Mister Jack

HEARD SOMEONE TALKIN' SHIT IN HERE.

Blasphemous II As I suspected, this sequel solves just about every issue I had with the first game. The Soulslike mechanics are still there, but this game leans more into the Metroidvania side of the formula than the Souls side, which I think is for the best with this genre. The Penitent One is now more agile, the controls are better, movement upgrades are pickup items rather than hidden behind cryptic soulslike quests, and oh yeah... SPIKES AREN'T INSTANT DEATH ANYMORE. Thank GOD for that. In fact, spikes in general have much less of a presence here than they did before. They're still around and they still hurt like hell, but if you fall in them you'll be teleported back to the platform as long as you have life enough to spare. The combat is also much improved with three weapons instead of one, and now you have two swappable magic abilities instead of one. You also don't have to go back to a specific location to buy upgrades. The weapons all have their niche too and I got plenty of use out of all three of them depending on what I was fighting, though my favorite would have to be the heavy flail since it swings in such a huge arc. If there's anything to complain about, it's that certain bosses in the game are such a ridiculous difficulty spike that I was tempted to quit a couple times. I pushed through it, but I at least thought about it. It only happened with two of the bosses, but those two were so much harder than every other boss in the game that it felt like going from Elden Ring to Sekiro out of nowhere. It was painful. Really great sequel otherwise, though. I'm glad to see the developers took player feedback into consideration when making it.

Blasphemous The first one. I beat it once before after it launched, but later on they added DLC that included a true ending, so I figured before I play 2 I should go back and get that. Ho-ly fuck is it cryptic. If you don't use a guide like I did I don't know how you'd ever be expected to figure it out on your own. In fact, even with a guide I ended up having to play the game twice because I accidentally fought a boss too early and locked myself out of the true ending. Yeah, I was pissed. It's still a good game but while playing it I was reminded of some very aggravating things about it, such as the instant death spikes, flask upgrades decreasing how many you can carry, and needing to spend 20,000 tears at the donation box in order to be able to teleport between shrines. Does it ruin the game? No, I wouldn't say so, but it did make it less fun. I'm done now, though, so I can finally play Blasphemous II and see what the devs learned from the first game. I'm excited.

Also these huge spending sprees you guys have been going on got me feeling like

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Took me a while to find time to finish this one. I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said. It's fantastic DLC. My only real gripes are that some enemies seem to have infinite poise and some bosses are designed in such a way that if you don't like using summons, you're gonna have a bad time. Is it possible to win solo? Sure, but you are given very little room for error.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Switch version, obviously. I never actually played the original Gamecube version, so I'm actually kind of glad that I got to go into this remake completely fresh. Since I have nothing to compare it to I don't know how exactly they improved the quality of life for this version, but I know they did add new features meant to reduce some of the tedium of the original, or so I have read. Putting that aside and just judging this game on its own merits, I can see why people are so fond of this one. The turn-based combat with no stupid gimmicks like later on in the series is just so much better. I suppose you could maybe consider the audience during battles a gimmick, but it's a very unobtrusive one that doesn't demand the whole battle system be reworked around it. I like the characters, I like the story, I like the music and the graphics and the exploration. This one really should have been remade a long time ago but better late than never. I do think that some of the chapters drag on for too long, particularly near the end, but that doesn't bring it down much for me. I'm just happy that I got to finally experience this game everyone loves so much.

Oh yeah, it's gonna be a good week. That last one just dropped out of nowhere today but the trailer impressed me so much I hit the buy button pretty much immediately.

Moss Book II PC is in the shop so I'm catching up on my VR backlog. This is the conclusion (maybe?) to the story started in Book I. The first Moss was a pretty good VR game and this one improves on it in pretty much every way. Quill is as adorable as ever and now she has more weapons to make combat a little bit less brainless, although it's still not very complex. The boss fights are pretty good though. Quill also gets new traversal abilities and you, as her guide, get new abilities to alter the environment to help her solve puzzles or get past obstacles. Quill herself is as adorable as ever and she charmed the heck out of me with her little victory dances after beating a boss, bringing me in for high fives both up high and down low. This team really did a good job making a protagonist you can get invested in and attached to. I don't know if there will ever be a Moss Book III (the ending is a bit ambiguous on that) but I wouldn't mind going on one more adventure with my little mouse buddy.

This one's easier than Sekiro. There is an accessory you can equip that makes the timing more generous

Bigger enemies and bosses have balance bars. If you parry them enough times they get stunned and you can do a powerful stab attack. Parrying also fills up the bar you use for special moves. You can choose to dodge most attacks instead, but some attacks can't be dodged, only parried.

Stellar Blade There is no way to not compare this game to Nier: Automata. They have similar storylines, similar main characters, similar post-apocalyptic worlds, and even the music has a similar feel to it. Nothing is to the point of plagiarism, but you'd have to be stupid not to notice if you ever played Nier. I would say that Nier definitely has the better story, but Stellar Blade has better combat. It's half Bayonetta and half Sekiro, where you have flashy skills and combos to play with but you also need to master timed parries and dodges in order to open up opportunities for powerful counterattacks. You can't get by simply mashing the attack button like you usually could in Nier. Not a bad game. Didn't blow my mind or anything but I'd give it a solid B.

