I have never played a Silent Hill game before this one, so this is my introduction into the series. I saw all the backlash this was getting on here and figured, it's short and free, why not join in. I didn't despise it like some people did (though I also can't reference any other SH games) but I definitely didn't think it was good overall. Tho there were a couple things I liked.

While I didn't think the story was executed well, I can kinda see what they were going for with the themes. I feel like a lot of people, younger people especially so, can relate to some of them which is nice. I also thought the ending was kinda nice, mostly when those ending messages popped up cuz sometimes you really do need someone to talk to about this stuff. Also the live action segments were neat.

The rest of the game however, sadly sucked. The story overall is just not given enough time for you to really care about these characters, considering the game is only 2 hours long. It feels like it's just trying to spread the message rather than tell a good story. Which is further proven by the warning they give you 5 times throughout your play time, which broke my immersion every time it appeared after the 1st time. Maybe I'm being insensitive but I also thought the whole likes and followers thing giving kids anxiety was silly. That definitely took me out of the story whenever it was mentioned.

The game is basically just a walking sim with one notable puzzle in the game where you just find numbers on a wall to open a locker. So the majority of the game was boring, (because it also just wasn't scary). Besides the walking sim stuff though, are the chase sequences and they aren't fun either. Especially that last one even if it wasn't that troublesome once I knew what to do, it just wasn't fun!

I guess I can't be too harsh since it's such a short game, and maybe I would have been if I was a long-term fan like a lot of people that played it were. As it stands however, it's just a poor introduction to the series it seems. I really should play Silent Hill 1 soon though, I'd like to have a better opinion on the series than just this game lol.

At this point, I feel like I’ve been playing Journey for half of my life. I’ve played through underwater Journey, forest Journey, air Journey, space Journey, cat Journey, and even boring Journey. Yet upon my yearly ascent in the original Journey on New Year’s Day, I find myself just as floored as when I first picked it up years ago, in spite of clone after clone exhausting my goodwill. What exactly then, is present in the original’s realized game design philosophy that every other spiritual successor has found themselves bereft of?

To answer this question, I want you to imagine a world where Journey doesn’t exist. A world where the formula to indie developers meant something more than just mindlessly tilting up on the left joystick to walk towards the next checkpoint while some narrator waxed poetic in the background. Before Journey, before Flower even, the closest ancestor we had was Ico. Fumito Ueda described his game as an execution of “boy meets girl,” and what it boiled down to was a minimalist adventure game with some puzzles cleverly disguised as platforming and timing segments. Occasionally, you also whack a few shadows while protecting and pulling your female companion Yorda through vast and still castle ruins. It wasn’t a perfect game by any means; the combat was frankly tedious, Yorda lacked much of an identity outside of pointing at objects of interest/opening doors/getting kidnapped, and at the end of the day, there really wasn’t much in the way of a balanced and developed relationship when the player was calling all the shots, but it was still the start of something beautiful. It wasn’t mechanically complex or esoteric in any fashion, but it was different. It was different, and it felt dangerous.

This write-up is not intended to be a critique of Ico, nor is it meant to imply that games proceeding Team Ico's philosophy of “design by subtraction” have since been inferior. Rather, I bring up Ico in particular, because there seems to be this general perception that minimalism results in a crippling lack of mechanical depth. That is, many seem to believe that discarding and minimizing a game’s various elements results in a dearth of tangible mechanics or imagery to cling onto, and thus appears to result in an empty and vacuous experience with little to justify further replays or deeper dives. To me though, this line of thought fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of addition by subtraction. It was never about creating mechanically deep systems with limitless possibilities like an immersive sim or a sandbox. Rather, the philosophy aimed to remove excess layers that distracted from the game’s “more realistic feeling of presence”, such as removing optional bosses and landmarks in Shadow of the Colossus or reducing enemy types in Ico to just a single design. In fairness, the goal wasn't just to remove extraneous elements that made something feel overly “gamey,” but also to marry mechanics in a way where the invisible layer of intended design never made itself too apparent (i.e. hiding the user interface in Shadow of the Colossus outside of fights). It was not just addition by subtraction; it was also addition through illusion.

To that end, I firmly believe that Journey is the best Team Ico game that Fumito Ueda never directed. Journey’s design philosophy was not necessarily revolutionary for its time, considering its predecessors in the forms of Flower and Ico, nor was its ultimate goal of reaching a final destination via walking/jumping/flying mechanics particularly exemplary. What was exemplary was its level of care and precision in how it implemented said minimalist design philosophy. Every time I play through Journey, I pick up more subtle details through its fusion of audio-visual presentation and gameplay that seemed so clear and intuitive that I had taken their presence for granted. There are the obvious strengths, like how Journey wordlessly conveys your path forward by keeping the shining peak of the mountain visible at all times while outside, or how it uses consistent visual language through cloth creatures and strips to demarcate safe zones where the player can recharge their scarf. But there’s more beneath the surface; what about the game's sneaky introduction to the sand-sliding mechanic from the introductory dune so it’s no longer unfamiliar during the exhilarating and committal descent, or how there’s a section of the underground that’s filled with these scarf jellyfish tinted in blue allowing you to remain in flight that evokes the feeling of being underwater, foreshadowing the next section as a tower ascension where the player must continually breach the surface to “swim” and escape? Sure, everyone knows about how the bitter cold disempowers the player by slowing their movement and lowering the scarf’s energy gauge, but I usually don’t hear about how strong winds can chip away at the scarf’s capacity itself or how it reduces the volume and area of effect of your shouts, making it far more difficult to restore your energy gauge from the growing frostbite.

There’s also the overlooked audio aspect of Journey. Granted, everyone loves to discuss the soundtrack’s thematics, like how the final chord of Journey’s motif never resolves a single time in any track until the end of Apotheosis or for that matter, how all the instruments are never fully present until that final ascent, when the entire orchestra finally comes together as one only to slowly fall away as the player and the world fade away. Yet, the sound design regarding Journey’s implementation of said soundtrack often goes underappreciated. Again, there are plenty of clear strengths that have been widely discussed, such as the punctuated stillness of the desert dunes providing room for the piddle paddle of the player’s footsteps amongst the vast desert winds and eventually swelling into triumphant bursts of adventure. But again, there are little subtleties that speak to the soundtrack’s interactivity, like how the backing drum during the aforementioned underwater section gives the track the impression of being muted and seamlessly drops this filter once the player breaches the surface, or how the player’s shouts are always in the key of the backing track’s scale, meaning that the introduced notes remain within the game’s tonality. It’s these little things that further round out Journey’s experience; the music is so seamlessly woven in that it takes a discerning ear to pick out every specific detail, in such a way where it feels like the soundtrack is organically supplementing every memorable moment of the game.

Of course, it’s not enough to just handle the basics well, even if there’s a master’s touch present to carefully disguise these additions so silently. As I mentioned before, popular works need compelling hooks to draw in an audience, but they also need an element of danger to keep that audience engaged. In the case of Journey, Thatgamecompany tackles this through their stealth multiplayer. This is where Journey easily outclasses its successors and may in fact, even have one-upped Ico. If Ico’s main limitation was a lack of autonomy for any non-player characters, then Journey circumvents this problem entirely by replacing the AI with real players instead. The loose implementation adds a catch: nothing in the game aside from the final completion screen listing your companion(s)’ name(s) ever hints on this, and not once is the player given instructions or suggestions on how to interact with said players. The only obvious mechanical incentive from cooperating with other players is the ability to recharge one another’s scarves via proximity/shouts, and there’s no consequence to merely abandoning random players or quitting in the middle of a session. It’s what makes this multiplayer so compelling; many times you’ll find other players just wandering about by themselves, despawning, or quickly rushing ahead without care towards your presence. There’s no guarantee that they’ll cooperate… which makes that one instance where they do that much more memorable. In this sense, I think Jenova Chen and his team solved two problems at once: the aforementioned challenge of granting outside elements a degree of realism, and his own personal challenge of creating a minimalist environment where players had no incentives to act in bad faith despite never having any major incentives to cooperate either, resulting in seemingly organic interactions.

Perhaps it is cheating to state that this spontaneous element is what gives Journey a step-up over its peers, but I also can’t deny that this same feature is exactly what lends the game its identity. It’s hard to provide drastically different experiences for focused single player games after all; no matter how much Fumito Ueda may have insisted that he was inspired by emergent gameplay mechanics and player autonomy to allow for more diverse experiences, there remains an upper limit upon how far those experiences can unravel. However, Thatgamecompany’s take upon the “single-player odyssey” alongside the game’s cyclical nature and short runtime means that Journey is a far more replayable experience while remaining every bit as compelling as its competition. Even after multiple trips up the summit, I continue to be amazed by the thoughtfulness shown to me by other players. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen down the temple from being blown away by the wind, only for my companion to jump down with me, or how many trips through the blizzard were spent slowly trudging together mashing my shout, just like strangers on a cold winter’s night huddling together for warmth while shouting cries of encouragement to take one more step forward. In essence, Journey didn't need an intricate or elaborate story told with fanciful cutscenes and voice-acting; it simply needed to provide a backbone with no other contradicting elements, allowing players to form their own stories by experiencing the game on their own terms.

Journey isn’t mechanically rich or wildly innovative in terms of its scope, but it doesn’t have to be. Rather, it’s a deceptively simple yet meticulous and thoughtfully different approach upon a respected design philosophy, which aimed to further refine said formula by whittling down any elements that detracted from the game’s constructed sense of reality. Similarly, it doesn't feel the need to present a grandiose narrative, instead stripping away any specific contextual layers as to allow players to create memorable experiences with no conflicting moments in-between. I should be sick of this formula after tackling so many misguided copycats, and I can't deny that I was afraid to label yet another old favorite as propped up by nostalgia. Thankfully, my fears have been assuaged. I keep waiting for the day where I’ll finally be content putting this down forever… but that day has yet to come. I was not the first adventurer to embark upon this pilgrimage, nor will I be the last. Maybe I just need to get over my cynicism and accept that there was never anything to be cynical of to begin with. I’m sure more developers will continue to lazily carbon copy one of my favorites until the end of time, but that doesn’t mean the good times have to end.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Happy new year, and here’s to another journey around the sun.

As I stated in my Kazooie review, I replayed the game two times back in September of 2023. With Kazooie, that doesn't seem too crazy because it's about half the length of Tooie. However, I also replayed this game twice as well. And with it being twice as long, or maybe even longer for some people, as Kazooie? Seems a bit nuts right? Well, I really went Banjo crazy that month because after beating both games once, I couldn't stop thinking about them which led to me replaying them again right away. The thing is, that whole time I couldn't stop thinking about playing them again...I was thinking about Tooie pretty much. I don't know what happened to me because I went from thinking this game was just decent and definitely worse than Kazooie, to thinking it was amazing and super addicting and better than Kazooie overall. After replaying both games yet again, do I still think this? Probably, tho it's a bit complicated.

If you played Kazooie prior, the first thing you'll notice with Tooie is just how much Banjo and Kazooie's moveset has improved. The roll attack lasts longer, is more mobile and has a nice visual of Kazooie shielding Banjo. The normal attack you perform by standing still, which before was a simple claw move by Banjo, is now replaced by a more effective stationary rat-a-tat rap. The swimming is now WAY better naturally and doesn't require you to hold the R button for it to be good. In fact I don't think the R button does anything when swimming lol. You can now flip-flap directly out of a talon trot. When you do a beak buster, you can now move forward while you're doing rather than staying in place. This change can actually lead to some exploits you can perform too which is rad. These along with some non move-set changes like how whenever you speed up the text it makes the characters talk faster and doesn't pitch up their voices (which was an issue I had forgot to mention in Kazooie), the camera is slower but smoother to use and is overall an improvement, Banjo's backpack animates now when he walks and something about it is incredibly satisfying to me idk why, and the biggest thing is now notes don't get reset when you die (for a reason I'll get into later). All of these improvements drastically enhance the basic gameplay and I honestly miss a ton of these whenever I go back to Kazooie.

That's all fine and dandy, but how about new moves? Well, Tooie's got you covered because it's got like double the amount of moves in Kazooie. The biggest addition is the split-up mechanic. Now you can play as Banjo and Kazooie separately which makes for some clever puzzles. Each singular character gets their own specific moves and while Kazooie's are generally really fun, Banjo's are mostly situational. Kazooie's consist of moves that aren't as context-specific like the ability to glide on her own, her own backflip that's better than the normal one, and the ability to hatch eggs which gets used quite a bit. Banjo's however, besides the first one that lets him pick up and move objects which can lead to some fun puzzles, aren't used that much. He has an ability that let's him recover HP which is nice but only gets used a couple times overall and isn't as helpful as you think because lives aren't an issue anymore. I actually forgot to say they don't exist anymore and it's actually better to die sometimes because it respawns you at the last split-ip bad/beginning of the world which can work in your favor. But anyways, his other two abilities which let him go in dangerous liquids and the other let's him go in his backpack like a burlap sack to cross dangerous obstacles, just aren't used much and are incredibly situational. They all feel pretty samey too unlike Kazooie's, so overall I'd say Kazooie had the better new moves overall. This isn't even getting into all the new moves they both got together. There's 4 new egg types: Fire, Grenade, Ice and Clockwork. All have various uses and are fun additions. There are two new shoes, the claw clamber boots and the springy step shoes. The springy step shoes feel a little derivative because of the jump pads but they're still cool. The claw clamber boots however let you walk on designated parts of walls and it's awesome. There's the bill drill which is also kind of situational but is super satisfying to use. You can now fire eggs in first-person, which can be a little tricky at first with the N64 joystick but is also fun. Because of this, the game also added egg shooting in the air and water when going in first-person mode. The first-person shooting also leads into this FPS mode where you use Kazooie as a gun, certainly riding on the success of Goldeneye, and they can be super fun as well. All of these additions, plus the split-up stuff just really add to their whole move set and makes traversing through worlds a ton of fun.

Speaking of the worlds in this game, they're overall a lot bigger than Kazooie's. The first couple are kinda comparable in size to the first game's but by the time you get to Terrydactyland, they become just massive in size. You'd think this would be super annoying compared to Kazooie, but the game added warp pads that can warp you all over the level. These are the reason I never found the game tedious, if the game didn't have them or if they were awful like DK 64's warps, then the game would be way worse than it is. Anyways, the world's are much bigger in size and there's a lot more things you can do in each world. Though, overall there are less collectables because notes are now in bundles of 5 and 20. So overall the game has less of a focus on tons of collectables like the notes and more of a focus on the jiggys themselves. Jiggy's require way more steps than they did in Kazooie and this turns a lot of people off of the game. A bit understandable but the game is clearly trying to be more of a slower paced adventure platformer rather than Kazooie's brisk pace. I like both approaches but when it comes to Tooie's unique world themes like a run-down amusement park, a dinosaur world and a combined fire and ice world, I definitely prefer just how creative Tooie gets.

