Untitled Goose Game is outrageously silly. A very fowl review

 It's pretty rare for a video game to be advertised as a "slapstick comedy experience." Sure, there are jokes and quips in video games, but rarely is the game itself built entirely around the joke. But today's review is about the exception to that rule, a game called Untitled Goose Game. Before you ask, yes, that is the actual title of the game. For obvious reasons, the "untitled" part of the name was meant to be a placeholder. The developers, House House, decided that leaving the "untitled" part in the title was funnier and did a better job communicating the idea that this is supposed to be a comedy game.

The official box art for Untitled Goose Game. Image found on Wikipedia.org

Untitled Goose Game is a stealth-focused puzzle game that was developed and published by House House and Panic Inc. respectively. The game was released September 20th, 2019 and became a hit because of the inherent absurdity of the concept. In Untitled Goose Game, you play as a goose. Obviously. But not just any goose. You play as the Horrible Goose, who has come to a quiet, unnamed village specifically to mess with the townsfolk and cause as many problems for them as possible. The game has basically no lore or narrative outside this premise. The only official bits of lore is that the village is located "somewhere" in England. Anything else the devs have said about the lore of this game should be taken with a grain of salt, as this is a comedy game and thus it is not meant to have a serious narrative.

The Goose has a handful of abilities at its disposal. It can run, crouch, pick up small objects, push and pull around larger objects, flap its wings and honk. You use these abilities in tandem with each other to solve simple logic puzzles and be an overall menace to society, as geese are wont to do. The Goose cannot fly, mostly for gameplay reasons. A lot of puzzles would be trivialized if the Goose could just fly over the obstacle. Just to give a few examples of how puzzles work in this game, you could trick a villager into hitting his own thumb by honking at him right before he hammers a sign into the ground, Looney Toons style. You can also trick a villager into putting a lovely red ribbon on the Goose by pretending to be a statuette, then start flapping your wings right afterwards to give that villager a jump scare.

In each of the game's four main areas (the Garden, the High Street, the Back Gardens, and the Pub), there is at least one townsperson with a simple behavior schedule. As long as the Goose doesn't distract or hinder them, the townspeople will perform a set of thematically appropriate tasks and carry on with their day. The Groundskeeper for example will tend to his garden if the Goose leaves him alone, while the Shopkeeper will brush away dirt from her marketplace. If they see the Goose pick up one of their belongings, they will give chase to get it back. Given the mellow/humorous vibes that Untitled Goose Game goes for, the Goose is never killed or captured. In fact, there simply isn't any kind of game over status at all. If the Goose gets caught, it's forced to drop the item it stole, but nothing's stopping you from stealing that exact same item again immediately afterwards. Heck, the Goose can just yank items right out of people's hands as long as they aren't paying attention.

The Horrible Goose has just stolen the Groundskeeper's keys. Image found on goose.game/presskit

There are, however, two villagers with unique interactions with the Goose. The Wimp (encountered in the High Street) and the Burly Man (encountered in the Pub). The Wimp is terrified of the Goose and will run away if approached. The Burly Man meanwhile works as a bouncer for the Pub and will chase the Goose on sight, even if it hasn't stolen anything yet. But only if the Goose is already inside the Pub. Honestly, I almost feel bad for the Wimp specifically because out of all the villagers in the game, the Wimp gets tormented the most. If you complete all the tasks related to the Wimp, he gets chased into a phone booth by the Goose, who also steals his glasses and swaps them out for a worse pair.  The Goose can also untie his shoelaces to make him trip and fall flat on his face. And top of all that, the Goose tricks the Wimp into buying a toy airplane that he already owned by placing said toy plane inside the nearby market. Like, the Goose is obviously a villain (of the harmless, Saturday Morning variety) but the way the tasks single this one person out feels almost excessive. Not that this is a bad thing. Comedy needs a victim, after all.

Every time the Goose makes its way to a new area, it is given a To-Do List. You cannot progress to the next area until all tasks on the list are completed. These tasks can include things like "trick the groundskeeper into hitting his own thumb" or "place a bunch of (stolen) groceries in a basket." Again, the solution to most of these tasks is simple enough to be solved without too much issue. Heck, even the final task (which I won't spoil here) isn't too hard once you have a decent path planned out. Once you beat the game for the first time, you unlock even more To-Do Lists for the four main areas . There's even speed run challenges where you have to complete each area before the town church bells ring, which in practice gives you about six minutes per area to complete it.

Untitled Goose Game's two-player co-op mode being used to bully the Wimp. Image found on mobygames.com

Also, Untitled Goose Game sports a two player co-op mode, with the second player controlling a second Horrible Goose. I haven't had a chance to test this mode out for myself, but from what I understand, all of the tasks are more or less the same as their single player counterparts. Keep in mind that co-op mode is local only. It does not work online. What this means is if you want to try it for yourself, the second player as to be be there with you in person, and you need an extra controller for the second player to use. That being said, I'd imagine some tasks might be easier with a second player, since one player could distract the villagers while the other completes a task in secret.

There is only one bad thing I can say about Untitled Goose Game, which is that it's a very short experience. It will take you about three-to-six hours to complete your first playthrough. And while the game does have bonus challenges that become available after completing it for the first time, these challenges take just as much time to complete as well. But then again, if my biggest complaint is "I wish there was more of this game to play through" I suppose that's a blessing in disguise. After all, it proves that the game is fun enough that I would want more of it.

In terms of presentation, Untitled Goose Game is a cutesy, simplistic game. Everything has a smooth, cel-shaded, pastel aesthetic to it, from the Goose itself to the environments. The Goose's mannerisms are humorous, and speaking as someone who sees waterfowl on a regular basis, the body movements and animations on the Goose are surprisingly accurate to how geese move around in real life. The townspeople have a surprising amount of personality in their animations, despite having no spoken dialogue or even facial expressions. The most you'll hear from them is either annoyed grunting or screaming in goose-related terror. The human character designs remind me of the character designs in Aardman's Wallace & Gromit series. But I think my favorite thing would be the music and sound effects in this game. The Horrible Goose has a dedicated "honk" button, and hearing the Goose honk will never not put a smile on my face. To make it even better, the exact sound of the honk changes based on where the Goose is located or what item the Goose is holding. Like if you honk near a tunnel or well, the honk will echo. And if you honk while holding a glass bottle, the honk sounds slightly muffled. And if you honk while holding a harmonica, the Goose will play a little tune with it.

The Goose honks into a well. Image found on goose.game/presskit

The game's soundtrack consists entirely of piano, because a simple game needs a simple soundtrack. The piano notes vary in intensity based on what the Goose is doing. The piano is dead silent when nothing important is happening, it plays a triumphant jingle when the Goose completes a task, and it plays a panicked tune when the Goose is being chased by a villager. Funnily enough, House House never intended for Untitled Goose Game to even have music at all. The music was originally meant only for the game's announcement trailer, but it was so well-received that the devs recorded some new piano music as a last-minute addition to the game. Honestly, the piano music elevates the experience. It makes the game feel more charming and lively. Like one of those old silent films from the 1890's and 1920's.

Overall, would I recommend Untitled Goose Game? Yes. 100%. It's a short, sweet slapstick spectacle. Again, my only criticism is I wish the game was a little bit longer. And you know a game is good when the only complaint I have is that I wanted more to do in it. It's current price at the time of writing is around $20 USD, and for a bite-sized comedy experience I'd say that's pretty reasonable pricing. I give Untitled Goose Game 5 stars out of 5. This review feels like it's shorter than normal, but there admittedly isn't much to talk about. It's a simple game through and through.

Untitled Goose Game is the property of House House and Panic Inc. None of the images used here were created by me. Please support the original creators.

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, it's a Souls Like IN SPACE. A very Forced review

Star Wars is an absolute monolith of a franchise. Everyone has either heard of it, saw at least one of the nine main movies or played one of the literal 100+ video games. Back in 2020 I reviewed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a surprisingly competent game that combines the "Space Western Samurai Movie" aesthetic of the franchise with Souls Like combat and Metroidvania style exploration and upgrades. All things considered, this combination worked shockingly well. So naturally, a sequel to Fallen Order was released in 2023, titled Star Wars: Jedi Survivor. I knew I wanted to review it, because not only do I like Star Wars, I am a big fan of Souls Like games. That being said, I came away with mixed feelings on this game, for reasons I will explain more thoroughly later.  Before we begin, I have a few disclaimers. Firstly, I played the game on Playstation 5, and thus can only speak to its performance on that system. Secondly, I have already explained terms like Souls Like in greater detail in other reviews, and will assume you know the basics of the genre. I will also offer (brief) explanations of common Souls Like terminology as needed.

The official box art of Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, featuring Cal Kestis and BD-1. Image found on Wikipedia.org

In the event you somehow don't know what Star Wars is, here's an attempt to summarize over 40 years of lore. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a Galactic Republic. The Republic was the de facto main government of the entire galaxy, with senators and representatives from literal thousands of different planets. One day, the Republic went to war with a group called the Confederacy of Independent Systems, called the Separatists for short. The Separatists didn't want to live under Republic rule, and unleashed an army of robotic minions called Battle Droids to terrorize the Galaxy. The Republic responded by creating an army of super soldier clones, and tasked an ancient order of psychic warrior-monks called Jedi Knights to lead said clones into battle. The Republic came very close to winning the war, thanks to the clones' tenacity and the Jedi's otherworldly Force powers giving them a distinct advantage. However, the clones were actually a trap devised by Chancellor Palpatine, who was manipulating both sides of the war for his own benefit. When Palpatine told the clones to "Execute Order 66" all the clones turned on their Jedi masters, killing 90% of them in a violent coup. To add insult to injury, Palpatine corrupted the strongest Jedi of them all, Anakin Skywalker, and turned him into an evil cyborg samurai called Darth Vader. With no one left to oppose him, Palpatine rebuilt the Republic into the first Galactic Empire, with himself as Emperor and Darth Vader as his personal enforcer..

In both Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor, you play as a Jedi Knight named Cal Kestis, who as previously mentioned is a survivor of Order 66. Back in Fallen Order, he and his friends found and destroyed an artifact showing the location of every Force user in the galaxy. This was important, because the Empire is still hunting down and executing the few survivors of Order 66, and converting the few "neutral" Force Users into Sith Inquisitors. Also, Cal attempted to fight Darth Vader. Emphasis on the word "attempted." Cal is meant to be a fairly average Jedi. He's a good swordsman, his Force powers are strong enough to compete with most other Force Users, and he has a knack for improvising and adapting to his opponents mid-battle. But Darth Vader is the strongest Force User in the galaxy. Darth Vader's entire purpose, narratively speaking, is to be an absolute menace that puts the fear of death in the heroes. You see Darth Vader approaching, you run. Don't fight him. You will not win. 

