I finally finished my replay of Dragon Age: Origins this weekend! It's one that I've been consistently been kind of plinking away at since February. After Lies of P, I figured it was time to finally clear out some video space on my hard drive, and dedicated all of my time to it. Even though I wasn't overly in the mood to finish it, the writing quality was so good that, even though it had been very inconsistently played, I immediately found myself wrapped up in the story again; I was excited to go collect on the Grey Wardens' treaties, I was excited for my short-lived career in politics at the Landsmeet, and I was ready to take on the archdemon. It has its quirks; it's by no means a modern game, so that's to be expected, but it still very much holds up as an awesome experience. It will be a hot minute before I take on DA 2, but I'm looking forward to seeing how my decisions impact the game and getting back into the world.

Lies of P has been completed. What a game; as someone who idolizes Fromsoft and sports several of their games in my upper echelon of favorites, I don't think I'm an easy guy to impress with a Soulslike. Neowiz blew me away though; I enjoyed every second I spent in Krat and am immediately looking forward to the DLC, as well as the sequel. Previously, the only Soulslike that gave me this sort of feeling was Nioh, which I also rated a 5, but I can confidently say that Lies of P rates higher. I'll have to let it settle for a little bit and collect my thoughts before a final judgment, but I can't stress enough the quality of this game.

What a weekend for gaming! Friday night, I played a lot of Pokemon Unite with a couple of friends and then went back to Lies of P when we stopped queuing. Something awoke inside of me that night, and I absolutely blazed through a huge portion of the game between that evening, Saturday, and Sunday. I find myself on the final boss of the good ending right now after a sick boss montage. Incredibly, I ended up beating a huge amount of bosses on my first try, and am excited to recount them all at the end of my playthrough to see the percentage I was able to humiliate in true god gamer fashion. Also played some more Lord of the Rings: War in the North with our party, and still having some fun running through it, though its jank is clear as day to see. At the end of the day, it's still fun to hack and slash your way through hordes of orcs and gobbos with the boys, so I don't have too many complaints. On top of all that, I did some deep cleaning, got the lawn taken care of, laundry/dishes; it was just a very fruitful weekend all around.

I decided to drop Pokemon Tower Defense after waffling back and forth on it for a bit. I haven't dropped a game in a hot minute, but this one was just requiring a bit too much grinding in order to use the Pokemon I wanted and the mechanics were just a tad too janky to want to work through. No shade on the creator; it's an impressive project for sure, just not my taste. With that taste in my mouth, I decided I wanted a lil palate cleanser, so I picked up a game I remembered from my early childhood, Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break. Was a fun little stroll down memory lane, though for some reason, they decided that a game over meant you begin the game from the very beginning, not from the level you were on. And I found that the Japanese version supported a level code system so you could resume from where you left off, (as well as sporting a third hit point in lieu of just two), but that's absent in the NA version. Weird decisions, but what do I know?

After putting it off for a couple months, I finally got around to replacing the broke-down AIO cooling in my PC. I had put it off because it felt like it was gonna be a hassle, (spoiler alert: it was), but I was starting to see some performance hits finally, so it was just something that had to be done. The hassle was due to buying a pre-built, so the case was very tight-knit and hard to maneuver inside. With a little bit of elbow grease though, I was able to swap them out and have been seeing cooler temps and buttery-smooth gameplay 😎

Due to my recent reading of Tokyo Ghoul, (and re:), I picked up TOKYO GHOUL: re [CALL to EXIST] on the recent Steam sale for like $6 and started that. I was fairly optimistic going in based off of its mostly positive reviews on Steam and it not being a typical anime-licensed arena fighter. That said, I almost wish it was because what we got definitely isn't better. I'll definitely be writing a full review once I'm through, but man it really just feels like they wanted a Tokyo Ghoul game and gave the rights to the cheapest devs they could find. It most definitely does NOT encompass the feeling of the show or manga in any capacity, and instead is vaguely reminiscent of a child smashing his favorite Tokyo Ghoul toys together. (Not that a child should be consuming Tokyo Ghoul content in any form, but you get my point)

Because I just can't seem to commit to a single game at the moment, I started playing The Lord of the Rings: War in the North with a couple of friends. I like the setting as a casual LotR fan and I think it'll be some good, dumb fun. Hacking and slashing without a brain cell in sight, just like God envisioned.

