Reviews

I adored this movie. This movie plays with the viewers. It jumps back and forth between so many scenes and genres and amazingly it works nearly flawlessly! It spoofs the Matrix and ratatouille (LOL!) some other movies, but simultaneously pays homage to them. The movie touches on almost every genre and plays into them. And just when you think the silliness is over the top, it grounds itself in some seriously profound philosophy. What blows my mind is that as big as the movie gets, it then becomes very intimate and is centered on familial relationships and what it means to love those closest to us and life in general.

Let me start by saying that this movie won't be enjoyed by all equally, however, for those, like me, who are a fan of Taika Watiti's other work, you will love this movie!

The characters are given just enough of an emotional arc to bring some occasionally tear jerking drama, but the humor is what sells this movie. Sometimes the humor is so dry it's painful, which of course means I couldn't stop laughing. Everyone talks about how wonderful Bale, Portman, and Thompson are and they are absolutely right, but Thor is still my favorite. Hemsworth nails the dramatic and the comedic in rapid fire. It's actually astounding that the movie can be so damn lighthearted and dry in its humor, often to the point of satire and even spoof, one minute and then switch gears and make your tear ducts activate the next. It shouldn't work, but for me it did. Again, this hits so many of the same beats as Ragnarok and Our Flag Means Death and Jojo Rabbit and Hunt for the Wilder People. If you loved those movies as much as I did, you won't be disappointed. Frankly though, if those movies weren't your cup of tea, then neither will this.

Just watched the is movie with my 5 and 8 year olds. I laughed harder than they did and found the movie surprisingly smart! The movie is a clear riff on the oceans movies and leans into those jokes hard. It is one non stop spoof of the classic and modern heist movie, knowingly winking at adults paying attention. Some of the plot twists were obvious. Others pleasantly caught me by surprise! And if you care to look, the movie enjoyably dabbles into philosophies of identity and friendship.

Sekiro has consumed my mind in ways that few video games have. While this game contains many similarities to Dark Souls and Bloodborne, it definitely stands on its own as a unique creation of genius! The game strikes a perfect balance of fast intense action while rewarding you thoroughly for methodical, strategic planning. And as much as it rewards you for being intentional, it punishes you for being foolhardy! I often found fighting one enemy challenging, two enemies overwhelming, and three enemies to be certain death! The movement is sublime! The ease and speed with which you can grapple up to a roof, sprint across a roof, and back stab an enemy makes one feel like a true shinobi! It's exhilarating! And I would be remiss to not mention the bosses and mini-bosses. The game is littered with mini-bosses everywhere. Standard enemies range from simple to very difficult. Mini-bosses and Bosses crank it up a notch! At times, I felt like a newbie to the action genre because of how frequently I was figuratively and literally crushed! When your first attempt lasts approximately three seconds as the samurai in front of you carves you into fresh sushi, only to resurrect and die again half a second later, it is simultaneously comical and depressing. But then in true souls fashion, eventually you prevail on the 5th, 10th, or 50th attempt and you feel yourself overtaken by state of euphoria as you land that oh so satisfying final death blow! Also, I deeply appreciate how Sekiro, in a stroke of genius, allows most mini-bosses to be completely skipped until you are physically and mentally prepared to rise to the challenge.

Its difficult to say enough about the wonderful game of Sekiro. Exploration, movement, combat, and the art direction are all sublime. These many pieces fit together perfectly to create a game that will be one of the greatest games of 2019 if not all time!

I had high, high hopes for this game. I adored the first game and pre-ordered this game months before the release date. The initial trailers blew me away, and rarely have I anticipated a game more. Unfortunately, this made the letdown all the more frustrating. DA2 is not a bad game, but neither is it nearly as good as its predecessor. Furthermore, after the epic and Grandiose scale of the first game, this game seemed to add little to the overall scope of the world of Dragon Age. The Graphics have seen a wonderful improvement. The characters are still great and you can delve into each character's current and past life. Overall, the game is highly polished and feels smooth. The tactical battle system feels a bit faster, but basically the same.

With that said, I have some major gripes with DA2. First, you don't have control over your party members armor. This drives me nuts, and I find this change from the first game inexplicable. Second, and much more confusing is that the world is significantly smaller than Origins. In Origins, you explored a continent filled with castles, caves, mountains, villages, and cities and tunnels under the Earth. The world was diverse and rich with life and history. In DA2, the entire game is in the city of Kirkwall and a few surrounding areas. Third, and the most irritating, is that the game designers reuse the same areas over and over and over. When I found myself in the brothel and then later a noble's house, and they had exactly the same rooms with the same layout, it made me want to punch the game. Not to mention, that you enter 15 different caves, and each cave is simply the same set piece being reused constantly. On top of that, you find yourself running around the same parts of Kirkwall over and over and over and over and over. Thank God that the quests have quite a bit of variety, but at the same time, I found myself wanting a centralized interested story to keep the game moving. Hawke is a fun character, and his/her voice acting is terrific, but again the game finds itself wanting in the plot department. Also, all of the supporting characters are well-developed and easy to care about.

