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Finally finished Clair Obscur with over a full day’s worth of playtime. What more can be said other then it being amazing beginning to end. Absolutely loved the final boss fight.

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Playable on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Played on Xbox Series X

Welcome to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a game that I was fairly blind about (I was working off half-remembering trailers and the promotional material) and how I described to my brother as “this French ass turn-based rpg, with some light action elements sprinkled in, about people trying to stop a witch-god-thing from slowly killing them all or something.”

Honestly probably could have said it was a great one as well.

I’m writing this while playing the game, so anything about the story passed the prologue will be talked about a bit more broadly.

Now HOW accurate is that?

You start off playing Gustave and in kind of a natural feeling slowish-roll of information, you learn about a few key factors; the Gommage, the Expedition, the continent, The Monolith, and The Paintress.

At some point 67/68 years prior the city of Lumière was tossed from the Continent into the ocean by an event called The Fracture, the what and why aren’t necessarily important at this point in Act 1 just a notion that it happened. This fracture caused The Paintress to appear with a giant Monolith that would soon have a number written on it, 100. Sometime soon, the city would start sending Expeditions out to the continent to explore and see what happened to the continent, and soon after to stop the Paintress. It probably wouldn’t be known till later, but Lumière would learn the number on the Monolith represents age, when it reaches a certain number anyone that age or above would disappear into dust, in an event that would become the Gommage. If I put the events together correctly, I’m going to be honest and say “not sure”.

When we enter the story, it is the day of the Gommage for the monolith to countdown to 33 and anyone 33 or older to die. After an emotional prologue that beautifully shows the stakes of what the world is facing, we jump forward slightly to the Expedition goodbye party where you get to actually meet your future party. We then cut to the Expedition sailing off to the Continent and immediately meeting the most terrifying force known to man: an old person, who promptly wipes the floor with everyone alongside some freak hand monsters whose designs I love.

As you wake up from getting your ass kicked in, the game finally starts to show itself (especially if you hadn’t met the Lumière mime) as a turn-based RPG in the vein of old Final Fantasy and Persona with some action elements sprinkled in. The action elements come in with two phases; first when you attack during two options in particular, shooting the enemy which requires you to move a targeting reticule before pulling the trigger, the other are QTEs that happen when you cast spells/abilities, should be noted that the game comes with options to complete them automatically if those aren’t your expertise.

The second place action elements come in is defending yourself, with either parries or dodges which tend to be the make-or-break aspect of combat in this game. I will admit that after failing to hit any of the parry/dodge windows in the medium difficulty, I moved it down to the easiest one and was able to actually defend myself. Let me tell ya, there is no better feeling in this game then being able to parry or dodge, the developers made it feel great!

When you actually enter combat, you may notice that you enter with a few points of “AP”. This is basically your mana to use with stronger attacks or to fire the character’s gun. When you use up too much, you’ll only be stuck using basic attack for a turn or two as each basic attack gives back a point of “AP”.

Part of the interesting things that the developers do to help the characters feel even more distinct is that each of your team have their own unique gimmick. Since he’s the first character we play as and probably the easiest for me to describe in my own words we’ll use Gustave as our example:

Gustave’s mechanic is centered around his prosthetic left arm, the Lumina Converter. Through attacking his opponents, he builds up charges that he can save or use at anytime with the Overcharge attack for massive damage.

The game also makes use of the title “Expedition”, as you run between fights you’ll notice that the game has no quest markers, it has no mini-map, the only map it does have is actually a world map; and that’s only available in an over wold that can be accessed between the various biomes each arm of the story takes place within.

Speaking of the biomes, each one is amazingly unique and rendered beautifully with great use of colors that causes each one to stick in the mind clearly.

Each biome, or level really, either showing off a super boss or a puzzle for the player to complete. Shout out to Gestral Beach in act 2 in particular, I’m not sure if the platforming abilities in this game are up to snuff for what they’re trying to do, but I’m giving it a go. The “starting from the beginning if you fall into the water” gets on my nerves a bit.

To take it back to the story, it is just a really amazing one with themes about the loss of loved ones and the grief that follows, filled with a cast of great characters and delightful oddballs (when you get to the Gestrals and Esquie) all back by a beautiful soundtrack by Lorien Testard. I have heard some tale of the late game story beats not being as good as earlier ones, but I’m still in it for the long haul.