I mentioned how Jiggy's take longer to get because more steps are involved, and that's partly because of Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba. In this game, Humba is the one that transforms you and Mumbo is actually a playable character. It greatly depends on the world but overall, I think this is a fun change. Mumbo has a very basic moveset compared to BK but his whole deal is using his magic on specific Mumbo pads. This is incredibly situational ofc and depending on the world it can be a bit tedious, but it can also lead to some interesting puzzles where you have to switch back and forth between BK and Mumbo. Same thing with Humba, sometimes you actually have to switch between Mumbo and then the Humba transformation. Mostly in the later levels do they make these portions kinda puzzling. In terms of everything new they added, this is probably the weakest addition just because it can lead to some tedium, I'll admit that, however I personally never had much of an issue with it tho I also have the whole game memorized at this point so take that as you will.

Besides all that, one of my absolute favorite additions was the fact a lot of the world's are interconnected. Early on, you'll help this mayan cat character out in recovering this idol. Well, you obtain it from this caveman in a weird looking cave and bring it back to him. That's strange though, you're in a world called Mayahem Temple and you just saw a caveman. What gives? Well it turns out, you just entered Terrydactyland when you did that, the aformentioned dinosaur world. This happens a lot in this game where you'll briefly cross over from one world into another or even unlock paths to directly travel between each one. The most memorable one is where you have to feed a different tribe of (good) cavemen this time, and to do so, you unlock a shortcut between Terrydactyland and WitchyWorld. You pick up some burgers from this one character, use the claw clamber boots you get from Grunty Industries and walk along the wall to feed them. All these working parts and interconnectivity just make the world feel alive and I love it.

I mentioned how you had to get the claw clamber boots from Grunty Industries, which is world 6, and use them for a jiggy in Terrydactyland which is world 5. Banjo Kazooie did this exact same thing only once, where you had to backtrack with an ability from another world. Tooie does this way more often and because of that and the interconnectivity of the world, it kind of feels like a 3D metroidvania at points which is awesome. Anyways, people seem to have an issue with backtracking in this game and I don't get it. The more complex jiggy's I understand, but the backtracking is not required as there's enough jiggy's in the game for you to beat the final boss. And even then, there really aren't that many backtracking jiggy's in general. Maybe like 12 or 13 of the 90 jiggy's require backtracking I think? Either way I think that complaint is majorly overblown and is not an issue at all to me, again the Mumbo and Humba stuff I can understand but backtracking to old levels with future abilities? Never even crossed my mind as an issue.

Something else this game added was a boss for every world and they're all really fun. Some are better than others, Lord Woo Fak Fak for example is probably the worst, but I really like how almost every single one of them are large in scope. They really feel menacing even if some of them are pathetically easy.

The game is also way funnier and a lot more cynical in general which I dig. Kazooie was both of these things as well but Tooie cranks it up to the max. The game literally starts off with Bottles dying and Kazooie going "well, he wasnt the most popular character anyways". The game is just full of this tongue-in cheese cynicism. The cast of side characters is not only WAY larger, they're more distinct and memorable just because the dialogue is so much better. There's literally an immigration joke when BK have to help some actual aliens, it's amazing. I think this, plus the interconnected worlds and more unique world themes, are THE main things I like over Kazooie. That plus the improved move set ofc.
The OST is again wondeful just like the first game, but instead of being upbeat, catchy tunes..Grant went for a more atmospheric darker ost this time around. Because worlds are much larger and take more time to beat, I think this change is for the better since the music track won't get old at all. Some of my favorite songs were Grunty Industries, Weldar's Theme and Mr Patch's Theme.

Yes I know two of those are from Grunty Industries. I honestly don't get the hate at all for that world. Something like Terrydactyland I can get, even if I still like it, because it's a massive world with empty space in a lot of it. However, Grunty Industries is a complex, zelda dungeon-like world and it's amazingly designed. I guess if you went into Tooie expecting it to just be like Kazooie, you'd hate it however it's very fun to explore and again super well-designed. It's not even that easy to get lost imo, it's a multi-layered world with distinct set-pieces rather than a super large open world. Sorry for the rant, I just don't get Grunty Industries hate lol. Something I did end up feeling a tiny bit sour on this time around was Hailfire Peaks. I still really like that world, and think the theming is awesome. However the fire side is a little too big for its bridges I will admit and the lag gets really bad sometimes there. The game can get laggy throughout portions of the game, which is only a thing on the N64 version, but there especially it's pretty bad.

One more thing before I mention the endgame and close out the review, is Canary Mary. Canary Mary has methods that make her very doable but she's still easily the worst part of the game and the only part I straight up dislike and dread doing. Her first button mashing races in Glittergulch Mine are perfectly fine. Her races in Cloud CuckooLand tho are insane. If you aren't doing the pause trick, idk how it's humenaly possible to win without using a turbo controller or something. The 2nd race isn't as bad because you can stay near her until the very end and then button mash to hell to pass her right before she can catch up. These races are easily doable with the right methods but the fact you have to do them this way, it just stinks man. But luckily this is only for 100% and only a tiny portion of the actual game so it's not the worst thing in the world.

I talked about a lot of improvements this game has over Kazooie. If there's one thing Kazooie destroys Tooie on however, it's the quiz section and final boss. Gone is the charming board game aesthetic of Kazooie, now you have a typical game show-esque quiz game where you have to answer enough questions to beat Grunty's sisters. It's not bad but it pales in comparison to Kazooie's version as it's less charming and even has less question types. Yeah, I won't miss the Gruntilda specific questions but no sound/music quizzes? That's kinda lame. Again, it's not bad and is only disappointing when compared to Kazooie. The final boss is also not nearly as good as Kazooie's. Is the Hag 1 harder? Most definitely but it's not as memorable as the Gruntilda fight from Kazooie and isn't as fun. It's a solid fight overall but compared to Kazooie's, just a bit lackluster.

So do I like Tooie more than Kazooie? In many ways, hell yes. It improves on many things like the duo's moveset, the writing is way funnier and the interconnectivity between worlds felt like a logical step to take after Kazooie. It may have the weaker end boss and quiz show, it's definitely and easier game to replay/100% and the Canary Mary rematch race is the worst thing between both games, however I'm still feeling like I may like this just slightly more than Kazooie just because of how ambitious and fun it is. It's kinda like Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 where each game has is own strengths over the other and it's just hard to choose what's better. Either way, it's still a 10/10 like the first game and one of my favorite games ever now. Easily in my top 3 N64 games, alongside the first game and Majora's Mask of course. Either way, if you see people saying you shouldn't play this game after you've beaten Kazooie. Don't listen to them, give this a try and you might fall become infatuated with it like I have.

This Banjo double feature was fun but I reckon it's time to play some Kirby again. Stay tuned for a Dreamland 2 review coming soon!

"fuck it, finally a fantasy"
~fred durst (2021)

consistently fun but bogged down by way-too-frequent mmo-esque fetch quests, a dogshit main antagonist and jill's comical lack of characterization

when it hits though, it really fucking hits. clive is a terrific lead, (kupka is also a fantastic rival) every major set piece manages to one up the last and the combat, while a bit easy for an action game absolutely braindead, is really fucking fun

only ps4/5 game thus far to feel like a truly "next gen" experience and a crystal clear reminder of the heights this series can reach when it's not rife with developmental problems

edit: that last line is still mostly correct but not in the way i'd like. it's certainly next-gen in terms of scope and scale with regards to spectacle, but the actual writing is piss poor. this was very much a honeymoon game and ng+ made it clear. xvi feels like a first draft

Back in 2022, I played Dr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine. I knew it was Puyo Puyo with Sonic characters, but I wanted to give it a try since I was playing a lot of Sonic games around that time. Turns out I sucked at it! Only got to like stage 6 before I gave up, and even then I'm surprised I got that far lol.

Kirby's Avalanche is Puyo Puyo again, only Kirby themed. This time around I only got to stage 3 before I quit(if were not counting the starter stages which I did complete). Idk man, my brain just melts sometimes whenever I'm playing. I'm way more of a Tetris guy than a Puyo Puyo guy, but those early stages were somewhat fun I'd say.

Besides me liking Kirby more than Sonic, something I definitely thought put this over Mean Bean Machije was the dialogue before each stage. Goddamn, Kirby is savage in this one. Maybe feels a little out of character, especially for how he is nowadays but it was very entertaining. Had to look up all the scenes cuz I knew I didn't want to miss them. If anything, its worth it to see them alone cuz they're hilarious.

Considering how short this game is too, the length of the OST is super short as well but the couple stage themes being remixes of Kirby's Adventure songs was nice.

Yeah, as you can see, I don't have much to say about this one. It's Puyo Puyo but Kirby themed like I said and I got filtered by Puyo Puyo yet again 😢. Guess that series just isn't for me haha. Kinda stinks this is another Kirby game I ended up not beating but it will probably be the last (unless one of the future spinoffs filter me as well). Either way, next Kirby game is Dreamland 2 so I'm happy to finally get to another mainline again.

In an IGN interview conducted last year, when asked about Armored Core VI’s approach to difficulty Masaru Yamamura(director of AC6) replied “...What we wanted to focus on was really intense and tough mecha battles. We have generally tried to keep it on the challenging side, but it's not to say that it's a flat difficulty line throughout. We wanted to have some nice tempo changes and some nice mix to the difficulty and the level of challenge.” My dude. You did it! I can’t get enough of these clashes! Intense 1v1 duels. Where overwhelming forces meet nimble mercenaries evading missile barrages and bullets galore. Minibosses are spared no expense either. Feeling menacing and tough to beat. Without the right setup, I probably would’ve sweated buckets straining my body and mind to the very limit. I’m so engrossed to the extent, I am reminiscing the good old days from AC Last Raven(ACLR) and AC For Answer(ACFA). Already completed everything I could within three playthroughs. Now I’m soaring across Rubicon’s skies again in my fourth run. Armored Core is back! Blazing, burning, and brightly across nearly all points. If that’s not enough to get your engines running hot, remember Rainn Wilson from ‘Mechless Mutual’ has you covered. Dude seems familiar… probably from some Office tv show.

For those who don’t know AC in general. It is primarily a third-person mecha shooting game. You control a silent protagonist who pilots an Armored Core(AC). Accepting corporate contracts, building up funds, and in doing so, retool their mech when needed. The story is not the strongest you could entice anyone to dip in my opinion. And the IP isn’t renowned to resonate with everyone due to mediocre scores. Outside of outliers. Yet despite all odds the latest installment blasts beyond the mediocre to land among the highest of highs. Penetrating through the nicheness of a twenty-six year long legacy. And still retain the number 1 spot in the UK. Proving without a shadow of doubt, FromSoftware has clearly learned from their past mistakes.

ACVI is no different from its predecessors. But there’s a catch. For the second time in the series, we're not on Earth huh? We're on Rubicon 3. So a new playground awaits us. Coral, a substance found on the planet, is discovered to be both an energy source and a data conduit. Becoming a hot item to advance humanity further by leaps and bounds in the technology sector. Perfect! Our plans proceed on the transhum- until their research causes the Fires of Ibis to occur, combusting the surrounding systems to flames. Fifty years later Coral has been detected once again on Rubicon. And so begins the rush of corporations heading there. To utilize Coral and restart their selfish endeavors regardless of the planet's inhabitants' wishes. As Augmented human C4-621, callsign Raven. You follow orders from a handler named Walter, accepting contracts in the hope you will become free someday. That’s the gist you need to know to get started.

ACVI's story pulverizes its way to being one of the strongest I’ve witnessed in the franchise. And it means a lot compared to previous plot beats. Past games in the story department are usually presented in a simple manner. With hardly any cast to back the main character. Offering no connections, no relatability and no personal motive in conjunction to the protagonist. Recent entries try to break the mold, but more or less most missions are too short and disconnected offering no before or after action report to connect both main/side cast to the narrative. And main objectives all too basic and not noteworthy for a mecha story. For ACVI in comparison, they have all those opposite qualities in spades. Not so much to expect from other powerful games with enthralling story hooks to tell. Here, no hand gently feeds the player, instead we must piece it together from the text given. 621 is offered choices on what divergent missions to accomplish. Therefore, impacting the outcome of the narrative. Equating to three different endings. I find it hauntingly similar to how the Nier series implements them. But not the same. Beyond the corporate duties is a slice of trans humanism and more I won't say due to spoilers. The beats detail unfamiliar roads the first path did not tread. So its a good incentive to keep going past the end credits and see what the rest have to offer. Personally I found it a must to see the fights, new dialogue, new mission structures etc. I like witnessing all the endings and the progression is slightly altered via the storytelling. If I were to rate them. I’d say NG++ = NG+ > NG. The NG is still good in my books. I’ll talk further later since I feel it is an improvement, but there are a few things to be concerned about.

A satisfying gameplay loop emerges in a multitude of factors: the extensive customization in equipping light, medium, and heavy parts to outfit your robot killing machine. Think of it as post-apocalypse deadly legos. Except building a mech twenty to fifty times the size of humans. Become a bulky tank capable of withstanding the hardest of blows. Go for a tetrapod Think crab legs and hover in the air taunting peons below who can’t reach you. Go bold and embrace the small and nimble builds to become an ace. Ace Combat?? Close man. Except you can pilot it, and shoot any kind of weapons you can think of: plasma blades, shotguns, gatling guns, rifles, missiles, bazookas, shields, etc. Forget the robots of the past. Moving at a sloth’s as if you’re a Mechwarrior. No man. Front Mission? While I’m excited we're getting FM2 soon. No sir! Not turn-based! Well, how about Xeno mechs? Getting warmer my friend! What Armored Core excels beautifully is the sheer mobility you can outfit in nearly any direction. They’re the only franchise I’ve played thus far within the genre to go insane in movement. Whereas others take a different approach going for heavy mechs. AC has no qualms about letting you fly like a Gundam or Macross unit and I for one am here for it! Combat is frenetic, chaotic, and incredibly dangerous. Show no mercy against hordes of mechanized enemies, head into a facility to wipe out pesky spider units. Blast foolish laser bugs in the air. Fight epic duels versus other mercenaries to the point of being outgunned and outmatched. Not always though. Face off in epic David vs. Goliath meets Shadow of the Colossus robot-type battles. Yeah, I kid you not. Look up at the big machines dwarfing your size to the point that if they land on you, the aftermath will show nothing but bent, broken machine parts lying on the ground.

