User:Nextoy/Reviews

Sometimes, when I have strong feelings about things, I write a review on it. I'll try to remember to post more of those here.

A Hat In Time (Vanilla)
A Hat in Time is a lot like what I heard it would be, but not quite what I'd expect it to be. My original plan, admittedly, was to play it immediately after running through Yooka Laylee (As I feel like a direct comparison between the two would have been justified, as they are both modernizations of the same comatose genre); but A Hat In Time fell into my lap first, so I wasn't going to wait.

Now the tone of the game is exactly what I wanted. Something cute, colorful, cartoony, and didn't take itself seriously despite being hilariously melodramatic. The first few stages do a wonderful job with this comparing Red Hood alongside the Mafia she's fighting against. But the way it can handle dark tones the few times they come up was impressive, with there being a dramatic shift for at least one mission in each area compared to the rest of that chapter (Twilight Bell and Award Ceremony immediately come to mind), as well as the entirety of Subcon Forest compared to the rest of the game.

The gameplay itself was fairly... eh. It's an older 3D Mario with hats and Sonic's homing attack. However the level design and narrative carries it's barebones gameplay, and only the starting hat ever feeling like it doesn't have much of a use. And even then, certain stages change the starting hat to better fit the tone of the stage. Although sometimes the level design fell a bit flat. Especially in the form of one reoccuring gimmick: Dweller Bells.

Dweller Bells are quite easily the most infuriating thing in the game because of three simple words: Timed. Platforming. Puzzles. Now two of those, are fine. Just two of those elements and I can have myself a good time. But all three at once? Let's just say I wouldn't be surprised if someone thought I ended up punching my computer due to some hilariously timed, but ultimately unrelated, circumstances while playing the game. But no, really, Dweller Bells are by and large the worst element of the game. And yet... if I find a modded Time Rift that's just a string of Dweller Bells I'd probably still play it. After all, sometimes digital torture can be fun!

But the real bulk of my frustration came from one stage in particular: Alpine Skyline. Now in all fairness, Alpine Skyline probably isn't that bad for most people. In fact, I really want to like it since I absolutely adore the *concept* of Alpine Skyline. However, I just can't. The game's performance immediately goes to hell while in it. To the point where there's noticeable screen tearing if I turn VSync off, and sometimes the game just skips ahead large bulks of frames at a time just to keep from slowing down. To the point where there have been some moments where I have no idea what was going on, and die for almost no reason. Which is horrible, because the rest of the game runs perfectly fine.

The only part of Alpine Skyline where this doesn't happen, to my memory, is the time rifts and Twilight Bell. Now maybe it's because of how Twilight Bell isolates itself from the rest of the stage, but it runs perfectly fine compared to everywhere else. I don't really get it. But I still love Twilight Bell, and is probably one of my favorite stages. How much this is influenced by the sudden change back to stable gameplay or how much it reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess I'm not sure. But at the very least it's the best area in Alpine Skyline. That is to say the only area that isn't awful.

Also, the game's camera has a mind of it's own. Every chapter, barring the final one thankfully, had at least one stage where I felt like I had to fight the camera in order to be able to see what I'm doing. Including a couple times where I was forced to make a completely blind jump because the camera was either completely locked in place or wouldn't stop spinning around to get to the least helpful location possible. Or, worse yet, one moment in Alpine Skyline (because of course it would be Alpine Skyline) where it just simply did a 180 on me in the middle of a jump... causing me to fall to my death.

Unfortunately, this only further fuels my mantra of "All great games have either a terrible camera, or a worse fanbase."

But if there's anything the gameplay does excell at: it's boss design. Now boss fights are few and far between, only five come to mind out of the game's fourty missions, but most of them are gloriously made. Dynamic, mostly fair (the final boss of Subcon Forest had a few moments where I died from seemingly nothing), and are absolutely absurd. Especially in their final phases. One boss interrupts his own boss fight to have a dialog scene, for example, while another one attacks you with a *katamari made of minor enemies from the same level*. While most of the game is surprisingly grounded for it's cartoony design, the bosses are the zenith of how zany and over the top the game can get.

