Picked the game up on a whim, and didn't really realize it was a sort of sequel to two other games To The Moon and Finding Paradise until a decent bit into the game.

I have played and finished To The Moon in the past, and it is very similar in style to that game. basically amounting to a RPG maker style looking game with not that much actual gameplay, and the game itself serving as predominantly a vehicle to deliver their story.

The story itself is charming. There are some fun and personable characters you meet throughout the game, and the ultimate theme, finding meaning in one's life regardless of the looming death, is potent and heartfelt.

I'd say if you enjoyed this studios' previous games, then you will likely enjoy this one as well, and if you haven't played those, I'd recommend trying those first as there are multiple moments that would be greatly diminished if this was your first foray. Outside of that though, the games are pretty emotional games with pretty good music and a solid amount of whimsy. While I think the presentation can leave a bit to be desired at times, I think it's still worth experiencing if your in the mood for an emotional story.

Shin Megami Tensei V is, in some ways, some of the best the main line series has to offer. Some excellent animations add great individuality to the wide cast of demons while the combat system is about as fun as it's ever been. OST, while not quite as high as IV or IV: Apocalypse personally, still slaps and is generally pretty great. The switch to pseudo open area exploration vs the more condensed dungeon style is also interesting and something I hope they iterate on in future entries. That being said, the game also has a lot of warts.

Before moving forward, most of my issues with the game lie in the narrative. Many SMT fans I've discussed with have made claims like "The story/characters don't matter, it's all about dat gameplay." If you are like that, awesome, you'll likely like this game. The only other real issue I had was that some of the environments lack variety and feel kind of samey, but that's not a big deal and you can skip most of this review.

The story is, when boiled down to bullet points, actually pretty interesting. The conflict between warring divisions within the world as well as this seeming to be a pseudo sequel to an earlier SMT is very interesting. The issue comes in the execution. Pacing for the story is pretty atrocious with large periods of nothingness (for hours and hours) happening followed by a small bit of badly delivered story/exposition followed by again nothing but gameplay. The cast is, generally, incredibly unmemorable with little in the way of personality or intrigue. There is legitimately only one character that I can remember having any real development or character potrayal, yet even that is executed pretty poorly in a hamfisted and ultimately kind of uninteresting manner.

At no point was the plot driving me. I could not find myself to care about the main cast and found my main drive to go forward mostly to get new and fight bigger demons. That's about it. Which might be enough for some. Considering I finished it, I guess it was enough for me.

It's a fun time if you go in with the understanding that the game likely wont do much for you narratively and you're just in it for the gameplay. If you're expecting anything more (like anything on the level of some of Atlus' other games like P3/4/5, Devil Survivor, SMT 4/4A, etc), you might walk away a bit disappointed and not as connected to the game or the world as you were hoping.

Guardians of the Galaxy is an unabashedly goofy game. Lots of humor, a lot of it works and got a decent amount of very hearty, very audible laughs out of me. Sometimes it doesn't work as well, but even then, as our protagonist would say in one of his teambuilding hype up monologues, there's a lot of heart here in this cast of characters and the story they stumble their way through.

The cast is the real highlight here. The team dynamic in this game, as in the chemistry between the cast members and their growth over the course of the game, is portrayed wonderfully and really gives the impression of a, somewhat dysfunctional but ultimately loving, family battling the odds. It just works. Even in the more low key and downer moments, the characters and their VAs simply sell it spectacularly. It's easy to care about these characters and easy to see their perspectives throughout the story.

The gameplay is probably the most divisive aspect about the game from what I've seen myself. I personally like it. It's a light action rpg with an Uncharted approach to linear game design. I personally think the combat works quite well. It's not spectacular really, but chaining team commands is not only quite fun, but contributes to the selling of the team building aspect of the story. I think the gameplay and story actually come together quite well in a theming sense at this aspect. The base gameplay itself was always engaging for me, and I never really had an issue with it outside of a little too much repeated enemies and some uninspired designs such as enemies that look almost literally like just globs of jello.

All in all, I didn't have high expectations coming in, but I came out with one of the best games of the year, and arguably the best marvel game in recent memory. Eidos has convinced me, and I'll be here and ready if they ever make a sequel.

Once Mario 64 came about, there felt like there was a bit of a notable divide in what constituted a 3D Mario and what was the 2D Mario of the past. They've gone back to the classic style of 2D Mario with games like New Super Mario Bros, but the 3D Land/World games are able to go back to the 2D gameplay style of the past while bringing it up to the three dimensions. It's an interesting game as a result.

