CrossCode (PC): The MMO I always wanted.

Despite what people a number of people feel about them as a gaming news site, I read a fair bit of Kotaku in my day to day life. Mainly because of a few select writers who I enjoy the work of and have some pretty similar interests as far as games go. One of those writers is Mike Fahey, and in his write up at the end of last year he listed his top ten games of 2018.

One of them, I had never heard of before. Wasn't even remotely on my radar. Had nice looking pixel graphics, and boasted itself as an MMO that's really not. Strange, I thought, but ultimately clicked away. But then I started to see the title popping up in some other sites top 10 lists. Now that had my attention. How can a game that appears on so many people's best of lists get by me? Well, that merited a deeper look.

CROSSCODE (STEAM)

CrossCode opens with us in control of a dark haired woman racing through a dark foresty area. She is on the hunt for her brother, and shadowy voice implores her to stop. She vehemently denies, saying that she is trying to stop her brother from working to death. The voice spawns monsters to stop her which the girl quickly dispatches. After tearing through the enemies put before her, she does find her brother just to see him collapse from exhaustion.

We are woken up in a different location. Our hair and outfit are slightly different. An operator tells us that our name is Lea, and we are actually logged into an avatar of the futuristic MMO called CrossWorlds. In the vein of Sword Art Online, Crossworlds is a game where the players are actually implanted in the game to a heavy degree of the 5 senses. Unfortunately, we are told there has been an accident and that we are in a coma in the real world, and we are being placed into the game to try to find out what happened.

To make matters worse though, our speech unit is damaged. We can understand fine, and give minor visual responses but we are told that in order to solve this issue and hopefully find some answers, we need to play the game just as if we were any other player in the game. Lea remembers the basics of how to use her Spheromancer class in the game and after running into a friendly Pentafist named Emilie in the rookie island, she and her new friend jump into the game of Crossworlds to hopefully learn what's happened to her.

Loaded for bear

CrossCode is going to be an interesting game to try to review because the mechanics of this game borrow from so many different various elements that it doesn't really fall into just one genre of game. For example like I explained that the Lea is logged into an MMO, but you would incorrect to assume that's what this game actually is. The MMO aspect of the game is used as a framework for the story and the world.

What I mean be that is, yeah there is some questing that is done in the style of an MMO. You need to go talk to NPCs who give you quests to do, and you'll go into the world and fight mobs to collect items or kill a certain amount of enemies. As you wander around the world you'll see other players just running around, fighting their own things, or just hanging out. All of these are computer controlled. This is a fully single player experience, but it does a very good job of presenting the illusion that this is a living world with other players doing their own thing. 

When I describe the game, I describe along the lines of a 16-bit Zelda game such as A Link to the Past.  It's stylized in a way that it would look at home on the Super Nintendo with a top down view of the world, primarily a 2d play, but there is some degree of verticality to the maps which allows for some platforming and parkour when wandering around the world.

The combat is going to be the real meat and potatoes of this game. It's core is a hack and slasher with bit of Souls to it. You can run around and slash with a couple of swings with a single button press, you have a block that pulls up a shield and can parry if timed correctly, and you have a dodge move that has some invulnerability frames that lets Lea gracefully spin from harms way, which she can do up to the three times. 

But it she wouldn't be a Spheromancer without some spheres, and that's where her ranged attacks come in. When using the right analog (or I assume mouse on PC) the combat becomes almost a twin stick shooter. Holding a direction will bring a pair of lines for Lea's aim together, and once lined up you can unload a continue stream of projectiles at an enemy, which is handy for fast or flying foes. You can also charge up your first shot to ricochet off walls or break enemy guards.

As you play through the game and unlock your circuit board, you open your skill tree which allows you to learn multiple techniques for special moves for your Melee, Ranged, Dash and Shield. What is nice about this is as when you commit to an ability path, once you fill out the 3 spaces for it you can actually flip between your options so if you don't care for how one ability plays you can try the other option to see what works for you better. Even further in the game you start unlocking elemental grids which provide you with even more options to fight with, so you do have a bit of freedom to design your character.

Having familiarity with your Techs will let you set up the right attacks for them

Now while I've gone into the specifics of the combat and referred to it as the meat and potatoes of the game, it would actually be pretty foolish to assume the game is just battling. That's what I did and I was promptly set up for some gameplay whiplash. As you play through the "story" for Crossworlds you come onto these "instanced" dungeons where you have to go without your party. And while these do contain a significant number of fights usually capped off with a spectacular boss fight, you learn that CrossCode is in fact a serious puzzle game as well.

Actually, when thinking about it, this game might actually be more of a platform puzzler than it is an action adventure because depending on the size of your giant space brain, the puzzles can be a major stumbling block. I am more than man enough to admit that there were a number of that I had to look up a solution for because I just was not seeing it on my own.

I love Emilie. She is just the right level of earnestness and naivety to make her impossible to hate.
Might be one of my favorite iterations of the best friend character. 

Sometimes the puzzles are just a matter of following the right path, and parkouring off the right environment pieces to get you from A to B. Sometimes the solution will require you moving around bits of your environment so that you can fire a projectile in the proper path to hit all the necessary points before coming on a final switch. Sometimes you will have to use the temples element for an environmental variant to the puzzles.

All I can say is some these will TEST you. Which can be frustrating because the story frames solving these dungeons like races against your friends. Like I said, I got stuck a lot. It wasn't until a friendly fan of the game in my Twitch chat told me to use visual cues on the floors of the puzzles to get a better idea of how to solve some these. It really did help a bit, but sometimes you can forget early mechanics that if you didn't use, would make the puzzle unsolvable, like remembering you can hop on fences.

So close, yet so far away

Outside from the puzzles, the actual combat can be very challenging as well. A lot of the enemies that you come across have their own unique weaknesses and patterns, so very rarely is just running and slashing away going to be the best way to dispatch something. It can work, but not always well. Then you have to bear in mind unless you use limited items to recover health, it doesn't restore until you finish fighting your combo chain. The more you beat enemies, the more valuable drops they give you, so its beneficial to beat a long string of baddies, but you have to be careful to mind your health.

To the CrossCode's credit, the options provide a very significant amount of customization to the overall game. Right from the onset, you are warned by the developers that this game meant to be a challenge, but if it's proving so difficult that you are not having any fun, you have options to bring down the battle and puzzle difficulties. It's a nice gesture and it gives the "git gud" scrubs less of an opportunity to be so insufferably smug when someone is struggling.

In addition to learning attack patterns and elements, you have to be mindful of ledges too.

CrossCode was a very weird game for me, because it was a game that I kept putting down. It's not because of a lack of interest of will, it is just a game that constantly got caught up in a retail release schedule as I played my games through the year. But there is something so inherently charming about it's whole presentation that always kept it in my mind. When I was playing something major like Red Dead Redemption 2, I always kept thinking "Soon as I finish this, I can get back to CrossCode".

It's story is interesting because it deals with a lot of fronts. First we have Lea's primary story, which is about her trying to figure out what happened to her. This is expounded to her by a character who is developer to the game, basically speaking to her directly. Then we have the Crossworld's "story mode" which is what we learn as Lea plays through the game with the friends she meets, and her interactions with those characters. Then we also have the front of what Crossworld's actually is, which we had a glimpse of at the start of the game and is told in flashback sequences. There is a lot to take in, but it does eventually tie together, (mostly. I'll get into that).

The game also has a sense of humor about itself. Lea, despite being a generally mute character is a very expressive character. She responds with overblown physical comedy and it really goes a long way to accentuate her personality depending on the scene. It also works for scenes when Lea was visibly emotionally shaken. Radicalfish games did an excellent job of finding a way to make you empathize with a silent protagonist.