Building on the older blueprints in the series, there are so many callbacks. AC2 to Verdict Day. And probably more from AC PS1 games, but I still need to play those one day I'm quite astounded at the sheer effort FromSoftware crafted. Not so much to inject nostalgia bait, but carefully done so I'm not in a reference-filled theme park. Taking lessons in the Soulsborne aspects, Sekiro and heck Daemon X Machina(DXM) An anime-like AC game in all but name, is spared no expense! And the result is quite remarkable. Sekiro’s posture and stagger are reformed. Called ACS(Attitude Control System) Once any enemy craft accumulates enough damage they are left in a ‘staggered’ state. Becoming immobilized and any incoming damage transforms into critical hits. Effectively harming the unit a great deal. After a short period, they can regain their normal status and thus you must break their ACS again. A wonderful rule to abuse against foolish adversaries. Personally haven’t seen such a regulation in older titles. Fights escalate becoming strategic and wary. You are not exempt from the rule. So watch the ACS bar! Moving on. Felt DXM inspiration. Which is ironic since they look at AC for inspiration heh. Mainly the banter and colorful cast. Full of interesting personalities and a pleasant range of voices to keep them distinct. Hearing Michigan’s voice akin to a drill sergeant praising you while delivering lines of “Maggot!” Lives in my head rent-free. Rubbing steel arms with fellow mercs. Becoming buddies. However every so often certain individuals are slow to the point of snails and irritating, bringing all the arrogance to show their superiority to you. Yet this doesn't detract from the personable buddies, which is such a rare sight to see in an AC. I love it! A better attempt than past operators sounding your ears off in a monotonous voice.

Repair kits are awesome and something I never expected. But holy moly after using them, I’m 1000% onboard. Should be a mainstay in the franchise. Please, Hidetaka Miyazaki, I'm begging you. Granted pilots only hold three charges and no we can’t upgrade them like in the Souls IP. Like ten in our pouches to chug. Honestly I’m still in disbelief, we possess essentially mecha estus?! What?! A WD-40 mixed with an elixir of life?! But hey I’m not complaining. The inclusion of the feature works wonders to recover your extra armor points(AP) to live. Also, Human Plus is back, kinda. By defeating opponents in the Arena you gain operating system chips to buy and upgrade your mech. Granting passive skills you don’t need to equip except core expansions. Amplifying the damage done in various categories. Kinetics? Sure. Plasma? Sure. Explosions? Buddy… Sign. Me. Up! There’s more to unlock, but suffice it to say outside of these elements. All upgrades you buy are permanent. Meaning I see no reason not to undertake the Arena to finish off all opponents. And in turn, upgrade your body. Trust me. Increasing repair-kits recovery is a godsend. Moreover, missile superiority is packing heavy blows. Reminding me of AC2 missiles, fascinating villain presence makes a triumphant return. And solid variety in missions. Demonstrate consistent superb points across the board. To the extent objective parameters are given fair treatment: Defend against waves of enemies, stealth tasks, escaping a map, etc. My nostalgia is somehow stroked. Alongside certain themes cheekily reappears in another fashion. AC Nexus isn’t spared either, the soundtrack gives off the extremely high-quality tracks I'm already listening to outside of playing.

AC FA Primal Armor makes a wonderful return now called Assault Armor. Want to surprise attackers by making a 360 degree explosion around your AC? Boy oh boy are they in for one hell of a wake-up call. ACV and Verdict Day scan mode is by the gods gone. No longer a mandatory function, Instead serving as an optional scan mode to display details in your surrounding environment. Highlighting foes, caches for weaponry, data logs, etc. Last-generation games feature a resupply option called ‘Workshop sites’. Now reconfigured whenever a long operation occurs you can resupply and regain all ammo and AP. No cost is necessary.

Level design has changed to incorporate a denser, larger area to cover. Maps are wide and brimming with intricate detail. Broken machinery litter landscapes and factories in production continue to function even if a tourist is snooping where they shouldn’t. Complemented well by smooth transitions into small pathways, corridors instill a claustrophobic nature. Bringing spice to the environmental eye candy. And hell you might see a surprise or two when you see advanced setpieces. Ambushed by an AC duel outta nowhere!? Receive enemy reinforcements partway through a job or encounter divergent objectives throughout. Not all assignments are long to beat. A careful balance emerges to complete levels in less than five minutes or greater depending how many times you reload a checkpoint or comb every inch of a place. Simple objectives in the beginning, gradually increase in complexity as you delve further in a playthrough. Nudging the player to overcome challenges, testing them thoroughly to prove they have the skill and fortitude to go beyond. If one lacks in talent they can make up for it through different builds and playstyle. Of course, results may vary. Just because I had a fine time, isn’t the same for others. In addition to open zones, there are plenty of data logs to find. Detailing lore on individuals in the world, combat logs by defeating mobs of opponents. And I must say the opponent variety is plenty, so you won’t get bored seeing #1 then #2 then #3. No complaints about their design after fifty-nine assignments. I’m hungry to defeat anything in front of me.

The soundtrack composed by Kota Hoshino, Takashi Onodera, and Shoi Miyazawa is just as marvelous as their predecessors. Evoking senses of Bladerunner, Portal and The Division. Hearing Things and New Era convey robust unity and constantly reinforce the numerous allusions and references I found to excellent effect. Inserting Elden Ring vibes into the mix sneakily. I’m astounded at the level of quality. Post-punk, trance, monosynth, and dark synth waves combine in an unexpected product resulting in an eerie, yet soulful and tranquil sound. A consistent flow in haunting rhythms I found to be oddly mesmerizing. Luring me deeper to embrace not only the twisted sense of tension throughout, yet doesn’t detract at all by transforming the whole soundtrack into pleasant humming heavens. A small number of tracks are jazzy and uplifting to the beat. A wonderful surprise, providing a nice change of pace in the otherwise somber and atmospheric themes permeating. Overall, I believe the soundtrack largely succeeds in conveying a “sense of loneliness, nostalgia wrapped in a dark old sci-fi feel.” Well done!

Very satisfied with the console port on my PlayStation Four Pro. Had one crash in my 3rd playthrough, but the rest of my runs have been smooth. So maybe an outlier. Did not experience any bugs or glitches. Which I am super thankful for. And I am extremely impressed by how fast menus load. ACV and ACVD took their sweet time from the starting screen to the main menu and the following notifications popping up. Connecting to the internet and adding unnecessary filler. Thankfully none of that bull is here. Enter the menu and bam! We're in the garage! Sick!

Despite all the praise I've been endlessly pulling, I must talk about my mixed feelings. Not a positive or a negative, but for the sake of transparency I’ll state them below. First, the implementation of new game cycles could be better. Players need to take certain missions in a manner to achieve the NG/NG+ ending. Taking the opposite operations in the 2nd run for the others. Once these two requirements are met a new path will emerge to unlock NG++. It should be noted, starting a 2nd playthrough upon beating NG. Reinstates the protagonist right after the tutorial. Requiring them to complete old missions and adding more than a handful of unfamiliar assignments included. Finishing NG+ rewards extra exclusive missions to complete. I had to follow Powerpyx’s guides, for all endings and one to make sure I finished all the engagements correctly in a manner leaving no doubt for me to head to the final route. I highly recommend looking up a guide for both to not mess up. I feel the punishment for not going in the manner intended will cause possible frustration. To restart and play an unnecessary fourth operation. During my time playing, I was ruminating possible alternatives. Highlight completed ones, and include a warning or another tutorial to inform mercenaries of the unique quests. There are no multiple saves to rely on. You get one save, so make it count. Unless you like backing up your save constantly. Wish the method was easier to prevent accidents. Therefore, allowing anyone to start a fresh operation painlessly.

The illusion of safe ‘difficulty’ throughout is blown to bits upon encountering the 1st boss. The devs have little sympathy whatsoever for throwing you to the pits. In one of the hardest fights in the beginning and asked us to defeat them with starting equipment. Imagine an armed Megatron versus a no weapon Bumblebee. Such a decision seems to be deliberate to convey how future encounters can be, aligning with Yamamura’s decision earlier. And he does succeed. Since I’ve read countless rants, criticism, angry responses, and complaints ad nauseam. The developer team's intention doesn’t always pan out to the masses. So what's the solution? Another mode? Easy mode? Hmmm. Doubt it. Soulsborne + Sekiro and AC I’ve played don’t contain those options available. So what’s next? Well, they contain an in-depth tutorial archive alongside training quests to bring fresh pilots up to speed. And I found their inclusion to be extremely welcoming. Easy accessibility to refer to the archive and see mechanics I can take advantage of. They specifically mention changing your build, if you’re having trouble. Past entries had players accruing debt. Now it is not possible any longer. Retry errands to your heart's content to earn sufficient funds. The added checkpoints, assembly of parts, repair kits, and passive skills via ‘OS Tuning’ create a fair parameter to redo engagements. Lessening the tediousness and frustration by starting square one again. In effect, the quality of life features make the hard-as-nails bouts fairer than before. I still maintain Last Raven is the hardest entry in the franchise. ACVI by comparison hits the halfway point to the zenith of ACLR. Moving on, to remove any misconceptions I am not defending Yamamura’s decision, merely trying to explain there are avenues within to help consumers interested in buying or trying out the newest installment. I didn’t come out unscathed either. The 1st boss and each chapter's end baddie demonstrate a higher ceiling to break through. So I’m worried the latest title might be a little too hard. Nevertheless, I am not saying ‘git gud.’ I hate the phrase a lot when a person who needs help asks genuinely and is given a troll/meme response. Let us be better and lend a helping hand to those who wish to pilot an AC alongside us. Who continues to struggle. Responses such as I wish you luck! Keep on trying! Don’t lose hope! Change your builds. Sell equipment and try other weapons. Replaying operations is a great way to earn money and some can be done in less than two to three minutes. These are far better responses.

Arena I think could’ve had more substance. Felt it was lacking compared to previous ones. Push the AI to its limits to challenge us further. Expose us to similar adversaries like Z, N, K, J? or throw a big wrench and add 2v1, 3v1, or 4v1 conflicts to truly test a player's capabilities. A boss rush mode to practice against arduous enemies. Instead of having to restart from the beginning during a task before combatting the big baddy. Additionally, I wish multiplayer was expanded instead of 1v1 or 3v3 duels. Grant us co-op missions online/offline, and set up super bosses, and SOTC-like robots. In ACVD we faced off a version of Motherwill as a team. Why can’t we do the same in the latest title? I’d love to face our previous opponents beside my teammates. DXM had co-op super clashes to tackle and I thought they were incredibly eye-candy, altered elements and most of all were not present at all in the regular story. They push pilots to cooperate and in doing so defeat them. Makes me think much of the effort was in the single-player portion. A factor I deeply appreciate.

In the end all of these hurdles, doesn’t diminish the sheer strengths too much. AC6 takes all the best qualities since its inception and hones the edge of its moonlight blade so hard I am in awe of it. Bear witness and see how ravens fly above blood-red skies fearlessly. Embracing stronger than usual story, gratifying content in both gameplay options and combat, an excellent soundtrack, and worthwhile quality-of-life options, rides the fine line of integrating nostalgia, but has enough to stand on its own. Expansive levels to explore, fight, and discover hidden secrets. Memorable cast. Both likable and destable. Fair, but challenging difficulty next to an expansive number of customization options for your robot body. High replayability and little to no performance/bugs/glitches mishaps. All collide to a must-play for any newcomer or veteran. Easy recommendation to fans and enthusiasts within the niche genre to see all endings. Overcoming multiple tall walls to reach what I firmly believe is one of the best AC entries I've played thus far. A return to form by FromSoftware. Bravo Masaru Yamamura and his team. Looking forward to your future works as director! This title boldly demonstrates there is still a thriving market for the genre in the videogame industry and I for one am standing right beside them waving in my cheerleading outfit to ask other devs to achieve similar levels of greatness. And while there are plenty of mecha titles to watch out for. I for one highly anticipate a sequel since history has shown evidence to import our equipment and continue the storyline. Good chance to expect one. Excuse me, while I play Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon for a 4th bloody time!

9/10

Additional Material:
Z N K J - names & somewhat spoilers throughout the series. With final thoughts on the endings of AC6 - MAJOR spoilers on the endings.
Slight Gundam Witch from Mercury similarities
All Endings guide
All Missions List
VaatiVidya - Souls Lore Guru Makes an AC6 Beginner's Guide?!
Advance Tips from Vaati on AC6

Edited 9-9-23 & 10-20-23 - Adding a proper story section, cleaned up some text formatting, replaced a word.

There's really no other way to put it. This game (and possibly franchise) is morally and creatively bankrupt. Between the shallow depictions of mental health whether there's dramatic zooms of the protagonist self harming or even going as far to have chapters end with you jumping off a building and the following interludes flash a suicide hotline message until the level loads or the awkward anime dub tier voice acting berate you with insults or commentary on your surroundings because Konami needs to remind you this is in a fact a serious game and they're afraid of leaving things to interpretation, I fail to see how the 2 hours I spent with this tech demo can leave me anticipation of the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake or "missing the point".

This whole experience ends up feeling like a parody of the thing it's trying to comment and I don't think that's the takeaway someone with diagnosed BPD should be feeling.

Yup. I did it. I never thought I'd ever beat this thing back in 2019 when I attempted it (wavedashing filtered me) but not only did I learn that mechanic totally, not only did I beat Farewell...I got the moonberry baby! It took me over 8 hours and almost 3000 deaths but I did everything the DLC has to offer (besides the golden strawberry ofc).

I mentioned the visuals being lovely for the base game and in farewell it's on another level. I love the use of color used in this stage and the cosmic jellyfish look is super awesome. I also think the mixtapes floating through space was a really nice touch aesthetically.

The OST is still solid but it actually has my favorite song in all of Celeste and it's right near the end too. The song that plays on the last screen is so so good and fits really well. It's the end of a super hard super long final chapter and the song is all triumphant and emotional it's so good.

Speaking of that final screen, I honestly didn't think it was too bad. The fact I had to do it several more times after beating it to attempt the moonberry run made it actually quite easy. There's another infamous room where you have to wavedash into a wall bounce off a moving block and that one was definitely hard but it didn't take me long...only like 15 mins I think? The final screen from 7-C was still hands down the hardest and most time consuming screen imo. Either way, besides some really difficult screens, farewell wasn't absolutely soul crushing like I was expecting but it was definitely a lot of fun.

The story this time around has Madeline having to cope with the loss of granny and I think it was really well done. It was emotional, especially near the end, and the reveal that Theo's grandpa and granny were friends was a great reveal. I also loved how young granny looked just like Madeline, that and the fact they both went to climb Celeste made them being friends more believable.

So yeah, this DLC chapter was awesome and I still can't believe I beat it and got the moonberry! I was thinking an 8 at first but like the base game will give it a 9 for now. This one has a higher chance of me bumping it down but like I said, for now it's a 9. Also, sick ass game cover btw, it's awesome.

Despite being a fan of Mario Kart, I only ever played the newer games (DS and onwards). I never touched anything that came before, and that's like half of the games. While I'd still like to play 64, Super Circuit and Double Dash, I figured I'd play the game that started it all. My dad used to reminisce on how he loved playing this game with his friends back in the day, so I figured it would be a fun time. Sadly, I was mistaken as I found it to be kinda sucky.

I'll start with the good parts though. The game's visuals are pretty nice even if the mode 7 can be sort of weird on certain stages. In general though it's nice and colorful and looks good for a SNES game. The ost is also decent with some really solid tracks here and there. I also found the first cup to be alright course-wise even if I ended up only getting 2nd place.

