The best game in the series with no competition. Latter entries may have the benefit of being on more powerful hardware with proper 3D arenas, but this one is so batshit crazy with the characters going Kaioken fighting actual Godzilla demons.

The simplistic Dynasty Warriors-esque combat can make your hand cramp like a motherfucker while playing on the 3DS, but it's such an easy to pick up and play game that you could probably do a whole chapter before that starts. Characters are once again a strong point (go ahead laff) and game leans more into the relationships within their own clan members and the equivalent rival clan members.

Hikage best girl. Mirai cool as hell. Wish I was Kat. Fuck Yumi simps.

Gonna preface this with Egoraptor is a fucking moron and single-handedly ruined all discussion of this franchise more than any annoying Nintendo fanboys could have.

Haven't played this in close to a decade so I was excited to give it a new run with the fresh perspective that comes from something like that. With that being said there is a lot of early 3D game transition crust in this. The amount of going through the menus to switch items or boots sucks. It runs like dogwater (I'll let it slide considering the original platform), the camera can be weird at points, and the mostly unskippable text boxes and cutscenes really do reveal how much of a relic of late 90s adventure games this is. Yet it still holds up nearly 30 years later. Ocarina of Time is a neat game to go back to after the near past decade of Wild/Tears and playing through a more traditional Zelda game that just feels more along the length of a standard adventure game now? Like, a Zelda game made up of around 15-20 hours of gameplay? Hell yeah, make more around that length too! Some weird early 3D stuff like the camera aside Link himself still controls pretty well and paired with the super simple story helps this game feel like such a breeze to playthrough.

Speaking of the story... I don't think Zelda games have the most incredible stories in gaming, but they're always serviceable fun adventure fare that feels like crazy ass Ghibli (Nausicaa and Mononoke) meets Disney renaissance and if I'm being honest? It does the job every time. Sure you can talk about the deeper implications and loss of innocence 11 year old Link being forced into an adult body and time traveling across both ages with the experience of the others can mean, but the game never focuses on that so neither will I.

The presentation as well is incredible. MGS is often the 1998 game people go to for cinematics and for good reason, but lordy OoT really does feel and capture the vibes of a fantasy anime from the era. Stuff like going fishing after finishing the water temple or getting Biggoron's eyedrops feel like the episodes where everyone gets to relax and enjoy their time or do some silly shit with penis music blasting as they get into silly shenanigans. The fishing minigame still rules by the way. Then when shit gets more serious like the final battle with Ganon shrouded in shadows it genuinely feels epic and looks right out of Escaflowne. Good shit.

There's plenty in this that we all take for granted nowadays both within its own franchise and other games, but I think when those things were new and groundbreaking there's a reason this and FF7 were probably the biggest games ever for the rest of the late 90s and early 2000s.

Also wow wow wow Twilight Princess is such a fucking full on stealth remake/sequel to this lmfao. May as well play them back to back if you can.

Was kinda shitposting when my original review was just "Objectively better than the first game". Especially when I put it on here after not having played it for years. But coming back to it nearly 5 years later and 2 years after DE's launch I've only doubled down on that take.

Xenoblade 2 is not perfect, it's got jank, it's ugly as fuck sometimes texture wise (especially when they don't load in), there's some gameplay elements that can be frustrating and annoying (the gacha system which is still better than others anyways since it's 100% free as opposed to having to spend real ass money and there's ways to cheese it anyways), the unfortunate rushed development cause Monolith Soft was stuck shackled to Breath of the Wild can show at times and yet it's easily one of my favorite experiences with any game ever.

From the soundtrack to the characters and writing Xenoblade 2 is one of the best JRPGs of the past decade. A truly personal story of redemption, vengeance and acceptance. There are so many games that attempt the cycle of violence/revenge type deal and yet none of them have ever left an impact on me the way the last 3 chapters of this game have. Everything from chapter 7 onward blows the first Xenoblade out of the water emotionally, spectacle wise and writing wise. It is just constant escalation after escalation to an emotional and cathartic climax, and that's the key thing for me with this game. When you reach the ending and that final cutscene after the credits catharsis is the feeling that overwhelms you. Few films have hit me with that and even fewer games can stand to having done it to me but Xenoblade 2 did it and that alone will always make it special to me.

