Context: Played through almost all of Hollow Knight, got to the third-last boss of Pantheon 5. I haven't finished Act 1 of Silksong, and I'm pretty sure I don't care any longer to continue. As a metroidvania, I expect that areas of the game will be unreachable until I have the relevant ability. Presumably, that area and those past it will then expect me to use that ability with increasing competence. This game does that to some extent, but it also has times where it will let you get into an area where either the platforming or the combat is technically doable, but is extremely difficult without the relevant ability. I completely disagree with this approach. I should not have to decide whether or not a challenge is achievable with practice. I don't want to give up early on something doable, and I don't want to spend 10s of hours on a challenge before I finally decide that maybe it's too difficult with my current abilities. Gate the challenge off until I am expected to overcome it reasonably. Also, this game is much more likely to have battle challenges that involve gank fights, or bosses with adds. This by itself is not bad, but this game also loves for those adds to take several hits and thus it's extremely easy to get overwhelmed. Also, balancing these fights is likely impossible because if you have four enemies on screen that can be in any position in the room and doing several possible attacks, there is too much reliance on RNG on whether or not the fight is easy or difficult. Lastly, the game has a resource that you can use to heal or do a special attack. It is very difficult to use the special attacks when you are likely going to have to heal. I've read people saying that you should use tools more...which is okay except for the fact that using tools does not appear to regenerate silk like hitting an enemy directly does. So using tools doesn't help the healing resource issue. The game has a nice, consistent art style and vibe though!
I have played through this game several times. I love the narrator, I love the lore of the world. I love the art style. I enjoy the combat. I didn't love every weapon, but I found a few that I enjoyed and that was plenty. I even put on almost all of the difficulty options for my last run and still enjoyed it. I don't think the game is super hard, but there were some combat sequences, if you are doing all the possible content, that took some focus and multiple tries. This is one of the few games that I've replayed several times, and I imagine I'll play it again at some point.
I heard lots of praise for this game and I saw in the reviews to be ready for old-style adventure gaming stuff, but oh my I didn't remember what that really meant until I started playing the game. Environments that don't work consistently? Check. (aka an action might take you through a door in one room, but that same action will just take you near the door in a different room) Puzzles that don't make any sense? Check. Items that appear in places you've looked at ten times before because the game is coded to only have things progress in a specific order? Check. I was mostly interested in the story, but it didn't seem all that impressive. I went and read the book this is based on. Was not impressed. I remain confused about all the praise (game AND book), but I'll assume it was impressive when gaming was new and any interactivity was amazing.
I bought this because I heard of so many people saying that it "hit them in the feels". Unfortunately, it only hit me in the nethers. This felt like someone had an interesting seed for a short story (which is why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1), but thought somehow they had to wrap it in something game-like to make anyone care about it. You click to move your characters, but there's no way to do it wrong. There's no reason you need to do it at all. It's as if you were playing a visual novel, and it required you to click several times through blank boxes before you got the next bit of text. Eventually you have to click around to get items to move on to the next part, but that part requires no thought either. There are puzzles you have between sections. Do these puzzles help you understand the characters? The plot? The world? Not that I can tell. I can only guess they exist to have something game-ish to do. The dialogue is often cliche', the jokes are not what you see in most anime and sitcoms. When dialogue is trying to move the plot along, often the characters don't talk like normal people, presumably to keep things mysterious, but it's so awkward. The music is fine. The discovery of what is going on between the characters is at least a step above typical plots, but I never got close to bursting into tears or what have you, and I have cried at movies like Big Fish, so I'd like to think I'm not a heartless bastard. So all your enjoyment is likely to hinge on whether or not the surprise means anything to you. I bought it on sale, and I still regret the few hours I spent on it.
This is a game for people that like a challenge for challenge's sake. Do you like it when games go, "oh, you can do that? Well, how about THIS? And what if I added THIS? And what if you weren't allowed to do THIS?" Then you'll like this game. There are many, many opportunities for the game to try to troll you and frustrate you and you can "persevere" through it, like a triple-dog-dare on a kids playground. Mostly this is during boss battles. Outside of the boss battles that felt like pranks most of the time, traversing the world wasn't all that dangerous or difficult. The art direction is nice, and I liked the music, and I had no complaints about the controls. I enjoyed the exploration, and I didn't mind how they handled the maps. It made me worry less about where I was and more about just forging forwards and seeing what you found. There is no fully fleshed out story, so you won't get that here. There are abilities that you can gain during the game which allow you access to new areas. That is typical of this type of game, so if you like that sort of thing, it has that. It also has abilities and passives that can be swapped in and out that are more about combat. I didn't find these compelling as I had a few that I felt where just too useful and thus a large number of these I didn't find useful. I'm glad the game exists, but I didn't overall enjoy my time with it.