Jedi Survivor takes place five years after the first game. Cal is now working with Saw Gerrera, leader of a rebel group trying to overthrow the Emperor. Meanwhile, his old friends Cere, Greez and Merrin have all gone their separate ways. The game starts with a tutorial mission in which Cal and a crew of Saw's rebels kidnap an Imperial Senator and steal confidential information, right in the middle of Coruscant (the Imperial capital). This mission shows off all the main mechanics of the game, from combat to puzzle solving to climbing sections. One thing I like about the game is that Cal starts off with all the movement upgrades from the previous game already unlocked, such as double jumping and running on walls. The tutorial ends with a boss fight against a Sith Inquisitor known as the Ninth Sister, who was actually a major villain from the first game. In this game she gets bodied, because Cal has spent the five year time skip training and perfecting his abilities, and the Ninth Sister did no such training in the meantime. And that's actually a good way to show both narratively and mechanically how much stronger Cal has grown in the transition between games.

The mission ends in a bust, as four out of the five rebels assisting Cal are killed in action and the senator is killed as collateral damage. Cal and the last surviving rebel, a gunslinger named Bode, barely escape from Coruscant. Unfortunately, Cal's ship, the Mantis, is damaged in the escape. Before he crash lands, Cal redirects the Mantis onto an Outer Rim planet called Koboh. This wasn't a random landing spot, for Cal knows that one of his old friends lives on Koboh. So he's hoping that said friend will help him repair the Mantis. The Outer Rim is essentially the Wild West in space. While it's technically a part of the Empire, it's so far removed from "civilized society" that criminal organizations and bounty hunters are allowed to do whatever they want with very little consequence. In the case of Koboh, the locals are routinely bullied and harassed by a bandit gang called the Bedlam Raiders. What makes the Raiders dangerous is that they got their hands on Separatist technology, and thus have access to Battle Droids. And the higher ranking Raiders have figured out how to make their own Lightsabers. But anyway, the game starts for real here.

Jedi Survivor has open-world exploration across five different planets. Though truth be told, it is very obvious Respawn put most of their effort into Koboh. It is by far the biggest planet you can explore, has by far the most number of collectible items and is one of two planets that allow Cal to ride on the back of an animal to cover greater distances. But back on subject, Cal can check his map via a helper droid called BD-1, and said map will highlight the location of the next story objective in gold. But there is nothing stopping you from ignoring the main story and exploring the wilderness. Even during high-stakes missions that seem like they would be time-sensitive, there is nothing stopping Cal from taking a lengthy detour to grab a new outfit or fight a secret boss. 

Cal clashes Lightsaber blades with a Bedlam Raider. Image found on starwars.com 

Speaking of fighting bosses, the single best thing about both Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor is the combat. Cal is armed with a Lightsaber, obviously. He can use it both as a melee weapon and to deflect laser blasts from enemies back at them. Additionally, he can use the Force to grab enemies and objects and throw them around, or throw his own saber like a boomerang. He can even use the Jedi Mind Trick to manipulate enemies into fighting each other. Cal feels powerful when you mow down hordes of Stormtroopers or Raiders, which feels appropriate. Cal may be only an "average" Jedi in terms of raw power, but even the weakest Jedi will be leaps and bounds more powerful than a regular soldier. The only people who can give Cal a challenge are either other Force Users, armored mechs or giant monsters. So naturally, almost every boss encountered in this game belong to one of those three categories. The only exception to this rule is an Imperial Stormtrooper named Rick the Door Technician, who is a joke boss clearly meant to be a pushover that goes down in exactly one attack. All things considered, Rick is an excellent example of how to do a "joke boss." Like, you find him at the end of a grueling gauntlet in which you fight through an army's worth of Imperial forces, and by the time you reach him you should be low on healing items. So when a boss health bar appears at the top of the screen, you get filled with a brief sense of dread until you realize that the boss is literally just a dime-a-dozen Stormtrooper that's no different from the ones you've been slicing through the whole game. And they gave him the most normal sounding name in the history of Star Wars.

While it is true that this is a Souls Like, and thus has a stamina-based combat system, Jedi Survivor is meant as a "baby's first" Souls Like experience. For example, the way this game handles stamina is very forgiving. The stamina equivalent of this game, the Force, only drains when using either a strong attack or when using a Force Technique. Basic attacks actually charge up Force instead of draining it. Additionally, blocking is given its own dedicated meter that does not affect the Force meter in any way. As long as the block meter isn't completely empty, Cal can keep blocking attacks. Speaking of blocking, tapping the block button right before an attack hits will parry it, which does not drain the block meter and has a chance to knock the attacking enemy off balance. How strict the timing is varies based on the difficulty you are currently playing on. Speaking of which, the fact that Jedi Survivor even has multiple difficulty settings further reinforces the idea that it's a baby's first Souls Like. Most games in this genre don't even have adjustable difficulty, since a lot of these games advertise themselves as a deliberately challenging experience meant to push your skills to their limit. But there's absolutely no shame in playing on a lower difficulty setting. In fact, as long as you are not in battle, you can change the difficulty whenever you want. I started the game on Jedi Master mode (the equivalent of hard mode), but brought the difficulty down to Jedi Knight (the equivalent of medium difficulty) and found the game more enjoyable from then onwards.

New to Jedi Survivor are the Stances. Stances change Cal's fighting style and modifies the shape of his Lightsaber's blade. Also, with the sole exception of Single Blade Stance, all of the Stances are based on the fighting styles of fan-favorite characters from throughout the franchise (Darth Maul, Ahsoka Tano, Kylo Ren, etc.). Cal can only equip two Stances at a time, though he can swap them out at Meditation Points (the main checkpoint of this game). Each Stance comes with its own set of attacks, defenses and combos. Keep in mind you don't start with all five Stances available. You start with two and unlock the other three throughout the main story. That being said, none of these Stances are spoilers, since they are all over the marketing and serve as the main "sales pitch" of the game. While Jedi Survivor doesn't use stats like a normal Souls Like, the Stances all play like classic Souls Like archetypes. Just to give a few examples, Cross Guard Stance is your big heavy Strength Build with slow but powerful swings, Dual Wielding is like a Dex Build with high speed and mobility but poor defenses and Blaster Stance is your long range "archer" build.  Returning from the first game are Single Blade stance and Double Blade stance. The former is literally just Cal's move set from Fallen Order, while the latter is a Darth Maul inspired fighting style that can clear out crowds of enemies with wide reaching spin attacks.

The second best thing about Jedi Survivor is the customization. You can change Cal's hairstyle, what kind of facial hair he has (if any), his outfit and his Lightsaber's appearance. In fact, finding new customization options for Cal's appearance is the main collectible in the game. The Lightsaber customization is especially thorough. Not only can you change the color of the blade, you can swap out each individual part of the hilt. Those being the blade emitter, the switch, the grip and the pommel. You can even change the materials used the Lightsaber's construction, which changes both the color and the textures on the hilt. You can make it look wooden, metallic, plastic or any combination of the above. Some materials like Beskar Steel even have unique patterns on them. The pistol used in Blaster Stance can also be customized with similar options to the saber itself. The only restriction on the saber customization is that you cannot make your Lightsaber have a red blade during your first playthrough. This is mostly for lore reasons, seeing as how only Force Users who have been corrupted by the Dark Side have red blades on their Lightsabers. And Cal hasn't been corrupted (yet), so no red blade for him.

One odd design choice is how this game handles currency. Because unlike every Souls Like game ever, Jedi Survivor doesn't have a universal currency. Each merchant has a special collectible item associated with them exclusively, and the only reward for defeating enemies are Skill Points. Skill Points are used to unlock new abilities and techniques for Cal, or to improve the powers he already has. Almost all of the merchants only sell cosmetic items for either Cal himself, his Lightsaber or for BD-1. The only merchant who does sell items with actual impact on gameplay is a retired bounty hunter named Caij, and even then she only sells ammo types for Blaster Stance. Personally, I don't really like how every merchant gets their own unique currency that only they will accept. If they really wanted Skill Points and "merchant money" to be separate resources, they could have just called the latter Credits and have that work as a semi-universal currency. Especially because Credits already exist as a universal currency in the Star Wars universe. 

Back on the subject of the actual story, Cal and Bode meet up with one of Cal's old friends, Greez the four-armed alien gambler. During the 5 year time skip, Greez settled down on Koboh and opened up a bar called Pyloon's Saloon. This saloon serves as the main base of operations for Cal and his friends, at least while they are on Koboh. Greez agrees to repair Cal's ship and even shows Cal his private stash of ship parts for just the occasion. This event leads to Cal accidentally discovering an abandoned Jedi temple, whose caretaker droid is somehow still active. This droid is Zee, and she reveals that her old master was an ancient Jedi named Santari Khri. Santari, along with her best friend Dagan Gerra, discovered a mythical planet called Tanalorr. Tanalorr is hidden inside a nebula, and cannot be accessed without a special compass.

Cal and Night Sister Merrin. Image found on starwars.com

So Zee tells Cal and Greez about Tanalorr, and our plucky protagonists see an opportunity. Greez is interested in Tanalorr because Tanalorr is said to be filled with riches. Cal is interested because he's losing faith in his ability to fight the Empire. After all, he has been working with Saw Gerrera for over 5 years and despite their best efforts, the Empire isn't slowing down. But a hidden planet that the Empire can't access is the perfect place to raise a new generation of Jedi, or at least develop a new rebel base. So Cal investigates the key to finding Tanalorr. During his travels he wakes up Dagan Gerra, who was stored in stasis this whole time. Dagan is an accidentally funny antagonist. This man woke up after a 200+ year long coma, learns about the destruction of the Jedi Order, and immediately falls to the Dark Side. Like, Dagan literally modifies his Lightsaber to produce a red blade mere seconds after being released, while in the middle of a conversation with Cal. Now granted, some later flashbacks reveal he was corrupted long before being put in stasis. But still, bleeding out your Lightsaber to produce a red blade is one heck of a first impression. Anyway, Dagan is the main antagonist for this game, as most of the plot is spent racing against Dagan to get to Tanalorr first. Cal and his friends want to use Tanalorr as a sanctuary, Dagan wants to use it as the birthplace of an Empire of his own. Letting Dagan get there first would be replacing one tyrant with another. And because I don't have a better place to mention it, be prepared to hear the word "Tanalorr" a lot. Everyone (Mostly Dagan) brings it up in conversation so often that if you were to make a drinking game out of it, you would get hospitalized.

Cal's journey brings him to Jedha, a desert world where Merrin, Cordova and Cere have been running a sanctuary for persecuted Force Users called the Hidden Path. Cere and Cordova are two of the last surviving Jedi Masters (and act as mentor figures to everyone else), while Merrin is a Night Sister. The Night Sisters are technically Force Users, but the way they use the Force is completely different from everyone else. Think of it like this. Jedi and Sith are samurai IN SPACE, and they use the Force to do better samurai stuff. Night Sisters are witches IN SPACE, and they use the Force to do better witchcraft. Anyway, Merrin will assist Cal in battle while he's on Jedha, immobilizing enemies with her witchcraft and opening up portals that he can jump through to quickly travel across greater distances. Also there's a romantic subplot between Cal and Merrin, as the two clearly have feelings for each other despite coming from very different cultures. It's an alright romance, nothing too annoying, gross or problematic about it. But this is coming from a guy who generally dislikes romance in media, so take anything I say about romance in general with a grain of salt.

