Recent reviews by yadaran

I downloaded this game expecting a Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery thriller. What I got was a lethal dose of human experience. Politics. Suffering. The detective work is a vessel facilitating intimacy and conversation. A nihilistic world, burning in the flames after leaping from the frying pan. At the epicentre of chaos; a man who has forgotten trauma, unwittingly using his condition to gaze at the world with a juvenile, somewhat healed perspective. A man vulnerable to proselytism from all angles. A man that can completely embody the choices you make as a player; a world that can echo these sentiments. Disco Elysium is incredible and I would recommend it to anyone who can withstand some reading.

PS: This review is solely in praise of the individual people who worked on Disco Elysium. Since its release ZA/UM has been wrung of its creative liberty by investors and greed. Acquire this game through alternate means, then praise the people that scroll by in the credits when you finally reach its conclusion.

there's plenty to say about this beautiful game but i want to hone in on one aspect of it that most impressed me.

as i played animal well i was pretty confused at the tools i was being given. when i first started to explore i thought to myself: wow, the movement is slow and my jump sucks. but, maybe the first item will help? i then got to the first item. it was a frisbee. like, the toy. i was flabbergasted, but i quickly realised it could be used to hit switches from range. it was cool, i guess, but i was still disappointed with it. it felt like a tool designed for a singular purpose, so to me it seemed to stifle my creative thinking.


and then i accidentally landed on the frisbee and watched in awe as my character rode it across the screen.

animal well is a rare example of a game where discovering an intended feature made me feel like i had just found a cheat code, or an unintended bug. this game is full of that. I got a second item, and realised it too had equally 'game breaking' potential. similar revelations just kept happening. i'm sure by the conclusion of the game a majority of players would discover most if not all of these, but nonetheless they still felt like such niche techniques, almost like something you'd see in a speedrun. i felt awesome for discovering cool 'movement techs' that were in fact not only intended by the developers but absolutely necessary to complete some rooms. knowing these interactions were planned did not ruin it for me. instead i felt inclined to master what I had discovered, so i could overcome new challenges. it is a thrilling feeling. you should play animal well.

brother... it's peak. rather than just copy pasting an open world, elden ring is actually filled with stuff to do. every corner of the map feels like it's hiding a secret or valuable item, and 9 times out of 10 your curiosity is rewarded. enemies make you work for the dub and it makes the 'cinema' of each fight feel so earned. some bosses look like they can end the world; you fight them and that spectacle is completely validated because they will mess you up with insane attack patterns and spectacle.

elden ring is one of the greatest video games of all time. genre defining, challenging yet accessible, immersive, and probably worth double what from software charges.

sort of like crack. addictive but probably bad for you (i now have carpal tunnel syndrome from spamming dashes too hard)

probably one of the greatest narratives conveyed through a video game.

Before they dropped Baldur's Gate 3, this was easily the best turn-based tactical RPG ever made. I thoroughly recommend to anyone who enjoyed BG3.

When I learned Larian was taking the mantle of continuing the Baldur's Gate series, I knew we had a banger on our hands, having already played Divinity: Original Sin 2 (Also an excellent game). As an avid D&D 5e player, I found tactician mode was a little too easy. That is my only legitimate complaint with this game. The scale and scope is mind-boggling. Every corner of this game feels hand polished to as close to perfection as possible, and the significance of that feat is only compounded by the amount of branching paths and different story beats that must be accounted for with every interaction. The odds of having an identical play-through to someone else must be minuscule.

This is hardly a comprehensive review. It's basically mad ramblings. But everyone should play this game at least once in their life. Stop reading, buy it, and kiss a good 100 hours goodbye.