The game is a fun time, and a fairly laid back or chill game to throw on and enjoy for a bit. I wasn't overly impressed by anything in particular, but the levels are engaging, and the characters are fun to control and play with. Bosses are okay. A lot of mid bosses are not only reused multiple times but also can last a total of like 4 seconds if you come in with a power that cheeses them. Makes them a bit anticlimactic. Game is fairly easy for the most part, but I don't think that's an issue personally. Just made for a chill experience.

Bowser's Fury is a better, but ultimately quite different, experience. It takes a lot more from 3D Mario's DNA with a heavier emphasis on going through the same area multiple times with differing tasks. Also has a more traditional open sandbox feel to the levels that the base game did away with. Besides the lack of choosing which character to play (you're locked to Mario here), I distinctly preferred how this mode handled the core gameplay loop. Unfortunately, this new mode is quite short, only lasting 3ish hours, so it's not something I would recommend the whole package for if you already played through the base game(Especially at full price).

Ultimately, 3D world is a pretty enjoyable experience, and if you're itching for a new platformer, you could definitely do worse.

Sonic Colors always felt like a sonic game I had missed out on. I had played pretty much every 3d game before this, and generations after, so Colors always felt like the one good 3d sonic game I missed. As a result, I was excited to finally get into it.

After finishing, it's difficult to say whether Sonic games are simply no longer for me despite being such a big part of my childhood, but colors is... okay. It's not terrible, and there are some truly great things about the game. Notably the music (as per Sonic tradition really), and some of the set piece locations are actually quite cool looking. The game play itself isn't the most exciting. It's traditional boost sonic game play, which is mixed. Speed feels good, and in the more "on rails" sections of the game, it actually feels quite fun. Outside of that, it can feel like you're fighting Sonic to move the way you want though. One egregious example is when you're trying to boost in a specific direction. Sonic only boosts the way he's facing, so if you're holding the opposite direction and try and boost, Sonic will still boost in the direction he was facing originally which can lead to deaths or just general exasperation. It generally just feels a bit wonky.

Writing is also pretty weak. Now you might be saying "but sonic games always have bad writing," and I don't disagree. However, I always found a certain charm in how overly serious or kind of edgy the games tried to be. Like 90s/early 2000s pre teen "this is cool" type of energy. It could be cringy at times, but ultimately, I found it endearing and part of the series' identity. Here, it feels a bit more soulless and sanitized.

Personally, I think there are better Sonic games to go through if you wanted that fix (such as Generations). Hopefully Sonic's next title will recapture what I loved about the series as a kid, but I also feel like I've been hoping for that for a little while.

I have played all of the first game and about 80% of the second before trying out True Colors. I left True Colors thinking that it was notably the best one of the franchise with a very likeable cast of characters as well as an overall more grounded narrative than its predecessors.

The game follows a girl named Alex as she begins to deal with pent up trauma regarding her self worth and her evaluation of the emotions of the people around her. This culminates in solving a mystery in the town.

I was fairly surprised because the plot itself isn't really that exciting, especially compared to the first and second games of the series which had rather big events and/or twists. True Colors is more grounded, it's more willing to take its time and give you small tidbits about the characters and how they live their lives in the town. Generally, besides what I frankly consider to be a climactic and fantastic final chapter, it's a slow, character-driven narrative, but it works really well. Characters are charming and have very understandable motivations that drive them. Music is licensed and used very well. The animations and aesthetic is also easily the best the series has seen up to this point.

I have a couple of nitpicks and an ultimately huge issue with the game that unfortunately is almost unrelated to the game itself which is a bit of a bummer. As far as nitpicks go, the game is pretty short. Maybe like 7 to 8 hours or so? It's not a long game, and can leave the player midway through chapter 3 being absolutely shocked that they are "half way through." At the same time, I think the plot itself is wrapped up a little to cleanly/quickly. It still works, but it would have been nice to get more time to let everything simmer.

The bigger issue I had, and the most glaring problem with the game is on a technical level. There are some minor bugs throughout like people quickly disappearing before a scene finishes transitioning or other small things, but at the end of my playthrough there was a game crashing bug in the cutscene that hard stopped my progress. I had to like change the display setting on my ps5 and restart in order to finally get past this. This kept happening with literally like 5 minutes of game left and was a huge blemish on something that should have otherwise just been a great experience.

That being said, True Colors is a great experience, and I'd strongly encourage people to really give it a shot in the future with maybe a few more patches under its belt.

As a big fan of metroidvanias, I have startling little experience with the progenitors of the genre, in this case specifically, Metroid.