Overall, the game is very well-made. Most of its faults come from comparing it to the first, which again, was a much better game. I expected this game to be an 11/10, but sadly it falls somewhere closer to an 8/10. I will continue to play Dragon Age games, but unfortunately this game put a damper on that desire.

The Game opens with a bang – a bang that lasts for 20-25 hours. The characters are some of the most believable, likable, fun, and personally identifiable to date. At this point in the game, I thought for sure that this was going to dethrone Final Fantasy X as my favorite Final Fantasy ever. Unfortunately, the game sort of became lost in itself and failed to hold its high standard to the end.

The Positives: True to form, Final Fantasy XIII boasts fantastic graphics, cinematics, and cutscenses. In fact, they are likely the best visuals to date for any video game period. In addition, FFXIII comes with some wonderful orchestral pieces and all around excellent soundtrack. The six protagonists are for the most part lovable, real people and Final Fantasy XIII makes you feel their joy, pain, and anger. This is only increased by the high quality of voice acting.

The Negatives: There is little that I would classify as purely negative, however, there are a number of facets to the game which leave something to be desired. I will refer to these as the In-Betweens. (The only true negative that I found highly frustrating was that player control of the camera was frustratingly slow and uncontrollable while running.)

The In-Betweens: The story starts out really strong. Unfortunately, the plot becomes highly convoluted later on to the point where I wasn't even sure what was happening. The game does include a play-by-play journal that documents plot events. This helps when confused, but a person shouldn't have to keep reading these entries to find out what just happened. Probably the largest controversial aspect of this game is the super linear adventure. There are almost no areas to explore, no side-quests, and no way to even go the wrong way, because this game is more linear than any game of this scale by far. On one hand, this keeps the plot moving along at a nice clip, and I found that it made the first 20 hours or so a lot of fun and full of action, cutscenes, and awesome battles. However, at the same time, the lack of freedom feels unnecessarily constraining and strays from the Final Fantasy norm. The battle system is certainly different and interesting. It is fun, especially when first learning its intricacies and then learning to master it. Items are few and far-between. Unlike all of the previous final fantasy entries, there are only a very limited number of items. MP is gone. There is no cost for using magic. This sort of makes sense in the scope of the game, but it feels strange playing a Final Fantasy game without MP, ethers, and the like. The leveling system is similar to the sphere grid of Final Fantasy X, although this grid is artificially limited by plot events, which puts a reasonable cap on leveling ahead of where you are in the game.

Conclusion: Unmatched visuals, lovable characters, a reasonable difficulty level, and a challenging battle system give the game a good feel and plenty to really enjoy. Unfortunately, a few aspects prevent this very good game from being legendary.

This game blew me away. First off, this game is not for the casual gamer. This game will punish you over and over for every small mistake, and the punishment can be overly harsh. Take a wrong step -- dead. Not see an enemy -- dead. Advance haphazardly through the levels -- dead. Many enemies are strong enough to finish you in 2-3 blows. This difficulty can make the game extremely frustrating, and gloriously rewarding.

The visuals are ambiance of the levels are fantastic. All of the worlds have a dark/foreboding presence to them, which is only increased by the slow/cautious approach that you must take the first time playing through the game.

The aspect that really sets the game apart, however, is the ability to team up/compete against other players playing through the very same worlds. At a certain point, you receive the ability to summon other players into your game or be summoned by other players into their game. This function is brilliant and loads of fun to use. Again, given the difficulty level, I often found myself hesitant to advance in certain sections until I found another player (or two) to summon. You can have up to two allies while playing. There are advantages both to being summoned and to summoning, so this mutually beneficial relationship works out great. In addition to helping other player in a co-op fashion, players can also leave helpful hints for each other. These messages can be read by all players on the Demon's Souls server. They disappear if no one recommends them, but linger around if other players recommend the messages.

In addition to summoning, a player can also invade another player's world, hunting the player down, immune from enemies, to combat and hopefully slay the opposing player. My heart sunk numerous times as I was fighting for my life as the words "Player XXXXXXXXXXXXX has invaded your world" flashed across the bottom of my screen. In a game where the difficulty level is through the roof, this bit of knowledge was rarely welcome (unless I knew I had the upper hand).

Overall, Demon's Souls is an extremely good, dark, and captivating RPG, but it's made fantastic by the continual online interactivity between players.