So it kills me when people just reduce it to nothing more than horny anime garbage. "The game with the two skanks that ruined Smash" and "the generic anime boy protag" and "that one weeb game with bad English dub". Last point funny as fuck to me cause it is genuinely no worse than the average English dub. Maybe compared to Xenoblade 1 but on this playthrough I genuinely found it fine. Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome but aside from the early chapter weirdness after a certain point it's all fine and is legit better than the usual Square Enix dubs that fill in every grunt the Japenese dub has with awkward English grunts of their own lmfao. The horny anime shit take sucks too and it's always from people who have never played this game or coomers that only know any of the characters from porn. So for a really quick tangent for the other side of that last point I think media should be allowed to be as horny as it wants. If the writer/artist doesn't want it to be horny that's fine but if a writer/artist wants it to be horny what right do you have to tell them no? It's a bit of a double edged sword situation I guess since while it keeps people from wanting to play it it also gatekeeps itself from the exact people I would never want to talk to about this game. Only the worthy may pass yadda yadda it kinda rules tbh.

Goddamn tho that insane rambling aside going from DE which made me realize just how much the original Xenoblade has aged combat wise (especially when X was the same thing but faster and better) and going back to this with the sicko mode blade and driver combos PLUS how good it feels to switch out to a blade and immediately follow that up with an attack? UGH god it feels so good to kill shit in this game and Xenoblade 3 seemingly taking this but with extra abilities that were in 1 WITH X's speed is enough to make me shit and cum and piss.

So what don't I like? Well, field skills suck lmfao and the fact they can softblock process in chapter 7 if you don't upgrade certain blades enough fucking sucks ass. Really miss that sprint from X too and the gacha system can be mad annoying but that's what the Relentless Arduran and New Game Plus mode are for. And I guess the fact that you pretty much have to get the season pass for Torna and a lot of the post launch blades, but I think that's it lol and for the price you pay you get a shitton of stuff. Honestly it's shocking to me to this day that for a game that had such a rushed development that it turned out as good as it did when other games that were delayed and delayed and delayed couldn't even release without being broken messes.

Xenoblade 2 as mentioned at the start isn't perfect but it's one the most delightful and emotionally powerful experience with video games that I've gone through my whole life. I haven't even gone into the themes of immigration, persecution, regret, mental illness, idealism, self reflection, and religion the game is chock full of behind the scenes of what on the surface is quite simply a story about a boy meeting a girl. And if what I've read about Tetsuya Takahashi is anything to go by he is a splendid man and all of the Xeno games from Gears to most definitely soon Xenoblade 3 are some of most personal pieces of media ever made, and that to me will always be commendable and brave no matter what janky elements there may be along the way.

Anyways Mythra is my wife who I will DEFINITELY impregnate, Tora is my son and Rex is a good boy that does not deserve the shit he gets for his silly little costume and voice. Bring on Xenoblade 3.

NOOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T RELEASE MEDIA BASED ON A KIDS SHOW THAT SHOWS GENUINE LOVE FOR IT AND TAKES IT SERIOUSLY IT HAS TO BE IRONICCCC

hehe big robot dinosaur go stomp

Perhaps I'm being too nice giving it a 5, but when I got to the final chapter and the game was constantly switching between both factions culminating with a Dante Vs. Vergil style sword fight between Optimus and Megatron I made up my mind on what I was gonna give this game.

Trent Reznor wasn't lying this really doesn't have any atmosphere.

Okay so it's not terrible, and seeing as how this remaster is meant to be the "better" version that's a bit of a problem. Quake 1 suffers from that early id Software problem of a really dope first 2/3 and a last third that then leaves you wanting a bit more. Also might include an enemy added in at the last second that ruins everything. Kinda like FromSoft when you think about it. Quake 2 on the other hand is kind of all over the place with highs and lows constantly at odds with each other. Again while I'd be hard-pressed to call the game terrible it does really feel less interesting from both an art direction and "idea" perspective. Trading the more Lovecraftian and dark medieval fantasy with occasional hints of grungy sci-fi aesthetic instead comes a game I can best describe as Kill Murder Death late 90s space marine game you'd see as the parody of a real game in a sitcom. Game is fun as shit though. I'd be lying if during its highs I wasn't enjoying my time with it and I had a huge grin on my face upon acquiring the BFG10K. The music rules too I fucking love this game's soundtrack even before playing it that was the one thing I was excited to see in context of the levels and some of them do not disappoint. Descent into Cerberon fucking cums. Every time it'd play I'd get so hype.

Quake is a game I genuinely feel myself itching to play every few weeks since finally going through it and while I enjoyed my time with the base game of Quake 2 (as this remaster brings a bunch of extra campaigns and Quake 2 64 that I will be playing) I don't think I'll be itching to go back to this one as much.

