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The idea of managing a team of messy idiots never crossed my mind, and the wild part is how the game invites you to accept them as they are. Their big flaws. Their loud personalities that swing from irreverent to immoral, traits that in any other context would be red flags but here can be pushed int…

It has been a long time since I finished this game, not long after its launch. I still remember how the press and the players stood on the same side during that moment. I had been waiting for this game for months and I played the first hours in the middle of the night on release day. Everyone insist…

It’s strange to feel that FromSoftware manages to convey, in their single-player games, a deep respect for video games as a medium. Whether you love or hate the gameplay of souls titles, the seriousness and essence of Miyazaki’s and FromSoftware team work radiate a sense of craftsmanship, of…

When Jan Dolski becomes the only survivor of a space expedition and finds himself stranded on a planet with scarce resources, he must do the impossible to survive. After a series of tragic events and the discovery of a strange material called rapidium on the planet’s surface, his remote superiors…

I let the silk wrap around me, thread by thread, until I could no longer tell where I ended and it began. Its dark world devoured me slowly, as the violins wove their strings into sounds that reverberated in my mind. Though rising was difficult at first, in the end I no longer feared falling again.…

Prologue. Author’s (little big) love letter to Silent Hill. It is 1996, only a few months after Capcom consolidated an entire genre by drawing some inspiration from Sweet Home (1986). With Resident Evil (1996), Capcom had created a genre that is now nearly extinct: survival horror. We could…

Death Stranding 2 doesn’t open with a quote or a preset of what lies ahead. Not like the first game, where we were introduced to the metaphor of the stick and the rope. But this one ends with one. And to me, it brings to an almost perfect close one of the most important works of surrealist scien…

Overture is to Lies of P what The Old Hunters is to Bloodborne: a bold, fitting expansion. It’s an excellent DLC. I don’t want to raise expectations too much. It’s still Lies of P through and through, with all its strengths and its few shortcomings. I started playing because it was sha…

When Persona 3 debuted in 2006, it did so in a world marked by uncertainty. The Cold War had ended almost two decades ago, but fear persisted in new forms. Globalization offered connection alongside anxiety. The internet was still a place of discovery. Young people shared music on forums and explo…

"Tell me what the Devil’s Dictionary defined as the chief factor in the progress of the human race." It’s a question Mr. Ushimaru asks you on just another ordinary school day in Persona 5 Royal. The correct answer is “villains.” Ambrose Bierce, the book’s author, suggests that those willing…

Do you remember the first time you played The Witcher 3? Fighting some people outside a tavern? Having to defeat a noonwraith and then helping Vesemir take down a griffin, only to realize it was just the tutorial? Oh, you remember Fable 2, exploring Bowerstone with your sister, and then, after a…

Objectively, Twilight Princess is not the best Zelda. It was not the pioneer that Ocarina of Time was, nor the revolution that Breath of the Wild became. Mechanically, structurally, it is a game that fulfills its purpose, no more, no less. And yet, here I am, giving it the highest praise I can…

Wait, what? Why do so few people talk about this game? I literally finished it in just a couple of days because I couldn’t stop button-mashing—and ironically, button-mashing usually bores me in other games. But here, it was so satisfying that I got completely hooked, like a kid glued to the screen.…

Bayonetta features a brutal and highly engaging combat system that kept me hooked, despite not being an expert or a big fan of the hack 'n' slash genre. While I'm familiar with the history of games like Devil May Cry and the original God of War trilogy, Bayonetta managed to pull me in and…

I shudder to think that Team Silent, once teetering on the edge of oblivion, emerged from the mist to craft not a product, but a reflection. Silent Hill was never a town of stone or wood. It was built with fog, sorrow, and silence. And in Silent Hill 2, it became something more than a setting. It be…

In a year filled with strong contenders I’ve played, from Metaphor: ReFantazio and Silent Hill 2 to Black Myth Wukong, Astro Bot, Stellar Blade, and Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth feels like the most complete experience of them all. This is more than nostalgia reimagined. It eleva…

It’s a nightless night; it devours reason. It’s a nightless night; it devours the man. The keyboard keeps hammering under my fingers, as words pile up, desperate to escape. This is my second journey through the spiral of Alan Wake II. The first was last year, in the shadows of my living room, wi…