So this is a big beautiful and sometimes messy game that's hard to articulate into words just what it's all about.

First of all, let's start from the top. The gameplay here is so much improved over LAD7 (which was already fantastic) and Hawaii is just a wonderful sandbox to explore, this was exactly the shot in the arm this series needed.

The story is fantastic most of the way here, there are some dumb things here and there (like every yakuza game if we're being honest) but just such an incredible amount of heart to go along with this. Ichi is an amazing protagonist, as much as I love Kiryu he's totally captured my heart at this point and will hopefully be the guy going forward.

I do have some issues with this game, the biggest one being how bad the game is at telling you things. The final dungeon had no level requirement, and I was a few levels under, making it very difficult to complete. There are many side quests that you do, and if you do them too early you get wiped and the game offers you no way of knowing this. Stuff like this was a massive time waste, and unfortunate, but not enough to hurt this game overall.

The ending is....interesting. I can't say I love or hate it, I have to see where it goes, but it left more questions than answers for me. It still brought out tons of emotion (as did this entire game) and I can't wait to see exactly where they go from here.

I think realistically, this is certainly a top tier Yakuza game, and I wouldn't be shocked at all to see this one go into people's top spot. For me, it's just going to miss out on that, but a genuinely incredible game, that RGG cooked on.

So after seeing Sam Barlow's new games announced (and immortality being one of my favorite games of 2022, I figured it was high time I finally got back to this and finished it (I had started it a long time ago). I knew it was short, and it wouldn't take me too long.

What unfolded over the next three hours was just a wonderful, creepy, chilling, moving, and just all around great little story. I do wish there was a bit more meat on the bone here so to speak (something that Immortality definitely improves on), but this is still something worth checking out one rainy afternoon when you got nothing else going on.

Sam Barlow is a wonderful creative force in this industry, and I can't wait to see what they do next!!!

Yes I no-lifed this game. Don't judge me.

Shoutout once again to the always wonderful Poot for gifting me this game!!! So, I finished GDQ, I had finished Curse of Monkey Island, and I thought to myself, perfect, I have a nice few day break now until Infinite Wealth comes out. However, me being a big moron decided to start this, and once I got a couple hours in, I realize dropping this wouldn't be a good idea, as I had no idea if I really would come back to it. So we no life, we finished and....yeah? It's good?

I mean, this game gets a lot of hate from what I've seen, and is the "black sheep" of the final fantasy series, and I have some major issues with it, but it does a lot of things good. It takes the non existent story and characters of FF1, and actually tries to do something here, and it's mostly solid. There's a bit too many deaths here (which if you know me, it's funny to hear me say that) but it's a well done simplistic story and cool to see something like that this early on.

The leveling system......ehhhhhhhhh. Great idea, just flawed execution. I never fully knew what I needed to do to level certain things, and it just didn't feel natural. It works, but not as well as it should, and I am glad Final Fantasy didn't really go back to this sort of thing.

The music here is pretty good, especially that finally track (total BANGER).

Overall, definitely not one I'd ever revisit, and the worst of the pixel remasters so far, but hey, not as bad as I was overall expecting, so that counts for something.

Yo why the hell hadn't I played this game before? As a huge Monkey Island fan this was always a gaping hole for me, but this game was so much fun, hilarious, and one of the best monkey island games I've played!!! First out, huge shout out to Ed for gifting me this one so I could finally stop being lazy and playing this.

This one has some of the best music in the series, some of the best puzzles (that don't feel too crazy obtuse for the most part) it's fully and very well voice acted, and a funny story to continue on Guybrush's crazy adventures.

I think my only complaint here (like a lot of these games) is I really do wish it was a little longer. Only five hours for me to complete here, of course, if you're not good with these types of games that might take longer.

I think overall I still slightly prefer Monkey Island 2, but a genuinely fantastic game, and one of the best monkey islands!!!

Interesting game here, and while I found myself oddly unsatisfied by the end of the game, I can't deny the game has a lot of charm, heart, and overall worth playing.

First of all, a huge shout out to the main Frog himself for gifting me this game, and getting this lovely game removed from my spite list. I had no idea this game was made by the creator of Phoenix Wright, so that was a cool little bonus I discovered going in.

First of all, what I love about this game is the style/the music/ the aesthetic and just the visuals in general. It's truly gorgeous. I have no idea if it looked that good on the DS, but this version looks and sounds genuinely great.

The story is fairly interesting most of the way too, it does take a little while to get cooking, but the "who am I" is always a good narrative hook, and there are plenty of interesting characters to keep you chugging along (inspector Cabanela might be the biggest giga chad I've encountered in a game in some damn time.)

Now all that being said, I am a little down on this for a couple of reasons. One, while I think the core gameplay loop was fun at first, it 100% dragged to me by the end, and was hoping for a better changeup/new mechanic than I got (the escort mission was certainly not it and a lowlight of the game for me).

More importantly though, I can't say I was a fan of the final twist/resolution. Without going into spoilers, it just really wasn't all that satisfying as a result. Certainly not enough to "ruin" the game or anything like that, but just a bit of a downer overall.

For the most part though, I had a good time with this game, and there's certainly a lot here to enjoy, even if I'm a bit more down on this compared to other people.

Long live Capgod tho, amirite?