Unicorn Overlord Another gem from Vanillaware. In fact, this might be one of their best games to date. This is a spiritual successor to Ogre Battle 64. If you never played it, imagine Fire Emblem except instead of turn based it's real time with pause and instead of moving one soldier at a time you have units made of up to five soldiers all moving as group. There is a rock paper scissors system of sorts in here like in Fire Emblem, but since each unit has multiple soldiers you can arrange them to compensate for each other's weaknesses and also edit their AI to determine when and how they use their various skills. Skirmishes play out automatically and the winner is predetermined based on how well you've set up your unit beforehand, but you can skip the battle scenes if you don't feel like watching them play out. I beat it on hard mode, which offered a reasonable challenge, but by the end of the game my main protagonist was such a beast that his unit could solo 90% of the enemy army, at least until he ran out of stamina and had to rest. I hardly need to tell you that Vanillaware games look good, but this might be the best looking one they've made yet. The story falls back on cliched fantasy tropes with an unambiguously good rebellion against a cartoonishly evil empire, but the characters are still pretty likable and fun to follow anyway. This game also has a pretty impressive localization. Not a difficult platinum trophy either, though this is a long game and it took me roughly 50 hours to finish the campaign.

Vanillaware is allergic to PC ports so I got this for PS5 after playing the demo for five hours. It's basically Ogre Battle, and it's been a loooong time since Ogre Battle 64, which I loved the hell out of back in the day.

Rise of the Ronin Nioh 2 is basically one of my favorite games of all time so this was a no-brainer for me to buy. Unfortunately, I can't help but be a little disappointed with this one. It's not a terrible game, mind you. People who haven't played Nioh or Ghost of Tsushima will probably like it just fine. I've played both, though. The open world doesn't really add that much and it isn't nearly as pretty as GoT's, which has possibly the prettiest open world I've ever seen. The combat isn't as deep as Nioh's, either. It's definitely more accessible than Nioh by design and it's a lot more challenging than GoT was if you thought that game was too easy but this game is very focused on parries and the timing on them is VERY strict. Enemies tend to do combos that are very difficult to read too and if you mess up the parry timing on one hit then you're probably taking the whole combo right to the face. Blocking is admittedly more viable than it is in Sekiro, but if you want to get through this game you'll have to learn to parry at some point. I did like that the story takes place during a period of Japanese history most games don't bother with, when Japan was just starting to open itself up to foreign trade (which means you can use pistols). I did also like that you can choose whether to support the shogunate faction who wants to establish ties with the west to learn their technology and medicine or the anti-shogunate faction who wants to expel all the foreigners because they're bringing over foreign diseases and corruption. Neither side is completely good or evil and they both make good arguments. I found myself flip-flopping between both factions multiple times before the story was over and yes, characters will call you out if you switch sides on them and then run into them later on. Even if you switch sides again to ally with them once more they'll hold a grudge over your previous betrayal and only welcome you back because they know how valuable you are, which I thought was neat. There are things that work here, but if you haven't played Ghost of Tsushima yet I would just tell you to go play that instead because it does a lot of things better than this game. If you have played Ghost of Tsushima and you want more samurai action then you could do a lot worse. There is online co-op for the story missions but I am no longer subscribed to PS+ so I did them all with NPC allies. It's also a fairly easy platinum trophy. I'd say wait for a price drop.

Yeah I hate ads but at least I only had to sit through two of them at the beginning of every third episode or so. Still bullcrap and not acceptable to me but I already have Prime for the delivery benefits so I might as well watch it.

Fallout was actually quite good. I was pleasantly surprised.

Good work defending liberty, gentlemen. Super Earth is proud.

So what makes this one so much better than the last one?

Pseudoregalia This is a 5 dollar 3D platformer Metroidvania on steam, a genre I did not realize we needed more of. I beat it in about 6 hours, although at least two of them were due to me getting lost and not knowing where to go. It's not very linear so it's easy to find yourself not knowing where to go next if you haven't been paying close attention to your progress. Still, these might be the smoothest controls I've ever experienced on a 3D platformer. Mario himself couldn't do better. This game is more of a proof of concept than a full-fledged title but if they ever make a sequel it could really be something fantastic.

Weird, I never really had an issue with those levels. Then again, I played the Genesis versions.

Into the Radius I really wanted to give this VR game a fair shake because a lot of people seem to like it but I've tried it twice now and it's always so cumbersome to play. Not only is the item belt situated practically inside your anus with no way to adjust its position but this game has the same problem I have with Red Dead Redemption 2 where absolutely everything is so slow and meticulous. If you want to restock your ammo, for example, you need to take your empty magazines up to the ammo box and wait for it to refill before you can actually use it to reload. To clean your gun you have to put it in a vise and then spray it with oil, scrub it with a toothbrush, tear off some paper, attach the paper to a ramrod, stick the ramrod inside the barrel to brush it out, and replace the paper whenever it gets used up to keep doing it until the gun is fully cleaned. If you want to eat canned food you have to peel the lid back and then stick your knife into the can over and over to eat each individual bite until the can is empty. If you accidentally drop a gun you'd better remember to pick it up because it will not teleport back into your gun holster (I lost a shotgun this way during a frantic battle). Maybe this kind of slavish devotion to realism appeals to some people. Clearly it does since this game has a lot of positive reviews, but I just don't think this kind of tedium is fun, especially when the item belt issue makes it hard to grab things in the first place.