toxicitizen

The fact that it's coming to Steam day and date (or at all, really) is genuinely shocking news. Especially in these dark times where Epic are trying their hardest to fuck the PC market up. I would've skipped a Win10 store release because I still constantly hear stories of how much of an unusable fucking nightmare it is. But with a Steam release, sure, I'll give the series a shot. I'm surprised by the episodic release, though. It's been so long since the initial MCC release that I figured they had plenty of time to port the whole thing at once. For a newcomer like me, is it optimal to start with Reach? I know it's a prequel but those aren't always the best intros. Like, I'd never recommend anyone start with MGS3. I got you, Mal!

Devil May Cry 5 Welp, DMC3 is no longer the best one in the series. Everything about this game feels like a love letter to the fans, even the goddamn story is fan servicey as all hell in the best possible way. The game pretty much has everything I could've possibly wanted from it. Well, except for one specific thing but I have a feeling that's probably coming as DLC at some point. The ending felt a little anticlimactic but the journey there was so freaking hype that I really can't complain. It was a bit on the easy side but now that the tutorial is over I can bump it up to Son of Sparda difficulty and start the real game. I can't wait to really sink my teeth into it because goddamn does the combat feel good in this one. Dante is as wonderfully complex as ever, Nero's actually fun to play this time, and while he's the weakest of the three, V's playstyle is a pretty cool addition. I never quite figured out how to use him as well as the other two, though, because having to constantly keep your distance from enemies feels kinda weird to me in a game like this. So yeah, the wait was ridiculously long and we had to suffer through a decent but completely misguided reboot but it was all worth in the end because it led to this. Here's hoping we won't have to wait another 11 years for DMC6. At least, I'm assuming this isn't the end. The ending could totally work as a send off but it also leaves things wide open for the series to continue.

Yakuza Kiwami I finished the story about a week ago. It was alright. About as meh as I remembered but Zero really fleshes out a lot of key characters, so it ends up feeling less confusing early on. The game makes no effort to clearly set up the structure of the Tojo Clan, so you're hearing about this and that family and some assholes die and you have no idea who the fuck they are or why it's that big of a deal. At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that Zero exists solely because they considered remaking the first one and realized what a dogshit introduction into this world it actually is story-wise. This is why people say Kiwami is glorified DLC because playing it after Zero is so much more enjoyable that it's basically mandatory. That's just the story, though. I imagine in that regard the series will only get better from here on out. At least I hope so. I don't want to set myself up for disappointment, so I won't expect anything as insanely good as Zero. Gameplay is as good as it was back in Zero, although I did miss the disco minigame. Also that one really good karaoke song. As for completing the game, well... I tried. I don't have time to do a Legend playthrough before DMC5 unlocks tonight, I have no desire to do the climax battles right now and that fucking endless Haruka fetch quest in the post-game mode is actually broken near the end, so I have to wait for a patch to finish that. And I haven't even gotten to the part where she wants you to get 950 points in karaoke on Otometal... I really wish the game would let me smash a motorcycle into her dumb little face because fuck that song and fuck you, Haruka! But holy shit, this game sure makes you work for this completion. I mean, casino/gambling minigames are whatever. Most of them are simple enough to figure out if you don't already know them. But I actually learned how to play fucking Mahjong for this shit! Which I've wanted to do ever since watching a few episodes of Akagi with a friend like 15 years ago. It's a pretty fun game! Anyway, between DMC5 and Sekiro, I'm probably good for the next month or so but after that I'm gonna need Kiwami 2 ASAP. So get on that, Sega! Now if you'll excuse, I'm going to go spend the next ~10h pulling my devil trigger eagerly waiting for DMC5 to unlock on Steam.

Pretty much. I often get the urge to do a marathon right before a sequel is due to come out but I almost never actually do it. For example, there's about a week left until DMC5 and I kinda want to replay DMC3 and 4 before then but I'm probably just gonna end up spending that week trying to 100% Yakuza Kiwami.

Which mission is that? I was just thinking that I need to fire up the game more often. I haven't touched it since November, even though I made a point of keeping it installed on my SSD. I was planning to get every elusive target as they became available but I keep waiting until it's too late. I've missed every single one so far lol.

Yeah, that's because it's really one map short of the first season. They kinda hide it by re-using the first season's tutorial, so they technically both have 6 non-tutorial locations but, I mean, come on. That first beach house map is even lighter in content than the fake boat level. It's basically a glorified tutorial for some of the new mechanics with little replay value. Can't really complain, though, considering they gave season 1 owners the previous locations for free. There's also the two upcoming expansion pass locations, which as far as I'm aware there's still no ETA for. I'm really curious to see if they'll conclude the story or still keep things hanging for a potential third game/season.

Well, I know roughly what to expect in terms of story length because I played the original on PS2 when it first came out. But if it's that much shorter even with the side-content then I guess it must not have anything as insanely time-consuming as the real estate/hostess club minigames Y0 had. Which would be kind of a relief, tbh lol. I enjoyed those modes but they are one hell of a time sink. I've come to realize that Howlongtobeat is wildly inaccurate for me, though. My completionist (and apparently very slow) playstyle means I'm often well above their average time, even the completionist ones.

