Game #1263: Little Nightmares Complete Edition

 No children were harmed in the making of this game... I think.

 You thought I was done with my Halloween Horrorfest because of a few outliers? You thought wrong, as me and my girlfriend just got done with Little Nightmares: Complete Edition. The game is sort of a cinematic platformer, think Prince of Persia, but in 3-D, and with a few stealth elements thrown in for good measure.

 In the game you play as a tiny, literally, girl named six. Everything around her is enormous, even the tiniest of chairs towers above her. The environments are grey and blue, they look and feel damp and cold, a stark contrast to Six's yellow raincoat. She is only armed with a lighter, that can help you look around you, but it's not too soon before strange creatures start appearing. And man, oh man, does the art direction deserve praise, the humanoid creatures Six must avoid look disgusting without resorting to gore. In some ways, the game reminded me of Chihiro/Spirited Away, albeit doubling down on the horror elements and removing any whimsical element.

 Besides her lighter, Six can jump, sprint and grab, be it objects or ledges. That's all the tools you get, and the game is a nice mixture of puzzle solving, platforming and stealth, in order to avoid the creatures that mean you harm. For the most part it works relatively well, although sometimes it can be a bit finicky. You might jump towards a ledge, but if you are too close to a corner or something, Six won't be able to pull herself up. It's not too bad, and during the most tense and exciting set pieces the controls always worked.

 The game also includes every DLC chapter, which amounts to three bonus chapters in which you play as another kid, the Runaway Kid. Everything I said about Six's adventure holds true for the DLC, although you do face a few other creatures. That said, the DLC is more challenging, and I don't in a good way. We had to look up guides numerous times, for instance, near the end of the first chapter there's a TV. And a monster breaks down the platform in which it stands, much like it did with a previous platform. The TV falls down and electrifies the water a short while, then you have to run over the TV as it spins in the water in order to survive. And then you can't do anything other than die, 'cause even though the TV electrified the water the monster is still alive. What were you supposed to do? Push the TV on top of the monster to drop them both together, and this time it will actually fry the monster. Why does it work this way and not mine? How would I have noticed I was supposed to push the TV on top of the monster before it broke the platform instead of staying on top of it? I don't know.

 So here's the thing... despite some finicky movement here and there, the game is very original thanks to a very strong art direction, and it has some very exciting moments... but the nature of the beast is that this game, just like the 2-D cinematic platformers of yesteryear, is very much trial and error. You'll be presented with obstacles that might not always be quite so obvious how you are supposed to proceed, so you are expected to die a bunch of times, sometimes even seconds after respawning.... but the Switch port has horrendous load times that makes every new attempt a chore. This was fine since I was playing with my girlfriend and we could entertain ourselves in between load times, but otherwise this is a huge drawback for the type of game that it is.

 Little Nightmares can be really fun, and the creature design is phenomenal. Sadly, the loading times in this Switch port makes every new attempt somewhat of an annoyance. It's a shame, 'cause this version runs very smoothly and looks fantastic too.

 6.5

Game #1262: Alan Wake Remastered

 Nothing's scarier than bugs.

 If, much like myself, you were a Sony Pony during the PS3/X360 era you were probably interested in Alan Wake, don't deny it. Well, we may be in luck, as Alan Wake Remastered is now available on consoles, so I was finally able to see what it was all about.

 The very first chapter will lead you to believe that this game takes after Twin Peaks, but all hell breaks lose quite quickly and quite fast. The setup has you playing as Alan Wake, a writer, who visits Bright Falls for a spell with his wife. While getting used to their new life, Alan's wife disappears and he wakes up in the middle of the forest, one week later. It only gets creepier, since as you play through the game you can collect manuscripts from Alan's book, and these pages will tell about stuff that has already happened... as well as about stuff that is going to happen later in the chapter. There's a strong component of psychological horror in this game, and it's rather interesting to be honest.

 The game is fairly linear, and this is not a survival horror game. You won't hurt for ammo, and the ammunition cap on every weapon means that if you're not regularly using your guns you're wasting ammo, heck, after each new chapter your inventory resets, so there's no point to hoarding. Combat is interesting but quickly grows stale, armed with a gun and a flashlight, you have to focus the light of your flashlight on an enemy for a few seconds to make it susceptible to gunfire, rinse and repeat. You can obtain a few weapons, such as flashbang grenades and a flaregun that instantly bypasses the darkness shield, but for the most part, you're stuck in the same loop: Run towards your next objective, come upon enemies, focus the light, kill them, move on.

