Recent reviews by strumpet

This game is just about Pricefield shipping and everything else falls by the wayside. It tries to relive the original game's glory and constantly congratulates itself with callbacks to the original games with none of the charm they had. The original games had a point of view, had unique art directions, had a sort of irreplaceably endearing quality to them -- a warmth and intrigue that Deck Nine has tried and failed to recreate again and again. Well, this entry is nothing if not consistent in that regard. The storyline, if you can call it that, is completely messy and it's all just rehashing what has already happened. Evil professors, an evil secret society, a big storm -- I mean fire --, time entanglement, a covered up murder that doesn't get resolved.

To start with, there are no decisions in this game. At least, not really. There's not even one really big decision that could set your ending apart. The game strongarms you into dating Chloe by making it overtly obvious that it's the 'canon' decision that it wants you to pick. The characters they introduce are unlikeable or unmemorable. None of Max's students really stand out, Abraxas is this game's Vortex Club that no one really cares about. The game has the most bizarre pacing of any LiS game I've played thus far. It's extremely slow paced, then everything happens at once at the very end of the game. I was probably 4 hours into the game and still nothing of note had really happened. That's a pretty horrible sign. They retcon so much of what happened in the past games, including what happened directly in Double Exposure. Chloe feels retconned in general, her personality being way more dulled down in this entry than I would've expected. The only good implementation in my opinion is that you can play as both Max and Chloe, which I do think is an interesting mechanic.

Onto the next problem, if you aren't a Pricefield shipper then this game has literally nothing to offer you. This game is for people who ship Max and Chloe, but I feel like it does a disservice even to them. Why? Well, what makes their relationship beautiful to begin with is that it is tragic and doomed. Max is faced with an impossible decision to either give up Chloe and save Arcadia Bay and have to figure out the broken remnants of her life without Chloe who is either her love interest or best friend or she will have to save Chloe and figure out what their life will be without all their friends and even family that die in the storm. This game directly sabotages that and makes it all irrelevant. Well, actually, nothing you chose in the last games matters because the timelines are converging and uh, yeah. All this retconning just to have a way to bring Chloe back into the fold. It's terrible storytelling, cheap fan service, and just in general terrible handling of the source material. I don't consider this game or any game past Life is Strange 2 to be canon for this reason -- Deck Nine don't know how to tell a story and are hellbent on tarnishing this game's legacy which is a big shame on Square Enix's part as well.

At the end of Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2, I was in tears every time I've played them which has been multiple times for both. At the end of this game the biggest feeling I felt was relief. Relief that maybe these characters can be sent to the graveyard and stop being dragged to the milking pail. Relief that maybe they will finally retire them and just let them rest in peace instead of continuing to meddle in a masterpiece's legacy and continue to ruin it. Relief that maybe Don't Nod won't have to see their brainchild brought out to the whipping post again and again. Relief that maybe this will be the last time we have to see these characters brought out and paraded around in a fanfare of fan service that is nothing but cringe. Relief that the game is over now and I can go play something that actually tries to be good on its own merit rather than nostalgia bait its loyal fans and get high off its own lore farts.

All in all, if you really want to experience this I would watch a let's play of it. However, I think even that is a waste of time. That's how bad I think the game is.

The game on paper sounds very simple. Just climb up while being chained together with some of your friends. In practice though, it's extremely fun and challenging. There are some really good puzzles that require you to take a moment to strategize with your friends to figure out how to overcome them. You'll be distraught and brainstorming when you fall at the same area 15 times and then rejoicing together when you finally get through it.

Overall, especially for the price point, I think you get a lot of play and enjoyment out of it.

This game has become legendary in the choices matter genre, and for good reason. I played it years ago on Playstation, and with my best friend I've been streaming them for him so he can make all the decisions and "play" them for himself. Well, we really enjoyed Until Dawn and all it had to offer. It's still just as good, filled with tension and decisions that still feel weighty and with funny moments in between to lighten the mood. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who wants to get into the choices matter genre, however I wouldn't overall recommend it for several reasons that I have reservations about.

Firstly, I think this game struggles to justify needing to be 'rebuilt and enhanced for PC." In some ways this is inferior to the original, actually. That aside, it has some glitches and bugs which I don't mind, however for an 'enhanced' version of a decade old game, I think those things should be pretty ironed out. I don't think there was enough added that would justify selling this for $60, and despite getting this game on sale, I think even asking for that price for a game as old as this with so little added to it is already not great, which I think is why the game is 'remastered' to begin with, if you can call it that.

I think this still stands the test of time as one of the best choices matter games and really set in motion the renewed interest in these types of movie-like games, so I give it credit for that. I think it's a must play if you like the genre and I think it's in general a crowd pleaser. It has a fun story, light exploring mechanics, good acting and interesting characters and the decisions do feel impactful so I think this is a game that has a wide appeal to players. My only qualms would be that there are some kinks that I think should by now be ironed out and that the full asking price for a game as old as this is either ridiculous or scummy depending on how you choose to look at it.

If possible, I would actually recommend playing the original release if at all possible.

