affect both on this game in the immediate sense, but now in the core game all those developments, twists and turns which once meant nothing to me as a player, now they mean everything. There are many scenes in the core Life is Strange game that fell flat for me, because they assumed a level of connection with Chloe and Rachel, but I hadn’t much of a connection to either. Rachel, as already explained, was as real as Santa Clause to me, and Chloe was barely any more tangible. We saw an idealised Chloe through Max’s lens, never Chloe the real human being, not really. So as she mourned her friend, or learned of her betrayal, or other such things, why should I care, when I know next to nothing about either person involved? Well, now I have a reason to.

Before The Storm has fun playing with parallels, too. Chloe is as much of a concept, rather than a real person, to Max, as Rachel is to Chloe here. And Rachel offers Chloe much of the same liberation she would in turn go on to offer Max. You also can't help but think about the betrayal, and ultimate end, Rachel will go on to commit, in contrast to at least one of the choices Max ends up making to close out the core game. Is Rachel the storm? Or is the storm just the toxic spiral these broken, *****, people find themselves in as they drag one another through their orbits?

Either way, I appreciate Before the Storm for this. Now if I ever replay the core game, when scenes once fell flat, my heart will now break, not once, but twice. For the Chloe I have grown a deep connection with and the Rachel I now know just as deeply. When people recount the Rachel they knew in the core game, I can share those experiences, because now I knew her too.

Miss her too.

Most of the time when people try to explain a mystery, it only loses all of its magic, but the character writing by Deck Nine is so strong, the more the mystique is replaced by reality, the more the magic itself grows.

My feelings towards Rachel and Chloe by the end of the first episode alone, felt stronger than anything did for me in the entire of the core game, this is that rich emotional tapestry Deck Nine so masterfully crafted in True Colors, and its absence in the core game is made so obvious because of this.

In fact, in many ways, BtS is as much a spiritual prequel to True Colors as it is a direct prequel to the core game. The lead writer here would go on to become the director of True Colors I believe, and it can be felt. TC and BtS are both Life is Strange games, but they have a subtly different feeling to them.

The supernatural and grand poetic narratives take a backseat here to mostly the more mundane moments of life that happen between those grander moments games tend to focus on. The supernatural is here, but only ever implied, never cemented. You can read this game in one way, but in others that have a transformative effect on the core game in the process. I appreciate the game leaves this to my interpretation.

Under Zak Garriss you make far less meaningful choices than you did in that core game, but it is far more focused on the characters and how you express yourselves through them with your choices that way. Garriss also seems far less preoccupied on trying to make things conventionally “gamey”, which for BtS has an immeasurably positive impact on the overall pacing of the game, versus the core one.

I know when listed like that it sounds like Deck Nine’s formula is far worse, and if you liked the formula of the first Life is Strange, I can understand why BtS’s shift in focus may not be appreciated, but I find Deck Nine’s character writing so strong, it overrides any other faults with their approach. Again, to me, being able to feel something is more important to me than anything else, and Deck Nine knows how to make me feel every emotion in life like detail.

The elephant in the room this time is definitely the voice actor changes, apparently there were some strikes with voice actors around the time this was made? Weirdly, I’ve never heard about this before and don’t think I’ve ever had this impact on any other media I’ve consumed, but as a result basically everyone in this game has been recast. Again, if you feel a deep sense of love for the original, this is going to hurt and it was definitely noticeable for me to begin with as I went straight from the original into this. However, I actually pretty quickly stopped noticing after a while, if I am being honest.

As I said in my last review, while I know it is somewhat of a controversial opinion, I actually don’t think the voice acting in the original LiS is that great, a lot of it is really flat and just sounds like people reading scripts, rather than having genuine conversations. That is mostly true of BtS as well if I am being honest, but people seem to act like the acting in BtS is comparatively garbage compared to the core game, and I just do not agree.

