Get ready for the game that mixes Wolfenstein, Bioshock, Fallout, and a dystopian/utopian 1950s-era Soviet Union. From characters that fuck robots to the robots that want to fuck you, this is one of the horniest games I have ever played without the game being explicit. Bombshell robot twins that you can undress via mods. Kinky robot fridge Nora that is good at dirty talk to distract her partner from noticing she is a fucking fridge.

This game both exceeded and fell short of my expectations. Even though I don’t like souls-like-esque(?) games, I enjoyed this one.

For a game of this scale, I would expect the environment to interact with the player in a sufficient way, but this was not what I got during the gameplay. Also, there was a 10-minute shader load when I first launched the game. I am not even going to talk about those long ass elevator rides where I can binge-watch The Lord of the Rings.

Oh, did I mention forced constant internet connection? BECAUSE THERE IS! But fret not! They compensate this with long and boring formal dialogue filled with complex terms uttered by a creepy robot with the most robot voice possible. Hell, even the main character says he didn't understand jackshit.

Enough with the negative aspects, let’s move on to more negative aspects. 5 FPS animations that you see in various cutscenes even if you MAX every setting and have an RTX4090. And to make it 60 FPS, you must alter some configuration files in the game directory. When you think you had enough, the game slaps you across the face with the same tutorial popup that says the same basic shit.

The big brain of a game spoils itself by showing every enemy in its lore category right at the intro. Oh, also you must grind so hard you can’t even call it zero to hero, you gotta call it minus thousand to hero. BTW, the fuck is wrong with these facial animations? Like, everything is buttery-smooth, and you get to a dramatic moment in the story, and the voice actors are doing their best, and then you get the facial expressions of my dead grandmother, WHO IS DEAD BY THE WAY! Totally ruining the whole experience.

There are minimal QTEs in the game that you come across several times in your playthrough. They are minimal, but their impact is huge, like, you can die. You get a QTE and fail it because you did not expect it, then get to that point again and successfully complete it, then a long time passes and you get a QTE again in a critical moment and you have a partial heart attack because you weren’t expecting it, and then you fail again like you did your whole life.
Now it’s really enough with the cons of this game. There are mad fun lock-picking minigames that you generally must complete. Also, there are some puzzles that utilize physics beautifully. It’s nice to see they pulled off placing puzzles in such a game and got away with it. There are not-so-great cars in the open world that you can use to travel between faraway places and run over some robots in the process, but since the car mechanics are so messed up, you might end up in a ditch and have to walk two kilometers to your destination since you can’t find any other car.

The story is captivating too, and you get great plot twists in every part of the story. No spoilers.

3.5/5, would fetch the robot maid’s limbs again so that I could go through a simple door.

This is the one Halo game that each time I replay it, I start to appreciate it more.

I may not be the biggest fan of the multiplayer, the brute design or armour lock but damn will I say this is a mastepiece nevertheless. This game encapsulates the tone of hopelessness perfectly and tells such a tragic tale in the best way possible. Every mission feels like a suicide mission or a lost cause which is exactly how the Fall of Reach should be depicted. This game makes the Covenant feel like more of a threat than any other Halo game.

The soundtrack is incredible and the characters are all so likeable. I also think Spartan IIIs may be my favourite spartans as their design is unmatched.

All right time to do some badass mean yakuza stuff!

gives plushies from the arcade to a little girl

sends postcards to radio station

dance all night long at the disco

help teaching those yanki bad boys to behave real tough

It's yakuzing time...

Final Fantasy VII is one of the most influential video game and pop culture icons of all time. It was revolutionary in its day in storytelling, graphics, and scope. I never got around to playing the original PS1 game. When the game came out, I just wasn't into JRPGs and would never have had the patience to finish the game or even remotely understand the story. I was 7 at the time. Fast forward nearly three decades, and out comes the remake. The Final Fantasy VII projects have been in the making for nearly two decades. I remember the Adventu Children being released. I rented it and watched it with my parents, and I had no idea what was going on. There was a mobile game exclusive to Japan at the time, and Crisis Core had just been released. I also had no idea what was going on in that game. I couldn't appreciate these FF7 projects as I hadn't played the original title.

That has all changed. Square Enix did a great job bringing the game up to par with modern audiences and video game standards. Not only is the story well told and easy to follow, but it's still complex and full of interesting and lovable characters. While this game is only what the first disc from the original offered, there are 30+ hours of content here to explore. While the game isn't perfect, there is more to love than to hate, and I was surprised at how great this game was. I didn't want to put it down. From the well-done English voice-acting (which was a shocker) to the well-paced and fast-moving story, the game never got stale (at least during the story moments). 

The basic structure of this game is very linear. This is a dated design choice that transferred over, but some think this game has been in development since the tech demo for the PS3 reveal was shown in 2006. If that were the case, then this linear design would have been considered mostly modern at the time. There are large towns to explore, but these still have linear paths, and the story mode is a single path you follow, and there's no way to branch off. This is both fine for a scripted story but also feels cramped in some aspects. Despite how large Midgar feels, with sweeping vistas and massive backdrops, you can explore very little of it. There's a large sense of scale, but what you can explore just feels so claustrophobic in comparison. Many thought this would be an open-world game, but to follow the story the way Square Enix's wants, that wouldn't be possible, and I can see why they chose this path.

