Premieres 4

Story Positives:

1. Luigi is, as ever, just amazing in his presentation and portrayal
2. Animation and graphical style are very well done
3. Doodad placement and usage is fantastic and detailed (and destructible!)
4. Sound design really adds to atmosphere and the different ‘themes’ of each floor
5. The variety and personality to the various bosses are quite fun and have good personality
6. Aggregate: Camerawork for cutscenes is quite fun // The ‘establishing Mario in contrast to Luigi’ scene was actually pretty good // The usage of King Boo as an actually villainous character works in contrast to the rest of the game
7. Absolutely love that Atmosphere and Tone throughout

Story Negatives:

1. Aggregate: Cutscene incompetence (which hits Luigi mostly, but also Mario and crew) which also happens during… // Inconsistent usage of continuity (the Mario bit was nice but why can Luigi not jump?)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Between Gadd and Polterpup the game is nicely tutorialized and introduces concepts pretty fluidly into level design
2. Combat pacing with flashing after grabbing
3. Clear indicators of what can and can’t be interacted with (plunger ‘hud’, color coding on flash items, usage of mirrors)
4. Sound design is just fantastic
5. Cleaning mechanic is surprisingly fun and enjoyable to do, thanks in no small part to good variety of things and ways to clean
6. The piano boss was very fun, very dynamic, and had some great moments
7. Music design and yoshi drums
8. The entire movie stage and boss was quite fun and surprisingly heartwarming (and also you can be evil and kill the boss after you help him)
9. The camera is very smart about how it’s used in showing what it needs to (to guide the player) but also making sure the player can clearly see what they need to
10. Proper (local) campaign co-op
11. Variety to themes of levels as well as puzzles
12. Second positive for level design and general fun
13. The ScareScraper mode is pretty fun for what it is; full online or local co-op, randomized floors, bosses every 5, team based, etc.
14. Aggregate: Many little nice touches, including but not limited to; increased run speed when out of combat, controls persist despite animations and reactions, lip synching with babble speech, being able to interact with plenty of optional stuff just for fun, option to change movement and turning while aiming, town portals, ability to interact with items in a fairly large ‘range’ around them so no finding the sweet spot, aim assist to show what things can be fired at, built in mechanics to prevent softlocking
15. Animations really help with how to deal with enemies, bosses, and puzzles
16. Controls are very tight and intuitive
17. Good Enemy Variety in ghosts and obstacles
18. Great Graphics, very stylized and fun
19. Excellent Guidance and Flow of exploration and general gameplay
20. That Intro really does a lot to properly set up things gameplay wise
21. Fantastic Pacing in between exploration, combat, boss, and puzzle sequences
22. Second positive for that Pacing
23. As usual for Nintendo games, that Visual Distinction is amazing

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Health beedleep
2. Aggregate: Gems ‘respawn’, which makes it irritating at times to tell which ones you have // Coins scatter everywhere and disappear quickly // The precision required on the musical puzzle was silly // Partially unskippable cutscenes (boss intros)

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Interface is well designed
2. HUD has a lot of info readily available easily
3. Controls are smart and quick while playing
4. Smart functionality with regards to how to interact with what
5. Combos of items and enemies leading to tons of options
6. Variety of item usage which is through the roof
7. Variety of terrain which also has multiple options
8. Showcasing of info with regards to how to see what in your level (trails, death spots, etc.)
9. The story mode’s missions are fun
10. The story mode’s missions are creative (and varied!)
11. Lots of filter options for looking up maps
12. Between speedrun categories, the Link updates and new functionality, and the Ninji Speedruns, there’s a decent amount of post launch content with meat
13. Good Core Mechanics of, y’know, building
14. Decent Enemy Variety
15. Decent Kit of options to build with
16. Good Pacing of building, such as it is

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Some odd limitations (such as the absence of being able to change height / width in the opposite type of area)
2. Additionally, while the missions idea is great, you simply cannot do it with checkpoints, drastically limiting what you can do with an otherwise great mechanic
3. Some small quibbles (works better with a touchpad interface, cannot search by name, controls like to lock in at times)

Story Positives:

1. All: Wackiness, zaniness, humor
2. All: Voice acting is consistently good throughout

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. All: Sound design
2. All: Animations are pretty good for what they are, both for the players and the enemies, and especially bosses
3. 1: Music
4. 1: Checkpoint, mask, and life placement
5. 2: Music
6. 2: Checkpoint, mask, and lives distribution
7. 2: Good recovery mechanics built into level design
8. 2: There are quite a few levels which either have interesting or fun challenges (if the lives system wasn’t there) and there’s fairly well done exploration built in
9. 3: Music
10. 3: Checkpoint, mask, and lives distribution
11. 3: Variety of level design and main/side objectives
12. 3: Recovery mechanics and reasonable boss designs
13. 3: Fun and interesting levels

Gameplay Negatives:

1. 1: Hitbox issues with collision on both platforms and enemies (very Donkey Kong Country)
2. 1: The hitboxes are… such a consistent, constant issue
3. 1: Memorization / Trial and Error in terms of some levels (where there’s no real time or availability to react to an obstacle, you have to know where it is and where it’s coming from)
4. 1: Thanks to the lives and restart system, the game feels more punishing than difficult, requiring you to redo portions of the level over and over (and over) which is further exacerbated by the ‘you die to anything instantly’ mechanic
5. 1: Bridge levels
6. 1: Level length is, honestly, just too long
7. 1: Actively bad recovery mechanics built into level design
8. 2: The delay in getting back into action is just too punishing; between lives, the long game over screen, losing progress, it works contrary to the overall ‘die instantly, challenging platforming’ nature of the game
9. 2: Hitboxes as per usual with the remake
10. 2: The jetpack sequences aren’t that frequent but good lord those controls
11. 3: The second race level sucks. Its controls are awful and sluggish, the enemy karts ‘bonk’ you which actually removes control temporarily, it requires high precision to get 1st (which is required), and it’s mandatory
12. Aggregate: 3: Hitboxes. Hitboxes. // Vehicle controls in general are non intuitive, awkward, and frustrating
13. Man, those Controls really have issues
14. The Difficulty Curve really likes to bounce around between levels, especially in the first game

Story Positives:

1. Attention to detail and brickwork in main cutscenes and primary focus
2. Doodad usage is legitimately incredible in most main areas
3. Visual storytelling is excellent, usually down to animation but also camera usage
4. Camerawork for main scenes is fantastic
5. Music direction and usage thereof is good in almost every scene
6. The voice acting is some of the best I’ve heard lately
7. …voice acting continues to be some of the best I’ve heard lately
8. The banter between the main characters is good and, further, develops across the game
9. The motion capture animation is fantastic and really helps sell the characters
10. Barret (in over his head, mask, speechifying, adorable, stupid but well written, Marlene, and a full character arc just in this game)
11. Cloud (trying to seem stoic, mask skips, dorky, struggling, and the best portrayal of Cloud we’ve ever had)
12. Tifa (everyone likes her, overprotective, pushing agenda with Cloud, vulnerable, cares, and very well presented)
13. Aeris (observant, mischievous, stronger than she looks, manipulative, and clearly in over her head with the responsibilities shoved upon her)
14. Lindblum Effect is on full display, with tons of fleshing out of the world
15. Additional Lindblum Effect as the game goes on (especially for Wall Market)
16. Dialogue is surprisingly well written almost across the board
17. All of the characterization and enjoyment of Jessie, her family, and those connected scenes are good stuff
18. Jessie and Biggs are great characters and are well used, memes aside
19. Wedge is wonderful by himself and his expanded role helps tremendously
20. Side characters with names are good stuff where they’re there (the ‘angel’, Madam M, Bob, Andrea, Jules)
21. Don Corneo is wonderfully animated and voice acted (of course) and comes across as pretty much as horrible as he needs to
22. The Honeybee Inn was just… great, the absolutely perfect slice of cheese
23. The immediate fallout of the Platefall was… incredibly well done, completely sold by the animation but mostly Barret’s voice actor
24. The overnight scene (Aeris, Tifa, Barret) and the follow up
25. Elevator scenes and the staircase sequence are both hysterical and perfectly presented
26. Shinra Tower in general is beautifully presented and has some very clear polish and shine throughout
27. Shinra Tower in how they flesh out, cover over, and explain the entire sequence so beautifully (Domino, Hojo’s disinterest, Reeve, just… everything)
28. Turks, Hojo, Reeve, Rufus are all just kind of awesome and well done throughout
29. The Animations are truly excellent…
30. …some of the best I’ve seen since FFXII
31. Some great Atmosphere of Midgar and its overall Tone
32. Some really good Banter between characters…
33. …even in combat
34. Second positive for excellent Dialogue
35. Second positive for excellent Doodad utilization
36. Second positive for Humor (especially Wall Market)
37. Internal Continuity is surprisingly tight for the work, especially given the new characters
38. The Intro does a ton right, establishing characters, dynamic, the villains, the setting, and the plot
39. Second positive for Music Direction
40. For the most part there’s some good Story Sequencing in how events play out
41. Good Visual Continuity across the game, but most especially in the slums areas
42. Second positive for great Visual Storytelling in Midgar itself
43. Third and final positive for just stellar Voice Acting
44. Positive for good World Building, mostly for the nature of the city and Shinra

