You're telling me Sony could be dropping fucking actual video games without buying exclusivity rights for a third party JRPG this whole time instead of trying to ape HBO shows??? What the fuck is wrong with this world?!

Charming as fuck little thing. Sure you can call it corporate glup shitto with all the references to franchises Sony doesn't even own or make new games for anymore and the huge reverence to their previous products, but the core game is great. It's fantastic even. Probably the only thing that actually uses all the features of the Dualsense besides the gyro and triggers.

Part that hurts the most about this game is that it really shows Sony used to have a catalogue that rivaled Nintendo man. Hell you could even say it surpassed them at the time. That Sony will probably never come back now that they've drank the photoreal prestige TV Kool-Aid alongside some franchises shown here like MH and MGS being multiplat now, but god does this almost bring the feeling back for those fleeting 2 to 3 hours.

Cannot wait for that full game in September. I know now.

Meathead Greek mythology (complimentary)

I don't care for what the new games are doing and to replay 1 and 2 I'd have to lug out the PSTriple and this one was on sale for like 10 bucks so I said shiiit why not. Anyways you can tell this is a game still made with PS2 era philosophy cause you get that bullshit bit with the exploding dogs and goatfucks.

Rules though, I wish if we were going to be stuck with action games that do light and heavy attacks we'd get more shit like this (or even Ninja Gaiden) instead of lame Soulslikes. Classic Kratos may also be one of the most unsubtle yet subtly funny characters of all time. Cackling like a maniac every time you see the gears in his head turn and you know he's planning some vile shit to do to the guy he's gonna kill. And for as much of a horrible person he is they all still deserved it. Also, love love love the use of the camera angles in this. Just going through the levels and seeing the camera switch or zoom out is more cinematic than anything the newer games wish to push as cinematic when its basically planted the camera behind Kratos' back. I sleep!

Game's old enough at this point to be considered a classic and it is. Original God of War trilogy at its best never ever hit the same combat depth highs as a lot of its Japanese contemporaries (even more nowadays), but it did successfully deliver a proper blood soaked power fantasy in video game format that would thrill you from beginning to end. Insane to me that only the end to the original trilogy is easily and readily available. Something about it just feels maliciously transparent to how much more they want us to care about the newer games instead.

Was initially turned off, by the "Oh it's not Prey 2" shit when this was announced, but quickly got over it. Once they started showing off gameplay I said oh damn looks cool. Then I went on to never getting around to playing it until now and sadly it's of course after recent unfortunate events with Arkane Austin thanks to Microsoft. Real damn shame cause what they delivered here, is the Alien game I wish Alien Isolation was.

Immersive Sim's aren't really a genre I touch much with my only real experience with them being the Bioshock games. And if you know me I like 1 and 2 and was unable to finish Infinite cause it bored the shit out of me. Luckily Prey is more like Bioshock 1 and 2 or its more actual direct inspiration, System Shock. While I haven't played it there's enough I know about System Shock to see that yeah, the devs were huge fans and it's all transferred very well into Prey. Love all the different ways you can take control of a situation whether that means being stealthy or loud. I myself am a violent caveman so of course I specd combat until I was in full on FPS mode and it worked so damn well and felt so good. Incredible shotty. As always, the gun any self respecting shooter should be judged by.

Anyways ends up being the Alien game I wish Isolation was cause it basically does all the same beats that an Alien game should do but it doesn't piss me off and the guns aren't worthless so it's automatically better there. Just wish there was more variety to the Typhon enemy designs, but I guess you can only really do so much with black corporeal slime.

Final twist for this is nuts too. Post credits had me grinning like a dumb idiot and it's a shame we won't ever get a follow up. Slept on banger, I know now.

Motherfucking game has not one but two Gamera references with the supersized Koopa boss and then Bowser at the end. If he started flying it'd be over.

Like barring that this shit just good as hell. First time I played it was the GBA version when it came out and I was hooked. It really is the best of the classic 2D Mario games and the perfect send off to that era before 64 released a year later. Even get a teaser of what was to come for video games soon with some of the 3D elements it had. Now that shit ain't unique to this game loads of SNES games did that (Castlevania 4 has some crazy ones), but in retrospect it really feels like a statement cause no one had any clue just what was coming next.

Also think this game might have one of my favorite artstyles in anything and I don't know why none of the other Yoshi games can get it right when they try to recreate it. Peak classic platforming.

Games ends with you basically beating the shit out of a baby even if it had none of the shit I liked that alone guarantees it a passing grade.