What elevates Deck Nine’s acting beyond the really strong character writing though is Deck Nine properly mocapped the performances, so its now no longer flat acting combined with weird Gerry Anderson puppet character models stiffly touching their neck over and over. Deck Nine is still held back by LiS’s ugly art style, but now people act with their faces and their bodies, it feels as natural and real as the artstyle allows, it really does so much for the performances when they aren’t being carried entirely by the voices alone.

To close, I would say maybe the greatest crime of this game is we don't get to spend even more time with Rachel than we do, but like Chloe, I feel as a player that even a fleeting moment with Rachel Amber is better than none at all.

I feel truly grateful for being able to have experienced this.

@Pizzamorg I do very much agree with your assessment. Although it sounds like I enjoyed the original game more than you did, Before the Storm felt like a step up in character development and overall narrative flow. I also remember having a similar response to the voice acting — initial disappointment, followed by gradual acclimation, and in the end, maybe even a preference for the BtS crew.

@Th3solution I enjoyed the original more than @Pizzamorg as well, but I also enjoyed Before the Storm more than most people did as well. Most people didn't like it because of Chloe, but I actually like the character, so it was obvious I'd like it more than most.

I'm obviously a fan of Ashly Burch given that I'm a huge fan of the Horizon series, but it didn't bother me at all that she wasn't able to voice Chloe again. It didn't even cross my mind while playing the game, and I didn't even realize she was back to voicing Chloe in the bonus content after the end of Before the Storm. That tells you that the replacement did a solid job.

Time has a positive impact on the voice acting I think, as weird and maybe obvious as that sounds? True Colors is a game that I think is genuinely well acted basically across the board, but it is also helped by having a cast who all have interesting unique bits of texture to their voices, as well.

When I jumped into Life is Strange, especially as a non-American, all I could hear was a lot of flat generically American voices as I have no ear for American dialects/accents outside of the really exaggerated ones 'cahmn awn I'm wahlkeen here!', and it really took me a few episodes of that game to really start to tune into the unique parts of various voices and chisel out the characters out of the bland sea of Americanmush, and go on to ultimately appreciate what each performance brought.

This is true of Before the Storm as well, once I got over the fact that Chloe sounds different, my ear became tuned to the unique parts of her performance and started to really appreciate it. Same with Rachel, I know she hasn't been recast, but Kylie Brown likely wouldn't have been first choice without the strikes and I've seen a lot of complaints with her performance. She is arguably one of the weakest of the cast, which is problematic for such a central and important character, but the more I listened to it, the more I started to appreciate what an interesting voice Kylie Brown had, and how much it fit with Rachel's general vibe and energy, especially as we know everything about Rachel is kinda fake. I just started appreciating those aspects, rather than necessarily the performance itself.

I mean I dunno how anyone can watch this and say the acting is bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU0_wfN5XEU

For almost everyone else who has been recast, they are mostly background characters so they aren't ever around long enough to really spoil anything. The one exception for me is maybe William, who sounds like a complete robot and this really hurts, given how important every appearance of William is. That said, depending on how you read the supernatural or not elements of this game, the roboticness of the performance for William might actually be more fitting for the scenes than that high energy drawl Ochman brought to William in the core game. Especially the 'blinds us' scene (around 9 minutes into the below video), the stiffness actually adds to the otherworldly creepiness of it all for me.

@Pizzamorg It’s a good point that you bring out regarding the regional and national accents which can affect how one perceives the quality of the voice acting. I think sometimes an actor’s voice and inflection just sounds better or worse to a native versus someone hearing their accent as foreign.

Of course, some voice acting is bad no matter whether it’s foreign or not.

It is the anime fallacy, right? Is the Japanese cast actually that much better than the dub? Or is it just because its foreign I don't have an ear for it, so its far easier for me to be critical of the English language dub than it is the Japanese one?

@Pizzamorg Exactly. An extreme example, but that’s right. I’ve seen that a lot of people use that tactic for games like Forspoken with less than stellar voice acting — that the game is much more enjoyable in Japanese with subtitles. But you’re right - the Japanese voice work might be just as bad, we just can’t tell.

