So first of all a giant thanks to my buddy Brandon for gifting this to me. Realistically if this doesn't get gifted to me I never play this game. The trails game (falcom other series) burnt me out. I had zero desire to play any more of their games. However this game was a delightful surprise in so many ways and fixes so many issues I have with the trails series.

First of all the comabt is way more fun for me. Just simple hack and slash and dodging around but super quick and easy to pick up. The story is really solid hear, it takes a while to cook (like all falcom stuff) but once it does it cooks hard. The characters are all great here. There's real consequence and meaning and sadness to the plot here, and at times reminded me of a final fantasy like story in that regard.

Being able to explore just a giant island and feel like a pirate was pretty cool. Finding all the people that had washed ashore kept it interesting.

I do wish the story got going sooner or some hours were cut here, and the map was finnicky and I wish was stronger.

There's some falcom jank here too (the slow pan introductions/the presentations/cheesy dialogue/everyone way too happy)

But overall this was a great game and one I can easily reccomened. Can't wait to check out ys ix at some point!

So this is a game that I honestly had no intentions in playing. I'm not a giant pewdiepie fan by any means, but when you go with the gutless tact of copy right striking a youtuberr for no good reason, I do not want to support your game or studio. Eight years later however, with Studio Campos long gone, and this game on gamepass I decided to finally bite the bullet and give it a shot, since I've been told by a few people that this would be my kind of game.

And yeah it really was.

The game overall had a really intriguing narrative, with really two stories going on, the main character trying to escape his horribly depressing reality, and a mystery that's unfolding around you and getting lost in that, which I think kind of relates back to the first part. It's a fairly simple solution, something you should have seen all along, but you as the character really just wanted to dive head first, come up with giant conspiricies, and ignore the brutal reality of why you are there in the first place.

It's a somber ending too, one that's very thoughtful and I enjoyed. The gameplay isn't anything to write home about obviously as a "walking sim" but it keeps you engaged the entire time. I had a lot of little technical bugs and quirks, I'd get stuck often which broke the immersion for me, but nothing too awful overall.

Overall I really enjoyed this game. Thought it was great. I'll be deducting a half point for the developers being little babies, though.

So a 4/5, BUT 3.5/5 will be the final score. Be better folks.

I knew playing this game after playing FFV would have a negative impact, and it did to an extent, but I did end up enjoying this game, probably even a little more than I thought I would.

Clearly a prototype for FFV in almost every way (from the job system and combat/ to the story and characters) it was clear that they were starting to get on the right path but not quite there yet. Still there's plenty to enjoy here. Even though the job system can't compare with V, it's still fun and I'd take it over whatever the heck that was in II. They do attempt a story here, and while it's basic, it's an improvement over FF1. Cid is back, and is a goat as always.

The music might be the least memorable for me out of any FF game I've played yet so that's a bummer.

There are a couple of frustrating sections in the game (the splitting up enemies can eat my fucking ass), but overall it's a fun game, and I'm glad I played it.

I'm really excited to get into IV and VI next, as I hear these are the games. It'll be interesting to see how they hold up.

So after being totally depressed with dropping BG3 after 20 hours, and swearing off long games for exactly three hours, I decided to give this game a spin. My buddy Parrott suggested it and thought this might help bounce me back a little.

Style over substance here for the most part and I can dig it. The game is very moody, got some nice creep to it. It reminds me a lot of Limbo, which really, that style of game isn't my favorite, but I at least enjoyed the vibe of this one a lot more.

It's a nice short and sweet game with some puzzles. I wish the boss "fights" were a little more creative and they did more with that. But overall a solid time, and I can't complain about the price (free through PS Plus!)

This one is so tough for me, and honestly, there is no way I can ever be 100% unbiased. Let's start from the top. OG FF7 is one of my favorite video games of all time. Between that and MGS it is what got me into gaming in the first place, and I can still remember sneaking up late at night to play more of these games on the PS1.

So when a remake of this was announced, I was obviously nervous, and oddly enough, the first Remake game did almost nothing to squash that even though I really did like it. It was clear they were going with a bold, new, different direction, and despite my squabbles, I couldn't help be just beyond in awe with what they were trying to accomplish, but it really felt like something I'd need to wait and see the whole way through before I could give a full opinion on.

Another game later, I still feel kinda the same way? I really do like this game, along with remake, I think they're both spectacular. I also think, they will NEVER live up or surpass the OG game to me, and that's okay too.

I do think this game is too bloated. It's also way too story light until the last chunk of the game. Really we don't get major story stuff until chapter 12 (though it starts getting better in eight).

I think the side quests are improved from Remake, but still not great here.

Also for the love of god, I like the mini games, but not EVERYTHING needs to be a mini game. Some sections were an actual slog cause of that.

The open world while solid and fun, does nothing that hasn't been done before, and can't match some of the top tier open worlds to me (RDR2, Horizon FW).

What this game excels at is the world, and character building. It's tremendous. It makes you really fall in love with every one of these characters, and shines a light one more time on Aerith, one of the greatest female characters in video game history.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this game, even more than Remake (even though I think Remake does somethings better). I think this one will grow on me over time, and maybe even increase in score, and who knows, maybe after the third game, I'll learn to love them all even more.

