Análises recentes de T4l0n

Another masterpiece from Nihon Falcom, and so far their best game.
Trails of Cold Steel if the continuation of Trails in the Sky saga, to properly experience it it's better to play sky games first, but I think that as standalone it explains properly the world it's based in.
This underrated gem stands in my opinion at the apex of jrpgs in general, it has nothing to envy to milestones of the genre like classic final fantasies, or the best shin megami tenseis.

The already excellent combat system of Trails in the Sky has been further enhanced with link mechanics and more intuitive orb arts (think of them as materia of ff7), you have full control over the battle so you can really use the best strategies to overcome the obstacles, there's some rng elements in the form of random buffs or debuffs that appear during the fights but since you can always see the turn order you can play around them by ordering your moves.

Just like previous chapters, Trails of Cold Steel has an outstanding character development, probably the best so far, you really feel like you're part of a group of students, the connections they form with each other are organic and the game is never forcing events down your throat. You start the game feeling out of place, you end the game feeling the academia is your home. There are unexpected surprised along the way and the game is always able to keep a fantastic pacing, letting you dig deep into some locations, or situations, just to move on right when you start getting tired of them.

All of the above could never be achieved without the distinct linearity of the game: you have a degree of freedom along the way but generally the game follows a strict event sequence, this is not a point in discredit though, this type of linearity never overstays its welcome because of the great story it follows and the outstanding world building. And the world building in Trails of Cold Steel is beyond every other I've ever experienced in a video game, it's even able to enrich the depthness of the Sky saga, every tiny particular has been crafted to make sense both historically, geographically and chronologically in the game; there are no clear good or bad guys but everyone acts in the interest of themselves or the nation they belong. Marvelous.

Being originally a ps vita game it doesn't have jawdropping graphics, animations or anything but they put enough work to make every location feel distinct and realistic in its setting.
There is a little bit of anime cliche' that some people may dislike, it's mostly during the opening hours and it might turn some people off right at the beginning, bare in mind it's heavily diluted later on.

A fenomenal work of art, and one of the best example of its genre.

What a blast.

The Messenger is linear 2d platform with twist, a third in the game it becomes a metroidvania.

The selling point is not this unique feature though, it's the fact that it has one of the best movement systems I've ever seen in 2d platform games: it works like any other game except that you have a wingsuit and when you attack any object you get a jump, if you can keep attaking enemies, enemy projectiles, environment, etc... you can keep floating forever, this paired with the great animations make all you actions appear super slick, it really delivers the feeling of being a professional ninja glaiding and slashing though a fantasy land. So gameplay wise rest assured it has lot to offer.

The soundtrack also deserves a big mention, memorable tunes (reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden) all over the game that help build up the atmosphere and pump up the player for the upcoming challenges.
Challenges-wise the game is in the middle territory, not too easy at the same time not too hard, you may find some section of the platforming more hard than others but bosses are all too simple in my opinion.

The story has some depth but at the same time doesn't take itself too seriously, it gets the job done.

My only major gripe is that as I said before the game has this mix of linearity that later becomes metroidvania, but as a pure metroidvania is nothing exceptional, the areas are too linear (because of the first part of the game), and the later branching consists in other zones opening up from the already explored ones without ways of interconnecting each other.

Great surprise, great game.

Games are great and the issue with slowdowns is because of the emulation of the original software.
But ... there's input lag, noticeble input lag, around 8 frames or 133 ms, it's roughly like playing a multiplayer game and pinging 133, you notice the lack of immediateness of response in such a fast game.

The main problem ni no kuni 2 has is that it plays too safe, way, way too safe.

The story lacks any type of engagement or epicity, you have to build a kingdom, go to every main city, solve the problem they have, proceed to the next one and do the same, this is the whole plot no kidding. The characters are all uninteresting and way too "good", everybody seems to come out of a book for 6 years old children, they are all nice and perfect.

The combat system is fluid and has an overall nice feeling but it lacks depth and balance, there are some characters way more powerful than others and the action oriented gameplay is all centered around smashing the attack button until you can release a more powerful attack and repeat, it's also evident that it wasn't designed for higher difficulties added later with patches: you can only control one character at the time with others controlled by ai, and unless you manually swap control when bosses realease powerfull attack they will not move away and die everytime.

There is a managing side game centered around building your kingdom but the only control you have is the order of your upgrades, the building locations will always be the same and in the end it's just a more engaging way of upgrading your stats. I am kind of biased because I don't usually like these type of managing systems but I found it lacking under many departments, expecially customization which is the main reason you wanna manage something.

The aestetics is the only redeeming factor in this game. It has the classic gibli style and it's really pleasing.

One of the best twin stick shooters ever made.
The game is relatively short but with a lot of replay value, every character you play is unique with different shooting mechanics.
Graphics and visual effects are slick, though in some occasion the overabundance of effects can confuse you when you are dodging bullets.
Definetly worth even if you, like me, are not a huge fan of the genre.

Overrated average 2d platform with an interesting plot.
Celeste is not a bad platform, but it's definetly not the 10/10 overwhelmingly positive masterpiece everyone claims it to be.