And man, CrossCode LOVES pop culture references. I basically freaked out when in the very beginning the game when one of the first npc quests parted me by saying Aziz Ansari's big line from the "Steak Night" episode of Scrubs. You find an "Umbrella corp." in one of the cities and you can't enter because of an outbreak they are having. For the Halloween event, you have to collect "Jack's flames" for a character that is CLEARLY Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. I can see from the coming update that there are more character references to be made soon.

Soundtrack is pretty good and it was very fitting for it's overall theme. Described by it's composer of Deniz Akbulut, the CrossCode OST is heavily inspired by Japanese game music of the late 90s using electronic beats, melodic tunes and epic JRPG Scores. This is a fair way to explain it, because the best description I had for it was "Video Gamey" which again, is perfect for it in this case because of the visual styling, story delivery, and accompanying gameplay. There are handful of decent tracks, but I wouldn't consider too many of the 60 to be overly memorable.

Oh Look. Its Doogie Noogie from A Bad Dream Before Kwanzaa. 

There really isn't a lot I have to complain about on this one that isn't in some way addressed. Like for example, when I complain about this game, I would often comment that these puzzles really do make me feel dumb as hell. It was very rare occurrence that I ever jumped into a room, saw the puzzle, and figured it out at a pretty quick clip. Now you can argue that having a solution guide embedded into the floor design is technically good game design, but there was very little indicating that's what they were doing. There was too little visual cue because I pretty much never noticed it until it was pointed out to me.

I could complain about the combat challenge, but I can only think of one real instance where I actually had to turn the difficulty down on a mob fight just so I could actually complete the quest. there was a pretty significant amount of frustration and trial & error, but outside of the one instance there was no fight that I wasn't eventually able to overcome under my own skill level.

Because the game is framed like an MMO, I could complain that some of the questing is the same MMO grind that bores me when I try to play a game like that, but it didn't bother me in this one. This is probably because the game is not an MMO. There is a story at play here with a defined ending, and because I'm not just killing mobs to open the next mission, I am motivated to continue because I want to see how things unfold.

I loved lightning techs, I used them almost exclusively because I love rapid fire damage.

And without spoiling anything? The ending feels unfinished. I get that this was a kickstarter game and they were probably trying to make a deadline to appease their backers, but it was a mild let down. In my first playthough I got a bad, pretty unsatisfying ending. I come to find out that you have to find a very out of the way NPC to trigger a small quest line which slightly changes the ending, but allows you to open the path to good ending.

Thankfully I could reload my save, so I did so. The ending changed by a few lines and actions, and just as I got ready to proceed further and see where it was going?  Nothing. I was able to go back into my game and do missed quests, but the option to go "to the future" was locked off, because that content isn't there yet. Or at least, it's heavily implied that the content will be added later. So I don't get to see how the story actually ends, and the dangling plot threads are left untied. Ironically, the NPC players are suffering from the same fate, because when you get to Crossworld's final dungeon, they players are all lamenting that it hasn't been included in the game yet. Misery loves company I guess.

Smug Lea is best Lea.

But my biggest problem is the confusing and somewhat annoying equipment system. See, you an buy equipment in towns, and that is usually enough to keep your gear leveled with you and the area, and that's fine. But you are told that getting item drops to trade for equipment is usually better. This is where the fight combo chain thing I mentioned earlier comes in. But even if you get your combo chain to S-rank and hold it for a long while, it still takes quite a bit of time to get the drops you need for some items. Almost 90% of the time by the time I got the drops I needed for an item it was already outclassed by the new stuff I bought,.

Or, more frustratingly, when it wasn't? It didn't seem like the equipment is actually better. This is a game that has a friggen ton of various bonus effects to each item, so its incredibly hard to outfit your character. It feels like its giving you a lot of room for customization with items, but its so convoluted and confusing I never know if I'm making the right move. Like say I have a weapon that gives me decent stats, but has no effects. Then I find a "better" weapon, it has a brawler stat, and has a status effect, but then it gives me a massive ding to my HP and attack. I'm being told that this is the better weapon, but it never feels like it because they are unbalanced by what is taken away. It was frustrating because it made trying to grind for items feel like an arduous chore that wasn't worth the effort.

I can only wonder how much faster I could have beaten
 this game if I understood what most of this shit meant.

But its hard for me to complain that much because no matter how many times I put it down, it was a game I kept coming back to no matter what made me put it aside in the first place. Once I really started to understand how the puzzle mechanics work and story really got rolling, I found myself incredibly immersed in this one. I am looking froward to some DLC updates because I really do hope this story continues, because its the only dimmer on this overall solid experience, and even then it was a mild disappointment at best.

CrossCode came out to little fanfare, but its certainly starting to catch the right set of eyes. And now this once PC only experience is about to come to the Switch and the PS4, and that is only a good thing to help this game really get out there. More people should play this game. It's an incredibly solid experience that blends a lot of familiar game elements to make it feel truly unique. It's got a sense of humor about it that keeps it from taking itself too seriously, but also does a good job delivering it's emotional punches of the story. The puzzles are well thought out and clever, the combat is fun and challenging. Its only 20 bucks and is at least a 50-60 hour experience with updates on the way. I can't ask for an better entertainment dollar and give CrossCode a strong recommendation. 

Also, with a code, Lea will idle and do Caramelldansen.
Fucking. Sold. 

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PS4) - New Setlist, Same Symphony.

One of my initial downfalls of getting suckered into Kickstarters was when Castlevania luminary Koji Igarashi made a particularly bonkers teaser basically calling out Konami for giving up on what brought them to the dance, and just giving up on their most popular video game franchises. After being told "people don't want that kind of game anymore", he took the crowd sourcing platform to prove that wasn't true. 65,000 thousand people and 5.5 million dollars later I think he's successfully made his point.

But then development happened. Almost 5 years of it. The problem is, when you promise the moon and people pay you exorbitant amounts of money for these promises, you are going to be expected to deliver on them. So to say that this new game had a rough development cycle would be a massive understatement, but I'm getting ahead of myself. First? Let's at least see if they delivered on the game portion of it.

BLOODSTAINED: RITUAL OF THE NIGHT(PS4)

Bloodstained begins in 18th century England. The industrial revolution barreling forward and the Alchemy guild is worried about losing their influence of the nation's wealthy patrons. To maintain control, they intend to sacrifice people infused with demon shards to summon demons to the world, basically to scare people into believing in the guild's necessity. From the experiments, two shardbinders were successfully prepared to be sacrificed: Gebel, who barely survived the procedure, and Miriam, who fell into unnatural sleep just before they were to sacrificed. 

Miriam awakens a decade later to learn that Gebel has survived, and has now aligned with the demons. He has apparently summoned demons to the world and has taken refuge in a demonic castle to take vengeance on the guild. As a shardbinder, Miriam has the ability to fight back, and so she travels with some of her remaining guild compatriots to try to stop the demons, help the people, and hopefully save Gebel.

So ok, admittedly that's not a whole a lot of framing, but its enough for what we came here for. We want to wander a big castle, fight monsters, get more abilities, and cover a massive map. So let's get the major comparison out of the way because it is going to come up a lot: is Bloodstained a Castlevania game? Yes, in everything but its title. If anything, you can you see it as the culmination of all of Iga's previous Castlevania experiences and best ideas. It's going to be difficult to discuss everything becuase this game has a LOT of mechanics.

