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January update: 3/52
I'm a bit behind schedule, but it'll most likely even out during the year (or get worse!) so I'm not too worried about that. Got diagnosed with Covid early on in the month which menat about two weeks where I was just sitting in my apartment feeling sorry for myself and not having the energy to play anything. When I finally got healthy and started feeling like a real human being again, I continued with my Resident Evil series replay that I started last year, and beat Dragon Ball Z Kakarot which I'd been slowly playing since I got it during black friday last year. It wasn't a super great collection of games I played, but it was a solid start to the year!
Now, more detailed thoughts on said games:
1. January 21st | Resident Evil 3: Nemesis | Playstation | 2h 18m | Replay | ☆☆☆(/5)
Played the game on hard mode.
I last beat Nemesis in December, and it's very unusual for me to replay a game this soon, but I felt like I had to give the game another shot. It's praised by a lot of people and I certainly didn't play it under ideal circumstances last time. The game's also short enough that I thought I could beat it in an afternoon now that I know all of the item and puzzles beforehand.
And beat it in an afternoon I could! Didn't really find any new appreciation for it, though. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad game. I just find it very unremarkable and the things that make it unique annoy me more than anything else. It's still classic Resident Evil so there's fun to be had, but the much more linear nature of Nemesis makes progression feel less rewarding. In 1 and 2 there were doors throughout the entire game that you walked pass without being able to open until much later, and the feeling of finally getting to go past what has stopped you for a long time is almost completely lost here.
Nemesis himself, while cool, is just a more annoying Mr. X (from the original 2, not the remake). It's not like he always kills me or anything like that, but he doesn't really add anything to the game other than being in the way. Having him just stalk towards you in a narrow corridor you have to get through isn't scary, it's just annoying because I know I'll probably take a hit from him. Mr. X could at least be efficiently "killed" every time he was encountered, but Nemesis has so much health that it just isn't a viable strategy. Plus he's got maybe the worst boss fight in the original trilogy where you fight him poisoned which means you can't see how much health you've got left except for when Jill is close to death. Pretty bad boss fights overall in this game tbh, though I did enjoy the final one which was more of a puzzle than just shooting a big monster full of lead.
The more action oriented gameplay is fine by me. It might not be exactly what this type of game excels at, but it works fine most times thanks to some great camera angles which gives you a good view of where enemies are. The dodge mechanic is pretty awful, though, and having it be mapped to the same button as shooting was a bad idea. The randomization of items and enemies are good for keeping you on your toes even on replays, but just like Nemesis they're mostly just annoying. They either make the game incredibly easy, or pretty difficult and I'd prefer if I could choose that myself.
I did enjoy the story and settings, and the graphics are incredible for a PS1 game! The branching paths also added a lot to the game's replayability and actually do change things up quite a bit. Like I said - it's a good game but it can't really compare to the great 2, and while it certainly plays better than 1, it just lacks the spirit which that game had. It's also incredibly strange how the developers didn't want to say Barry's name in one of the endings and never quite show his entire face, even though it's obviously him. I won't stand for this Barry censorship. Both him and Jill need to return for RE9!
Actually looking forward to playing the remake later down the road. I've heard they cut the clock tower, but that's like ten-fifteen minutes of the original game so I'll probably survive. Just want to try out version of this action game by developers used to actually making action games and not slow paced puzzle games with action elements to them.
Soundtrack highlight:
Staff & Credits (this is probably my favorite Resident Evil track, btw)
2. January 23rd | Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot | Playstation 4 | 44h 30m | ☆☆☆
I almost felt bad playing this game. I bought Yakuza 7 and 13 Sentinels on release and have owned Hades and Kentucky Route Zero for quite a while, but I still chose to play Kakarot over all of these critically acclaimed games. Still a pretty fun game, though.
I haven't actually seen or read Dragon Ball Z, so playing Kakarot was a pretty new experience to me and I somewhat understand how this franchise can be so popular (and why the Buu Saga seems to be the one people like the least). The characters are all charming, there are a lot of strong emotional moments and the action is intense (though it's pretty obvious that this game likes to cut corners whenever possible, leading to what I'd guess is at times a pretty disappointing experience for fans of the anime/manga, plus graphics quality even more inconsistent than the FF7 Remake).
