I didn’t have time to write an intro this time because I’m short on time. But here are my thoughts on three games I’ve been playing recently! The 3000ish words below will have to suffice. Enjoy!
Grime II
A review copy for this game was provided by Keymailer and Kwalee
Despite how closely I follow games and love Metroidvanias, I somehow completely missed out on the original Grime. It hit a very strong 81 on OpenCritic, so when I saw the opportunity to review the sequel, I decided to go for it.
Grime II is essentially a Soulslike (or perhaps more of a Soulslite) Metroidvania, which is becoming an increasingly popular mixture.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is probably the most difficult game in this genre out there. I would not say Grime II is even close to that level of difficulty. However, I would say that it might be more punishing than Silksong, at least when it comes to its map. Grime II is incredibly stingy here. With each new section of the map, you have to locate a “seal” in that area before you can see exactly where you are. You then have to find a second “seal” before you can fast travel to the very limited “surrogates” that are in each area.
The way the Hollow Knight series handles its maps is one of its most annoying elements for me, but I’m usually able to find them easily enough. That game has some nice hints and audio cues that help you get them. Early on in Grime II, I was slightly annoyed with this system, but it wasn’t inhibiting me all that much. But as you get deeper into the game, seals get tougher and tougher to find.
In recent sections, it seems like I have to explore and get through the vast majority of an area before I can unlock a map. It’s not a stretch to say that you might spend 20-30 minutes or more in an area before you actually know where the hell you are going. If you die in certain areas in the game, you might be in for a brutal ride to find your way back to where you were in some of the more twisty sections of the map, and Grime II’s map gets pretty damn twisty. I am currently hunting down one particular objective, and every time I get close to it, I seem to reach a dead end. I think I have to go a very long way around to get to where I want to go, but planning out how to get there is becoming a bit of a nightmare. It can be manageable while I’m “in the zone,” but after putting down the game for a few days, it is extremely daunting to pick the game back up and try and re-figure out everything all over again. Once again, it’s not so bad in the first half of the game or so, but it gets worse the longer you play.
It’s a shame because I really enjoy the core gameplay of Grime II a fair bit. The combat in particular is excellent. It works about as you’d expect, but it is executed perfectly. Attacks feel heavy, and there is a great variety of enemies and enemy attack patterns to learn in order to dodge and parry them off. You also get a huge amount of flexibility, as you can essentially absorb most of the enemies in the game and learn one of their attacks. So you also get a pretty nice array of extra moves that have more limited uses that you can bust out as needed.
I’ve enjoyed the boss fights a fair bit as well. Bosses hit very hard but are ultimately very fair. While plenty of bosses can knock you out in a few hits, they generally don’t have tons of different attacks, so with a bit of exposure, they are all very doable. The runbacks to bosses are also not nearly as bad as I’d anticipated, given how harsh the game can be with the map and limited fast travel points.
Grime II also has a fair bit of tricky platforming, and while I don’t always love how the platforming feels mechanically, it works just fine, and the design for these platforming-specific sections is very strong.
I also really love how the game handles its RPG mechanics. I am just coming off Nioh 3, and some of the stats in that game annoyed me because they were very unclear about what you were getting with them. Health and Ki upgrades were simple enough, but what exactly is the significance of my “ki recovery speed” going up by .5? I had no idea. Grime II’s stats are more basic, but it’s always extremely clear what you are getting out of each stat boost. Each weapon is linked to certain stats, so the game will outright tell you exactly how much more damage you will be doing with each stat upgrade. I really like this, as it makes me feel good about every stat increase I get. Also, as punishing as the game can be, it actually eases up on you big time when it comes to leveling up. The biggest way that Grime II differs from being a true “Soulslike” is that you do not lose any level-up progress when you die. It’s a good thing, because if I was having to deal with some of these blind runbacks and losing my XP as well, I think the game might have broken me by now.
A lot of my issues with the actual gameplay mostly boil down to technical things. I’ve run into a decent amount of small bugs, and the slowdown in some sections of the game has been brutal. It’s been a lot better as of late though, so either this was an issue in some specific early areas, or maybe a patch addressed it (I’m playing on Steam Deck).