I prefer to think of Uncharted and Survivor TR as TPS games with light puzzle and platforming. You mostly spend time shooting in them. The Classic TR games are very slow paced platformers and have rules to them that not many games even replicated. It's more about judging the distance of your jumps and hoping you'll be able to grab on to the ledge at all. The fact you need to grab the ledge by holding the interact button makes it different from so many games today. It's like the original 2D Prince of Persia replicated in 3D. There is also the fact that levels in older TR are pretty long with little to no hand holding, you pretty much need to figure out everything as you are doing it. Combat is admittedly pretty clunky but in the first game it can keep the player on his toes since you never know when an enemy might spawn.

The older games tends to have it's fans and haters but I would like to say I'm in the former.

I get that. I'd be interested in trying the first one at some point just to see if it's my kinda thing- it's always fun to backtrack to older games I never had the chance to check out back in the day. Would be fun to get a look at anyways.

They are more so puzzle platformers. I do think the ability to save anywhere in the remasters makes them much less stressful. I don't think I can beat Tomb Raider 2 without the save anywhere feature. Tomb Raider 3 is the one I question I can even get to the end of even with the feature. Tomb Raider 2 is mostly manageable if a bit harder than the first game due to the emphasis on combat and having poorly designed hitscan enemies.

When I think puzzle platformers, I think of the Uncharted series. I know the newer TR games get compared to Uncharted a lot, but how would you compare the older ones you're playing?

I think it was the lack of polish and how you suddenly need to be more adept at the combat system in order to get furthur into the game but it was especially the lack of polish.

Gotcha, gotcha. Looking forward to continuing my trek through Hell; I'll have to let you know what I'm feeling about it once I get further along.

I don't think not enjoying the gameplay of God of War 1 and 2 is a hot take. I played the God of War Saga Collection on PS3 which came with 1-3, Chain of Olympus, and Ghost of Sparta and bought and played Ascension separately for the full series completion. I really like Greek mythology so the story carried me through the games. I thought they were all just OK except for 3 which I consider a masterpiece personally. I haven't played 2018 or Ragnarok yet so I'm curious if I'll like the more modern RPG style despite the move to Nordic mythology.

Honestly, I might be having recency bias from 2018 and Ragnarok, because I know people fawn over them, gameplay included. And I always hear the God of War games touted as classics of the PS2, so I probably just assumed. But yeah, I'm also a huge Greek mythology guy, (mythology in general is dope but Greek was my introduction), and would agree it's the story that's keeping me going more than anything.I don't plan on playing Ascension or the PSP games at the moment, so I'm glad to hear you say that 3 really upped the ante for you.

I liked Dante's Inferno up until the last few levels of the game, they felt like they lacked playtesting but the game is decent overall, just that the last couple of levels left a bad taste in my mouth but it is one of the better God of War clones.

Did it leave a poor taste in your mouth due to mechanics, difficulty, something else? I get what you mean though, sometimes a game just falls apart in its later levels because they're not given the same time or focus the earlier parts were, i.e. Lost Izalith in Dark Souls.

I haven't red bannered a game in a while... maybe all games are now good! I've reached the peak of gaming goodness...

And in other news...



I don't care if this is a 20 year old game, they are selling it on Steam so all bets are off. Playing with a keyboard and mouse sucks and the way it's meant to be played is with a controller... and that sucks just as much. This has mostly positive reviews on Steam. Gotta love nostalgia blinding people.

EDIT: I ended up fixing the controls to make the game "playable" though the jet controls are bad enough that I'm not going to slog through this awfulness even though the game can probably be completed in a few hours. A year after this was made the studio behind it went bankrupt... I wonder why?!?