The bulk of the game's first two acts consist of Cal, Bode, Greez and Merrin traveling from one planet to another. They try to track down the compass leading to Tanalorr before Dagan Gerra can, while fighting off both the Empire and the Bedlam Raiders. Truth be told, this part of the story is kind of weak in my opinion. Throughout this part of the game I felt like I was just going through the motions instead of getting properly invested in the story. The most interesting thing that happens in this part of the plot is Cal fighting this dude called Rayvis, who is the leader of the Bedlam Raiders and Dagan's right hand man. There are two reasons why I like Rayvis. The first is that he is a Gen'Dai, a species of alien that was declared non-canon back when Disney bought the legal rights to the Star Wars franchise. But obviously, the Gen'Dai were made canon again for this game. Which is good, because the Gen'Dai are a cool idea for a Star Wars creature. The Gen'Dai are essentially a mass of rapidly growing nerves and flesh who live inside suits of armor. The armor they wear gives them a humanoid shape, but without it they become an eldritch blob of fleshy tentacles. Anyway, these guys are one of the few aliens that can survive being cut by a Lightsaber because their rapid growth allows them to heal even the most severe injuries. Which means that the Gen'Dai as a species work well as boss monsters. The second reason I like Rayvis is because he's voiced by D.C. Douglas, who also does the voice of Albert Wesker from Resident Evil. And I think that's kind of funny, because Rayvis' villainous monologue that he says at the start of his boss battle feels like something that a Resident Evil villain would say before transforming into a horrifying meat monster. Which fits oddly well, since the Gen'Dai are an entire species of meat monsters.

So I'm going to fast forward to the most interesting thing that happens in the story, which unfortunately requires me to put up a spoiler warning. You have been warned. So Cal manages to defeat Dagan Gerra and find the compass leading to Tanalorr, so he heads back to Jedha. Cal and friends had agreed to expand the Hidden Path to Tanalorr because of how well-hidden the planet is. But then the game hits you with a plot twist. Bode, the gunslinging rebel that's been helping Cal on his adventure was not only an Imperial Spy this whole time, he was also a fallen Jedi turned Sith Inquisitor. So Bode steals the compass and assassinates Cordova, because he's the only person smart enough to reverse engineer the compass. He also exposes the Hidden Path on Jedha to the Empire, and uses the ensuing chaos to flee the scene. Cal gives chase and gets into a boss battle against Bode, but no matter how good the player fights, the duel is scripted so that Cal always gets knocked unconscious while Bode escapes.

The game does something really cool once Cal is defeated here. It takes you to the Game Over menu and asks you to hit the respawn button like it does when the player dies under "normal" circumstances, but when you do, you're not playing as Cal anymore. You're now playing as Cere, who has a completely different move set from Cal. She only has one Stance (Single Blade), but Cere's version is both faster and stronger than Cal ever could be. Her Force Powers are also a lot more powerful. If Cal is meant to be an example of an "average" Jedi, Cere is an example of an "exceptionally strong" Jedi. She isn't as powerful as someone like Starkiller, Darth Revan or Darth Vader, but she is pretty close to them. Which is impressive, since two of those characters are from Star Wars Legends, a sadly no longer canon spin off series where everything in the Star Wars universe is cranked up to eleven. But speaking of Darth Vader, guess who shows up to shut down the Hidden Path?

We get a boss battle against Darth Vader himself, and he is by far the hardest fight in the game. And the funny thing is, Darth Vader doesn't even know about Tanalorr nor does he care to know. Once again, Darth Vader is an outside-context problem that puts the fear of death in everyone involved. Case in point, while Cere is fighting for her life, Vader is lazily deflecting her blows with only one hand, and only takes the battle seriously when Cere manages to wound him halfway through their duel. It's an almost perfect fight, except for one little thing. If you die to Vader through normal gameplay, you have to do the fight again. But if you empty out Darth Vader's health bar completely, instead of dying like a normal boss, Vader stops holding back and finishes Cere with a one hit kill move. I feel like they should have done the Sekiro thing where if you manage to "beat" the unbeatable boss you get an extra cutscene, but still allow the story to progress if you die through normal gameplay. Especially because the Bode fight I literally just described does exactly that. I prefer the way Fallen Order handled the concept of a "lore-accurate" Vader fight better, because in the first game, Vader was straight up invincible. Nothing you could do in the first game could hurt Vader, so the only way to "defeat" him was to run away while he stalked you like a horror movie monster. Because as far as the Star Wars galaxy is concerned, that's what Darth Vader is. That being said, I still enjoyed Jedi Survivor's Vader fight, and it's tied with the Rayvis fight for my favorite boss battle in the game.

Cal prepares to fight a squad of Stormtroopers using Double Blade Stance. Image found on steamdb.info

So Cere and Cordova are dead, and Cal swears to get vengeance on Bode for ratting them all out. And Cal is so outraged by Bode's betrayal that he starts using the Dark Side of the Force, which anyone with even a basic knowledge of Star Wars lore knows is very much a bad thing. But I do like how the Dark Side is used in gameplay as a kind of super mode for Cal. While "Embracing the Dark" Cal automatically switches to Cere's move set and his damage output goes through the roof. Basic enemies like Stormtroopers die in one hit on even the highest difficulty, and the much stronger Purge Troopers and Security Droids go down in two or three hits. His Force powers get upgraded as well, letting him Force Choke enemies and crush droids and mechs with ease. Additionally, Cal can use the Force to slow down time itself while embracing the Dark Side, which allows him to either heal with no consequences or get some free hits in on his hapless victims. Cal could actually freeze time before this point, but the ability felt lackluster prior to the Dark Side upgrade. Also, you remember when I said that you couldn't make Cal's Lightsaber red for lore reasons? The real reason is that while "Dark Side Mode" is active, Cal's Lightsaber changes from its usual color to red, and it returns to its original color once the effects wear off.

The big finale of Jedi Survivor is a three-phase, 2vs1 boss battle with Bode, right inside the heart of Tanalorr. Merrin will help Cal during the first two phases of the battle, but the final phase is a 1vs1 duel. This fight is nowhere near as dramatic or as difficult as the Vader fight, but to be fair, any battle with Vader is going to be both more dramatic and more difficult than anything else in the game. Bode starts the fight with his own version of Blaster Stance, though he later switches to a Dark Side-boosted version of Single Blade Stance for the final phase. It's an okay fight. Not too easy, not too hard. That being said, I find it amusing just how easily Bode goes down when you use Dark Side Mode, and the transition between second and third phase is scripted so you have no choice but to embrace the Dark Side. Like, from Bode's perspective, he isn't the final boss. Cal is, and Embracing the Dark Side is Cal's version of a second phase. Bode's like a Souls Borne character without the resurrection ability, fighting an unwinnable battle. The only thing I will overtly criticize here is that Tanalorr itself is a disappointingly boring planet to explore. It consists of a shoreline leading up to a temple, and the temple's interior serves as the final boss arena. That's it. There's no collectibles or hidden super bosses or anything like that. 

But why did Bode betray them all in the first place? The reason is because he has a daughter named Kata, and he made a deal with the Empire. Bode would work as a spy and in exchange the Empire would spare Kata's life. However, after learning about Tanalorr, Bode decides to betray both the rebels and the Empire so he can raise his daughter in peaceful solitude. Which doesn't strike me as particularly smart. Like, Tanalorr is a whole planet. You don't need an entire planet to raise one child. He could easily just raise his family on one side of the planet and let the rebels/Empire do their thing on the other. But then again, Bode's entire characterization post-betrayal is a real-time reenactment of Yoda's warning to Anakin back in The Phantom Menace. "Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Hate. And Hate leads to Suffering." Bode is so scared of losing Kata that he betrays everyone who has ever helped him. When his former friends confront him, he lashes out in anger. His anger turns to murderous hatred because he now views literally everyone in the galaxy as a threat to Kata, and any threat to his daughter must be destroyed. And in his hatred, he frightens and almost kills Kata while fighting both Cal and Merrin at the same time. In the end, Bode is killed by Cal and Kata is shockingly okay with that. Even before this point, Kata agreed with Cal and Merrin that what Bode did was morally despicable. Imagine being such a bad father that your only child not only agrees with your killers that you were a terrible person, but said killers adopt your kid and turn out to be better parents than you ever were. Massive L on Bode's part. 

The game ends with Cal, Greez and Merrin hosting a funeral for all their fallen friends (and Bode). They decide to build a new home on Tanalorr and adopt Kata into their found family. The Empire still doesn't know about Tanalorr, and the Bedlam Raiders are scattered and leaderless due to the deaths of both Dagan Gerra and Rayvis. It's a bittersweet ending, all things considered. And overall, I found the game to be okay and almost good. There is just one problem I neglected to mention, in addition to my smaller critiques. This problem is so great that it needs its own section in the review.

Jedi Survivor is not a well optimized game by any stretch of the imagination. I ran into a plethora of technical problems that dragged the whole experience down. The game crashed on me twice, the first time being during the tutorial. I also experienced a glitch on two separate occasions where Jedi Mind Tricks stopped working, forcing me to restart the game until they did. Some character models didn't load in correctly, causing random body parts to become invisible. Enemies would sometimes get stuck inside walls and if it wasn't for Cal's ability to grab enemies with the Force, I would not have been able to get those enemies unstuck. That last one is especially bad because a battle isn't considered "finished" until all enemies involved are dead. The framerate would also frequently dip during the more intense cutscenes or when traveling between areas. On top of all of this, the game has a 150+ gigabyte download size, meaning this game by itself took up almost a whole third of my PS5's active memory. If the game ran perfectly and didn't have such glaring tech issues, I would have given this game an easy 4 out of 5 stars. But the tech problems are so great that the game fluctuated between a 3 star rating and even a 2 star rating. And you want to know the real kicker? From what I've heard other reviewers say, apparently the PC version has even worse technical issues than the PS5 version. I can't say for certain but if that's that's true, that's a real shame. 

As for presentation, I consider Jedi Survivor to be fairly average. The whole game is fully voice acted and sports motion capture animation for all the main cinematics. But the graphical quality isn't particularly impressive by itself. It's a nice looking Star Wars game for sure, but it does that thing that a lot of Triple-A games do where they try really hard to look photo-realistic but lack either the technology or the budget to pull it off properly. This game looks like your stereotypical Triple-A game. This isn't a compliment nor is an insult. I just wish the game had more of a visual identity of its own. All the games using Capcom's RE Engine do a better job at the "realistic" art style, just to give a comparison. One thing I like is that the camera work in the cinematics. It does the thing that the modern God of War games do where the camera shows everything in a long take format (meaning no sudden changes in the camera angle). Additionally, the camera is slightly shaky, creating the illusion that they were recorded by an onset cameraman. It makes the cinematics feel, well, cinematic. If there was a new theatrical Star Wars movie with this kind of camerawork, I would actually really enjoy it.