 All that said, the last couple of chapters are incredibly exciting, it's when the story gets the most enthralling, the set-pieces get crazier and the characters really get to shine. Even when it's silly, you just can't help but smile. It's a slow burn, but when it gets good, it gets GOOD.

 The shooting is fairly simple and uninvolved, the closest thing to precision aiming is focusing your flashlight, but as long as the camera is aiming in the general direction of the enemy your bullets will hit, as Alan seems to be a good shot. You don't always need to slay every enemy in sight, as running towards a light source will immediately despawn enemies and heal you. That said, it's not too long before the Darkness, the enemy that haunts Alan, will start possessing inanimate objects, including a giant tractor, and these can only be defeated with your flashlight or light-based tools, such as the flare gun.

 There is some clunkiness to movement, but I'll chalk it up to age. It's not awful, but sometimes you'll come across invisible walls in awkward places or find it easy to sloppily fall from an edge. It's not too bad, really.

 While it's a rather OK game, there are quite a few issues with this release that really soured my experience with it. Firstly, the game includes the first two DLCs but not American Nightmare, a standalone mini-release that advances the plot of the series. Then there's the fact that a ton of cutscenes, maybe most of them, are unsynced with the audio, sometimes egregiously so, sometimes only just so that you can tell that there's something off. How the game shipped like this is completely baffling, as you simply cannot ignore the audio issues.

 And those are the least of the game's issues. By Chapter 3 I had gone through three crashes, the third one corrupted my Statistics Progression, thankfully not my in-game progression, but while I was able to continue the game from where it last autosaved, all the collectibles I found were gone. All my exploration? For naught. I even lost all the manuscript pages I had found. Ridiculous. What's more, pretty much every chapter crashed at least once, chapter 4 crashed twice in fact. This is unacceptable. And one time, the ground failed to load.

 As for DLCs.... DLC #1: The Signal takes place directly after the ending, so it should be played after finishing the game,... plus, it's way harder than the main game. Pretty early on, you must visit a house, and you after triggering a cutscene... the whole house became invisible. No kidding. And of course, it crashed too, What a mess. As for the plot itself, it's... unfulfilling, Alan pretty much ends up where he started.

 DLC #2 is The Writer, and it takes place after The Signal, although all things considered, you can play it after the main game and you wouldn't be missing too much! It's as challenging as the other DLC, but the story is much more fulfilling. That said, while it reuses pretty much everything from the original game, much like the other DLC, it does so in a much more surreal fashion, making it a helluva lot more interesting. Oh! And this one didn't crash, for a change.

 Alan Wake is a decent game, but this remaster does it no favors. Maybe the patches fixed all the crushes, but the game shouldn't have shipped like this, and I looked online, and every single version of this game is very buggy. It's a shame, but the scariest thing about the game is dreading the moment the next crash comes.

5.0

Game #1261: Gunvolt Chronicles Luminous Avenger iX 2

 Copen gets hit by the nerf-stick. 

 A few years ago I played the original Luminous Avenger game and I quite liked it, as a matter of fact, I'd say I enjoyed it more than the mainline Gunvolt games, so you could say I was excited about Gunvolt Chronicles Luminous Avenger iX 2 a fair bit. For this entry, they shook things up a fair bit, which may not be to everyone's liking.

 It seems they want to make Copen Gunvolt's Zero, as now his default attack is a three hit combo with a new energy saw. Copen was hit with the nerf stick quite hard too, as his entire Bullit Dash system was weakened. By default, only air dashes will tag enemies, ground dashes do not(Unless you buy the upgrade), and you can't perform another aerial dash until you touch the ground. You do get infinite aerial dashes once you reach 1000 kudos points, which arguably, has been made easier, as you don't lose all your points when you get hurt, only when you trade them to activate a checkpoint... or when healing. Another weird thing they chose to do with this game was to make stages exceedingly easy, but bosses incredibly hard, and this is offset by allowing the player to use Healing infinitely, at any point, if they wish. Yup, pressing X let's you use a powerful super move or use a full heal, and the healing power can be used at any time that you wish, and even though it drops your kudos back to 0, you can use it when your kudos points ARE at 0. It's... a curious choice.