EDIT 2: This might just end up being the worst game I've played this year, and I've bloody played Flatout so that is saying a lot!

FINAL EDIT: I was about to go to bed but thought I'd play a bit of a game I was 18 hours into... Freecell Quest.

For some stupid reason, it seems that the savefile are stored in the registry... so are on my old bloody non-working PC, so I lost 18 hours worth of progress. The game is a lot of fun and I like Freecell but this is kind of annoying.

Your argument of it being on Steam definitely stands, but at least it's barely a buck lol. Some publishers have absolutely no shame in overcharging for their antiquated bullshit, (i.e. old Call of Duty games), and I feel the same way as you: I'll review them from a modern perspective, no mercies for old age.

It doesn't look like those shorts links work. Regardless, I usually prefer black backgrounds myself, they look nice on my OLED. I played Dante's Inferno and pretty much agree with your assessment. It's like God of War but with not quite as high a production value. I quite enjoyed my time with it. If you like that style of game, Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death is another OK game.

Thank you for letting me know! I'd forgotten I posted here for feedback but had done some tinkering with them and landed on a final-ish draft that I've replaced in the edit, if you care to look. From the feedback I received, the blur was too busy and the black was too plain, so I just threw a blurred version of my intro screen on the top and bottom. Interested to see if people like it!

Glad you enjoyed Dante's Inferno as well. The aesthetic and subject matter are what are selling it for me the most; I don't know how much I truly care for the gameplay itself. It's passable, definitely not bad, but I'll wait until I have a bit more of a moveset and have finished the game for final judgment in that regard. Truth be told, I played the first two God of War games and the gameplay didn't hook me, which I feel like is a bit of a hot take. Eventually I'm excited to move on to God of War III and then of course, the PS4 entries. So I'll definitely give Marlow Briggs a look, but I think it'll depend more on what kind of story/setting we're looking at.

Started both Dante's Inferno and Lies of P over the weekend despite not finishing any of the other games I'm currently playing. Typically I knock out games one by one, so it feels a little odd having so many going at once.Dante's Inferno is shaping up to be exactly what I envisioned: a God of War clone with very graphic imagery depicting the seven circles of hell. Some of the enemy designs and kill animations have been truly heinous so far, so it's definitely living up to expectations in that regard.

Lies of P has been good fun so far as well; I'm only shortly past the first boss, but quickly getting into the groove. The boss took me three attempts, but on the third attempt where I triumphed, I didn't need to heal at all. Felt very satisfying figuring out the nuances of the combat so quickly to achieve that, so I'm looking forward to what else this has to offer.

I'm also testing shorts for YouTube/TikTok to maybe spread some laughs; some funny moments come up in games and I think it's fun to highlight those. If anyone feels like offering any feedback, here's the final draft of what I'm looking at ATM: https://youtube.com/shorts/SuRN3he0Ig4?feature=share

Licensed games just hit different when they're done right IMO, who doesn't want to play as their favorite characters and relive those stories? It feels so good when it's good.

Hey man! Enjoying reading some of your reviews; just wanted to let you know that I saw you mentioned working on English in your first post and I think you've got a great grasp. I'm not seeing any crazy mistakes or anything and you're well-spoken in your reviews as well, so shouts out on that!

I've just come to accept that the West put more effort in their licensed games than Japan does back then and now too. All though a large part of me wonders the reasons why these anime licensed game are the way they are is because they are cheap to make and them making back their money doesn't require much. That or Namco has a monolopy over anime licenses where the West's licenses are owned by many different companies. It's so hard to tell.

It's crazy, like I know Bandai has their hand in the cookie jar in some capacity for basically every anime game and then some, but even then, some of the games are great and some are still trash. I don't get the involvement, and I just wish each studio responsible for their IP would look at it as an opportunity to really show off and make something great. If every anime game was up to the caliber of Kakarot or Dragon Ball Fighter Z, I think we'd be in a golden age of licensed gaming. Also I know both games I used are Dragon Ball games, but they've had a million adaptations so they're bound to hit gold every once and a while; they've had their fair share of shovelware as well.