The sound design is good. Not only do we have all the classic Lightsaber/Blaster sound effects that we all know and love, there's also a fun little quirk with changing the Lightsaber's color. Each color changes the sound of the "hum" the blade makes when the saber is activated. The voice acting is also generally pretty good. I especially like Merrin's voice, because she speaks in a Slavic accent. I don't know exactly if it's supposed to be Russian or some other variant of Eastern European, but either way it makes her sound like she came from a completely different culture from everyone else. It also makes her sassy remarks even funnier. But I do want give my compliments to Scott Lawrence, who does the voice of Darth Vader in this game. He does such a good job sound-a-liking the iconic Vader Voice used by the late James Earl Jones that at first I thought that it actually was James Earl Jones himself doing the voice. It's not, unfortunately, but like I said, Scott Lawrence does the character justice. Speaking of voice actors, there's a side character named Turgle. Turgle has no plot relevance whatsoever besides handing out the occasional side quest. And you know who they got to voice this goofy frog-looking alien man? Richard Steven Horvitz, a legendary voice actor well known for roles such as Zim from Invader Zim, Billy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, and Dag from Angry Beavers. I was not expecting to see Richard Steven Horvitz in a Star Wars game, but it's cool that he's here.

Cal and BD-1 looking at the sunset on Koboh. Image found on starwars.com

So would I recommend Star Wars Jedi Survivor? No, or at least not at full price. I bought my copy of this game during a sale that brought the price down from $70 to $20 USD. And I feel like $15-$20 is the ideal price range for a game of this quality. Paying $70 for an otherwise average video game based on a preestablished franchise with glaring performance issues is too much money. Then again, asking for $70 for any video game is quite the demand, and I feel like the game needs to be as close to perfect as possible to justify that kind of price. Especially when other Souls Likes are typically priced between $40-$50. But honestly speaking, even if the game ran perfectly, I don't think I was in the right head space to enjoy it properly. I've been feeling burnt out on Star Wars content for a while now. So let me ask you a question. What exactly is a Star Wars fan exactly? The biggest problem with Star Wars as a franchise is that there is so much "stuff" with the Star Wars brand on it that you cannot possibly be a fan of EVERYTHING Star Wars related. Especially since each "thing" in the franchise has wildly inconsistent quality. For everything as good as say, Star Wars: Andor there is something as bad as The Star Wars Holiday Special. Jedi Survivor feels like it's the middle of those two extremes. Like it's not even close to the best Star Wars video game, but if it's also nowhere near the worst. It's a perfectly average, some would say mediocre experience. One might even call this game "mid." I give Jedi Survivor 3 stars out of 5. 

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor is the property of Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment. Star Wars (the franchise) is the property of Disney. None of the images used here were created by me. Please support the original creators.

Lies of P is Peak Pinocchio Fiction. A very "honest" review.

 If you told me five years ago that the closest thing we would ever get to a Bloodborne sequel is a weird Pinocchio game, I would have called you mad. But here we are, with a review of Lies of P. Developed by Round8 Studio and published by Neowiz back in 2023, Lies of P is a Souls Like, but it is not a Souls Borne. What's the difference you ask? Well, Souls Borne refers to the dark fantasy/gothic horror action roleplaying games made by From Software. A Souls Like is a game not made by From Software but still inspired by From Software's signature style. There are many Souls Likes out there, some being of better quality than others. But out of all the Souls Likes I've seen, Lies of P comes the closest to recreating the "From Software Magic." Which feels like a weird thing to say, because this game's sales pitch is "What if Pinocchio was in a Gothic Horror setting?" and the game takes that premise 100% seriously. A quick disclaimer before we begin. I played Lies of P on a Playstation 5, and thus can't speak for its performance on an Xbox system nor on PC. Lies of P is also rated M for Mature by the ESRB because of violence and mild profanity. Reader discretion is advised.

Lies of P official box art. Image found on Wikipedia.org

In case you (somehow) don't know what Pinocchio is, it's an Italian fairy tale originally written by Carlo Collodi back in 1883. The original story was about a wooden puppet that came to life and had to learn basic life lessons like "stay in school" or "don't tell lies." It was later adapted into a Disney movie that wounded up becoming the most famous version of the story, because 1940's era Disney movies had a habit of being more popular than their inspirations. And in case you don't know what Bloodborne is, it's a Gothic Horror action game about a monster hunter tasked with exploring a Victorian city overrun by a variety of nightmarish monsters, ranging from werewolves to cultists to literal aliens. It's regarded as one of the greatest Playstation Exclusive games ever made, and depending on who you ask, it's one of the greatest games in general. I bring all of this up because Lies of P pulls heavy inspiration from the original fairy tale as well as from Bloodborne.

Just so everyone is caught up on what a Souls Like is, it's a subgenre of action/roleplaying games that is characterized by five main characteristics. Firstly, Souls Like games use a stamina based combat system. What this means is that every action, from swinging your sword to casting a magic spell, spends stamina or some equivalent thereof. Stamina recharges automatically as long as you aren't doing anything strenuous. Secondly, these games have you collecting a universal currency that is used both to buy items from merchants as well as to unlock upgrades for your character. This currency is collected by defeating enemies, but if the player's character dies for any reason, they drop all unspent currency that they were carrying on their person. This is not the end however, for if the player returns to where they died, they can recover the lost currency and add it to whatever they got in the time since their previous death.

Thirdly, games of this nature give you a limited number of healing items  which refill automatically when you rest at a checkpoint. Fourthly, the main method of progression involves exploring labyrinthine levels in search of boss monsters to fight, either because they block the way to the next level or because they have an item you need for something. The boss monsters will more often than not be the highlight of the game, and most Souls Likes live and die by the quality of their boss battles. And finally, Souls Like games like to be cryptic and mysterious in their story-telling, often hiding story-relevant information in the descriptions of collectibles, hidden details in the environment or easily missed conversations with the occasional friendly bystander. There are other things that most Souls Likes have in common, such as a poison swamp level or a "level up lady" but the five points are the most common characteristics. Additionally, a Souls Like doesn't need to do all five of these things to "count" as one, though it does need to do at least three of them. All of this is important because Souls Likes sadly cannot be judged in a vacuum. Any time a new Souls Like releases, the question on everyone's mind is always "Is it as good as From Software's stuff?" After all, From Software's style is so specific and niche that anything imitating it will have no choice but to compete against its inspiration. So expect me to make comparisons frequently in this review. 

Lies of P takes place in the City of Krat, a bustling metropolis that discovered a borderline magical source of energy called Ergo. An inventor by the name of Geppetto used the Ergo to create puppets so advanced that not only can they move around without the aid of strings, they can even develop minds of their own. In other words, the puppets are basically robots in all but name. So naturally, the citizens of Krat use the Puppets for manual labor. Construction work, law enforcement, house cleaning, things along those lines. There was just one problem. An incident known as the Puppet Frenzy led to the overwhelming majority of puppets going rogue and killing their masters. There is only one thing that can stop the puppets, which is ironically, another puppet. So a mysterious fairy named Sophia awakens Geppetto's magnum opus, a concerningly lifelike puppet boy named Pinocchio, and orders him to destroy all the other puppets and save Krat from total annihilation. The game starts here.

Like almost every Souls Like, Lies of P starts with the player choosing a class. There's only three to choose from, and the decision admittedly is not that important. The classes determine what weapon Pinocchio starts the game with and what his starting stats are, though he can acquire the other weapons later. And unlike every other Souls Like in existence, Lies of P has no minimal stat requirements. As soon as you pick up a weapon, you can start using it. It may not do that much damage if your stats aren't leveled up properly, but the fact that every weapon is at least usable the moment you pick it up is a nice quality of life feature. Speaking of stats, one minor critique I have is that the stats are oddly named and not exactly intuitive at first glance. Let me give you an idea of what I mean. In most Souls Likes, there's a stat that improves your character's skill with heavyweight weapons like war hammers and great swords, a stat that improves lightweight weapons like bows and daggers, and a stat that improves magic. These stats are usually named Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence, or at least some synonym for those three terms. Lies of P calls these stats Motivity, Technique and Advance. These stat names don't exactly roll off the tongue that well. Again, this is a minor nitpick.

Pinocchio running towards a monster called a Carcass. Image found on SteamDB.info

Lies of P has the aforementioned stamina-based combat system alongside a few quirks. Firstly and most obviously, you can mix and match different weapon parts to make new weapons entirely. Almost every weapon you can find has two parts, a blade and a handle. The handle changes what attacks and combos you can perform with the weapon while the blade changes the range and type of damage. This is honestly a brilliant system. If you like the move set on one weapon but need to change your damage type to counter a particularly challenging enemy or boss, all you have to do is swap out the blade for something else. Heck, there are some weapons with really good blades but really lame handles, almost begging you to try switching the blades onto something else. For example, the Salamander Dagger is a superheated knife. It's one of the first weapons you get that can deal fire damage, but the Dagger suffers from lack of range. But say you put the blade of the Dagger on the Handle of something like a spear, and suddenly the dagger's blade is now a superheated spearhead. Another example, the Great Sword of Fate has one of the longest and damaging blades in the game, but normally is very slow. But if you put that blade on a rapier's handle, your attacks will become a lot faster without sacrificing power or reach.

The second quirk of Lies of P's combat is its parry and stagger system. There are three ways of preventing damage; blocking, parrying and dodging. Blocking is the easiest to do. Just hold down the appropriate button and Pinocchio will use his current weapon as a makeshift shield. If he gets hit while in this stance, he'll lose some health (but not as much as he would if the hit was unblocked). Parrying is much better than blocking but is more challenging to do consistently. Basically, tap (don't hold) the block button right before the attack hits Pinocchio and he will deflect it perfectly. This does no damage to him at all, builds up Stagger (which stuns the enemy when maxed out) and even has a chance to break the enemy's weapon. Dodging is simply running or jumping out of the way. This also doesn't hurt Pinocchio in any way. In fact, from the start of the animation to the end of it, Pinocchio is invincible. Which means that if you time it right, you can dodge through enemy attacks and follow up with a counterattack of your own. Mastering this game's combat relies on being able to tell which attacks are safe to block, which ones are easy to parry, and which ones can be dodged through. Most enemies and bosses have what are called Fury Attacks, where their body glows bright red right before delivering their most dangerous attack. Fury Attacks cannot be blocked, but they can be parried and dodged.

The third quirk of Lies of P's combat is how it handles healing. At first glance, Pulse Cells (this game's main healing item) works like any other Souls Like heal. It's limited in use but recharges when resting at a checkpoint. What makes Lies of P unique is that if you run completely out of Pulse Cells, you can recharge one of them if you land/block/parry enough hits while fighting enemies and bosses. This is a perfect compromise between the limited healing of the subgenre's standards and the more forgiving healing items of Bloodborne. It also allows you to be more frivolous with your healing, because if you're good enough at the game you can just recharge your Pulse Cell mid-battle.