This will get your mind going and possibly your heart! It's less about being overtly scary and more about uncomfortable thoughts about the lengths people may go in the aftermath of a terrible event. The enemy interactions are more like puzzles than reactions and quick decisions, so while some people say that lessened their fright, I guess it was still enough for me to get the pulse rate up. There is also a Safe Mode where the creatures will be freaky but not killer-y, if that's more your speed. The environments were well done I thought, and the environmental puzzles, while not too difficult, felt like reasonable actual things you might have to do in the circumstances, and I liked that a lot. For me four stars means "very much enjoyed it but not sure if I'll play it again". I still am not positive I won't play it again though...
Ori wants to be a Metroidvania...you can backtrack to maximize your life and abilities, but combat is almost pointless and what you need to do to progress is pretty linear. Ori wants to have cinematic action...several sections are meant to be epic escapes, but often these sections are so trial-and-error that it diminishes any epic feeling it attempts to create. Ori wants to be sentimental...but at least for me it felt cloying. It spends only a few minutes to try and pull heartstrings, and while it's fine to have a simple and typical story, I feel like it thinks it's more moving than it really is. People sometimes compare it to the movie Up...but I felt tears watching Up. I never once thought anything in this game except "they are really trying to go for the cute factor, aren't they." Ori wants to let people enjoy exploration but also wants to have the difficulty of older games...so it has huge sections of exploration that aren't too difficult and give you plenty of time to figure out your approach, but then has sections that are basically auto-scrolling and require a bit of trial-and-error to complete, and so those sections feel super difficult and sometimes not fair. Ori wants to be beautiful...and it is, although I would describe it more as cute. If you like platformers, love things described as cute, and don't mind a few spikes in difficulty that require several deaths to figure out, then this is worth a playthrough. You just have to persevere through those "hardcore" sections. My three stars means "it was fine, but I'm not likely to play it again."
An interactive fiction where you experience the final moments of the members of a family that seems beset upon by a curse. Each experience is tailored to the individual family member and is a great way of adding to the player's understanding of the character's personality. Also a nice way of varying up the interactions and keeping them novel for the player. The house that serves as the main location is well done to keep the player unsure about what happened there and what they might experience as the explore the place. Unfortunately I did not really gain a whole lot of empathy for all but one of the characters. I've read many reviews and comments of people who were moved emotionally by their stories, so perhaps it's just that it didn't resonate with me personally. For whatever reason, a similar style game called Gone Home did invoke some strong feelings, so again you could be struck with emotion from Edith Finch or you may be more disgusted with the family like I was. I do wish it wasn't so hand holding. I think this will be something I'll rarely get, if ever in games or interactive fiction, but I would prefer if more was left to the player to derive what happened and why from exploration of the house than to be given obvious places to click to get information. The house adds ambiance and some detail to the stories, but I would have preferred it to be the primary way to find out about the family. In any case, it's worth a playthrough if you like interactive fiction, and I hope we continue to get them and that they continue to evolve.
Let's go with the lightning round! - The main story is compelling enough to want to find out what happens. - The optional side stories involve interesting characters and help build the feel of the world and how it interacts with vampires and other supernatural beings. - Your choice of character history (i.e. clan) and your choices can both affect how characters interact with you, and future options. Your choices have weight; they matter. - I had no issues with the graphics playing for the first time in 2020 and I actually was surprised how well facial expressions helped the feel of conversations. - There will be glitches. Be patient, keep a rotating list of saves in case you have to go back a bit. - The dialogue isn't always the most nuanced; it can be juvenile at times, but I was able to enjoy it anyways. - Combat never felt great to me, but treat it like an action puzzle--you just need to keep trying different approaches until you find one that works--and you'll get through it. - Lots of people online complain about the Warrens. I didn't find it too long or that confusing. Their was a great vision for this game, but the game is lacking polish. Still worth a play-through.