My original plan was to play FF 1-6 this year in order, after falling in love with FFXVI and really realizing what a gap this was for me. I finished FF1 just a few weeks ago, and was surprised how much I enjoyed it and was ready to jump into FF2 but life threw me a little curve ball. I forgot that the final run of GDQ this year was FFV, and at the recommendation of a friend, that I would not want to be spoiled, I decided to jump to this one next so I could watch the run spoiler free (which was 100% the right decision)

This is a fantastic game, very different from what you'd expect from a FF game, so I can see why it's not talked about so much, but it's genuinely great. The Job system is maybe one of my favourite combat mechanics I've ever had in a JRPG period. It made the combat fun for me, trying new styles, and trying to max out whatever I could before my final battle with Exdeath at the end of the game. It's such a shame that this job system was really mostly abandoned from what I've been told and doesn't show up again (albiet it, I've heard 3 has a stripped down version of it).

The story is really good. It takes a while to get cooking, and in the first few hours of my 25 hour adventure, I was wondering if this game was really THAT much of an upgrade over FF1, but once the story gets flowing, the characters fully introduced, and the stakes set, it's clear that this is a decent upgrade.

I think the thing that holds this back from being even higher for me is Bartz. He's a solid character, but as far as FF protagonists go, he's one of the weaker ones for me (which isn't a giant insult, most of the ones I adore have some of the best protagnoists I've played in games). The rest of the cast is great though, with Galuf being a huge stand out, and Gilgamesh perhaps going from a character I couldn't stand, to one I couldn't get enough of by the end of it, totally goated.

Overall though, this was a wonderful game, and while not quite as dire, and dark as some other FF entries (though with plenty of heart break, and tough moments) it's a great game, and worthy of more praise than it gets.

Thanks to Raynik for gifting me this!

I played through quite a few endings (spent a couple hours here) and what I've seen there's no really true ending (though I have rolled credits)

What a weird unique and funny game. I really like these guys styles (I was a fan of accounting+ too)

There's so much to do and see here, and so many variations, and the newly added in stuff seems very clever. Marking this as complete for now, but I'll probably fool around with it in down time and try to find any endings I missed. Banger for sure.

Wow what a little piece of gaming history here. Look, I went into this game expecting to either drop or get filtered right the fuck out of it. This game is ancient after all and while the pixel remaster did have some modern boosts here, it's still dated, and I figured that this was gonna be a problem for me.

And to be honest I almost did. I got my ass handed to me in the Marsh Cave a few times, and I quit the game, uninstalled it, and was ready to move on. However, something pulled me back a couple hours, and I'm so so glad I did. This game is genuinely really great for it's time, and it's clear why this series has lasted for as long as it has from the very start.

Obviously the story here isn't anything too special, in its humble beginnings, but it's fun making up your own storylines as you go, with your party members. It's so cozy, and the music is wonderful. The combat is super simplistic but quite fun in a weird way, and even grinding is made to be enjoyable here.

This is where I embark on my journey of playing 1-6, and if this is the starting point, I can't WAIT to see what some of these future games have in store for me. Banger.

If anyone knows me, I'm the king of trying to champion a game that the "gamers" shit on, that's actually not that bad. Forspoken was one of my favorite games last year and was a blast, and early into Gotham Knights I thought this might be another one. Unfortunately, as you get further into the game, you realize that it really is half baked, was clearly planned to be live service, and the talent just wasn't there to make this the game it needed to be.

This game poses a lot of problems for playing it SP. The story doesn't feel as effective, you get really no time with the other characters (unless you switch yourself). Playing it co-op would;d probably be no fun, but this certainly wasn't designed to be a SP first game.

The story has its moments, and some fun boss fights (probably the highlight of the game for me) but the ending is really dumb, and there's a lot of stupid stuff along the way.

The combat is a clear step down from the Arkham trilogy (along with the visuals, and well, a lot of things from that trilogy). I think if this game existed in a timeline without those games, we might look a little bit more positive upon this game. Unfortunately as it is, it's quite mid, and will be forgotten about by next week.

I still have hope for Suicide Squad (perhaps stupidly) but if that's a miss too, WB will have totally lost my trust with anything DC related.

First of all, a huge thanks to Parrott for gifting me this game!

This capped off my year of Science Fiction Adventure Series, as I had marched through all of them, and this was really the last accessible one I wanted to get too. What followed was a very hit or miss romantic comedy like game with some routes clearly being stronger then others.

When it hit, it hit pretty good. The Suzu route was genuinely hilarious and a great spoof on one of my favorite movies, while the Mayushi route was sweet and lovely, and a very nice alternative to the main canon romance.

The Kirusu route unfortunately was a major let down for me (and to be fair, it's tough to top the main romance story they told in Steins;Gate) while the Faris story genuinely was horrible and made me want to stop playing altogether.

Still though, I had a fun time with this overall, and it was a fun little companion piece to the series. A step below Steins;Gate 0 for me, but honestly, still worth playing if for no other reason then to get spend some more time with the GOAT chad himself Daru.

Oh baby what a rush.

This game is excellent. Easily one of the best action games I've ever played, a crowning achievement for this series, and one of the best non resident evil games I've played from Capcom. Just a tremendous game all around.

The story is interesting, fun, and the best story in the entire series. The combat is peak here, as it offers so many different playstyles and ways to have fun. The music is awesome, Devil Trigger is an instant classic. You can tell they went all out with this one, I'm sure Capcom didn't know if they were going to be able to make another one, but this game sold so well (and the capcom comeback so strong) that I'd be stunned now if there isn't a DMC 6 at some point.

My complaints of this game are very very few and minor. I wish it was a smidge longer, and I wish some of the side characters (particularly the lovely ladies) got involved a bit more in the story and were more present, but otherwise, this is a tremendous game and one of the best of 2019. Fantastic stuff.