This is the second time I've played this game, so I have pretty well made up my mind about it. My best friend wanted to play this game with me, as we made the decision to play the whole Anthology together with him making all the choices as I've already played them on console. After really enjoying Man of Medan and House of Ashes, and despite the slight stumble that was Little Hope, we still really enjoyed the Anthology altogether. I said let's wait on The Devil in Me, remembering from playing it before on Playstation that I didn't really enjoy it enough to not wait for a really, really big sale. Well, recently it was about $3, and that's still more than I think this game should be worth.

For starters, this game doesn't handle well. Perhaps it's because of mouse and keyboard, but I remembered it not doing all that hot on controller either. This game is very unintuitive, for example when you are playing as Jaime you get to the first electrical box and you will be stuck trying to figure out what to press because the buttons it prompts you to press don't do anything. I had to troubleshoot to figure out that you press something else entirely -- which already in my estimation would prohibit it from getting a recommendation. The game for having been out for as long as it has is just very clunky. There are visual glitches, audio glitches, performance issues, you name it.

The game itself, while I commend it for at least trying something new, brings in tons of new aspects that really add nothing but time wasting mechanics. Being able to climb is just implemented strangely and just speaking for myself, I have no interest in playing Tomb Raider when playing a movie-like game. I just want to see the story and make decisions and have some light exploration. In this game, you have to climb up this, move this thing over here to climb back up there and go down here to get this key to climb back to this other thing that you have to move another thing to get to. Does that sound tedious? Well, the reality of playing it is even more so. What adds to the tedium is that a lot of the platforming is hard to find, as in you will be looking for how to progress and have to go to a random path to find a random little ledge to get up onto. The game has a lot of stuff like this that I really can't see being implemented for any other reason than to make it longer. Each character gets a gimmick, which while it is an interesting attempt to give each character a unique aspect, it's usually just annoying and forgettable. You will be sitting there trying to figure out a "puzzle" only to remember that you are playing as a character that can open things with his business card.

There aren't that many decisions to actually make. Granted, this is a problem that most of the entries into this series have. If the story is super good, I don't really mind that. House of Ashes in particular is just fantastic. Here it feels like you really don't have much to do. So much of the game is kind of just boring. You find yourself in a Holmes inspired house of horrors which sounds cool in theory but then you realize you are in a Saw inspired slasher movie. That's literally it. The characters aren't very memorable either, my two standouts being Jaime and Erin. The storyline of the game lingers on for much too long with little to no momentum. You basically finish the game without really knowing much about who the actual villain is, and honestly at least for me I didn't really care to find out.

I went into this with an open mind, having not particularly enjoyed Resident Evil 7 or Resident Evil Village. After playing Requiem, I now have a newfound respect for how creative those games were at least. My main take away from Requiem is that it is an attempt to reuse their greatest hits from the past games, with none of what made those games great. There are narrative issues that are confusing to outright eyeroll inducing with gameplay issues accompanying them.

To start with, this game will be to some a ‘love letter’ to their longtime fans and to others a lazy attempt to relive the glory of their former games. I am in the latter camp. The storyline of this game is just outright baffling, in my opinion. It is in my estimation an attempt to rewrite a lot of the lore that we already have and give a canon reason to why they can do whatever they want with the story. This game is clearly pulling inspiration directly from Resident Evil 2, even taking place in the exact locations from the game. Emily and Grace are this game’s attempt at Sherry and Claire with none of the depth. Sherry makes an appearance, however small and mischaracterized she may be in it. She was formerly on the frontlines of combat in Resident Evil 6, however in this rendition she replaces Hunnigan. This is stupid for multiple reasons – She has the same illness as Leon, yet resigns herself to just letting him take on the whole mission by himself with a stray comment in his ear being her only contribution. This touches on a big, weird issue with the story overall. On top of that, Hunnigan has been a part of Leon’s story and didn’t deserve to be replaced.

As we already touched on, Leon is infected with the same infection as Sherry but she sits idly by and twiddles her thumbs. Okay, fine. However, we know Claire, who was in the game this game is drawing direct inspiration from – and Jill, Ada and others – are also infected. During all of this, they’re just doing nothing? They see their infections and just leave it all to Leon for some inexplicable reason? Sherry may be there, but she is naught but an afterthought sadly. Even her quips that she will randomly give you are very surface level and short. For example, when Leon is looking for the orphanage, Sherry basically just says “Okay, pinging it”. Not, “Oh, I hated that place!” The orphanage was destroyed, and Leon reports it to Sherry. Sherry’s response is just basically a plain, unaffected “Okay.” She has very surface level dialogue for a girl who is talking to someone she has known her whole life, who has been in these same locations with Leon and experienced trauma with him there, who has an infection that depends on this mission’s success.