I am not sure if I’m going to continue Grime II to the finish. Every time I boot it up and look at the map and see the long treks I have to make on top of not being 100% sure where to go, I definitely lose a bit of willpower. But each time I make progress or finally unlock a section of the map, it’s an undeniably awesome feeling. But with all of these new releases coming out, it may be in trouble. I’d give Grime II a 7.5 so far, but I could see myself upgrading it to an 8 if I motivate myself to keep pushing forward.
Shadow of the Colossus
Because of a slight break in the release schedule, I finally saw an opportunity to eliminate one of the my biggest blindspots in gaming a few weeks ago and I started the Shadow of the Colossus remake. So far, I have eliminated 5 of the game’s 16 colossi.
I want to preface my thoughts by saying that Journey is a game that would have to be in my top 50 of all time. I have shouted it out in several different blog posts over the years. However, I’d probably be hesitant to recommend it wholeheartedly to someone playing it for the first time. The game felt unlike anything else at the moment, but now, so many games have been inspired by it that I’m unsure if it would hit the same way for someone playing it for the first time.
I say all this to say that I definitely understand how amazing Shadow of the Colossus must have been back on the PS2. It doesn’t take much time to see how many games were clearly inspired by this one, with the scope and world in particular. Playing the PS4 remake also makes it so that the technology has stayed mostly up to date with the incredible art direction. I certainly don’t hate it when I’m playing it, but the game just hasn’t grabbed me all that much otherwise so far.
I actually had no idea what the gameplay would be like going into this experience, so I didn’t realize that this was essentially an open-world puzzle game. As I said before, your goal is to kill 16 colossi, as this will apparently save someone close to you. While the game is “open world,” there is a strict order in which you find and fight each boss. After navigating to a colossus, you essentially need to figure out how to trick them into leaving an opening so that you can climb onto them. From there, you climb on their back/sides until you can reach their weak points and kill them. Once you figure out the trick, these encounters don’t take much more than a few minutes.
The fights with the colossi are pretty cool overall. Some of the puzzles are pretty clever so far, and the size of each colossus is still impressive today. While the controls for climbing can occasionally be finicky and glitchy (I’ve had weird stuttering issues multiple times when I end up in a corner, for example), the awkwardness can kind of enhance the experience. A friend of mine told me that he believes the controls are bad on purpose, and while I think certain things like the glitches and the horse riding are just outright bad, I actually think he makes a compelling point overall. The clunky controls for climbing do make climbing genuinely thrilling in spots, because it’s very easy to fall off and have to start all over again if you aren’t careful. Between the controls and the way that the colossi will try and shake you off, you rarely feel fully safe when you are climbing, and that’s a good thing.
It’s not all great for me so far, though. I’ve found a couple of the early puzzles to be slightly annoying in spots. For example, there is a flying boss early on that you have to attract with arrows. There are tall buildings all around this arena, so I was pretty sure I had to find a way to climb up so I could get closer to this boss and then jump on him. It turns out, all I had to do was stand on a platform and wait for him to come down to me there after shooting those arrows. I guess all the various ruined buildings in that arena were something of a red herring, though I’m not sure if that was intentional or not. The game is quick to call out hints for each boss fight, but they are relatively vague. This is a good thing mostly, as I hate when a game quickly solves a puzzle for me, but it feels like there are going to be a few puzzles that are a bit overly obtuse.
The other main part of the game is the open-world elements. Before each fight, you can use your sword to guide you to the next boss fight. From there, it haa been all very tranquil rides to that encounter. Apparently, there are some things you can find to increase your stamina and health, but the game never formally introduces this, and I haven’t come across anything organically. For the most part, the open-world elements of the game are mostly there for you to take in the game’s gorgeous art direction as you head out to your next fight.
As beautiful as it is, it’s a bit of a bummer that they weren’t able to do anything particularly interesting with this world. There doesn’t appear to be any lore to find, and those aforementioned upgrades aren’t needed at all. While the game is definitely amazing looking, I’m not nearly as in awe as I would have been if I had played this when either the original or the remake first came out. It’s obvious within 5 minutes that Elden Ring was very inspired by the general look of this world, but Elden Ring just does it 5x better. There’s way more visual variety in that game, and obviously, the open world is infinitely more compelling. The more time I spend in this open world, the less interesting it gets after some of the initial wonder.