That's it for the positives however, because as a whole this game is just unfun. I said the first cup was alright course-wise and while that's true, I still had an issue with the controls while playing through it. This game is so slippery, if you bump into anything you go flying. The drift feels so loose and is tricky to use, so you'd wanna use it as little as possible. However a good majority of the courses have so many sharp turns in them, you're forced to use the drift. That plus the bumping everywhere aspect just make's it super frustrating to play.

That's not even getting into the CPU's that actively cheat by just having stars whenever they want. I played on 100cc and they were brutal, I'm surprised I was able to get 2nd in the first cup. Once I got to the 2nd cup, I lost halfway through and because I wasn't having much fun to begin with, I just decided to play through the rest of the courses on time trial mode. You can't even unlock special mode until you beat the first three cups on 100cc, which I just said screw that. Oh also the courses are lame for the most part in terms of theming cuz, with the exception of Rainbow Road, they repeat two to three times each (with Mario circuit appearing a whopping four times) and just feel so samey.

Sadly I wasn't able to enjoy this like I thought I did and I think I'm maybe being a bit generous with giving it a 4/10 cuz I really did not have fun. Rainbow Road having an absolute banger song may be why I am not rating it any lower idk lol. Now I'm worried for Mario Kart 64 even tho I've heard good things about it.

My first experience with a Castlevania game was Portrait of Ruin. I enjoyed it fine enough, but it didn't really stick with me all that much. Next, I played a couple levels of Castlevania IV but never came back to it. The little I played was fun but never totally hooked me. Then, at the end of the summer of 2019, I played Bloodstained Ritual of the Night. I had a blast playing it, so much so I ended up Platinuming it. This got me excited to play Symphony of the Night (which I conveniently bought at a convention a month prior to playing Bloodstained). Fast forward to March 2020 apparently (I literally thought it was October 2020, guess that year really was a blur) and I decided to finally play SOTN. I had such a great time, but thought it was more comparable to Bloodstained. A really fun time but nothing amazing. Well I'm happy to say this replay has changed my mind on this game for the most part.

The first thing you'll notice about this game, and it's one of its best aspects, is the presentation. At least from what games I played, it's the best looking PS1 game or one of the best at least. That's the power of sprites, they consistently stay appealing unlike some early PS1 titles. Plus, the really cool part is the game mixes both spritework and 3d models and it gives it this really unique look that I love. When you see those book enemies in the library or the coffin after saving, they stand out so much amidst all the 2d spritework...and they look good too!

The other best aspect of this game is undoubtedly the soundtrack. I remembered Dracula's Castle and Lost painting quite fondly but the entire soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. It ranges from jazz to classical to metal, it has it all. The colosseum theme became another favorite of mine among the aforementioned two. God is it so catchy, I love it. A great soundtrack can really win a game over for me and this one does not disappoint.

As for the actual gameplay, it's fun! The movement is very fluid in this game which is nice. Alucard has this backwards dash thing that's very helpful in getting around. Instead of using one whip and upgrading it a couple times like in Classicvania, Alucard has a large assortment of weapons to choose from. He still has a whip, but now he can use all different types of swords, daggers, rods etc. They have different ranges and different stab rates which just makes the combat more varied and fun. You also have these spells that require you to put in a button combo to use them. I personally never got the hang of these too much but it's really cool how you can activate from the start of the game if you know the combos. There's also a familar system which let's you assign a little fella that goes alongside you, levels up and grows stronger. I thought that was pretty neat but was more of an afterthought when I was playing.

This game gives you a lot more options as you can see, and that's because unlike past Castlevania games...this game is nonlinear. Instead of playing through levels, you go through a large interconnected castle....collecting different abilities that let you progress through even more of the castle. Thus, the vania part of Metroidvania was born. For such a groundbreaking title, how is the item progression handled in this game? I Honestly thought it was much less of a focus than the combat. There's not many progression abilities in this game, just never felt like the focus was on the exploration while using new abilities...it was moreso let's explore this part of the castle and level up and shit. Maybe that's just me but for item based exploration, I much prefer Metroid. The backtracking was not as fun as it was in something like Metroid either, there's warps which is nice but I had to constantly trek back and forth between certain areas, some more secret shortcuts or something would've been nice. Either way, the castle is a lot of fun to explore...but I guess there's actually two of them huh.

So the inverted castle overall is actually kinda cool. The game get's really easy in the mid-game cuz you become so overpowered by that point and doesn't get hard again until the inverted castle. Hoo boy tho, some parts of the inverted castle can kick your ass. The harder difficulty and the new enemies/bosses I did really enjoy when going through the castle essentially a second time. Cuz yeah, it's pretty much padding...but like it's changed enough where I didn't mind really. The OST also gets changed to the same 4 or so songs which is kinda meh but at least Lost Painting is one of them.

I forgot to mention the bosses. Most of them are just alright. A lot of them are pretty easy but nothing bad. A couple of them kinda stink, especially Beezlebub. I think that boss is the only down right bad part of the game. He's either dummy easy with certain sub weapons, or annoying as shit. I remember him giving me trouble when I initially played the game and yeah, he was no different this time around.

Hmm what else...oh yeah I actually thought the story was pretty cool for what it was. I really enjoyed the whole dynamic with Alucard, Dracula and Lisa. Those scenes were super interesting. The voice acting is obviously pretty cheesy but I think it fits incredibly well with a game like this, idk I liked it a lot. I was also trying to get 200.6% but missed a couple tiles so I got 198 something %. Pretty sure I got the best ending tho so that's good.

A couple more miscellaneous things, I really like how many secrets/little details this game has. I feel like every playthrough you'd be discovering something new. Also, the official artwork for this game absolutely fucks man, it's amazing. Alucard is so hot.

Alright I should probably end this here, it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm just here writing what might be my longest review lol. Idk man, there was a lot to say, hope I didn't ramble on for too long. It's not perfect imo but this game overall is pretty fantastic. I still prefer Super Metroid tho personally. Next is Bloodborne my beloved and hopefully I can beat that before Mario Wonder on the 20th.

The Far Cry Elden Ring-ification of Breath of the Wild with a smattering of end-of-chapter Fortnite and New Funky Mode.

While BotW was content to let players roam free in a sprawling world, Tears of the Kingdom reins in this freedom considerably and hides the guardrails from the player with horse blinders. Link is still welcome to run around Hyrule at will, but the primary storyline holds the keys which allow actual exploratory liberation. My first dozen hours completely ignored Lookout Landing, leaving me without critical tools like the paraglider and towers. That was the most challenging TotK ever got, and the most it (unintentionally) forced me to think outside the box. I dragged gliders to the tops of hills labouriously, I used a horse and cart, I made elaborate vehicles simply to get around. I scrounged for rockets, fans, batteries, and air balloons to ascend to sky islands, making it to a few of the lower ones with great accomplishment. I committed to putting off the towers as long as I could, not realising they were an outright necessity. Seeing how this additional layer of the map functioned demystified it severely, rendering a challenge into a stepping stone for parcels of content.

The depths, like the skies above, are filled with potential. Many of its spaces are similarly wide open to encourage blind exploration with vehicles. Only there is nearly no purpose to any of it. Lightroots are a checkbox which dismantle the most compelling part of the depths -- their darkness. The depths are a place you visit to grab zonaite or amiibo armour and leave. As the Fire Temple is within the depths, and it being the first I tackled, I falsely believed there would be more dungeons strewn about below, simply a part of the world rather than instanced away from it. Sadly, it is the exception.

The other temples are obfuscated and inaccessible without their related storylines, which is itself fine (the temples are impossible to progress through without their associated power anyways) but this leaves the world feeling more boxed in, a selection of rooms in an overly-long hallway. A spare few rooms complement each other, most of them do not. The walls of the rooms must be thick. Whether it is shrines, side quests, or temples, the developers yet again seemingly have no way of knowing what abilities the player might have, what puzzles they have encountered, what skills they remember. All that they know is that in the Fire Temple, you have a Goron. In the Water Temple, you have Zora armour. The positive is, of course, that these things can thus be tackled in any order without a fear of missing out on anything. The downside is that there is never anything more to a shrine, a temple, or anything than what the player encounters the first go around. There is no impetus to return to a location when you have a better tool, or a wider knowledge of how the game's mechanics work. You show up, experience the room, and leave. With 300 map pins at your disposal, and similar issues arising in BotW, there's a sense that the developers chickened out near the end, too afraid to let the player (gasp) backtrack or (gasp) miss out.

Ironically enough, the lack of FOMO is what I miss most. When I was towerlessly exploring with a hodgepodge of trash scavenged from around the world, I felt free. I felt clever! When I discovered the intended mode of play, however, I felt I was putting a square peg in a square hole. There's a crystal that needs to be moved to a far away island? Before, I might have made a horror of Octoballoons and Korok Fronds with Fans and Springs to get it where it needed to go. When the Fruit of Knowledge was consumed, I saw the parts for the prebuilt Fanplane were right next to the Crystal. There's a breakable wall in a dungeon? Bomb Flowers or a hammer are right there. It is incredibly safe. It is a pair of horse blinders that you can decorate as you please. Go ahead and make your mech, you are still on the straight and narrow path.

TotK tries to bring back the linearity of Zeldas past within the BotW framework, but it ignores that the linearity was speckled with a weave of areas which expanded alongside your arsenal, rather than shrinking. Everything here is incongruous, a smörgåsbord of cool set pieces that simply don't go together. There is too much content (Elden Ring) that is too self-contained (end of chapter Fortnite) and too afraid that you will not experience it (New Funky Mode).

Did I have fun? Yes. But I had to make it myself.

The beginning of the Kain series started with a bang in 1996. So there shouldn’t be a problem with a sequel right? Oh, I wish. Turns out Silicon Knights(SK) who owned the IP filed a injunction against Crystal Dynamics(CD). We don’t need to get into the nitty gritty here, except to know they were able to make a sequel to Blood Omen(BO). This is important since Amy Hennig made her directorial debut here when previously she worked on BO. For those unfamiliar, she would go off to work on the Uncharted franchise later on. And she is crucial to understand, when I talk about the underlying problems I had with Soul Reaver(SR).

Moving forward in time to 2022. Square Enix(who acquired CD later on) sold their western studios. Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montreal for money. Among the plethora of IPs gathered. Two come to mind. Legacy of Kain and Soul Reaver. To none other than the Embracer company. Who has been laying off and closing down their recently bought studios as of late. So I'm here with a heavy heart to tell you guys if we don't see a remake/remaster officially, I will gently point you all towards an excellent Raina Audron’s HD Remaster for the Flycast Dreamcast emulator. Faithfully redone with higher quality textures as an appropriate unofficial alternative instead of waiting for one that may never come. Despite rumors of one in development.

And while there is a PC version on Steam. You cannot currently buy. And the sketchy PC mod doesn’t help matters which GOG is a part of as well. Excusing all those matters. I'll focus purely on the base game. Thankfully, you don’t need to play the previous entry to know what happens. They summarize the events that occurred before. Play it if you wish. I recommend it only for those seeking out why Kain acts the way he does in a Legend of Zelda spliced with a bloodsucker’s tale. The sequel continues the dark gothic storytelling fans have been waiting for. With a return to Nosgoth.

The supernatural setting we start our journey once more. Thousands of years after the events of the first. In the beginning cutscene. We see Raziel, a vampire lieutenant of Kain’s forces who has served him for a millennium. Who after receiving new wings in a fit of transformation. Kain inspects the new appendages while admiring them. Unfortunately, the new attachments did not endear him at all to his boss. Abruptly and forcefully rips the wings and orders his other lieutenants to cast him down into the abyss. An eternity passes and a mysterious voice resurrects our titular protagonist to become his ‘Soul Reaver.’ with a dreadfully cool new look and powers he’s off on a quest for vengeance against his former boss.

Will we face him in the end? Good question. Not sure. We’ll have to traverse through a 3D Metroidvania in a 3rd person perspective with no loading screens before we find our answers. And boy oh boy was this a welcome surprise. The gameplay has shifted in a whole new direction from the top-down perspective of the first installment. Overhauled to the teeth, maximizing numerous advantages of the 3D era. Our hero can move in any direction, jump higher than his base vault, glide in the air, hack and slash enemies. Hold any manner of weaponry without being subject to the gods of durability and throw them at any time. Capable of using mystical abilities like glyphs. The eldritch energy pertains to each element. Sparingly used, they provide a massive advantage against mobs of enemies. Heck one glyph can stop time for everyone excluding our dude! One innate ability is the power to shift between the material world into the spectral world and vice-versa. This sole skill changed the whole gameplay formula. And made my playthrough fascinating to test.

Plane shifting has massive benefits. For one. He has two health bars. As his health slowly depletes in the physical realm. He can apparate to the spectral realm and recover his health there. Incurring no HP penalty either. Dude can literally suck the souls from defeated enemies in either realm to restore his vitality. But that’s not all. Oh no. Both levels distort in weird ways. If he is in the physical domain and encounters an obstacle. All he has to do is switch to the other domain and voila! The path is open! I encountered multiple obstacles like jumping across chasms and unlocking a new path where previously a dead-end was in sight. Additionally, the ability allows one to go underwater without any penalty. Whereas going back to the real world causes Raziel to immediately transition to the other field. The mechanic works seamlessly when encountering puzzles. Usually, physical box placement is designed with several to a dozen steps or more to solve. Sometimes, CD will throw in a handful of switches and levers for good measure. For anyone who played Vagrant Story. The block elements are similar here. Where you’ll have to move them to open a new path or slot them in various places according to the imagery on the walls. Completing the art so to speak. Switches can run on timers, so phase-shifting to another dimension stops time. Making it instrumental if low on time. I didn’t have too much trouble with the puzzles. Controlling how to manage box placement was a bigger issue early on. Solvable once I read the manual. Perhaps one or two overstayed their welcome in a certain region. But the rest from then on felt balanced. A nice change of pace from the constant exploring.

Aside from the freedom to explore in any direction within reason. The boss encounters operate much like their predecessor. Being designed Legend of Zelda-like. As I defeated Raz's old brethren in various arenas I was struck once again by how I had to utilize the environment to my advantage and any tricks I learned prior. Picking up a weapon and slamming it at the boss once all appendages were gone. Use my plane-shifting powers to recuperate and find weaknesses and in some cases lure my opponent away like a rod and carrot stick for bait. They were fun to tackle and a nice reprieve from the Metroidvania world through Nosgoth’s moody areas. Gifting our main protagonist with new abilities. Thereby allowing the player to overcome obstacles with ease. Adding a gratifying reward upon completing a ‘dungeon’ before moving on to the next. And honestly? My motivation to exact retribution on Kain was still at an all-time high as I progressed through each boss encounter. I mean who wouldn’t if your past employer betrayed you in a heinous manner? Look at Raziel waving a “Me!” flag.