Besides some minor quirks with the controls, Dread plays phenomenally well. Samus, herself, is a joy to control with a wide arsenal to choose from, and her movement itself is extremely fluid, especially coming off of Super Metroid, my only other exposure to the series. However, there were still some minor issues I had with how she controlled. Turning to morph ball and back to dodge certain attacks feels a bit awkward. The spin jump which allows you to jump multiple times if timed correctly feels okay for the most part, but later bosses rely on well timed use of it which can make it rather frustrating during high intensity situations.

The locations themselves are okay. Aesthetically, I feel little of the areas stand out, and the art style chosen for the game feels a bit ... sterile. Exploration through these areas doesn't personally feel as good as many in the genre as well. Most of the rewards for exploring or solving puzzles amounts to slight missile ammo upgrades, which help, but are not particularly exciting and do little to encourage exploring personally. On a more personal note, the design decision of constant breakable walls in your path is something I think is a relic of the past and more of a nuisance than engaging.

EMMIs while neat initially are also handled a bit poorly. The are quite similar to one another, so once you've dealt with one, the rest in the game will be dealt with very similarly. Their conclusion is also fairly weak for being so front and center in the game's advertising.

All in all, it's an enjoyable game, and I'm glad to have gone through it, but it does not touch the juggernauts of the franchise for me.

Pathless is a beautiful open world puzzle game with a heavy emphasis on non traditional movement. That said, possibly intentionally, the game lacks a lot of direction leading the player to absentmindedly head from puzzle to puzzle which are often solved in very similar ways (i.e. find weight, put weight on switch, shoot arrow through circle). Despite the game being fairly short (like 5 to 6 hours to mainline it), the monotony is a bit grating unfortunately.


That being said, the bosses/set piece moments are a really cool spectacle and quite fun from a game play perspective. The actual movement options are also a lot of fun to play around with. I wish the game centered around using the movement options in more creative ways though as it's 90% used to get from one meh puzzle to another. Ultimately, I'm glad I played it, but I do wish there was just a bit more.

I've played a number of RGG's games at this point, and they're fairly consistent. Lost Judgment is a more mixed experience than my normal forays into the series though. The main story starts off pretty strong for about the first half to the first two thirds of the run time of the game. However, the latter third of the game kind of loses its way and feels like not a whole lot happens for about four chapters. This culminates in a final confrontation that is cool in a set piece sense, but left me a bit cold at the same time. While I enjoy the main villain of the game, I think the story handles their conclusion fairly questionably.

The big side story arc however is very good with lovable cast members, like Amasawa, who I specifically really hope returns to take on a bigger role in later games. This is my favorite rendition of the side content done in these games, and I hope they take from this going forward.

The gameplay itself is a bit mixed. I think the combat styles feel better than the previous game, but runs into a similar issue as most Yakuza games where it often gets a bit stale after spending hours and hours with it. Also unfortunately, many of the new minigames(especially in the school) are fairly weak in my opinion like robotics, photography, biker gang, etc.

Overall, it's an enjoyable game with some of the highest highs in the series, but also with some fairly low lows. As always, any fans of the series will be right at home and likely enjoy it.

Deathloop is an interesting game that starts incredibly strong, and then cools notably over the course of the game as the loops start getting to you in the same way they do our protagonist.

The basic idea of the game is to find 8 people and kill each of them in a single day in order to break the loop, so you spend much of your game finding information about the targets and/or setting them up to be near other targets in order to break the loop in your limited not bad in execution, but some of the tasks the game sends you on can feel rather monotonous after you've done very similar things shortly before. The story is okay. Colt is an excellent protagonist, but he's the only character I could say that I liked without reservation. The ending itself is solid albeit quite abrupt.

Gameplay itself is the highlight. mixing upgrades(or trinkets) with guns and Colt can lead to some fun customizability, and it's fun to see what kind of loot you can get as you explore. Initially, I was confused on whether the game was supposed to be a roguelike in a similar vein as something like Returnal or Hades. It distinctly is not. It has similar concepts, but it's very easy to carry progression, and there is always a "new" task to be doing even if you are retreading previously explored locations.

All in all, the game is a good time, and I'd say to give it a try, but maybe not at full price personally.

Forgotten City focuses on a time looping city on its last day. By the end of the day, someone will sin causing everyone present to be turned into golden statues for eternity. The premise of the game is immediately intriguing, and I think the aspects of the game that question the moral and philosophical ideologies of the populace as well as what the proclaimed "Golden Rule" would mean in such a society are where the game shines the brightest. The final "confrontation" itself is also a neat bow to tie around the story itself (at least one of the ways of resolving it) and quite satisfying.

