I was gifted this game by my brother for my birthday last month and chose to play it for PAGY this month. I'm a long-time fan of the RE series but outside of the remakes, I haven't played any of the modern titles. I plan to play 7 and 8 soon but decided to start with this one since it was a gift and I bought the other two myself. The rest of this is just copied from my Steam review but the TLDR is that I absolutely recommend this game, especially to fans of the series.

Requiem is an excellent edition to the RE franchise. It did an wonderful job of balancing the feel of new and old RE games, starting with having two playable main characters: new-entry Grace Ashcroft and fan-favorite Leon Kennedy. Unlike many of the previous RE games with a secondary character, time is split pretty evenly between the two protagonists. Uniquely to this title, however, they also play very differently.

When you are in control of Grace, the game returns to its roots: a survival horror experience where you have limited supplies, the enemies are all much stronger than you, and you need to proceed with caution. She defaults to the first person perspective, although you can change this in the settings. When you control Leon, on the other hand, you are an action hero playing in the 3rd person. You come equipped with significantly more--and better--gear and you have a massive inventory as opposed to Grace's piddling one. You can also buy better gear and improve your weapons as you go.

The creature design was excellent as well. We had some good returning creatures--looking at your lickers--but also some very cool new designs. This game was also unusual in that they decreased the number of boss fights where the boss had giant, glowing weak-points. I mean, they definitely still had them, but there were some bosses without them!

Two final notes I'd like to make in regards to performance and motion sickness.

1. Performance: I was surprised by how well this ran. While you can obviously manually change your settings whenever you feel like it, during initial setup the game will ask you if you prefer to emphasize performance or visuals and then automatically set your graphics based on that selection and your hardware. I thought the game did an excellent job doing this and the default graphical settings selected were much higher than I was excepting on my aging (and never top-tier) GPU. Framerate remained steady during my entire time with the game and my GPU/CPU temps never exceeded 60C.

2. Motion Sickness: Like many games, RE9 comes with some settings to help reduce motion sickness. They do help, but I still had some initial difficulty with the first-person perspective. It got a bit easier once I could run (rather than walk), as the motion seemed smoother. I did manage to play the entire game with the default perspectives (so Grace's parts were all first-person) so this was a surmountable challenge, but it is something to keep in mind if you are particularly prone to motion sickness in games.

I picked this up for free on Playtracker so that I could complete one of the global challenges. I was expecting a short, cozy experience with delightful graphics and a simple story. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the game. While I was mostly correct in my initial assumptions, the story was more involved and important to the overall experience than I was expecting. The story didn't break any new ground and the characters all fit into the the sort of stereotypes you'd see in a Disney film, but it was told in a charming manner.

The highlight of the game was definitely the movement. Surfing across the water felt great, especially when played with a controller rather than KB&M. Everything felt snappy and fluid and it made exploring the various little islands quite fun. There were a couple of weird moments where the camera fought my control and made it difficult to see my move while platforming, but overall it was a very smooth experience. The combat fit into the general movement scheme smoothly, although the overall combat system is very simple and not particularly engaging. It isn't bad, by any means, but it also isn't remotely challenging.

By biggest complaint with this game was the final boss battle. In a title where the combat was pretty minimal to the overall experience, this battle positively dragged. There wasn't anything new added mechanically (obviously, given it is the very end of the game) but given the lackluster combat system that meant that the fight just felt tedious. You just kept doing the same thing, over-and-over, for the several stages of the fight.

Another game that I played for the sake of the Playtracker challenge, this was a very surreal experience. It is a difficult game to describe but it was very fast to complete and completely free. Overall, not a bad way to spend approximately 30 minutes.

This was a win from May's PAGYWOSG event. I was interested in this game from the get-go because it seemed like a low-stress game (being based primarily on solitaire) but with a horror-theme, a genre that I adore. And I was correct! Except that I greatly underestimated how addictive the gameplay loop would prove to be. I stayed up too late because I decided to play "just one more hand."