You know I was originally going to write out my thoughts after my first playthrough, but then I ended up doing two more and I somehow am finally putting the game down two months later. This is both a testament to it being good and me poor as shit.

Dragon's Dogma 2 can be a problematic game cause if you liked Dragon's Dogma, well I hope you really liked it. This game is Dragon's Dogma, but more and with some kinks ironed out, but not all of them. The game is janky and crusty, it can be frustrating, there's a bit of the Red Dead 2/Rockstar Games FUCK YOU physics going on. Yet unlike that it doesn't bother me as much here cause similar to Death Stranding (which I have yet to finish oops) it all still feels very responsive and snappy in comparison. The most annoying thing being really that to this day and forever going forward I will always be spoiled by Breath of the Wild just letting me climb any surface and any game that doesn't let me do that is immediately going to be worse off for me. But who cares this shit is fun as fuck. It really makes you work for that Frank Frazetta art power fantasy, but when you get to the point where you're doing that? Oooohhh babyyyyyyyy. Lordy it looks good too. Seen a lot of people say it looks like a PS3 game with the art direction it has and like yes bro. I want the sequel to a PS3 game to look like a sequel to a PS3 game. PS3 could never pull off the lighting you get from the RT in this. Probably the first implementation of it in a Capcom game I've really liked. I took the FPS hits fuck it. That shit mean nothing to me when the game good enough.

Honestly would say the game's weakest element is its story again. It does the whole very minimalist thing where everything is sort of just happening as it goes along shtick once more. This time though it hits a massive brick wall when you reach Battahl for a couple of hours. You're just left there sort of meandering doing random quests. Getting attacked left and right cause someone decided every inch of the map needed to be goblins and wolves and gore harpies. Then it suddenly straps you to a jet engine off a cliff into the craziest climax I've seen in a game since well... Itsuno's last project which was DMC5. The Unmoored World is just oh my god holy fuck the Unmoored World and the concept of it is just so sick. Cannot believe this game got to do it's own version of the depths from Tears of the Kingdom, but then fused that shit with the Red Earth hellscape from Shin Evangelion. I cum.

Excited for whatever the DLC ends up being especially if we get something that's a follow up that actually expands on everything that happened and isn't just another BBI. God it's so refreshing to play a new Action RPG that isn't a stupid ass Soulslike. God bless.

Wilhelmina best girl I ain't arguing with anyone who tries to say otherwise.

One of the few games I've actually gone and Platinum'd cause it wasn't that hard to lmfao.

Yeah I spent plenty of time with this one and had a blast. Game's got some weird jank on the technical department at points, but it looks great. The new color grading of everything lends the game to look even more like all the Alien movies. You've got the darkness of Alien, Aliens deep Cameron blues and even Resurrections shit brown in any location with the flesh hives. It rules.

Biggest glow up in this is definitely how it feels to play compared to the original. Isaac and the framerate were fucking molasses in that game so when more than two Necromorphs were onscreen my god almighty. This one retains that 60fps in Performance Mode (how I always play games when given the option) which is such a welcome change. It also makes Impossible Mode actually a fun challenge this time around as opposed to the slog it felt like at points in the original. Saving and entering a room then clearing it and saving again if it has multiple waves the ideal strategy. If I wasn't so pussy I'd play that mode all the time.

Sound design still owns although I did notice that the sound mixing is a bit worse this time around? It feels like music and SFX get so loud at points it drowns out anything the characters are saying and it sucks cause the VA work is really good. Especially Isaac seeing as he was just making grunts and screams in the original. He gets to be an actual character this time. Honestly Isaac is like if James Sunderland wasn't so fucking pathetic. He's the PSM cover art James Sunderland in attitude.

Pretty damn good remake. Don't think it's as good as the RE ones (well it's better than RE3s remake lets not kid ourselves now...), but I do appreciate this one in a similar way to 4s remake expanding on the original and adding in new shit that's genuinely cool. Hope we get a Dead Space 2 remake. That'll be the one I'll really be looking at like a hawk to see if they fuck anything.

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.

I'm gonna be real, I used to really love this game. Bought it on PS2 as a kid (one of the few games I actually could own and not just rent lmfao), and then played it again when the Ico collection came out on PS3. Replaying it now with this version I hate to say it, but I think I'm kind of over it. Just do not have the patience to deal with these controls anymore and I know the PS3 version was more fucky but I was also like 16 when that version came out.

Game still is a stand out of the medium as genuine art and the unique way to tell a story that only the format of video games ever could. In that regard I can't give it an outright terrible rating cause it's still an important landmark title for that, but man I really don't like playing this now. Maybe another playthrough in a few years will change that, but I'm sticking to this for now.

