This game completely blind-sided me, and I’ve been having a hell of a time with it. It’s everything I like about bullet hell games, with both a liminal & cosmic horror aspect that I wasn’t expecting at all (and’s few
This game seemed to just appear out of nowhere to fairly high acclaim. I’m a console player (though I’ve loved watching the dev process of games like Echoes of the Living and Becrowned), so I’m unaware if lots of eyes were following it’s development with anticipation. I’ve heard it’s up there with the likes of Signalis, Tormented Souls 1/2 or Crow Country: that’s quite the achievement considering today’s pretty saturated output. I obviously bought the game immediately (I bleed survival horror - come on), but just wanted to see what you guys had to say about this one?
From Obsession to Backrooms to Weapons, Barbarian, Bring Her Back, Hokum, Together, etc.
We are actually drowning in it. There is only more to come, with things like Bill Hader’s directorial debut They Know or David Robert Mitchell’s long awaited sequel to It Follows “They Follow” — anyone that tries to convince you we aren’t living in a golden age of horror cinema is lying. Resident Evil.. please be good.
I went through the same phase with the Soulsborne games. There is something about the methodical approach to the moment-to-moment gameplay that allows me to focus on something other than whatever worries my mind has cooked up for the day. I’ve gone searching the far ends of the Earth for every type of SH game — new & old/fixed & over the shoulder: I did a very similar thing with souls-likes at the time that Elden Ring had made a huge splash and there were lots of others coming into the scene. It may sound lame, but I personally couldn’t be more thankful for these IPs allowing me to visit other worlds on days when I felt hopelessly trapped in my reality, and just need to escape for a little while.
Anyone else find comfort in Survival Horror? ☕️
It’s like watching a movie from the Spider-verse guys about being a kid in the 90’s, except it’s also a game. The music alone is worth the time.
I jumped straight into Crisol: Theater of Idols after beating Cronos: The New Dawn. It’s a game I’d had an eye on since before it’s release, but didn’t pull the trigger until a sale a few weeks ago (even with the low base price, which I commend by the way). Crisol does some really interesting things regarding reload mechanics, level design and your usual survival horror narrative while remaining true to everything that these kinds of games usually consist of: puzzles, our trusty shotgun, those pesky boltcutters of course, etc. While the combat can definitely feel a little jank, there’s also an interesting dismemberment system that you can use to immobilize & disable enemies.
Where this game really shines, however, is the level design. Each district not only manages to remain distinct from one another, but are almost completely interconnected through shortcuts and other means of getting around. While traversing these different locations is rewarding, it also leads into one of my big negatives with this game — Dolores. This game has a stalker mechanic, and it’s poorly implemented. She’s very sensitive to any & all noise, and LOVES to camp more than almost any stalker I’ve seen in this type of game.
I’m not trying to give a full-fledged review, as I’ve yet to even complete the game; just wanted to share my thoughts so far and see what you guys have to say about this one. Cheers 🥂
As a massive Shadow of the Colossus fan, I’ve been following this one for a while. It looks like it’s not only finally dropping today, but will be on GamePass! Anyone else checking this out?
The badass joy of finding a new toy (and that OST😮💨) — brings me back to the Ishimura