Those are some crazy statistics on the spreadsheet you posted! I love numbers and cataloging as much as the next obsessive gamer on here but that takes it to another level. Have you considered adding your games to your profile on the site? I also agree with what you said about playing bad games making the good games seem even better by comparison. I've put dozens of hours into some bad games and then went on to play good games that felt great as a result.

Hey, game recognize game as far as the spreadsheet goes haha, I'm also a huge fan of stats and numbers and junk, so it's fun to keep track of different stuff. I believe I've got all of the games I've completed on this site; I don't think I'll be migrating the to-do list just because I don't see a benefit in having it in two spots and it's going to be a hassle to both enter it initially and upkeep going forward. And yeah, I don't think everyone needs to play trash games to appreciate good ones, but it doesn't hurt!

Tomorrow's video is Kill la Kill IF! I loved that anime, very glad a game came out, and I'm so thankful it wasn't the typical trashcan anime tie-in game you'd expect, (see Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash). Anime games have so much potential; the good ones like Kakarot inspire hope that maybe someday whoever's in charge of deciding some of this stuff decides to put in actual money and effort towards a good anime game. The cynical part of me feels that will never happen on a large scale though just because weebs and gamers have such a huge overlap and there are already enough people that will buy slop with their favorite show's name on it, so why bother putting in SO much more money and time just for the few holdouts that won't whore themselves out for a brand? That's my rant though lol, see y'all on the flip.

Love seeing another blog pop up, welcome! Joining in on the conversation for a moment, I have to add that pure stubbornness is what gets me through a lot of crappy games, and I do believe playing all the way through a game even if you dislike it does add merit to reviews as well. I personally have dumped 31.4 hours into Doom 3, which is my 2nd lowest rated game on my profile, while I did enjoy some parts of it, the only reason I played it for 3 hours per day is so I could just get it over with. I already started 100% completion so my reasoning was that I might as well finish. I personally have to disagree that people won't put more than 5 hours into a game they dislike, especially on this site. But I do agree that many people should be willing to admit to liking certain parts of a game in a negative review. Not wanting to put that many hours into a crappy game is fair though, but for me I just get very overly determined and stubborn at times.

Thanks for the welcome! 31 hours is rough for a game you dislike, but I don't know where my line is yet. My worst three games were just a handful of hours, but I've definitely put more than that into subpar/leaning towards bad games. Part of it is I like studying video games of all walks, not just the good ones, because I think like you mentioned, there can still be good in them. Whether that's a good idea that was poorly executed or just an actual standalone fun mechanic, very few games are just irredeemable garbage can.

I do post my review on my blogs as like a "director's cut" of sorts since I just have so many things to say on certain games. A game I borderline disliked playing off the top of my head was Tomb Raider Underworld but I can't deny that the load times were fast and it checkpointed often so despite how unbelivably flawed it was because of those two things, I was able to get to the end. I think bad games that are long are an absolute chore to get through and I don't even think are even memorable, however I did get some fun out of crappy games like Rogue Warrior and the Bouncer. I wish every geniunely bad game were as memorable to get through as those two. All of the other bad games I didn't enjoy I sort of just randomly recall some more than others if it's not those two.

That’s a valid point. If I were playing something that were an absolute slog, it’d be a different story. At the very least, the ones I was referencing were quick and also had pretty close checkpoints so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ not the worst in the world to get through. I definitely wouldn’t sit down and dump 30 hours into a garbage fire.

Currently in the middle of Dragon Age: Origins, Pokemon Yellow, and Pokemon Tower Defense. DA:O playthrough has been VERY on and off for a few months now; I struggle to get super into it and if I take a break more than a couple of days, my interest kind of wanes so it might take a minute. Pokemon is a nostalgia trip, loving going through Yellow and have just gotten all the starters. Kind of feels like I'm really only allowed 2 Pokemon in that game, (because of course you have to use Pikachu, Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise), but that's more of a me thing than a game fault. PTD is also a blast from the past: I can't remember when I initially picked it up but I recently came across a random mention of it in a thread and, upon some digging, found a flash player and the game file so I'm able to play locally. Looking forward to wrapping up the two Pokemon games and giving another earnest go at my DA:O playthrough.

