Recent reviews by 5quid

Cannot recommend this enough

I played through the original Hades during its early access after the Nyx update and saw it through till 1.0.
The final game was amazing, giving me a 150+ hours of a variety of builds and cool dialogues that never seemed to end, but i had this lingering feeling at the back of my head that it had gotten easier to play since the early access since they had to balance it for fewer zones (Lernie being the last fight when i first played it).

Hades II's early access blows everything outta the water. It has more content in terms of zones than even the full release of the first game, has very unique weapons and a playstyle that differenciates Mel from Zag while feeling equally as fun and a really interesting take on progression with the Arcana system, while maintaining its early access difficulty. The kinds of synergies you can have feel slightly lower and random at first, but once you understand how it works, you can practically tailor your run to how you imagine it to go.

My favorite run so far has been getting apollo attack on pan daggers, the growing cast, daedalus for returning special, daedalus for spiral omega special, and apollo legendary that doubles the omega special. It allowed me to beat the final boss in under 90 seconds.

The music is filled with bangers as well, from the multiple themes of the various boss fights, to a remixed Charon's shop theme. One of my low key favorites is the Ephyra theme.

Also as big fan of greek mythology, this game just doesnt miss a mark so far. Just like how the original was based on the orphic hymns and a fusion of Sissyphus and Orpheus' story, Hades 2 brings forth themes of yet another of my favorites, Homer's Odyssey. All the while intergrating it to the story within the house of Hades.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game and cant wait to play the full release! Thank you Supergiant for yet another banger!
[Please tell me you're going to change up Zeus' portrait a bit though, only major gripe]

*I wanted to put this out as an early review of my time with the game before any major patches [Today was patch number 2 - a huge system wide update to the game]

Ok so Mordor's nemesis system is pretty fun.

I died to this random archer orc early on and he got promoted, later on in the middle of hunting another captain he poisons me and kills me again and becomes a captain himself, and now he has resistances to the ways i tried killing him before so i had to make sure he was dead. In the end i managed to have pretty much a boss battle with this dude and slay him and this in turn gave me a crazy good ability mod, and this was all non scripted.

I usually don't like open world games very much, but since I like the Arkham games and this game's combat system was similar i gave it a shot, but this nemesis system really kept me way more engaged in it that i initially thought it would. The cool thing is the orc that kept killing me kept getting new titles to his name from Tugog, to Tugog the archer, all the way up to Tugog the legend, and as he kept getting stronger, he gained more gear and got more resistances to my attacks and visibly looked more roided up and battle worn, but while still being recognisable at a glance. Since i failed to kill him the first time via sniping him with a bow, he eventually became resistant to ranged attacks. This was one of few encounters, and each victory or defeat changes up the pecking order of the orcs considerably, for example me finally killing Tugog raised the rank of another guy who had a feud going on with him.

I don't really need to worry about markers in this game since the stories happen naturally as i keep wandering and killing captains. the only time i even open up the map is to know the general area of my target or main story mission markers, plus the grunts in the army tend to talk ♥♥♥♥ about their captains and that leads me to them outta just paying attention to what they're saying.

Though this is early on and i feel that the game might end up being a bit grindy/repetitive in the long run, if so i'll just do the story stuff i guess unless its necessary to do side content to upgrade abilities and the like.
Maybe its not completely my kinda game, but i'll stick with it since its Tolkien and i'd like to see the nemesis system implemented in other games since its actually pretty engaging and innovative.

I can finally play this game like how it was meant to be, plus a working lobby system!!? Keep it up ArcSys and please add it to the rest of your catalogue. I'll play any of your games if their online works this good!!

Definitely worth the buy. One of the most gorgeous looking fighting games of all time with an amazing soundtrack and so many references. Solid gameplay too. It's a steal for how much it costs.

Really fun game with interesting characters and system mechanics. It's also got one of the best tutorial modes in all fighting games. Only downside would be that the netplay could've been better.

Find a discord, make a lobby and you're set.

Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition is the 2015 re-release of the 2008 action game Devil May Cry 4 by Capcom, released on Windows, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. I played the original PC release, back in 2010 and loved what it offered, but sort of felt that it was incomplete. And the second half was just rehashed areas and bosses. The same could be told about the bulk of the story in this release too ... But this is the “Special Edition” we're talking about here (woohooo!!).

There are now 5 playable characters split into 3 campaigns (namely Nero/Dante, Vergil solo and Lady/Trish), each with their own unique combat and weapons that are waiting to be mastered. A Bloody Palace arcade mode which was missing from the previous version has been added along an extra difficulty mode. The combat is as fine as it ever was, and is the best combat in the DMC series so far. Vergil particularly feels extremely well designed with his moveset being further expanded from how he played in DMC3SE.

Graphically it looks as great as ever, with improved textures and anti-aliasing, especially when you run it on Legendary Dark Knight difficulty on the new Turbo speed setting. It holds up amazingly well for a game that initially came out in 2008. Some players new to the franchise might look down on the fixed camera angles, but it didn't bother me much since the lock-on system works irrespective of where the camera is positioned. The only area where it seemed like a hindrance was near area transitions.

It still has it's amazingly trashy Japanese metal battle soundtrack with their almost charmingly bad lyrics and has added new ones for the new characters. They all fit each character perfectly, though I still prefer Dante's theme from 3. Each sound effect is distinct and clear and allows the player to tell the difference between an attack that hit, or if it was blocked, or if that Bianco Angelo off-screen is charging his rocket lance. You know when you're playing a Capcom game when you can tell what's happening while playing blindfolded (though I do not recommend doing so).

If there were any gripes I had about the game besides it's lacking yet entertaining story, it would be one particular platforming section, and one particular enemy type, both of which share the "oops, you've made a mistake and now have to fight a room of enemies, after which you go back to the beginning of the room" syndrome. Besides that, there is a distinct over-usage of bosses that gives the feeling they were trying to extend the game, which is fine on its own, except it is made worse by the fact that you only get to fight the best boss fight in the game once, and it is never added in the boss rush toward the end. You had 7 years to fix this Capcom, take away five points from Gryffindor!

All-in-all Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition is a crazy good time and is a considerable upgrade from the original. It's combat puts it at the very top of the Character Action game genre, along with Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising, and is extremely replayable like its peers. It would have been the best, if not for it's incomplete story.

8.5/10 [S]mokin'!

Edit: One last thing. If you're a strictly keyboard and mouse only player, you'd be happier playing something else.

The game just keeps getting bigger and bigger the more you dig through. There are so many moments where you go,

"well i guess i'm done with this areAAAhhh...!!!"
*falls through hole*

/DEEPNEST/
"well ....f***."

Few hours later:
"whew! that was... the best-worst area i've been in. Maybe this is a way out."
*gets into tram*

/ANCIENT BASIN/
"well ....f***."

Yeah.... i guess that sums it. I ended up binging it for nearly 40 hours in a single weekend with no end in sight, but anyways, back to the review.

Gorgeous hand drawn 2D visuals, great soundtrack, tight combat, seemingly infinite amounts of progression from where I stand and a plethora of ways to traverse Hallownest.

All in all I would consider this a modern classic and worth more than double of what it's priced at. Would highly recommend any who are up to the challenge.

10/10

My journey is yet at an end...