@Pizzamorg In the case of Japanese media, you're also just more likely to see top-tier Japanese talents voice characters. Moreover, it's also that the rhythm of the language, as well as the pitch of Japanese voices, often fits the dialogue better. A good localization obviously helps in this regard, but unless you're just not sticking to the script at all, there's a limit to how far afield you can go from the original work.

Accidentally posted this in another thread the other day.

Metroid Prime Remastered (Switch)

Mission Accepted

• My first time playing a Prime game, it successfully transitions the formula into the 3rd dimension. The biggest difference between it and the 2D entries is that while those have been evolving to be more quick & action-y, this has a more deliberate, almost puzzle like feel (heck, there's a big plant boss early on that feels very much "traditional 3D Zelda" in it's approach).
• One of these changes is that instead of beam upgrades "stacking" on top of each other making you progressively more powerful, here they are separate equips. While newer beams are generally more efficient at taking out early/mid game enemies than what came before (helping with backtracking), late game areas tend to be populated with foes weak to a specific one, requiring you to switch things up encounter to encounter.
• Another addition that's possible due to the first person perspective is the addition of visor upgrades. While you start out with the standard "battle visor" (your basic view) & "scan visor" (lets you collect data on enemy types & the environment), as you get further in you'll obtain the "thermal visor" (see in the dark & more easily track cloaked enemies) & "x-ray visor" (lets you see what can't otherwise be seen, usually environmental elements like secret paths). These really play into the more deliberate pace of the game.
  
  
• One area where the game really uses the extra dimension to it's advantage is the morph ball sections. These are much more involved than anything you'll see in the 2D games, and I'll admit my jaw kinda dropped a few times, like the section that opens up right before a late game beam upgrade.
  
• I also liked the fact that most of the upgrades seemed to be behind puzzles that were more deliberately built into the environment, rather than just behind a random destructible wall (even though there is some of that). Usually you can tantalizingly see an upgrade, or at least tell there's an environmental puzzle that's clearly hiding something, and it's just up to you to figure out how to obtain it.
• If I had to nitpick, there would be a few changes I'd make to the map. Firstly, I'd have any upgrades that you've scanned be marked on the map until you collect them. Secondly, have some sort of general indicator if a room has an upgrade you haven't collected, even if you haven't scanned it (this can be more vague, not giving away precise location). The 2D games already do the latter, marking the map with a dot if there's an upgrade in the general area.
• Pretty gorgeous game too, I think I'm just going to let these following screenshots do the talking.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with it, even if I got lost a time or two. I think I prefer the more action-y direction the 2D games are starting to take, but I can only imagine how seminal this must have felt back in the day, given that they nailed the 3D transition the first time out, & with really only Super Metroid beforehand being a good example of the franchise. Glad I finally got to experience it.

Mission Complete.

@RR529 Nice review! I definitely agree that there is a lot of traditional 3D Zelda DNA in Metroid Prime, which took the basic concept of the 2D games (non-linear exploration of a lonely and hostile alien planet) and evolved it in a more puzzle-y direction. It's definitely impressive to see how they've updated the graphics for this, which seem to be almost entirely re-created for modern hardware. Pretty impressive that an otherwise faithful remake of an extremely old GameCube title is now one of the best graphical showpieces on the Switch, although I suppose it's fairly close to Sony's own remake of Shadow of the Colossus in that respect.

I'd definitely support your proposed changes to the map. I'd also, personally, better integrate the artifact hunt into the game's campaign, so you're not left with a tedious fetch quest before you're able to face down the final boss.

Hopefully this is a sign of what we can expect from Metroid Prime 4 in terms of visuals, performance, and overall design quality.

Rolled credits on Dead Island 2 today. Have a little side content to finish (my completion percentage is around 73 percent), but I am in two minds about just stopping here for risk of becoming burnt out, so here is my review.

Honestly, as I went through my notes I recorded while playing and just generally putting my thoughts together on this one in the context of me now finishing the main story, I think I went from thinking this might be my lowkey game of the year so far to actually just thinking maybe it is kind of bad?