Also, this is probably Kow Otani's magnum opus. His Gamera and Godzilla scores plus his Gundam Wing OST (the best part of that series) were great but this, lord all mighty I'm boutta bust... I think I love his work for the music more than the game itself now. Get him to do some more video game soundtracks or work on things heavy on action please!

In conclusion... FUCK THIS GAME'S CAMERA

Right off that bat just gonna say never played the mobile game, but I've known about it (and Narmaya) for years. Also been on and off following this specific game since it was announced year ago. Once it was pretty much set in stone with a release date I did kind of stop following news about it so imagine my surprise (positive) when the postgame for this is just Monster Hunter.

No sugarcoating it Relink isn't a really long game (story wise at least). This isn't a 40-50 hour JRPG. There are no real sidequests they're all mostly just fetch quests with items or collectibles you'll find during missions. So if you're one of those "well every dollar should amount to an hour of gameplay" psychopaths this might not be for you on that front.

So lets talk about that story. The story presented here isn't that original, a lot of it is stuff that's been seen before in numerous different Japanese media over the years. Evil church with fervent cult following, Vergil/Nero not a good guy but also not really a bad guy Jack Garland looking edgelord but actually a nice guy type, happy and willing to risk it all to save their friends and the day against all odds MC, main villain lackey's you beat the shit out of before they join in to help you at the end. For all intents and purposes Relink's story should feel tired and boring. It really doesn't have any crazy twists or development. You've seen this all before somewhere, but like a good Godzilla movie that shit don't matter when it's presented in the coolest and funnest ways possible. Granblue Relink luckily does go on to present its story in some of the most incredible ways imaginable. This shit has gacha money poured into it and it really is happy to show it all off. Visually the game is gorgeous. Actual art. That first wide shot of the Grandcypher with the most beautiful clouds I've ever seen in a video game during the title card my jaw fucking dropped. I was floored and the game never stops looking incredible. The painting aesthetic for all the background elements and even some of the characters clothes immediately sets this apart visually from so many other games that have tried this cell shaded style, but never have been able to capture it. BOTW-lite Genshin this is not.

As for how it plays well it's simple. Think a Platinum game's simple but fast paced combos (which they had a hand in for a bit of the dev cycle). However, instead of just 1 character you have 20 different characters that all play their own way and then that massive development cycle starts to make more sense. Everyone's gonna have their favorites and of course my gooner brain went straight to Narmaya, but funnily enough my major mains ended up being her, Zeta and Siegfried. Style switching and timing hits right for max damage feels good bro. There's parts where the game goes full kaiju mode with Bahamut and it becomes a bit of a simple beat em up but the two or so times it happens it's a nice power trip that doesn't overstay its welcome and as a huge fan of various Toku and Kaiju media that is my glup shitto moment in any media.

Through my whole play time I kept thinking: "Man this kind of feels like FF16..." Well while that game quickly fell off from being one of my favorites from last year upon the realization of how fucky the pacing was during my New Game Plus run and also being sick of only playing as Clive. Granblue Relink doesn't fall for those trappings. Instead it delivers a fast and furious, competent, and immensely satisfying 10-12 hour action rpg campaign. An action RPG with multiple characters with their own gameplay styles. Yes please, more of that. Sure you don't get as much time in this to get to know the characters as you would with 10 years worth of game and silly events the gacha has plus the anime and manga and probably something else too, but I think this does a good enough job of endearing you to them as a fun intro. In a way it's very much the game I was hoping Final Fantasy 16 would be! All of this is then topped off with the post game being Monster Hunter style (optional co-op no less!) missions to go in and slay various monsters, fight harder versions of the story bosses, or take on new bosses that weren't even in the story. And they have a roadmap for free upcoming content like recent Monster Hunter games? Hell if this shit gets wild they might hold me off until Wilds releases next year haha.

Really feel that if there's anything I would consider a real negative with this is maybe its length if you just do the story campaign and drop it after that? And the gameplay can get a bit brain dead once you figure out who you want to really use (Charlotta and Narmaya are full on Musou mode). Also, fuck having to grind for gold dahlia badges for the last character ticket. Those three things aside, game rocks and if you truly stick with it you'll get more than those 12 hours, but considering those 12 hours are already an insane banger of a single player game which gets rarer and rarer these days, well I consider that a gift. A PS2 era action game length JRPG. Weird game when you look it at it like that, but I got nearly 100 hours out of it before writing out this review so uh, the game's definitely a full package like Narmaya's tightly stuffed tits.