The obvious comparison is going to be Symphony of the Night which will draw the strongest comparison because it is more or les s the quintessential definition of the term "Metroidvania" as a genre because of the franchises departure from level based gameplay. Like SotN, Bloodstained starts us off with a brief tutorial area to teach us the basic controls of the game before letting us loose in an incredibly large and sprawling castle. We are free to explore until we find dead ends until we come across the necessary item or boss that allows to change how we travel or open new paths.

My initial complaint was slow movement speed, but ultimately it was never too much bother.
You do eventually get speed boosting items. 

It's combat system can be broken down to multiple parts spanning from pretty much every Castlevania from 1997 on. Miriam can equip what feels like hundreds of weapons that can drastically change how you approach your fights. Do you want a slow but heavily damaging axe to wail on baddies with singular precision strikes? Or do you want to put on some boots for weaker but quick damaging kicks to deal lots of damage very quickly.  You have a TON of options.

Sub items and abilities make their return from classic Castlevania and Aria of Sorrow soul stealing in the form of shard collecting (hence Miriam being a shardbinder). As you fight through throngs of baddies they will occasionally drop shards which allow Miriam to use in different ways as you have a number of them you can equip at once. For example, one is mapped to a single button to use like an old Castelvania game like a dagger or axe. One is tied to the right shoulder, typically one that has an ongoing effect (such as the dash). You can turn the right analog to aim Miriam's arm, and used the trigger for a targeted shot, and you can also have a passive and familiar equipped as well. By end game, Miriam will be loaded for bear.

.

Thanks to the myriad of collectibles and book cases scattered throughout the castle you will find a number of books that give the weapons techniques too. So on top of their normal abilities you have more technical moves you can pull off as well. For example with some weapons you can do your standard "hadouken" quarter circle forward on the controller with an attack, and it will cause you to fire a projectile, or use a jump move, or heavy slash. They change with the weapons so there is a lot of freedom to play around.

From Order of Ecclesia NPC side questing returns. While you explore the castle you will often make trips to back to your home base location to buy new gear, upgrade your shards, fuse new equipment and so on. At your base there are a handful of NPCs there who give minor quests. One old lady wants food, one very angry lady wants you find monsters and KILL THOSE MURDERERS DEAD. You have a farmer who will plant seeds for you, and a woman who wants to bury nickknacks and old equipment.

Dis is Chompy and Snaps. They need to calm down.

Most of these provide varied rewards, and some of them are trickier to complete than you might think. Hunting the monsters is easy enough, but finding the correct drops for you to cook the right food dishes or craft the right gear for you to bury is going to take some patience and elbow grease to do. I am on a New Game+ run decked out with an high luck stat set of gear to try to increase the drop rate and even then it feels like the regularity of what drops is sparse at best. Typically the rewards for doing so outweigh the cost to create the item, but you will probably find yourself hitting a wall on the equipment one. "Oh I need leather shoes, oh I need a beret, oh I need Excalibur." Whoa, whoa, whoa lady. A bit of a jump there.

Bloodstained took a bit of a beating in the early kickstater because of its look. I got hooked by the concept art but when the E3 beta came out for backers, its 3d modeling was rough at best. They since polished it up to a nicer looking cel-shaded style of models, but there were a lot of little mistakes with eyes, eyelashes, mouth animations. They quickly patched some of these design problems out, but for a game that had a 5 year development it sure felt awfully unpolished. Ultimately, the gameplay animation and character design is good looking and satisfying, but I do wonder if 3d render was the way to go.

This mechanic annoyed me, because it only appears like 2 or 3 times in the game.

So you have plenty of time forget it existed before you will need it again.

The game has a pretty exceptional score, although probably pretty similar Castlevania fanfare if I am being completely objective. But it does have some, pretty notable tracks to it that will dig into your ear and set up shop. Some truly great tracks are Exorschism, Voyage of Promise, and Gears of Fortune. I really liked this soundtrack a lot and feel Michiru Yamane did an excellent job.

The voice acting however, I am a bit less charitable to. I wouldn't go out of the way to say that it's bad because the lines are delivered competently enough, but because of how the dialog is written it never feels smooth or natural. From what I understand, the English delivery of the dialog feels flat and uninspired in comparison to the Japanese language. Some of the conversation feels like it excruciatingly repeats things we have already learned. This is really unfortunate because a look at the voice actors in this one? They really assembled a pretty great cast who have done lots of voices from games I loved.

Play on, sister.

As I kind of eluded to, I felt the story was fine. There were some twists in the game that were almost painfully predictable, and there is one really big one that kind of buries the lead to ending sequence of the game, but ultimately I don't feel it really impeded my enjoyment on that front. Most people don't play metroidvania style games because they are super invested in the rich plotline. And if I am being totally honest here, having some what hokey story with some cheese to voice acting really kinda falls in step with what a lot of us loved about Symphony of the Night. Maybe that was the intention? If it was, that's brilliant.

There's also a shit ton of easter eggs in the game and hidden bosses to find. A lot of nods to Iga's previous work. Breakable walls which I know is a big thing for some Castlevania fans. there a bunch of items that change Miriam's appearance, and there is a room where you change her hair and appearance as well, which is was an unnecessary but fun little distraction that I enjoyed.

Sometimes you just need to summon a chair and take a break.

I am not sure how I want to approach my usual "What I didn't like" section of this review, because a number of the problems that I have/had don't necessarily come from the game itself. Some of  these problems stem from being a kickstarter backer of this project. For example, had I not kickstarter backed this game, would I have right to complain about the development time? Nobody likes when a game is delayed, and this one got delayed a lot. But when you back you get this feeling of entitlement I guess. So when you slate it for two years, and it takes you five? You better expect some backlash.

Granted, due to the ridiculous amount of money they got, they made a whole lot of promises. So many that arguably, the game isn't even fucking completed yet. They are going to release all the content over time to the tune of THIRTEEN DLC updates. Holy eff'n hell. Now I don't know shit about shit when it comes to game development, but it sure seems like something is wrong when a game like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice which graphically is stunning, was able to pump out their in just under 3 years. While this game which would have fit at home on the ps2 took almost 5.

Some abilities are specifically just for movement, or function as keys that have no actual attack potential.

Then you have the colossal fuck ups of 505 Games involvement. First you decide to make the backer exclusive content "premium DLC" which basically means its not flippin' exclusive to backers at all, now is it? Then you don't even get it out a month after the game actually releases (I still don't have my codes for it). But then we have the fucking mindnumbing charging backers 60 dollars for an exclusive physical edition, THEN put the physical edition out in the store for 40. Big ole fuck you, right there.

But that isn't even the worst part, the Best Buy edition of the game comes with an exclusive steelbook variant of the games cover, which looks incredibly nice. But for the 60 dollar backers like me? I got a shitty cardboard slipcase. Many of which got damaged in shipping because they didn't have the courtesy of a padded envelope. But if that wasn't enough of a kick in the dick, they only made 500 extra of the steelbook and had the nerve to charge backers and additional 25 dollars for them. Making it now 85 to get what people at Best buy could get for 40.

Gotta find the weapon that works for you.

Now, they tried to spin it that the backers got access to content that balances things out, and I will admit that I thought the low res 8-bit Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was excellent. But to say that getting this 10 dollar bonus, a cardboard case, beta access, and cheap DLC somehow balances things out is decidedly wrong, and even with weeks of damage control people are still furious. Rightly so, from where I stand.