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene incompetence is something that happens far too often to ignore
2. The side quests are mostly disinteresting but what pulls them into negative territory is the presentation, which is actively detractory (bad camera, bad lip synching, bad animation)
3. Pacing issues are near-constant in how the story lurches forwards
4. Roche unnecessary and odd pacing of events (flashback timing, Roche coming in then leaving you exactly as he found you)
5. Occasional terrible graphics (badly used backgrounds, or awful resolution close ups) and generally awful brickwork where it ‘doesn’t matter’
6. Improper design and balance of background audio, both when they are talking over each other but also during conversations by main character dialogue (also anime grunts)
7. Wall Market is… just off pacing wise… and then there’s these great character moments (Cloud’s flashback with Tifa, Aeris’s childhood memories) which are incredibly badly placed
8. The audio and visual direction of the Sector 7 Platefall was… bad. Tonally incorrect, lacking any emotional punch, and far too concerned with flash
9. Ghosts… the ghosts just… detract from the story for me, even if they make sense (as extensions of Sephiroth, a form of WEAPON, or just a general arbiter of time). They’re entirely too on-the-nose and just… no
10. Zack’s inclusion actively ruins what otherwise would make a fairly large amount of sense but, more to the point, also makes the game far less accessible for new players and, on top of that, seems to have no purpose in existing (to be determined in future games)
11. There’s some pretty bad moments of Gameplay/Story Segregation (oh no, we can’t lift this tiny metal plate in our way!)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music is fantastic, both the original stuff and the remixes
2. …music continues to be fantastic, with multiple iterations of the same song depending on the scene and need
3. Yoshi Drums are excellent, often-times having a dungeon and combat song be the same song for areas
4. Bestiary / Scanning and related information which is readily and easily available
5. Weapons level independently but all gain SP simultaneously (separate pools), no builds but nonlinear progression, automate based on preference VIII style, and also level out of party
6. On death, go back to last battle, checkpoint, or save
7. Each character plays substantially different from each other, which can lead to some fun variety
8. Between weapon skills, materia, and weapon customization there’s a decent amount of kit available to the player
9. Rufus boss fight is easily the best designed fight in the game and, more to the point, very fun
10. Good New Game + is, as usual, a positive
11. And New Game + Chapter Select
12. Aggregate: Difficulty swapping ( out of combat) // Party leader positioning into combat // Selecting options on Airbuster // Can still dodge, attack, and stagger as a toad! // Menu actions in combat are quite intuitive (hotkeys, shifting, can see enemy data without losing menu position) // Quest turn in auto warp
13. The Enemy AI design is quite good, especially on bosses
14. Great Animations which help with combat
15. Second positive for some really fun Boss designs
16. Good thought put into each Encounter design
17. Good Enemy Variety
18. Good Variety of Enemies, the return of Variety
19. Some good, fun combat stuff for optional postgame content
20. The Graphics Fidelity in this game…
21. …are really, really, really good…
22. …because good lord, this game is gorgeous
23. The HUD is actually quite clean and well designed
24. Second HUD positive
25. The entire reactor Intro is pure gold, with everything you need to know about platforming, fighting, bosses, inventory, magic, weaknesses, etc.
26. A second positive for the Intro
27. Some legitimately fun minigames (mostly in Wall Market)
28. I know it’s sacrilege, but honestly this is some of the best Music in the FF series for me
29. Quick and efficient Save System
30. Visual Distinction is good, as per norm for the series

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Party members suck when not controlled (ATB, control, forced swapping)
2. Combat camera just has… issues with terrain and tracking
3. Issues with context sensitive areas of interaction and trying to interact with one specific thing
4. Boring difficulty / Just affects damage and HP values (for Easy and Normal)
5. Dungeon pacing is just an awful, boring slog
6. The HP barrier / stagger drain phase lock-in of bosses just gets irritating after a while
7. Dungeon pacing… combined with padding in several areas
8. The entire Outro design was kind of… blegh, with disinteresting ‘final dungeon’ and ultimately disinteresting final boss sequences
9. Ultimately combat has a lot of issues with it, including but not limited to; basically forcing the player to constantly switch characters, massive problems with stunlocking from all enemies (even trash), positional mattering but no real ability to reposition, issues with how the ATB bar fills, the ATB being used for everything rather than some things, etc.

Story Positives:

1. The entire Intro is fantastic, easily and effortlessly setting up Michael, Trevor, Dave, Franklin, Lamar, and expositing on the overall theme
2. Mocap and animation is top notch
3. Directing of cutscenes and usage of camera and angles is great stuff
4. As per usual for the series, the voice acting is top notch
5. Doodad placement is mind blowingly good throughout the city
6. Brickwork is top notch, with astonishing attention to detail
7. Terrain and the design thereof is memorable, well laid out, and makes the ‘non-city’ areas fun to be in
8. The city of Los Santos itself is a very well designed living breathing city
9. Exposition is really well designed, very show-not-tell, and very efficient throughout
10. The big scene where Trevor first shows up to Michael’s place and everything about it is poetry. The tension, the body language, Michael defending Jimmy, the interactions with Fabien, and Trevor only quitting his immediate* revenge rampage to go after Tracey
11. Storyboarding and sequence of cutscenes is actually very well done
12. The… torture scene is exactly how it needs to be. It is unflinchingly horrifying and brutal and makes it very clear what’s being done and how, and is probably the best bit of characterization for Haines that it could be
13. The reveal mission about Brad is just… really well done, pays off a lot of the build up across the entire game, and serves as a critical climax for the story
14. Michael’s genuine love and enthusiasm for the movie business is great, and the series of missions surrounding the shoot are great
15. Pacing is generally excellent, with no sections that go too high or too low and no filler
16. Dialogue is top notch, as per usual for the GTAs
17. Trevor is close to my favorite character in the entire series, only held back by the (in my opinion) arbitrarily gross aspects of him. He’s wonderfully acted, voiced, presented, just amazing
18. Michael is my favorite GTA Protagonist, who is understandable, interesting, multi-dimensional, and can’t quite seem to figure himself out
19. Ending C, aka the real ending, is actually quite satisfying and serves as a nice fullfilment of…
20. …the core themes of the game, which I really enjoy. Loyalty, the relativity of value, the falsehood of the ‘almighty’ dollar, all great stuff which all pays off in Ending C
21. The final conversations and general post game wrap up is good stuff
22. Second positive for amazing motion capture
23. And third positive for fantastic motion capture
24. Banter between characters is legit (“You… are a hipster!”)
25. Excellent Camerawork deserving of a second positive
26. Lots and lots of Consequence Storytelling as the plot progresses
27. Second positive for Doodad usage
28. Third Doodad positive, especially since it’s good both in city and in the wilds
29. Surprisingly good External Continuity to GTA4, considering the totally different tone between the two
30. Excellent Internal Continuity
31. And a second positive for Internal Continuity
32. Second positive for that great, great Intro
33. A rare game that uses Lighting quite well
34. Absolutely love the Mandatory Primaries
35. And absolutely love the Secondary Primaries
36. And (surprise) I also love the Secondaries too
37. Great Music Direction for most scenes
38. Excellent usage of NPCs for Lindblum Effect
39. Pacing in the narrative is exceptional, second positive
40. The Story Sequencing is very good in this one, to the point where each event and its connections line up and make perfect sense in how it’s constructed
41. Second positive for Story Sequencing
42. And a third
43. Speaking of which, the Storyboarding for scenes is juuust great
44. Especially for those action scenes
45. A second positive for those powerful and impacting Themes
46. Second positive for Voice Acting
47. And a third
48. Great World Building
49. Really good Writing

Story Negatives:

1. A degree of both shock and gross value that just pushes the lines a bit too far and hard, leading to multiple unpleasant scenes I just sort of endure to get to the rest of it
2. Lamar is… a character I want to like, but he just goes so far over the line of irritating (deliberately, but still) that he drifts into ‘get off my screen’ territory
3. Aggregate: Irritating characters which, deliberate or no, are just kind of irritating (Haines, Weston, Michael’s family, etc.) // The ‘kill Michael’ ending really just does not work // Some unnecessary drama towards the end
4. In a truly rare moment, I actively find this game unfunny, and most of its attempts at Humor fall flat

Gameplay Positives:

1. The Intro is extremely well done and some generally great tutorialization, quickly getting across aiming, movement, swapping, driving, etc.
2. Taxi system (summonable, can fast travel, and relatively quick, can set to specific waypoints)
3. Customization options cars (lots of options, game useful upgrades)
4. Customization options appearance (tons of options and mix and matching)
5. The in game music (not the radio stations) is good stuff, and wonderfully tuned to the scenes it plays in
6. Driving is the funnest it’s been in the series for me, and it’s legitimately enjoyable to just drive around
7. Swapping and hot swapping is a neat mechanic that’s well used in a lot of missions throughout
8. Each character’s special ability not only adds nicely to the core gameplay but also helps differentiate the core trio
9. The city design is excellent, with good layout and landmarks and flow to it
10. All roads lead to Rome mission design, where in many missions there’s plenty of ways to get to where you need to be
11. Mission variety is excellent, on-par with San Andreas
12. Mission fun is fantastic, I love doing the missions
13. Stranger missions and encounters are almost always fun and interesting and the ‘how to find them’ is better designed than back in IV
14. The rest of the world that isn’t the city is also fantastically designed and fun to cruise around in
15. Heists are fun, fun, fun and I love doing ‘em and I love replaying ‘em the other way to see how it goes
16. This is a plus for side quests, the way the game goes out of its way to ensure you get them via dynamic interactions and spawn points, and how consistently fun they are
17. Aggregate: Pausable cutscenes // Fast-forwardable cutscenes and phones // Save anywhere // Flash indicator of kills // Regenerating health below 50% // Mission skip option // Replay missions option
18. Generally good Enemy AI Design
19. Good Built In Cheats
20. Easily the best Controls of the franchise
21. Seriously, it plays so brilliantly, I love it
22. Core Combat is simplistic but…
23. …actually quite enjoyable
24. Good, smooth Difficulty Curve (also a first for the franchise)
25. Good manual application of Encounters
26. Surprisingly good Enemy Variety (mostly in terms of how they attack and what they’re equipped with)
27. A bonus for the excellent Taxi / Fast Travel System
28. Really, really excellent Graphics design
29. Second positive for Graphics
30. Third positive for Graphics
31. A second positive for that Intro, which is effectively a mini Heist in itself
32. As with GTA 4, the Penalty for Failure is great (lose some money, respawn at hospital)
33. For one of the first times in the series, it has legitimately good mid-mission Checkpointing
34. Good Options (PC version)
35. Great Overworld Design in its layout and structure
36. The Pacing of events and quests never stops being excellent
37. The game’s overall construction is relatively linear, but it’s so smooth and fun that it’s great Replay value
38. Good Save System in the phone
39. Good Sound Design across the work
40. A third and final positive for how awesome driving is
41. Tutorialization is surprisingly good as the game progresses
42. Visual Continuity really helps with knowing where you are and where you need to go at any point
43. Great Visual Distinction in what’s where