Before our hero kicks off a rant on vengeance I must talk about the world. Nosgoth has radically changed. Where previously it was teeming with life. Now it is a world of fear and decay. Gone are the bustling settlements of humans with a manic hatred for all things vampiric in nature. Iconic locations I sought with a wanderlust fervor, have withered away. Now nothing more than fables in the wind and myths of werewolves, ghosts, and ghouls have been reduced to fairy tales. Nosgoth of today. I dread walking and breathing these unfamiliar locales resembling more of a dark moody post-apocalypse as if someone sucked the very life from the land. Vampire creatures reign supreme. Each one is distinct from others based on their biome and clan affiliation. If you thought regular bloodsuckers were a threat. Wait till you see spider and water variants! EW! Humans are near extinct. With pockets of resistance thriving in some far-off places. However, entering such a place seems ill-advised since wide-open fields full of life are a very rare sight nowadays. Replaced with a foreboding harsh atmosphere accompanied by maze-like passages and decent platformer segments. I passed through empty caverns and short corridors while solving puzzle rooms to gain access to new glyph spells or by once defeating a boss in a main area am I endowed with a new traversal ability. Allowing one to venture onwards to new roads less traveled and hidden detours and shortcuts. Although, a new power doesn’t solve all my dilemmas. The spectral dimension is haunting, filled with a ghastly atmosphere that is both depressing and gloomy. A different color palette is injected every time Raziel shifts and with it, new ghostly enemies are summoned. To harm him like wraiths and bloodsucking dementor-like beings. Shudders. The territory makes the real and unreal more pronounced where things become larger or smaller as they appear. So have courage. To embrace the unfamiliar expanse whenever plane-shifting occurs.

The sound design is dynamic. Where a large chunk of my feelings is borderline dislike, except there's another big side of appreciating the technical achievement. The former is vexing and disconnecting in the soundscape. Feels largely oppressing in the foreground with low drums hitting a hypnotic rhythm as a faint choir chants in the background in intervals to imply the divine and further adds to the depressing, lonely, unsettling, creepy ambiance. In a dying world, I was fraught with anxiety wrapped in a tight ball around myself. Reminded me a bit of the soundscape of Silent Hill. However, this one felt less insidious and far more bearable in certain respects. Some select tracks are triumphant and give off a feeling of bravery in spite of the encompassing tracks displaying dread. Not a negative at all. I find it hard to say I like a majority of tracks while playing. On the other hand, I'm amazed by technological advancement. Looking at each piece. I’m amazed how the composer Kurt Harland from Information Society managed to create a vast library of tunes to work on and multiple variations. Whereas in the predecessor there were only nineteen tracks. Here we have one hundred eighty-one. That’s an insane improvement. And a new composer to boot! After listening to the entire game's soundtrack, I found it similar to how the works of Keichi Okabe and his studio band Monaca techniques in the franchise for Nier. From Okabe, the sound design when the soundtrack was ripped. Had dynamic, medium, quiet, no vocals, 8-bit versions for each location and iconic event. Not all of them, but I would say a good size. Allowing the player to smoothly segue into the following track. While not as seamless as Nier: Automata Harland's implementation in Soul Reaver, works similarly. Special thanks go out to Raina Audron who recorded and assembled the full depth of the OST in full so we can see how far Harland worked on composing 11 hours of music. From what Audron states. Each piece " indoors/outdoors (normal+suspenseful), puzzle, danger, and combat... changes dynamically according to the situation on the screen." Meaning we have a similar occurrence here with Okabe in creating multiple variations of a track. That is fascinating and honestly incredible to hear to this extent for a PSX title! As an example you can see most of the track listings here on YouTube. I am deeply amazed, surprised how largely unnoticed and underrated the sheer sound design permeates throughout. One largely not analyzed to an extent I’ve seen online. Curious if other IPs during the fifth-generation console era made comparable strides such as Harland and Okabe on impressive soundscape achievements.

As much as I love everything that Soul Reaver elevated from Blood Omen I do have some mixed feelings. And this isn’t a positive or a negative. Simply concerns I had during my playthrough that others may find useful to hear beyond the praise I sprouted above.

First, the story is a bit of a letdown. But narratively an improvement beyond BO's narrative. We don’t receive as many voiced monologues as the previous game. Telling a subtly compelling character development from the beginning to the very end, where we see Kain shift from a human into something far more sinister. Here we don’t get that as much. Missing lore drips. Voiced monologues of Raziel poetically waxing his thoughts both internally or externally to the player could've been far more utilized here than the sense of silence covering a large amount of distance. And this I feel is a missed opportunity to call back to the series' roots by detailing the story-telling through a voiced narrative. In the previous installment, Kain would narrate about items he finds and narrate their description to you upon cursor highlight. Effectively luring me further into the worldbuilding and NPCs. Speaking of NPCs, there's almost no one. Aside from one NPC and your new boss. Who will chime in at times to have a chat like a god speaking to his new disciple. Much like how the parasite speaks to Eddie Brock from the Venom(2018) film. Except the mysterious being isn't exactly within our titular guy. Somehow always with him, yet not physically.

Granted, he still opens their mouth at critical moments, usually during plot beats of cutscenes and during intro-boss battles. And to our new hero's credit, I resonated far more with him than his former employer. Pretty likable guy I initially thought would be far more angsty, moody full of hate. Far from it! The dude was focused and sought reason without letting his emotions boil over his spirit. Regardless of his dour appearance, Michael Bell's voice lends a unique cadence to bringing our wraith's character to life. Making my overall experience not so isolating. His actions mirror my incentive to push forward. In the face of desiring to know more about what happened to Kain. Anything deeper between their relationship? Were there any more reasons why he ripped the wings? Why has the world suffered like this further and why have clans of vampires which have risen to prominence and discussed a fair amount, thrown to the curbside? Speaking of being thrown onto the curb. The ending without going into spoilers feels unfulfilling a tad.

And this makes sense. According to Amy Hennig, SR1 suffered development troubles due to the injunction. Recent news started to arise about the edits of an unfinished product. Hennig set the record straight by stating in April of 2000. “...We simply just felt that we were compromising Kain's epic story by trying to cram too many major events into the last 10% of Soul Reaver.” - If I were in her position I would divide the game into two. She called this a “blessing in disguise” allowing the ideas, cut content, and story to flourish here rather than cramming everything and delaying. Her response felt appropriate and validated a lot of my disconcerting thoughts on the shortcomings I gathered upon finishing. And to be fair as a whole, I think the game is still fine for what her team tried to achieve. I'm grateful for what is already here and not rushed, broken, or horribly missing plot details I think were vital to know. A safe product at the end of the day without being too ambitious.

Second, loading any save file or dying. Has the player start from the 1st zone. This results in kinda of tedious backtracking for the unaware. You’ll need to use gates that act as a fast travel system to head to your next destination. Sadly they're only denoted by a symbol. And no menu is available or font to visualize where the path leads unless I walk through. Reminds me of Stargate. Lacking the wormhole loading. Rather you move forward without any delay or transition to another screen to load the new area. Pretty much an uninterrupted travel system. Thankfully, more often than not the waypoints are spread a decent amount from before entering a dungeon and before a boss encounter. I suggest copying the image and putting the pic on a Google Doc or notepad for reference. You can go traditional and draw the piece on paper to help! Vital to recall where I had already trodden. Should be noted dying in both dimensions returns the player to the start. Felt this wasn’t too punishing. Since you have plenty of time to recover vitality in either realm. Wasn't a drag either, I was able to adjust to the flow quickly.

Third, in a minor way, a hurdle may occur for the camera. It can take some getting used to. Though thankfully not a major hassle and you will fight it sometimes when fighting enemies and checking your surroundings. And I didn’t realize until midway I could quick turn by hitting the directional pad on the left or right and transitioning to first-person point of view mode to check my surroundings by hitting both L2 and R2 buttons. Useful to see the verticality in level design and any secrets tucked away.

Fourth, aside from no title markers when using gates to fast travel. or a hints menu. Hand-holding here is very minimal. Therefore, players must be aware of their sense of location. Keeping a map of Nosgoth helped tremendously and I'll post a link below to help newcomers. Didn't use it until I reached the 70% mark and after exhausting as much backtracking as I could without help. Keeping these details in mind, I think are crucial to progress further. One could speak to your new boss and another being you'll meet later on and apprise Raziel on his next objective. And that's the only gentle reminder of where to head out. Good idea to check again if you’re lost and need a gentle nudge. Though be warned, you may need to decipher the Shakespearean-like dialogue when given. Not a big deal, since they’ll reference past locations. And for a Metroidvania, I think they do a serviceable job toeing the line on not being too cryptic and not too easy, I need a journalist mode to persevere. Most if not all of my frustration was a consequence of rushing without thinking. I advise taking a step to re-collect your thoughts. Patiently recalling prior distinct areas visited to arrive at a sensibly achievable goal.

More than two decades ago, I had the pleasure of playing the title when I was a kid. Never finished it since I was very confused about my true objective. And I vividly remember my first impressions. Badass FMV in the beginning, hot meh on nearly everything else. Confusing passages, dull color palettes, and a combat system that felt clunky. Now as an adult revisiting. I'm on the opposite spectrum for my first impressions. Where now I think its not meh. The confusion is still there, though tempered with patience and a drive to explore the gloomy post-apocalyptic world with some platforming segments. Nosgoth’s murky setting is a stark contrast to the lively world from before. Adding incentive to my vengeful goal of what happened here. A decent combat system that can take some getting used to along with the camera still left me completely enthralled in the presentation. The voiced narrative continues to be strong although lessened by switching to a new protagonist, but is equally as fascinating to learn about. The solid writing continues to leave me hungry to know more about the underlying narrative. Satisfying and self-contained to an extent like the Trails or Xenoblade games. The first delved into a nuance-filled story about a human who becomes a vampire and struggles with darker impulses. A shadowy tale in a dimly lit fantasy environment. SR meanwhile flips the scripts and asks the confused avenger Raziel to embark on a quest for vengeance. And understandably so! Man was betrayed by his employer after faithfully serving him for a millennium. Only to be betrayed because he had wings and Kain did not?! WELL SEE HER- Coughs. Anyway, I think the Dreamcast remaster is a great way for anyone looking to dive into the series nowadays rather than resorting to a sketchy PC mod. Emulation or playing via console are also fine choices. While I did have some mixed feelings, muddling my final thoughts. Ultimately they're not as egregious as my time in Blood Omen. Thus Soul Reaver is a worthy gateway to try for folks interested in a seamless 3D metroidvania with a rare shifting mechanic followed by an uncommonly gothic story in the Legacy of Kain saga.

8/10

References and additional material:
1998 - Knights fight for Kain article - injunction
2022 - Square Enix sells off IPs and studios
2023 - Embracer & layoffs throughout the year
Dreamcast remaster of Soul Reaver 1
Rumors for an official remaster
Sketchy Soul Reaver PC mod
Raina Audron's work on Soul Reaver 1. Quote is from a readme
2000 - Soul Reaver Response - Amy Hennig responds to reports about the game being unfinished.
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Helpful Links - Map of Nosgoth - Incomplete OST - Setting summary of Nosgoth - Spoiler-free SR1 walkthrough - Before I play tips on SR1 - There was no section previously. So I submitted my own tips. Hope this helps any newcomers!
Who owns the Legacy of Kain IP?

It’s really a shame that reactions to Stellar Blade are more focused on the fanservice or the coomer reactions. You got one group of people who just focus on the fanservice and hail the game to be the savior of sexualized women in gaming, and then you got the other group who view the game in a negative light because of the first group. And you know what? I can’t even blame them because the first group is really insufferable.

I don't care in the slightest about Stellar Blade having a "sexy" protagonist. I saw a trailer for it once and was immediately interested, because of how fun and unique it looked.

But coomers saw the female Protagonist’s butt and were obnoxious about it ever since. Like come on, it’s bottom of the barrel fanservice you’re going all crazy for. Literally everything I've seen about this game online is people with underaged anime character avatars cream their pants over how this game is "destroying wokeness" or whatever. Nothing against Eve, because she is really pretty and I actually really like her, but she looks like every female character in every korean MMO ever made. It's like people going to war over white bread. Apparently, these guys are now whining about censorship, signing petitions, and making videos of themselves (they look about as you'd expect) about why their cause matters lmao. These pathetic gamerbros will never not be incredibly annoying and cringe to me.

Because Stellar Blade is just so much more. Picture all those apocalyptic gachas and their really great world-building, fantastic atmosphere but really cheap and dull (chibi) gameplay, then amp it up to AAA levels – that's the magic of Stellar Blade.

The environments are beautifully crafted and the atmospheric soundtrack is another aspect I deeply appreciate and thoroughly enjoyed in this game. There's nothing quite like losing yourself in a captivating melody as you journey through vast, lonely landscapes and cities. Just like Nier, Stellar Blade really nailed its soundtrack.

The gameplay is just so much fun and showcases an exceptional level of refinement and polish. Every movement, dodge and parry hit the mark perfectly. The more skills you unlock, the cooler and more fun the combat gets. There's never a dull moment - the gameplay remains consistently exciting and stylish from start to finish.

I found the plot to be really intriguing, and I really enjoyed uncovering plenty of secrets and snippets of lore. But what really surprised me were the sidequests. Sure, some were usual filler content, but most served to make the world feel alive and deepened the lore. Completing them was enjoyable, they never felt like a chore. So good job there.

Oh, and I'm pleasantly surprised by Eve! Initially, I expected her to be the typical "waifu" (ugh, I hate that word), merely there for visual appeal with little personality beyond conforming to generic “anime girl” tropes. Most of these tropes revolve around being “innocent”, "naive" or a "sweet flower girl." But Eve defies those expectations, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Even though Stellar Blade took huge inspiration from Nier and other apocalyptic gacha games, it's still an extremely unique and fun game that everyone should give a chance. Don't listen to the manchildren throwing tantrums or all the buzz about the “fanservice," which is honestly vastly overexaggerated due to some optional skins. Honestly, aside from the optional skins, there are absolutely no horny aspects present in the game.

There are just so many little touches to the point where you can tell the developers really cared about making this game great, and they succeeded. Stellar Blade is simply a beautiful game.

Well, beating this on my birthday sure was a nice surprise! Especially since this was a pretty great game overall. It was my Secret Santa game in fact, which was something me and my discord fellas participated in. I'll link the list I did for that here.

Any who, yeah this was really good. I beat Prime 1 last year for the first time and thought it was awesome. So I was excited to see how 2 fared and I was not disappointed. I do think 1 was better overall as 2 has higher highs in some parts of the game and lower lows but it's still really good even compared to 1.

When it comes to straight up improvements, there's a couple things 2 did extremely well compared to 1. Loading times are all faster, it takes like half the time for you to get to a new area now. Scans now go from red or blue to green when scanned and are much easier to see if they've been scanned or not. The scanning especially being a lot better than 1's would definitely make me miss it when I replay that eventually lol.

Obviously the game's big mechanic is the dark and light worlds and honestly, I thought it was awesome. I've heard some people say they found it tedious, and I never really had an issue with it. I thought it added a cool spin on Prime's gameplay and made you think. It could make the game difficult somewhat, especially when fighting some of those dark world bosses but I liked that.