 I'm not sure I'm too fond of the changes done to Copen, and reading through forums online... I'm not the only one. One post I saw summed up my suspicions entirely: "It's as if they didn't want Copen's games to be better than Gunvolt's". The new three-hit melee attack is alright, but there are a ton of enemies who will survive it, making it not so safe. And while tagging enemies, and then moving away and shooting is safer, it's very weak and doesn't grant you many kudos points, so Copen's new game plan is to try to use his melee attacks to build up kudos, and then playing with the tag system, hopefully reaching the stage's boss with enough health and over 1000 kudos points.

 And there is a hard mode that disables healing and gives you a hard-cap of 200 lives, and this hard mode is necessary to access the true ending, which is kinda lame. Unlocking hard mode is kinda lame since you need to find 36 collectibles throughout every stage. Can't say I could be bothered to.

 Inti-Creates also did players dirty with the DLC. This physical cart only comes with the Kohaku Boss DLC, but they released a bunch of other Boss DLC that must be paid for. This DLC is made up of a boss fight, no stage, and an ability you are rewarded with, including one that makes Copen play like he used to. Each boss fight is 8 bucks. What the hell?

 Luminous Avenger 2 is decent, but it wasn't as fun as the original game. It's still a fun time, and I can't fault them for trying something different, something different that while it wasn't as good as the original, they weren't horrible ideas, and they could work as a sort of alternate character option. Hopefully they'll learn from it and make LA 3 a bit more similar to 1.

 7.0

Game #1260: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - All-Star Battle R

 Ari ari ari ari ari arrrrrivedercciiiiiiiiiiii!

 Ready for round 2? JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R is sort of sequel to the original All-Star Battle, because it's more than just a port, as it has new characters, new mechanics and new modes. Trust me, it's not the same, and in practically every way, it's a much superior game.

 I don't think I need to spend time talking about how the game plays or how much of a love letter it is to JoJo as a whole, as the brunt of the main game remains exactly the same: It's a fighting game, 3 attack buttons, a dodge, and a button to use special abilities, activating a character's Stand most of the time. There have been a few tweaks to hitstun to make it feel better and make combos easier, but it doesn't stop there, now you can select another character to call upon for a quick assist attack. Honestly, I would've loved tag-team mechanics, but this I'm not complaining! And even better, now Easy-Beat(Auto-combos) can be turned off. Thank you!

 Worth mentioning, the game runs amazing on the Switch, the 30Fps never dropped as far as I could tell, and the loading times are quite brief. This game is amazing on the system, even if, unlike the other versions, doesn't reach 60fps. The graphics look amazingly crisp on handheld mode too, almost as if it was always meant to be on the system.

 Modes have changed, mostly for the better. About the only thing that returns is VS and the Arcade Ladder, now offering a Survival mode too. The Story Mode has been removed completely.... I mean, it was kinda lame, as it only had some bits of texts between battles, but it was something and it was completely harmless. I suspect that they removed it for 'spoiler' reasons, since Part VI is currently airing on Netflix, and if they removed it because of that... screw you, as this was not the only omission, but more on that later. In its place is All-Star Battle, a series of over 100 matches divided by Parts. It's even lamer, because it's made up of actual fights from the story, or what ifs, but they have absolutely no context whatsoever, no special or unique animations, absolutely nothing. Might as well just be a boring list of "X vs X" and be done with it. That said... The putrid Campaign mode from the original was axed, and now you unlock bonus colors and costumes by fulfilling secret missions in this mode. If the hints are not enough, you can spend a bit of gold to reveal the requirements, but I preferred saving up gold for costumes and colors in the gallery, and just fiddle around until I got it right. I mean, every rematch meant more money for goodies, so no loss.

 So... this game has about 5 or so new characters, including Trish Una, whom I adore and should've been there from the start. That's pretty nice, but... they removed Pucci. Well, the original Pucci. As not to spoil the series, he was changed so as to only use the initial form of his stand, and the original Pucci was promised as free DLC. Handicapping your game because of an animated series, BASED ON A DECADE OLD MANGA is pretty darn stupid. They even removed Part VI's stage because of 'spoilers'. Absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't matter if they'll return as free DLC, the point remains that the discs and cartridges are missing content from the original game due to absolutely stupid reasons. Heck, while the game has a fair amount of costumes to unlock... it's missing a few from the original game, including the Irene costume for Jolyne, because of... spoilers. It's not a huge disappointment, I mean, there's plenty of new content, but I can't help but feel irked about it. Oh! And since more parts were animated, I think the original game released during Part II's animated run, a few characters from have new default colors and simplified designs, including my beloved Giorno who now has his unappealing hot-pink costume by default(Albeit with yellow hair which doesn't look as good as green-on-pink) and Gold Experience lost some complexity on his textures, but not to worry, the original colors are unlockable if you miss them.