The Good

The combat is amazing, being able to actually parry and dodge feels amazing probably more so than any other game I’ve played

The environment design is top notch, each place sticks in your mind for a long time.

The creature designs are all varied and easily identifiable, just don’t remember what elemental weaknesses each one have

The music, Lorien Testard fucking rocks and it’s even his first major work. He’ll blow your mind in like 5 different types of music.

That story really knows how to hit the notes it needs to get a reaction out of you. That prologue was amazing…

Esquie and Monoco: I’ve had them for a day and a half, and if anything bad happens to them I’d kill everyone in this room and myself.

The Weird

Based on what I’ve seen in the story, I think I’ve got an idea why but where is Charlie Cox in the press interviews? I see Ben Starr and Jennifer English everywhere, but no Charlie Cox. He just went “nah man”

The endings seem to be a little divisive, I think I know what they were going for… but still a little weird feeling on the messaging.

The Bad

There’s been at least one area that was almost too dark to be able to see certain enemies as they attack, and if you can’t see them, then that could mean a game over.

Score: I think I’m not going scoring stuff anymore, I haven’t given an actual score yet and I never will

And just to close out, here’s something from Esquie, cause I love the big dumb marshmallow…

And also Monoco…

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I wasn’t sure how to go about reviewing comics, so after thinking about it I’m mainly going to be doing them on collections (trades, omnibuses, compendiums and the like). Keep in mind these will probably be a bit shorter in general.

What do you need to know before you jump in?

A long time ago Marvel comics had another Ultimate Universe that everyone loved and hated in equal measure because everyone (except Spider-Man) were massive assholes, psychos, or weirdly okay with incest. And then it was blown up in the name of crossover events just as they seemed to be turning a corner into being all around good people.

This OG Ultimate Universe spawned two longer lasting that fan’s enjoyed: one of the newest webslingers and star of his own hit movies, Miles Morales. The other is less well known outside comic circles but has become a bit of a mainstay, he’s also more important to the narrative of this for the first branch of this Ultimate Universe; the original Ultimate Universe’s Reed Richards, an amoral scientist who never really got the kind of family that the mainline Reed had and who would also probably sit in the cuck chair for “science”, The Maker.

Ultimate Invasion - TPB

Issues 1-4 - Johnathan Hickman, Bryan Hitch, Alex Sinclair, Andrew Curie

“-if you had the chance…would you erase me from existence?”

“… Yes.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Ultimate Invasion is the place to start, if you need to start somewhere. It more than anything sets the stakes and begins to show why the heroes of the future are fighting. Basically, after escaping earth-616 (mainline Marvel) in issue 1, we see that the Maker finds has his way to Earth-6160 (Ultimate Universe) where he proceeds to take over the world with a time machine and reshape it in his image by stealing the destinies of every hero and villain he could find whether it’s: stopping a spider bite, placing a liar on the throne of Asgard, or keeping a spaceship grounded.

From there we have the most interesting aspects of the Ultimate Universe: the changes and the reverberations caused by them. It honestly tickles the side of my brain that enjoys fanfics and the constant question of “but what if tho?” that likes to pop into my brain so much.

What if… Howard Stark became Iron Man?

What if… Hulk found religion?

What if… the Rasputin’s took control of Russia?

What if… Reed Richards became Doom?

Nothing shows this more then the Maker’s Council, a group of the most politically and financially powerful people in the world who control the various territories, who are willing to destroy lives if it means they get to keep power even a little bit longer. Said council including but not limited to a Hulk as the leader of a sect of warrior monks, a French nobleman draped in the colors of Captain Britain taking the reins of the European Union, and the Stark-Stane Idustries having a controlling interest in the North American Union. Special mention to the prisoner the Maker keeps in his basement lab, the true Reed Richards of 6160, why is he a prisoner? Because Mr. Fantastic answered truthfully.

It’s such a fascinating introduction and also ends with a clear point towards the Wrestlemania sign of what to expect as the Ultimate Universe continues with the ever present threat of the Maker, his council, and threats unforeseen.

MVP: Howard Stark, for the simple fact that he saw he was a party of some terrible shit and decided to fight for a better future without someone like the Maker.

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Playable on PC, Mac, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch

Played on PlayStation and Switch

Game Time: somewhere between an 1hr 30min and 8hrs

Alright, I guess I lied. To make sure I’m actually able to semi-regularly post, in-between reviews about longer games I’ll be doing ones about smaller games in-between. First up in that regard is a game about probable the most reasonable hear-me-outs a monsterfucker could ever say. Unless one of them has a knot or something…?

