Reviews

HEAVILY Policenauts inspired but, directed/written as it is by someone who isn't Kojima, obviously not quite comparing in the level of world-building and absurdly wacky plot. The world of Neo-SF is simultaneously more cartoony (with anthropomorthic animals and cutesy, colourful robots) and grounded in reality (with little being truly unfamiliar to real life outside of a few allegories), and feels much less dystopian than that of Policenauts. It also features lengthy conversations as its main gameplay component and, where most games of the genre use puzzles to break up the dialogue, any "puzzles" in ROM are light and so heavily railroaded they just provide more text to click through rather than requiring any thought. Where most games might say "It's locked" when examining a locked door and leave you to work out how to change that, in ROM Turing will stop you to tell you that NOT ONLY is it a locked door but WHY it's locked, the precise steps you need to go through to unlock it, and even its exact make and model number. Although it does make those interesting with slight mix-ups now and again, overall the game feels glacially slow and leans more towards a visual novel than its adventure games inspirations (although the wonky controller-based shooting sections are carried over perfectly, whether you want to call that a positive or negative).
Surprisingly the game is 95% voice acted and quality is generally high for main characters, although bit characters seem like they're mostly cameos from non-voice actors and can be more of a mixed bag: A protester played by someone I do like is nonetheless jarring and pretty bad, but 2 Mello - the game's composer - puts in a great performance as a street rapper who needs your help to think up rhymes (one of the sections I mentioned earlier that varies up the conversations). As you might expect from 2 Mello's involvement, the soundtrack is excellent (and probably my standout feature of the whole game). I'm particularly partial to TOMCAT's theme as it sounds bouncy enough to be straight out of an Ace Attorney game.

All of the character's I've mentioned, bar one, are good fun and undoubtedly the main draw for ROM - talking to all the colourful characters is given just as much prominence as the main story - but, unfortunately, the one character I found occasionally frustrating is the one you spend the most time with - Turing. Your player-character is a voiceless blank slate, having no real character other than "journalist", and so Turing both serves as your window into the world through examining things, and does most of the talking to other characters. While mostly fine he's sometimes really grating with how confrontational, and at times downright stupid, he can be.

After just completing it, the story never went as big in scope as I was hoping/expecting but none-the-less had a very satisfying ending and epilogue chapter, going out on a high note.

2064 also has (at least in the Switch version) an absolutely brilliant Extras section. It's unlocked from the start and has grouped sections for concept art, music (beautiful UI in that one), backgrounds/wallpaper, UI/HUD, and character sheets. You can zoom in on all of them, most have at least a couple stages of progression from concept to final version, and are annotated with descriptions and why things were changed between versions which really helps give a sense of how the game came together.

I blasted my way out through XC2 and by the end, my play time was at 89 hours and I didn't notice at all. I think that Monolith Software is finding the balance between story and characters, my biggest issue with XC1 is that the characters didn't stand on par with the story, they were too generic, but here, even when they represent some cliches, they're likable and charming in their own way. The music is good and some of the tracks are amazing, they remind me a little of crono trigger, but a lot of them are kind of generic. The combat is not as amazing as XC1 or XCX but is still good and it has its own personality thanks to the blades system which is so refreshing, if you're into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure the blades are practically stands, also speaking of JoJo, one of the writers (Soraya Saga) is a big JoJo fan, so I will say that some of the character's backstories are very dark and similar to the ones that appear in parts 7 and 8 of that said manga, but that's just a baseless theory anyway.

My issues with this game are that a lot of the side content is way too boring and generic as the back entries, and it needs a lot of mindless backtracking, the menu and hud are better than past entries but not for much, they need to sort that thing by the next entry. As for the blades, is an amazing system but it also depends a lot on luck, in order to unlock all the extra blades, you rely on certain items that summon by chance rare blades or normal blades, it seems to me more like a P2W mechanic and it also depends a lot on grinding, so I didn't like it at all. At last, the localization team seems to make a lot of changes in the names and some of the dialogue and is pretty noticeable when you play it with Japanese audio, and as far of fan service and anime-japanese things here is a lot of that, I like it but if you're easily triggered by cleavage and non-practical female outfits you may pass on this one.

I think that this entry expands on the universe set by the first game and is better in almost everything, but is still a little far to become a classic, that being said when you finish the 12 hour tutorial is pretty damn fun onwards.

I‘ve played every RE since the first undead turned his head at you. In a two-generation history Capcom created a riddle depth scavenger hunt with an over the years shifting action afflicted gameplay. In my experience this became worse with the setup of the 6th episode within Umbrella’s occurrence. What was well enough for most of the younger gamers had been a huge trouble for veterans. Like BB King said: The thrill is gone. Meanwhile and several side stories and remastered remakes later there was finally a light in the dark which became pretty dark again after a while. For the better...

After getting in touch with the demo version “Beginning Hour” I was already feeling a third wave that may change gameplay and atmosphere. With the full version in gold I finally got to experience this horror trip on a 4-meter screen with atmospheric surround sound that helped to scare the shit out of me. I did this game in two days and have to say it’s hell of a fun. 
Even after playing all there was that the series had to offer I got to know once more what true gaming horror is. In a Rob Zombie setting I never would have imagined to be crawling in the dirt to hide from one of the family members rather than running around shooting everything that moves. Coming back in shining armor - riddles and item management - the elements of the game do remind of a time long ago. Not as challenging as it could be but this may results in the overall generous difficulty. May be harder to keep aiming right or enter the next room while still shaking from the one before. Sadly this fails again (like in a lot of games, not only RE) in the final hours of the game. Making things just too monotone.

Nevertheless I’d like to recommend this game to everyone who was bored by the last installments or likes to experience horror in a newer dress for the Resident Evil series. I think the road taken is great and visually the best RE out there.