And like I said above, for a game that had some a long development time, the lack of polish on this one is almost insulting. I couldn't believe how many graphical glitches I came across in my initial play though of the game. Thankfully they got on top of those quickly. But the game was full of technically glitches as well. These kind of bugs will be worked out, I know. But when the game breaks it really can go out of the way to mar my opinion of a game. If you look at my reviews for Death's Gambit and the Secret of Mana remake, game crashing is becoming a cardinal sin for me.

Some techs are easier to pull off than others, and depending on level and gear it can make or break a fight for you.

While I just said two paragraphs ago that I really liked Curse of the Moon its almost to Ritual of the Night's detriment. If there is any one gameplay thing that I could complain about its these two things: The difficulty curve and the boss fights. First off, After a pretty stable start it throws you up against a wall with a fight against another character. But if you get past it, its basically a gentle downhill slope to the final areas before the difficulty starts to ramp back up again. I did not find this to be a very challenging game after that fight and honestly that can be a problem of metroidvania's as a whole. Seriously, between Bunnymorphosis and the Portrait Shield shards? Anything that didn't cause curse was fucking laughable.

But with the boss fights specifically? There didn't feel like there was any real variance to how I needed to take care of them. Curse of the Moon's level based system made it a battle of attrition to reach the boss, and then needed to learn the enemy attack patterns and tricks to take them down quickly and safely. Ritual of the Night I basically could save before a boss, wait for them to make an attack and then unload with a fast attacking weapon until they dropped. I dealt with almost every boss this way. It just fed into the lack of challenge and feels like a disappointing step back.

This is one of the last hidden bosses you find. You might find his attack patterns strikingly..... Familiar...

On top of that, since I played Curse of the Moon first, at some point I started realize that I was going to be fighting all the same bosses from that game as well. There were no new ones, no extra ones. Some of them even used the same attacks. This actually diminished some of the surprise I had going into some of the fights because I already knew what to expect. If anything, I've already fought more challenging versions of it.

Let me just spoil something for everyone right now: There will be a part of the game where you need to swim. You need a shard from a specific enemy to do it. In the opening part of this game you fight these human teeth tentacle things. Once you open up an area with an underground lake, there is one more of those things in a different color palette in one specific area. You need the shard THAT ONE drops to get the water jet that lets you go under water. There, I just saved you like 4 hours of pointless wandering for an item that doesn't exist.

Literally almost everyone I know got stuck here. Finding that one specific enemy that gives water jet is key to progress.

I'm sure I can keep ranting on this one, but honestly that feels like I'm arguing two different things. So the ultimate question is, was Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night good? Honestly it feels like that's 100% dependent on if you were a backer or not. If like me, you backed the game, you probably feel short changed by a number of things, perhaps let down by what you didn't get, or what you don't have yet. I know some of the lack of polish bothered me.

But if you were to just judge the game by its own merits as if you just bought it digitally, leaving all the kickstarter stuff out of the equation? I would say that Bloodstained is an incredibly rock solid experience. For fans of Symphony of the Night it's going to feel like slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes. Every complaint I possibly had is basically diminished by the fact that I picked the game up and basically didn't stop until I finished it. I think I wrangled up like 20 something hours inside of 2 or 3 sittings. And, because of the way the DLC is scaled, that means like Shantae and Shovel Knight I am going to keep coming back to it to play the new content. That's good for replayability.

So to the everyman? I would Bloodstained is a good game, if not great. If you are looking for something to scratch that Castlevania itch, Iga is going to satisfy that it in all the right ways with this one, and for only 40 bucks that is incredibly reasonable for a game with this much playability. For the backers? Maybe they will come up with some extra bonus concessions for those who felt short changed. But ultimately? I am just happy that the game finally came out and it ended up being pretty good. Solid recommendation for this one.

"Arise myself and my shadow!"

Is forever burned into my brain.

Celeste (PC): Conquering Your Mountain.

Contrary to what a lot of people may think, I don't actually play every video game that comes out. It's not for lack of trying, mind you. People are exhausting, I have to talk to them, engage with them, Leave my house to see them? Ugh. But despite my best efforts to dig myself into my private little hole with games, the fact is there are so many developers putting out content it's nearly impossible to keep up with all of it. 

So sometimes, a game that is critically acclaimed or very popular sometimes gets by me. Sometimes I never notice it, sometimes I never have time. Now this one I didn't know very much about but I did know its name and primary character. Every time I'd see a stream mention or play it the chat would go bonkers about it. It got to the point where I felt I missed out. So with me looking to rip through some steam games on my stream, and a fresh batch of summer sale games, I finally sat down with.....

CELESTE(PC)

We start off Celeste in control of a young woman with orangey red hair and a blue winter jacket named Madeline. She has left home to come to Mt. Celeste with an unexplainable urge to reach its summit. At the base of the mountain she crosses path with a polite but discouraging old woman who warns Madeline that she should not try to climb this mountain.

Ignoring her warning, Madeline begins her ascent of the mountain. After a brief starting climb, Madeline makes camp for the night to prepare for the next part of her climb. But as she sleeps, she dream where are dark reflection of herself breaks from her mirror reflection. This doppelganger, which she calls a "Part of Me" condescendingly tries to impede Madeline from climbing, at first with words but then by force. Madeline awakens visibly shaken but not deterred from her goal, and continues her ascent.

So when I first fired up Celeste I had an immediate ping of familiarity to the overall design and controls. One quick google search showed me that Celeste comes from Matt Makes Games studios, which is dev team that produced Towerfall: Ascension which is a game that I very much enjoy and has been a staple of my yearly Extra Life charity stream. So right out of the gate hopes were riding hire than if I had gone in cold.

Celeste at its core is a pixel based precision platformer that starts off with simple, tight controls that will gradually ramp up in difficulty as you learn new tricks, and progress further up the mountain. There are 7 total story chapters in total and one bonus epilogue chapter. 

Now when I say a term like "precision platformer" I usually think of games like Super Meat Boy and their controller snappingly frustrating difficulty. Thankfully Celeste doesn't start out that rough. The chapters are basically broken down into a hybrid of an over arching map that are connected by single screen challenged. Some of them fit onto a single screen, some of them will scroll as you move along.

Sometimes a level will just click and you fly through it, and those moments are immensely satisfying. 

Generally these are all connected on a single straight forward path but you aren't always locked out from backtracking if you need to go back for something. This is only necessary if you are a competitionist, as most of the time you really just need to progress further. In some later stages keys might be required to progress forward and those maps will have a more circular sprawling design, but this isn't a game where you typically get lost.

The core mechanics in Celeste are just a few abilities. You have a jump button, you have a dash button that you can use once in any direction, and you have a grab button that allows you to grab on walls and climb them. Your dash will recharge if you land on solid ground, or hit specific level context items (such as bounce springs or bubbles, for example). If a few short instances you can also use your wall grab to carry something.  But ultimately, those are all the controls in the game.

Whelp. That is unfortunate.

Each chapter is defined with their each unique level quirk that Madeline has to incorporate in order to each stage. For example, in the first run of stages you will come across various sized mechanical boxes that are connected via a chain loop. If you land on or grab the side of it it will cause the chain to active to move the box. These can be used to reach new areas, get into better jumping positions, or used as a launcher to get more height on your jump.  

In addition to these, there are hazards in every level be them pit falls, spikes, enemy npcs and so on. A person in one of my streams referred to the game as a resource management game, and that's a surprisingly apt comparison. The concept of the level design may be fairly obvious, but you need to manage to do it using the limited amount of dash and grab stamina you have to get to your next safe landing. The game has pretty clear indications of your limits, too. Madeline's hair changes color when she uses her dashes, and she blinks when her stamina is going to give out.