The hat designs are probably the next best thing, though. I am glad I didn't get the Time Slow hat until long after I'd beaten every boss, as using it against them my first run probably would have cheapened the experience, but it makes the game absolutely hilarious. I don't like that hat flairs are gotten through a slot machine, but the fact that I can have a tin foil hat and goggles with jiggle physics makes me happy none the less.

However, after gaining every time piece and doing both versions of the ending, I can't help but to feel like the game is missing something. There's just a part of it that feels like it should be there, but isn't. And I don't know what, barring maybe seeing where the glitchy badge salesmen went that made him so... glitchy. Perhaps mods can fill that empty void, we'll see.

In the end, though, I feel like the game really was just leading me to this moment (featured right).

PS: Vannessa's Manor is one of the best horror games I've played in a good, long while. I'd love to a see an entire game done in that style. Or just the full version of Corgi Quest 7 - The Leashes That Bind.

Abzu
So it's about what I expected for something done in the same vein as Journey. I wouldn't call it a spiritual successor of any sort despite them being very similar in presentation and structure, however.

The art style I suppose is the main draw for me initially. It has a very cartoonish look without feeling childish or overwhelmingly vibrant. Actually having that cartoonish art style but a mostly dark color pallet was an interesting contrast. If anything the game looked at it's worse when you're at the water surface in any of the early chapters.

The controls were rather nice, though a lot of the time I felt like I was fighting the camera. Especially during the rare walking sequences late game. Thankfully during the "story" bits the camera was cooperating with me.

Which segues nicely into talking about the, well, story. Like Journey I didn't... really understand what was going on most the time. No narration story telling does that. However I can say that the shark's role in it was debatably more dynamic than the actual player character's, leading me to believe that it was intended for the shark to be the protagonist rather than the diver.

However learning about Not!Atlantis was a trip. A lot was left open, but I do have my own speculation about things. Nothing I feel like sharing in this wall of text, however. What I will say is that it's pretty clear to me that the diver isn't human, even though we're lead to believe he is.

The final sequence was less climactic than Journey's, sadly, but the pacing felt much smoother despite Abzu being much more jumpy. Maybe this is because of the meditation sequences, but its hard to say for sure.

Overall I want to say that it's not meant to be compared to Journey, even though there are easy comparisons to make. Both of them are excellent adventures, but for wildly different reasons. Abzu is the calmer of the two, the slower, and feels far more exploration driven while Journey felt like a pilgrimage by comparison.

TL;DR: Whales/10

Legion (Season 1)
So a while back I started watching Legion, a show about a schizophrenic mental institutional patient who has extremely powerful psychic powers. Admittedly at first it didn't seem like a show that I would get into, but I gave it a shot on a recommendation.

Now the show does have an interesting plot, although its a bit too face pace for my liking. What they did in eight episodes I would would preferred them to pad out into ten, as some characters got very little development; worse yet being one character who is only ever shown on screen a small handful of times and ends up having no clear personality!

The main highlight of the show however comes from its interpretation of psychic powers and directing style. Every character, barring the protagonist, has their own unique ability and an interesting take on how that power works. This is especially true with the main antagonist, who lacks a physical body and exists as a psionic parasite.

Additionally the way it's directed makes it so that the show's quick pacing works in its benefit, allowing each episode to feel like its own short story tied into the overarching plot. This is further enforced by every episode having a different ending theme. Despite this, I would not say that the show is episodic, as it follows the main plot very closely.

My main complaint with the show is its actors. Most characters feel flat despite having depth in their writing, and those who don't tend to have erratic characters. That being said the erratic characters feel like they’re intended to be that way, although it's hard to tell who’s overacting and who is genuinely in character.

The special effects are also very nice, though it's clear they took up most of the budget. Normally I would rail on the series for having obvious CGI, but it actually works with the scenes where it's particularly clear.

As an aside, for better or for worse the series leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Now some of that is due to it feeling incomplete, as it ends right at the beginning of multiple plot points, however I feel like this is done intentionally regardless. It seems like the kind of series that would be fun to theorize about the finer details on.

Overall I would recommend the series to anyone I think could keep up with it's arguably frantic pacing, but I can see it being overwhelming for more grounded viewers.

Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events (Season 1)
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a Netflix series based on the books of the same name, and unfortunately this title not a misnomer of any kind or variety. That is to say it's exactly as written on the tin, an expression for when something is self explanatory.

Unfortunately there are parts of this review that cannot be said without spoiling the story, so if you wish to watch spoiler free now is the time to turn your eyes away. At the same time, however, it may be best to simply not watch the series or read this review at all, as I imagine not knowing of their struggles would make the lives of many much happier.

However it is only my responsibility to give such warnings, not to enforce them.

It is a story about three orphans: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire after their parents die in a tragic fire. They are sent off to different guardians who all but one meet terrible accidents in their time knowing the orphans. In that sense the story is apply named.

The one guardian who lives on without having an accident of any kind is the villainous Count Olaf, who seeks only for the Baudelaire fortune. It is him that causes many of these events to be unfortunate, after all. Were it not for him or his theater troupe perhaps these unfortunate events would not be in series at all.

However the banker, Mr. Poe, can't be said to have been as much help either. Or at least not as much help as he thought he was. While he did everything in his power to help, in actuality he was about as helpful as he was able to be in a scene without coughing. To anyone who hasn’t read the books or watched the show already, this is a reference to him having coughing fits nearly every time he was around.

While the show was very accurate to the books during much of the series, as well as keeping the author’s tendency to tangent on about questionably related topics during the story, the true unfortunate event is a deviation from the story that was unneeded, unnecessary, and unhealthy to its pacing.

As many who have read the books would know they rarely ever move away from Klaus or Violet’s perspective, sometimes not even showing Sunny’s should she get separated from them, outside of Lemony Snicket's rambling. Sadly the show felt the need to add in plot elements that neither belonged nor fit the series in the form of alternate perspectives unrelated to the children.

An example of this is the beginning of Episode 2 where it starts off showing Count Olaf, then disguised as Yessem Haircut, talking to Mr. Poe about sending the children to live with him. This gave neither context towards episodes 1-4, covering the first and second book, or reinforced any perspective the viewer wouldn't already have on the Count. Instead it merely serves to cluster up the story far beyond what is needed.

Along those lines is a side plot meant to convince the viewer that the Baudelaire parents are actually alive. I’m sorry to say that this is misleading in every sense of the word, and does nothing but to make us have false hope for the series and give us an unimportant and unrelated series of events that actually do have a happy ending.

Yet the worst offender of all is that these unrelated stories include talk of a secret organization which did not exist in the books covered by this show; and perhaps not in the original series at all.

What I will say is that once one overlooks these elements the show is very well made. Between the casting choices, cinematography, most of the rewriting, and appropriately sombre atmosphere -- a word which here means “dark and depressing” -- I do recommend anyone unfamiliar with the books and either unwilling or unable to read them to watch it. For those who are familiar, and perhaps slightly masochistic, it may be interesting to compare both the books and show side by side.

A couple of spare notes I wish to mention that did not fit in the above paragraphs:

First, as Count Olaf is played by Neil Patrick Harris it is amusing to see people call him a terrible actor to his face several times across the series.

Second, this is written from the perspective of someone who never managed to finish the series due to a loss of accessibility after the sixth book.

Finally, this is an example of how to do the series right even with its glaring flaws. Should anyone tell you of a movie by the same name let them know that it was probably just a bad dream, as no such movie was worth mentioning even before the series came out. With a Netflix series now there is very little reason to experience the series without having to read the books.

Though that is an experience that may not be best to wish upon others, despite being very well made.

Live A Live
Live a Live (stylized as LIVE A EVIL on the title) is an old SNES RPG that was never released outside of Japan centered around seven different scenarios across different points in time. Cowboys, ninjas, cavemen, giant robots, space flight, ancient martial arts masters, and a modern day fighting tournament are all interconnected through various themes shared between all of them.

The game, to me, features two main appeals: the beautifully crafted grid based combat, and the way they make each scenario feel like its own game. The whole game stays disconnected in a way that it honestly benefits from, including during the first of two bonus chapters. It isn't until the final chapter of the game where everything connects into the same story, which is where the game loses some of its charm. Even then, however, seeing how the varied protagonists interact is a delight in and of itself. The final chapter also factors in what you’ve done in the main scenarios, and even the ending credits changes based on your actions.