I felt gross typing that out… fuck it, I’ll keep it in.

Anyway, it’s the funniest gateway drug to becoming either a monsterfucker or getting into dating sims; Monster Prom XXL

So what is Monster Prom?

It’s a 1-4 player co-op Dating Sim where you try to boost your stats to meet the demanding expectations of some “high schoolers” before they accept your promposal. They’re all over the age of 18 so it’s less creepy than it sounds.

To start with, in the XXL edition you can choose to play the “First Term” (base game) or “Second Term” (DLC). I’ll talk about differences between the two terms as the come up.

Once you choose the term, you then get to decide whether you want to play in 30min or 1hr chunks. I wouldn’t worry about the playtime though, the amount of choices and endings makes replay a blast. After game length has been decided you’ll get to pick 1 of 4 characters to play as: Oz (Yellow), Amira (Red), Brian (Green), Vicky (Blue).

This doesn’t really affect the overall game, so feel free to pick whoever you want… I’m partial to Brian.

Now the game can start, and it introduces you to the people you’re going to be able to pursue.

The rich kid and literal mermaid princess, Miranda Vanderbilt; demon bad boy, Damien LaVey; Jock and goodest werewolf, Scott Howl; hipster vampire and possibly future/former literature major, Liam de Lioncourt; party girl and ghost-with-the-most, Polly Geist; and finally HBIC and Queen gorgon of my heart, Vera Oberlin. The second term does add two new characters to pursue: Calculester Hewlett-Packard for the robo-fantasies and Zoe; an eldritch horror who likes anime and fanfiction. Each one of them prepared to make you your worst self

From here it slides you into a multi-choice test from a magazine to help determine your stat spread and the first bit of interest one of the characters may have in you. Stats are the second most important thing about this game, they’ll be the deciding factor on if you get your date to prom or not.

From there, you’re dropped off at Spooky Academy and allowed full freedom to build up your stats as you see fit for the next 3-6 weeks (30min to an hour depending on short or long game).

You get to go to two rooms and lunch each week. The rooms you can choose to go to increases one of your base stats by two: the class makes you smarter, library makes you richer, outdoors makes you funner, bathrooms make you bolder, gym makes you a charmer, and the auditorium makes you creative-ier (There was a pattern and I wanted to complete it). Once you get the stat increase, you’ll enter a small event with the character you’re interested in that (if done correctly) will deepen their interest in you, provide a bonus stat increase, or set you on the path of a secret ending.

After every morning class, it’s time to decide where you want to sit at lunch. Are fun enough to sit with Polly? Bold enough for Damien? Are you good enough for Vera (my queen)? Or you know just sit where you want…

At lunch you’ll get an event to increase a specific character’s interest, this is usually between two different characters and deciding if you want to agree with one or the other.

Once time runs out, you get to make the final choice: who do you want to ask to prom? Have you boosted the needed stats? Or has your heart drifted to another? Or did you decide to go alone? Hope Monster Prom succeeded in its promise to make you your worst.

The Good

Ability to replay is massive, with a large number of variations to make sure your 12th play through is fairly different from your first.

Vera Oberlin

Characters are each unique and bring something for everyone

Vera O.

While I would recommend keeping a guide open at least to know what stats you need, Blind playthroughs are probably the best feeling I had after stumbling into the family ending

Vera Oberlin (I swear it’s not a “step on me” thing, it’s more of a “he asked for no pickles” thing. I hope…)

The Weird

Trying to figure out which stats are needed for which choices during events may be a little confusing during the first few runs through the game.

The humor might not be for everyone: leaning more towards jokes about beheading enemies, party drugs, monsters indulging in niche kinks, and armed robbery by gnomes then anything else.

The Bad

Go on, get outta here! I mean who hasn’t wanted to fuck a monster before!?

Score: Be your worst self and get that guy, gal, or pal for your date to prom. Or just take yourself, that’s always great choice as well.

Next Up: I don’t know for sure but I’m still always off from completing Expedition 33, probably Monster Camp?

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Early thoughts on Expedition 33, I’m only an hour (?) in so far and know two things for sure.

First: Music will be a highlight, I’ve already got Lumière stuck in my head

Second: I’m not going to be able to dodge or block FOR SHIT!