Like what really made me love Dead Island 2 is how frictionless it all is and how few barriers there are to my fun. I know there are many who found this game boring and overly simplistic, missing the survival elements and various other player depowering systems often featured in these sorts of games, that they feel would have taken this to the next level.

And like... that is their opinion, and I'll respect it, but also respectfully couldn't agree less. Couldn't disagree more? I dunno what the right turn of phrase is there.

Like, sure, they may offer those games greater amounts of depth perhaps, but for my tastes, they don’t actually add any real extra fun. And I value fun more than I do depth. So I honestly didn’t feel, or miss, the absence of such things here, and in fact, was loving how powerful Dead Island 2 lets me feel, and how breezily I progressed through this, growing ever stronger as I did.

Sadly the last third or so of the game kinda betrays this main point of recommendation for me, with a sharp increase in difficulty that kinda makes this whole stretch a massive slog, if I am being honest. Maybe that is partially just general fatigue from a gameplay loop that never really meaningfully evolves after the first few hours, but I do just think the later mission design is bad, with these long checkpointless gauntlet style encounters where you are flooded with seemingly endless waves of enemies in a tedious, and frustrating, war of attrition.

You start seeing increasing numbers of variant zombies (because of course) and then eventually elemental variants of the variant zombies in addition, and almost all of these have irritating quirks, or are just massive bullet sponges. They just suck, to be honest. The fun is smashing a zombies head clean off with an acid spewing hammer with one massive swing. Not unloading 100 shotgun shells into some meat sack that you have to constantly circle strafe around so they don't do their stupid knock down move that leaves you defenceless.

Likewise, enemy elemental damage in general is insanely overtuned, often killing you faster than you can even realise you have been afflicted with a status. This makes these gauntlets especially infuriating, as you can survive wave after wave, be hit with a fire attack or something right in the dying moments and just be disintegrated in a second and then right back to the start you go.

Thankfully guns exist and are effectively a cheese as they seem as equally wildly over tuned in the players favour, but it never feels very good to make it through these encounters with guns, but without my guns I am not sure I would have ever made it through these encounters, so I guess you use what you can.

And maybe that alone wouldn’t kill the recommendation, but everything sorta crashes and burns in this last third, for me. The story, for example, runs off to nowhere just as soon as it starts getting… not exactly good exactly, but certainly going to some slightly more interesting places than you may expect, based on where it starts. It all just sorta ends on a massive middle finger, honestly.

It has a weird sequel bait/universe establishing ending that reminds me of the ‘Game is On’ running joke the Weekly Planet uses. It just seems bizarre to me for a game that has been in development hell for so long, and ran the risk of never even making it off of the runway, that they’d cheat their audience who made it to the end. By all regards the game has done quite well for itself, so who knows, maybe it'll all pay off in another game in a decade plus time. But this was not the way.

Likewise, there is a final tier of weapon rarity which only becomes available after the story finishes and there is no New Game plus, so this just also seems like such a bizarre decision to me. Gating your final tier of progression to a bunch of left over side missions that are otherwise meaningless once the campaign is finished.

The weapon and skill card systems are both very lopsided, as for the first few hours, they are very fruitful, and rewarding, but it just sorta runs dry after a while. If you were expecting Borderlands style weapons, or ARPG style abilities, which I wouldn’t begrudge you for thinking based on what you see at the beginning, then adjust your expectations. What you get in the first couple of hours, is all you are ever getting, you basically start with the strongest stuff the game is ever going to offer you (at least within the campaign) and everything after that is really just stat increases.

Given the systems are all rather thin anyway, and layered on such a basic loop, having it sprint off of a cliff is just another problematic pacing element to this, which probably gives away how troubled this all was behind the scenes.

I dunno, it just makes it hard for me to really understand who this is for. You are never going to have more fun with this than you are in the opening few hours, but those opening few hours are likely to deliver some of the most fun you'll have with a game this year.

Although it does become significantly more difficult in that final third, I still don’t think it delivers on what people feel like the game is missing. No extra depth comes along with the increase in difficulty, and it isn't a well tuned challenge like the Resident Evil 4 remake, it is just almost pure frustration.

