Recent reviews by thegevin

Another fantastic entry. Ryu Ga Gotoku knock it outta the park every time with every entry. This one's one of the best. The RPG approach couldn't be better.

The last great wave of Castlevania metroidvania style titles.
Get this & Bloodstained, then hope for the release of Symphony of the Night.

in 2024 this game just doesn't hold up, even with all the remastering.

It's a fine game, a beautiful game, even.
But I would take a sequel from the Sly Cooper or Infamous franchise over more this in a heartbeat. Honestly, this game leans on the boring side. I enjoy collecting & exploring, but Tsushima offers too many useless activities. After the first Assassin's Creed game there's no excuse for anyone thinking that banner collecting is enjoyable. & Haiku writing? It's like the developers realized they made the world too big and then sprinkled lame activities around after the fact.

I think most people willing to grind the main campaign will probably enjoy the game. But, if you're like me & can't help but what to chase after as many collectibles as you can, I reckon you'll find yourself losing interest. Collectibles can be fun, but this game just fails to be compelling with it.

Good game. Somewhere around 120 hours it started to drag on a bit, but maybe that's my fault for trying to be such a completionist.
In the end I did everything except for New Game +.
Characters also dialogue way too much. It's top tier quality with voice acting all the way; but there's just too much. Hopefully, in the 3rd game, Alloy will be able to make contacts in person, then have all the nonessential dialogue happen over the Focus while you are free to do whatever you want. Standing still for nonessential dialogue for ridiculous stretches is dull.

Gameplay is great. Traveling/exploring is great. Combat is great. If the game would increase your likelihood of getting all drops from certain monsters, that would be great (honestly, I'd rather pay 5 of something that requires me to kill a difficult enemy 5 times than 1 of something that I may need to kill ???? Who knows how many times for a single drop. Slaughterspines & stormbirds take too long to kill for them to not even percentage drop the piece I need.)

Not every game needs Gwent. The Stryker chess game is lame.
If you're going to add minigames, make them better.
Think the shooting gallery from RE4.

The game is good. It's just that after 140hrs, of course I'm going to have a few gripes. Believe me, I'd recommend this game to anyone.

Simple game that was a fun diversion.

Fun game. Getting a normal ending is easy enough & worth solving the puzzles yourself.

For alternate endings, I suggest looking up tips. The post game "secrets" are prrrrrrrrretty much impossible to solve.

One tip: If any fight is too difficult, the Lure item will let you cheese the battle. Kinda OP, honestly.

Great game. Doesn't feature the metroidesque upgrade necessary puzzle solving for progression that the Arkham Batman titles had, but the combat, story, and world are still totally top notch. If you were to tell me that this was a Sucker Punch developed title instead of an Insomniac title, I'd 100% believe you. Which is just to say, apparently I need to raise my expectation and start recognizing Insomniac for their good work. I look forward to playing the Miles Morales game after this one.
Highly recommended.

If I had any criticism for Hogwarts, it would be that I wish it unlocked abilities (lock picking for example) much earlier in the game. The game is quick to take the reigns off the player, which is good, but there are soft locks which stop you from having the capable freedom of interacting with some items in the world. I don't believe this game intended itself to have a metroidvania vibe, but the slow dole out of spells/tools forces the player to approach a lot of the game in such a way.

That being said, the combat is fun, the story is fun, the characters are fun, the game looks great, & there are loads of collectibles for you to go after.
The best advice I've seen given for this game is for people to grind out the main story at least until you get the ability to pick locks. You'll get freedom over the map long before then, but your ability to interact with stuff will be much greater if you just wait a bit.

The gameplay isn't bad. Plays like
the side missions of an Assassin's Creed game. Story is horrible. It starts with a bad story, then the decent gameplay distracts you for a while, and then the story takes center stage again and reminds you how bad it is.
I enjoy games that have you clearing map icons, so this style is pretty much up my alley. The abilities and magic are also pretty cool. But the story is soooo bad.