The final quirk of the combat is the Legion Arm. Pinocchio's left arm is the only part of him that is truly mechanical, and as such it can be customized with various gadgets, Sekiro style. The Legion Arm gadgets are the game's equivalent of magic spells, being either long range projectiles or utility powers meant to compliment specific fighting styles. These gadgets can range from a grappling hook that can pull enemies towards you (or vice versa), a shield that greatly enhances blocking, or a literal handgun. Legion Arms have limited energy, however, so they should be used sparingly. Additionally, only one Legion Arm can be equipped at a time, unless you unlock an upgrade that removes this restriction. Speaking of upgrades, in addition to Ergo as the main currency, there's a second currency called Quartz. Quartz can be used to unlock more specialized upgrades like extra Pulse Cells and a higher chance to stun enemies. Quartz can be found in treasure chests or as a reward for completing side quests.

Pinocchio being given the choice to lie or tell the truth about an aging woman's appearance. Image found on IGN.com

The main thing setting Lies of P apart from other Souls Likes is the way it handles dialogue and morality. Arguably the most well-known thing about Pinocchio is that his nose grows whenever he tells a lie. This game's Pinocchio technically doesn't do that, though his shadow does get longer with each lie. Multiple times throughout the game, the player needs to choose whether or not to tell the truth. To make sure the player can't cheat and look up the consequences for lying or speaking honestly, the game puts a 10 second time limit to pick a truth or lie. You would think that telling the truth would be the "morally good" option every time, considering this game is supposed to be a Pinocchio adaptation. But Lies of P has a hidden stat called Humanity, which not only determines how close Pinocchio gets to becoming a real boy, it also determines which ending you get. You gain Humanity in one of four ways; telling lies, solving riddles, listening to music records and helping your friends with their problems. Telling lies is the easiest way to gain Humanity, and the game's best possible ending requires you to be 90% Human or better. You don't need to tell a lie EVERY time if you want this ending, though doing so is the easiest way to get that much Humanity in the first place. 

That being said, the lies in this game aren't particularly malicious. Most of the time, when Lies of P's Pinocchio lies, he does so to avoid hurting someone's feelings or to protect someone else. I think the best moment that showcases how lying can be a "good" thing in the right context is a side quest involving a sickly grandmother. She is dying of an illness called the Petrification Disease and wants to see her baby grandson one last time before she passes. The real grandson is dead, murdered by rogue puppets. However, Pinocchio can find a defunct, baby-shaped puppet and pretend that it's her real grandson. The grandmother is going blind because of her illness and can't tell the difference. But in this instance, Pinocchio lies to give this poor woman some much needed closure in her dying moments. 

Another example of how lying can be a "good" thing is when first meeting a shady merchant named Alidoro. Alidoro is this game's version of Honest John, a talking fox that deceived the original story's Pinocchio with delusions of fame and stardom. Here, Alidoro is a merchant wearing a canine mask who asks you where Hotel Krat is. Hotel Krat is the main hub world of Lies of P, and all of Pinocchio's friends take shelter there as it's the only real safe zone. Lady Antonia, the owner of the hotel, explicitly told Pinocchio not to let any strangers find the hotel. So in this case, Pinocchio lies about the hotel's location to protect his friends from a dangerous-looking stranger. Alidoro still finds the hotel no matter what, it just takes him longer to do so if you lie to him. 

One thing I need to mention about Lies of P is that has a few quality of life features that made the experience much more manageable. You see, Souls Likes have a reputation for being really hard. And some nerds online get real mad if you suggest ideas to make the experience more enjoyable out of a misguided fear that such features would "ruin the challenge." Lies of P is a hard game, but its quality of life features don't ruin the challenge. They make getting back to the fun parts after a Game Over less stressful. Here's an example. This game's currency is called Ergo. You get Ergo every time you destroy a puppet or kill a living creature. You lose Ergo if Pinocchio dies. But say you die to a boss. In most Souls Likes, you would need to scramble to the exact spot in the boss arena you died previously to get your currency back. In Lies of P,  lost Ergo is placed just before the entrance of the boss arena, completely removing the added hassle of getting your stuff back while a boss tries to squish you like a bug. Like most Souls Likes, there are optional side quests where you help the few friendly characters with a problem. Unlike most Souls Likes, Lies of P puts special icons on the level select menu to remind you of those side quest objectives. Now this isn't perfect, because if you never meet the character face-to-face and progress the story too far, they might leave before you can even talk to them. But once you actually find the side characters and talk to them, you don't have to worry about forgetting where they are or what they want. If you really struggle with a specific boss, you can summon an entity called the Specter to assist you. The only time you can't summon the Specter is during the first boss (the Parade Master) and the final boss, as you are expected to deal with that on your own.

But this brings me to my biggest criticism of Lies of P and the primary reason I cannot justify giving it a 5 star rating. This game doesn't have a pause button. I can forgive Bloodborne, Elden Ring and the Dark Souls trilogy for not having a pause button. But I cannot forgive Lies of P for not having the ability to pause the game. Why, you ask? Contrary to what sweaty edge lords on the Internet will tell you, the Souls Borne series not having a normal pause button is NOT a deliberate design choice on From Software's part. It was a necessary sacrifice because of the unpredictable nature of Souls Borne multiplayer. In From Software's games, another player can summon you into their world (or vice versa) either to help out with a boss battle or to challenge you to a duel. This can happen at any time, thus every player's game needs to be compatible with an "always-online" server, and thus the game can't be paused reliably. After all, how can you get hundreds of thousands of players across the world to pause the game as a community? The answer is you can't. Thus, the pause feature was axed from the Souls Borne series. Lies of P doesn't have ANY multiplayer components to speak of whatsoever. Which means that Neowiz and/or Round8 either forgot to include a pause feature or they excluded it deliberately in a misguided attempt to make the game harder. The former scenario would be outrageously amateurish for what is otherwise an extremely well polished game. The latter scenario tells me that Neowiz values the opinion of the aforementioned sweaty edge lords too much. It's especially bizarre because the previously mentioned quality of life features prove that the devs not only like Souls Likes, but took the time to find ways to make the experience smoother. You would not believe the number of times I had to forfeit a boss battle because something in real life needed my attention, something that could have been solved with a pause feature.

Speaking of bosses, Lies of P has about 27 bosses in total. And overall, I'd say it's a fairly good lineup. Generally speaking, all enemies in this game are divided into three categories. Humans, Puppets and Carcasses. What's a Carcass, you ask? Mild spoilers here, but the Puppets aren't the only creatures powered by Ergo. If a human who was infected with the Petrification Disease consumes Ergo, they are cured of the disease, but start mutating into a hideous monster called a Carcass. Basically, Carcasses are magical zombies. These categories are important to remember because certain weapons and items do more damage to one category than the others. Puppets take extra damage from electrical weapons, while Humans and Carcasses take more damage from fiery and acidic weapons, respectively. But anyway, I generally prefer the Puppets and Humans as far aesthetics go. The Puppet enemies are all wonderfully designed and are wholly unique to Lies of P, being robotic abominations whose limbs and bend and rotate in ways no human can. Human enemies are the rarest of the bunch, and almost all of them are based on characters from the original Pinocchio story. But Carcasses feel the least "unique" of the bunch, as most of them look like fairly stereotypical From Software monsters. Which is to say, lots of body horror and grotesque monstrosities.

Unfortunately, there are bosses I think are annoying and could benefit from a rework. For example, one boss that I didn't really care for is Laxasia the Complete. This warrior woman is a two phase battle. In fact, most bosses in this game have two phases. The problem is that First Phase Laxasia and Second Phase Laxasia feel like two completely different bosses that were crudely combined together. In her first phase, Laxasia is an armored knight who swings a big heavy great sword around. She occasionally supercharges her sword swings with lightning and her armor leaves her invincible from behind (forcing you to fight her head on), but is otherwise inoffensive with easy to learn attack patterns and no annoying gimmicks. She's not too easy, not too difficult. 

But in her second phase, Laxasia removes her armor, equips a shield and starts moving around with the speed of an anime character. The rhythm of the fight completely changes, and not for the better. She moves around so fast she might as well be teleporting, and she can now fly so high up in the air that the camera struggles to keep her in view. Honestly, you could split these two phases into separate bosses, with Second Phase Laxasia being some kind of optional super boss placed at the end of a hidden level, and the whole game would have a better boss roster. I mean, Laxasia is already doing the whole "beautiful warrior woman who is much harder to defeat than any other boss in the game" thing that From Software likes doing in their own games. The difference is that From Software makes their "beautiful warrior women" bosses optional and puts them at the end of a hidden level. Laxasia meanwhile is absolutely mandatory, with no way to skip over her fight if you want to progress the story.

The introduction to the Black Rabbit Brotherhood, one of the main bosses of the game. Image found SteamDB.info

But you know who doesn't need a rework? The Black Rabbit Brotherhood. This is easily my favorite boss in the game, both because of their design and because of the battle itself. First a little bit of context. In Krat, there is a group of elite warriors called the Stalkers. The Stalkers were formed to be an anti-puppet militia force in the event the puppets turned hostile. The Black Rabbit Brotherhood were a group of Stalkers that went rogue, and now they antagonize human and puppet alike in the name of causing mischief. The battle itself is a what's called a gank fight, where you must face multiple opponents simultaneously. Unlike most gank fights in the Souls Like subgenre, the Black Rabbit Brotherhood is actually fun. A problem with a lot of gank fights in other Souls Likes is that it is difficult to learn attack patterns when there are three or more attacks coming at you at the same time, all from different directions. The Black Rabbit Brotherhood circumvents this problem by doing two things. First, only the Eldest Brother has a health bar, meaning that you have to concentrate on him specifically in order to defeat the whole Brotherhood. Secondly, the younger Brothers (of which there are three) drop in one at a time and leave after a short while, ensuring that you only have to fight an absolute maximum of two Brothers at a time.

Also, the Black Rabbit Brotherhood is one of the few bosses that gets a rematch. The rematch plays out in the reverse order of the first battle, with the younger Brothers attacking first and the Eldest only joining the fray once the younger Brothers have been defeated. But even in the rematch, the younger Brothers take turns fighting you and are generally passive when it's not their turn yet. I think the devs knew deep down that the Black Rabbit Brotherhood was the best fight in the game, as not only do they get a rematch in the first place, but these guys were all over the pre-release marketing. They even have what is by far the coolest intro cinematic in not just the game, but possibly out of all Souls Likes. These goofy mad hatter-looking rabbit boys start their fight in the rain, carrying a literal open coffin with the word "LIAR" spray painted on the inside, and they invite Pinocchio into it as a morbid taunt. The Black Rabbit Brotherhood manages to be the perfect blend of stylish and intimidating.