Exploring the game (and even the menu system) is similar to most modern Final Fantasy games. You run around towards a goal, fight bosses, run into enemies, do some mini-games, complete side quests, and try to get the best accessories, armor, and weapons in the game. This is all slowly introduced to you, but let's start with the combat, as that's the bulk of the game. Combat is not turn-based, but you can pause the action to give commands. The controls are intuitively designed to allow this to be done with minimal effort. You have regular attacks, a special attack, a block, and a dodge button. When enemies have red exclamations over their heads with the attack name, you know it can't be blocked but must be dodged. Cloud's alternate special attack is actually a stance called Punisher Mode, and while you block him, he will auto-parry incoming attacks. This comes in handy all the time. 

You can issue commands, such as using ababilities. These are obtained by changing weapons. Materia can be equipped to give you commands that use MP. Things like magic, offense, defense, and even passive Materia can be slotted. Different weapons and equipment determine your slot count. It's important that you learn this system well and balance your team. You can only have three active party members at a time, but you never change your party. It's all based on the story. You will go through multiple chapters with a missing party member, but you can still upgrade and equip them all the time, even when they aren't with you. Powering up weapons is also a must. Each weapon has strengths and weaknesses. Some focus on sheer power, some on magic, and some on defensive skills. You acquire SP through combat and can use it across all weapons. Each weapon gets the same pool of SP separately. If you have 90 SP, you can use that separately on each weapon, which is really nice. As you level up, you unlock new SP pools.

Combat is fast-paced, fun, and exciting. Each character can be controlled by the player in combat only. During exploration, you're mostly stuck as Cloud or another character, as the story deems fit. Cloud is an all-rounder; Aerith mostly focuses on magic and distance combat; Tifa is a fast-paced melee fighter; and Barret uses a mid- to long-range gun, which is great for aerial enemies. He also has a ton of HP and defensive points. You can issue commands to other characters with the triggers that pause combat. You all have two AP gauges that fill up slowly over time or quicker as you do damage. These are needed to even use items in combat. These guides are the center of your strategy because, without them, you will die. You have limit breaks, which really can only be filled during longer battles (mostly bosses) and summons that deal massive damage, but the battle needs to be long enough to fill these guages.

Summons are mostly acquired optically through the VR training. You only get two during the story mode automatically. These are the keys to strategizing battles and winning as quickly as possible. I found the combat rarely frustrating. Only during long boss battles with multiple phases did I find it annoying that these cut-scenes were not skippable. You need to watch them all over again if you die. This didn't become an issue until towards the end of the game. You can run away from battle by running away and fleeing, and thankfully enemies regenerate until you leave the entire area and come back. The boss battles are all unique and imaginative, and no one is the same. The smaller enemies are also unique and different, and they require you to learn their attacks and know what is weak against what type of attack. There is a lot more strategy in the combat system than a simple hack-and-slash setup.

While combat is the bulk of the game, you will spend a lot of time outside of combat. There are a few simple puzzles inside some dungeons, but the hub areas or towns you explore allow you to rest, buy items, materia, armor, and weapons, and that's about it. The side quests and mini-games are some of the weakest parts of this game. While not every side- question is bad, Some offer challenging boss fights and good rewards; some just don't offer much story-wise. I completed almost all of them anyway for more XP, SP, and the items they offered, but fetch quests are just not fun here. Not to mention, the mini-games are incredibly tedious and boring and not well thought out. There's an okay darts mini-game. Beating the highest score and achievement. But there's a box-breaking mini-game that requires you to run around breaking different-sized boxes. This was incredibly tedious and not fun. There are combat VR simulators that net you material. Most of which you can acquire elsewhere. Then there's the optional summons, which can be incredibly difficult to acquire early on as you need to beat them, and you need three party members to even have a fair chance. There's also a pretty stupid dancing rhythm mini-game. It's just, overall, a bit lame.

Some other annoying niggles come from dated design decisions, like treating the player like they're stupid. For decades, games would have you flip a switch, cut the camera away, show you that a gate in front of you opened, and then give you control. I'm pretty sure most people can figure out that the switch opened the only gate on the only path you can go down. I also got annoyed by how animations would have to line up to whatever script they were tied to, do the animation, re-align, change animations, flip the switch, then go back. It just slowed things down a lot. 

Outside of the mostly optional and passable annoyances, the visuals are fantastic. Character models look amazing, the pre-rendered cutscenes are some of the best in the industry, and the story and overall character designs are some of the best you will ever come across. The story is deep and full of political intrigue, and I want to know more about this world, the characters, and see things move on. It's sad that Square Enix takes so long to make sequels, but what are we going to do? With the fantastic combat system that adds just enough strategy and depth to the large swath of enemies, bosses, environments, and perfect pacing, FF7 Remake is fantastic. The additional Intermission DLC is also wonderful, and playing as Yuffie is a blast. The short, 4-hour story DLC still has more of the same lame mini-games and annoyances as the main game, but the story is just so well done. There's nothing quite like it out there.