As both a writer and a programmer I find this level of interactivity incredibly impressive, and it makes me wonder why most choice based games - especially Tell Tale style games - can't keep up with the same feeling that the game remembered your actions and made choices matter. Perhaps it's only because the scenarios are disconnected that makes it possible, but even then it makes Live A Live a bit more impressive if that's the case.

Each scenario’s storyline is also fairly cheesy and stereotypical to its themes, but still delivers original stories despite this. The Western chapter in general feels like an old fashioned John Wayne movie, but with a Clint Eastwood-esque protagonist.

Live A Live is not, however, a game that can only be played once. Each story, especially the bonus scenarios, have nuance that is easily missed on anyone’s first run through. Additionally, the game must be played through at least three separate times in order to see the full roster of characters obtainable in the final scenario due to the nature of the Ancient China scenario.

One of the game’s biggest highlights, in my opinion, is Yoko Shimomura’s work as its composer. As a huge fan of her music, I can with faith say that Live A Live is the best game to show off the musical range she’s capable of; including basing the Modern scenario’s themes off of her work in Street Fighter 2. Kiss of Jealousy, the battle theme for the prehistoric age, is also possibly one of the most fun battle themes I’ve ever heard in a game.

However I have two major issues with the game, though both of them are mechanical. For one, the game does a very poor job explaining what anything does; though admittedly this could be the fault of the fan translation I’m using. Secondly, many characters have moves that ultimately become useless as the game goes on. Only the protagonists of the Bakumatsu and Sci Fi chapters have movesets where every ability has a niche to fill, and even then Sci Fi only has one fight where you actually get to use those abilities. The Cowboy protagonist is especially bad about this where half of his abilities become utterly pointless in the final chapter since many of his level up skills become flat upgrades to his previous abilities.

Overall though I would sincerely recommend anyone who can play a translated ROM, and especially anyone with the original Super Famicom cart and a working knowledge of Japanese, to play the game. Its easily one of Square’s best titles, and could have easily became Chrono Trigger’s equal in popularity had it gotten localized outside of Japan. Sadly, censorship of some of the game’s elements probably would have killed some of the game’s charm. Especially with China being such a sensitive topic and the Ancient China chapter trying to portray its setting as accurately to the old legends as it could.

Small tip when playing: the game has four save files. Use them. File 1 should be whichever scenario you’re doing File 2 should be after completing the main seven scenarios, thus making it so you can play through any of the eight scenarios at your leisure. File 3 should be after clearing the bonus scenario so that you can play through any version of the final scenario you wish. This may need updating occasionally due to the nature of the Ancient China scenario. Save File 4 should be used for the boss rush at the end of the final scenario if completed correctly. If you defeat the final boss and don't immediately get the end credits, then you unlocked the boss rush mode.

In general I give the game 9.8/10. Were it not for the mechanical issues it would have been nearly ideal for what it was trying to make itself.

Tl;Dr: Live a Live is DISGUSTINGLY good for a game never released outside of Japan. Go play it, and just let the game speak for itself.

Marvel's Iron Fist
Marvel's Iron Fist is the newest of the Netflix series lineup leading up to Defenders, and I must say that in my experience it's very accurate to the comics thematically... For the most part. The corporate bullshit isn't what I'm used to, but then again I'm more familiar with the Orson Randall Iron Fist rather than Danny Rand. Interestingly, Orson Randall doesn't seem to be a thing in the MCU.

What I can say without spoilers is that this is probably the most revealing series to the overall story so far. We learn a shit load about the antagonist group of the Netflix series leading into Defenders, Clair Temple continues to be shockingly relevant to the overall story despite being a throwaway character in Daredevil S1 and Jessica Jones. Interestingly, it doesn't tie in very closely with the other series despite all of this.

The highlight of the series has to be the combat choreography, and probably has the best fight scenes out of any of the four series so far; To the point where I humored the idea of a Marvel themed Tekken clone in my head based on their Netflix shows. Even then Iron Fist is by far the laziest fighter of any Netflix Marvel hero, often ending fights with a realistically short exchange and barely moving to dodge attacks.

