Recent reviews by Meatman

Rock & Stone.

Fun and frantic co-op fighting game with more intricacy than meets the eye. Been having a blast dunking as LeBron James, which is something I never thought I'd be writing.

This is my favorite game of all time, bar none.
There's not enough space for me here to describe in detail, but the writing is the most vivid and imaginative I've ever experienced in any medium - Movie, book, or other - and for a game where the writing takes the front row seat, it better well be.

One of the most important methods of conveying a story in a game is to show and not tell, yet Disco Elysium somehow manages to merge show and tell while seamlessly letting the player fill in the gaps without even realizing they're doing it.

10/10 gonna play through for the fourth time eventually.

Absolutely incredible party game. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have laughed loudly every single time I've played it with my friends. The replay value is insane.

Super quick review real quick.
Yakuza 0 delivers the story of two of the best characters in the series: Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima.

Ok, quick pros and cons about Yakuza 0.

Pros:
- Never boring, there's always something to do at any point. Be it side stories which usually nets you special bonuses or going to a karaoke, there's a wealth to choose between at any point.
- Being a prequel, it serves as a good game to jump into the series with whilst also fleshing out fan favorite characters.
- Combat is great fun. Heat Actions are hype as ♥♥♥♥.
- Impossible not to love Majima.
- Probably one of, if not the best Yakuza game.
- if you enjoy it, you got Kiwami 1 to continue with.

Cons:
- It might actually be one of the best Yakuza games, to the point where other Yakuza games are going to feel like they come up short.

No really, that's my chief complaint. The amount of content that Yakuza 0 delivers makes the other games seen downright lackluster to the point where if you went into, say, Yakuza Kiwami 1 right afterwards, you'd probably feel a little dissapointed. This isn't to say that Kiwami isn't a good game, because it is, but its just not Yakuza 0.

Slightly rocky start due to server issues, but the game itself feels good to play.

Never has complete hopelessness felt so invigorating.

Price is a bit steep, but its a good game.

I've heard people compare this to Binding of Isaac, but to me its closer to Nuclear Throne. Actually, it lands somewhere in between those two games, finding the speed of Nuclear Throne and the roguelite elements of BoI.
At least in my opinion.

Honestly, its not great.

The Pros:

Gunplay feels good. The bloodspatter of shooting a monster in the head and the sound of the guns feel visceral. I played on the highest difficulty, and I only found one type of enemy to be a real bullet sponge, and I think thats pretty well designed. It feels Resident Evil 4-ish.

Most of the enemies have some cool designs to them, in the way they look and in the way they sound. You're also able to sneak around most of the encounters, so if you favour a stealthier approach then thats a possibility.

The are some very interesting visuals. I can't really go into too much detail about them, as that would be spoilers, but there is some really cool looking set designs.

Oh boy, the cons:

In the same way that the first game falls off at roughly the end of the first two chapters, so does this fall off pretty quick. It feels like it can't figure if it wants to be a spooky survival horror game, or a action horde shooter, and so it awkwardly flops between the two, giving you indications as to when it wants you to feel spooked instead of having the setting grip you. Its abundantly clear that Mikami didn't direct this, because as many faults as the first game had, it did have plenty of scares.

The AI is laughable. You're given the option to sneak around enemies and the like, but if you get spotted, you only have to crouch down behind whatever is right next to you and the enemy will instantly lose you, allowing you to sneak up for an instant kill.
Even enemies that won't be instantly killed by sneak attacks can be defeated by simply walking behind a wall and having them bafflingly lose you.

The story is worse than the first game. The motives of the villains feel like that of a saturday morning cartoon villain, in that they're only evil to be evil, without any form of long term plan. There are plenty of times where I have had myself dragged out of immersion because I couldn't help but think "What? Why?" everytime some sort of exposition was thrown in my direction.

Having a horror survival game like this with a dialogue wheel, an open world, and a crafting system was really unnecessary. It really feels like there was a gaggle of investors hovering over the game designers going "Oh, Skyrim had an open world and a crafting system, you should make it more like the Skyrims! And don't forget to add a dialogue wheel like the Falloff games!" and it really adds nothing at all to the survival horror elements.

All in all, if you disliked the first game, this probably won't win any points with you.
And if you enjoyed the first game, this one will most likely feel even less enjoyable somehow.