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Aggregate: Health bar is just not well placed and hard to see, would be resolved with some HUD options // Map is… not good // Possible to permanently skip dialogue occasionally

Story Positives:

1. Humor (what can I say, the game’s funny)
2. Ghostwood in its entirety (good lord)
3. The Gun Manor DLC was very well written and generally satisfying to go through
4. Second positive for Humor

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Leveling system is one of my personal favorite methods of vertical leveling (gain an experience pool, spend the pool directly to raise skills directly)
2. Surprisingly large amount of build options and kit for both combat and encounters
3. Animation is actually quite good and uses its style very well
4. Fast travel from basically anywhere to anywhere you’ve discovered
5. Music is pretty good (if loud) and keeps the tone going properly
6. All Roads Lead To Rome quest design
7. Substantial and fun side questing
8. Surprisingly well designed Graphics

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Forced ironman mode in save
2. Aggregate: There’s some small niggling issues with the interface (selecting targets in combat, mouseover text going off screen, inability to see the party member’s level) // Some walkthroughitis with the Gun Manor DLC (smother the chili with a pillow? Seriously?)

Story Positives:

1. The implementation of Kamoshida’s role in the story is actually very well done; he is a successful hate-sink for the player. He is a disgusting human being at several levels, and is deliberately going out of his way to abuse his pathetic lot in life, and further actually goes out of his way to be a very personal problem for basically all the initial main characters (trying to expel us, ruined Ryuji’s track career plans, and trying to sexually abuse Ann)
2. Camera usage and direction. For the most part they use static shots, but they also go out of their way to use differing angles and vary up the focus
3. Voice acting is… really quite good, not just in general quality but also in showcasing added nuance
4. Voice acting continues to be excellent
5. An additional bonus for the main characters’ voice actors, especially Akechi and Makoto who are probably the best of the bunch
6. Lindblum Effect in the random people in the physical world
7. Even more Lindblum Effect throughout the course of the game
8. The visual distinctiveness of the Palaces is nicely varied
9. Yasuka is a nice touch of pragmatism and is amusing in his own right // Yoshida! He’s well written, he’s an interesting archetype (a legitimately corrupt politician who actually is reformed and trying to be better) and his story has been fascinating. Plus there’s something awesome about how he deduces who we are not by supplying us or being part of things, but simply by getting to know us well enough to do so
10. The storytelling for a huge chunk of it is very ‘ground floor’, keeping things relatively low level and relatable, which really increases my investment and general interest in the early plots
11. Futaba is generally adorable, and a great ‘younger sister’ character that automatically triggers that ‘protective / must protect’ thing, in addition to being heartwarming and having some of the most ‘feels’ scenes
12. Sojiro is just kind of wholesome, and has probably one of the most sharp arcs throughout his confidant. He’s also enjoyable to see in general, being intelligent, perceptive, and caring enough to bother in most of his scenes
13. Makoto’s story was the first one to actually make me feel; the pressure of being the tool who is hated and misused by those both above and below and having no one to really turn to is wonderfully presented
14. For the problems I have with presentation and construction, the twist around our death and Akechi is a great idea. I love the fact that it’s such a logical, well-thought-out consequence of kids who were (let’s be honest) just playing a game up until now suddenly being out-maneuvered and out-gunned, and gambling on a long shot to bypass their superior foe
15. Justine / Caroline’s ‘quests’ you do for them are well written and, frankly, hilarious
16. The twist with the demiurge and Lavenza is beautifully foreshadowed, subtlety built up, and nicely paid off
17. As much as I have issues with it, the finale and the ‘people’s combined will powers us up to defeat the demiurge’ thing is actually quite well done and (more importantly) makes perfect sense within universe
18. Character investment. While I can’t really give most of the characters individual positives, I overall grew to care about the cast as a whole and was invested in their stories and how things would end
19. The main plot of Royal is far, far more engaging and interesting and (most importantly) personal. It also brings up a fascinating philosophical question (paradise and stagnation vs. strife and progress) and leaves that question there while pointing out that the main villain’s flaw is in his execution, not his ideals
20. Credit for Royal’s Finale. I’m probably biased because I was rather harsh on the vanilla ending but the final dungeon, final boss, and usage of Maruki are surprisingly good
21. Akechi’s usage in Royal is substantially better than in vanilla, basically across the board. Perhaps this is helped by him not pretending to be anything other than what he is, but he’s a legitimate breath of fresh air in most of the scenes he’s in and also goes out of his way to be worth a damn
22. The usage of everyone’s Confidants working together to get us out of juvie and showing the consequences of those connections is honestly just really well done and had me smiling for most of it
23. Aggregate: Combo skills are just adorable to watch // Iwai isn’t quite as awesome as some other confidants, but he’s still pretty cool // Mementos as a concept is interesting and neatly ties in to the finale
24. Great Animation usage in cutscenes
25. When it’s good, the Dialogue is quite good
26. Good Doodad utilization for the city areas
27. Counting Royal as Postgame, it’s really got some great narrative beats
28. Excellent Internal Continuity throughout the first 4/5ths of the game
29. Very, very good Intro section (pretty much all the way up to the end of Kamoshida’s chapter)
30. Excellent Localization
31. Good usage of Music for cutscenes
32. Very good Story Sequencing for the first several chapters

Story Negatives:

1. Repetitive repetitiveness repeating things repeatedly
2. Repetition repetition repetition
3. A combination of issues collide into a negative here; First, it’s possible to be inefficient in what you raise and how, encouraging a walkthrough. Second, there’s a limited amount of time (total) to do… well, everything. And third (and most importantly) the game is really really really long, which means trying to redo the ‘path’ you took or optimize your ‘route’ is an extremely time consuming affair. And finally, on the story axis, a fairly large amount of worthwhile content is locked behind these things, making it even worse
4. Stupidity for the sake of ‘as you know’ is something that happens a bit too often
5. Anviliciousness is a constant throughout. The story has some good points, but it hammers them over and over and over with the subtlety of a thwomp
6. The artificial drama with Morgana bowing out is, as it usually is, badly handled and is clearly being done for the sake of drrraaama and padding
7. Empty Text problems are pretty consistent throughout
8. So there’s… many repeated issues surrounding the framing device. It’s not a bad idea and the twist it surrounds is actually a cool idea, but the problems with pacing, presentation, repeating itself constantly, and the fact that they try to bait and switch you like three separate times really saps the impact of the scene. But ultimately this negative is more for the framing device’s execution itself
9. The monologue-battle between Shido and Akechi was… not good to begin with but then it went on and on and on and on and ON and while it’s funny, it’s funny because it’s… bad
10. So the big confrontation scene with Akechi has actually managed to surpass the monologue-battle scene in terms of what the hell. A lot of the issues with it are, ultimately, just repeats of other problems in the narrative… but then you tack onto that the fact that it just drags on… and on and on and on, with characters repeating plot points that were mentioned mere minutes before, the game portraying Akechi as weirdly sympathetic, while simultaneously pushing the heroes to try and redeem him and get him to join, then made worse by him doing a fake self sacrifice (for no good reason)
11. So this one’s hard to explain but ultimately the SMT finale just really does not work for me and actively ruins most of the rest of the narrative. The game’s narrative and focus on individuals and really focusing on the consequences of actions helped to invest me in events, NPCs, party members, villains, and the events they went through. The escalation worked nicely and Shido was a good ‘final boss’ for us individually and as a group… and all of that gets torpedo’d by the mere existence of the demiurge and the final act of the (vanilla) game
12. Akechi’s use in the vanilla game is something I’m just not with, and I also don’t find him interesting as a character, to the point where if Shido himself had been doing the metaverse bits it would probably work better for me
13. The ‘dating’ aspects of the game… honestly kind of suck. The fact that you can enter a relationship and it never really comes up is bothersome to begin with (except for Hawaii, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and white day or whatever), but then there’s the fact that the other characters don’t acknowledge it as even existing, and then on top of that there are several romances you have to turn down in these heart crushing scenes which A: Should never have happened to begin with (since they’d know you’re taken) and B: Never give an option to say “I’m taken” as a way to let them down
14. Several issues with Cutscene Incompetence
15. A second negative for Empty Text…
16. …as this is the worst Empty Text I’ve seen in video gaming
17. Some serious issues with narrative Pacing

Gameplay Positives:

1. Restarts on story / major bosses (effectively mid mission checkpoints)
2. Substantial element of weaknesses as knock down = additional move which can also be baton passed, leading to some nice additional tactics
3. Knock down entire enemy = Big move, get item, or gain ability of persona plus negotiations
4. Good fast travel system (unlock specific spots by traveling there but always have large area ports, can pull it up basically whenever as long as not plot-locked, and quick and efficient interface)
5. Convenience features (equip and sell in menu, weakness shown in spell menu, Assist button, quick travel in the physical world, fast travel to safe zones in Palaces)
6. Persona leveling, merging, mashing mechanics are nicely complex and offer a fairly large amount of playstyle options for the main character
7. Time management (board game) of the non-combat section is pretty fun in its own right, and has enough HUD and interface elements to make sure you have enough info on hand to judge how to manage what where and when
8. Overall dungeon variety and puzzle design is decent, and visually distinct
9. The design and format of the non-combat, non-dungeon areas are neatly designed and fit well with the combat, dungeon side of the game. Both of them meld nicely into each other and compliment each other (though with the downside of basically mandating you do both)
10. Decently good NG+
11. Aggregate: Partial dialogue log // Auto dialogue advance option // Ability to change difficulty on the fly // Baton pass and related bonuses // Buffs, debuffs, and status effects actually being worth a darn // There are several boss fights in Royal that are… actually boss fights, with actual strategies and gimmicks worth a damn
12. Surprisingly good Auto Battle for party members
13. The Personas themselves make for fun and interesting Alternate Leveling
14. Encounter Rate is good, as you can both avoid and sneak up on enemies
15. Very high Enemy Variety (because, y’know, Personas)
16. Very stylized…
17. …and very good general Graphics design
18. The game is actually quite anti-Grind
19. Good, stylized HUD design in combat, with a decent amount of at a glance
20. That Intro is easily the best designed dungeon in the game…
21. …combined with generally excellent gameplay design and setup
22. Good Kit… again, in the Personas
23. While it drove me nuts sometimes, the Music is good
24. Outro (that is to say, the Royal gameplay sections) are really fun and good
25. Good Save System
26. Good Visual Distinction, despite stylization