The design does a good job of teaching you how it works easily before throwing harder setups at you

Like stated earlier, the game's difficulty starts off pretty genteel but it ratchets up in a real hurry. Because of this, thankfully, there is no lives system and checkpoints tend to be pretty plentiful. Pretty much every screen transition is a checkpoint, and in some longer maps you have some sporadic mid level checkpoints. It loads quickly so dying is a momentary inconvenience. But you are going to die, and you are going to die a lot so get used to it.

Along the way in Celeste you will find collectibles as well. Primarily in the form of winged strawberries, cassette tapes, and crystal hearts. Thankfully, none of these are required to actually complete the game, but the game does keep track of them, and the ending card changes only sightly depending on how many of the strawberries you collect. These are what will test your mettle in Celeste, more so than just completing the level.

The cassette tapes and crystal hearts are more rare than the which are much more difficult to find or collect. But these serve a purpose in unlocking more game content. If you collect more of the cassette tapes you unlock the B-side levels, which are basically more challenging versions of the maps you've done. Manage to collect all the crystal hearts, and you unlock the C-side levels. So while the story may only be 4-8 hours long, you have a whole lot of game content to unlock as well.

As you can see, the B-side levels are really going to test your ability.

If you have played Towerfall: Ascension before then the graphics are going to seem real familiar. It uses incredibly low res, yet finely detailed miniature pixel sprites. It's actually very impressive. None of the actual character pixels have facial details, but all of their animations cycles are detailed enough to see exactly what limbs are moving, or what separates her from something she carries. 

The levels are designed with very vibrant and contrasting colors so with the exception of where some levels are moving at a quicker clip, it's very easy to distinguish what parts of the level are fore and background, and what elements of the stage you can interact with. Granted I am always a sucker for great sprite animation, but there was a lot of meticulous care here to make sure that the levels are all designed in complimenting palettes to keep within the theme of the level as well. The effects for dashing, stamina, wind, snow are all complimentary without them overpowering the general level design.

They also do a couple of nifty little visual tricks with the conversations in the game as well. Each character's text box is unique to them and when they enunciate certain points of effect the text in certain lines will shake, wave, bounce, and so on. The character faces in the boxes also switch due to emotion which really adds the character, almost to the point of 4th wall breaking at certain points which I exceptionally liked. It does a lot with a little to really build the characters where they can in this one, and I liked that a lot.

I struggled in this segment a bit because I couldn't get the timing of the dash down.
Never could time the bounce off his head correctly.

Celeste features an incredibly chill soundtrack from the mind of Lena Raine. You would think that the music would be designed to be more dramatic or uptempo, but theorize that wasn't for a couple of reasons. Primarily, I feel is soundtrack is designed in a way to produce a more calming effect. Because of the very nature of the gameplay, you are going to be met with some frustration. But by having this relaxing chill ambiance in the background, I never found myself getting as angry as I usually do with games like this. Sure I got mad and yelled a few times, but they were few and far between. I have a real hard time describing what genre of music this would fall under, but this would be great to try to sleep to. 

But the other reason, and probably the reason the game is so universally acclaimed is that it works to compliment the story. You'll note from my opening that the story introduction is somewhat bare bones. The reason for this is because much of the actual character development isn't handed to you at the onset, you get little nuggets as you play through the game and meet other characters. Specifically a fellow traveler named Theo. 

You come to learn that while Madeline is headstrong and courageous to the point of stubborn, But that she is also deeply, deeply troubled. She suffers from deep seeded depression and anxiety, and through conversations with characters also reveals that she suffers from regular panic attacks. She has poor coping mechanisms, she self medicates with alcohol, and basically lashes out online. She doesn't really have a reason for wanting to climb Mt. Celeste outside of doing so to spite herself.

via Gfycat

I can see from this why so many reviews empathized with Madeline. She is a great character and very relatable. Almost too relatable. Spoiler warning but in the later stages of the game you have a conversation with Theo where Madeline comes clean about a lot of the problems she sufferers from. A lot of them hit close to home for me, frighteningly close to home. Almost as if the game was directly provoking me about it. 

Celeste was definitely developed with a personal story to tell. These experiences feel real and personable, and for those who don't struggle with these issues it provides a decent window to what it's like to have these kind of vices. They humanize the characters, make them feel real as opposed to just being characters in a game. There is a truly exceptional sequence of the game where Madeline tries to face the "Part of Myself" which becomes a harrowing chase sequence of stages where the bright colors of the background are corrupted by the dark tones of her dark side, and you have to cut through them to make the recede. It's probably the emotionally strongest point of the game.

Easily probably my favorite part of the game not just for gameplay, but also for story and use of visuals.

And once you start to connect the dots? Everything in the game becomes an analogy for dealing with anxiety and depression. The challenge of climbing a mountain, getting stuck in a particularly difficult patch, falling back down and trying to climb back up, dealing with people who want to help but don't really understand. That is really where the cleverness of the story takes it hold, because almost every aspect of the game loops back to the central themes. It's smart writing.

But as you can tell from a few paragraphs ago I wasn't as moved by it as so many of it seem to be.  Perhaps because I have currently dealt with similar problems I didn't affect me as strongly. Perhaps because the description of the issues felt a little bit lip service, and didn't delve deep enough to really emphasis the crushing nature of these feelings. I would have loved if they found a visual shorthand to incorporate into the mechanics. Like if moments when she's having anxiety/depression, the gravity effects change in the level. I'm not a game developer though and admittedly, I am probably being somewhat unfair because of personal reasons compared to the layperson playing the game.

Low blow, game. 

Now, from a purely technical standpoint? Celeste as a game leaves me with virtually no complaints, and that is pretty rare as I've always said every game has faults. The controls are tight and intuitive, the music and visuals are consistent to the theming, the story is well constructed but not so dense that it doesn't disrupt the game pacing, and the levels and overall play time are just the right length so that it doesn't become so frustrating that I stop or become bored with the game.

The only real complaint that I have can't even really be marked against it because it's literally the nature of the gameplay. In some of the later stages of the game, the pathways to solve a level require near pixel perfect precision. There is a late stage level where you have to course of 6-9 frame perfect air dashes through very tight corridors of spikes that I was just 100% certain I was never going to get through. It was frustrating, but I can't hold it against the game because this is exactly what the game is designed to be.

via Gfycat

There is no doubt that Celeste deserves the praise that its earned from it's merits. It's easily one of the most technically sound games I've ever played. But I don't feel the experience was as emotionally powerful as many reviews made it out to be. Perhaps because of the sparring nature of the storytelling and limited number of characters and time with them effected my stance on that, because it didn't have the emotional punch like games like Undertale or Persona 4 do with me so I do feel like there's a bit of puffery here.

Celeste isn't a game that reinvented the wheel, but ultimately it didn't need to. It kept to its core mechanics and polished them to an absolute mirror finish to produce a fine precision platformer with great soundtrack, heartwarming characters, and sizeable playtime. For 20 bucks you get a great amount of entertainment for your dollar, and honestly despite finishing the story I expect to come back to this one to get more collectibles.  Celeste was a great game and is absolutely worthy of a high recommendation, I just wish I got to have the experience everyone else seemed to.

Seriously, Madi explaining how she deals read like
the developers have been spying on me. >:|

Devil May Cry 5 (PS4): A B ranked combo

My mom knows practically nothing about video games. Usually when she buys me games she sticks to lists that I've made. But on occasion she'll take a shot in the dark and take a chance on something that looked interesting to her. This is how I discovered Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. A game I initially thought was stupid but ended up being an incredibly solid Legend of Zelda style of adventure that I flippin' loved.