Speaking of the bosses, they're very interesting in this one. Overall, I'd say they were an improvement from 1 tho there were a couple that were a pain in the ass. Spider Guardian obviously being the main culprit for most people. I didn't hate it but man was it frustrating trying to figure out what to do while fighting it cuz that one can be brutal. A lot of the bosses were actually pretty tough, they were certainly more complex than 1's bosses. Those last few tho, the 2nd Dark Samus fight...Quadraxis and the whole set of final bosses were easily the best in the game and better than all of Prime 1's bosses. At first I was a little disappointed with the boss roster in 2 but after fighting the endgame ones, overall I do think 2 has better bosses than 1.

Now the biggest thing I think that's holding this game back from being better than 1, is its world. Prime 1 was basically Super Metroid in 3D. You had a very interconnected world to explore that was more into showing not telling. Prime 2 is more similar to Fusion with its bigger focus on storytelling and more linear world. The game is definitely not quite as linear or focused on story as Fusion, but it definitely feels like it took inspiration from it. The world is broken up into 3 main areas to explore and 1 overworld type area you go back and forth from. Rather than exploring at your own pace like Prime 1, it feels more like you're guided around slightly as you have to go back to the hub to unlock each new area. Eventually the areas do have elevators that connect to other areas but even with that the world isn't as tightly designed as 1's I feel. The area's are all cool, especially Sanctuary Fortress...that one is awesome, however I feel there weren't as many "aha" moments whenever I saw areas connect like in 1. I also feel like the game wasn't as atmospheric as 1 was, at least not the atmosphere I dig as much. Still, the world does interconnect by the end, I just think compared to 1 it just aint as good.

As for other miscellaneous things, the OST is pretty solid tho I do think its a downgrade compared to 1. I love how the classic item room theme is back, that's sick. I enjoyed the connections the game made to 1 near the beginning. Dark Samus was awesome to see in this game finally and it seems like it comes back in 3 so that'll be cool. Pirate commanders suck ass and were easily the worst enemy in the game. They're basically Chozo Ghosts from 1, except instead of locking the doors only some of the time, they lock them every time they appear and they're tanky as fuck which Chozo ghosts weren't. Weird change tbh and was just tedious every time they popped up. Navigating menus in this game feels clunkier than 1, they tried to make it all cool but it feels like it takes longer to find a certain file if you wanna read it again. It was interesting to see the screw attack in this game and while I warmed up to it by the end of the game, I still can't help it felt a little lame compared to how it was in prior games. Also again, one of the best parts of the game was just getting collectables and seeing what puzzles you have to do to get/find them. That was still really fun to do in this game, especially with the Dark/Light gimmick. I did get every item, which is of course a Metroid staple, and got a good chunk of the scans so I'm satisfied.

Overall, this was very good despite some issues I had. I do like Prime 1 more but this was definitely a worthy sequel I feel. Thank you @QuentTheSlayer for having me play this as my Secret Santa game, had a jolly good time! Next is gonna be the original Klonoa. A nice short game will do me good methinks.

Of the Mario Kart games I had played prior to this whole marathon I'm doing, Mario Kart Wii was the one I played the absolute least. I think the main reason for that is I got my wii in the latter half of 2010 and got this game for Christmas that year. However, next Christmas I got a 3DS and Mario Kart 7 and just never really went back to this one because the only time I was Mario Karting was on the school bus. Eventually 8 came out and that gave me even less of a reason to come back to this one. So it's been around 12 years since I last touched this game. As such, I gave this a 6 and thought it was just an average Mario Kart purely because I barely played it. Coming back to it in 2024 though, not only is it really great, it's my favorite Mario Kart I've played thus far in this marathon. I always thought I liked DS more overall since I had fonder memories with it but Wii is just more fun overall due to a couple things it did incredibly well.

The biggest and best thing Wii excelled at I think, is its new track selection. I honest to god don't think there's a single track I dislike. Maybe there's a couple tracks I think are just decent like Luigi Circuit or Mario Circuit but the track list is absolutely chock full of bangers. Mushroom Gorge, Toad's Factory, Coconut Mall, DK Summit, Wario's Gold Mine, Koopa Cape, Maple Treeway and this game's Rainbow Road. Those are just some of my absolute favorites but the rest are really good too. I know 7 and 8's original tracks already, and I've played through most of Double Dash's through other games in the series and also have seen the tracks that have not appeared in other games. With that said, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, Mario Kart Wii has the best selection of original courses out of every game in the series. The ratio of amazing/good courses is just too high for me not to claim that to be true. Either way, certainly a big reason this game is still a ton of fun to this day.

Something else this game did well was it's retro track selection. It may not be as good as 8's or even 7's for that matter, but it's leagues better than DS's I think. A big reason for that is half of the courses aren't from SNES or Super Circuit. And the ones that were, are a lot better this time around. Same with the Double Dash picks, Peach Beach is meh but Waluigi Stadium and DK mountain are awesome picks. The N64 picks are pretty solid too. Only one I think this game did dirty was DS. Peach Gardens and Delfino Square, while not my favorites from DS, were both pretty good. However, the other two courses are Yoshi Falls and Desert Hills which were some of my least favorites from DS. They could've picked some fan favorites like Waluigi Pinball or Airship Fortress but no, they picked some of the lamest courses. Hey, 7 actually had those two courses in its retro selection so I'll definitely be looking forward to them when I get to that game. Anyways, the retro selection could've been better but it's a big improvement from DS's selection.

The other big addition this game added was the trick system. Every Mario Kart after this one also has it too and there's a good reason why they've kept it ever since. It makes ramps that much more fun to drive off of, it's just super satisfying to shake the controller and see your kart do the most sick tricks in the air. Same with the half-pipe ramps which are an amazing addition as well. Honestly, they're usually slower than just driving if they're optional ones but courses like DK Pass or Bowser's Castle where they're pretty much mandatory (unless you have a mushroom) make those levels that much more fun to play and gives the game it's own identity since 8 did away with them (they are actually back in the Booster Courses but I haven't played those).

All this stuff is great and makes me enjoy this game a ton, but I do have a couple issues with this game that makes me like it less than 8 still. One of the biggest issues is the game's balancing. Another thing the game added was bikes which was huge. The developers must've had a huge hard on for them though as they're WAY better than any of the karts. The inside drift bikes especially are just too broken. So basically, there's two types of bikes. Outward drift and inward drift. Outward drift asks like a kart basically while inward drift makes it so as soon as you start to drift you can only drift sharply into the direction. Kinda hard to explain but if you've played the game you know. I remember hating inward drifting when I played this game all the way back in the day. Now though, I find inward drifting bikes to be a really fun and not nearly as annoying to use. However, like I said they're just too broken since you can cut corners insanely fast and also instead of getting a two stage mini turbo, you only get the one stage blue sparks but in turn you can perform a wheelie at any time by shaking the wiimote and that gives you a small speed boost. Because of all this, once I got the Mach Bike or Flame Runner, I just never used a kart or outside drift bike again just cuz there's no need to. 8 definitely fixed this cuz the balancing between the two is much better in that game.

A couple other issues I had was the item frequency and the battle mode being poor. The items can be super obnoxious in this game at times. I really don't know why but it's just super easy to get spammed with blue shells when in first. There were a couple games where I'd be hit by a blue shell like 7 times in one game. And plenty of times where I'd be hit by one and then hit by lightning, this game is just insane when it comes to it's items and sometimes it's just not fun. The battle mode I also remember not being that great back in the day. The courses were solid and all but the issue was you're forced to be on teams and cannot ever have it be a free for all. This is just lame and while it's not as bad as base 8's battle mode, it certainly isn't that far off. Also I was gonna say the bloom can really make the game look ugly or weird at times but honestly I got used to it pretty quickly and don't have much of an issue with it like I once thought. Still think Double Dash looks better than this game especially since some of the character models still aren't that great looking (not nearly as mad as DS tho).

I was also gonna say how it stinks to unlock every character because a couple of them require you to get a star or more on every cup(or just play and absurd amount of races) and the way to get star rank is a little weird in this game but I was actually able to do it in the end. Got one star or higher in 50, 100 and 150cc as well as unlocking every expert ghost time trial so I was able to unlock every character. Didn't feel like doing mirror mode though so I didn't get every kart but I feel pretty satisfied with what I did. Never unlocked a lot of stuff in this game back then when I played so it felt good to finally do so.

Overall, while I had some minor issues, this was easily the best Mario Kart game I've played thus far in this marathon. I'm super happy I redeemed myself with this game because a ton of my friends love it and I can finally see why they do. Really wish I played this more with my buds back in the day haha, ah well. Next up is Mario Kart 7 so look forward to that soon!

My first thought was that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was just going to be a straight spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio Future (which would have been a letdown considering my three weeks of original Jet Set Radio prep), but I'm pleasantly surprised by the blend of mechanics presented! In reality, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk takes the overall structure and aesthetic from Future while borrowing more heavily from original Jet Set Radio's tight level design and intricate scoring mechanics, and dare I say, actually improves upon certain aspects. It does have a few underdeveloped features as a result of its experimentation, but overall, not a bad first attempt by Team Reptile!

One issue that apparently escaped my notice the first time around (I replayed Future recently just to confirm this) was that Future's extremely linear and stretched-out levels resulted in tons of backtracking upon missing objectives/falling off the stage, and led to fairly rigid approaches that really tried my patience upon additional loops. This is fortunately not the case with Bomb Rush Cyberfunk: levels are generally a lot more open with many more shortcuts and are spaced apart carefully to where traversal feels much more free-form. It more closely resembles original Jet Set Radio, especially when you consider how its momentum mechanics complement this design. Future made the speed fairly easy to obtain: jump onto a rail regardless of your momentum, then keep mashing trick to accelerate and never slow down. On the other hand, original Jet Set Radio became well-known for how slow your character would move about unless you actively utilized rails and grindable walls to speed up, and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk takes a modern twist: you need to maintain momentum by either rail grinding and leaning into corners for speed boosts, or by using grounded manuals combined with boost (refreshed from performing tricks) to retain speed.

The momentum mechanics go hand-in-hand with the game's combo system. After thoroughly exploring levels to spray graffiti spots for "rep" and completing subsequent score and movement-tech challenges from opposing crew members, your crew must finally confront opposing crews in a crew battle, outscoring them with trick combos in their own territory. The scoring and trick system improvises upon both original Jet Set Radio and Future: in both games, the safest way to score trick points was abusing infinite grind loops and repeating the same tricks/movement over and over. However, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk turns this on its head: you don't get tons of points for doing the same tricks ad-nauseam (since trick value decreases and eventually levels off when used more and more). Instead, the main key to getting points is increasing the multiplier by utilizing unique features of the stage: that is, leaning into tight corners on grindable rails, wall-riding billboards, and going up half-pipe ramps (which are improved over the original game since you can manual up ramps and then air boost off into manuals/rail and wall-grinds, so they can function as part of a combo). The key word is "unique," since utilizing the same set-piece in a held combo will not give additional multipliers, and the same goes for graffiti spots that can now also be resprayed as one-time trick bonuses during continuous combos. As a result, the trick and multiplier staling incentivizes players to fully explore and utilize every set-piece present upon the open stages to create massive combos, made easier thanks to the mid-air dash (which also lets you alter airborne momentum once) and the manual. The only downside here is that the game's circumstances never become difficult enough to necessitate this trick optimization; the story crew battles are pretty easy and I was leapfrogging them using the above strategy (i.e. while other crews were floundering around several hundred thousand, I was well beyond a couple million in score), so unless players are trying to crack the tougher post-game score barriers for optional characters/achievements, they may never need to lean on these strategies at all.

The lack of difficulty serves as a microcosm of this game's unfortunate trend: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk certainly innovates upon many features from the Jet Set Radio games, but I find a few to be undercooked or lacking in execution. The combat's one example: it's not a bad idea in theory (using tricks to both deal damage and maintain score/momentum) and in fact has been proposed before, but its implementation leaves something to be desired. Attacking enemies feels like it has little impact because of the muffled sound-effects, akin to slapping a wet sock on a table. Also, most enemies can be defeated with a single grounded attack into an immediate "corkscrew" jump and then spray-painted in the air. While this graffiti coup de grâce never gets old, it does feel quite difficult in practice comboing in and out of this linearizing technique (since you need to be standing and off your skates to execute, breaking any combo potential), so combat never really flows and the mandatory combat sections in-story feel somewhat superfluous.

Adjacent to this is the heat system, a spin on original Jet Set Radio's enemy escalation during story stages. As your character goes about spraying graffiti, police forces begin to spawn in tougher waves: for example, wave one consists of simple grounded officers with batons and pistols, wave two activates turrets that home-in on the player with chains and slow their movement, and wave three brings in armored forces that can block attacks. I found most of these enemies to be mere nuisances: you can easily skate around and dodge most attacks (except for the turrets, which can be easily disabled with a single attack + spray), and since enemies can't be easily comboed for points and will respawn continuously upon defeat anyways, it's best to just ignore them as is. Again, this is fairly similar to original Jet Set Radio's strategy of outmanuevering enemies since foes there were active time sinks, so this doesn't bother me greatly. Unfortunately, this creates friction with Bomb Rush Cyberfunk's exploration, and not just in the sense that enemies will impede progress. The game requires you to swap between the three different types of movestyle for their different abilities: skateboards can ride on extendable fire hydrants to extend them vertically and reach heights, inline skates can skid on glass to shatter specific ceilings, and bikes can open special garage doors. The only way to switch between characters/movestyles is to go to checkerboard tiles and dance, but the game prohibits switching when there's "too much heat." Thus, you have to de-escalate the heat gauge by entering orange porta-potties (unmarked on the map, so hopefully you remember their locations!). However, they also lock up after a single use, so players have to either outright leave the stages or find a different porta-potty elsewhere to reopen old porta-potties for enemy despawning. I think this could have easily been improved if the heat gauge slowly decreased over time from successful enemy evasion.

Even with my criticisms, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was definitely worth the three year wait. The story isn't anything mindblowing, but it's got some nice twists that are conveyed via these surreal platforming sequences that are a cross between the time rifts from A Hat in Time and a Psychonauts fever dream. I'm pleasantly surprised by a good chunk of the soundtrack too: Hideki Naganuma's three contributions are the obvious highlights, but other tracks like 2Mello's I Wanna Kno and Sebastian Knight's Feel the Funk more than hold their own weight. It's a good mix of upbeat sampledelia hip-hop and chill ambient tunes, with my only real complaint being the lack of guitar-heavy rock tracks like Magical Girl or Statement of Intent... RIP Guitar Vader. Finally, I more than got my playtime's worth out of 100%ing the game, considering all the hidden areas and collectibles to find and just how much fun I had figuring out new ways to string together ridiculous combos. Despite the game's various areas of improvement, I find Bomb Rush Cyberfunk to be a fantastic fresh take upon a beloved franchise that isn't just a homage to Jet Set Radio, but a love letter to classic Y2K counter-culture and skating games as a whole. If you're not a prior fan of the franchise, this might not be the game to change your mind, but if you are, then I see no reason why you wouldn't find some enjoyment out of it. It's no surprise that fans absolutely ate this up, with excitement for the franchise reaching a new fever pitch. Your move, SEGA. Let's see if you guys still understand the concept of love.