But then for those who enjoyed the general lack of challenge the game offered, like I did, well, they are going to run into a similar wall like I did, too and are likely to come away from this game feeling sour, if they hadn’t already abandoned the game half way around due to the increasingly lifeless progression.

Either way, during that final stretch, at best they are probably going to be tediously shooting their way through the final few missions, and will be rewarded with a crap ending.

What a bummer of a recommendation that will be.

(And if you are wondering, no, there are also no difficulty options, or much in the way of accessibility options, so you can’t even tune this curve more to your tastes, this is the fixed experience you are going to get.)

I guess just wait for a deep sale or for when it shows up on some PS Plus or Gamepass?

@Pizzamorg When I saw that Dead Island 2 was being released, my immediate instinct was to think: "Didn't that already come out?" I was probably thinking of Dying Light 2. It's easy for me to get zombie stuff mixed up.

Sorry to hear the game got a little too brutal for you in its later hours. Poorly tuned difficulty spikes can definitely spoil what was an otherwise fun experience; especially if you like it at least partially for the fact that it's NOT challenging you early on.

It's always disappointing watching a game you previously enjoyed just sort of implode in front of you, leaving you feeling irritated and bitter by the end for having wasted your time on it. I'm trying to learn to hang games up before that happens, even if it means not finishing it. I did that most recently with The World Ends With You, when I realized I was actively dreading going back to the game. And in longer, more open world-y games, I prefer to stop before the magic is lost, which is why, despite enjoying both greatly, I never spent more than 100 or so hours on either Elden Ring or Breath of the Wild.

Did you ever play the original, or is this your first experience with the series?

@Ralizah Dying Light 2 is kind of the game I think people are describing when they describe what they wanted from Dead Island 2, which is funny to me, because Dying Light 2 already exists and I remember it was met with a pretty lukewarm response on release. I got through about 20 hours of it, which comparatively was enough time to clear the main campaign and the majority of the side content in Dead Island 2, but it feels like I barely made a dent here in that time, which very much ties into the open world bloat you talked about.

My issue though was so much of the story progression was locked behind these frustrating, tedious, checkpointless, stealth missions, that I eventually just bounced off of it. The fun for me was drop kicking zombies off of skyscrapers and killing bandits with rusted taped together piles of crap, but you often weren't allowed to just do that and progress the game in the process. This is why, for the opening few hours at least, Dead Island 2 was a treat, by comparison.

Funnily enough, that dread you are talking about has happened to me with the Resident Evil 4 remake lately. I haven't played that game in weeks, I recognise that basically objectively its a great game, but its just super sweaty. I would say the challenge is generally well tuned, so its never exactly frustrating, but most encounters usually take me a good few attempts even on the base difficulty, and a single chapter leaves me absolutely exhausted, even though many run less than an hour. It just isn't what I want from a game after a long day of work, and by the time the weekend comes around I am doing other things, so I just haven't touched it. And the longer I go, the more that fear grows that I'm gonna jump on, not remember all the controls and just get immediately stuck, unable to progress again, but the idea of having to go through it all over again from the start, also doesn't appeal to me at all, knowing some of the encounters I barely made it through the first go around.

In terms of Dead Island, it is one of those weird series for me where I swear I have owned a copy of either that or Riptide on every console I have owned since they have come out, but I have no real memory of getting very far in either of the games, despite playing them over and over again over the years. I guess each time I play for an hour, realise I'm not that into this right now, forget about it and then a new console comes along, Dead Island sounds like something I'd really like and it has been long enough to forget I attempted it already, so I pick it up and do the same thing again. I have them on PC, maybe I should make a meaningful attempt to actually beat them.

@Pizzamorg I've had the distinct impression that I'd probably like Dying Light if I ever got to it, but... eh, you know, zombies. And I don't need any more 100 hour games in my life than I already have, which is the even bigger issue.