She hit on it again in the PS2 era, when the first of this franchise came out. At the time I had only vaguely heard of it, but it featured a commercial of a dude sleepwalking and pulling a sword off his wall before cutting his room to ribbons. The game was a smash success and after multiple iterations and almost 6 years of disappearance this series finally comes back in.....

DEVIL MAY CRY 5: (PS4)

Five years after the events of Devil May Cry 4, we start off in medias res with longtime Devil May Cry protagonist Dante squaring off against a new demon in a massive tower and he is accompanied by a 90's Trent Reznor looking dude who goes by the name of V. The fight is not going well and just as he's about to be finished, Nero from Devil May Cry 4 makes his appearance to try to stop this new evil as well.

The battle does not go as well as he hoped. We flash back to the events that started this: Nero has started his own branch of Devil May Cry demon hunting with girlfriend Kyrie, and his engineer friend Nico. He is ambushed by a man in ragged clothes who cuts off his devil arm and teleports away using the Yamato sword.

Days later we see V enter Dante's Devil May Cry office to hire his crew to slay a returning demon called Urizen. He has planted a demonic tree in Red Grave City called Quiphoth that is basically ripping the blood from the denizens to produce fruit that the demon is collecting. This brings us to where we started the game, and we pick up the action a month from then.

Bringing the Edgelord since 1998

Leave it to Devil May Cry to keep things simple *cough*. So it's interesting to see that this installment of the game goes back to the established canon of the story as opposed to the rebooted version of the game. I guess because the backlash against it? I dunno, I thought it was fine. And honestly it was so early in the DMC timeline that it really could have served as a prequel without disrupting the established canon of the previous games. In any case, were are now back to the front end of the current timeline.

So Capcom has realized lately that if they just modernize the wheel, instead of reinvent it, fans will fall back into step. So what we have in DMC5 is a basically a celebration of the previous iterations with some splashes of new thrown in. The controls of the game stay fundamentally the same to every iteration you have come to know with this series with your light attack, heavy attack, pistols, jump dodge, aim control scheme.  But they do sightly differ depending on the character that you use.

There is some challenge in this one, but this is not the hardest DMC I've ever played.

When playing as Nero, you will find that the control scheme hearkens back to how they did in DMC4 where you have your series of sword and gun moves, but you have a dedicated button to using your arm. You don't have the Devil Arm in this one so instead you will use an interchangeable set of robot arms with various abilities. In addition to that, Nero's Sword, the Red Queen, has the ability to be rev'd up for additional fire damage.

Dante is DMC classic mode, or more accurately Dante is DMC3 mode. While swords are guns are his mainstay, Dante is able to switch between the 4 fighting styles he was able to use before in Trickster, Gunslinger, Swordmaster, and Royalguard. In addition to having these and the multiple weapons he can use, Dante still has access to the Devil Trigger which is what allows him to go full demon mode for high intensity damage and combos for a limited time.

Dante is easily the most versatile of the cast, and using him is like slipping into a well broken in pair of shoes. 

V is the newbie of the group and because of story line context he is significantly weaker than the other two, so he fights with a more ranged summoning style. Sure, you can get in range and swing your staff, but you will pretty much get iced. Instead, V can summon various types of familiars depending on your button inputs that range from a lithe and nimble panther, to a large hulking golem. Once an enemy is weak enough V can dish out a finishing blow with his cane to shatter an enemy. This is the only way to finish them. V also has his own variant of the Devil Trigger as well.

Combat once again is graded depending on how well you combo your abilities together while avoiding damage and affects your total score per fight, which I believe does result in some payoff of red orbs to unlock more abilities as well. So depending on your favored play style you will find a character that you fit into a groove with and score well, and one that you will not. In my case I managed to rank very high with V and always had shit ranks with Nero.

To Nero's credit, a lot of the Arms do give him a number of different abilities to use,
It just would have been nice to switch on the fly to really get the full potential of them.

Stages are broken down in a a somewhat hybrid mechanic of how they used to be in DMC4 and the DmC: Reboot. Each stage generally you flip to what character is going to be the focus and then you basically play through a predetermined path. I would almost venture to say that it is arcadey of sorts because it doesn't feel like there is a whole lot of room for exploration. There is the occasional secret here an there but not a whole lot of freedom to explore your surroundings it felt like. It's infinitely better than the narrow path/open void skyboxes from the reboot, but ultimately its not difficult to find out where you are going.

There apparently is also some strange online mechanic to the game as well. When you play certain chapters of the game apparently there are other events that take place with the other characters at this same time. During these chapters and online player actually takes control of the other character and then at the end of the level you are asked to grade their helpfulness. I am going to be 100% honest I have no idea if I ever actually saw another player. I can think of one level where I was playing as V where I had a Nero running around, but I had no idea if it was an AI or a Player. So whenever I got a prompt I just gave them a good rating. They weren't impeding me, so that seems like enough.

Motorcycle that turns into twin maces? Sure, why not. 

Music in this one was solid, although if at this point a little samey for the series. It's opening theme of "Devil Trigger" was pretty good, but then the game immediately shifts to the that mix of Hard Rock/Industrial you have combat moments and droning demonic ambiance for the exploration moments. Its pretty standard DMC fanfare. So far none of the OSTs have really captures that stellar magic of the first game, but its still pretty good. I'd throw it on in the background while I'm working.

Nico, is a fucking bizarre character. She annoys the hell out of me, and I kind of love her? She basically functions as your portable store for upgrades, saving, and getting Nero new robot arms to use. She's a wild child, but she talks with this nasally stuffiness that I'm not quite sure is supposed to be an nerdy accent or an inflection. She's a goofball, she's foul mouthed, and fearless. I think what makes me love her is compared to her concept art, they actually toned her down to be less sexually designed. She still is, but her looks seem more natural and realistic compared to the picturesque Lady and Trish, which honestly makes her look more appealing.

She's a ridiculous goof, and annoying as all hell. But I'll be damned if their isn't something charming about her.

My biggest complaint with this installment is the same one I had with the DmC: Reboot: The level design sucks. Sorry, ok yeah big demon castle and sprawling gooey walls and scary looking caves are fine and all. But does nobody remember that the first DMC game was kinda like Resident Evil? After the start of the story you would be dropped into a giant castle that you had to explore, fight, and find keys to advance. What has since happened is Final Fantasy 13 syndrome, where the level design feels more or less like a series of straight lines taking you from encounter to encounter. The exploration was part of the game, and I don't know why its shifted away from it.

I hate the Red Queen. One of the most fun aspects of this series is that combat is supposed to be fast, fluid, and exciting. With Dante and V this more or less holds true because you can constantly keep up the pace. But not with Nero, no you have halt your combo to try to get the timing of revving his stupid sword properly to get the best damage out of your combo. I was never able to properly figure it out, and you cant cycle through his robot arms either which is exceptionally annoying. You just have to use them in the order in which you placed them, so you can't adjust them situationally as the fight requires. I do not know why they thought this was a good idea.

Once you get into to a rhythm with the controls, combat is fun regardless of who you are playing with.
Just don't try to rev your stupid sword.

I'm going to spoil a bit of a story bit here so skip this paragraph if you want, but what the fuck was the point of putting Trish and Lady in the game? I'll tell you: To make the pretty girls naked. That's it. You never get to play as either of them, they a pretty much immediately taken out of the equation at the start of the story, and they essentially serve no purpose to advance to the plot. It's frustrating because these two characters are supposed to be sawed off demon hunters themselves. But no, they are relegated to being damsels in distress.