On the subject of level design, Lies of P is oddly linear. Most levels are a narrow set of paths with the occasional shortcut to an earlier part of the level. That being said, I like how the levels make enough sense geographically that you can see previous or upcoming levels in the distance if you can get to a high enough vantage point. Speaking of presentation, let's get the most obvious thing about this game out of the way. This version of Pinocchio looks like an anime pretty boy. In fact, this is by far the least puppet-like interpretation of the character. I know that Humanity is supposed to represent the process of becoming a real boy, but Pinocchio looks like he's 3/4ths of the way there already. Literally the only thing robotic or mechanical about his appearance is his left arm. This isn't exactly a criticism, it's just an observation. Neowiz legally cannot make their version of Pinocchio look like the Disney version nor can they use something similar to Guillermo del Toro's design. While the concept of Pinocchio is public domain, specific designs of the character are not. Essentially, you can make your own version of a living Italian puppet, as long as your living Italian puppet doesn't look like Disney's version. Or Guillermo del Toro's version. Thus, we got anime pretty boy Pinocchio. 

In terms of music and sound design, Lies of P has what might just be the best soundtrack in Souls Like history. Not because of the regular boss battle music, which is about you expect for a game of this nature (intense orchestra with vaguely Latin sounding choirs). But because of the music records. I previously mentioned that listening to music records gives you Humanity. Speaking as a firm believer that making art (both visual and audible) is one of the most important aspects of the human experience, I approve of the implication that listening to music makes your more human. Jokes aside, the record songs are all brilliantly performed classical symphonies. Not all the songs have lyrics, but some of them do. Some of the songs are even sung in French. The main highlight of the soundtrack is a song called Feel. It's one of the first records you can find, and it leaves quite the first impression. Feel is a somber melody performed mostly by piano with some jazz instruments to back up the pianist and the lead singer. Feel is the closest thing Lies of P has to a theme song, and whenever I heard the song I felt the need to stop what I was doing and just enjoy the tranquility of the music.

Pinocchio being grabbed by the Scrapped Watchmen, one of the first bosses encountered. Image found on SteamDB.info

The actual sound effects are also quite good. Just to give a few examples, the parry sound effect is a crisp and clear *clang* and walking on different surfaces (wood, stone, metal et cetera) produces different footstep sounds. One sound effect that I particularly like is Pinocchio's various noises. Pinocchio is pretty much a mute protagonist, only speaking when the player is given the option to pick a truth or lie. But when he's fighting, you can hear different grunts as he uses his weapons and dodges enemy attacks. These grunts sound mechanical when Pinocchio is low on Humanity and gradually sound more organic and "natural" as his Humanity increases. The voice acting is also surprisingly competent. The main highlight of voice acting has to go to Arlecchino, the King of Riddles. He sounds a little goofy when you first encounter him as he speaks almost entirely in rhyme. But after you learn that he's (technically) responsible for every bad thing that happened in Krat, he becomes a lot more sinister. I also like Venigni the Inventor, who speaks with an over-the-top Italian accent and is the only character who speaks with said accent.

There's one last thing I want to say about the game before I share my final thoughts. Lies of P has a New Game Plus mode, letting you replay the entire game with a fully upgraded Pinocchio. To make sure that the game is still a challenge, every boss receives a boost to their health and damage output. There are also special Golden Records that can only be collected in New Game Plus mode, and these songs are remixes of preexisting songs. The other big change in New Game Plus is that the captions are changed slightly. You see, in a first playthrough, whenever any of the Puppet bosses speak, it sounds like robotic gibberish and the subtitles get distorted into an incomprehensible mess. In New Game Plus, the captions are fixed, you can now understand what the Puppet bosses are saying as they fight you. The actual plot of the game won't change, but it is a neat idea.

Overall, Lies of P is a great Souls Like. It does a lot of things right, both in terms of innovating on the Souls Like formula, and in terms of being a new adaptation of a classic fairy tale. But the inability to pause the game (and with no multiplayer functions to justify its absence) does drag down the game's overall quality. Despite that glaring issue, the rest of the game is polished enough to be a worthwhile experience. Ignoring the game's status as a Souls Like for a second here, it's the best Pinocchio game I've ever played. Granted, it's the ONLY Pinocchio game I've played. And truth be told, the sales pitch being so absurd yet taken so seriously is what drew me to the game in the first place. But either way, I give Lies of P 4 stars out of 5. I'd love to see what Neowiz does next, especially since the devs have expressed interest in doing Souls Like adaptations of other fairy tales. Mild spoilers here, but after the credits roll Lies of P ends with a teaser for a Wizard of Oz themed Souls Like starring Dorothy. And personally, taking classic fairy tale characters and filtering them through the lens of dark fantasy and gothic horror is an idea I approve of.

Lies of P is the property of Round8 Studio and Neowiz. None of the images used were created by me. Please support the original creators.

Another Halloween Special: a very scary Resident Evil 4 Remake review

 It's the spooky month again. And you know what that means! Trick-or-Treating, costume parties, candy and me writing a review of a horror game. And today we are reviewing Resident Evil 4. Specifically the remake version that was released on PS5, Xbox Series X and Steam, because that's the only version of the game that I have played for myself. A quick content warning before we continue. Resident Evil is a horror franchise and as such every game in the series is rated M for Mature by the ESRB. Because of violence, swearing, disturbingly detailed zombies, body horror and cheesy one liners. Reader discretion is advised.

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But what exactly is Resident Evil 4? Released back in 2005 by Capcom as a Nintendo GameCube exclusive, Resident Evil 4 (often shortened to RE4 for the sake of brevity) is the fourth main title in the Resident Evil franchise. Resident Evil is, along side its rival series Silent Hill, the grandfather of the horror game genre. Without Resident Evil and Silent Hill, there most likely wouldn't be horror games at all. Or at least, the genre would look very different without their influences. RE4 won the Game of the Year award in that same year and to this day is considered a beloved classic that anyone with even a passing interest in horror should play. What's more interesting is the fact that the game's director, Shinji Mikami, had the video game equivalent of writer's block while working on RE4. So he and his crew made four different video game demos, labeled them all RE4, released them to the public as part of a limited time event and whichever demo was most popular would become the basis for the "real" RE4. Capcom didn't want to waste the other demos, so after they figured out which demo to turn into a full Resident Evil game, the others were renamed and reused for other projects. And that's how we got Devil May Cry.

Resident Evil 4 Remake is well, a remake of the original RE4. Released in 2023, the remake was made because Capcom's current big project is to bring Resident Evil 1-6 up to the graphical standards established by Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, as well as to expand on the story and gameplay. They've already released remakes for the first three games, and while longtime fans may have their gripes with the third remake, the general consensus is that they are at least as good as their original counterparts. While Shinji Mikami did not work on RE4 Remake (the role of director instead went to Yasuhiro Anpo and Kazunori Kaboi), he did state on his personal Twitter/X account that he "enjoyed it very much." An important disclaimer for this review. I never played the original RE4 myself. My only personal experience is with the remake. That being said, I did some research beforehand and will mention any major differences between the original and the remake when necessary.

In Resident Evil 4, you play as Leon S. Kennedy. Leon was one of the main protagonists of RE2 and RE4 serves as a direct continuation of Leon's story. While you don't need to play RE1 or RE3 to understand this game's story, doing a little research on the events of RE2 would help. Anyway, Leon was a police officer stationed in a fictional USA town called Raccoon City. In 1998, Raccoon City had the bad luck of being infected with the T-Virus, a rabies-like affliction that basically turns people into zombies. This virus was created by the Umbrella Corporation, who released it deliberately along with a bunch of other bio-weapons as part of an eugenics experiment. The CEO of Umbrella, Albert Wesker, believes it is his destiny to breed a generation of perfect superhumans that can survive in a post-zombified world, and is more than happy to throw away the lives of millions of people in the name of that destiny. Because of the T-Virus, 90% of Raccoon City's population was transformed into hideous monsters and the remaining 10% were forced to fight for their lives. Leon was one of the few survivors of the T-Virus incident. And the worst part about all of this is that everything I just described happened on Leon's first day in the service. That has to be like, the worst luck ever. Imagine getting a job and showing up to your first day of work only for your city to get overrun with zombies. Anyway, Leon managed to escape Raccoon City, which was then blasted with hydrogen bombs to keep the Virus from spreading to the rest of the country.

Fast forward 6 years later, and Leon Kennedy is now a secret agent working directly for the US President himself. During those 6 years Leon received training in marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat from a military veteran known as Major Krauser. Despite his newfound skills, Leon is still haunted by the events of his previous adventure. But Leon doesn't mope around and whine about his trauma, he just pours himself even deeper into his work as a coping mechanism. Speaking of Leon's new job, The President's daughter, Ashley Graham, is kidnapped by a Spanish cult called Los Illuminados. This cult somehow found a bunch of parasites that let's them make monsters of their own, and they plan to put a parasite in Ashley's body. It's up to Leon to track down the cult, stop their schemes and save Ashley. Complicating this mission is a run in with Ada Wong and Luis Serra. Ada is a femme fatale spy who Leon once had feelings for. They kind of have a Batman/Catwoman thing going on. But why is Ada in Spain? For reasons I won't spoil. Luis meanwhile is a former Umbrella employee who was studying the parasites that Los Illuminados use. That said, Luis seems to regret his involvement with Umbrella and promises to assist Leon on his mission as a means of atonement.

Resident Evil 4's story campaign takes place in three main locations; the Village, the Castle and the Island. Leon always starts in the Village and cannot access the other two locations until he makes significant progress in the story. But in the meantime, Leon has to deal with all sorts of monsters and villains. RE4 is heavily combat focused. And this is an important distinction because how much combat a horror game even has tends to vary on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking, horror games can fit on a sliding scale of combat focus. Games like Resident Evil and Dead Space are the extreme end of extensive combat in a horror setting. Games like Five Nights at Freddy's and Outlast are at the extreme end of no combat at all in a horror setting. Every other horror game exists between those two extremes. Which style is better is a matter of opinion. Combat-heavy horror games can have enjoyment outside of the scares, and allowing the player to defend themselves against weaker monsters makes the *main* monsters scarier by comparison when their weapons suddenly stop working on the main threat. That being said, letting the player fight back might reduce the tension that the horror game is trying to build up. Combat-less horror is scarier on a first impression, since not being able to defend yourself at all is inherently scary. However, once the player knows where all the scares are the game becomes a glorified haunted house. It might be spooky, but predictable.

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Leon starts the game armed with a custom handgun called the SG-09 R and a combat knife, but he can find more exotic weapons throughout his adventure. These can include shotguns, sniper rifles, grenades, SMGs, and even a rocket launcher. In fact, there are so many different weapons to use that you could play the game three different times, each time using different guns, and have a wildly different experience each time. Because of the weapon variety, RE4 has a lot more replay value than other horror games. Heck, you could do a playthrough with just the SG-09 R and have a great time, because unlike every other video game in existence, the starter pistol is a genuinely good weapon that will serve you well from the start of the game all the way to the end of it. But every gun has some kind of unique benefit to it. The Punisher handgun does less damage than the SG-09 R but its bullets can pierce through shields and damage multiple enemies with one shot, provide they are standing in a row. The Red 9 handgun is basically a pistol sized shotgun, with tremendous firepower at close range but horrific recoil and below-average accuracy. But some guns, like the Red 9, can be enhanced by attaching additional parts to them. In the case of the Red 9, you can attach a stock to it to reduce the recoil.

