Recent reviews by [FG]potato stick

Samorost 3 is an interesting and compact story experience that utilizes incredible surrealist art and music to create an instantly unique and immersive world. The puzzles are creative and challenging. The sound and level design are cohesive and playful in ways that often made me smile. I love that this game doesn't take itself seriously and really leans into the absurdity of it all. The integration of all of these elements makes Samorost 3 a great for anyone looking for a relaxing and fresh experience in a video game.

One of the most immersive gaming experiences that I've had in a while. The satisfying and mechanically challenging combat, beautiful and diverse settings, deep and cryptic lore, and excellent music and sound design work together perfectly to make this game shine. Further, the game rewards you highly for exploring past the requirements. Similar to Hollow Knight, Hyper Light Drifter is not meant to be treated as a typical direct storytelling experience. It requires you to investigate and to pay close attention to the visual storytelling and hints for secrets the lay hidden across the map. Yet, the mechanics and are always clear and smooth which eliminates any sources of frustration from lack of information. Would recommend.

When I first picked up Hollow Knight, I was expecting a short-ish platformer with difficult combat. To my surprise, the game took me 19 hours to complete and was jam packed with content. The visuals, music, and sound design are all top notch and beautifully executed. Overall, I enjoyed the experience that this game offered and would recommend it to anyone who likes platformers and is up for a challenge (in many different ways). There are many positive aspects to Hollow Knight, but also some features I did not like. I'll start with the positives.

Hollow Knight breaks many of the conventional standards and expectations that the majority of modern games impose, which increases its novelty. For instance, there are very few explicit waypoints, objectives, or quest journals that guide you through the game. The navigation in the game is done through maps that have to be obtained at the locations before providing any information or connecting it to a broader outline. Shops and other key locations are not marked explicitly and have to be found. Secret locations that you think to be small turn out to be major areas that progress the story.

The combat system is highly refined and offers a expansive variety of customizable "charms" and upgrades that are obtained through vendors or map locations. There are tons of bosses and various challenges that force the player to focus their skills into defining moments. Defeating hard bosses is satisfying and rewarding. New abilities are obtained in a logical progression that is never overwhelming or hard to control.

Hollow Knight is a cryptic game in nearly all aspects. The story is relayed in an unconventional way: mainly through environment, small hints of lore, and minor cutscenes. While the story never felt as though it was driving the game forward, it was by no means bad. Having played pretty attentively, I caught a glimpse of a incredibly rich, deep lore that the game is built upon despite only reaching 52% completion on my first run through. It's the kind of game that you really have to read into and immerse yourself in if you want to appreciate and understand the intent of the developers.

While the cryptic aspect of Hollow Knight makes it feel unique and satisfying to find new locations, there were a couple times where I hit a brick wall in my exploration. Essentially, the only way I was able to get past these parts that stumped me was by traveling to every location on my map that had an unexposed passageway and tried to see if it would progress the story. I'm not the kind of person who likes to look up walkthrough tutorials, so I occasionally spent an hour or more aimlessly looking around for new locations (not fun). Having difficulty in this way is not something that I appreciated, especially since I payed close attention to the cues granted to me and followed them.

I was expecting to get frustrated about the combat difficulty. However, there were a couple of key defining boss battles that felt a bit too easy for me. I would say that the difficulty mid-game was prime, but I felt as though the game should have gotten much harder late-game. When you feel comfortable fighting the final boss, the difficulty curve may need to be increased. Regardless, the game was a challenge for the most part and this is only a small thing that I would have liked to have seen.

Playing this game is like walking through a piece of art. The visuals and soundtrack guide you through a symbolic journey of emotional turmoil and healing while engaging you with clever puzzles and light platforming. The sound design and attention to detail in all aspects of this game are top notch which creates a seamless immersive experience I have never seen in a game before. GRIS is relaxing, but not boring at any point. The environments are never recycled and the puzzles are just challenging enough to feel rewarding. The way that you interact with and alter pieces of the environment is incredibly creative. The music sits perfectly in the game by shining when it needs to and setting an ambient atmosphere when it is less prominent. Cutscenes and progression of the story are paced perfectly along with acquisition of new abilities and discoveries.

I would 100% recommend this game to anyone who appreciates the artistic, narrative side of video games.

First off, I would like to say that I appreciated Firewatch's ability to develop the protagonist, Henry, as a likable and believable character. The dialogue was well done, and the actors presented their parts well. However, I would not recommend the game because the narrative fell flat to me. The rising action of the plot occurred too slowly to get me hooked and create a sense of urgency and the ending seemed a bit too abrupt.

The pacing just felt a tad bit too slow. Much of the actions that Henry completes felt a bit pointless and errand-like. While I understand that a key tenet of this game is being isolated in a forest with nobody else around and doing simple tasks, I found little entertainment in the actions.

The artstyle was quite beautiful, but I encountered optimization issues and minor frame drops occasionally. Further, I felt as though the art could have been utilized more strongly in the forest setting by introducing more variety through wildlife, unique plants, or wind for example. I didn't feel convinced that I was in the middle of an active ecosystem.

Overall, this game was not bad and I don't regret playing it. I just was not satisfied and felt as though there was much more potential for a greater experience in both story and setting.

Excellent combination of storytelling, gameplay, art, music, level design, world building, and exploration.

The difficulty progression and acquisition of abilities matches perfectly with the changes in environment and exposure to new story missions. Combat is much improved from original game with various combat perks (shards) and different weapon abilities. Side-quests and new collectibles have been added as well to increase immersion and overall content.

This game is so satisfying to play. The controls always feel fluid. Combat is paced perfectly to allow for combos with projectile deflection and other abilities. Movement options in water, air, and ground are all satisfying to use. Chase sequences and boss battles combine many abilities into one defining moment. The game did not once crash or have any bugs that took away from the experience.

The narrative is stunning, and does justice to Ori and the Blind Forest and even improves upon many aspects. The integration of various side characters that interact in the story creates a deeper connection to the world when compared to Ori 1. When you complete a major story mission, the characters will react with new dialogue.

Artistically, this game is beautiful. Gareth Coker returns with a score that perfectly integrates into the game. While music is a major aspect of this game, it knows when to take the background and when to become more prominent. The character themes evolve as the story progresses. Beautiful melodies and interesting harmonies and instruments choices that complement the cutscenes and general exporation. The visuals in this game are also stunning. I would 100% recommend this game to anyone looking for a single player narrative experience.

10/10

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an extremely beautiful mystery game. I found myself applying a lot of thought while working through the puzzles and exploration in this game. To fully experience The Vanishing of Ethan Carter you need to pay attention to every cutscene and every clue that you come across. Don't use tutorials. The satisfaction that you get after completing a puzzle is what makes this game so rewarding. The graphics are stunning and the open world is seemlessly constructed. The story is truly amazing and it leaves you to decide how you want to interpret it. This game requires patience. I 100% reccommend the Vanishing of Ethan Carter to anybody looking for a challenging puzzle game.

Far Cry 4 offers a great open world experience. Jam packed with places to explore and things to collect; I found myself investing 48 hours into the game to reach 100% completion. I had the most fun liberating outposts with a friend on a gyrocopter. The story isn't nearly as good as FC3, but it still kept me interested enough to complete it. FC4 contains loads of different firearms that are unlocked by completing story missions and challenges. The only disappointment is that the best ones are only unlocked very close to the end of the game!

Pros:
- great co-op +1
- great open world +3
- good gunplay + 2
- beautiful graphics +2
- great exploration +2

Cons:
- underwhelming story -1
- some annoyingly recycled missions -0.5

Overall Grade: 8.5/10