The musical score did take an interesting direction that I wasn't expecting and was in a similar vein to the RZA's blend of more traditional martial arts movie music and hip hop, however instead of RZA's work it definitely leaned more to the later. It felt rather natural coming out of Luke Cage and its rap-centric soundtrack.

The story, despite what I said before of how it relates to the overarching story, was probably its worst aspect. Not bad, just... lackluster, I suppose. It was very jumpy, though thankfully not nearly as much as Daredevil S2, and had a few poorly handled bait and switch moments in it. Character development, despite this, felt very organic. Its an interesting case study to see how each character responds to their life going completely sideways, especially the ones with supernatural ties. His sidekick had an especially interesting development arc, despite being the most inconsistently developed character. Granted their most interesting aspect was probably just to contrast Chinese and Japanese martial arts between Iron Fist and his sidekick.

Though Luke Cage is still my favorite of the Marvel Netflix series so far; Iron Fist is definitely the most outwardly "fun" series to watch between the way it jumps around, the choreography, watching how each character grows, and the entire later half being one long lore dump.

Marvel's The Defenders
All the netflix series Marvel has came up with has lead to The Defenders. In some ways, it was almost disappointing. Although the main overarching plot was tied up, there’s a fair number of plot points that ultimately went nowhere. Especially within The Defenders. However, as a standalone series, it was pretty good. A lot of things came out of nowhere, and it would make little sense to anyone who hadn’t watched the other four Netflix series up until that point, but it had only a small handful of things that it felt legitimately lacking in. Although admittedly, having forgotten some things from the previous shows, I was still left confused at times.

Having came out of Iron Fist and Luke Cage, I feel as though the music this time around was lacking. Now it was certainly interesting how they blended the musical styles of all four series, especially with Luke Cage’s highlight scenes, but other than early on it felt more background this time around. Not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but still a bit of a downer.

On top of this, everyone felt a little out of character. Daredevil lacked his usual mood whiplash with his wavering conviction, Jessica Jones actually cared about people to a large extent, Luke Cage just went along with everything for the most part, and Danny Rand was just… constantly angry, it felt like. Many of the side characters just felt like they existed without much else for the majority of the series as well, with only a small handful doing much of anything in the long run.

Even the fight choreography felt off for everyone, especially towards the end. Everyone felt much less skilled than in their original series, except for maybe Jessica Jones, and the Hand’s men felt more desperate than talented this time around. Nevermind that the sword fights were… just bad. I’m more used to seeing swordplay like theirs in casual matches with foam swords at my local park than how it was shown in Daredevil and Iron Fist.

The actual plot is where I have mixed feelings. I felt disappointed with how narrow sighted it was, but also constantly engaged with how deep of a rabbit hole it is. Obviously it’s hard to talk about any details while keeping to my normal spoiler free/light style, but I feel like there could have been much more to it. Although with the series being only eight episodes long, I’ll admit that it feels bigger than it actually is.

In truth I’m… not really sure why I liked it, as I feel like a formal review just leaves me saying “The previous shows did just about everything better”, but overall it was not bad. A good end to the Netflix equivalent of a “Phase 1”, I suppose. It didn’t really set up for anything, besides a few small things I didn’t much care for, but it was a good finale.

Sometimes, a good ending is all it takes, I guess.

Mobile Suit Gundam (Classic)
The original Gundam was an entirely different beast than I had expected. It definitely had the balance between space opera and mech action that I thought it would; but the tone, characterization, narrative, and overall execution was far beyond what I had expected. I went in thinking it'd be a cheesy, melodramatic 80's action show and instead got an intense story about war and struggles, with the mechs as more a means to execute the plotline than the central piece in its creation.

To speak more specifically, however, one thing that kept drawing my attention was how similar the series protagonist, Amuro, is to the protagonist of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Though they're characters are worlds apart, a lot of the specific personality traits are similar. The way they deal with authority, their habit to wander off without saying anything or assume they're more important than they actually are, and the way they deal with being thrown into a giant killer robot makes me wonder if Shinji is partially based on Amuro. Though I'd say the clear difference between them is that Amuro deals with it via anger while Shinji does so through sorrow. Thus, while Shinji can be more relatable, Amuro ends up a more likeable character from what I could tell.