This is the only time I'd be happy for a DLC update because a "Ladies Night mode" would have been awesome since they fight so inherently different than the boys do. But no, Capcom has said they have closed the book on this one so there will be no coming DLC packs for DMC5. They literally put in these two bad ass characters in there to be damsels and stripped naked. Good job, very 2019.

Complaints aside, if not a little ridiculous the story does ultimately come together with a reasonably satisfying ending sequence that feels bad ass to play, if not for leaving open some pretty big plot holes in the conclusion I won't get into for those who having played it. But after hearing it, and then looking it up to learn there is not really a canonical answer for half of it was certainly surprising that they went that way with the story. It's not bad, but it does leave me with some questions I now can't get answered.

I found it very easy to S rank with V, because his bags of tricks lets you stay away from the close combat. 

Bruce Green of FunHaus has a great joke saying that this game was "designed to be cool in 2000". And that probably is one of the most fair opinions I've heard of the game because it certainly does feel like it would be right more at home a generation ago. Despite all my complaints about the game its still an incredibly solid play. I ripped through it and had my fun with it, but ultimately once I finished the game I was done with it. When my only rewards are harder difficulty or arbitrary points, the replability falters. Just another one of the pile of one and done's.

Devil May Cry V came out in march of this year and is already being sold for 20 bucks off of the standard 60 dollar retail. It's a solid play but its not a world beater. It feels like its trying to chase its linage as so many franchised games do. When it comes to spectacle fighters my heart lies with games like Bayonetta, but Devil May Cry V  is more of a return to form than previous iterations, and you could buy worse games for 40 bucks. It gets a lukewarm recommendation.

Seriously, Trish is has a massive ass sword and Lady a bazooka.
But sure, don't let us play as them. 

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4): No they don't, they die over and over and over and over and.......

Alright, so by this point we've all heard me jerk off the Souls franchise raw. I'm an unabashed fan of the series. But it wasn't until well into I realized some of the other games From Software produced. Mainly while shooting a let's play, I realized that these are also the makers of Tenchu, a game series I never personally played. 

But when I saw the trailers and gameplay for this one during E3 last year, Tenchu's heavy hand could sure be felt in the gameplay. But it also definietly feels like the Souls series that I love could be felt here too. But everything moved so fast, there was stealth. This was going to be a whole different beast than I was ready for. But it didn't stop me. I speak of course, of.....

SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE(PS4)

In a fictionalized 16th century Sengoku period in Japan, a battle between the Ashina Empire was in the midst of the bloody coup for control. During the aftermath of a devastating conflict, an old shinobi by the name of Owl comes across a ragged looking orphan. The child shows no fear, grabbing the blade of Owl's sword, goading his death. Owl however sees a fire in this youth, adopts him, trains him as a shinobi and names him Wolf.

Two decades pass and Wolf becomes a shinobi, and personal servant to a young noble boy called Kuro. The Ashina clan is falling, and current leader of the Ashina army seeks to create an immortal army using Kuro's power. Wolf attempts to help Kuro escape, but he is cut down by Genichrio Ashina and loses his arm. Kuro is captured again.

But due to Kuro's power, the "Dragon's Heritage", Wolf survives the wounds and has been found and treated a former shinobi and sculptor. The sculptor replaces Wolf's wounded arm with a shinobi prosthetic, which allows him to use various ninja tools right from his arm. New abilities in tow, Wolf heads back to Ashina castle to save Kuro.

Those of you who are familiar with the "Souls" will note a pretty distinct difference right off the bat that Wolf is an actual character. He's not a customizable ninja, he has a designed face and voice. He actually interacts with other NPCs and actually has a definable backstory. And while at the onset the overarching goal is unclear, he does have character motivation. This is more than any Dark Souls or Bloodborne character has ever had.

And while at its surface it looks like this is going to be a harder version of a Tenchu game, make no mistake about it, this is a Souls game through and through. The combat will feel familiar, the map exploration is vast, experience can be lost at death. But there are a lot of new elements that drastically change the experience as well, so like always there is going to be an adjustment period where you have to unlearn what you know from previous Souls titles.

So let's get right into the meat and potatoes: The combat. The first thing you'll need to brace for is that like the nimble shinobi, this game moves at a breakneck pace. Faster even than how Bloodborne moved, which is impressive because that game was not slow. Much like you will remember the game uses the right shoulder buttons for you primary sword attacks and your Prosthetic. Your left trigger, which once was used for shield and parrying is now used from your grappling hook which allows you to fly around the map as well as be used in certain combat situations.

In these situations, getting the drop is ideal.

But it's not just a matter of fast combat either. Sekiro expects you to approach things more skillfully as well. Enemies are incredibly focused and sharp, so if you just try to hack and slash through the game you are going to lose your other arm. The big crux of the combat this time is 90% of the battle hinges on the Posture system. Essentially you and your target have a glowing bar that increases as you deal/take damage, block blows, and most importantly, deflect enemy attacks. Your posture recharges more quickly dependent on health, so sometimes it's wise to back up and hold your guard before you dive in for another round.

If you or your target have your posture maxed out, you are left vulnerable for a kill shot. If an enemy takes one of this it completely kills them outright regardless of their remaining health or in your case and wipe out a large amount of yours. While dealing damage is one way to do it, the main way to really send off an enemies posture is to time your blocks just before impact to deflect their blow and knock off a large amount of their posture.  If they have lower health, it will take longer or make them unable to regain their posture.

So yeah, if that sounds like the parrying system from Dark Souls? That's because that's exactly what it fucking is, and man do I hate the parry system. I have never been good at timing the parry properly so I knew I was in for a rough ride. And boy was I, but I'll get into that later.

If you time your deflections right, enemies can be dropped quickly.

What the Sekiro does not explain well enough though, and this is a massive oversight from where I stand, is that even if you don't time your parry's correctly, you are still able to block blows with relative success. You don't get the larger posture benefits from it as well as taking a big posture hit yourself and it's possible to lose health from that as well, but it's certainly better than just eating a number of slashes and wiping a fight almost immediately.

In addition to the main combat, enemies have some special telegraphed attacks that can't be blocked or parried by normal means. For example, some enemies use a sweeping slash that can't be blocked at all, but this can be jumped over (holy shit the game as a jump button!) and an aerial stomp that counters it. Some enemies have a grab move that must be dodged to avoid damage. Some enemies have a thrust move that a special counter is required to fight against. These moves are signified by a tone and flashing Japanese character, but good luck making out which one it's supposed to be telling you in the heat of the moment. It's usually much better to get a feel for their motion or pay attention the enemy. A spear user's wind up will probably indicate if a thrust or sweep is coming, and big guys grab. Not rocket science.

Sometimes even when you make the right move, it's the wrong move.

Or, you can say to hell with combat and try to go about stealth kills. With thew new faster movement and significant upward mobility thanks the jump and grappling claw, there is a lot of opportunity to sneak and fly around your environment and trying to land a number of unnoticed kills. In some areas, this is going to be mandatory because of the nature of the parry based combat, it is highly discouraged to try to fight multiple enemies at once. You will want to pick off as many baddies as you can to progress with all your health in tact. Even better, some bosses and minibosses are also susceptible to stealth kills which knocks off a full bar of their health which can make some fights significantly easier.

There are some changes to the death mechanics and penalties. First and probably most importantly goes along with the game's NáméSáké: Shadows Die Twice. Thanks to Kuro's Dragon's heritage. when you are first slain, you are able to basically lay prone for a few moments for enemies to leave your body, and resurrect yourself with some minimal health. Usually this allows you land at least one more stealth kill before enemies are alerted again or allows you to bail out and get some distance. As you gain kills you will restore your ability to revive again and with some items you might be able to give yourself more than one revival.