The game itself isn't really anything special, but it does more good than bad at least. The story fights are mostly fun except for the ones where two or more fighters gang up on you where there's hardly any opening for attacking back, but they're all fairly cinematic and by the end of the game when you've unlocked basically every ability, the spectacle of it all is a sight to behold. The semi-random battles on the world map are to the game's detriment, though. They're so frequent, and completely devalue the fights in the game's many side quests (which really weren't that inspired to begin with) which usually are against the same type of enemy (though higher leveled). I realize that this is an RPG and people need to be able to level grind, but a better exp distribution from main story and beating the aforementioned side quests would have probably been a better idea than filling up the world map with all of these boring, overlong fights against generic foes.
I did actually like the world maps themselves. I know it's empty and maybe a bit too big, but I really enjoyed just flying around it, seeing the sights and picking up different materials or finding those items that references the original Dragon Ball anime. The different maps should probably have been more condensed for a more focused experience seeing as CyberConnect2 didn't seem to really know what to do with them, but they're fine.
So yeah, fun game but certainly not anything that special if you're not the biggest Dragon Ball fan around (and considering how many times these stories have been told through video games, maybe not even then). Would be fun to see CC2 use the foundation of this to develop a Dragon Ball game based either around Super or the original Dragon Ball anime!
Soundtrack highlight:
In the Hall of the Gods
2. January 28th | Resident Evil - Code: Veronica X | Playstation 3 | 3h 28m | Replay | ☆☆☆
Resident Evil - Code: Veronica X is not a good game if you don't know certain things beforehand. Like having to put weapons in the item box before switching from Chris to Claire, keeping the fire extinguisher even after using it early on in the game, or just simple things like where to go in this huge, backtrack loving game.
I sort of like the game, but that's probably all because I have a lot of experience with it (though this is the first time I've beaten it since 2016). I like the dark atmosphere, cheesy but ambitious story (even though part of it is a blatant Psycho ripoff) and while I will admit that the backtracking is bad at times (especially during the first half of Chris' chapter), there are parts of the game that I genuinely think are some of the best that the classic RE games have to offer. Like the Antarctica segments, for example. Just fun puzzle solving in small enough locations that said backtracking is never a chore, unlike how it is in the army base where it just takes forever to get from one corner to the next.
Certainly not great gameplay-wise, though. Despite all its problems, Nemesis did update the gameplay for a smoother experience, like improving the auto aim, not making the player push a button to go up stairs and just generally making the pace of the game quicker. Code: Veronica forgets basically all of this, delivering what might be the slowest game in the series, going back to having stairs as a hidden loading screen, and using an auto-aim system that's just... awful. It certainly aims automatically and you can technically change what to aim at with L1, but I never really felt like I could completely trust it. Sometimes Claire will aim at an enemy behind her from far away, and sometimes she can't. There's no apparent consistency to it, I found.
There's also a problem with the fact that none of the weapons really feel that impactful, neither in the animations when Claire fires, or when hitting an enemy. Zombies barely react to gunshots anymore, and they also have a nasty habit of somehow falling towards Claire when falling down, and if close enough they'll immediately bite her (which doesn't do too much damage; Claire has an insane amount of health) without the player being able to do anything about it. It's not too bad, but a noticeable step back from previous games in the series, where the feeling using weapons really emphasized the survival horror aspect - you could feel every bullet matter through how player and enemies reacted to shooting and getting hit by it.
Code: Veronica X is certainly not a game to recommend to RE newcomers. It has some awful roadblocks which can force the player to reset if they don't know about them beforehand plus some terrible backtracking, but I enjoy it. It's difficult, but not too difficult, some locations are fun to run through and the insane story's a hoot. The game also has some pretty incredible facial animations for a 2000 game. The graphics overall don't look all that great, but the characters atr surprisingly great at emoting. And not in the Kingdom Hearts way where one 2d face is swapped for another in an instant, but in the way that's actually animated. Truly impressive stuff.
Soundtrack highlight:
Theme of Alexia Type 2
Currently playing
Resident Evil 4 (PS4)
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (Switch)