This game must have been cursed or some shit with the insane and super quiet development time and then the shit that went down like 2 weeks before it came out.

Rules and goes hard as fuck both literally and figuratively. This shit way harder than 2 almost hitting some of the psychotic insanity in Bayo 1. It really do suffer from an issue I've been having with a lot of Platinum's outings since Nier Automata though and it's that it feels they get way too ambitious with the amount of gameplay elements they want to put into a single game and it does hamper the experience somewhat. Also, not a fan of the two weapons loadout they went for here. Loved having different weapons mixed and matched equipped on my hands and feet. Don't have that here and you end up just defaulting to either two light and fast weapons or a light and heavy weapon which gets kind of old and just takes away player freedom and expression that the first two games had. Offset of this is that it still feels good as fuck to play and see combo go up like most Platinum games.

Demon Slave thankfully feels better than the fake stands in Astral Chain which was my worry going into this after giving that a shot (but who knows the goodwill of this may make me go back to that...and I may end up liking it) and with Nucleus of Talos equipped that lets you move around and attack? May just be the best combat gimmick they've added to any of these.

Not gonna lie, don't even know how I feel about where the story goes since it feels like a quick cop-out to catch up to where DMC6 will probably go post V. Like they tried to make Bayonetta 3 and 4 at once and it just feels like they speedrun through the whole THE NEXT GENERATION shit, but if they can iron out some of the frustrating parry mechanics with Viola I can see Bayo4 being just as fun and challenging as the previous ones.

Pure video games. First time playing this since it came out and I'd forgotten just how much of a "video game" it is. Vanquish isn't worried about telling a story let alone a good one. Like Doom 2016 and Eternal it has plenty of modern day gaming elements like actual cutscenes, but none of that shit matters. Get out there and shoot the shit out of robots for 4 and a half hours. It does this all so right and constantly that being upset about the near nonexistent story would just be silly. Game feels great and it's fun. All I need.

Platinum's output from Madworld all the way to Bayonetta 2 is just so, so special. It's such a sadness their CEO is going to lead them to a slow bleed out from working on live service bullshit.

Annoying bullshit with some of the giant bosses and the insane balancing during last third or so of the game along with the sort of fetishistic shilling of mage/magic/long distance builds in this one aside, baller as fuck. Easily the best one of these since Bloodborne, glad I took a break after DS3 and skipped Sekiro this was a nice return. Gonna be hard to go back to games without a jump tho lmfao.

Souls fans will look at genuinely badly designed boss encounters like the foreskin twins and just say NAH YOU'RE JUST BAD LMFAO

Ranni goes into the wife cart. Ascend and destroy the world of god babe I'll follow you to the end.

Why the fuck did they waste Doomguy's first time speaking on him saying shit like rip and tear when this has the better and less eye rolling wink to the camera way to do it raaaaaahhh!!! Also, this shit is just a Quake game that they called Doom lmfao. It's all right there. The nonsensically fucked up lore and legendary RPG Knight savior Doomslayer shit. The emphasis on movement and jumping, plus a fucking hammer. It's Quake it's goddamn Quake and we didn't even see it this whole time.

Fucking baller. Dare I say it's better than part 1? Honestly? Yeah it is. Everything in Part 1 and the base game has been expanded upon and brought to an even further insane level. Everything about Doom Eternal is cracked the fuck out. From the gameplay, to the music, to the story it's all crackhead shit that has me grinning like a psycho for the entire 30 or so hours I've spent between the campaign and the expansions. It's kind of funny how I feel that Doom 2, a game I used to (and still do!) unabashedly love feels like it overstays its welcome after replaying it yet Doom Eternal which is around twice the length just breezed through for me. Got a massive hard on every time I'd be on some psycho shootout with like 50 goons and then a fucking Cyberdemon joins in cause they're just cannon fodder now too. Disrupting that fucker Marauder's stun state into being even longer with the hammer. And the Sentinel Hammer goddamn it. Never has a game gotten me closer to feeling like Bob the Fucking Builder or Gaogaigar it's a 10/10 on that alone. So much better than The Crucible too since it refills with glory kills.

I could go on and on about how this shit rules and may actually be the best FPS of the past decade (contentious since for everyone else it's Titanfall 2, but I'm dying on this hill damn it!), but the tl;dr is that if you liked Doom Eternal you will like these expansions. Period.

If I was a woman this game would have probably been such a huge jolt to my hormones that I would have transitioned to the opposite gender.