Unless it's MGS, Splinter Cell, or some other sort of stealth-focused experience to begin with, stealth gameplay almost always make a game worse. Like, yeah, dude, this is what I wanted: tedious missions that make it where I can't utilize the majority of mechanics that made your game actually fun to play. I want to creep around and pray that your AI's dodgy detection doesn't catch me. And if I am caught, I want to go alllllllllll the way back to the beginning of the sequence.

In general, I'm inclined to agree that narrowing the scope of a game later on in a way that contradicts the appeal of the early hours is bad. If a game is based around freedom and survival, I don't want to be locked into setpieces just because you can't figure out how to structure a story well around a more gameplay-focused structure.

Interesting perspective on RE4R. The original, at least in my experience, was appealing precisely because of how easily playable it was. It was like one of those B movies you have to stop and watch every time you pass it on the TV. I actually do feel a resistance toward going back and playing horror games because of how tense some of them can be, but this is part of the appeal of the genre to me: a good piece of horror media will make you at least somewhat hesitant to keep diving in, even if it's excellent.

My PC is full of games I've needed to make meaningful attempts at for the better part of a decade now. One day, I'll stop buying new stuff and actually focus on what I own.

I'm glad I am not alone in hating stealth in games, nothing ruins a game for me like random forced stealth missions with insta fail states if detected. Every one of those sequences needs to get in the bin.

@Ralizah It’s good to know I’m not the only one who has trouble distinguishing Dying Light from Dead Island from Dead by Daylight. Include the confusion that there are also separate games called Daylight and Deadlight, and all the games with “dead” or “death” in them which are horror or zombie based (Dead Nation, The Walking Dead, Evil Dead, House of the Dead…). Not to mention DayZ, Days Gone… The number of zombie horror games which are obsessed with putting “dead” or a version of the word and “day” is just crazy. Add several that have “dawn” in the name or some version of “light” or “darkness” and my brain just can’t keep up. 😅

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (PS5)

Think this may actually be my first PS5 review here.

General Gameplay:

• A survival horror adventure game that sees you exploring the dilapidated ruins of an old mental hospital, exorcising spirits, solving a variety of light puzzles, and more to progress. The first 2/3rds of the game generally take place across the same 2 building complexes, and features a lot of back & forth backtracking to access a new room or two here & there. The last stretch of the game opens up considerably, albeit through a much more linearly designed environment (not really a complaint, but I don't think the game world was that much, if at all, larger than that of Maiden of Black Water, & IIRC some complaints I remember about that one being that the game world felt smaller compared to it's predecessors. I don't really feel that's the case in this instance though).
  
  Whether it be rhythm mini games, sliding tile puzzles, or even math, you'll have to stretch your brain a bit to progress.
• Although the game world is one large interconnected environment, it's still broken up into 12 story chapters. You'll actually be taking on the role of 3 different characters during your playtime, and as a general rule of thumb your playable character is swapped from one chapter to the next (they all start at different points in the hospital, though in general all the rooms you unlock as one character are unlocked for the others as well once you reach an area you already explored as another character). Also, each character has their own independent inventory & equipment upgrades.
• Of course it does feature those divisive "tank" controls prevalent in the genre, though I don't think they're much of an issue here (at least when it comes to exploration). The most irritating part is probably that you have to shine your flashlight across the environment in order to reveal interactive elements/pickups (the game will give you a general indicator that something is near you), and sometimes the game can be very finicky with how precise you have to be in order to illuminate something (sometimes I had to go over a surface 3 or 4 times before that familiar sparkly glow would appear). Also, there is a slow and long animation involved pretty much anytime you reach out to touch/grab anything. The reason for this is that some items are optional, and in those cases there's a chance that a ghostly hand can reach out & grab you (causing you to permanently lose said pickup) if you don't let go of the button & pull back quick enough. Luckily, these grabs didn't seem to be as common as they were in Maiden of Black Water.
  