Yeah, I usually try to expand and if I don't like a game, I try to at the best of my ability explain why I didn't like it. The character limit on this site can be annoying but I view it as a decent enough way to make me more concise and to the point with my words. I respect and try to befriend people on this site who try when writing reviews and avoid saying stuff too outrageous. I normally don't take people very seriously when they say they hate a game but got all the way through to the end, I get hating movies to some degree but stuff that involve time sinks need to have something good about them to justify getting through to the end. TV shows and games tend to be a good example of that. If something is "bad", they are going to have to be really short and brisk to make me want to see it to the end. Movies tend to be that. Saw one guy said he hated LA Noire and yet he spent 20 hours with it, I don't care for that game, but 20 hours with a game you "hate?" Come on man.

There have only been two I've written that have gone over the character limit- Shadow of the Erdtree and Final Fantasy XVI. I agree that the character limit really just encourages a tiny bit of brevity; I was probably a little excessive on those two anyways. And I totally get your point about hating a game- if I actually hate something, no way am I spending a real amount of time on it. The worst games I've played in recent memory were Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, DragonBall GT: Transformation, and Beyblade: V-Force - Ultimate Blader Jam. All games I rated as a 1, all on the lowest end of that spectrum, and even though I'd say none of them were enjoyable, they were all between 1 and 4 hours, so they were manageable. On the other side though, I do think there's some merit as a reviewer to make it all the way through even trash games, (even if they're a bit longer), just because I personally enjoy seeing the wider spectrum of games as an industry, and I think the low lows can help emphasize the high highs, ya know?

I appreciate the feedback! If I'm not into something, I definitely want to expand on why for the most part. Especially when it's more of a matter of taste than straight-up poor game design or shoddy code. Feels like putting something like, "Game bad, don't buy," is disingenuous and like you said, just going to generate questions or people will ignore it altogether.

Howdy, everybody! 😎

I've been playing video games since I was just a wee baby, and the habit stuck. I play pretty much everything under the sun; I like a challenge and I like a story, so anything that can deliver on either or both fronts has got a solid chance of ending up on my list at some point. I started making cinematic playthroughs for YouTube at the very end of 2020, which are no-commentary playthroughs edited in a single cut- removing all inventory management, skill tree allocation, deaths, and things of that nature. I find it relaxing to throw one of these up on a second monitor while I'm gaming or sometimes at bed; sometimes just to relive a particular game or moment without having to bring myself to do it all over again. I thought maybe some others would share in that interest, and decided along the way to start doing reviews for everything I play as well. I've now got a release schedule of one game every Friday at noon CST. New video, new review, all wrapped up in a tiny little bow for your pleasure :)

I've been using HowLongToBeat as a metric for my spreadsheet in organizing the games on my "to-do list" as well as a landing page for all of my reviews, and decided the forum would be a fun spot to start to participate in as well as a place to post a little bit more of my journey beyond just the videos and reviews if it starts to maybe pick up some traction. I also use Steam to house my reviews as well as my Curator page to link to them and maybe nick a free game or two along the way!

Regardless of any interaction this receives, (I hope some), I'm excited to talk a little more informally about games and possibly meet some like-minded folks along the way. Gaming has been a huge part of my life and I'm a huge advocate for the beauty and fun you can find in them; I hope this page sparks some joy for people!

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FefnirIRL
(where you can find all of my playthroughs and *subscribe* if you're about that life)

Google Sheets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ycL38IHbYmKmha0uJKBuWc4wFr4CnF5wyn_Wzb2xK5o/edit?usp=sharing
(where you can see what I've played/plan on playing, links to videos and reviews)

Steam Curator page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41643049/
(where you can see basically a thumbs up/down of what I play on Steam and *follow* if you're about that life)