Jesus, didn't you just buy it a few days ago? Yakuza 0 took me almost 80 hours to beat! Is Kiwami 2 that much shorter or did you just not get lost in the side-content at all? I mean, I'm kinda worried that the two and a half weeks between Kiwami 1 PC and DMC5 won't be long enough to finish it lol. Also, weird, I could've sworn the remasters had been confirmed for the West. I still think it's a sure thing but maybe they're waiting for all 3 to be out in Japan so they can release them as a package over here?

Looks like what was supposed to be the first paid Hollow Knight DLC turned into a full-blown sequel! Hollow Knight was absolutely fantastic, so I'm seriously down for more.

Tbh, I started having the most fun once I bumped up the difficulty and did a second run with better knowledge of the game. It's definitely a "first playthrough is the tutorial" kinda game, like most Platinum titles. I never used any of the laser weapons but that's mostly personal preference, I'm sure all weapons can be valid choices with the right play style. I mostly relied on the heavy machine gun and assault rifle when I wanted to maximize damage (e.g. unloading on a boss' weak spot) and the shotgun for small fry enemies. The shotgun is ridiculously satisfying once you get good at dodging fire and popping in and out of slow-motion for quick headshots. It's also pretty lethal against tougher enemies once fully upgraded. Outmaneuvering a Romanov and taking it out with a few quick, well-placed shotgun blasts is the kinda thing that makes me wanna fire up the game just thinking about it. Another move like that is throwing grenades, vaulting out of cover and shooting them in the air for maximum destruction.

I hate being that guy but... you may have been playing it wrong. Vanquish is anything but that. It's also one of the very few games that I think is actually possible to be played wrong. I'm convinced that most people who didn't like it played it like a cover shooter ( mainly because it's really not great when played that way) when in reality it should be approached with the same mentality as something like Devil May Cry. You should only be taking cover when you overheat, and you really should be trying to not overheat.

There's been plenty of these online over the past week but this is the best one I've seen yet.

Pre-ordered on Steam, partially to get tokens for the lunar sale discount but also as a fail safe just in case Epic decide to get their fucking hands on this one too. It's cheaper on Fanatical, so if nothing happens I'll probably just refund it and get it from there at the last minute. I'm seriously considering doing the same thing with Sekiro... edit: Yeah, fuck it. I earned enough tokens to get an extra 6 bucks off and it's not actually available anywhere other than Steam, so it's not like I'll be getting a better deal than this. I was hesitant due to not knowing the system requirements but they just updated the Steam page with them and they're about as low as Dark Souls III, which is a pleasant surprise. Oh and speaking of Dark Souls, the remaster finally dropped low enough for me to bite so I grabbed it a few days ago along with a couple other things.

Resident Evil 2 Finally finished 2nd run last night, so that's my first full playthrough complete. I think it's safe to say that this is the best video game remake since the original REmake. At first, I was disappointed it wasn't done in the original remake's style but now I actually kinda want them to remake the original like this one. It was just that freaking good. My first run was with Leon and it was the strongest of the two scenarios. It was incredibly tense not just because of the atmosphere but also because of how I played. I sneaked past almost every single licker and once I noticed that running alerted zombies to your presence and aggro'd them, I started carefully walking everywhere. So I spent a good chunk of that playthrough slowly walking around the police station, in corridors filled with lickers and zombies. It was wonderfully stressful. Then Mr. X showed up and it became a fucking nightmare lol. The 2nd run scenario was cool but ultimately made me wish they'd done more with it. Apparently the whole idea of A/B scenarios was cut until much later in development, which kind of explains how it ended up. There were some really cool moments where Claire got somewhere and it was clear Leon had already been there. At one point Leon sees someone get cut in half and when Claire gets to that part you see a little torso zombie crawling around. That stuff was great and I wish there had been more of it. But other than a handful of rooms that only one character can enter and a small area unique to each in the middle of the game, you're mostly going through the exact same places (although sometimes with slightly remixed item placement). Instead of letting you choose which characters do the first and second runs, I wish they had put more effort into making two distinct campaigns that would form a more cohesive version of the game's events. But other than that small nitpick, it was a fantastic game. I loved RE7 but this was on another level entirely. Now I need a remake of RE3 done exactly like this. Seriously, Capcom. I know you love experimenting with this series for some reason, but you just need to do the exact same thing with RE3 here. You have the perfect blueprint, don't try to fix what isn't broken! You can go back to first-person for RE8 or do whatever else you like but give me RE3!

It's only been a few months since I've played Zero but I am more than ready to start breaking bicycles on people's heads again.