  You aren't gonna grab me... and I'm not gonna get a good photo of you.
• The game doesn't include an auto-save function (well it does, but it only activates when you pass by a save point anyways), so you'll have to seek out a save point if you want to save your progress. Luckily there's usually one nearby with how interconnected the environments are, but even when not it's usually not all that dangerous to trek back to the last one if you feel you really need to (most encounters seem to be scripted, so you don't have to be worried about ghost encounters in areas you've already been through unless the story is sending you back that direction again). Save points don't recover your health, but you can spend some of your score (which effects your endgame grade) as currency to buy basic healing items, film, and even alternate costumes/accessories (though those aesthetic items have to be unlocked by gameplay achievements before you can purchase them).

Combat:

• Two of your characters come equipped with a Camera Obscura, your main tool used to interact with the world & exorcise ghosts. When a ghost appears the HUD indicator at the top of the screen will flash either yellow or red (or blue if there's a non-ghost point of interest nearby). If it's yellow, the ghost won't attack you and you can nab some points by taking a picture of it before it vanishes (the harder it is to snap it, the more points it's worth, and these appearances tend to be used as a hint as to where you should head next, so keep an eye on them). If it's red the fight is on. Although you can shave off some health anytime you take a pic, what you really want to do is wait right before you're attacked, that way you can hit them with a titular "Fatal Frame". This deals extra damage & allows you to string together 3-4 total shots in quick succession dealing major damage if you pull it off (and adds a ton of points to your score, especially if you defeat it with one).
  
  Ready to go, though I don't think I'll be able to do much damage here (more on that later...).
• You do have a basic film that has unlimited "ammo", however you can obtain more powerful variants that have limited usage (the lesser of these can be traded for at Save Points, but the most powerful are only very rarely found in the environment so you'll want to hoard them). You can also obtain a selection of various "lenses" for the camera, which when equipped will unleash different special attacks if you have the special guage filled (which refills when you hit ghosts with regular shots/Fatal Frames). Some lenses may slow down a ghost's movement speed, while others take particularly powerful shots.
• The third character comes equipped with a Spirit Stone Flashlight instead of the Camera Obscura. Pretty much it's gimmick is that it can blast ghosts with stored moonlight, and in all honesty is a much more effective weapon than the camera. It only has one type of "ammo" to keep track of (it's infinite, but you have to wait for it to recharge quite a bit if you fire it off in too quick succession) meaning it's strength is generally built to last the entire game from the start and it has a wider area of effect making attacking groups of ghosts easier. Like the Camera it can also be equipped with a number of lenses (one of which allows it to take pictures in exchange for it's offensive capabilities, which is useful in certain scenarios, like snapping the "yellow indicator" ghosts). This is a pretty big departure from how it would go on to be used in Maiden of Black Water's Ayane (from DOA/Ninja Gaiden) campaign, where it could only briefly stun ghosts IIRC.
  
  This auto trophy pic is the only shot I have of Flashlight combat.
• In comparison to Maiden of Black Water, combat in general is a lot more tense, but not always for the right reasons, though there are some upsides too. With a few exceptions the environments in Maiden were a lot wider & there was more going on with the combat system, making encounters much more "gamey" & fun, but ultimately at the expense of atmosphere (especially since lesser "mook" ghosts would often respawn IIRC). Meanwhile there are a lot of encounters in Mask that take place in small or tight areas (like hallways) that make combat a bit more clunky (heck, fighting more than 2 ghosts at a time tends to be a nightmare in general with the Camera, no matter how large the environment. Luckily that doesn't happen too often. Most group ghost attacks tend to happen when you have the Flashlight, which is better equipped for those encounters). That said, as mentioned before most encounters seem to be scripted, so if you do need to trek back to save after a rough patch you won't have to deal with respawning foes.
• I should also mention that there is one ghost you'll occasionally run into who can't be defeated (hard to miss, as the screen will become black & white and all film grain-y), where you'll have no choice but to run to the nearest exit. While it can be surprising when she pops up, like the other encounters in the game I eventually learned these are scripted and you can usually re-enter the room right after you escape with no worries.