The game itself is quite simple: it is a modified version of solitaire where you can build up the stacks both from the lowest value (ace) and down from the highest value (king) simultaneously. The trick, however, comes in the fact that each challenge comes with hidden, secret rules that you need to discover to actually win the hand. You discover these secret rules by playing through as normal and watching these 4 coins in the top right screen. The coins react based on whatever the hidden rules are and your goal is to correctly deduce the rule from observing their behavior.

The difficulty of these puzzles vary pretty widely and not in a perfectly linear manner. The tutorial puzzle is obviously the easier and the final puzzle the hardest, but there are special "cardinal" challenges that you unlock late game whose difficulty really bounces around with no obvious pattern. Overall, I was pretty satisfied with the difficulty level of the puzzles. There were a couple that were painfully easy and the final puzzle of the base game felt almost unfair with how complicated the secret rules were, but overall most of the puzzles were solvable after a few hands. Enough to make you feel accomplished when you solved them but not so difficult as to feel frustrating.

Yet another game that I picked up to meet a Playtracker quest but for last season's challenge rather than the current one. Honestly, I have rather ambivalent feelings about this one. On the one hand, the gameplay was quite novel. Basically, the player is serving as a type of prophet who reads the stars in order to give advice to various members of a tribe. Your character never speaks; they just select a constellation and present it to someone who has asked a question to serve as the answer to said question. Obviously, various characters may not interpret the constellation the way you intended which lets the story expand in ways you weren't anticipating. I've never played a game quite like this.

On the other hand, this very gameplay loop got pretty repetitive. This feels crazy to say given that I 100% completed it in under 4 hours but the game just felt too long. There are a couple "stages" that you progress through in the story and I think the overall experience would have been improved if each stage were slightly truncated. It also would have been better if they gave you the "fast-travel" hotkey right away, since you waste a lot of time in the beginning just walking back-and-forth between the two rooms of your cave.

Another birthday present from my brother. I was really impressed when I played the demo and immediately wishlisted it. I was not disappointed by the full release at all. Incredibly, this game was created almost entirely by a single Dev (he hired a couple people later in the development process for finishing touches like the music). He initially described the game as a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment with D&D as the basis of the combat system but midway through development Disco Elysium released. He obviously drew a great deal of inspiration from the latter game, particularly on the mechanical side of things.

Like in Disco Elysium, you have various voices that comment on your actions and can reveal additional information depending on how heavily invested you are in that stat. However, these voices are all the typical RPG stats (Str, Dex, etc) rather than the more varied options available in DE. Also like DE, all combat is carried out in dialogue but it is still based on D&D rules. So, for example, you will still roll initiative and can learn and prepare spells for use in fights. All the out-of-combat actions are also based around rolling a D20 (things like stealing, convincing people in dialogue, and dexterity checks to make difficult jumps or avoid traps). Although I adore traditional cRPGs, I think this format probably makes the game more accessible to people who struggle with such systems.

But this is primarily a narrative-driven game and that is where it truly shines. The characters are all richly developed and feel fully fleshed out. The writing is incredibly sharp, always clever and frequently quite funny. The entire world felt so vibrant even though the entire game is contained to a small section of one city (and the underground environs of said city). The only warning I would give is that if you play a high intellect build there is a lot of lore dumped right at the beginning which can feel a bit overwhelming. Oh, and there is no voiced dialogue. So if you really hate reading in games, you should probably give this one a miss.

Honestly, not a lot to say on this one. I've had it in my backlog for years. I had previously played about an hour but I just sort-of bounced off this game. I went back to play this one in order to meet a Playtracker challenge (are you sensing a theme here?) and it was…fine. It is a very pretty game with a decent story. The grappling mechanic felt smooth and it was fun to fling myself around the game world. That being said, neither the gameplay or the story were overly gripping so I am glad that it wasn't longer than it was. Also, the voice acting was a bit stilted in places although not to a distracting degree. I don't know; it was just okay.

I really enjoy this series and was excited to see the announcement for the new upcoming 3rd entry! I'm just going to copy my steam review again for this one because it pretty much covers everything I have to say.

This is a beautiful experience and a strong sequel to a groundbreaking game, but it is not a game for everyone. There are some important factors to consider when deciding whether this game is for you.