I really think Rise made me decide I wasn't going to talk or put my thoughts on any of these games online until they're fully 100% truly done with updates and while this still has a few more event quests to go that I will gladly get to as it stands this shit is done with Primeval Malzeno.

Sunbreak (from this point on occasionally referred to as Sunrise keep up) is without a shadow of a doubt probably the first one of these I've really been as addicted to as I was to 4U way back on the 3DS. While with Worldborne it eventually became a game of endless deco/KT/Safi farming Sunrise is a game that while as of this moment I have less time put into it than Worldborne unlike that game I can see myself definitely making another character to do an all new playthrough with a year or two from now.

The fantastic and frenetic combat of Rise is back in full swing and as with most G rank titles the monsters are faster and meaner than ever before, but Sunbreak goes even further implementing features and mechanics thought to have been lost with Frontier. Monsters like the Espinas duo and P Malzeno go absolutely berserk and it fucking rules. You can tell this time around the devs and especially the director who has been really open about about his love of Frontier really wanted to bring all that shit back and while I can't speak as someone who has played Frontier the consensus from those who have is enough to tell me they basically got it right. To combat this new ferocious beastiary we get the new scroll swap and switch skill mechanic and while I can definitely see the scrolls being a Sunrise exclusive gameplay element I hope to god switch skills return going forward. Being able to switch out your weapons moves for different ones is a million times more interesting to me as someone who cares more about game feel than the maps feeling alive and like a real ecosystem that Worldborne pushed.

This is also the first MH since 4U where while still having the same nonsense and simple "What could be causing this? Oh, it's monster! Actually it's this monster!" story MH always has it truly gets the feeling across of being on an adventure with a ragtag group to investigate and slay a dragon. It's funny too cause like Worldborne has a similar thing as always going on but it feels dumber in that game than here or 4U or even 3U? I don't know why, but it does. All this eventually culminating with the launch versions dragon satan finale and now the final update's P Malzeno leave me with a feeling of satisfaction that neither Xeno nor Shara really left me with despite the latter's genuinely great fight. Love the characters in this one too. I know it sounds silly considering most of them are just trope characters you see in lots of Japanese media, but Monster Hunter has always had a weird sort of like Jurassic Park 1 likeability to (most of) its characters that I can't help but enjoy interacting with them. Capcom knows this too cause the follower system (another thing kind of taken from Frontier) implemented in this game is really just a dating system lets be real and it better come back. Also if you look like Minayle hmu.

Yeah most of this review sounds like rambling, but I've got a year of shit to say and I've had plenty of time to reflect on and honestly I really really really like this game. It's a feeling like I've mentioned I haven't felt towards a Monster Hunter since 4U around 8 years ago (Jesus Christ kill me). Sure I can criticize how the roster isn't as big as GU's (stupid). Hell I could criticize the super slow grind of the Anomaly system, but I personally don't mind it. It's a much more passive grind that I could play at whatever pace I wanted and all the post launch monsters don't really require all the shit you get from it to fight them. Afflicted monsters being a genuinely fun challenge and the THE best version of endgame powered monsters (this is not arguable don't even bother) only helps. Loved the secondary combat mechanic of hitting the glowing bits like hyper monsters, but unlike them it actually feels like it does something. Love the knockdowns leading to tired state for easy hits after doing enough damage, but unlike 4U Apexes it's not annoying as fuck to get there without some shitty extra item. Love that they actually get cool slight distinct visuals aspects (Khezu full on looks like Red Khezu, Luna looks like a super Odo), as opposed to the boring violet metallic tint of World's tempered monsters. Yeah I'm shilling hard and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, this game is better than Worldborne. What it lacks in fidelity (made up for by better art direction here anyways) it more than makes up for in being actually fun to play and having creative combat scenarios that could never be done in that game's slower pacing or shitty attempts at MMO raid type battle.

Oh my lord the music of this game too. I am very vocal in my dislike of some of World's tracks (Iceborne is definitely a bit better about this), but Sunbreak like Rise before it goes all in with some of the coolest original tracks in the series alongside remaking older ones in a much closer fashion to their originals while still adding in new touches to make them feel fresh. The end result is just chefs kiss baby. Peak MH OST.

Sunbreak may not be perfect and it kind of like Generations Ultimate is hampered by a good as fuck but also kind of weaker first half (Gen portion in GU Rise portion here), but by the time you're dug in like a tick in Sunbreak that shit won't matter when Fiorayne leaps through the sky and slamshitfucks Pacific Rim back into the Earth. Yeah, I'm thinking I'll be playing this still a fuckton while waiting for MH6 and years away from now too.