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Nov 16th, 2025 at 11:56:46 - Silent Hill 2 (PS5) |
I am sure I played Silent Hill 2 back in the day, but I only have vague memories of some of the enemies, namely Pyramid Head and the nurses, and of running around the town itself (though that was also in Silent Hill 1 and others I think). I had heard that Bloober Team's remake was excellent, and so it was. This is a game that I didn't want to put down, but occasionally had to put down because my nerves would get too worked up (and I was often playing it at night and would eventually get sleepy or know I should go to bed because I had to get up early in the morning). But my sessions were regularly 3-4 hours.
It's not a short game, took me upwards of 20 hours, and rarely dragged. The only part where I was like "okay, come on..." was the end of the Lakeview Hotel after you have to store all your equipment in a locker to ride an employee elevator. There is this really tense part where you have to navigate an employee area and solve some puzzles without equipment, while one type of really deadly enemy stalks the halls. I really didn't like those enemies! You encounter them before and after while running on grates. They cling to the underside of grates, monkey-bar-ing beneath you and lashing at you with their tongues. You have to walk on the grates, so you have to be wary of those monsters and try and avoid getting tongue-lashed. This particular time, they were walking normally in the hallways. Anyway, I had no health items (you stash those away as well) and was down to a sliver of health. I really didn't want to do the whole area again, so I looked up a puzzle solution so I wouldn't have to wander around anymore and risk dying. Right around that part, I kind of looked up two other puzzle solutions because I wanted to get out of that hotel. Every other puzzle in the game (and there are many), I solved without hints. Puzzles in this game are interesting because they often don't require a lot of thought per se; rather, they require you to collect various items, and then do something with them. The puzzles are definitely clever and mechanically intriguing though, even if solving them was usually just a matter of exploring everywhere.
There is another part later in the game, when you are in the bowels of Silent Hill, where there is this (for lack of a better term) "dimensional cube" that rotates. You can rotate it every which way, and you have to figure out how to set it so that you can pass through it into the next area. You do this like three or four times and have to get through three or four areas through the cube, which are all dark, drab, terrifying places in the Otherworld. I was ready for that part to be over because I couldn't tell how far I was progressing and it was just like one brutal area after another. So, "tense" is definitely a good word to describe the experience of playing.
Gameplay-wise, it's really standard survival horror, even stripped down to basics. There are no frills. You have a melee weapon, and you get in order a pistol, a hand shotgun, and a rifle. Two different items restore health, one a little bit and one to full. You also have a flashlight. That's it. No other weapons, no special moves, no inventory. Coming off of the irritating inventory management and frustrating combat of Alan Wake 2, I loved having few items to deal with and no inventory to manage. I regularly had over 100 pistol bullets, and by the end of the game (or at least before the last bosses), I was rocking nearly 50 health items. Yeah, I was basically invincible. /flex. It's just you and your few items and the hell that is Silent Hill. Oh, and a few other poor souls you meet along the way who also are there.
There aren't many enemy types, though each type gets an additional subtype as you progress. The vomiting things later can explode upon death. The "legs" later can climb walls and ceilings (terrifying). The nurses develop a faster, more aggressive variety. Despite some lack of variety, they never cease to be dangerous and scary, especially those freakin' legs! So, the legs, imagine a pair of legs that walk with another pair of legs sewn on top of them at the hip, which can attack you like arms. These legs like to act as mannequins. They hide and jump out at you. I don't know how many times I was walking through an area and either would be totally surprised by legs jumping out at me or would spot legs poised in a corner or behind a piece of furniture or wherever, often noticing them just in time for them to jump out at me. Or, I would notice them, think I was really clever, creep up to them to shoot them, never knowing when they were going to leap for me. I think the legs were the scariest enemies in the game, followed by the monkey-bar grate creatures.
The story is presented in a rather obscure way that made it feel good when you made sense of something. Everything seems to be a representation of something in James' subconscious, so if you can think about what the enemies might mean, you can make more sense of James' emotions and the story itself. I definitely had to look up "what really happened" after I beat it though because I still wasn't quite sure. All in all, this was a great survival horror mystery to play through. Definitely a highlight of the PlayStation Plus month and a strong recommendation for survival horror fans.
