Here's some more random gaming thoughts on stuff I played these past 2 months:
- Nioh 2. Excellent combat, poor level design, very inconsistent difficulty balancing. I enjoyed it enough to spend 100+ hours on it and get the plat, so that's something. I'll probably try Wo Long as well at some point, but I'm not expecting any major improvements to be honest.
- Gorogoa. A charming and creative puzzle game where you manipulate and move around inside paintings to make progress. Short but sweet.
- Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition. It's a 2D metroidvania with a twist: you don't actually move in the traditional sense, but only by jumping to specific surfaces in a straight line, and there's no gravity (or an up or down for that matter). The pixel art is pretty good and once you get used to it, the movement does feel fluid. It lacks precision during tense moments though, and combat isn't great. Not among the better metroidvanias I've played, but I still enjoyed my time with it.
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Never played it before, so I felt it was time. I enjoyed the first half of the game, but after the "turning point", I gave up pretty quickly. That second part didn't really feel fun or worth it anymore to me. Having played Bloodstained before I got to experience this one means it just didn't have the same impact.
- Psychonauts 2. I initially thought it was a bit dull. Never played the original, so I had no nostalgia or affection for its characters, and the gameplay is nothing special. It grew on me though, and by the end its charm had won me over. It's a lovely game. Bit too heavy on the collectibles though.
- Blasphemous. A heavily Dark Souls-inspired 2D metroidvania, so right up my alley. The pixel art is sublime, with a constant theme of religion, penitence and suffering. The whole thing is oppressive and gruesome as feck. Enemy designs are a particular highlight. Despite all that, it's not as good as I'd hoped. The gameplay and combat are nothing special and I feel it just goes too far with how obscure everything is. It makes the whole thing a bit exhausting to play. I'm nearly at the end and will finish it, but probably skip trying to find every little secret. Excellent premise and style, flawed execution, but I'm glad it exists.
- Remnant: From the Ashes. I'm about 12 hours into it, playing solo, and I think I'm going to give up. It's a bit boring, unfortunately. The procedural level design isn't necessarily terrible, but the environments are just too drab to make it work. The gunplay is decent enough, but the whole thing always feels a bit janky. There's just not enough here to convince me to keep playing.
Don't really know what to play next after I'm done with Blasphemous. Possibly Yakuza Kiwami, it's been long enough since Yakuza 0 now and I need to make some progress if I'm ever going to play through the entire series.