But, this is where my comparison of the two ends.

The aesthetics of the series is probably what caught me off guard the most. The artstyle is fairly typical for its era, as I find you can generally tell when an anime was made by it's art style (with a few stray cases, such as Ping Pong). However the music, use of colors, and character designs all stand out. The main antagonist, Char, is especially outlandishly designed in this sense.

To talk about the music in a bit more detail, though. All of it's instruments are uniquely strange, and they help draw focus onto the scene. Especially since its very clear which song is used for what, so the series passively conditions the viewer to know what to expect from which song. This is even cleverly used in a few episodes, leading the viewer to expect something and then suddenly changing tracks as that expectation is pulled away.

However, with all this praise I have a few gripes.

Firstly, the OP doesn't fit. I'm not sure what it's trying to convey, as neither the song or the video have anything to do with the series tonally. I'm willing to believe that may be an element of the era that I'm not used to however. But what annoys me more than anything else the show pulls is that they seem to randomly toss equipment around. I get that maybe it's being picked up off screen later, but it's fairly haphazardous the way things are just left behind. Especially with the amount of times a shield or beam saber is just discarded like they're disposable, only to magically reappear next episode.

One thing that I thought would be a gripe of mine, but I later learned was cleverly executed, is a plot element that's revealed late into the show. I won't spoil what it is, except that it suddenly becomes an important part of several core characters and somehow manages to both come completely out of left field while also explaining a lot of oddities I hadn't really considered until it was mentioned.

Overall, I'm excited to continue watching Gundam. Hopefully, this will be a journey that will help bring me closer to two of my favorite genres in anime: space operas, and giant freaking robots!

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
So I got the luck of seeing the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie in theaters technically before it was released (I don't know how, don't ask).

This movie... has problems. A lot of problems. I could go on a large tangent about it, but to have it spoiler free I'll keep this nice and tidy:

Jack has a (more than usual) inconsistent personality with traits that never appeared in previous movies that had to be explained in a flashback, the CG use is painfully obvious with the entire antagonistic faction, Barbossa seems to be a completely different person, and Will Turner's reinclusion makes absolutely no sense. To make it all worse both Jack and Barbossa barely relevant in this movie, acting primarily as a living plot points than anything else. Makes me wonder if they changed the writers for this movie, as it almost feels like it was written by someone completely different.

What makes this interesting is the fact that the protagonists of this movie are the children of Will Turner and, supposedly, Galileo. The two have a running juxtaposition between each other where one is an expert on nautical legends and the other is a scholar of astrology and horology falsely accused as a witch. With this they are constantly in conflict with each other, although this conflict ultimately acts as the main thing gluing them, and Jack, together as a cohesive crew.

Speaking of Jack, despite hating his portrayal in this movie his opening scene is probably the most Jack scene in the whole series as he robs the bank. And I don't mean the cash inside, Jack and his crew rob the entire bank! Between that and the main antagonist, Capitan Salazar, are the movie's high points.

Now Salazar I could write this whole thing about. I think he's the best villain in the series so far! He has the supernatural terror that Davy Jones had before his character went sideway, and gives the same persistent, oppressive atmosphere that Blackbeard did in Stranger Tides without even being an active element for half the movie. Not to mention he has this crazed fervor that I love seeing in villains, stopping at nothing to get what he wants. Plus his actor and CG work really nails the character and solidifies him in my eyes.

Of course he also has his problems, like being able to recall things in a flashback that he couldn't have possibly known about and being inconsistent in his own morals, but such is Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Overall I wouldn't say it's my least favorite movie in the series, At World's End is still an annoying clusterfuck of plot points, but it at least had the plot of the previous two movies to work off of. However I do believe the series works best in the episodic format the previous two did, especially since Elizabeth Swan is easily the most annoying member of the main cast.

I am curious to see the direction the series will go from here, especially if they drop Jack the Sparrow in exchange for the two new members that was added in Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Pyre
Dear Reader, what is it one should expect of exile? Certainly a grand journey is not the first thing to come to mind, was it? Or perhaps a sport that’s some strange magic, reverse Capture The Flag? I thought not.

On the surface, that’s exactly what Pyre is. A character driven visual novel pretending to be a sports game. Or perhaps a sports game pretending to be a visual novel, depending on how you look at it.