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Combat spam is a bit silly; near-constant repeating of the same audio clips for regular, repeated actions repeated repeatedly
2. Tutorialization is pretty heavy, hard, and constant… and in some cases you literally cannot actually take certain actions until tutorialized
3. Total lack of audio options is something that’s bothersome in a game with music, voice acting, sound effects, and (most importantly) music. Further, and this is purely subjective of course, but I actively dislike the music in this game and have no option to deal with it other than simply unplugging my headphones or muting the entire game
4. A combination of issues collide into a negative here; First, it’s possible to be inefficient in what you raise and how, encouraging a walkthrough. Second, there’s a limited amount of time (total) to do… well, everything. And third (and most importantly) the game is really really really long, which means trying to redo the ‘path’ you took or optimize your ‘route’ is an extremely time consuming affair
5. Bosses… really have a tendency to drag, which wouldn’t be horrible except for how relatively basic they are (they’re effectively SNES era bosses, but taking about 5x as long as a SNES boss) and making me less inclined to play on higher difficulties for bosses because of how long each attempt takes
6. Ukumara’s Palace is… not good. The dungeon is more or less the same as many others but worse in several ways, not the least of which being far more unnecessary dialogue explaining what we’ve already seen and puzzle design that stretches a 2 minute puzzle into 20
7. Ukumara’s boss fight is just… awful in almost every way. The game already has slog problems in general, but to add onto that a timer, a ‘waves of enemies’ mechanic, and the fact that you have to kill all the enemies in only a few turns is the opposite of fun
8. Mementos is just… not a well designed dungeon. Repeat, boring hallways which look identical and have extremely similar songs, and feel like it takes entirely too long despite having the (optional) ability to one-shot enemies
9. The ‘dating’ aspects of the game… honestly kind of suck. The fact that you can enter a relationship and it never really comes up is bothersome to begin with (except for Hawaii, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and white day or whatever), but then there’s the fact that the other characters don’t acknowledge it as even existing, and then on top of that there are several romances you have to turn down in these heart crushing scenes which A: Should never have happened to begin with (since they’d know you’re taken) and B: Never give an option to say “I’m taken” as a way to let them down. In addition to all of this, the mechanic itself is both threadbare and restrictive, effectively forcing the player to choose from very limited options in what is effectively a dating sim game (and I firmly believe these types of ‘choose dialogue options’ things qualify as gameplay for these types of games)
10. The excessive, re-usage of the same damned songs for like 80% of the normal sections of the game gets really, really repetitive…
11. …and I hate to rehash this point, but this is some of the most repetitive music I’ve seen in gaming, up there with Breath of Fire 2
12. Outro (that is to say, the section right before Royal) sucks, and actively detracts from general enjoyment (let’s see… long slog through Mementos, then a long slog dungeon, then a long slog boss…)
13. Severe Pacing issues in gameplay

Story Positives:

1. Motion capture is pretty high quality, as expected
2. Voice acting is the usual good stuff
3. Doodad placement is extremely well done in just about every area
4. Visual terrain design is excellent in the initial snowy and city areas
5. Exposition is generally well presented, with a decent amount of showing not telling (even if the showing is for… bad)
6. Joel and Ellie’s chemistry and interactions, whenever they happen, are just great
7. The museum and hotel sections with Joel and Ellie are excellent (as are all the Joel and Ellie flashbacks)
8. The final flashback between Joel and Ellie is probably the best scene in the entire game, and is the first and only time the game actually made me feel
9. Aggregate: Jesse wasn’t much, but he was likeable // The flowers at Joel’s house was some of the best visual storytelling in the entire game // The entire ‘destruction of Haven’ sequence was reasonably well portrayed
10. Second positive for excellent Motion Capture
11. Legitimately good Camerawork here and there
12. Intro is one of the better portions of the story, as we’re introduced to our two protagonists and still building up
13. Some really good Lighting usage, especially in the city indoor areas
14. Sound Design is really good, and helpful for navigating around and through enemies

Story Negatives:

1. Idiot ball to progress plot (Tommy, Dina, Jesse, Ellie, Abby’s entire group, Abby herself, Ellie again…)
2. Drrrraaaama
3. Cutscene incompetence and uncharted railroading
4. Ignoring of nuance leading to black and white storytelling
5. Joel’s death’s execution is just not good. While I’m completely fine with Joel dying, the way they went about it was not to the level it needed to be
6. World Destruction (the opposite of world building). The game goes out of its way to actively do little things here and there that either ignore or ruin the world building of the previous game
7. Lack of chemistry between Dina and Ellie really hurts the two’s dynamic
8. Abby is essentially a non-character, which normally wouldn’t be worth even mentioning but it’s aggravating how much of the narrative she takes up and (of course) we’re forced to play as her
9. Jump scares which, as usual, are just whatever
10. Actively unlikeable characters pretty much across the board, with precious few exceptions
11. Forced and unearned emotional perspective, consistently, from both sides
12. The ‘big confrontation’ fight when Abby and Ellie’s timelines link up is… so many levels of awful I just don’t know how to describe it properly
13. The ending, in general, trips almost constantly… which is even more aggravating because it gets so close to good several times
14. Some questionable to bad Consequence Storytelling, as the game likes to just kind of ignore its own events (other than the ‘big one’)
15. Really not super fond of the External Continuity, in how it’s misapplied
16. Weirdly for such a short game, there’s just several sequences of Padding
17. I’d just like to mention that the primary Theme, if you can call it that, falls utterly flat for me (“Turns out it was man!”)

Gameplay Positives:

1. The game has an absolutely ton of customization and accessibility options to help setup play style, especially for people with blindness or other issues
2. The game has very good difficulty options
3. Another plus for excellent options design and the option to alter it on the fly
4. Checkpointing is top notch, and even includes an indicator in the pause menu about how long it’s been since you last checkpointed
5. The Rat-King fight was actually surprisingly good. While the boss itself was just a health sponge, the boss arena and terrain were well designed to accommodate it (decent health pickups, multiple avenues with few dead ends to maneuver around it, and the boss itself can actually alter the terrain via destruction to change paths)
6. The level design has some good areas and sections, with good places to maneuver in and out of, plenty of items to use or refill on, ways to flank or be flanked, etc.
7. As always, good New Game + is a plus
8. Aggregate: Verbal indicator of ‘clear’ / Horse always ready outside wherever you are / Safe locks aren’t as bad as they could be / Placement of flingables / Chapter replay and collectible indicator / Crafting shortcuts and indicators when having enough mats / There are several encounters which are pretty well designed, usually of the same variety (which brings this down to an Aggregate) but still enjoyable
9. Very good Enemy AI design
10. Gets a second positive for how well constructed they are, and how smart they are in routing and how much you can do with them
11. Good Animations help you figure out what you can do for what
12. Encounter design is quite good
13. And while I do feel there’s too many of them, they’re still very well designed
14. Exceptionally good Graphics design
15. Very good Kit, mostly for Ellie
16. Good, well designed Save and Autosave
17. Good Sound Design, which doesn’t just help with atmosphere but also helps figure out who’s what, where, and how to deal with them
18. Very good Terrain Design to compliment the stealth-based encounters and areas

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Pacing has a general lack of good flow with entirely too many sections that just drag rather than serving as proper breathers
2. Dragon Age 2 Syndrome, which really becomes obvious by about Day 1 of Abby’s side
3. Aggregate: Combat is actively disinteresting, for the same reason it is in Dragon Quest Builders 1 // Jumping puzzles and puzzle design in general is not its strong suit
4. The Enemy Variety is pretty lacking…
5. …which ties into the previous DA2 Syndrome problem
6. That entire Outro really feels tacked on, and is made even worse by being just another typical encounter like any other through just another area with nothing special about it at all

Story Positives:

1. I mean, it’s pretty funny, and had me laughing pretty hard
2. Aggregate: …utterly unashamed of itself, which added to the humor // Characters… which added to the humor

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. The music is surprisingly decent, and well used for scenes

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The options in general are extremely lacking, especially for a visual novel

Story Positives:

1. Addam himself is arguably the main character of the work, with the majority of the story focus and characterization (a lot of which is in the side quests). But he’s got some neat world building around him and serves as the focus for both interesting main plot points; Mythra and the politics
2. Political intrigue is interesting in its own right, and forms a nice backbone to the narrative
3. Mythra’s arc of developing Droid Effect as well as learning to care is interesting, and her ‘final’ scene where she laments the death of the children is actually very well done
4. Some of the side quests have decent character building, and are nice low-level, local bits of worldbuilding and characterization
5. The epilogue and ending are actually quite good with one noticeable exception
6. Aggregate: Post combat banter and the snippets of characterization it adds // The game manages decent humor now and again // Voice actors aren’t bad really, and do what they can despite the voice direction
7. Aggregate: Lora isn’t much of a character, but she’s enjoyable as she is // It’s nice seeing Amalthus as he’s still crawling his way up // Several other side characters were reasonably interesting and/or memorable
8. Good Doodad presentation, especially out in the ‘overworld’ areas