The game consists of climbing a mountain, what you have is a long series of linear screens to complete, every chapter introduces some new mechanics, some are cool and interesting ("phase" blocks, feather ...) others not so much (wind, bouncing blocks ...), there are collectables and secret areas to find with different unlockables. All is stiched in with an plot about depression and the climbing of the mountain as the simbol of overcoming it, there will be some plot twists but nothing jaw dropping, overall it was an interesting original take on the genre but it's more of a character development over time than a proper story.

Where the game suffers is primarly the levels themselves, they went for a hard, die a lot but respawn fast approach, this meant that every screen is extremely small with only a couple of jumps to reach the end, they are too much segmented stopping your movement just when you start feeling the flow, you don't have the feeling of actually climbing a mountain or overcoming a big danger like in super meat boy, shovel knight or classic super mario games, the only exception, and when the game is at its best, is during the "bosses" sections where you have to clear longer paths.

Also the pixelated artstyle is way too repetitive, yes, every chapter introduces a new color palette, but until you reach the next one every screen looks the same, there's really nothing interesting to see until you unlock the next area everytime.

If you really crave for a new challenging 2d platform then get this, otherwise I wouldn't recommend it.

A short, all content no filler adventure where you explore a floating overworld and clear small dungeons on your way through. The game lets you explore a big open world where you can fly around at your leisure.
While the story and dungeon design is nothing amazing, the flying mechanics are spot on, it's one of the best and most polished "bird simulator" I've ever seen, it's a pleasure to deep dive and fly close to trees and rocks, it's something that is comparable to the swimming in ABZU, same quality. The walking and jumping is not as great, and it lacks something the animations but still it's good enough to be acceptable.
The minimalistic artsyle is pleasant and the soundtrack has some nice melodies fitting the various locations you explore.

The game has heart I give it that, but it lacks a proper budget to make the game work. Pretty much everything lacks polish. The game is extremely linear with almost zero side content other than the main quest, it's extremely short and every location looks the same, you can't distinguish a city from another, the dungeons all look the same. The music score is pretty good but it lacks variety, it's either soft ambient music or battle theme, there's nothing else.

The gameplay is the only saving grace, it's basically a simplified chrono trigger battle system with a weird "materia enhancing" mechanic that's pretty much based on luck, it works, it's not great but it gets the job done. Luckly some bosses are challenging and require some strategy but as you go forward you can figure out attack combos between some characters that pretty much break the game, you can one shot all the enemies in one attack all the time ... it made me question if the game was at least play-tested once.

In the end considering every pro and con i cannot as a jrpg lover suggest this game, it was at best prematurely released with a short and unoriginal story that doesn't have time to properly develop.

The most overrated game of all times.
It has all the low points of your typical "walking simulator" without anything good:
terrible movment and interaction system, scripted scene that take control of your camera all the time, ultra short story without any depth in it.
The so praised narrative is non other than a collection of short "interactive" stories spread around a house you explore, in the end there's nothing linking them together, it's the typical fake art glued togheter with some high quality level of polish and graphics.

- MINOR SPOILERS -

Compared to "new order" the game had some improvements under certain aspects and setbacks on others, it overall doesn't deserve the high scores and praises most of critics gave them.

To put it really simply the game received the Doom treatment, the movement in particular is almost an exact copy of the most recent doom game, it works extremely well since one of my issue with new order was the slow movement speed, an other thing it inherited was the music, here i'm not sure it was for the best, i loved the Doom soundtrack but while the low "demonic" tones had a meaning there, here they somewhat feel out of place in my opinion, great inspiration but somewhat of a more original take to it would have been more appreciated.

Gameplay is where the game excels, from the sound of the guns, to the animations, to the particle effects, everything help to give a feel of badassery that surpasses even what we saw in doom 2016, there's not a huge variety of weapons but everyone feels unique and the enemy ai is good expecially compared to the low standards we saw in recent years. My only minor issue is that weapons are too big, if you play with high fov they cover almost half of the screen and it becomes really annoying after a while.

The game wants to be an engaging and immersive single player story and here is where it falls flat. While it has some interesting characters the plot is way too much segmented, it really lacks linearity and continuity, it's not a long journey like in hl2 or metro games, it's a set of missions that don't have too much to do with each other (blow up something, talk to the resistance, get secret documents, kill general ... ). It also ends in a really incomplete way, while in the recent Doom you did what you had to do (stop demonic invasion) and it ended with a cliffhanger, here you don't defeat the nazis, everything you were working on just stops in the last mission, similar to Deus Ex Mankind Divided.
The way they decided to implement really long cutscenes in such a frenetic game is really questionable, they really drop the pasing of the overall experience, it's fun for a while but when it ends up being 5 minutes of cutscenes every 10/15 of gameplay it starts becoming an issue; furthermore they don't help building up an interesting plot, they focus on building up only the characters.

An area where the doom treatment doesn't work is the overabundance of collectables, firstly they are mostly useless, and secondly they don't fit with the approach the game takes : everything in the game tells you to go fast, to just kill and move ahead, from the movement speed, to the narration, to the draining overcharge health but at the same time the game seems to want you to slow down, explore and find secrets; i was once in a room after a gunfight where i had a guy screaming at me to move and just jump to the helicopter to finish the mission while at the same time there were collectables scattered all over that room.

While not a bad game per se, it underwhelmed the high expectations.