Recent reviews by Nicky T

Split Fiction might be my favorite game ever. It Takes Two was already good, but Split Fiction just knocks it out of the park by the ending. The gameplay is somehow more creative, the story more heartfelt and exciting from start to finish, the final hour of the game is seriously like something that I have never seen ever (and likely never will again). I don't think another game has made me smile more than this game. Plus it doesn't have any parts that may really upset some people (If you've played It Takes Two, you know what part I'm talking about)

Do yourself a favor and play through this one with a friend :)

(Reviewing after rolling credits on the main campaign, I know that High-Rank is where the game "really starts" but found it fitting to review here. I struggle to rate this one because I'm a fan of the franchise, and I have big thoughts (both positive and negative) about different parts of it.

To get it out of the way, this game's performance and visual quality is unacceptably bad on launch. The game looks and performs fine for me, but it only takes one look at any online forum to see that people are massively disappointed about the game's optimization. What this is due to, I'm not entirely sure. Could be the RE Engine, could be the multiple layers of anti-piracy BS like Denuvo, etc.

Another thing that I am not conflicted about is this game's combat. It's magnificent. The smoothest that I've played in the franchise. I love how the wounds system has been utilized too far, and I love that it feels more "optional" in comparison to something like the clutch-claw and tenderizing. Additionally, I am a fan of how the Seikret changes up the flow of the hunts and allows you to stay engaged with the action.

I feel very mixed about the Quality-of-Life changes in this game. The game feels very much "two steps forward and one step back." For every process that is streamlined, another has been seemingly made more complicated for no apparent reason (the inventory system and loadouts are the first that come to mind.) I'm going to get this out of the way now, the multiplayer in this game is horrendous. Link parties, environment links, lobbies... it's the type of thing that (if I had to explain how to join my world to a friend who was new to the franchise) I would feel embarrassed by. Speaking of friends, it's actually insane that they still haven't figure out a way to playthrough the story missions without having to sit through the cutscenes by yourself.

Speaking of the story... wow... I know that they had a stronger focus on story in this entry (in comparison to World) to try and appeal to more Western audiences, but I would be lying if I said that this wasn't an utter failure in execution. The story that is here was largely uninteresting, and its moral themes about choice and freedom (in regard to the killing of the game's main boss) were incredibly muddled and confusing. At one point in the story, the child protagonist was crying when it is announced that the main boss must die, and the group consoles the child. This would be an interesting concept... if the main boss wasn't in the background violently devouring and tearing the throats from the Seikrets that we have come to love throughout the game. The story being sort of "mid" would be excusable, if the game didn't shove you down the path of the main story with little else to do for the first 15-20 hours of gameplay. In a story mission and see something slightly off the path that you want? Nope, you're roped back into the on-rails monologuing, reprimanded for trying to explore. I swear that I spent more time watching cutscenes and slow Seikret riding than I did hunting monsters... in MONSTER. HUNTER.

Now that I have been unchained from the shackles of the Low-Rank content (much like Arkveld) and am allowed to play the game as I want to, I am undoubtedly about to have a blast with the game. But it's this beginning section that I can't help but feel like is going to stop a lot of people from experiencing the "real" loop of Monster Hunter (grinding monsters, creating gear, upgrading, etc.) If I was new to the franchise, and didn't know what was coming after the story, I can easily see myself giving up during the story or hopping off as the credits rolled feeling nothing.

...pink fart monkey is my favorite.

Really creepy, fun, little detective story in the Arkham-verse. Far more detailed than “Shadow,” but obviously way shorter and less complex.

DO NOT BUY AT FULL PRICE. Regularly goes on sale for <$5 which is a good price for it.

In light of recent events, I thought it was finally time to finish this one. BANGIN’ game with some really fun set pieces. Definitely dragged down by everything that isn’t the combat though.

Man... I didn't even think that I liked this one... AND THE ENDING STILL GOT ME

A hesitant recommendation. If you are not hooked by the vibes, the good bones, and the promise that this game has for what’s to come, it may be best to just avoid it. It doesn’t feel fully fair to criticize the game on the “old-game jank” (backtracking, stilted dialogue, awkward combat) when the game is STILL leagues ahead of what was coming out at the time. It was also soooo difficult, maybe I’m just washed.

(P.S. Kojima created this game with one hand down his pants)

Really fun first dip into The Dark Pictures Anthology for us! We’d previously played The Quarry and really liked it, and after hearing mixed reviews for Frank Stone, we decided to knock this one off of the backlog.

Some really interesting thematic stuff about war here, even if it’s not too in depth.

After watching *Alien: Romulus* in theaters, I knew I had to finally buckle down and knock this beast off of my backlog. And yeah… the movie takes very clear inspiration from the game. As for my thoughts on the game, it’s complicated. The sound design, the Xenomorph’s AI, and the atmosphere are all absolutely perfect. However, the game does falter a bit in terms of pacing. For me, personally, almost everything involving the Android characters became tedious after I unlocked a means for killing them early on. A sizable portion of this game is spent with your opposition being human foes with guns or the androids slowly walking towards you, rather than the terrifying alien, and it just leaves you wanting to get back to the sections with the Xenomorph. If it weren’t for these sections padding the runtime of the game, adding more ultimately unnecessary hacking mini games, button mashing segments, slow space walking, and sub-par combat, this game would be damn near perfect. As it stands, the game is still really solid, and I don’t need to rave about all of the parts that work in it because other people have gushed at length about them. It feels very good to be done with the game, as this is probably one of the most anxiety inducing titles I’ve ever completed.

Side note: I don’t know if I’m washed up, but I played this game on medium and it absolutely kicked my ass. It came to a point where I wasn’t sure if the anxiety that I was feeling was because I was scared of the monster, or if I was more scared of having to replay a large chunk of the same level for the fifteenth time.

Very charming, pretty simple, feels a little bit grindy. The controller support could be ironed out a little bit more. Pretty good background game to enjoy on the Steam Deck while working on something else.

“To the Moon” is a visual novel done in the best way that I’ve ever seen. The game decides to do away with useless collectibles and achievements to focus SOLELY on its story. If there is a direction that seems like it’s the obvious direction to go, you go that direction. So often in this type of game, I lose my immersion because of ultimately pointless filler content that developers insert when they are scared of putting out a product that is ultimately only 2-4 hours long. However, I’d argue that “To the Moon” is a perfect demonstration of a game so confident in itself, that it casts those crutches to the wayside. It proves that it’s not about how long a game is, it’s about how that game spends the hours that it does have with you.

While there were a couple of awkward or sort of “cringe” moments in the dialogue, this is also a game that is almost straight dialogue. For video game writing, this is on the tamer side of how awkward things can get.

I couldn’t help thinking about my own relationship throughout the game and how accurately the game depicts what it is to love. This game captures how it is to live after trauma, to love despite feeling socially ostracized, and how it feels to honor your partner’s wishes (even when they don’t make sense to you.)

Cannot recommend highly enough.