The easiest thing to mention and get out of the way is its musical score, which has always been a high point for Supergiant. Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett again make a wonderful duo, and the more folk-y, celtic tone serves well. Although at times it feels like Pyre’s soundtrack is trying to be both Bastion and Transistor, which are the low points in it’s tracks.

Now the story of Pyre is very different than Supergiant’s previous games. This time the narrative is very loose and non-linear, with the story mostly being told through character interactions rather than the narrators of Bastion and Transistor. It still has a narrator in the form of The Voice that proceeds over all the rites, his role is very minor.

Instead the story is told through the eyes of Hedwyn, Jodariel, Ruckey Greentail, their mysterious client Sandalwood, and you, dear Reader. Indeed the protagonist is the player, the Reader who acts as the leader and commander of the Rites and is the social cohesion between all of the playable characters in the Rites. The way the characters speak to each other, and the way you speak to them, is what shapes the story.

Due to this, the game has many possible endings. I have yet to experiment with them, as it’s quite a long game and I have only played through one run of it, but I imagine comparing everyone’s playthroughs of the game would be interesting indeed.

The Rites themselves aren’t handled the greatest. The aura system is a bit awkward, and speed-based characters have a dominant advantage. Additionally, four character types in the game play largely the same without Masteries; with the only major differences between them being their speed and aura size. The ones that do shake up the gameplay, however, play nothing similarly to these other four.

With all of this in mind, however, know that the bulk of the game will be travelling with your companions and talking to them. It’s perfectly possible to be anti-social the entire game, but there will be a fair bit of nuance to the story lost. Of course, considering this is a Supergiant game, story nuance is something that is expected for the player to dive into on their own.

All and all it’s a beautiful game, with many twists and turns, but one that expects the player to be invested in it. If our reader can’t get invested into the lives of their fellow exiles, then all you’re left with is a particularly awkward 3v3 game of magical not!rugby.

Stories: The Paths of Destiny
So while I haven't technically 100% the game yet, as I haven't hit max level, I just finished every story path in Stories: The Path of Destinies.

Overall solid game, even if the combat is fairly shallow and samey. Actually as a whole the mechanics are fairly typical of a top down dungeon crawler even though the game isn't represented as such. Still, it's fun playing with the system as its new user friendly and intuitive. Unfortunately the style mechanic ruins much of the flow and pacing of it's combat system, as it has almost nothing to do with actually being stylish and instead is just programmed as a checklist that ups your score for doing different things in battle. Never mind that the achievement for getting a max style rank is a bit of a Guide Dang It puzzle, as it requires throwing enemies in three separate ways as well as grabbing onto an enemy and NOT throwing them; that alone making up almost half the checklist!

The real treat of the game, however, is the story. The basic premise is that the Path of Destinies is a magical book that puts the reader into a Groundhog Day style time loop, however only at the place where the reader's destiny reached a crossroad. As such the protagonist, Reynaldo, continuously finds himself at the end of a civil war against the tyrant emperor Isengrim III, just before the final battle as the rebellion is on the verge of collapse. With the Book of Destinies Reynaldo has access to an infinite number of chances to win the war, and yet... each path seems to end in failure. The rebellion needs a game changer, and with four hidden truths about this war hiding within its pages Reynaldo was sure he could figure out some way to overthrow the emperor before the mad toad was able to revive the lost gods.

Though map variety is unremarkable, and the map selection is fixed regardless of your play through, the story still manages to be mostly unique based on your choices. With 25 different stories, including thee Hero Path or "true ending" obtained after finding all four truths, the game achieves an interesting level of replay value just running through the different stories alone. However there are also a small handful of hidden stories as well, though they are ultimately bad endings gotten through making silly choices throughout the normal paths.

Difficulty, to a point, also scales based on Reynaldo's level and how many truths have been discovered, with some of his abilities being unavailable to the player if they have yet to unlock the required number of truths; and then ramped up again during the Hero's Path. Unfortunately difficulty only scales by adding new enemy types, throwing more of them at the player, and making the AI more aggressive without making it smarter.