Another important aspect of RE4's combat is knowing where to shoot enemies specifically. Headshots do more damage than body shots, obviously. But shooting an enemy in the knees will immobilize them, allowing you to finish them off with a melee attack. This attack will be either a roundhouse kick if performed in front of the immobilized enemy, or a literal suplex when performed from behind. This is actually the most cost effective method of fighting enemies. Ammo is limited, and the less ammo you waste the better. In my experience, shooting the knees and following up with a melee attack is the method that uses the least amount of ammo. It's also debatably the most stylish method of combat. Of course, this does not apply to bosses, or four-legged enemies, or to Regeneradors (more on them later.) Also, the knee shot method works best with handguns and SMGs. Shotguns and (most) rifles are so powerful that they can blow limbs completely off an enemy's body, which the game counts as an outright kill.

New to the remake is Leon's combat knife. Well, sort of. He had a knife in the original, but it was reworked to make melee combat more engaging. The knife gives Leon two different melee attacks, a sweeping slash and forward lunge. But more importantly, it allows Leon to parry enemy attacks and break free from enemy grapples. Some enemies like to grab Leon in an attempt to strangle him. Under normal circumstances, the player would need to mash the X button (or the equivalent thereof) to break free. But if Leon has a knife, he can skip this whole process and get a free stab on whoever just grabbed him. The reworked knife is the biggest difference between the original game and the remake. In fact, the knife is so important that there is literally an entire boss battle dedicated to knife-fighting. The only downside of the knife is that it has limited durability and will break if used too frequently. However, if Leon is carrying an extra knife, he will automatically switch to that knife when his main one breaks. Additionally, Leon's main knife can be repaired by a mysterious stranger called the Merchant in exchange for Pesetas, the main currency of this game. 

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The Merchant can be found in (almost) every safe room. Think of safe rooms as checkpoints. You can save your progress in them, and most enemies cannot enter them. They are the only places that are truly safe. The Merchant will sell you all sorts of items. From crafting materials to new weapons. The Merchant can also upgrade the weapons you already have by improving the power of each shot, the ammo capacity, the reload speed or the rate of fire. Obviously some guns are going to be better at different things, but the upgrades can really close the distance in effectiveness. For example, the Blacktail handgun normally does a lot less damage than the Red 9. But fully upgraded in power, it becomes the second most powerful handgun in the game in addition to having superior accuracy, fire rate and reload speed. At that point the only advantage the Red 9 has over the Blacktail is that it can kill enemies using one less bullet.

The most important thing you need to remember is that Leon's inventory is limited. He has an attaché case that he can store everything in. Guns, ammo, healing items, crafting ingredients, even those additional weapon parts. Because of this, weapons with additional parts might be more powerful than average, but are balanced by taking up a lot more space in the case, thus preventing you from carrying additional items. You can rearrange the positioning of these items to make room for more in a process similar to playing Tetris. But if you can't make room for an item in the attaché case, you cannot carry it at all. You can combine two or more items together to make new items entirely, which also has the side effect of taking up less space than the sum of the item's parts. This is actually how you get most of your ammo. While you can find ammo lying around in barrels and crates, most of the time the only bullets you have are the ones you craft yourself. Each weapon also only takes ammo for its associated category. Handguns can only use handgun ammo, shotguns can only use shotgun shells, rifles can only use rifle ammo, et cetera. The one exception to this rule is the rocket launcher, on account that it's a one use only weapon. The rocket launcher is the strongest weapon in the game and can kill anything with one shot, up to and including the final boss. The downside is that not only does the rocket launcher take up more than half of Leon's inventory, it only has one shot. Once you fire the rocket launcher, that's it. You're not getting another shot with it for the rest of the game.

Resident Evil 4 sports a nice variety in enemy monster designs. You start off with basic villagers armed with torches and pitchforks, and then the monsters get gradually crazier as you progress. Just to give a few examples, Leon can encounter rabid dogs with tentacles erupting from their backs, chainsaw-wielding maniacs, cultists with man-eating worms for heads, literal zombified giants and the Regeneradors. The Regeneradors are my "favorite" enemy because their design is incredibly nightmarish and watching them slither around like a demented snake makes my skin crawl. Also, they can rapidly heal from any injury up to and including decapitation, with the only way to kill them being to destroy 3-5 hidden parasites in their torso. Regeneradors are scary because not only do they fall in the uncanny valley (looking almost human but not quite perfect), they are by far the most dangerous standard enemy type. Be thankful that game waits until you reach the Island before throwing these blubbery menaces at you.

You know how I said that Leon's main goal is to rescue Ashley? Well, he accomplishes that goal. Surprisingly early. So early in fact that this plot point isn't even considered a spoiler. But there's just one problem. Leaving the territory of Los Illuminados is far, far more difficult than entering it. Which means that until Leon and Ashley can find an escape route, you the player have to make sure both of them stay alive. Ashley is sometimes playable for brief solo adventures, but most of the time she is a non-playable companion who will follow Leon automatically. She has no weapons or combat skills to speak of. If she gets hit by any enemy, she will be incapacitated until Leon helps her back on her feet. If she gets hit while incapacitated, she will die and you will get a Game Over. Additionally, some enemies will try and grab Ashley to carry her away. If she gets carried too far away from Leon, she will be recaptured and you will get another Game Over. The other biggest change from original to remake is that Ashley has also been reworked. In the original game, she had a limited health pool that could only be refilled by "sacrificing" some of your own healing items to her. Now, her health refills by itself as long as she isn't incapacitated or being carried away. This change was made with the intention of making the "escort Ashley" sections easier. After all, the less healing items you use on Ashley, the more you have to heal up Leon.

In both the original and the remake, you can give Ashley simple commands. Things like "Stay Here" "Hide" or "Run Away." In the remake specifically, you can tell Ashley to follow Leon in either a "tight" formation or a "loose" formation. The former makes so that Ashley will try her best to stay right behind Leon's back at all times. The latter makes her keep her distance from Leon, but she will still stay close enough to have a line of sight to him. The tight formation is good for running through dangerous areas or through enemy hordes you don't have the resources to fight properly. The loose formation is good for giving Leon the breathing room he needs to actually fight off said enemies. You can also give Ashley context-sensitive commands like "hold this button down" or "hide in this specific locker." Every time the game lets you put Ashley in a locker (which is a wild thing to say without context) it usually means  there's about to be a fight against a strong enemy, like one of the aforementioned chainsaw maniacs, or even worse, a Regenerador.

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But now I want to talk about Leon Kennedy himself, because he is very much the star of the show. In the original game, Leon became infamous for spouting cheesy, 80's action hero style one liners like "No thanks, BRO!" and "Where's everybody going? Bingo?" Most of said one-liners have since become memes in the Resident Evil fan community.  And to be fair, the original Resident Evil were meant to be campy, since the franchise started out as a love letter to 70's and 80's era horror movies. The remakes take themselves more seriously in comparison. Don't get me wrong, though. Leon still says funny one-liners and does outrageous action hero stunts like back flips and suplexes on literal zombies. But in the remake, his cheesy action hero vibes are contrasted against the nightmarish horrors he encounters. And you know what? It works. Especially if you buy in to the idea that Leon's antics are a coping mechanism for all the stuff he went through back in Resident Evil 2. But one thing I adore about Remake-Leon's personality is that he acts more annoyed than scared by the aforementioned monstrosities. He does react with disgust at things like occult shrines and new enemy types, but every time after that initial surprise he's like "Oh great, it's these guys again." Which is honestly just as funny as the original's one liners.

Ashley on the other hand is scared out of her mind and reacts with appropriate levels of terror at every other monster. Which makes sense for her situation. She's been kidnapped by a cult, is trapped in a foreign country, has a dormant parasite in her body and her dad thought that sending only one guy to rescue her was enough. She is very lucky that the one guy that the President sent was Leon Kennedy. One of the few gripes I heard other people having with the original game was that Ashley's voice was annoying. Though perhaps it wasn't necessarily the voice and more the fact that in the original game she screams "LEON HELP!!!" every time an enemy so much as looks in her general direction. She still screams a lot (as a civilian in a horror franchise is wont to do) but I never found her to be annoying. This may be a Remake thing making the character more likable or it may be me not having any biases from experiencing the original game. I don't know.

One quick note before we continue talking about the story. Resident Evil 4 Remake has DLC. One DLC pack is free, the other is a paid expansion. The free DLC is titled The Mercenaries and is a non-canon minigame where you try to kill as many enemies as possible within a time limit. The game actually gives you a spoiler warning the first time you boot up the minigame, both because it features end-game locations as arenas and because it spoils the identity of one of the main villains. But this game mode is neat because it lets you play as other characters besides Leon such as Ada, Major Krauser, Luis and even Albert Wesker. There's also HUNK, a masked soldier that is not encountered in the main story in any capacity, but he's the closest thing the RE franchise has to a mascot, which is why he's here. Each character comes with a different set of weapons meant to encourage a specific fighting style. For example, Leon and Ada are both generalists who don't excel in anything but aren't particularly bad at anything either. They both have a pistol and a shotgun. Leon gets a semi automatic rifle unique to him in this game mode, while Ada gets a crossbow and a grappling hook, the latter of which lets her perform long range melee attacks by pulling herself towards stunned enemies. Major Krauser goes all in on melee combat, sporting a custom knife that's pretty much unbreakable as well as explosive arrows and an SMG to deal with big groups. Luis meanwhile is meant to be a sniper, with a bolt-action rifle and a Red 9 handgun giving him very good damage per shot at the expense of speed and mobility. HUNK gets an SMG and a pocket knife as his only weapons, but he can perform a neck snap on any stunned or immobilized enemy to kill them instantly. Albert Wesker is a master of parries. In fact, he's so good at parrying enemy attacks that he doesn't need a knife to do so, and every time he does parry an enemy attack he automatically performs a one-hit kill move. He has both a pistol and a magnum to deal with the few threats can can't be parried. 

The last main mechanic of The Mercenaries is Mayhem Mode. This is a temporary super move that is unique to each character. Leon and Ada's Mayhem Mode just improves their damage and movement speed. Luis' lets him plant dynamite to blow up a large group of enemies at once. Krauser's is a spoiler-filled transformation that supercharges his already impressive melee attacks. HUNK's Mayhem Mode gives his SMG infinite ammo, thus letting him literally melt anyone standing in his way. And finally, Albert Wesker gains the ability to literally teleport right to any enemy in his field of vision and unleash a barrage of punches and kicks. It looks like something pulled straight out of an anime. While there is a time limit in The Mercenaries, you can extend it by either collecting green orbs hidden in each arena, killing enemies with headshots or with melee attacks. However, the game mode is NOT endless. After 150 kills, the game ends automatically and you are given the highest score possible for your troubles.