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Nov 6th, 2025 at 16:25:06 - Sword of the Sea (PS5) |
Easily beatable in 2-3 hours, Sword of the Sea is by the same folks who did Abzu. It shows. This is another movement-focused journey (also akin to Journey) where you bring the ocean back to a desert (hello Journey), befriend a dolphin and a shark (hello Abzu), and fight an evil fire serpent (hello God of W...wait, no). Where the swimming in Abzu could be frustrating, the "snowboarding" in Sword of the Sea feels excellent. The level design is also much improved, especially readability in terms of where you need to be going. I was NEVER lost, which is saying something! I remember swimming around rather aimlessly sometimes in Abzu, though there were always beautiful schools of fish and whales and things to watch and interact with. Those fish are actually here in Sword of the Sea too, plus the rideable whales, turtles, and so on. There are flags, paths, beams of light, collectibles, good camera work in cut scenes, etc. that direct your attention to the right place.
The game is beautiful to look at, with stunning landscapes that dwarf your tiny figure. I don't know what else to say about it really. If you like the Journey/Abzu brand of chill, exploration-heavy, environmental indie games, this is a no-brainer. It just guided me along for its runtime, and it's like I was unaware of time passing, totally absorbed in it. Great experience!
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Nov 6th, 2025 at 16:06:25 - Indika (PS5) |
This one was a trip. I had no idea what to expect. Some kind of psychological horror, I thought. It's a little bit of that, but it's got more of an experimental flavor. It actually merges two genres, a 2d pixel-art platformer and a full 3d third-person exploration game with steampunk vibes (like Syberia). I certainly didn't expect the former. The intro hooked me with an unexplained retro sequence that morphed into a great-looking Unreal 5 scene. Whoa.
You play as Indika, a Russian Orthodox nun, who is tasked with delivering a letter to a monastery. On her journey, she encounters and travels with an escaped convict who is trying to go see a holy relic that he hopes will catalyze a miracle and heal his gangrenous arm. Her being a nun and traveling to see a miracle is tough because she seems to have the devil inside her.
The game alternates between themes related to religious philosophy, absurdism, and surrealism. I suppose I would have expected the religious themes, but the game is funnier than I thought (also very dark). The soldier who can't aim was a good laugh. There are these moments where you are like, "Wait, what is this?!" Giant cans of fish in a cannery. Warped staircases and rooms that turn sideways. A puzzle about rearranging a bridge that made me laugh out loud and go "Whaaaat, no waaay!" in the best, most surprised fashion.
The game oozes creativity, though in terms of gameplay it is pretty basic. It's more or less a narrative adventure, but with more interaction (and excitement) than the recently played The Invincible (playing Indika makes me want to knock The Invincible's score down a peg). There are puzzles, several of which stumped me. The reason they stumped me is because (a) they were far simpler than I realized or (b) I had just never encountered a puzzle like that and so I wasn't thinking in the right way.
I really liked this. It's short, too, so no reason not to try it out.
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Nov 5th, 2025 at 16:44:13 - Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (PS5) |
I didn’t quite know what to expect going in, aside from this is a well-reviewed metroidvania. There are so many metroidvanias these days, and that is a genre that I get burned out on. My last one was [checks notes] Ender Lilies, back in May, so I’ve had a nice break.
That said, I have good news. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is phenomenal (way better than Ender Lilies), easily one of the top in the genre that I’ve ever played. Everything about it is slick. Movement is perfectly responsive, combat is complex and challenging, platforming is tight. Puzzles will have you scratching your head. And the map is revolutionary. I’ll tackle some of these aspects of the game in order.
The combat shines and is far more complex than a typical metroidvania. Your sword-based melee attack is your go-to. You also get a bow, useful for annoying flying enemies or if you want to chip away damage from afar. You can charge both melee and ranged attacks (and both aid in platforming), as well as add fire to arrows with an amulet that you can find. Small enemies can be popped up into the air by pressing up as you attack. Hold attack here and you follow them into the air. There is also a downward attack and charge attack. You can sprint and slide, which will result in you kicking enemies back or up into the air, depending. By stringing together melee attacks, launches, arrows, and so on, you can land huge combos. There is no combo meter or anything, but combos are encouraged and can lock enemies down. There is also a parry and dodge (enemies have parry-able attacks and unblockable ones), and parrying is important to learn. I have found amulets that do various things upon successful parry (heal me, fill power meter, create time bubble that slows enemies), so I’ve tried to get good at it to reap those benefits.