There is also a story of sorts in the game, but it’s pretty vague so far. There have been next to no plot developments despite being 5/16 of the way done. The game seems like it’s clearly building to a big moment, and I have a few inklings of what that will be, but even if that reveal ends up being amazing, it’ll be a bit disappointing if that is all the story boils down to.
I’m glad I’m finally checking this game out. It’s certainly not bad, but I also believe it has lost some of its luster over time. I still thought it was a good game, but I’m having a hard time motivating myself to push forward as new releases start to come out like crazy. I think this game is essential to understanding many games that came after it, but as an experience in and of itself, it does not feel essential at all anymore in my view. I’d give the game a 7.5/10, but if I can push myself forward, I’m still open to being more in awe of it as time goes on.
Replaced
This is the first of several new releases this week that I plan on playing in the weeks and months to come. Replaced is a 2.5D action platformer set in a cyberpunk world. You play as Reach, an A.I. entity who gets trapped in the body of his creator and now has to find a way to reverse it. But as you’d expect with this sort of genre, the whole world has gone to shit, so pretty much anything you do has you dealing with all sorts of peril. I started this on the day it launched, and I’m currently roughly one-third through the game after 3 hours or so.
First off, Replaced is absolutely stunning. I cannot believe how good this game looks. It has a pixel art style, but it feels way more detailed than the average game with this style. It also has some out of this world lighting effects. The game is constantly amazing me with its art, and I’m already preemptively annoyed for when this one gets snubbed at The Game Awards for “Best Art Direction”. In my view, these are the best visuals this year, and I’m saying that despite the fact that I have played Crimson Desert this year.
Gameplay wise, Replaced is mostly a mix of platforming segments and combat segments. Early on, I’d say that the combat is the bigger strength of the game. Essentially, Replaced has the classic Batman/Spider-Man/Sleeping Dogs combat formula, except in 2D. You get clear indicators as to when an enemy is attacking, which allows you to counterattack or dodge as needed. You also have a basic attack, a heavy attack, and a gun attack that charges as you perform other combat actions. This has many of the strengths from those other great games. Combat can really have an amazing flow to it. It’s very easy to fend off multiple opponents and keep a long chain of attacks and counterattacks going, and it looks undeniably cool.
I was worried early on that the combat would lack depth, but it has slowly been adding more elements as I’ve gone on. The heavy attack and gun that I mentioned were very recently introduced, and new enemy types have slowly been entering the fray as well. I still think the game will keep needing to add more elements to keep it interesting, but I’m enjoying it so far. I do think that this formula can be a bit clunky in 2D, as it requires really throwing a lot of enemies at you at once, and the screen can get a bit crowded. There have also been a few fights where I’m just spamming the dodge button because there are so many ranged attacks coming at me, but I think it succeeds so far.
The platforming in Replaced has been a bit more mixed for me. My first experience with it was pretty awful. There’s a weird delay/windup to the jump that feels really awkward and imprecise. A lot of the platforming segments early on are also very “on the rails” and automatic, kind of like a lot of Uncharted platforming segments.
But as the game has gone on, it has slowly gotten better. I’m adjusting to the jump mechanics as I continue to play. Replaced is also starting to weave in its platforming with its “stealth” segments (where you basically have to avoid a light that snipers are using), and there’s some great level design there. I also recently obtained a pickaxe, and there are segments where you have to jump and cling to certain walls as you are avoiding the enemy, which is pretty exciting. I’m hopeful that the platforming can continue to up the stakes and add a few more mechanics as things go along. My one lingering issue is that the visuals do not always make it clear where you can jump next, so there have been several spots where I got shot while I was unsure of where to go. Eventually, you figure it out, but there has been some annoying trial and and error at times.
Usually, with a cyberpunk game, I’d expect a heavy emphasis on the story. So far, Replaced has been a bust there. It hasn’t done much to make me care about the characters, and I don’t think it does a great job of introducing the world. It seems to relegate a lot of important details to newspaper and “codex” type of entries, and I’m not sure why they couldn’t have found ways to work this stuff into the actual flow of the game. But overall, it still seems pretty generic so far, and while I’m not overly optimistic, I’m hoping that it turns around for me.
Overall, Replaced is a pretty interesting experience. I think the vibes will be enough to pull a lot of people in, and I hope the gameplay and story continue to develop in ways that keep me engaged. I’d give it an 8/10 so far.
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