1) Have you played Senua's Sacrifice? If not, you should play it before starting this game. While this story is technically self-contained and can be understood without having played the first, it is definitely designed with the assumption that players have already experienced the first title in the series. As this is a very narrative-focused game, your best experience will come if you see the entire narrative in the order intended.

2) Do you enjoy narrative games with limited gameplay? This is a game entirely about the story and themes. It is an exploration of mental health (specifically psychosis) and it does an excellent job in bringing the lived experiences of people with delusions and hallucinations to life. However, it does this via a great many cutscenes and long sections of game where you just walk along and listen to the characters talk to each other. If you need a lot of interaction with the game to stay invested, then this might not be the game for you.

3) How much importance do you put on value for money? This is a very short experience. A full playthrough will take you 5-7 hours if you watch all the cutscenes and find all the hidden runes but there is not really any side content that can stretch that experience out further. Also, there is very little replay value as the story cannot be altered by player choice. You might do a second playthrough on the "Dark Rot" mode (e.g. permadeath) which was added with the enhanced edition or use chapter select to go back and find any missed collectibles. Otherwise, the game will be the same each time through. Full price might seem overly expensive for such a short experience.

4) If you played the first game, what did you think about the puzzles and combat? This sequel significantly improved the combat system (one of the weakest aspects of the first title) but the puzzles suffered. While neither game has particularly challenging puzzles, this one really over-simplifies them and also decreases the amount of them or at least paced them differently so that it at least felt like there were fewer of them. To its benefit, the game gives a lot of control over difficulty to the player. In addition to the typical easy/normal/hard settings, the player can also use the accessibility menu to alter things like QTEs (tap/hold/completely disable), attacks (standard/simplified/game plays itself), and defensive moves (same as attacks but controlled independently).

Overall, Senua's Saga expertly achieves what it set out to do. It told a moving story with stunning visuals, that sensitively portrays a real life mental health condition. For players who enjoy this sort of experience, it will be an incredible experience. However if you're a player who needs a lot of action packed fight sequences or player control over the protagonist's choices, then you might want to give this one a pass.

I wrote a very long review for this game on Steam so I am just going to copy it here. The TLDR is that this is a pretty fun experience for the first 5-10 hours but then really starts to drag.

This is certainly a game. Is it a bad game? No, not really. Is it a good game? Also, no. I really, really wish that there was a "mixed" review option rather than just the recommend or not recommend. Overall, I will say that if you can pick this up on a steep discount and don't go in without overly high expectations, you can get some enjoyment out of it. The first few hours were actually pretty fun. Unfortunately, it doesn't remain so.

On the positive side of things: it has nice looking graphics with a pretty decent character creation system (appearance wise, not class wise. we'll talk about that in negatives). The various NPCs are remarkably fleshed out for how little they actually communicate with you. The map designs had a lot of hidden areas to discover and were often quite beautiful.

And now the negatives. I'll break this down into further into categories.

Combat: This is a type of looter-shooter (like Borderlands or Diablo) where all your character progression is achieved via collecting randomized loot and creating a build based on that loot. You have three main playstyles: a tanky Shield and Mace build, a dodge-based glaive build, and a ranged cannon build. The problem with this set-up is the implementation. At first, your character is pretty weak but it is the beginning of the game and you expect that. However, once you start finding top-tier equipment…nothing changes. The high-level gear just doesn't do much. It never incentivizes you to change your playstyle to fit an awesome new weapon or armor set. It just…has slightly higher stats attached. Emphasis on slightly.

Story: There is a story here and it has the potential to be interesting but it is so strangely told. I'm 30 hours in and I still don't feel very grounded in the world. I understand the basic premise but there are no lore documents to collect so all your understanding of the story comes from conversations with NPCs of which there aren't many. Again, this is one of those things that are fine in the early hours but gets frustrating as the game progresses and you feel like there should be a lot more to the story to uncover and there just isn't.

Level Design: Continuing the theme of things that are good at the beginning but don't hold up by the end, there are four main "areas" each with a small selection of maps in each area. The areas themselves are quite distinct: a crumbling academy building, a vast open desert, a lush overgrown ruins, and an ominous shadow covered realm. But once you've seen an area, you have seen it. Even the loot locations don't change. The big chests full of the best gear? Same place. The little lootable rocks and plants? Same location. The small chests and orbs? Same location. This makes replaying very repetitive.

