Recent reviews by SPiTFirE

Lie to your friends. 10/10

Picked it up on launch, didn't know how long it would take me to get used to it but it really only takes 2 or 3 games to get into the rhythm, of it. Nearly all my games have been really close, which is exciting and fun. I've only bought 5 extra packs and I'm not having too much trouble in constructed matchmaking.

The draft modes are played with temporary cards so there's less chance of getting stomped by a P2W deck. Those gauntlets are hard but fun to see how far your draft can take you.

If you want to only pay the initial cost and nothing else, this game lets you do that ad still have fun.

It's finally here, the PC port I've wanted for years and I'm glad to say it's a perfectly decent port.

First of all, Final Fantasy 9 is one of my top games of all time. Not only was it my first Final Fantasy (which raised the bar pretty high for all the games I played afterwards) it's my first PSX game, the first I completed and definitely the game I put the most time into back in the day. I feel this is a gem that has been sadly overlooked between the success of FF7 and the first on the PS2, FF10. However, as the last Final Fantasy on PSX it did everything right.

The story is fantastic, even revisiting this I'm left happy, sad, emotional and I'm seeing small things I missed as a child. The characters are so full of life, the way they interact with each other is really genuine. The banter between Zidane and Steiner is really funny and the sincerity with Vivi and Freya is really strong. Overall, it's one of the best storytelling games I've played and goes from a fairly light hearted premise to some pretty heavy themes.

Music is AMAZING. Nobuo Uematsu has called this game his masterpiece and he's right, the sound is so memorable and it all really fits the setting. I've had the soundtrack to this game since the first release and I always go back to it for some nostalgia.

Gameplay is hard to rate because it's an old FF game and they're reknowned for being a bit slow paced, however the port does improve this with some settings to speed up the battles and to turn off encounters if you want. Otherwise it's the same as before and I quite enjoy the battles. FF9 is the only PSX game with 4 characters, and this makes the battles much better in my opinion. The Trance system is still annoying because you can't control when it pops, so losing at the end of the battle means you can't save it for an important fight, but oh well. The equipment and ability system is really nice though, it actually gives you a good reason to keep your old items becuase you learn your abilities and passives this way. It's very simple and works really well.

The only thing I can find wrong with the Steam version is that the pre-rendered backgrounds are blurry as ♥♥♥♥. However this is nothing new for FF ports, there's not much that can be done because they're pre-rendered and animated 16 years ago and it's a tall order to re-make them. FMV cutscenes are the same ones and their framerate is a measly 15 fps, which is a bit jarring in this day and age, but again not much can be done. It's an old game, you'll have to take it in your stride.

I'm so happy this game is released and I thoroughly recommend. Now I just hope I can defeat Ozma this time around..

So I've played 8 hours into this game and managed to complete my first run through. I bought the game as soon as it came out without any prior knowledge of it, I just thought it looked interesting. The liked the idea of a survival horror that was more about exploration and the atmosphere, and this game certainly had a lot of that. The setting is very familiar to the Alien franchise; it also reminded me of the film Event Horizon.

To get down to it, I'm struggling to decide whether to recommend this game. It's definitely good but it had some pitfalls that almost made me want to stop playing. I'll try and summarise the positives and negatives.

--Pros--

+Fantastic atmosphere. The sounds and designs of this ship are amazing. It starts off quite plain but then gets more creative and disturbing the further in you go. Occasionally you get flavour announcements over the tannoy or a horrific scream.
+The story is compelling in that you wake up without any knowledge of what's happened and you uncover it all as you go. You learn the story mostly from reading logs from the crew members. Some of them are very personal and you can tell a lot of crew members were connected to one another as they mention each other in their logs.
+The puzzles are challenging. It tests your way of thinking, sometimes you've got to think outside of the normal boundaries of what a game lets you do because this game might surprise you. So it's not an easy play through that you can finish in just a few hours.

--Cons--

-I had the game bug out on me a number of times. Sometimes I could end up walking over impassable terrain and not able to interact with anything anymore. When this happened all I could do was load up my last saved game. So I ended up having to save frequently to make sure I didn't lose a huge chunk of progress.
-The click-to-move was frustrating. Sometimes it would take a weird path to get to where you wanted to go, which wouldn't be so bad if some levels didn't have deathtraps. One time i literally clicked on a box next to me and John would just walk into the middle of the room to get shot. Which then brings me to my next point..
-Certain story events weren't skippable. When you reach a new area or something significant happens there's usually some dialogue, however if you die you may end up doing it again and again, it won't skip. This was particularly tedious when i was getting shot over and over and had to restart the whole dialogue sequence again. I ended up loading a save just to skip it.
-Some of the puzzles are outright cruel. On more than one occasion I was completely stuck and was clicking everything I could. I had to consult a video walkthrough three seperate times because I was completely at wits end. The first one was in the first 15 minutes and when I found out what it was I couldn't believe how specific it was. Most of the time you would figure it out through clues in the area but other times there were no obvious signs and would take plenty of trial and error on anything remotely interactable.