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Playable on PC and Xbox Series X

Played on Xbox Series X

Play Time: 8hrs 37mins (hit credits)

First thing, after this post there will be a pause as I complete the next game in my backlog. Now South of Midnight has been on my radar for a while, really ever since that amazing trailer at the Xbox Showcase a year or so ago. When I played it, what I got was a game that hit a sweet spot that I rarely pay attention to but always actually appreciate when I find it: just being a good ass game.

Just a heads up, a couple points of what I talk about under the cut may be considered spoiler territory.

Now for the fun parts.

The Good:

And there’s a bit I can talk about

This game has a LOOK, and I love it. With a stop-motion feel that touches just about every visual aspect makes this game a style that’s just great to look at.

Each character you come across has a unique design that is entirely theirs whether that’s Hazel, Bunny, or Preacher Jolene each of the humans are distinctive when they come on screen. And that not even touching on the creatures you come across throughout the story as well

Creature designs are probably where this game shines most of all, the stop motion allowing for interesting textures and patterns to be used, like the quilt and fabric textures that appear on Catfish and the Rougarou. (Side note: I really like the design of the Rougarou’s head, it looking like a mix of a bird and a human skull is really a chef’s kiss, especially when you add in what appear to be yellow buttons for eyes)

While there are a couple issues with the music, I think I actually really enjoy it after a re-listen I had today humming along to the Hugging-Molly and Rougarou boss themes.

Just an add on to the music, it took me a few levels; but an interesting thing I noticed is that the a version of the boss themes will play during the levels said bosses will appear.

Price point may be a sticking point for some people but we definitely need $40-$50 USD games, especially as more companies try and move towards $80 or $100. And after playing it, I was personally happy with the price I paid.

The Weird:

These are more gut feelings than anything else, and a couple points may be considered spoilers:

While I do like most of the songs, a couple of the songs (looking at you “Benjy” and “Life Is a Fight to Be Won”) that felt almost overproduced to the point of feeling like they were left overs from stage musicals

Why wasn’t Roux the final being you confront? Kooshma is the King of Dreams and Nightmares, but Roux has personality he also had Hazel literally dancing to his tune in one scene.

What the fuck is a Weaver? The game explained it, but the information would always clash in my head with what I was doing in game, so can someone ELI5?

I wish they showed being a Weaver affect Hazel more, the only reference we have to how tough the job is the previous weaver felt better guiding run-away slaves to freedom then working as a Weaver.

While I do enjoy most of the character designs, the common enemy types that you fight most of the game (Haints) all kind of blended together. Each variant has a somewhat distinct silhouette (two blobs, two skinny ones, and one with an arm) but the gray and red color scheme just helped wipe them from my brain.

Gameplay genres felt at odds with each other, specifically the platforming aspects and the character action aspects. Both aspects were done better in other games and the dueling aspects only worsen the overall impact. Compulsion probably could have focused on one or the other and made a serious GOTY contender.

Score: Not every game needs to be a 10/10 AAA million dollar open world experience, and I love South of Midnight because it’s none of those things.

Next Up: Clair Obscur Expedition 33

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Playable on PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS4, PS5

Played on PS5

Play Time: 2 hours (1 play through)

This one might be a shorter review, because it’s kind of a shot to the foot as it feels like anything I can say seems like a big-ass spoiler. More details’ll be under the cut. Short story version: Fuck it, go in blind and enjoy.

The good:

Gameplay is simple and understandable, being a visual novel that should be no surprise. Just listen to what’s being said and read through your choices of what you can say, hopefully no “[Glass Him]” situations happen for you or me in the future.

Story is very simple; walk into the cabin and slay the princess.

A ton of replay-ability packed into this game, if you judge a game based on the price then you’ll definitely get your money’s worth plus some.

Voice acting is great, each character so far is very distinct from each other.

Price is $18 USD, it’s also a digital only game so far. (Physical copy is coming out in August: $200 collectors edition and a $45 dollar standard edition)

The Weird:

I don’t have anything that weirded me out about the game, just know that there is a horror tinge to the game that runs throughout if that is a deal breaker.

The Bad:

Absolutely nothing, how dare you suggest that.

Score: Buy it already!

Next up: South of Midnight

[quacks-reviews]

Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Available on PC, Xbox, PS5, Mac, and apparently iPad

Played on PS5

Time Spent: 38 Hours

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a game I wanted to like, I’ve been a fan of the series since the first game oh so many years ago. It could be a mix of a bunch of shit, but long story; I got bored and quit.