 So... even though I'm fresh off a rant, the game is as fantastic as it was before, and... it's even better. The new additions are all welcome, the only issue are the removals! Regardless, considering the huge roster of characters from all series... I honestly love this game, it's better than the original release, it really is, and it's more than worth the double dip if you still own the original. It's not the most competitive fighting game out there, but it really doesn't need to, the game is just fun to play due to how simple it is, and it looks very stylish thanks to the cool as hell cell-shading they used. The game is fun even if you don't like JoJo, since you don't need to know who this characters are to enjoy all their insanity.

9.0

Game #1259 Lego Harry Potter Collection

  Buildum Lego-uousa!

 Well, we've been at it for what feels like over a month, but we're finally done with the Lego Harry Potter Collection, a compilation of Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 and Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7. I know, I know, I decided that Lego games just weren't for me, but this time around I gave it a go with my girlfriend in tow, which probably increased my enjoyment of these games.

 First comes Years 1-4, and... it's an absolutely horrible adaptation of the movies. If you haven't read the books at least, you'll contend with a lot of scenes that do a poor job of conveying the plot. Even the two of us, having recently seen every movie, had a hard time understanding just what they tried to do with some scenes. And yes, the fact that this game comes from an era before Lego was doing voices and dialogue doesn't help.

 What is kinda neat is that you get a Hogwarts playground to mess around with. The entire building is pretty large and it houses a ton of secrets, be it cheats or unlockable characters! And since you very slowly unlock new spells, you'll slowly be able to get everything, culminating with your first Dark Mage who'll be able to interact with a ton of objects you couldn't before. 

 The brunt of the game is your basic Lego affair, explore highly destructible environments, collecting studs to purchase goodies, and finding Lego pieces to build objects required to continue through the stage. Since you are a wizard, Harry, the entire motif is spells. You get an assortment of about 8 spells that can be used to interact with various different objects, and thanks to this there's an interesting variety of obstacles to contend with. That said, more than a few times we found ourselves completely stumped with how to proceed, and it was usually something we didn't notice we had to break.

 The game is relatively decent, but honestly, it's just another Lego game. That said, I've a huge bone to pick with some HUD choices. For instance, there's a single spell slot allotted to 'joke spells', sure, they aren't necessary to progress... but you can't pick the one you want, as you must hold down the spell wheel and wait until the red slot turns to the joke spell you want. And pick it too late and you'll get the wrong spell. And what about the character store? There are over 150 characters, witch classic Harry Potter characters such as 'Milkman', 'Boy' and 'Slytherin Girl', however, in order to buy them... you have to go from left to right, one by one, as you go from character to character. Who thought this was a good design choice?

 Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 is pretty much identical to the first. I preferred the new spells in this one, like Aquamenti. I really liked the new Lego figures, as the grey and black looks pretty neat, as well as the new more natural looking lighting, however, it also did quite a few things I didn't like...

 Just like before, the cutscenes are sometimes bafflingly vague, and it's hard to follow EVEN if you know the story. Understanding the plot itself, much like the previous games, requires you to be familiar with either books or movies. 

 This game, much like the latter movies, has some scenes taking place outside of Hogwarts, and to make up for that.... Hogwarts is much smaller than before. It's really lame, you could visit the Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff's houses in the previous game, now you only get part of Slytherin's area, as well as the entire Gryffindor common room. It was so disappointing, and since they recycled so many rooms... why not recycle the entire thing and only add to it? Why remove rooms, rooms which were also entirely optional in the previous game, but added so much personality to it? Sure, now we have more and better puzzles and rewards... but the previous game's HUB was much more engrossing.

 And there are also duels... which are terribly boring. You are forced into a circle and must pick the right spell, which is color-coded on the semi-circle behind the enemy, to then enter a 'spell struggle' and mash a button to win, do this four times. Not only is it boring, for much of the game Harry is the only character with the Yellow spell, Focus, so if you are playing in Co-Op it's entirely possible for the second player(Or the one not using Harry) to need to use the Yellow spell... which they don't have, so now they must wait for the game to decide which other spell they need to use. Lame.

 Oh, and the character store is still terrible. Now we get a proper character grid, but when it comes to characters with multiple forms... you have to wait for the slot to automatically switch to the form of the character you want to buy. It's such a terrible design choice that makes it hard to find what you're still missing. Why would they do this?