Story Negatives:

1. The voice direction is actively bad, resulting in generally bad voice acting in almost every single scene
2. Pacing of cutscenes, excessive and mis-used pauses (lots of pauses where there shouldn’t be, scenes simply take too long and have awkward moments when there shouldn’t be, etc.)
3. Lots of awkward exposition, often in places where it makes no sense (and several ‘as you knows’)
4. Empty action, with odd and often blocky storyboarding, and events not progressing logically
5. The game also manages a lot of… really awkward, cringey attempts at humor which just fall completely flat
6. The rest of the side quests’ side stories are actively irritating, sometimes to the point of being awful by themselves (like the ‘Sarah and Leo’ quest)
7. The… sudden and weird inclusion of the actual final boss fight against Gort was badly executed and timed, and generally felt like a complete mis-step in the story

Gameplay Positives:

1. Build and spend system of combat seems simple, but the fact that when you hit it it interrupts a current action means timing matters, and since all abilities are building at once it offsets the usual pacing issues with a build and spend system
2. The very idea of a backrow which also provides support, abilities, attacks, etc. is a great idea that more video games with limited party size should use
3. Swapping between characters really improves the flow of battle, by not only changing up abilities but instantly recharging specials
4. Combat flow (once it gets started) is fantastic in general
5. Blade Combos and fixed routes are great to use and build up to as well as incredibly useful when accomplished
6. The HUD is surprisingly good, especially in combat, showcasing everything you need to see very quickly and efficiently and with multiple types of indicators (shading, color, highlights)
7. Alternate leveling (milestones) is a pretty cool idea and gives a nice way to progress other than pure levels
8. Good New Game +
9. Aggregate: The built in autobattle, while lacking any kind of features or options, is still well designed // The side quests and exploration are fairly rewarding // Decent variety of options for playstyle // Custom difficulty, unlocked in NG+
10. Good overall Power Progression Curve

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Single save slot and the usual problems
2. Gathering spam is just ridiculous, especially for how often you do it and how much it slows you down
3. Mandatory side quests in order to progress through the game
4. Side quest quality is a bit all over the place, but with quite a few more ‘bad’ quests than good, reminding me of the old style of MMO quests
5. Interface is… not great. Far too many clicks needed to get to relevant information, horrible quest log, irritating to use map, etc.
6. Aggregate: Combat spam is excessive to the point of meaningless, with any given combat devolving into white noise because of how many are talking over each other constantly // The visual chaos of battle is about equal to the audio chaos

Story Positives:

1. The game is legitimately funny, and goes out of its way to make me laugh more than a few times
2. The visual variety and distinction of each island is well done and adds to the presentation
3. The external continuity between this game and the previous (and the next) really elevate the investment
4. The game is cute, charming, and has wonderful atmosphere
5. Amusing, interesting Characters
6. Good Doodad usage throughout

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. The animation is excellent, with tons of frames and a huge variety to every animation from NPC, to the foreground events, to enemies, to Shantae, to bosses
2. The spritework is, as usual, excellent
3. The music is Kauffman’s usual fantastic stuff
4. The enemy variety is high, and the enemy placement is well thought out
5. There are lots of little ways the terrain or areas are designed to incline you towards exploring most of the secrets and areas
6. There are several fun and interesting setpieces (such as the stealth area)
7. Tan Line Island
8. Mud Bog Island
9. Frostbite Island
10. Cackle Tower
11. Oubliette of Suffering
12. A second positive for variety and quality of music
13. Shantae’s kit is great, with each move being usable so quickly and smoothly and being able to be chained into each other to really make sequences fun and satisfying
14. The game flow is phenomenal, with no real stutter, bad pacing, or other issues throughout (except for the final dungeon)
15. The platforming is designed to be pretty precise but at no point did I feel it was too much or too irritating (except for the final dungeon)
16. The boss fights were all fun, if a bit similar in approach, but they had good variety to them
17. The final boss was already fun, but when you add in the unique mechanic of firing the cannon at his face it got even better
18. Pirate Mode isn’t quite a new game +, but it’s close and having all the movement tech unlocked at the beginning is an awesome game changer
19. Aggregate: Map select indicator of collectibles // Visual and audio indicators of attacks, health, procs, etc. // Good usage of escalation tutorialization (in almost every case you would see a block, enemy, or obstacle and how to interact with it before you really had to deal with it in a hard situation)
20. Truly amazing Controls
21. Core Combat is fun
22. Despite its simplicity, Core Combat gets a second positive
23. The game’s Difficulty Curve is very well designed… up to the final level
24. Good, manually crafted Encounters for levels
25. The Intro does a lot of usual good stuff for this type of game
26. Second positive for that fantastic Pacing
27. As with most Shantae games, great Replayability
28. It is just so, so much fun to get around
29. Second positive for that fun Traversal kit
30. Visual Distinction is usual good stuff

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The final stage has issues. Lack of proper checkpoints, trial and error difficulty, start-over-from-scratch spike challenges, etc.
2. Aggregate: Backtracking isn’t the greatest until you unlock all the movement tech // The map is threadbare which is bad enough, but is lacking in some basic features (like the ‘passageways’ thing in SoTN) which actively hinders exploration // Some things are a bit hard to find without a guide (not a big deal really) // Background blurring on the graphics is irritating

Story Positives:

1. Voice acting is excellent across the board
2. Voice acting mk. 2
3. The facial capture on the faces really helps add to the emotion of scenes
4. Cinematography and camera usage is great for cutscenes
5. Lighting usage as a way to distinguish different types of scenes, weather, areas, and flashbacks
6. Color usage to distinguish areas, scenes, and flashbacks
7. The terrain is straight up gorgeous
8. A second positive for sheer beauty, good lord
9. The music is excellent and wonderfully adds to moments
10. The music dynamically changes to suit the scene and the character’s actions
11. Sound direction is stellar across the board
12. Masako is probably the most interesting character in the whole game, with an amazing actress and a lot of real weight to her arc
13. Jin, the true vulcan, is well developed, well portrayed, and follows a very logical arc of someone poisoned by war while still retaining the true core of who he is. A true Son of Mogh
14. Yuriko’s arc is good characterization for Jin and his family, but also a horrifyingly well done portrayal of dementia (and possibly a stroke) and her passing is very well handled
15. The fall of Castle Shimura is easily the best scene in the game, with fantastic showing not telling, facial acting, voice acting, and being just as horrifying as it needed to be
16. Ishikawa and the Tomoe arc
17. Yuna has a good dynamic with Jin, but her story of the regret-filled thief who was a bad person in a bad world is fascinating and well portrayed, and her rage is fully believable
18. Norio is brilliantly acted, he’s relatable, he’s a bro, he’s a warrior monk, and his arc of the dark side and losing himself is powerful
19. Despite being incredibly obvious and visible from a mile away… Taka’s death was incredibly well handled, both in the lead up at the siege to the pay off. The tone goes straight from loud to soft and handles the shift brilliantly
20. Masako’s arc and quest chain is just the best in the whole game, absolutely brilliant and horrible and dark and wonderful and arguably the only properly paced arc in the entire game
21. Khotun Khan doesn’t get as much screen time as I’d like, but he’s good when he’s there. Pragmatic, cordial, manipulative, and unflinchingly brutal
22. Aggregate: Side quest stories aren’t the best, but they’re still interesting // Ink cutscenes for the epic tales are cool and well done // Kenji is more enjoyable than he should be given the ‘bumbling fool’ approach he uses, but helped by portrayal and his infrequent helpfulness // While the main plot is thin, the central pillar of the Mongolian threat serves as a nice connecting thread for all the other stories
23. A second positive for great Animation in the motion capture
24. And a third one
25. Great Atmosphere and Tone
26. Dialogue varies a bit, but when it’s good it’s good
27. Excellent Doodad design
28. And fantastic Doodad layout
29. The Storyboarding is fantastic in every cutscene

Story Negatives:

1. Ryuzo’s build up. Hunger or not, the whole thing just doesn’t work. It felt like they wanted to either have it be about his pride and vendetta of us as a rival (in which case the missions don’t work for it at all) or about the food (which is nonsensical given basic logic, and the fact that we raid multiple camps during the arc which have food in them visible)
2. Act 3 has generally bad pacing, most notably in the character stories
3. In Act 3 the game tries a little bit too hard to moralize, most notably about the poison we ‘invented’ aka learned from our nursemaid and suddenly evil people are using it everywhere and it’s all our fault nooo
4. Aggregate: There’s an internal politics issue that should have been far more on camera and present in the narrative rather than sneaking in twice and then at the ending // Mongol ‘threat’ issues in act 3 aren’t really well realized and emphasize the wrong aspects

Gameplay Positives:

1. Flow. The game encourages moving and doing to progress, giving you resolve and allowing you to recover
2. Resolve bar is a great build/spend mechanic, and usable to both heal and do super nukes
3. Stances offer great variety in how you strike and you can swap them on the fly very smoothly
4. Animation cancelling allows for tons of player options and rewards both reflexes and forethought in combat
5. Stealth easier, samurai is harder, forming a… gameplay morality bar instead of a story one
6. Group combat and multiple attackers at once is the bread and butter of encounter design and they do a good job of enemy variety making encounters interesting and challenging
7. Non-binary fail states for many of the missions, which allow leeway on screwing up and the possibility of recovery
8. Photo Mode has an absolute ton of great options, it’s nuts
9. Fast travel is the usual good style (explore to discover, fast travel from anywhere, and lots of travel points)
10. Lighting is surprisingly well designed. This is under gameplay because it helps increase visibility despite light or shadow, at day or night, and at no time is the lighting an obstacle to gameplay and in fact assists in being able to tell what you’re doing
11. Ghost Mode. It lets you kill people regardless of everything else while simultaneously terrifying all nearby enemies, you get it for killing leaders, and you can gain it for getting enough kills without taking damage (rewarding)
12. The usage of enemy types and positioning in the immediate wake of Taka’s death is brilliantly designed to actually reward and allow the player to absolutely run roughshod over them
13. Aggregate: Some minor QoL features including but not limited to; loot on horseback, loot while fighting, looting is instant, escorts move at your speed
14. Great Animations on enemies so you know what to do when
15. The solo Boss designs are great
16. And special mention for those optional Boss fights
17. Great Difficulty Curve
18. Good Enemy Variety, not so much in quantity but in how differently they operate
19. The entire Outro does some great stuff, especially the final boss fight
20. Excellent Pacing in how the game weaves between its various activities
21. Good Save System
22. Good and helpful Sound Design
23. Great Visual Continuity across the islands
24. Very good Visual Distinction, even at night
25. A second and…
26. ..a third positive for animations