Other Gameplay:

• Along the way you'll have the chance to stock up on these Blue & Red "Spirit Stones". Blue ones are used to upgrade the general capabilities of your Camera/Flashlight (attack power, reload time, special attack meter capacity, etc.) while Red ones power up the effectiveness of Lenses. Again, each character has their own inventory, so don't hold back on one character in an effort to hoard for another one, as it doesn't work that way.
• Also, there are these creepy little "Hazuki Dolls" hidden away all across the environment (I assume there's at least one in every single room, no matter how small or insignificant) that you can take pictures of. I'm not exactly sure of their purpose (other than getting a message that it's curse has been lifted whenever you snap one), or what if anything you get for finding them all (I honestly thought I had found the vast majority of them, and while I found over 50 of them, there are more than 70 in total!) You can buy a guide that reveals all their locations at a Save Point, but it would take a huge chunk out of your score so I didn't go for it.
  
  Hey! What are you doing up there?

Story:

• Across your adventure you'll take control of Ruka Minazuki & Misaki Aso, a pair of amnesiac 17 year old girls who were patients of the abandoned hospital when they were younger (and are amongst the few survivors of whatever incident befell it). When the other survivors start dying mysterious deaths, they feel compelled to explore the complex and find the truth of the matter once & for all (they have the Camera). You'll also take control of Choshiro Kirishima, a private detective who found the girls when they were younger during the mysterious incident back when he was a cop, revisiting the site in order to solve the mystery himself (he has the Flashlight).
  Ruka Minazuki
  
  Misaki Aso
  
  I somehow managed to go the entire game without screenshotting the dude, lol.
• Outside of that, most of the lore & narrative is revealed by notes, diaries, recordings & such you find throughout your adventure.
• Apparently there are actually two different endings, with a basic "bad" (or I guess neutral) ending, and a better "good" ending. Whether or not you have to play through the game multiple times to get the good one (screw that) or if there's just something I missed (maybe the dolls? Just a guess though), I don't know.

Graphics/Audio:

• While it's origins as a Wii game become apparent if you get really up close to any textures, it's generally been touched up really well, and the dark grimy atmosphere is both effective at hiding imperfections & being genuinely unsettling. Seriously, even when I was fairly certain nothing was going to happen, the atmosphere is good at keeping you on edge. Plus there are a handful of jump scares (like a mannequin turning to stare at you the first time you point your camera at it, and only the one time) that are really fun, even if they are few & far between.
• Whether it be derelict operating rooms, subterranean caves, and ancient shrines, there are a lot of creepy environments to explore (though the starting hospital areas are the creepiest, IMO).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Our lovely leading ladies showing off some not so lovely environments.
• It has super effective audio design too. Whether it be ambient moans, scratching, creaking & more, or the sudden piercing sound of a phone ring or intercom system, it's constantly unsettling. Probably one for earphones, though I'm too much of a sissy, lol.

Overall:

• Pretty solid time if you know what you're getting into. Yes, it's a bit clunky which is common for survival horror (especially of it's time), but it has a highly effective atmosphere that oozes dread & stayed with me when I went to bed at night (especially when I was playing it late). Plus, I can't dislike a game that includes swimsuit costumes too much, lol (though the costumes pictured are the DLC swimsuits, I never met whatever conditions were required to unlock the base game swimsuits). With the Maiden port & this remaster releasing in relatively close proximity, I hope that means they're planning on doing more with the franchise soon.
  

@RR529 Nice! I really need to get back to this. While I like the more claustrophobic setting aesthetically, my issue with it is that it makes certain setpieces pretty frustrating, since ghosts will materialize in the walls and grab you from the side, which is incredibly difficult to avoid. This is the first time I've felt genuine frustration over the combat in this series. One encounter early on literally took five or six retries, because it was an in a narrow hallway, and I was surrounded by spooks.

Going back to an old game like this, it's also difficult to remember that it doesn't have free camera controls. I eventually learned to leave the right analog stick alone, but I think this series worked best in that regard when it still had fixed camera viewpoints.

But yeah, the atmosphere remains effective throughout, which is, more than anything, what I appreciate about this series.

"I somehow managed to go the entire game without screenshotting the dude, lol."

I could pretend to be shocked, but I think both of us probably fully expected that you wouldn't, right?

Very nice screenshots, btw.