This game, rather cheaply in my opinion, borrows much of its material from itself. There is an almost fourth wall breaking quality to how often it references itself. Wesker is back – or, if not Wesker, someone who looks exactly like Wesker and has all the same abilities and the same voice. We learn that he isn’t Wesker, but then that just begs the question of why he’s there at all. Why have a character that echoes Wesker so uncannily just for no reason? I couldn’t really tell you, my only guess being that they want to just reference him visually as fanservice – and it doesn’t really matter because he doesn’t really amount to much of anything to the story and just dies anyways, not even in a fight or anything. Actually, most of this game feels like one big call back. Someone resembling HUNK starts fighting you and says “Finally, I get to meet you.” Is it really HUNK? Well, we don’t really know and you kill him within a few minutes so his being there is just another call back that is there for nothing other than I suppose getting longtime players to say “HEY! I know that guy... I think?”

The call backs feel so jumbled and lazy. You fight a random Tyrant clone that destroys a building and who you kill within ten minutes. This is a good example of them referencing themselves and bringing in things that they know fans liked from other games – without understanding what fans liked about it from the other games to begin with. Fans don’t just like Mr. X because of the design. What makes him formidable is that he stalks you for the entirety of the game and when you finally defeat him, it feels satisfying. In this game, you see him and it’s over as quick as it starts – literally no more than fifteen minutes. The final boss? Well, that’s a Nemesis – you guys loved Nemesis in Resident Evil 3, remember? The game is full of ‘easter eggs’, if you can call them that, which will either feel like nostalgia bait or a trip down memory lane depending on who you ask.

In my honest opinion, I don’t think Resident Evil has much of a coherent plot to begin with and it does a disservice to much of its good writing. It has done a lot of retconning and mental gymnastics to explain why their aging cast is still viable to be in these high action situations. All that to say, despite loving the games I don’t really expect much in the way of continuity or sterling storytelling, however even I was let down with this game even with low expectations. The game begins with the FBI sending a woman with what we can glean is very little combat training to investigate a death that occurred in the same hotel she watched her mom die in. What? Why would they choose Grace, someone who coincidently the whole plot of the game revolves around without anyone’s knowledge, on this mission when she is woefully undertrained?

As an aside, on the topic of the characters themselves. Grace’s voice acting is the worst I’ve ever heard in a game this quality. She literally stutters in every line she says the whole entire game. Not just a little stutter, not just in high stress situations – no, she is literally stuttering and stammering even before being given this mission and yet we are meant to believe they would randomly assign her to a murder investigation. Grace has no personality. Like, at all. She also is completely inept and has some of the most inexplicably bad decision making I’ve ever seen from any character ever. After struggling to keep herself alive literally the whole game and failing to do so, needing Leon to intervene and save her – she decides to then endanger a blind kid and take her with her for some insane reason. The girl obviously dies well, we thought she did but due to plot armor / convenience Leon didn’t fatally shoot her because she is entrusted to Grace who sucks at everything. Controlling Grace feels clunky and awkward too, and watching her run like she has a full diaper the whole game gets boring fast. It was hard to care about her because I never really felt like I knew her. Leon’s characterization in this game is the same as it has been, if you enjoyed it before it’s much of the same. I personally find it to be eyeroll worthy, though I know some love it.

The gameplay itself is so hot and cold and I mean that in so many ways. I encountered a game breaking bug in the sewers as Grace and had to purposely die to get The Girl unstuck because she was stuck in the light preventing me to move. The movement feels unstable and sometimes the actions you want to do just don’t work. The pacing is off, as for example you play Leon after Grace in the hospital and the way I played her he literally had nothing to do other than open some wardrobes with his hatchet. Grace’s story at times feels very grueling and slow and then Leon’s is extremely fast and easy – I think there was potential in this because Grace’s story is an homage to earlier Resident Evil games that required inventory management and were less forgiving like Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0 and Leon’s is clearly influenced by Resident Evil 6. How this idea is implemented however I find to be very wonky.

REST IN COMMENTS!

Adds some flavor to French playthroughs especially.

Content that should've been added as a free update.

The rags to riches roleplays you can play out with this are really nice. I do like it, but I don't think it's a must have. Wait for a sale, I'd say.

It doesn't add what you think it adds. The camps are interesting but I think they don't really add much. Also, I think some mechanics introduced with this one are a bit hard to understand. I felt like it took a lot of trial and error to figure this one out on my own.

This game is a revamped version of Kitty Powers' Matchmaker, which in itself was amazing. It's deceptively simple, simultaneously being a great casual game to relax to while also giving you challenging and engaging gameplay to keep you entertained. This game takes much of what made its predecessor amazing and improves upon it. If you are wondering whether it's worth it to get this one if you already have the original, I think it is a worthwhile venture. This game has improved graphics, gender preferences, interest systems and new minigames with a mixture of some minigames from the original that we've already come to know and love.

This game preserves the campiness, the charm and the novelty of its original while giving it a fresh coat of paint. I played this for a few hours on stream with my best friend, and it was a blast just laughing at all the cheekiness we encountered and how much wacky, zaniness we saw in just that short a time. I think fans of the original will feel a ton of nostalgia while playing, as I know I did. Memories of playing the original on my phone during high school, to replaying it on my PC as an adult, to now playing Matchmaker Makeover, I look forward to playing it even more!