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes (mostly from duels and finishing quests)
2. Camera and collision are kind of awful, leading to many fights where I’m fighting the camera more than the enemy
3. Traversal isn’t the worst I’ve seen, but going from Point A to Point B is just kind of boring and is effectively padding
4. HUD approach is not something I’m in favor of. It’s not the minimalism, which is fine if done properly, but the specific ways they design both the bird, the wind, and the touchpad are inconsistently useful and have issues frequently
5. Aggregate: One interaction button // Forced stance tutorial well into the game with no toggle // Weirdly restrictive camera during investigation sequences and inconsistent interactable icons

Story Positives:

1. The main character isn’t the chosen one, they just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the element of which is an interesting aspect of the plot and the setting (since literally anyone can take or use the power of Mana… or Mavolia… as they wish, which is why the hero is the hero, and why the villains all seek out things simultaneously)
2. Doodad usage and placement is actually quite good and makes most of the areas actually look and feel like what they are
3. Party banter while exploring and advancing into new zones // Multiple enemies fighting each other more or less at the same time
4. Good Camerawork for most cutscenes
5. Good usage of Music for cutscenes
6. Pretty good NPC Set Dressing for the towns
7. The core Theme of the individual making it on their own and earning their own way is actually pretty legit, and probably one of the better points of the narrative
8. Good overall Visual Continuity across the areas
9. Lots of Visual Storytelling, in both dungeons and towns

Story Negatives:

1. Voice acting is… just… bad across the board. I’m pretty sure it’s on the director, but either way it’s not good
2. Voice acting mk. 2
3. Animation for cutscenes is stilted and off, totally lacking anything it needs to work
4. Empty Text which actually saps several otherwise interesting character and plot points
5. As You Know, and generally bad dialogue
6. Cutscene incompetence and bad storyboarding in cutscenes
7. Post game nonsense (incredibly weirdly timed, and total disconnect with logic, like suddenly fighting Duran’s dead father… again… without any explanation… also just running through story beats at weird times in general)
8. The Characters… aren’t, really, and fail miserably at being interesting
9. The opposite of Consequence Storytelling, as the game likes to totally ignore its own events pretty much until the end
10. Bonus negative for the three Outros, as all three involve entirelly too many failed character beats and not-drama
11. Story has several long stretches of Padding
12. A second negative for just that atrocious Voice Acting
13. The Writing across the whole game is just poor

Gameplay Positives:

1. Leveling system is actually pretty cool, levels allowing you to put points directly into stats which then give you abilities (both activated and passive), and there’s a good ‘spread’ so you don’t want to just crank one stat on characters
2. Music is great stuff, and really enjoyable to listen to (and less ear piercing than the original)
3. The music really is legitimately awesome, with no songs that suck and several songs that absolutely rock
4. Option to play other origins as you meet party members
5. Core combat is just generally fun, especially for how smooth and swift it is
6. Party AI setup is pretty well done and lets you customize your team pretty well
7. Graphics are actually pretty neat and help accent the gameplay
8. Avoidance of trash fights is easy, smooth, and swift
9. Boss design (telegraphs, super attacks that can be interrupted, actual mechanics and gimmicks
10. The variety and enjoyment of boss design is well done across the board
11. Option to toggle music between original and remake on the fly at will
12. Several small but helpful convenience features including but not limited to; Shortcutting items and abilities, timers not ticking down in menus, equipping at vendors, AI not taking damage from floor effects, AI not counting for xp bonuses after battle, ability to reset class change as well as spent points, full heal option to smartly use consumables, swapping the ‘cursed’ character in the ghost ship, the cacti bonuses (and the ability to see what you’re missing on the overworld map)
13. Good new game + is, as always, a plus
14. Very good Animations for combat
15. The Controls are very good, both for combat and shortcutting
16. A second positive for fun Core Combat
17. Good Encounter layout and design
18. And good Enemy Variety
19. Good HUD design
20. The various Intros aren’t special narratively… but in gameplay there’s some fun, interesting stuff and it does a good job of setting up exploring, overworld, combat, and boss design
21. Good Class variety across the playables and how you can upgrade them
22. Second positive for a really great New Game +
23. The Outro sections are really fun to play through, all three having their own mean, fun last dungeons before the lead up to the great final bosses
24. Overworld design and layout is good stuff
25. Pacing is good except when it’s bad
26. Power Progression Curve is very smooth
27. The game has surprisingly good Replayability…
28. …helped by NG+ of course, but just the multiple paths and the three story arcs
29. Good, swift Save System
30. Lots of good Tutorialization across the early stages
31. Good Visual Continuity for where to go and what to do
32. Good Visual Distinction, helped by the artstyle

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Lazy difficulty in general (increases number of enemies and health/damage)
2. Absence of co-op in a remake of a game so focused and centered around co-op play
3. The Benevodon part of the game is really just one big long padding bleh section of the game
4. Anise’s Stockade is really just… boring. It’s repeated music from other parts in the game, repeated areas with some changes, repeated enemies scaled up, and no gimmicks or design to it other than lots and lots and lots of enemies

Story Positives:

1. Doodad placement and visual utilization
2. Ellie is a surprisingly good character who grew on me throughout the game
3. Isaac is a great character to follow through on and see how he completely falls apart bit by bit as the game goes on, in different ways
4. Aggregate: Voice acting (especially for Isaac) // Text and audio logs
5. Some surprisingly good Foreshadowing for what’s going on with the Marker and Nicole
6. Credit for a good Outro, especially in terms of tension and energy
7. Lots of good Visual Storytelling throughout what’s left of the areas
8. Some decently good World Building to help flesh out the setting and how horrible it is

Story Negatives:

1. Jump scares… and not good ones
2. Mis-use of cussing and weird reactions to events (eg. “Oh my God!! Oh no!!” etc.)
3. Aggregate: Mis-use of broken comms and other minor scene-specific irritants // Weird connections between setpieces in plot // Occasional bad dialogue

Gameplay Positives:

1. Difficulty options change how things work (and changeable on the fly)
2. Dismemberment gameplay in general
3. Enemy variety and design, not only being good but encouraging weapon variety and experimentation
4. Level design and layout combined with the inventory design
5. Set pieces (dangling, cathedral, the brute fight while being grappled, anti-gravity sections)
6. Good new game + is, as always, a plus
7. Aggregate: HUD design // Path indicator // Inventory design (limited but not too limited)
8. Aggregate: Checkpointing // Color indicators of interactables and clear indication of puzzle items // Stalkers are just awesome
9. I’ll give you this game, several of those Boss fights are actually pretty fun
10. Nicely done Outro, with some good build up and pay off in the final few fights

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Camera and controls are just… really aggravating. You can get used to them, but I always feel like I’m wrestling with an in-between of FPS and tank controls
2. Aggregate: Improper audio balance, making the quiet too quiet and the loud way too loud // Stupid string queues for enemies spawning // Unskippable cutscenes (most notably the intro) // Death animations can take way too long and, of course, aren’t skippable

Story Positives:

1. The Joker. He is exactly as amusing, charismatic, terrifying, and violent as he needs to be, and is voiced by Hamill. This might actually be my single favorite presentation of the Joker; someone who is not insane, but simply does not hold back at all
2. Intro and immediate establishment of situation, setting, characters, all gold
3. Background chatter from guards, thugs, etc. (foreshadowing and world building)
4. Doodad and background establishment (atmosphere, showing how awful Arkham is, etc.)
5. The Scarecrow sequence is wonderfully presented and excellently done, and also has some great (and blunt) allegory… the literal battle with his own psychosis is defeated by him focusing on the bat signal, the one thing he’s always used to center himself
6. Detective mode as a narrative tool (Clayface, Harley Quinn, the random guards as you pick them off, etc.)
7. Aggregate: Music usage is decent (escalation as mooks get more stressed) // Game over sequences (semi random depending on death) // Patient interview tapes (add tons of characterization and backstory to the setting and characters) // Cash (generally awesome character and noteworthy for being actually competent)
8. The atmosphere of the asylum itself is great
9. Good gameplay/story integration
10. Lighting is used to great effect to help with the vibe of the whole game
11. Sound design is helpful for many of the stealth sections
12. Great voice acting, probably helped by the presence of so many DCAU veterans

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene incompetence becomes an issue in the later half of the game
2. The ending / finale is very rushed, out of character, status quo, and entirely too pat

Gameplay Positives:

1. Combat tempo (knockdown cost/benefit, and counter animation interruption)
2. Scarecrow sequences and their sudden approach to side scroller platforming, total de-emphasis on combat and instead focus on avoidance
3. Smart camera (doesn’t get stuck on walls too much, shifts to accommodate platforming and combat, shifts when zooming up into the rafters, and generally good camera design)
4. Stealth gameplay (it’s actually pretty fun to sneak around, and there’s plenty of tools to allow you to do so)
5. Predator gameplay (probably the funnest part of the game; entire setpieces designed around picking apart a group via however you want, with a large amount of options and level design focused on giving you said options)
6. Level design adds new concepts and mechanics that change how you operate and maneuver, rather than simply adding new enemies or spikes or whatever
7. Introduction of set pieces as tutorialization through gameplay
8. Tight level design with good backtracking (we go back over the same areas plenty of times but it’s never the same thing unless you’re collectible hunting)
9. Good checkpointing (frequent and easy to restart from)
10. Good gameplay / story integration at times (lookin’ at you, Scarecrow)
11. Several areas’ terrain has clearly been designed for stealth in mind, and helps assist the overall level design
12. Great visual distinction at all times