EDIT: This review was written before honour mode. It's now a perfect game!

yeah it's alright

I hate bugs. This cannot be understated. If it has more than four legs, I will likely flee from it in real life. This game drew me in with its intricate art before I even realised the game was themed around my mortal enemy. But even after knowing that the whole game revolved around those creatures, I had been hooked. And then I got invested into it fully; the sprawling caverns that seemed to never end; the incredibly thematic soundtrack that wistfully follows you on your journey; the great beasts you come across, armed with nothing but a nail to defend yourself against their mighty attacks. This game draws comparisons to Dark Souls and it's easy to see why, but it's an experience of its own. One that I highly recommend. I still hate bugs. But for a time, while chipping away at the tangling expanses of the crystalline caverns and poisonous lakes of Hallownest, I forgot about it. Trapped within a world so far removed from typical settings. A world that speaks so clearly just in it's presentation, a'la Dark Souls or Bloodborne, but with such an odd concept that it almost seems like you're walking through an alien world. And rather than hesitation, my natural reaction was to see more, to peel back the layers of this foreign labyrinth until all was laid bare. EXCEPT FOR DEEPNEST. THE FACT THAT YOU CAN HEAR THOUSANDS OF BUGS CRAWLING JUST BENEATH THE ROCK AND CAVERNS AROUND YOU MAKES MY SKIN CRAWL AND I HATE IT. I RESPECT IT AS AN AREA, IT'S JUST THAT I AM EXTREMELY BIASED AGAINST IT DUE TO MY PHOBIA. ALSO ♥♥♥♥ NOSK. It's the way the game eases you in, I think. Only when you're knee deep in does the scale begin to weigh on you, but by then you likely have the resolve to see your undertaking to its full conclusion. I guess that's most metroidvanias. This game's just a really good metroidvania then.

I can't believe I've gone this far without going in depth about the combat. To be fair, some bosses can get repetitive. I personally find the dance of learning attack patterns and finding time between them an amazing gameplay loop, but that is how most bosses work. There is no parry equivalent, and dodge rolls with invincibility frames are unlocked partway through. Movement in the early game consists of your jump and left/right movement, and that's it. I enjoy it, despite the occasional repetition of boss types. The challenge of the game is fair, though some can struggle with it more than others. Charms are what personify your experience with combat, however. They are essentially add-ons you can equip for passive or active effects. There are many methods to deal with bosses, usually dictated by charm choice. The freedom that charms provide is liberating, but not to an incredible degree. I stuck to charms which let me swing my sword as fast as possible, to deal the most damage per second. Others prefer to have charms to make healing easier. It's all playstyle.

I think that's enough from me. I love this game. It's simple in concept. A metroidvania with melee combat, with a rather odd setting. But every corner of this game is filled with indie passion so vibrant that even I, who f****** hates bugs, even I enjoyed it. I really recommend Hollow Knight.

this is gonna be a bit of a ramble. i've kept it as spoiler free as possible, but be wary they might come up.

If you check my profile, you might notice I ripped into Danganronpa. I hated the ending. This game has an ending that makes sense mostly, so it's already doing better than Danganronpa. Some argue that the newer instalments of the Ace Attorney franchise leave something to be desired. This game is such a fresh take on a formula that's been rehashed too many times for me to count, so I'm grateful for it. Victorian Era England is brimming with potential that the game capitalised on with great success. The gameplay is mostly what Ace Attorney has done before, with the player pressing witnesses for further information during testimony, and then presenting evidence when a crack appears in their recount of events. The addition of jurors, particularly the Summation Examination, is yet another breath of fresh air. Having the odds stacked against you in the Summation Examination is thrilling, and adds a dynamic to the trials that previous instalments simply don't capture. The music is fluid and consistent. The orchestral arrangements fit well and are a nice change of pace. But all of that is useless if the story and characters don't appeal...

...the thing is, it's good. The character design is great, the writing is solid, and the story did a number on me a few times with its plot twists. There is just one major issue I have with this game, related to one of the main characters. Minor spoilers are ahead.

There exists a character in this game, named Herlock Sholmes. He is a great character. He's funny, ridiculous, but can get serious when need be. He adds charm to the game and it would feel empty without him. But I am ashamed to say that he has already played the game. He knows the story! He is the equivalent of Kyoko from Danganronpa. When the main character is in a rut, who else appears to bail him out but Herlock himself, who has played the game and knows all the spoilers. It is a core aspect of his character, yes. But there are 'filler' cases not relevant to the overarching plot that Herlock could shine in. And yet his most key appearances are in the final cases. I feel that the main character is undermined by Herlock at times when he should shine. It feels like we are the sidekick to Herlock. That works in some games, but not this. The character you follow should be the most interesting.

Overall, it's still good. I just have a tendency to nitpick. 8/10