--Neutral--(Neither good nor bad, just things to be aware of)

=The game is very gory, disturbing and unsettling. Although it's all taking place in an isometric view, it's still pretty gross. Some of the scenes towards the end, while I appreciated them I can imagine many may not.
=There's a lot of reading. You don't have to read every entry on every PDA you see but that's really what the game is about, plus there are a number of clues to be found. You get a lot of background about the ship and the crew from reading the logs and emails but they are expansive.
=The voice acting is okay, at least from the protagonist. But Te-ah...oh dear, Te-ah.

To conclude, I did get a positive experience from this game but there were a few shortcomings that frustrated me along the way. I was willing enough to see it through to the end as I wanted to know what happened. I have to lean towards not recommending it though. I would only recommend it if you're genuinely interested in a sci-fi horror story, and you enjoy point and click adventures enough to get over the awkward controls.

I would rate this about 5/10 personally. If you can pick this up in a Halloween sale, go for it.

Out of the anime visual novels i've played, this is by far the best. There's just so much story, my playtime exceeded 40 hours because the story changes significantly with different choices. So it's not like you'll be done in 4 hours, you get your money's worth. The premice is pretty unique, it's about a Glider club and the life of those characters, particularly Kotori who is essentially the 'main' non-player character. Art and sound quality are both very good in my opinion, there's even some animated cutscenes, but it's largely all still art shots which of course you can collect.

The downside is this is the steam version and is missing out significant content because it is 18+ but you are able to patch it in. I also had a few problems with some picture panels freezing for a long time and they end up obscuring the game, that was a bit annoying. Other than that though, very enjoyable.

Ok this one's hard..and scary. Somehow Scott managed to think up a new strategy for this and it's really damn psycological. You have to run to three different doors and you're given a choice to either shine a light, hold it closed or just walk away. You have to pay extra attention to the audio cues to make sure you make the right choice, if you choose wrong you're basically dead. It has the usual mechanic of Foxy and a +1 to make you have to check elsewhere.

It'll have you running around and checking over your shoulder constantly. I've only managed to play to Night 3 so far and I already have PTSD from footsteps.

Out of all the FNAF games this one had me puzzled the most. Even watching a Youtube video didn't give away what the formula to beat the Springtrap, which was really good actually because with 1 & 2 it was easy enough to work out the formula after a while.

This one really keeps you on your toes, because not only do you have to be really vigilant on the camera (it's not even obvious where he is you have to look closely) but there's a good little strategy invovled where you need to consider what vents you need to seal and also which reboots take priority.

The hallucinations are absolute killer in this game in my opinion. The first few times they really shook me up and later on are really punishing. They seem to be a bit random when they appear but there are ways around them.

The story is really interesting! I think the fact people are posting Spoiler alerts about this game series is a big giveaway of how invested the community is in the story. Nothing's told directly it's all done through the phone dialogue, the environment and of course the 8 bit mini games.

Overall I think this is the best FNAF game so far and I think people will find it scarier than the other two. I recommend buying if you're a fan of the first 2, maybe go see Markiplier's first video on it if you're not sure or haven't played the series before.

I wasn't convinced when this game was released that i'd enjoy it. Having played a few of the other Tomb Raider games the formula always seemed the same and there were aspects that never kept me interested. But boy was I wrong to judge on this one, I should have listened to the hype. Straight away going into this game it felt different to the others, it wasn't so much Tombs as it was gritty landscape and metal shanty towns, but as you get further into the game the ancient tombs start appearing and the relics you find everywhere make this feel much like the quintessential Tomb Raider game.

Lara Croft's character was a breath of fresh air, I loved her interactions with everyone. This game firmly cements her as a badass and even her friends start to acknowledge this. The combat is sublime, it doesn't feel clunky or forced. Lara obtains weapons gradually and can upgrade them with salvage and you can choose to snipe the enemies with headshot arrows or just hide behind cover and go guns blazing.

There's an element of disbelief in the whole thing, not just the mystery of the story but also how Lara is able to stay alive this whole time. But you take that in your stride, its unbelievable in a good way since the scenes where everything is collpasing around you are monumentally epic.

To summarise, definitely a great reboot to the franchise and i was hooked the whole way through. Also a great game for completionists with lots of items and challenges to find in the map. This made me look forward to the next one.

This game is so fascinating. Every time I play, something different happens because I levelled a certian skill high enough. Every time I think I have the pattern sussed it changes the game. I've put in about 4 hours of play and still haven't been Coronated. It may look cute and girly, but its really brutal and will suck hours out of your life. 8/10 definitely recommend.