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The Croc section is not fun. Binary difficulty (falling into water, moving too fast, or getting caught), bleh music choice (silence or loud bombastic strings), incredibly easy despite everything, samey corridors, and takes too long
2. The boss fight (yes, singular) gets old pretty quick, especially with the singular strategy and the irritating slowdown which actually messes with timing (VI)
3. The final boss (which is just a mook fight) is… what? It’s a mook fight against super Joker who constantly weaknesses himself, with long invuln periods, against a recycled enemy, and with only one possible method of success, on a timer

Story Positives:

1. The Intro is, per usual, just fantastic and immediately sets up the premise, scale of threat, and dilemma
2. The music is substantially better than the previous game; epic while maintaining atmosphere
3. The visual atmosphere of the city is phenomenal, all dark aside, and really sells how bad the ‘city’ is
4. Banter is great stuff, and adds a lot to world building and general storytelling, plus is enjoyable
5. Music application and direction (most especially how it escalates during Predator sequences)
6. Batman himself is very well done, and undergoes a noticeable arc as he gets worse throughout the game (and also Kevin Conroy is in his prime here)
7. Voice acting is way better than the previous game across the board
8. Voice clips, story sides, Strange interviews, etc.
9. I really like this version of Cobblepot. He’s a long term thinker who has no idea how to manage people, brutally vicious while pretending at aristocracy, and generally crude while not crossing over the line
10. Hugo Strange is a great character despite his relative lack of screentime, being one of the better Krennic characters I’ve seen of late; bolstered and built up entirely by those around him and having a tremendous ego he is utterly unworthy of
11. The finale appropriately showcases how damaging things get when various plans collide with each other and cause issues and chaos, and of course…
12. …that wonderful ending which just nails the theme and tone of Bats
13. The Joker is, as usual, excellent but further improved by both his death and the build up and hints to Clayface
14. Aggregate: The application of the ‘comms’ to track nearby conversations is brilliant in that it ensures you can keep listening and don’t have to be right next to someone // The ability to listen to menu voice clips in game so the gameplay isn’t too interrupted //
15. Aggregate: Catwoman fake ending // Damage to Bruce over time // Little details (Penguin’s guard that he whacks, fake Joker’s presentation, etc.)
16. Animation during cutscenes is some great stuff (especially in contrast to Bats, who usually just stands there like a brick wall)
17. As with Asylum, great tone throughout
18. A lot of consequence storytelling on display, as the plot beats keep track of each other as it goes
19. Good Doodad utilization, especially in the indoors areas to distinguish each villains’ territory from the others
20. Great usage of external continuity to highlight the characters, story, and plot beats
21. Good gameplay/story integration again (hey there, Ras)
22. Good internal continuity, as the game is always keeping track of what’s happening where
23. As with Asylum, lighting is used to good effect
24. The core plot of City is surprisingly engaging, and keeps me interested pretty much the whole way through
25. Good storyboarding, which really helps the action scenes
26. Second positive for great voice acting in this one
27. Probably the only Arkham game that really delves into the world (so to speak) of Gotham

Story Negatives:

1. Unnecessary drama with Freeze (why demand then work with? Why smash one of the vials?)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Core combat is great and fun, even more so than the previous one
2. Fluidity of combat is hard to properly describe without actually playing it but it flows like butter, with lots done to make sure every action blends smoothly into the next (very little stutter, lots of animation cancelling, etc.)
3. Moving around the city is pretty fun, especially once you get the VR upgrade
4. The museum level and its layout, puzzle design, combat encounters, etc.
5. Mr Freeze boss fight is easily the best done fight in the game, with a massively manually crafted arena designed specifically to give you tons of options for how to hurt him, as well as forcing you to ‘stun’ him but giving you said options in how to accomplish that, and (aside from on hardest difficulty) letting you pick and choose
6. Mr Freeze boss fight is even better in the fact that he actually adapts to what you do, not only in a gameplay way but in a way that makes sense, meaning you have to adapt what YOU do in response
7. Steel Mill level, layout, puzzles, encounters, and some of the better predator sections
8. Enemy variety is great; for a game that has you fight basically ‘dudes’ the different kits they get really vary fights up
9. Pacing of main plot and gameplay variety is very nice
10. Riddler stuff (the puzzles are neat, the “Riddler guards” are a nice way of unveiling them on the map without relying on a walkthrough, and both are completely optional
11. AI, patterns, area specific interactions, and escalating difficulty in skills not stats
12. Density of open world in what and how much to do
13. Good checkpoints throughout missions and even boss fights
14. Music really gets you pumping during combat and predator sequences
15. Princess Peach segment (Catwoman!)
16. Aggregate: Ra’s boss fight is very arcadey but very fun // Similarly, the Clayface boss fight is very arcadey and very enjoyable
17. Aggregate: Challenge maps are more fleshed out than Asylum and have different modes and playables // Decent New Game + (equipment and upgrades carries over, but mandated super hard difficulty)
18. Animations really help the flow of combat
19. One more positive for great boss design
20. Great camera usage, especially in the indoor sections
21. The game controls great, any jankiness from Asylum is gone
22. The core Batman toolkit and related puzzles
23. Decent cosmetic setups
24. Thought put into virtually every encounter design in the game
25. Several good moments of gameplay / story integration
26. Lots of kits for Bats to use
27. The Outro is brief, but quite good and very fun to play through
28. The pacing of the gameplay is fantastic
29. As with Asylum, thought was put into the terrain to help assist the stealth segments
30. Special bonus for good Trash design
31. As with all the Arkham games, visual distinction is quite nice

Gameplay Negatives:

1. DLC: The final boss against Harley in the DLC is arguably badly designed; infinitely respawning enemies in a stealth section that isn’t cut off by the defeat of the boss while simultaneously they are more alert than others
2. DLC: Aggregate: Too long for too little variety of content // Doesn’t really add anything substantial to the equation, bad backtracking // Robin is weirdly less polished to control, to the point where I had issues with him out of combat frequently because he just didn’t gel (and this is immediately after playing City for 14 hours)

Story Positives:

1. Music isn’t quite as good as City, but is still quite good
2. Cash and his voiceover for the evidence lockers are both great
3. The visual design of the city is easily the best it’s ever been
4. The goon banter is the usual fantastic stuff worth standing and listening to
5. The climax of the airship dungeon, the Joker temporarily taking over, and the ‘death’ of Barbara
6. Todd scenes with Joker are just as horrible as they need to be
7. The Charisma song battle was great
8. Being locked in the cell, the finale of the Todd story with Joker, turning on Tim, and the choice to tell him about Barbara
9. The entire Freeze DLC mission was just pure gold, emotionally touching, and a great ending for Victor and Nora
10. The slow descent of Batman as he becomes more and more the man who laughs
11. Joker is his usual amazing self, and absolutely sold by Mark Hamill
12. The finale of Joker’s final fall is just amazing, not as good as in City but it’s still beautiful
13. GCPD is a surprisingly interesting and fun bit of narrative, with more crooks being locked up and more dialogues unlocked over time
14. Aggregate: Lucius // Alfred // Nightwing
15. Aggregate: Manbat and his horrible, horrible tragedy // Hush was short but sweet // Pyg’s side quests were one of the better ones // Gordon was brief but good while he was there
16. Matter of Family DLC: Banter and dialogue with the thugs and hostages is just great
17. DLC: Aggregate: The dynamic between Tim and Barbara was good // I do like how Harleen would pop up now and again, and the writing on the walls with Harley’s ‘vision’ // Riddler was legitimately funny during the Catwoman section
18. Doodad utilization is, of course, quite good across Gotham
19. Still some good gameplay / story integration
20. And, as usual, good lighting helps set the tone
21. Continued good voice acting

Story Negatives:

1. There’s entirely more… comic-book-ness for lack of a better term for it, with plot and character points that are just kind of ‘go with it’, and generally lackluster scope of story.
2. There’s a very large amount of ‘on the nose’ dialogue that actually detracts from scenes
3. The totally overdone ‘mystery’ build up to the reveal of Todd is ridiculous, the story itself isn’t engaging, and the total and consistent dissonance between cutscenes and gameplay is very Kai Leng
4. Filler and a lot of Non-Essential-Interaction issues pad the run time and kill the pacing even worse than already mentioned
5. Aggregate: Non-lethal smashing someone with a tank. Sure. // The pacing isn’t the worst I’ve seen but the story clearly has some issues with how it lurches forwards // The game has Harley beat Nightwing, Tim… sure
6. Aggregate: Red Hood DLC // Interrupted cutscene problem, a la GTA
7. Matter of Family DLC: The Harley Quinn story was just kind of bad, with a lot of ridiculous nonsense (Harley effortlessly mowing down cops by the dozens, superhuman strength and agility, defeating Nightwing while he’s backed by infinite respawning cops, etc.)
8. I’m sorry, the plot is just… bad across the board
9. Several scenes are actively worse for the storyboarding therein, with a lot of ‘wait how did he get over there, why is he on this side of the screen now?’ problems

Gameplay Positives:

1. Combat is fun as it always has been, but…
2. … the combat flow is actually better than in City
3. Batank controls and design are good, if simple
4. Graphics are the best the series has ever had, being legitimately gorgeous
5. Enemy AI and adaptation to predator sections is a good escalation from the ‘Joker tells his goons what you’ve done’ idea that’s progressed since Asylum
6. The gameplay / story integration of how Joker progressively interacts with you (and makes your attacks more savage and violent)
7. Enemy variety is still quite good
8. Aggregate: Destructo-terrain is varied, and surprisingly fun // The Freeze DLC actually had interesting gameplay design and was fun to play // The ‘final battle’ as Joker is fun, if a bit short, and great // The actual puzzles for the Riddler quest (namely the ones in the orphanage) are actually pretty cool and fun
9. Aggregate: Small but critical improvements in combat flow (can finally hit enemies while down, environmental executions being the big ones) // The King fight // The Charisma… ‘fight’ // The Pyg takedown fight // Decent but not very good New Game +
10. DLC: Combo takedowns and switching // Harley’s gameplay was, purely gameplay wise, enjoyable // The Croc fight was simple but fun // The ‘flashback’ fights in the Hatter DLC were legit fun
11. As per the usual for the franchise, good camera design, especially indoors
12. Decent selection of cosmetics
13. Like with City, the Outro is short… but man it’s fantastic
14. Some of the trash fights are reasonably well designed
15. As with City, it’s fun to just fly around from Point A to Point B, especially with the strategically positioned statue in the middle of the water
16. As per usual for the franchise, good visual distinction

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Over-reliance on the tank sections, to the point of irritation
2. Repetition and ‘wearing out welcome’ of multiple missions (races, mine removals, etc.)
3. The rubber-bandy chase sequences are incredibly boring and, again, rubber-bandy
4. Too many actions bound to the same buttons problem (Assassin’s Creed issues)
5. Pacing issues, especially with several dungeons dragging (airship, odd pacing and padding issues)
6. Several issues with unclear directions in interactable cutscenes which tend to hurt the impact and pacing thereof
7. DA2 Syndrome with the tank battles
8. Aggregate: Catwoman DLC // General issue with gun-type enemies and punishing non-stealth approaches to large swaths of combat // Robin DLC // A general focus on binary difficulty in many individual encounters
9. Aggregate: Deathstroke fight is just… what? // The padding of several side quests (Manbat, Penguin, Two Face, Riddler) is just bleh // The entire Red Hood DLC is just boring and lazy and bad
10. Aggregate: No indication of where or how to get the ice grenades // Golden ending requiring 100% collection // Occasional glitches when controlling the Batmobile // The fact that the game basically locks you into cutscenes whenever someone ‘calls’ you on the phone // The unnecessary slowdown slash tracking cam that happens periodically, especially during chase sequences // GM Helicopter!
11. In contrast to City, a lot of the encounter design feels just thrown together (or worse, is the same two tanks over and over again)
12. This is compounded by general trash design
13. The map is just not good. It’s hard to distinguish at the best of times, and the icons aren’t properly laid out or layered

Story Positives:

1. Suedou is by far the most engaging and well written character and more complex than most of the other antagonistic forces
2. Aggregate: Side quest story quality (the dolls, the crosswalk murders, Pete and the conclusion of his story) // The saving Yuuko scene when we jump into the Eater
3. Aggregate: Suedou again. He was intelligent, well meaning, and actively avoided villainy despite his approach // Foreshadowing is pretty good and there’s plenty of signs and points (Yuuko/Yuugo, Kyoko, Suedou)
4. The overall Atmosphere of the game works quite well
5. Good Doodad usage through most of the non-digital areas
6. The Outro is pretty good, with some good narrative points and tragedy, as well as the triumphant ending

Story Negatives:

1. Pacing weirdness, especially during the ‘royal knights’ segments
2. Aggregate: Empty text issues periodically, especially with Kyoko // Nokia // Occasional translation issues

Gameplay Positives:

1. Built-in information on mons’ Types, attributes, equip slots, memory usage, skills, stats per level, SS, De-digivolve, and digivolving
2. Turn-based combat with clear indicators of almost all information needed (buffs, debuffs, types, elements, stats, etc.)
3. Quick and efficient menuing and transitions really help things (it’s hard to explain but it’s the opposite of what most modern games do, where every thing takes forever to make it more ‘realistic’ but makes it more of a slog)
4. QoL features (interface indicating inventory, quick menu operation, color coding and HUD of party members and status effects, messages letting you know when events complete in the farm, ability to increase and/or decrease encounter rates
5. The crafting of Digimon is interesting and properly complex
6. Crafting mk. 2
7. Inherited skills and reasons to roam up and down the pathways
8. Scanning to ‘make’ Digimon allows for guaranteed progress in ‘making’ and also allows you to get pieces of enemy user Digimon as well and you can scan and flee
9. Convenience of leveling while not active and while in farm
10. Good auto-battle
11. Back-row auto replace front row on front row death
12. Music isn’t the best, but there’s some good stuff there
13. The Outro is surprisingly legit. Nice music, good visuals, varied mini bosses, and a surprisingly well designed final bosses that were fun to fight
14. Good New Game + is, as always, a plus
15. Several good and fun Boss fights
16. While technically the same roster that you have, the Enemy Variety is still quite good
17. Similar to Pokemon, the sheer number of available playables adds great Kit
18. Quick, easy to use Save System

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes (and long ones too)
2. Quest log or lack thereof which combines with occasional ‘where do I go next’ problems
3. Padding side quests which all follow almost an identical format
4. The mini dungeon designs are frankly bad, with nothing interesting to do or interact with other than finding the path forwards, and each looks identical to each other and barely varied even within the same tileset

Story Positives:

1. Doodad placement is excellent and makes for the best presentation in the whole game
2. The visuals are generally well designed with a lot of obvious care present, and the RE Engine remains awesome
3. Good usage of external continuity, especially connecting it to 2
4. Aggregate: Carlos was pretty legit // Tyrell was actually kinda awesome in every scene he’s in // Mikhail got to have his own badass moments too

Story Negatives:

1. Weird moments of artificial drama and general action-movie logic (change in Nemesis intro without changing Brad related hunting, the subway instead of a trolley but Nemesis still catches up, no explanation for Nemesis surviving the acid bath, etc.)
2. Cutscene storyboarding is actively bad, to the point where it detracts from the enjoyment of the action scenes
3. There’s a general lack of Visual Continuity across the ‘zones’

Gameplay Positives:

1. Map (clearly labeled, shows areas you have finished, easy to navigate, generally good design)
2. Distribution of consumables, spendable resources, quest items, and general survivalist elements
3. Aggregate: Indicator when quest items have no more use // Restart in assisted mode on death // Plenty of warning and usage of environment when it comes to encounter design // Enemy progression and presentation? (introducing new enemies in smart ways, such as one gamma before getting grenade which will take a lot of firepower to take down before you get the ‘I win’ button, or dogs at the power station) // Good checkpointing and autosaves

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The general lack of design put into Encounters is off putting
2. The entire Outro really falls flat on its face

Story Positives:

1. The design of the audio clips and voice samples and ‘audio cutscenes’ are great
2. The Intro quickly and efficiently establishes much about all the major players, sets the scene, and gets its hooks into you very well
3. Audio logs are not automatically a positive… but really well done audio logs are, and this one has some fantastic audio logs
4. Posters, adverts, world building, atmosphere are all over the place
5. The big twist with ourselves, our father, and our master is very well done and still holds up to this day…
6. …along with the reveal scene of Andrew Ryan and his final triumph
7. Voice acting is good stuff, especially with the major characters
8. Ryan himself is a fascinating character with plenty to discuss and dissect
9. Atlas/Fontaine are, similarly, an interesting specimen of a villain given that he is (ultimately) just a thug but a two-bit thug was the perfect piece to smash the Rapture glass
10. Doodad placement and utilization is good and helps add to the atmosphere
11. Sander Cohen is a fun and very well voiced character, and his section was probably one of the more memorable story segments of the game
12. The game is quite smart with its foreshadowing, not going overboard but not too limited either, and bothering to leave the details everywhere
13. The good ending is brief but quite heartwarming
14. Aggregate: A good supporting cast of memorable characters (Suchong, Tennenbaum, Steinman, Sullivan, Peach)
15. Atmosphere and…
16. …tone are excellent throughout
17. Dialogue is quite well written throughout
18. The story sequencing is tight and well structured
19. Good visual continuity as you navigate the city
20. And the city itself is easily half the story by itself, visually

Story Negatives:

1. The vita-chamber is just kind of ridiculous and never properly explained in lore, and just introduces problem upon problem the more you think about it

Gameplay Positives:

1. Environmental encounter design and placement of what enemies where is usually well thought out
2. Hacking minigame is fun and rewarding (turrets, cameras, more stuff, and cheaper stuff)
3. “Researching” people with camera to unlock bonuses against them as well as unlock plasmids
4. Kit is good, with plenty of possible builds and combos and a decent variety of abilities
5. Combo attack options (shock then hit, freeze then smash, fire then shoot, bees then burn, etc.)
6. Aggregate: Nearby tutorialization elements for each new upgrade, weapon, or item // Aside from a few moments the gameplay pacing is quite good // The ‘curing yourself’ section of the game is quite good, giving you randomized Plasmids without overwhelming you and functioning as a good way to try out a variety since it will equip plasmids you don’t have equipped (or have even found) // Enemy variety is pretty good
7. Animations help you deal with enemies
8. Good, quick, efficient save system

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Hacking is way over-used, despite the fun
2. The health values of the enemies by the second half of the game, honestly, are just too much
3. A bit of audio spam from vendors and the little sister “The circus of vaaaluuues!”
4. While the pacing is mostly okay, there are a few long sections of what feels like padding as you go gather quest items to progress (and by the third time it’s just old and dragging the game on)
5. The final boss commits the worst sin of a boss fight; it’s boring. He has two attacks, it takes too long, there’s no real effort to give you options like they could have (environmental, adds, turrets), and the repeated voice clips are just old
6. Aggregate: Minor bugs here and there, mostly repeating or interrupting dialogue (plus two crashes) // Unskippable cutscenes
7. Honestly, the entire Outro has a lot of issues