For the negative, I think the game probably doesn't utilize the time loop aspect of the game as well I would have preferred. A lot of time is given in a loop if you don't happen to mess something up disastrously (like killing someone or stealing) which gives the player ample time to resolve a lot of the mysteries in a single loop. For instance, I think I had basically solved all of the questions of the game after four loops(basically amounting to about a loop every hourish). Much of the cast members themselves also don't feel like they are quite given enough time to shine with some characters actively feeling rather irrelevant/barely relevant in my playthrough. Both of these issues kind of stem from the fact that the game itself is on the shorter side barely reaching past 5 hours of playtime. The game doesn't overstay its welcome in any capacity personally, but it did leave me with a sense of "that's it?"

Technically, the game is okay. Some tearing resolved with vsync, and generally stable framerate as far as I could tell(on PC). Character models often look a bit unsettling, and while the environments do the job well enough, this is definitely not a game you'd play for the aesthetic. I believe I had heard that the story for this game had started life as a Skyrim mod, and though the engine and game itself has obviously changed away from that, the Elder Scrolls DNA will still be exceedingly present as you go through the game. I don't necessarily think it a bad thing, but it is funny and slightly distracting at times.

All in all, I played the game because I wanted something to metaphorically wash the disappointing taste of another recent time loop game, 12 minutes, out of my mouth. Forgotten City, while not perfect by any means, is a good time, and, at the very least, accomplished what I wanted from it.

This is my first experience with Psychonauts as a series goes, and I very much enjoyed my time with the game. The writing is often legitimately laugh out loud funny with an incredibly charming cast and some of the best level designs/aesthetics I have seen. They really use the theming of going into people's minds to the fullest, and I loved every second of it.

While the cast is lovely, I think the game does falter with its large cast. I think a lot of returning members from the first game get less of a spotlight which might be intentional, but was disappointing to me especially as someone with little experience with the original. However, even some of the newer cast members(I presume) just feel like they don't get quite enough time even if I greatly enjoyed the majority still. I think the game also runs into an issue of some sections just being a tad on the long side. This is most notable with bosses where they last a while and have to be done from the beginning if you die at any point.

Ultimately, I was pretty blown away though. The game left me with a huge smile on my face and eager to find what crazy idea was going to be shown next. Great, charming, Saturday-Morning Cartoon like game.

Bravely Default 2's positives revolve around its very entertaining battle system. The sheer amount of build variety available to the player is just exciting to mess around with and plan team compositions around. That being said, unless you farm stats, I feel like the game runs into an issue where every comp is going to revolve around having multiple of one (or a very similar) job which is a bit sad to get to the end and realize your best team is kind of boring.

Besides that minor nitpick, BDII has a few other issues that hold it back from greatness. The story is very "classic Final Fantasy" for better or worse. It and the cast are enough to keep you going, and there are some actually interesting moments sprinkled about, but this isn't a story I expect many to be enthralled by.

There are some gameplay quirks that I imagine are a bit divisive. Especially towards the end of the game, there are multiple bosses that basically have a "counter everything" skill which I assume is meant to keep the player on their toes and just make it more challenging. This may be a positive for some, but having a group wide massive damage trigger as a counter just after healing at all just made me more annoyed than tense.

Also, playing it on switch can be rough at times. There are often hitches and slight pauses throughout the game. It doesn't take away much overall, but it can be slightly annoying. If that bothers you though, it might be worth looking into the PC version.

All in all, I did enjoy this game quite a bit and really had a good time grinding up all the jobs, levels, and special weapons. If you're looking for a job system or classic rpg experience, I think it's a good recommendation.

The original TWEWY was a formative game for me during my teenage years. As a result, a normal follow up, as in one not plagued by over a decade with no proper sequel, was always going to have large shoes to fill. It's a good thing that NEO is more than up for the challenge.

There are so many positives I can say about the game, the writing is phenomenal, the OST is in the running for GOAT tier, the gameplay is both unique and extremely engaging, and the game boasts one of the most charming casts I've had the joy to experience to date. Upon finishing the game, I was both wowed and saddened to leave behind these characters that I had gotten so attached to.

The game isn't perfect though. There are some pacing issues where the story can slow to a bit of a crawl. Anyone playing the game will understand when "Scramble Slam" is mentioned alone. I also think that the story doesn't spend enough time going over certain characters/plot threads, and while I generally really like the comic aesthetic of the scenes, some more proper cutscenes during big moments would have been appreciated.

Overall though, I think this is about as perfect a follow up as my teenage heart could hope for and one of the best Square Enix games ever made in general. I hope it finds its success because now that I've gone back to Shibuya, I'm not ready to say goodbye to it again.