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The second DLC, Separate Ways, is a (probably) canon side story where you get to play as Ada Wong, with her adventure happening alongside Leon's. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to play Separate Ways yet, so I cannot speak of its quality in good faith. I might write a mini-review for Separate Ways in the future. But here's as good a place as any to reveal why Ada is in the Los Illuminados compound. Ada is working for Albert Wesker. Yes, the same guy who doomed Raccoon City. Wesker wants an item called the Amber, which contains the dormant egg of one of the cult's parasites. He wants to combine the parasite with his zombie viruses to create undead superhumans. But Ada does eventually change her mind about working for a man who casually brags about how his plan will cause the deaths of not just millions of people, but billions. So she does agree to help Leon stop the cult and eventually disposes of the Amber so that it will never be used for evil ever again.

Okay, now we get into the realm of spoilers, because I want to talk about the villains. Los Illuminados is led by a cult leader named Osmund Saddler. Saddler was infected with the original parasite, and with it he can effectively mind control anyone who has another parasite in their body. There doesn't seem to be a limit to the range of his possession, in fact the entire cult is infected with parasites, implying that every enemy you face is being mind controlled all at the same time. His entire evil plan is to infect Ashley, use her as a sleeper agent to infect the President with another parasite, and then rule the United States from the shadows by mind-controlling the U.S. leadership. Funnily enough, in the original game, Saddler himself explains his plan in a stereotypical villainous monologue. In the remake, It's Luis who tells Leon why Saddler wants to put parasites in people.

Speaking of Luis, I like him. He's this smooth talking, kind of sleazy but still charming scoundrel who despite being "just" an Umbrella researcher, can keep up with Leon. In fact, there's a boss battle against two zombified giants (called El Gigante) where Leon and Luis have to work together to bring the giants down. He reminds me of Han Solo from Star Wars, just with a Spanish accent. Luis is a scoundrel who provides much of the humor and comic relief for the game. But honestly speaking, Luis is the true unsung hero of RE4. He alone was able to figure out how to remove the parasites without killing the victim. Meaning that without Luis' help, even if Leon and Ashley escaped Los Illuminados, Ashley would be doomed to mutate into some kind of freaky monster and bring about the apocalypse. Unfortunately, spoilers for this next section, but Luis does not live to see the fruits of his labor. He is sadly killed off by one of the main villains, though with his dying breath he gives Leon the key to his lab so he can remove the parasite inside Ashley safely. How Luis dies changes depending on whether it's the original or the remake. In the original game, Luis is killed by Saddler. In the remake, Luis is killed by Major Krauser. It's a minor change in the grand scheme of things, but the main reason the change was made was to introduce Krauser as a villain a lot earlier than the original did.

What's the deal with Major Krauser, you ask? The answer is that he was a double agent working for Los Illuminados the whole time, and that he was the one who kidnapped Ashley in the first place. Krauser did all of this because several years ago, Krauser and his men were sent to South America for a top secret mission called Operation Javier. What Operation Javier was is never explained, outside the fact that it was a complete disaster and the US Military left Krauser's squad to die. Krauser was really mad about how the government treated his crew, and while it's possible that he sought out Los Illuminados because he wanted revenge for his fallen comrades, he currently only cares about power. And he has the exact same skills that Leon has, because he was the one who taught Leon how to fight in the first place. And if I had a nickel for every time a Capcom game had a rival character with the same skillset as the protagonist who forsakes their humanity in the name of getting more powerful, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's still weird that both Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry had this exact character archetype. But then again, if Devil May Cry started life as a RE4 demo, I'd suppose you would see similarities between the two.

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The game has a few bosses to fight, and here I need to mention a "quirk" of the Resident Evil franchise. The bosses have what Capcom calls Adaptive Difficulty, where the amount of health a boss has is proportionate to the amount of ammo and healing items you have in your inventory at the start of the battle. Regular enemies have the same amount of health no matter what. Adaptive Difficulty also effects how much ammo and money you can find in barrels and crates, with ammo appearing more frequently if you're running low and money appearing more frequently when you have a surplus. The purpose of this system is meant to encourage a "use it or lose it" mentality in the player, where you gain ammo just as quickly as you use it up. Because of this, it can take anywhere between 5-6 shots to kill a boss, or up to 50-60. Overall, I like the bosses. Major Krauser is my personal favorite. You fight him three separate times, with the first time being a standard knife fight with no guns from neither Krauser nor Leon. The second time is a gun fight where Leon is forced to navigate a booby-trapped maze while Krauser harasses him with SMG fire and explosive arrows. The third time, Krauser uses a parasite to mutate his arms into a sword and shield made of bones and meat for one last duel. And the whole time they're fighting, Leon and Krauser engage in gloriously cheesy trash talk. But no matter which version of Krauser you're fighting, you have to learn how to do the parry correctly. That's just non-negotiable. Unless you use your one and only rocket launcher shot on Krauser.

On the subject of the final boss, Osmund Saddler himself, I did not do the fight legitimately. I used my one and only rocket launcher shot on Saddler, completely skipping the final battle entirely. His monster form looks cool though. Like a giant demonic crab covered in eyeballs. One boss I do enjoy is Ramon Salazar. Salazar is an arrogant noblemen who is a fanatic follower of Saddler's cult. He mutates into what can best be described as a cross between a rose and an octopus. Salazar acts as the main villain of the Castle area, and he spends the whole time being an over-dramatic nerd. The funniest thing about Salazar is that you can completely trivialize his boss fight by throwing a golden chicken egg (an item that normally is only good for selling to the Merchant) at him. This somehow removes 75% of his health and stuns him instantly. Meaning if you're quick enough, you can just blitz Salazar with shotgun blasts and rifle shots before he can even finish his villainous monologue at the start of the fight. Which is both hilarious and good for speed running!

Speaking of speed running, Resident Evil 4 gives the player a rank at the end of each playthrough based on how well they did. This considers things like number of enemies defeated, number of Game Overs, and how quickly it took the beat the game. When I first finished the game, it took me around 33 hours to complete it. But you can very easily beat this game in 8 hours or less. The current record (at the time of writing) is roughly 1 hour and 35 minutes on Standard difficulty. Oh yeah, I should mention the different difficulty settings. In addition to Adaptive Difficulty, RE4 has four traditional difficulty options. Assisted, Standard, Hardcore and Professional. Assisted is the easiest and recommended for people unfamiliar with horror games. Standard mode is intermediate and recommended for horror game fans who have not played the original game from 2005 (aka people like me). Hardcore mode is well, hard, and is recommended for people who have already played the original game. Professional mode is the same as Hardcore but with stricter parry timings and no autosaving your progress at all. It's also unavailable at first. You need to beat the game on one of the other difficulty options before it will let you even attempt Professional mode. What the difficulty options do is adjust the amount of health that regular enemies have (bosses are unaffected because of Adaptive Difficulty). It also affects how much damage they do per attack and how quickly they move around. The higher the difficulty, the faster and deadlier enemies become. Finally, the difficulty options change how much ammo you can craft and how expensive the Merchant's wares are. 

The last thing I want to mention before talking about the presentation is the extra content. By completing certain "challenges" within the game, you can unlock a special currency called Challenge Points. These can be exchanged for nice cosmetic things like concept art, 3D models of all the different characters and weapons, and even fun little costumes for Leon and Ashley. Some of the costumes have additional effects, but most are just for fun. Like there's a pair of cat ears you can put on Leon that gives all of his weapons infinite ammo. Said cat ears are unlocked by getting an S+ Rank (the highest rank possible) on Professional Mode. By that point you've perfected the art of playing this silly horror game, so I don't think you need infinite ammo that badly. There's also a Pinstripe Suit for Leon that makes him look like a 1940's era gangster. Ashley gets (among other things) a suit of medieval armor that makes her too heavy for most enemies to pick up. There are some unique weapons that can only be unlocked with Challenge Points, like the Hand Cannon and the Chicago Sweeper. Of course, those weapons can only be accessed by playing New Game Plus mode. New Game Plus allows Leon to start the game with all of his weapons and upgrades from a previous playthrough. Which means you can hypothetically blitz through the game with an overpowered Leon and enjoy some sweet catharsis on any part of the game that gave you trouble the first time around.

In terms of presentation, Resident Evil 4 is a very nice looking game. Like, the original game looks shockingly good despite being almost 20 years old (which in the video game industry might as well be 200 years), and the remake manages to be debatably better. It's objectively better in terms of facial expressions and texture quality, but then again, the entire reason the remake was made was to bring this game up to a new graphical standard. In that regard, the remake succeeded. There's also a ton of little details that most people probably won't notice, but the fact they were put in the game at all makes me appreciate the effort. Just to give a few examples, Ashley tip-toes around the bodies of dead enemies instead of stepping on them. Leon starts limping if his health gets too low. Leon occasionally checks the chamber of his currently equipped gun to make sure it's loaded. Leon practices exceptional trigger discipline, never putting his finger on the trigger until the player pushes the "shoot" button. Ashley covers her ears when Leon starts shooting at something. The only thing I could say bad about RE4 Remake is that it isn't as campy and over-the-top as the original game. Which isn't even that much of a bad thing because this game is still campy. Just a different flavor of camp.   

In terms of sound design and voice acting, both are good. The music consists mostly of ambient droning meant to put the player on edge (because this is still a horror game). That said, there is some peaceful music in the safe rooms meant to serve as a break from the harrowing nightmares outside. The sound of the guns firing is crisp. Leon still has his cheesy one-liners, which are delivered in the most deadpan way imaginable. And enemies bark out Spanish phrases while fighting you. I don't speak Spanish, and the subtitles don't translate the Spanish, but I have heard from Spanish speaking corners of the Internet that the Spanish voice acting is an improvement over the original. You know what's not an improvement over the original? Ada Wong's voice. I do not know why Ada Wong's voice in the remake bothers me. Like, it's not as good as the voice acting for everyone else but it's also not bad enough to where I can call it bad acting in good faith. I think the problem is that she sounds oddly stiff. I'm not sure if it's the actor herself, or if the problem lies with the voice direction, or if the game just used a bad take. I remember seeing some people on the Internet say that her voice acting sounds better in Separate Ways, but again, I haven't played that DLC yet. It's unfortunate, because the rest of the game's audio presentation is so good that this one thing sticks out even more.

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Overall, I'd say that Resident Evil 4 is a splendid horror game. Both the 2005 original and 2023 remake. But which is better? As cliché as it sounds, both are good. The original is a classic for a reason. But the remake is a great game in and of itself. Personally, it comes down to preference. The original is campier and places a greater emphasis on spectacle. The remake, while still campy, takes itself more seriously and puts greater focus on the horror elements. But like I said at the start of the post, if you have any passing interest in the horror genre, this is a great place to start. I give Resident Evil 4 Remake 5 stars out of five.

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