To me, Katamari Damacy is the margherita pizza of video games. It's one of the simplest yet most innately fulfilling concepts in the medium: roll up things with your ball to become big to roll up more things. While this description is accurate however, it doesn't do justice towards the game's underlying complexity. Committal tank controls combined with the seemingly strewn about yet carefully placed objects of varying sizes means that Katamari forces players to consider both the micro and macro design which the game effortlessly excels at. The player must weave in and out of clusters of increasingly large objects, building up their sphere while also mapping out the optimal paths (snagging relevant objects while factoring in how their shapes, once collected, will alter the roll) and keeping in mind how larger objects must be avoided at first and later consumed in the growing mass as the world appears to shrinks around you. For this reason, I think it's not just a simple power fantasy, and instead more closely resembles pure obstacle escalation. Katamari Damacy really drills in the sense of player progression from how the world unfolds from sense of scale (which is why it gets away with only three distinct stages) and even seemingly inverts its own concepts with side stages that force you to avoid smaller themed objects just to get your katamari to the perfect size for the ultimate outcome: the reward is made that much more gratifying with just a bit of restraint.

This all works seamlessly because Katamari is the king of player feedback. It can certainly feel frustrating at first, getting tossed around like fireworks by these moving objects that dwarf you, but the game knows exactly how to communicate your inherent progress. As your ball exponentially swells, these moving objects go from sending you flying, to lacking any significant impact upon contact, to eventually spotting the player and running away from the growing catastrophe. There's nothing more viscerally satisfying than coming back to mobile obstacles that were pushing you around and flattening them, hearing their cry as they too become stuck in the jumbled mess of rolling flotsam while the King of the Cosmos quips in the background. Simply put, the concept never outstays its welcome.

Going back to the opening metaphor, it requires much finesse to make all these different concepts sing together with little friction in a video game, this fusion of audio-visual presentation and player input. That said, to successfully disguise its intricate design and depth beneath its far-reaching artistic vision and simple yet realized gameplay mechanics takes a master's touch. Katamari Damacy does not try to explain why it works or how it succeeds, because it simply is, and it just does. Perhaps I've moved onto greater and grander things since that have built off of this, but I have to admit that sometimes, you just can't beat the basics in life. It's always worth going back for a slice or two every now and then, just to remind yourself that this is why video games exist in the first place: because underneath all this talk of focus and cohesion, video games are just goddamn fun.

Also, it's fantastic hangover food for you and your buddies after a long night, when they come calling you for content and suddenly it's 3 AM in a packed Discord call where everyone is wailing "YOU'REEEEE LONNEEELLLY ROLLING STARRRR" as this growing, screaming ball of flailing limbs bounces helplessly about for yet another awry creation. Let the good times roll.

Alan Wake writing the most twisted fucked up horror story he can conceive: The dark darkness encroached darkly upon me, I noticed my shoes were stained red with blood, red blood, on the ground pooled the crimson ichor of a bloody ritual murder enacted in the name of the Dark Lord of Darkness himself; Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, The Father of Lies, the Lord of Flies; Satanas, Diabolus- The Devil.
Remedy writing the most twisted fucked up horror story they can think of: Imagine being trapped in this guy's writing

All the way back in 2017, I played Persona 5. I picked it up on a whim the day after it released, because my friend loves the Persona series and recommended I get into it, and not too long after I was hooked. That same friend also gave me SMT4 around that same time and I didn't really get into at all. But it did get me more interested in Megaten as a whole. Fast forward to the Summer, I go to TooManyGames 2017. I remember seeing the Persona 5 collectors edition, man good times. Ah anyways, I also stumbled upon Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 inside a glass cabinet along with some other Megaten games. Naturally of them all, I was most interested in P3 and P4 seeing as I was a huge fan of 5. Knowing the price of the Raidou games, I wish I picked those up then since they were only $30 but in the end I bought both FES and P4. Oh, not at the convention btw. I bought them off eBay the day after cuz I realized you could get them for cheaper there. Anyways, to this day I still haven't touched vanilla P4 since I played Golden. But FES, I picked up and dropped several times over the years. I really don't know why it wasn't grabbing me but the furthest I ever until this most recent playthrough was the first full moon operation on the subway. Either way, I can say I've finally beaten Persona 3 FES and I'm happy to say I ended up enjoying it overall.

Let's start with the story. I think overall, it's good and has some really fantastic moments. The beginning scene where the MC awakens to his Persona, to the whole turning point in Junpei's arc near the end of the game (if you know you know) to the whole last hour or two. There's some super good moments throughout the game, I just wish the story's pacing was better. After the MC's awakening in the beginning, I found the story to be super slow up until the middle of the game where it starts picking up again. Then near the end before the grand finale I found it dragged a bit. Pacing-wise, I thought it was the worst of the nusona games but specific moment-wise it's some of the best in the series. I do think the whole theme of facing death head on and not being afraid of it and making the most of life is super strong though, especially in the end-game. They really hammer that theme into you by the end but it works really well.

The main cast is solid overall but it can be a mixed bag. I really liked Akihiko, Yukari, Junpei and Aigis by the end of the game. They all felt really fleshed out and I just liked them the most. Mitsuru is decent but I expected her to be better, idk why I found her somewhat bland. Fuuka and Ken are the definitely the weakest party members imo and a big part of that, besides just not caring about their characters as much, was their voice acting. This game has really solid voice acting (the 4 characters I listed at the beginning) and then it has some really awful voice acting (Fuuka, Ken, Shinjiro, the chairman). Fuuka especially man, she sounded more robotic than Aigis it's crazy. This no doubt took me out of the story a bit just cuz those 4 are so prominent. Oh and can't forget Koromaru, interesting that he's the only normal animal sidekick in which he doesnt actually speak but he's a good boy nonetheless.

Going into more of the game's characters, let's talk about the social links. They're a bit more hit or miss in this game compared to 4 and 5. Akinari may be the best social link in the entire series with how good it is. I was tearing up in literally every rank, no doubt due to the music that plays during it. Yukari, Maiko and Chihiro were probably my favorites then after Akinari. I didn't even think Gourmet King's was bad like some people say considering his whole backstory and everything making me sympathize with him. However, a lot of the others I just thought were decent, very meh or just straight up bad. The worst by far was Kenji's, one of the worst in the series imo and just such a nothing Social Link. Same with Bebe, just did absolutely nothing for me. I didn't love 4's social links either but I think overall they're better in that game, especially since there's no male party member SL in 3. Yeah that's a weird omission, along with being forced to romance all the school girl social links, just overall the weakest of the nusona social links imo. It's not a terrible first try at the social aspect tho, but it's clear it's the first game to try to tackle it. 5 definitely has the best social links I think even if there are a couple duds in that game as well.

Something I actually dissed on stupidly was the game's soundtrack. Idk what was wrong with me but I originally just thought it was out right bad (besides battle for everyone's souls) but have since realized it's actually a super great ost, liking it so much now I think I like it more than 4's soundtrack. 5 is still easily my favorite but never did I think I'd like 3's ost more than 4's. Some of my favorite songs were the aforementioned Battle For Everyone's Souls, Joy, Living With Determination, Memories of the City and many more. Honestly, absolutely insane how much my opinion on the OST changed but I'm super glad I can see now why people love it so much.

Just a couple of random things I liked before I get into the combat. I really like that in part with the theme of death, every single party member experiences the loss of a friend or relative throughout the story. It really makes the dorm's friendship more believable since they can all relate to each other. The 2nd awakenings are easily the best in the nusona games simply because they aren't tied to the social links and are apart of the main story. Really felt impactful, especially Junpei's goddamn man. Also really enjoyed the atmosphere, mostly in the Dark Hour and Tartarus. Seeing how each Tartarus block would look was fun.

Speaking of Tartarus, it's one of the most contentious aspects of the game (along with tactics of course). Some people really love it and some people despise it. Me? It's not terrible but it's definitely the worse of the Nusona dungeons imo (yes I like 4's more) and probably the worst of the PS2 megaten games in terms of its dungeons. Absolutely does not touch DDS1's dungeons for example, but I didn't hate it overall. At first, I was just not getting into it but after a while you get used to the flow of doing a bunch of floors, then social link stuff then Tartarus and repeat. Near the middle of the game is where I was sort of getting burnt out on it a bit, especially since you do have to grind in this game and around that point I feel like enemies weren't giving great exp. Maybe I was over leveled then, idk but near the end game I was getting loads more exp and my personas were actually good so I got over my burn out near the middle of the game. Either way, Tartarus is just meh imo. Thematically it works but gameplay wise it leaves a lot to be desired.

Funnily enough, I ended up thinking more positively on tactics this time around. I still definitely prefer controlling your party members, but tactics works really well for the most part. You just have to not be dumb and engage in the mechanic. If you simply set your party to act freely all the time, then yeah they're gonna do whatever and are more prone to do stupid shit. But if you set them accordingly then I don't see the issue at all really. In fact I found it fun the more tactics you got as you progressed. Though, one issue I personally had is when I want a group heal from Yukari. Someone is super low on health, while the others aren't as low but are still missing a chunk of their health. If only one party member has less than 50% of their health, then she'll single target them and that's it. In that case, I'd want to be able to control my party members but that was about it really. One more still doesn't touch press turn imo, and I'd take controllable party members over tactics I'd say but this game clearly is built around tactics and it works really well.

Honestly, super glad I ended up enjoying FES, even if it's my least favorite nusona and my least favorite PS2 Megaten game. I was expecting to actually dislike this one cuz that's how I felt the few times I tried to get into it. It has its faults but it also has its highs and yeah I recommend playing this even with Reload out now. It may fix some of this games issues idk, but this is still a good time I'd say. Going onto almost 7 years since I got into Persona and Megaten as a whole and I'm just happy to say I've beaten all the nusona games now!

Ghost Trick was one of the first games I put in my Amazon wish list back when I made an account in 2017. I remember a Youtuber I liked, Nintendocaprisun, streamed the game and the little I watched from the stream looked really cool. It sat in that wishlist for ages, eventually skyrocketing in price. It wasn't until last year, that I decided to bite the bullet and buy the game physically off eBay. It was expensive but it was a game I wanted to own for a while now, and I figured playing it on the DS would have been awesome. By this time, I was already a big Ace Attorney Fan, and knowing that this was another Shu Takumi game..I was pretty excited to play it. While I personally still prefer AA1 and AA3 over this, this was still a great time overall.

This game makes great use of the touch-screen. So, the basic premise of the game without going into story details, you the main character have died. You are a ghost and find out you have the ability to go back to the past, four minutes before someone has died, and have the potential to save them. You also have the ability to move to different objects and control them. You do this by going into ghost mode and moving your little wisp icon from object to object. The catch is, you can only move it a specific distance away. If something is too far away, you have to figure out how to get there by possibly interacting with the object you're on. This is called "tricking" and it can vary depending on the section of the story you're on. Some can be very simple while others you need to time specific actions in the real world. It might seem a bit confusing with how I explained however, it's very easy to understand in game. Either way, this gameplay loop is really fun and is perfect for a DS game. Near the end of the game, it also throws another character at you with some different mechanics. And it even combines the two at once and it can lead to some really fun puzzles. The game was never that hard, I never even had to look up a guide, however I never found them super easy.

Story-wise, like I said the premise is you die at the start. You play as Sissel, someone we know nothing about, and not even he knows who he is. His main goal from the start is to figure out who he is and how he dies, but along the way he meets a colorful cast of characters, and the game gets more complicated from there. Overall, I enjoyed the story and cast of characters for sure. Like Ace Attorney, they're all very distinct and can be very goofy. The main cast is very good tho I have to say I didn't connect to them as much as I do with the main cast of Ace Attorney. Probably because this game is shorter than your average AA game, and I was able to connect to that game's cast through the span of three games! Either way, while I didn't love any character here, Sissel..Lynne..Jowd..Cabanela..Missile..the entire cast is memorable and entertaining. The story is also full of twists and turns throughout. The ending may be a little convoluted imo but I think it was executed well and I did not see it coming at all. While not mind-blowing overall, I can at least commend the story and overall concept of the game for being unique. Always love seeing really out there stories like this.

This may be weird to here, but I don't think the absolute best aspect of this game is the story or the gameplay. It's the visuals. Honestly, some of the best sprite-work I've ever seen in a game. Every animation is so buttery smooth and really gives the game a lot of character. The look of each character sprite too, idk how they did it, but it has this very distinct look to it. Since the game is very goofy at times, the characters animations are goofy as well. The art style on the portraits is very distinct too tho those aren't animated. They're nice but it would have been cool if they had little animations as well, like Ace Attorney. Along with the sprites being full of personality, so is the dialogue. If you played Ace Attorney before this, you'd be right at home here. It feels just like Ace Attorney. Goofy and witty when it wants to be, serious when it wants to be, and full of heart throughout. In this regard, it may be better than Ace Attorney because I didn't notice any spelling errors lol.

The OST is probably my biggest disappointment compared to Ace Attorney tbh, especially since the AA1 composer did this game. The first Ace Attorney's ost is now in my top 10 OSTS of all time. I just love it so much, so I might've hyped myself up too much with this game. That's not to say this game has a bad soundtrack, I just don't find it comparable to the Ace Attorney games personally. Maybe I just haven't listened to the OST enough, as I know this is probably a hot take and others will disagree. Still, there were songs I did like. Four Minutes Before Death probably being my favorite since it reminded me of Ace Attorney the most haha.

I do wish I ended up liking this a bit more, especially since this game is praised so much and has a 4.5 average, however in this case I can totally see why it is as this game is really great. I guess maybe it just comes down to my personal preferences. Or maybe I'll like this even more on replay, who knows. Either way, while it seems I do prefer the Ace Attorney series more (sorry I keep comparing them, it's just hard not to with the type of game this is), this is still must-play DS game imo and worth all the praise it gets.

So my beloved friend theadhdagenda_ loves this game and really wanted me to play it. I was already planning on playing it when it eventually got a physical release and what do you know, it got one last year. While I did enjoy it overall, it does have issues that detracted from my experience .

The main issue I had with the game, and I know it's been said countless times before, but the story was just not good. I think it has potential with its concept of heaven and the whole heist thing. It had its moments here and there but in between those few instances of good it has so really awful dialogue. People weren't kidding when they said it was bad though I was expecting it to be more constant than it was. Still tho, it really is pretty bad. Like I said, the story had it's moments but even outside of the bad dialogue, I don't think the story was done well. Not just because it felt undercooked but the theme of forgiveness and it being applied to Neon Green, did not feel right at all. I don't think they were trying to be malicious and were more trying to say you shouldn't let your abuser live rent free in your head and to just cut them off completely, but to have it be forgiveness instead...does leave a bad taste in my mouth. Especially since the book of death ending, which is supposed to be the bad ending, is more satisfying than the good one lol. That's just my take though, even besides the poor story the dialogue is bad enough where you'd want to just skip it all anyways. But alas, the story is a big part of the game time so I must judge it accordingly.