But should you die again, there all penalties. First, in true souls fashion you take an experience hit. Leveling up in this game is used specifically for unlocking new abilities and techniques, and so long as you "bank" a full XP bar you won't lose it upon death. But if you die twice before you tick over to a fresh bar, half of that experience is lost. There are also shops along your game where you can you buy various tools and items. These just money, and like XP if you die you are losing half of that too.

Landing that stealth kill is so important because it literally cuts a minibosses' health in half.

With the experience loss being mitigated some and only losing money which is not a critical element for progression, you might be fooled into thinking that dying is not as impactful as it is in previous From Software games. You would be wrong. If you get killed too many times, the NPCs of the surrounding area get affected by an illness called the Dragon's Rot. This basically causes them to start hacking blood and dying. I am not sure if this is something that can permanently kill some NPCs, but it absolutely can halt the ability to do side quest progressions. It can be cured and thankfully I never seemed to die enough where I couldn't cure it again. I managed to finish the game with cure to spare.

The other big chance to combat is instead of learning spells or having differing weapon types to use, you have a set of skill trees you can put your experience towards new abilities and items. So while you only ever get the one sword to use throughout the game, you have a different special techniqes you can equip to change the play style a bit. Sadly you can only ever equip one at a time but if one doesn't work it's nice to know you can change it to approach fights differently.

After that it's pretty Soulsy through and through. You a single recovery item that gets more uses as you play and be refilled at checkpoints. You have totems acting as bonfires for checkpoints and recovery. You get a series of different tools for the shinobi prosthetic that have limited disposable uses, essentially becoming your spells in the game, and so on. Like I said above: while it might initially feel like a Tenchu game, it's really a Souls game.

Surprisingly, Sekiro didn't go the Nioh route as there are surprisingly few monsters in the game.
Perhaps to disconnect with the Souls series, but I would have liked more fantasy creatures to fight.

This game has an exceptional soundtrack. It is properly scored to a somber samurai film affair: quiet and harrowing when exploring area's, but increasing in tempo and tension when getting into battle and boss scenarios. I am a sucker for traditional Japanese instruments though so I might have a somewhat biased opinion, but damn does it set for a exciting one on one duel.

From Software looks like they payed a bit more attention to detail on the character models on this one. I'll be the first to admit that most of the characters from their other games have very poorly designed faces, mainly because most of they are meant to be covered in armor 90% of the time. But now we have cutscenes and conversations with an actual character, so it's nice to see that make things a bit more visually appealing for it.

There is no online mechanic this time around, which is both a blessing and curse for me. On the downside I am no long able to engage in jolly cooperation, which means any boss that I have to fight through in this game I have to fight through on my own skill and my own skill alone. But on the plus and more importantly, I don't have any random Darkmoon or Belfry assholes dropping into my game as I am frantically searching for a checkpoint with no health left desperate to not lose my progress and experience.

I struggled more with this fucking prick more than any actual boss in the game.

As per usual, the game features a NG+ with harder and more damaging enemies, but because the crux of the combat requires deflecting damage instead of tanking it, they feel a lot less intimidating. Especially if you start up right after you finish the game because you will be in the zone and prepared for it. There are also I believe 4 different endings to the game so there is a bit of replay value to the game as well.

Once I got into a groove, there was not much I didn't like about the game, but what I didn't was almost a deal breaker for me. Every game these companies put out always have a barrier to entry where you need to relearn the mechanics of the new game. But holy shit Sekiro could afford to dial it back a little bit to hook you. This game is bloodthirsty from the word go. Like I said above the deflect mechanic could have been better explained to let me know that blocking was still a viable thing to do to get the gist of the combat.

This lead to me coming up to the first actual mini-boss after the tutorial level and I basically slammed to a halt like running face first into a brick wall. One, I didn't have the timing down on my parries, so I would give up on them which would cause me to take big chunks of damage. Two, it said I'd need to lower his health lower his posture more but everything I attacked with would get blocked. So I played too defensively because I was afraid to parry and block, and couldn't seem to score any damage.  Three, it doesn't let you know that running and counter-striking is viable to at least whittle their posture down.

Long Boy Snek dun fack around.

What ended up happening is I would be successful in stealthing to where I could take out one of his life bars, but then I would be totally stuck because I had no clue how I could approach the battle. You can't just Dark Souls walk behind them and slash them down. And had I known blocking was viable, I would have learned that the deflect is pretty generous actually. The game says not to mash it, but if you do you still get a pretty wide window to block so while I might not have perfectly time deflects I would at least not be getting cut to ribbons in every exchange.

And I would argue that a LOT of these minibosses are actually harder than some of the actual bosses. There was one particular shard of glass in my urethra on a snowy cliff that I could not get the attack rhythm down and his attacks could yank me back in for big damage. It wasn't until I started running around the battlefield goading him to attack so I could score a few quick counterattacks before the lighbulb started to go on and I could chip his health down to where I could get braver to push his posture. It wasn't long after that I realized how generous the block actually is that everything clicked that allowed me to really start to go toe to toe with some bosses and actually feel bad ass doing it.

But all of this means NOTHING compared to some of the camera fuckery that this game stick you with, and this was easily my most massive complaint at the start of the game that nagged me all the way to the end. Combat in this game is FAST, so similarly the camera also needs to move fast to try to keep up. So the last thing I need is to get stuck on an invisible rock against a wall and have the camera zoom so far up my fucking ass that I can't see my character or what is directly on either side of me. Manually having to spin the camera in these scenarios force me to give up precious milliseconds I don't fuck'n have when I have 3 loincloth wearing drunkards bearing down on me.

While not the cause of death in this clip, this is a great example of how much the camera can fuck your vision mid fight.

As mentioned above, you only get the one weapon aside of your sub prosthetic. And while the techniques do provide a little change to the playability, you can only use one at a time and that really limits the customization. Dark Souls, Nioh, even Bloodborne had a small offering of weapons that changed the core combat enough to make it feel different. There are plenty of ninja weapons that could have been used here so it is a little disappointing that they limited down to one weapon. It fits from a story perspective but for a gameplay mechanic it's a bummer.

I won't lie, after the first few hours I was pretty much ready to throw this game in the trash. A challenge is one thing and I'm certainly not of the mindset that a game has to have an easy mode. But if you are going to make your game this difficult, the challenge should be in things I have rules for. Not for camera bullshit that is incidental. This could have been fixed if some smaller environment pieces could be glided around instead of locking as a barrier.

But ultimately, everything did eventually click and I fell right back into that  Soulsian groove that always feels so good. Fighting the final boss of the game took me 8 hours to do. There was swearing, there was screaming, there was resigned resignation, but when I had that golden run where I just put the boots to him and got that final credits sequence? No better feeling. It's why I still keep coming back to these games no matter how much they punish me. The payoff always feels like payoff.

Once you are in the zone, crossing swords with the baddest of the bad is always tense and exciting.

Look, I will be the first to tell you that Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is not a game for everybody. Hell it's entirely possible that Sekiro might not even be for people who are fans of the other games from this company. This is easily one of their most difficult and most punishing games to date. But now that I've gotten over the humps that made me hate it, there was a lot to love in this game. I've had to put it down for a minute, but I already feel the urge to go back to it. A game of the year contender in my book, but I wouldn't blame you for skipping this one if you get frustrated by hard games.

That four monkey chasing boss can fuck right the hell off.