Catherine Classic I was taking my time with it, both because of RE2 and because I was waiting for the first patch but I ended up finishing my normal run today. The patch is available in a beta branch right now but I think I'll wait until they push it to main to start a hard run. The port has some minor issues that I'd like to see ironed out because really digging into it. Otherwise, it's the same old game I loved back on PS3. I feel like I had a much easier time with it this time, though. Only the last couple levels really frustrated me, and even then it was only because I already had the gold trophies on every previous levels, so to make sure I'd get the last one I wasn't using checkpoints or allowing my combos to break. I'm looking forward to seeing how the puzzles change on hard, though, because I wouldn't mind a bit more of a challenge. I'm also curious if the remaster is gonna be changing or adding puzzles because otherwise I'm not sure I fully get the appeal. The addition of a third Qatherine (yes, that's how they spell it) doesn't seem to me like it would improve the game all that much and the puzzles are by far the best part of the game for me.

Looks like Hatsuu's out, possibly for good. I don't blame her and she should obviously prioritize her health but man, I'd be lying if I said this doesn't kill all the cautious optimism I had about this shit show...

So, I put a few hours into RE2 and man, this is how you remake a video game. I was initially disappointed that they went with over-the-shoulder because I guess I assumed it would mean a return to a more action-oriented style but so far that's really not been the case. I thought a remake like the first game's was the best way to go. Basically, I wanted the original RE2 but with a modern coat of paint to "future-proof" it. I'm glad to admit I was way off on that one. What Capcom actually made ended up being far more interesting, I think. To the point where now I kinda want them to remake the original in this style (after the RE3 remake that's rumored to have already entered development), so that we can have the entire original trilogy like this. It might not be first-person but it has more in common with RE7 than the original. It's basically RE2 through the lens of RE7, if that makes any sense. It seemed only superficially similar at first because of some aesthetic and mechanical similarities (upgradable inventory, UI elements, etc) but then I ran into Mr. X and suddenly it was pretty clear. I initially wrote more in a spoiler tag but ended up deleting it. All I'll say for now is that my first impression of him is that he seems to behave in a way very similar to Jack from RE7 but (so far) without the obvious limits that made Jack less intimidating over time. He looks kinda goofy with his Inspector Gadget hat, though: (just a screenshot of him in the tag)

I tried telling myself that I would wait but the reviews just hit this morning and are pretty goddamn stellar, so I caved. I'm hyped as fuck over here because RE2 is basically my childhood. I didn't have a PS1, so I spent what felt like the longest goddamn time waiting for it to come to N64. And when it finally did, I played the shit out of it. So I'm in this weird zone where I kinda remember most of the game but not in any great detail. I don't think I've seen a single full trailer since E3 and I've avoided most of the smaller vids they've been releasing. I played the 1-Shot demo (very slowly and didn't manage to get very far) but that's about it. So, I'm pretty much going in as blind as I possibly could. Friday can't come quickly enough!!!

About time! It was initially expected by the end of the year, so I wonder what took so long. Hopefully once it's out they won't waste any time in announcing Kiwami 2.

Onimusha: Warlords It's basically Resident Evil in feudal Japan. I knew that, so I'm not sure why I was so surprised by how good this was. Melee combat with tank controls felt super weird at first but that was mostly due to the game not explaining its controls very well. Turns out you can actually lock-on, do a kind of side-step dodge and even pull off some special moves, which makes things significantly less clunky than the first boss fight led me to believe. There's also an option for "modern controls" (which admittedly make more sense here than they did in the Resident Evil remasters) but I didn't use them because I'm not a sociopath. Those boss fights can still be annoying, though. Some of the later ones present a bit of a difficulty spike and this game has unskippable cutscenes, so you have to rewatch them every single time. I'm assuming there were technical reasons why they didn't change that because that would've been near the top of my list of things to fix. I'd be lying if I said those moments when I got stuck on a boss didn't sour the experience somewhat but ultimately I still really enjoyed the game and I hope they'll remaster the sequels. I'd love to play a version of this that's (hopefully) been refined and iterated upon a bit.

I don't think there's any save transfer to CSIII, if that's what you're worried about. So if anything, CSIII would be the perfect time for a platform jump. But yeah, they're calling it a PS4 exclusive but I'm assuming it'll come to PC at some point. I'm not sure why they're not announcing it now, though. I want to believe they learned something from their recent fuck ups and want to get it right this time, but even then there would be no reason not to announce it now and say its release window is TBA. Like, literally all they have to do is give Durante a call. If XSEED could afford him, then surely they can too. And at this point, announcing they have Durante porting the game is pretty much the last thing I need to fully give them the benefit of doubt.

Well, shit. It was pretty obvious she got fired (although it wasn't clear why) but I guess life finds a way! I'm still super skeptical about this (especially given those tweets I posted above) but at least now they have someone on board that's actually going to care/obsess over every little details. Hopefully it's not just PR and they'll actually listen to her. The game is less than a year away, though, and apparently they've been on it for like a year at this point. It's obvious they've only recently brought Hatsuu on board, so I imagine there's limits to what she can accomplish here if the work they've already done is all garbage. edit: Can't say I recognize the other names but that Ryan guy seems alright by me.

Not sure who this is but if it's reliable then lol