Finished Crash Bandicoot 4.

My biggest disappointment of 2020. Everything looked awesome until I played it. I Immediately noticed things I didn't like.

The double jump is no fun to use. It kills your momentum. The levels are too long and checkpoint placing can be atrocious.

There are far far too many crates to destroy. After a few levels I ignored them completely. It's no fun destroying 50+ crates from one checkpoint to the other and then die just before reaching that checkpoint. Whoops, do it all over again. In other Crash games, 90 crates in a level were already a lot. In this game 200+ crates is pretty much the average and that can get up to 500. Ridiculous.

There are too many hidden chests in bullshit spaces. It's okay to hide one or two crates (like in previous Crash games) but here you can be thorough and still miss 7 crates. So either use guides for every single level or do it like me and tell the crates to go fuck themselves.

It's incredibly hard to properly judge where a crate, enemy or platform is located in the 3D space since you can't move the camera. Furthermore crates in the air don't cast shadows, so it's even harder to hit them.

Even in 2.5D sections, where everything should only LOOK 3D but play 2D, you can jump in front or behind an enemy (from the camera's position) and die a cheap death. Or to rephrase it, the game has bad hitboxes.

There are lot of cheap ways of adding more "content" by letting you replay the same level over and over again. The new N.Verted mode just mirrors the level and adds funky filters. You still have to find every single crate and do all the other stupid stuff to get the full game completion (thankfully the mode is completely optional when only going for beating the story).

Crash 4 introduced playing certain levels as different characters (even bad guys). This is probably the best addition yet underutilized. There are only 2 levels for each new character during the story and a few optional levels. However, these optional levels are only 50% original. You play the first part with one of the new characters and the other half is a copy from the second half of another stage you already played as Crash (or Coco). Only the type and placement of crates are a little different.

Yet Crash 4 removed a lot of previously established level types. There are no motorcycle or plane levels. No diving levels either. The jetski is in the game but only used for very short and linear sections. None of them were incredibly popular in previous games but they were a welcome diversion from the usual platforming.

On the plus side, Crash 4 is a very pleasing game visually. The cutscenes are well done too. You can find some fun here and there but it mostly left me feeling empty so I regularly turned the game off after only one stage or played it muted (not because the music is bad) while watching some YouTube videos.

The other main addition - the time masks and their abilities are well integrated for the most part.

In 15 or 20 years, when Crash 1-4 gets another remaster/remake, I know that I will definitely play Crash 1-3 again, Crash 4 on the other hand certainly not.

7/10

Another day and another Final Fantasy game “Exclusive” to PlayStation, they are not going to slow down.

I was already a little hyped by watching the trailers and the demo didn't disappoint.

Only thing I didn't like as much was the way they treated cutscenes. They decided to go for the cheap way and used still images with talking character boxes which a lot of Japanese (specifically anime games) do. Not sure if the game will also feature proper cutscenes here and there (whether in-game or not).

It's been a good month for me.

- Upgraded my internet from 50 MBit/s to 100 MBit/s
- Managed to order the Xbox Wireless Headset after being sold out for two months.
- not Xbox related but I got my first dose of the Covid vaccine.

Found the Scarlet Nexus demo to be mediocre.

The gameplay is too stiff and I don’t like the art direction they went with for the game’s environment.

Played it yesterday. So, here are few thoughts:

- The game obviously doesn't have big budget like many other Japanese action games, so it has all the expected issues like weird camera movement and character movement. I found "Dash" a bit useless due to how it's done here. Not only mapping it to "B" button is a bit strange decision considering that it's one of the most used abilities in action games, but it's also kinda slow and it's hard to understand whether you executed it properly or not. On the positive side, at least from what was in the demo, the game can be played without needing this ability at all.

- Setting and game world design is good but it was expected right from the announcement. Soundtrack also didn't disappoint.

- And now to the main point. The mechanic the game is built around - all these brain powers - it works. I actually found that using proper companion abilities and throwing items at enemies way more useful than standard attacks. It might disappoint those who expected the game to be "Astral Chain" clone as it was called way back when it was announced. But actually, it being not the top level slasher game but with actual need to use these mechanics is way better than greatly executed action game where these mechanics would feel like unneeded gimmicks without any use.

So, to summarise, the gameplay works even despite some minor flaws. I intended to play it day one right from the start, I already have it pre-ordered and demo hasn't changed my mind. Still day one for sure. But my final verdict at this point will depend on how they execute the story. If it's gonna be some over generic stuff, it would be a bit disappointing. As for the game itself, unfortunately I don't think it has a chance to become a highly acclaimed game among Japanese action games community and critics, but I'm sure I'll quite enjoy it. 

I suppose you are talking about that guy from her squad who is the central point of her demo. Well, bad news, he obviously is her main companion so there will be a lot of him win the story.

I mean...considering that Horizon games literally always release in September, you don't exactly need much of a leak to say it's more than likely going to release in September again.

Will do bingo card next week most likely, still waiting for E3 announcement. I suppose we should get it announced next week anyway. Don't really see MS waiting any longer. The end of next week will be just two weeks before E3.

They already got another Final Fantasy game as an exclusive, rumored to be a Action RPG spinoff made by Team Ninja.

There are also rumors but with no credible source that they got Dragons Dogma 2 as an exclusive.