I know I started this review off negatively but that's the biggest negative really because the actual game part is really fun! It's a card based shooter where your main goal is to go as fast as possible. This works very well since, for the most part, levels are really bite-sized. With it being a speed game, it also incentivizes speed-running. There's medals at you get at the end of each level, with Ace being the main one you wanna go for in the end. There's also the dev times that are pretty hard to beat but I did end up doing it once in my whole playthrough. Otherwise, I just aced every other level. Besides the speed aspect, the cards aren't just for shooting as they have a secondary use when you discard them. This is another big reason the game is so fun as you have to figure out what to discard or not in each level. First you figure out what to do in the stage and then you speed through it, rince and repeat. Sadly because there's so many levels, and I went for not only the aces but also the presents, I did get somewhat burnt out by the end. Not enough to dislike the game or anything but I definitely wasn't clamoring to do those rushes when I beat the game (which are just all the levels one after the other with one life).

Speaking of the presents, outside of the gameplay and story there's also this social-link like mechanic where you give a character a gift and you get dialogue and other stuff from them. I didn't really care about the dialogue really, besides Mikey he was cool, but they are somewhat worth it for the little side quest levels you get every so often. These don't have time medals and are slower paced than the usual levels. They could be hit or miss but were mostly fun.

The music is by Machine Girl and while I wouldn't personally listen to it outside the game, it was really solid and fit the levels. The visuals of the levels are also really nice. Mostly in the earlier stages, they have this dream-like liminal space kinda feel which I really like. Some of the later levels not as much sadly but the music still fit those ones. I'm not in love with some of the character designs for the Neons but the presentation as a whole was solid too.

All in all, while I definitely didn't love it as much as some people do due to the story ofc and getting burnt out near the end, it was a fun time overall! Definitely better than the other Ben Desposito game I played, Donut County. I recommend you pick this game up when it's cheap because it is still a lot of fun, just maybe skip the cutscenes even if they are a large part of it's runtime. Idk tho, maybe you'll get more out of them than I did lol.

Is and will always be my favorite game of all time. The gameplay, the story, the graphics, the propaganda for the military industrial complex; it’s all just perfect. The only thing that could be more fun than this game is making a dumb gimmick account as something to do when I’m bored during work and getting a surprisingly high amount of clout amongst a community I mostly chose not to engage with. Thanks for 10,000 likes.
Also, Fidel Castro is like the rawest video game character of all time and I wish he was real so fucking much.

Wanted to play a nice short game after Metroid Prime 2 so I decided to dive into the Klonoa series finally! While I did have a good time with this game, I wish I liked it more because it has a 4.1 average and a lot of my followers love it so I kinda feel bad only giving it a 7 lol.

I think after beating the game, the absolute best aspect are the bosses tbh. I did not expect them to go so hard but most of them are really damn good tbh. In fact I'd go as far to say they're better than most of the levels. Something I really liked about them was how they all made good use of the foreground and background, thought that was sweet. Also the health bar they had looked really cool with that whole 3D effect.

The levels themselves are decent for the most part. They start off really simple but get more complex as you go on. I honestly didn't think they were getting really good until the last couple stages but overall they're fine.

Another one the best aspects of this game is the visuals. The mix of sprites and 3D models is always cool and its done well in this game. From the little I've seen of the remake, it's a total downgrade which is a shame so I'd recommend the original just on visuals alone.

Klonoa's moveset is kinda weird overall. The grab is very fun, especially when you can get an extra jump from an enemy. The flutter is alright but a lot of the time just doesn't cut it in getting you over large gaps unless you plan well. I just never thought it felt good to use tbh. Also Klonoa himself has a slipperiness to him when you build momentum up and that can trip up the player especially in later stages.

I didn't really find the game that hard until the last couple stages. I got every collectable so I was able to do the extra stage and man was that one tough. It was fun but definitely put your grabbing and hovering skills to the test.

The music overall was just alright. There was a track or two I kinda liked but most of them were forgettable I felt. There was also a track or two that kinda bugged me because it reminded me of the intro song to Amazing Animals. Please tell me I'm not crazy, I just kept thinking about that whenever one of the beginning stages songs was playing.

The game also had a surprisingly abundant amount of cutscenes. I thought the story overall was pretty cute, the very solid voice acting certainly helped that I feel. Like damn, I loved Huepow's voice it was adorable. And while I didn't cry or anything, the ending was pretty sad and was a unique way to end the game.

While I didn't love this game like others do, it was pretty good! I can certainly see how others would love this game cuz it just has that 90's PS1 charm. I did hear the sequel is even better so I'm looking forward to that!

How do you follow up the likes of that which has never been seen before? Could you even hope to surpass the video game equivalent of lightning in a bottle? Keita Takahashi didn’t think so, but Namco saw the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and wanted more. So, he compromised. He agreed to direct the sequel after learning that Namco was willing to forge ahead, with or without him, and in exchange, the sequel became a metaphor for his mixed feelings regarding sequelitis and his eventual alienation from videogames as a whole. The result is We Love Katamari, a successor that tackled the subject of pandering to those around you while attempting to maintain the spirit of the original. The original Katamari Damacy was interpreted by many as an object of childlike wonder, railing against any form of cynicism while explaining absolutely nothing to preserve that joy. We Love Katamari on the other hand, turns the irreverence up to 11… and honestly, I’m all for it. As the Prince and the King of the Cosmos attempt to fulfill every fan’s request while repopulating the sky, they’re confronted with increasingly absurd situations. There’s a baby that outright tells you that he’s glad he was born to see the Prince of the Cosmos fulfill his lifelong dreams. Animals send requests a few times too, with some white dog telling you to roll around a zoo so he can attend a concert with more friends. To top this all off, the astronaut from the first game begs you to save the Earth from impending doom by rolling up countries of the world to stop an asteroid. The requests are all over the place and just as wild, if not wilder, than Katamari Damacy, and it’s fascinating how simultaneously off-the-rails the plot and worldbuilding have become even as the game remains one of Takahashi’s most intimate works, conveying his complicated feelings in this microcosm of cathartic destruction.

In terms of gameplay, We Love Katamari takes many of the logical steps in terms of progressing its simple yet realized formula. While the original game was content setting up its structure and letting players romp about in an expanding playground, We Love Katamari actively tests its limits of experimentation, challenging perceptions of what could be achieved with its level design while making players sweat with more complex goals and stricter time limits. Now granted, I concede that not everything in the sequel impresses me. The firefly level has a solid concept (roll up fireflies in a camping ground so a student has more light to study with) but doesn’t achieve much in terms of sense of scale or underlying complexity besides “roll up things quickly to get bright,” I could have done without three different variations of the Saturn levels where you just have to decide when you’re of the proper size, and I personally am not a huge fan of the underwater level where you have to handle floatier physics while dodging fishing hooks that put you out of commission for a bit. That said, the expansions that I did enjoy, I ended up really enjoying. There’s another campgrounds level where you control a burning Katamari and must carefully consider pathing on the fly to make sure that you never run out of fuel while avoiding any water sources that would snuff you out. Conversely, there’s another zoo level that sets a limit not on time, but on the things you’re allowed to roll up; as a result, it becomes an interesting exercise of restraint and sight-recognition, figuring out exactly the biggest things you can roll up at any time while outright avoiding anything else. Other favorite levels here include a racetrack where you “race” against a flurry of karts on a looping island road while barreling through anything in your way, and a sumo wrestling level where instead of rolling a Katamari, you roll the awkwardly-shaped sumo wrestler himself, and must prioritize foods as part of training him up to eventually KO his awaiting opponent. While some of the sequel's levels are content just playing with the established formula of “roll up things to get bigger to roll up more things,” the best levels here emphasize Katamari’s arcade and puzzle-like qualities by enforcing familiarization with the intricate object placement while accentuating the need for careful routing to avoid larger obstacles only to consume them whole later.

I must admit that despite my appreciation for what the sequel brings to the table, there’s a part of me that still prefers the original. There’s a sort of cohesion present in the original from repeating the same three levels but in slightly different ways and exploring them with different sizes that I think is missing in the sequel; rather, the sequel feels a bit more disconnected, with all the different fan-requests pulling from all different sides and a lot of the environments showing up for just a couple of stages or so. As a result, despite having more fleshed out execution of its base formula, I still feel as if the sequel could have more thoroughly explored certain levels in order to realize their full potential. In addition, I do find the sequel slightly more grindy than the original: not necessarily just because it’s harder (though I can’t rule out the possibility that this might be a factor), but because one of the final levels can’t be unlocked until you collect all the cousins (more or less just a cosmetic in the original), and multiple cousins are often present in the same level even though you’re only allowed to roll up and unlock one cousin per run. Finally, I must agree with everyone else in that I don’t think the extra Reverie levels from the remaster add much to the core experience, or at the very least didn’t wow me in the same way that many of the more experimental base game levels did. Rolling up clutter in a room as fast as possible and creating a variation of the racetrack level (just with the goal of snagging tires instead of overall size) doesn’t quite hit the same I suppose. Nevertheless, don’t let my personal gripes distract you from the fact that I absolutely recommend this. It's everything that a sequel could hope to be and more, providing a satisfying evolution to the series that stresses its understated design principles while serving as both a love-letter to the franchise and a send-off to Keita Takahashi’s most famous contributions to the medium. At the end of the day, we love Katamari, and while it may not be enough for Takahashi, it’s enough to matter for me.

I know this is a little late now but Merry Christmas everyone! I would've put this review out on Christmas but I was busy and also timed my playthrough of this game a bit wrong. Either way, hope everyone had a great holiday! I definitely did and it also ended with a bang since I played Rez.

I kinda don't have a lot to say about this one at all. The main takeaway is this game is an absolute treat visually. That's the main appeal of the game and I'm telling you, it's insane. You really just need to play it and witness it yourself cuz it's amazing and the biggest reason I'm rating it so high.

The OST is very good. I wouldn't listen to it outside of the game personally, but alongside the gameplay it's perfect and very much fits the game I think.

The actual gameplay is pretty simple actually. It's an on rails shooter that has a single powerup you can use when you obtain them and you level up and down depending on if you get hit or not. It's extremely straight-forward so it may be lacking to some people who would want a more complex game mechanically but for an audio-visual delight of a game like this, it's perfectly fine.

The game is also only like two hours long but tbh I think that's an absolute perfect length for a game like this, otherwise the wow factor might wear off if it was longer.

Like I said before, you really need to play the game yourself to see just how damn impressive the visuals are because...man they're absolutely insane. Another Dreamcast banger, this console's on fire so far!

8.5/10

So I actually didn't play this DLC until a couple years after I first played Bloodborne. On a whim I finally decided to bite the bullet and spend the $20 on it. Once it downloaded and I jumped right into it, I couldn't put it down! It was a set of brand new weapons, bosses and areas from one of my favorite games ever. I played it all day on Christmas Eve 2020 and finished it early Christmas morning. What an interesting Christmas that was, slicing and dicing up beasts lol.

Speaking of slicing and dicing, let's talk about the new weapons. This DLC added a whopping 11 weapons and 5 firearms. That amount is insane, and not only that...they're some of the best and coolest weapons in the game. Special mentions go to Whirligig saw, Rakuya and Holy Moonlight Sword. Of the DLC weapons, those are the three I've used before and they're a ton of fun. Several others are really out there and weird too, like the Amygdalan Arm and the Kos Parasite. Never used any of the new firearms but they seem cool.

This DLC added three new areas and they're some of the best in Bloodborne. The Hunter's Nightmare has you going through a remixed version of Cathedral Ward. You can really see the parts of Cathedral Ward early on but it slowly twists into something unrecognizable and very different. That's one reason why it's awesome, it feels like a spin on an old area while also feeling mostly unique. It's also a very good pvp spot from what I'm told. Research Hall has you going through a very Tower of Latria-esque area. Tower of Latria in Demons Soul's was one of the most atmospheric areas in that game and this area's no different. It's extremely creepy and feels very unique compared to the base game's areas. I just feel bad killing the blob head guys because they're all failed experiments. Still, for the atmosphere alone this place is great but besides that, it's cool going room to room and up the giant staircase. The last area might be the best, the Fishing Hamlet is absolutely one of the most distinct areas yet. An aquatic area where you go through a village of fish creatures was not what I would expect from Bloodborne but its amazing. Holy shit though, fuck those giant whale enemies they are INSANE. They're harder than most of the base game bosses lol. Still though, it has a decent variety of enemies and a lot of new enemies at that. That plus the amazing aesthetics and really unique setting makes it a top tier area imo and a great end to the DLC.

Now for the big kahunas, the bosses. Right away we start with my favorite boss in the DLC, in Bloodborne and one of my favorite in the entire series, Ludwig. Holy goddamn is he amazing. He's just so fun to fight, that plus he has the best song in Bloodborne and his 2nd phase get's even better, top tier boss fight man. The first time I fought him, I beat him first try. I thought I got lucky but this time around again, I beat him first try. I guess he just isn't super hard, doesn't detract from how great of a fight it is.

In that same area is Laurence. Laurence is one of two fights in the DLC that I don't think are bad, but just aren't nearly as good as the big 3. The main reason for that is he's a reskin of Cleric Beast, just on fire and he has a 2nd phase. I do really like how we finally get to see him, after hearing about him so much in the base game. Laurence however is certainly the hardest imo, took me like 5-6 tries. Definitely one of the toughest in the game.

In the Research Hall, after pushing the lever at the top of the staircase, you unlock the Living Failures. Nothing really much to say about them, they're alright. The lore implications with the rest of the area's citizens and how they were supposed to turn into these guys is really cool, but other than it's just too easy of a boss and yeah I beat them first try.

Immediately after that though, we have another awesome boss. Lady Maria was a boss I was honestly a bit conflicted on before. When I first beat her years ago, I parried nonstop and she was the easiest boss in the DLC. Coming back to it again and this time doing the fight parry-less, it's way harder and way more fun. It's not nearly as hard as something like Friede in DS3, but it definitely wasn't braindead easy like it was with parries. Still easy enough for me to beat her first try tho lol, but yeah she was a ton of fun.

Last on the list of bosses is Orphan of Kos and hoo boy is he a doozy. He's absolutely one of the most aggressive and tough fights in the game but at the same time he feels completely fair. He telegraphs his attacks and combos quite well and he makes for a blast of a fight. Not as good as Gael imo but still an amazing way to end off the DLC. Also, I was so pissed this time around because I almost beat him first try, however I celebrated prematurely and lost with one hit left. I beat him on my 2nd go around but that still stung lole.

All in all this DLC is absolutely fantastic. It has some of the best areas and bosses in the series and despite having two not so great bosses imo, those two are still not bad and does not change the fact that this is my favorite DLC to any game. It's peak Bloodborne, which is insane because Bloodborne was already peak.