Ultimately enjoyment of the game hinges on the player's curiosity regarding its many different story paths, especially since it's fairly likely that every possible story path will be finished/discovered before reaching max level.* Despite that I am willing to rate the game a 7.8 overall.

The true question, however, is "What kind of hero are YOU?"


 * For reference, I was level 39/46 at the time of writing this and having just gotten the achievement for completing every story path.

Twin Peaks (Season 1 & 2)
Diane, 11:00 AM. Having finished up with my morning routine and gotten a late breakfast in, I feel it’s now time to discuss matters I’ve been avoiding due to a lack of both understanding on the subject and being unsure how to progress forward with it.

The first and second season of Twin Peaks, as well as the prequel movie, are some of the strangest things I’ve seen in quite some time. However, unlike overtly strange and bizarre shows such as The Twilight Zone, the series is heavily grounded in a real world setting. In fact, Twin Peaks feels like a real town I could just as easily go visit myself despite the supernatural elements in the series.

I feel like it would be easy to make a lot of comparisons to Twilight Zone or X-Files, but I’ll do my best to refrain from doing so. Twin Peaks does sit somewhere between the two, but is still a much different entity altogether.

My first and only major complaint with the series comes from the way it handles its seasons. The first season is less than ten episodes long, yet not only is the second season over twenty, but the major plot arc of the first season - who killed Laura Palmer - is wrapped up a third of the way through it. From there season two turns into a bit of a mess with it’s plot point pileups, though admittedly it’s only more noticeable due to a brief period where there isn’t an overarching plot going on in any regard. The entire series tends to have at least three things happening at once, admittedly, but the primary plot points tend to keep things neatly wrapped up.

With that out of the way, I can talk freely of the one thing that Twin Peaks does not only do well, but it does phenomenally: Atmosphere.

As stated before, everything in Twin Peaks feels very, very real. From its characters, many of which having a sometimes surprising amount of depth, to its setting, and even the way it integrates the supernatural elements. What makes it even more interesting is that it’s able to be both low stakes and high impact at the same time. It’s very clear whatever is going on almost exclusively affects the town of Twin Peaks, yet no matter what happens it sends ripples throughout the entire town.

If I am to give minor spoilers, the plot of Nadine quickly comes to mind. For those in the bureau uninterested in such, feel free to skip the following paragraph.

While the overt supernatural elements of the series began coming to a head, a seemingly unrelated and disconnected event happens with Nadine Hurley. A suicide attempt due to a failed attempt at getting her newest invention, silent drape runners, patented. After a brief coma, she wakes up having mentally reverted to her teenage years. For some reason, however, she displayed extreme strength. Able to shatter glass simply by holding it despite her normally ginger touch on everything. This feat of strength is never explained, and after she reverts back to her true self it isn’t shown one way or another if she had lost it.

Truly, Twin Peaks is an equal parts strange town, series, and story. Though it’s characters are all memorable, with few exceptions, and it’s ability to make everyone important in some way is remarkable.

Unfortunately, this review of the series must end early, for several reasons. Most notably due to still lacking an inherent understanding of the supernatural elements, and thus I feel unable to talk about them at length, as well as not wanting having seen the third season making some of the elements of the story feel unknown to me.

What I can and will say about the supernatural elements is this: the series ability to have an overtly unnatural element while still feeling very real is a respectable trait. The Black Lodge, which I won’t go into detail about here, feels like a place I could actually find myself trapped in. It’s residents feel like entities I could very well encounter if I weren’t careful travelling to Twin Peaks.

Diane, it is now 11:23 AM. I feel like I’ve spent enough, or perhaps too much, time out of the way speaking of such things. I’ll send another report once I have been able to watch the third season in full, but I cannot say how much time that will take.

Oh, I had almost forgot to speak of the movie as well. In truth, I don’t know what all to say about it. The backstory on Laura Palmer, the Black Lodge, and it’s residents was a nice touch, though having changed Donna’s actor threw me for a loop. It’s a very strange, often nonsensical movie. I couldn’t find myself enjoying it the same way I did the main series, as it all felt like a fever dream to me.

I do not feel as though it needs it’s own review, in short.

For those at the bureau who wish to look into the series themselves, I offer only one piece of advice.

Fire, Walk With Me.