Now! What exactly got me there? I will say it has nothing to do with any kind of glitching issues, whenever I play games, I don’t really ever get to a point where I cause a game to break down like that; I didn’t even have issues with base Cyberpunk 2077.

Let me start with “The Good”:

Playable Characters: One of my favorite things about the game is that both characters have very clear and distinct playstyles

Naoe is basically the “Assassin” character, if you need to be stealthy and don’t want to be seen, play as her and at night. And holy shit did it feel great! Being able to get in and out of a fort without anyone noticing was probably the best I felt playing this game. She’s also your parkour character, if you need to get to a viewpoint; make sure you switch to her

Yasuke is the tank, if you want to go head first into combat he’s your man (once you unlock him 10-ish hours in). He’s also almost comically strong it feels like, we’ll get back to that. If you do somehow get him up to a viewpoint, he looks like he’s going to fall over at a moment’s notice; hell, you’ll even get an achievement when you get him to jump into the hay AND watch him bounce right the fuck back out.

Base Building: I spent a quite a bit of time actually trying to place buildings and decorations in pleasing places.

The Weird:

This just stuff that feels… “off” when I play, not necessarily bad, just odds and ends that may be able to be easily dismissed by other players.

Yasuke is comically strong. At times it’s one way to show the differences between the two characters; Naoe will climb or hop over fences, Yasuke will bust through them. However what happens when they hit a locked gate in a fortress? That’s right, Yasuke uses his head and becomes a battering ram to bust that sucker down. Now this is probably an attempt by the developers to even out the abilities of the two characters so take that how you want.

Canon Mode: a somewhat new feature for the series that takes away most dialogue choices and replaces those scenes with a normal cutscene. I would recommend doing that option, mainly because it just looks terrible. With characters moving with an animatronics grace to hit every motion the dialogue choices require without them pausing to wait for the player to choose the needed dialogue.

The UI in relation to the quests: this is probably a weird mind goblin on my part, but while it is easy to differentiate between main and side quests, the fact that they share the same screen without much separation outside of circle size gives me the feeling of “if it’s all on this screen, it’s all important”

The Voice Acting: this is something that I find has become more hit-or-miss as the games have come out, weird or just poor line reads that are being let into the game proper: with Origins, Odyssey, Vahalla it would just be a single line. For Shadows, it was an entire side-character, whose tone sounded somewhat like a grade schooler giving a book report. Notable exceptions being Naoe and Yasuke who sounded great

If the articles made it to you, then you probably know: Ubisoft is kind of a scum-fuck company. Not the worst, but still a shit place to be. And also probably one of the reasons I dropped off.

The Bad:

These are the things that actively drove me away

The Map Size: while the map is supposed to be smaller at least in comparison to Valhalla, Shadows continues the Ubisoft tradition of needing a big-ass map for… reasons? And not really using it to the best of their abilities

The Leveling System: Shadows has two leveling systems that play into each other. The first is the normal system; gain experience, become bigger level, ???, profit. The other is a Knowledge Point system, that breaks the skill trees into segments and locks you out of higher rank skills until you complete a certain number of activities. There’s probably some good examples of this out there, but shadows isn’t one of them especially since it can force you to cross the entire map to do stuff you probably don’t want to do to be able to do skills that you want.

Activities: The Activities are broken up between a few different ones: a couple QTE variations, going to temples and praying, going temples and finding scrolls, archery, exploring tombs, or parkour. There can be some fun to these, however the fact that you’re kind of forced to try and find them to unlock the full skill trees can cause them to overstay their welcome and become boring.

The Hidden Blade: WHY CAN’T THE HIDDEN BLADE JUST BE A ONE HIT STEALTH KILL? DON’T JUST MAKE IT AN ACCESSIBILITY FUNCTION, IT SHOULD JUST BE A MAIN FUNCTION!

Score: I quit, so that should probably tell you what I think

Next up: Slay the Princess

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Hey everyone! I’m gonna be honest, this is mainly being done as a way to help me finally figure out how to put my thoughts down on what I actually like and dislike about the media I consume in my life. Just a warning, it might be a little word vomit style stream of consciousness.

Only took me about 20+ years to do it.

I don’t have any kind of timeline, just when I get done with something I’ll post about it.

First up: Assassin’s Creed Shadows