As you land attacks, a power meter fills, with which you can unleash special attacks, different ones at different levels of the meter. These are equippable, and I think I have unlocked most of them by finding special battles with alternate versions of Sargon, your character. This is one of my only criticisms of the game, and I’m probably only noticing because I’m playing on normal (which isn’t that hard). I’ve found no need to change these special attacks. I used the first level 1 one and the first level 2 one that I unlocked for the entire game, and I never even equipped a level 3 one (kept forgetting). The level 1 one is fine and I can’t see how any of the other ones improve on it. The level 2 one I’ve been using is a heal, which has saved me in plenty of fights. Basically, I will use it instead of a potion, thus saving a potion for a pinch later, and by the time the power meter fills back up to level 2, the ability is off cooldown and I can fully heal again.
You can also use some other platforming tricks and special abilities in combat. These other special abilities are cool. One allows you to create a time pocket and basically “hold” any item or enemy. At any time thereafter, you can press circle to throw it. I always try to have something that explodes in reserve so that if I find a glowing yellow wall (which requires an explosive), I am ready. If you trap enemies like this, and shoot them back out, they are confused and fight for you for a few seconds, handy for dealing with multiple enemies. Another move allows you to create a copy of yourself, which you can then warp back to. In combat, you can drop a copy, fight as usual, and then when the enemy moves such that the copy is behind it, warp back to the copy and get some back attacks in, very useful for bosses. This is a puzzle-focused ability during platforming segments that allows you to reach places you couldn’t before. Later on, you get a “pull” ability so that you can rush toward enemies or yank them toward you. There are some others, and there are also your standard air dash and double jump. There are so many moves that it feels like a fighting game. The animations for the special attacks, and the boss special attacks, give this feeling too.
Some platforming sections and puzzles are devilish. The difficulty ramps up as you get more abilities. I found some special platforming challenges in the main hub, spent about 20 minutes working on the first one, another 20 on the second one, and then was like, “I have to actually play the story through, not spend all day on platforming challenges!” They give 100 time crystals, which was a lot earlier in the game, but not much later. I would like to come back and conquer all these challenges because they are so hard but so clever and fun. As I got later into the game, regular platforming parts (especially those hiding secrets) got tricky too. There is one type of platforming challenge where you try to get a coin (useful for buying and upgrading items). The coins are hovering in midair and the trick to these is that you don’t get the coin until you touch the ground. So, you usually have to platform while remaining in the air (or on walls), and figure out how to get to the coin and return safely to the ground before you actually “get” the coin. I found a side quest toward the end of the game that requires you to get THREE items in the air before setting foot back on the ground. I could get two and actually never found the third one. Since I was so close to the end, I didn’t bother. If I have time left on my PS Plus subscription, I will consider going back to this and getting closer to 100%. I got 88.09% completion.
The coolest thing about the game though is the map, seriously. It’s a standard metroidvania map except for the fact that YOU CAN TAKE SCREENSHOTS and save them to the map. These are called “memories.” This is in addition to regular map markers you can drop to indicate treasure or a boss or whatever. So, if you come to an area with a challenging puzzle or a path you can’t cross yet, you can capture a memory, then look on the map and see the screenshot, so you know exactly what the obstacle is or whatever it is that you wanted to remember about that spot. Whenever I got a new ability, I went through my memories checking which paths were newly crossable. I understand that the same thing could be accomplished with map markers (e.g., a yellow marker or a bomb icon or something for every yellow wall that requires an explosive to break), but this is much more interactive and you have more control over what to screenshot. Every game with a map should include this feature. It’s amazing. Could you imagine this in an open-world game? Do other games have this?!
So, this was a big surprise. I thought it would be good based on reviews, but it’s great. Like, one of the best metroidvanias I’ve ever played. It apes a lot from Hollow Knight, but it’s far more accessible with many quality of life features. There’s no Souls-like death or resource loss to worry about and checkpoints are more generously placed. If you die on a boss fight, you have the option to retry it right there. I didn’t have much trouble on normal difficulty. Given how much I explored, poked and prodded for secrets, my Sargon was a beast by the end with tons of health, 5 health potions, maxed out amulets and weapons, etc. This is a must-play metroidvania, especially if you bounced off Hollow Knight because of its high difficulty or amount of backtracking.
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