 Lego Harry Potter Collection is a decent time, but I figure it's only fun if you are playing it with somebody else. Years 1-4 are slightly more entertaining than years 5-7, but not by much. Regardless, I don't see myself playing these games by myself any time soon.

 6.0

Game #1258: Resident Evil VII - Biohazard Gold Edition

 Residents evil.

 I never played the Resident Evil games in order, I think my longest streak was 4-5-6, but why play these games in a way that makes sense? So after playing VIllage last year, I thought it was time I finally played Resident Evil VII: Biohazard Gold Edition, the game that came before it!

 Resident Evill VII marks a strong contrast with the games that came before it, not only does it play in first person... but it's also the scariest entry in the series, as well as the only one I'd say is actually Survival Horror instead of an action game with horror elements. And they managed that by very early introducing the player to the Baker family, a three-member family unit of zombie-like psychos. You can't defeat them, not at first, but they'll roam the house you are locked into, so you have to learn to avoid them while collecting what you need to solve the puzzles and survive the house. Adding to this are the new enemies, the Moulded. These can be defeated, or avoided if you mean to conserve ammo, and the game did a great job at making you feel powerless. If you aim to their heads you can bring them down faster, but the audiovisual feedback makes your shots feel weak, and in a game like this, that does wonders to the horror element.

 Despite the first-person camera, despite the new enemies being a new brand of virus... the game does keep some traditional REvil elements, such as herbs and item chests. Heck, your starting inventory is pathetically small, but you can slowly upgrade it as you play. That said, as scary and as weak as you feel at first, heck, I was scared I was using too much ammo and healing items... the more you play, the stronger you get. By the time I was facing the second Baker family member, I had a pretty decent armory, and a decent stockpile of healing items. I felt strong, for a change. Heck, when I finished the game I had a ton of spare ammo for all of my guns, a ton of items with which to make healing items, and the final boss was pathetic. That said, I had unlocked the Magnum and didn't use the grenade launcher before, so maybe I was equipped with the best weapons when I face it.

 All that said, even when I was at my strongest, the ambiance was still scary as hell. And not to worry, as two thirds in, you briefly get to play as another character, and you lose all your inventory, so at first, you'll only be able to evade enemies as you solve puzzles. It was a rather neat way to bring you down a size or two for a short while.

 The game has a TON of personality. All three Bakers are very memorable, for very different things, since despite being psychos, they still have their own personalities. The Baker family house is also very well designed, and is easily the best part in the game. Not to say that the subsequent areas are bad, but the game is at its best when you are exploring the house. That said, the game is relatively short, playing on the Normal difficulty setting I finished the game in just shy of 7 hours... but, y'know, it didn't feel bloated, and it kept me wanting for more. It's that good. I'm surprised to say this, but I enjoyed 7 more than VIllage, that said, I should probably give VIllage another try.

 This 'Gold Edition' includes almost every piece of DLC. For whatever reason, Chris' DLC 'Not a Hero' is not included in the disc, and must be downloaded. Sure, it's free, but it's not in the disc, and that sucks. Plus, one of the DLCs that IS included in the disc takes place AFTER that DLC, so what gives? The DLC includes three mini-campaigns, one in which you play as a mysterious fourth Baker Family member, as well as a few mini-game style pieces of content, one is a randomized 'Ethan Must Die' short run through the game, in which you lose if you die, no saving, and there's another one, like Jack's Birthday in which you must... find food and feed it to Jack Baker. Your mileage may vary on these ones, but considering how short the game is... they are alright.

 DLC:

 Nightmare: It's a Survival mini-game. Turn on trash compactors to generate scrap to try to survive the whole night while trapped in the Baker House's basement. It gets hard real fast, but it's a nice diversion. The more you play, the more points you amass and the better benefits you get for each subsequent playthrough!

 Bedroom: This one is super scary, you have to escape out of the bedroom by solving puzzles, problem is... Marguerite comes back when she hears noise, so you have to put everything back in its place.

 21: This one sucks, it's a sort of card game, hosted by Lucas Baker. Clancy is forced to bet FINGERS against another victim. It's interesting, but ultimately not as involved as the others.

 Daughters: This one is scary and heartbreaking, you play as Zoe Baker, and you get to see how her family turned the way they did firsthand. It's brief, but pretty good, as you try to evade your family members with just a lighter and your wits.