Bosses: There are two types of bosses: the ones that are available from the start and called things like mini-mage or wasp, and some high-level bosses that have actual names like Aletheia or Bythos. The first type are okay and moderately varied. But the latter are not. They are technically different classes but they all play pretty much the same. I eventually got to the point where I just brought a bunch of grenades and threw them all at the beginning just to get through the slog-fest of the exact same fight over and over and over.

I like to 100% my games whenever possible, but I admit that I am dreading doing so for this one. It just isn't gripping enough in the mid and late game. Overall, I don't recommend this game but if you get it on a steep enough sale and you aren't overly obsessed with obtaining all the achievements then you can get a good 10 hours of pretty reliable fun before the weaknesses really start to show themselves.

Another Playtracker quest completed! This challenge only required obtaining a single achievement so that is exactly what I did. I didn't play this for very long so I didn't get a great impression of it. Overall, the early game seems interesting enough. I'll probably go back to this at some point but it isn't in my plans for the immediate future.

Please consider liking my review on Steam - it means a lot to me!

Arkham City is …. complicated. For a while I almost dropped the game, but eventually stuck to it. And I think most of problems stems for its ambition, lack of focus, and comparison with the original.

Now, I loved Arkham Asylum and 100%-ed it. What I loved the most about it was its sense of progression, with very clear milestones guiding your journey. But if you look at it, the level design was also fantastic, with each level separated by semi-open areas that were dense with things to do and to see. By the time you beat the game, you probably could navigate the entire island without a map and never miss a beat. And finally, the pacing was great. The story slowly involved you, characters were introduced timely and you always wanted to play a little bit more, just to figure out where the plot was going. Collectables were plentiful and they enhanced the level design and the progression. Everything just gelled together. I had some issues with the combat, but generally there was very little to fault with the original game.

Then 6 months later, I decide to play Arkham City. First issue is one of familiarity - here Batman starts with almost the full kit you had at the end of Arkham Asylum, but remembering how to use it effectively took me a fair bit of time. It's not an issue if you're coming straight from the previous game, but can be tricky if you took a break between them like I did. Then I started to get confused, shortly after getting the goal to head to the Courthouse and meet Two Faces. The confusion arose from the fact I could go …. anywhere else. At that moment. And there were already side-quests available and a world of collectables to get and … it felt both a bit too much and too soon, before I even got invested in the game. I still don't understand really well what Arkham City really is as an universe.

Arkham Asylum was cohesive, dense, and full of lore. Arkham City is a collection of boxes for you to zip around with a few levels scattered throughout. I barely ever walked in the open-world sections of the map, which is a shame because I assume there's a lot to see and do in the map, but zooming around was always faster, while at the same time disconnecting you from the world you're inhabiting. Kind of the same can be said about the story - the game funnels you into one level at a time until you've seen them all, and then the game is over. It feels heavy-handed. Sure, Asylum was also convenient in having you move between buildings, but here it feels more game-y and less natural. And there are so many collectibles and side-quests supposedly available from the get-go, but some requires power-ups that you're not sure when will be available, which makes it really confusing on when you should be taking detours to engage with that part of that game. For all its ambition, Arkham City lacks the focus, polish and rhythm that made the original game so good, and it's worse for that.

That all said, it's far from a bad game. It still deserves a thumbs-up. Even though you start the game with almost the full kit from Arkham Asylum, there's still much to be found here in the form of new toys and gadgets, which are generally fun to use. Combat is also a bit better here, with better input detection (particularly on counters), more enemy types (requiring more mix-up in encounters), and more unlockable combos. The fact you can play with other characters such as Catwoman which control similarly but play very differently is a great addition, and the cinematic aspect with great voice acting is also still there.

But it's hard to deny Arkham City feels like a game that tries to be way more than the prequel, but loses its focus in the process of embracing gaming industry trends, and becomes a worse product for it. I'm not sure I'm that keen to play Knight or Origins after playing City, fearing that the sharpness and polish of Asylum was a blip rather than a trend