Oh Suicide Squad. Where do I even begin with this fucking one.

Let's start at the top. I genuinely think this game got did dirty by gaming journalists, and just gamers in general. I think 99% of the hate from gamers come from people who have never, and have no intention of playing this game.

My background. I'm a primarily SP gamer, who does not like live service, does not play online, and really never been into loot score games. That being said, as a GIANT batman fan, and a rocksteady fan, I had to go into this one and give it a fair shot. And to be honest, most of what was here I dug.

The story is genuinely great. It's hilarious from start to finish, the suicide squad themselves are written great (Boomerang and King Shark are easily the highlights here). Getting to go around and fight each justice league member as the bad guy, as a young Addi's dream come true, and was so awesome to experience.

All the boss fights were really fun (and just the gameplay in general, it was really fast, responsive and felt slick to traverse.) I mained as Harley, and I love how you could have a totally different experience depending on who you played as.

Now some negatives:

First of all, I had to drop the game for a period because of a "loading metroplis" bug. Un acceptable, no reason this game should be always online. The side quests, are really bad. I love them introducing Penguin, and a really cool new version of Ivy, but then doing jack all with the character development. It was clear this game was tugged in SO many different directions, and really didn't know what it wanted to be at the end of the day.

Honestly I was at a very solid 7/10 for this, but I had to drop half a point for the ending. Just totally anti climactic, and clearly content was cut for future live service stuff, which I have no interest in taking a part in.

This game is a giant mixed bag, and it's such a shame because there's stuff here I genuinely love, but stuff that also frustrates me that could have been easily avoided. Overall though, I still enjoyed my time with it, and it's no where NEAR as bad as people are making out it to be.

Give it a chance yourself sometime, I certainly, won't root for Rocksteady to fail, the sauce is still here, they just need to be more focused, and commit to more of a sp vision next time.

This was kind of a banger. I really enjoyed my time here more than I was expecting. Kind of a tale of two games though, the original persona 4 arena story was a little messy, and a chore to play through, but the overall story was good and I enjoyed it.

The new "ultimax" content though, was really great, and was tied together in a much better way, and a better flow to it. It was great getting to see the persona 4 cast again, but even more so, it was SO great seeing the Persona 3 cast again, and getting an update on them being older, and what they've been up to since the events of Persona 3. I really wish some of the persona 5 spin offs would have given us this, but they didn't go in that direction for whatever the reason.

The actual fighting game itself? It's fun. I'm not a GIANT fighting game fan, so I won't pretend to know if this is peak quality or not, but it was fun, the graphics were really gorgeous, and a lot of unique characters and way to play in it.

Overall, a fine send off to persona for me. I've played almost everything I've wanted too now (besides Persona 2 and the Q games, hoping they get ported/remastered). But that'll be it for now, with a 5 Royal replay likely in my future.

Bless Persona. The second greatest video game franchise of all time!!!

So after finishing Inscyprtion, and not really wanting to start anything major until Final Fantasy Rebirth comes out, I figured this would be a nice little follow up game. Something I've had on my backlog forever, and with the freshness of how fantastic Inscrpytion was in my mind, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to play this.

What followed a pretty uneven experience, but definitely something that would lay the ground work for the brilliance that would be ahead.

First of all, lets start at the top. I finished this game on Steam Deck, and this was NOT an ideal place to play it. The game controls really poorly on that, which really isn't on the game, and it even warns you to not be stupid and attempt to do that. Some better control options would have been appreciated though.

The game itself is interesting. The puzzle segments were okay, though overused, and the arcade bits were fun. I wish there was a bit more playing around on the desktop, and using creative stuff like that in the game to do cool stuff t here.

The ending is pretty great, which I won't go into detail, suffice to say, I think Daniel's strength might be ending his games on a high point after two now.

Overall this was fun in spurts, frustrating in others, but the ending makes me overall positive on it. Cool to experience, once is good enough though.

Playing through FES in 2022 was one of my favorite gaming experiences I've had in quite some time. I guess I didn't realize quite how much until hearing about this remake. No hesitation in wanting to replay a long game like this, and in fact, genuine excitement for what was to come. If this version in 2009 was already one of my favorite games of all time, what would this end up being?

The answer is a truly unforgettable experience, that cements itself as one of my favorite games of all time, and Persona as one of my favorite series of all time.

Everything here is improved, from the improved music, to the combat, to the visuals, to the links, to the voice acting. Almost nothing feels off here. The story remains excellent and in my humble opinion, the best of the big three persona games, with some of the best side links in the series, and some of the best female characters. Makoto is the best protagonist in the series, and, while this game can't quite hit the monumental high and achievement of Persona 5 Royal (including the best OST soundtrack in any game) this game comes damn close to me.

The final boss fight is one of my favorite in all of gaming, and is done total justice here, the game is accessibile and easy if you want it to be (a huge improvement from FES in that way without modding it).

Overall, this game is a dream come true, is probably going to be my GOTY, and quite frankly, one of the crowning achievements for video games in general.

Can't wait to see what Atlus does dipping its toes into the Old Timey Mystical genre next!!!