 End of Zoe:  This one... is sort of a mini-campaign, but what makes it stand out... is that in this one you play as Joe Baker, Jack's brother, and his way of dealing with the molded is... punching them to death... yeah, it's kinda weird. New assets were made for this one, including a new type of Molded and a new recurring boss. Is it a lot of fun? Yes, definitely. Does punching molded and Swamp creatures fit the game? No, not at all.

 Jack's 55th Birthday: This one is super silly. You get to pick from different parts of the house, and you must search for food for Jack. Food occupies space, so you have to make various trips, and can't carry too many weapons if you want to carry more food. Weapons shoot confetti and molded... wear party hats. I am not making this up.

 Ethan Must Die: This one is a super challenging run in which you can't save and items are randomized.

 Can't believe I'm gonna say this, but Resident Evil VII is probably among my favorite REvil games. It's quite different from what came before, but it worked, and it worked so well. The entire game is a hell of a treat, and I don't mind Capcom moving forward in this direction, I mean, VIllage was really great too, so if this is the new direction for the series... so be it.

 9.0

Game #1257: Cursed Mountain

 Nothing scarier than motion controls.

 The Wii was always hurting for games, and Cursed Mountain was one of the few exclusives that showed promise. At the time, I'm pretty sure I still hadn't discovered that I liked Survival Horror at the time, however, I was quite interested in this game... but the low scores pushed me away. It's about time I gave it a proper try, then!

 The best thing about the game is easily its setting, taking place in the Himalayas, as you play as Eric who came hiking and climbing to rescue his missing brother. The snowy mountains, as well as the Tibetan villagers are very original, in the videogame kingdom, and make for a very refreshing and picturesque setting... even if it's, y'know, haunted. The monster design is a bit more mundane, consisting mostly of dull-looking ghosts and a few other creatures, as bosses. On the other hand, the voice-acting is pretty lackluster, for whatever reason Eric only speaks in whispers, and what's worse, cutscenes are mostly made up of animated stills, what gives? In a horror game, unless handled well, this is immersion-breaking, and in this game, such is the case, as they are laughably tacky.

 The game itself is a very linear action game with horror elements. Every single instance of ghosts approaching must be dealt with in the same way: Defeating them all. A few times you'll enter "Ghost Korlos', in which you either have to defeat every ghost, as per usual, or find symbols and use the appropriate wiimote gesture, either way, the only difference between normal encounters and Ghost Korlos is that you are constantly taking damage while inside the Korlo. Ammo is unlimited, so the melee attacks are basically useless. Eric is equipped with a 'blessed pickaxe', seriously, and you can embed one of four different objects to change its properties: A strong, but slow to recharge beam, a well balanced shot, a weak-but-spread shot and another one that lets you exorcize ghosts without weakening them, at the cost of not getting health back.

 And that's combat, ghosts will encroach you, and you'll try to weaken them with shots, once weakened a red sigil will appear over them, pressing the A button lets you initiate the exorcism minigame, by pulling off the gestures shown on screen you'll recover a bit of health. You can also finish off enemies with basic shots, but why would you? this mechanic makes it so that aside from bosses, dying is very hard. By the end of the game I had over 50 healing items, and I can count on one hand the amount of times I needed to restore my health this way.

 Waggling... there's a ton of it in this game, but the ones for exorcism are the worst, as sometimes the game won't read your inputs, and if you fail... the enemy gets a bit of health back. Word to the wise, short and fast motions are read more often than pushing your arms forward too far. There are a few QTEs too, but nothing too bad. The worst motion controls, by far, are the ones for walking over planks of wood, since the animation is terrible and you have to waggle forward to take small steps, while trying to keep balance. It's terrible. There were also a couple of annoying segments in which you had to waggle alongside beats. Why?

 Since healing items are basically superfluous, why explore? Well, you can find documents to add some story bits and world building, but more importantly, statues that will permanently increase your life bar, those are pretty cool and can be missed if you push forward too quickly. Since the game is linear and based on stages, there's no going back, so if you skipped a hidden statue you just lost a permanent health upgrade... permanently.

 Honestly, the game is incredibly boring. The setting is incredible, the Tibetan Villages are alluring but... the game is so rudimentary and uninteresting. You'll fight three types of ghosts, but they might as well all be the same, re-positioning yourself is barely necessary. The story is told so poorly that it turned uninteresting, which is disappointing, because it had some interesting wrinkles here and there. But the worst part about it is that coupled with how boring the game is, the motion controls are wonky and unresponsive. Cursed Mountain showed promise, but as it is... it's better left forgotten.

 4.0