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.

Needed to take a break from Granblue Relink and mashing attack as Narmaya so I went and played this where I will be tapping A a lot instead. Still holds up pretty well after all these years. Last played it maybe 15 years ago and after a quick refresher I figured out how Mario controls again, but for real tho having to constantly tap A with where it's at on the Switch controllers wears thin quick as hell. Also this game is much shorter than I remember it being as a kid. Using the BLJ definitely helped in that too. Still a classic, and probably the best "baby's first video game" with how easily and intuitively it eases you into playing in a 3D space.

Cannot listen to the end credits theme anymore without thinking about Fesh Pince of Blair.

These are just quick thoughts on it right now I guess I'll have something better to say like I do with MH games a year down the line as long as I remember...

Anyways I don't really play the gacha cause I ain't about that shit. I just really like fem Draphs, but putting that aside this shit always looked neat (Japan the only place really doing crazy fantasy settings that get my bonger going, shoutout to DD and Dark Souls) so I got this and I'm glad it really is cool. Don't really got much to say beyond it's one of the funner anime/animeesque fighters and the implementation of rollback netcode is a huge boon to it. Main thing that kept me away from the original release and DBFZ. Also shit dawg it was free so why not?

We will be playing Relink. Surely it will not get a last minute delay.

As someone who became a huge Avatar fan after rewatching the first movie back in 2019 and realizing "Oh, this fucking owns actually." and then having this announced before The Way of Water even had footage for us to see had me so excited for another round at a game that actually could get what the film went for. Well for better or worse Ubisoft was the right publisher for this.

Gonna get it out of the way the movies are peak blockbuster cinema, end of. James Cameron has not lost his touch and continues to not miss (as long as he's not producing a movie or making a documentary). Both Avatars are everything a blockbuster should be perfectly blending spectacle, incredible VFX, and a gaggle of characters you root for. The game on the other hand and I'm not gonna sugercoat it kind of fumbles this. It's story isn't downright terrible and it's serviceable as "event we can't go too crazy with cause it's canon and happens between movie 1 and 2", but man does it really lack that punch Cameron's talents give his movies. It really feels kind of like the new Zelda games where they came up with this insane incredible world to traverse and then remembered they needed a reason for any of that to happen or connect. I don't know how to better explain it than it just feels super bland and safe compared to the movies. When we finally get something akin to the Destruction of the Hometree or the Tulkun Hunt it just sort of feels like "WELL WE NEED A BIT LIKE THAT!" and while it's visually impressive and oppressive it's so late in a story where I haven't been nearly as endeared to these characters that it just feels like filling out a checklist. Also a smaller, but just as problematic issue for me is the music. It's good, nothing really bad about it, but it's a damn shame they don't riff or just straight up use more of James Horner's (absolute real one RIP) or Simon Franglen's incredible work throughout. War and Bad Parents are insane bangers and god I just wish more of the combat music sounded that fucking good. There's good imitations of their works, but that's just it. It feels like imitation. Imagine if a Star Wars game didn't use some John Williams. People would freak the fuck out.

All that aside fuck the story, fuck the kinda not as good as the movie's music. Ignore all of that shit cause where this game owns is capturing the vibe of being on Pandora. Holy shit this phrase is overused for games, but you really feel like a Na'vi. You bump your head on the ceiling indoors and you're so fast and traverse the underbrush and trees like a spider monkey on pure 99.9% genuine meth. It's the closest a game has come to feeling like Titanfall 2 since Titanfall 2 and it's an Avatar game of all things. A game based on a movie that clearly had a heavy influence on Titanfall 2. It's a match made in heaven. I played this shit for 70 hours and never once got tired of slide kicking and Captain Falcon kneeing RDA goons across their skulls. Add in the fun as hell gunplay (with an insane Shotgun holy hell it's so sick) and like the best of games while the story may falter in the place that matters more for video games which is playing it? This shit passes with flying colors.

Being away from Ubisoft open world games since Blood Dragon has probably helped my enjoyment of this too. I don't know what's reused, old, or new and I don't care! I win! I am feasting.

I haven't even talked about being able to fly on an Ikran and how crazy that shit is to be chilling in the skies and then you dive bomb a Scorpion shooting out it's wings. It's good shit. Get it if you like the movies I cannot recommend this enough if that applies to you. Hope to god the DLC stories introduce Recoms I need that insane anime type beat contrast of natural Pandora Na'vi vs Na'vi decked out in future tactical military gear.

FUCK AVATAR IS SO SICK GRAAAAAAAAHHHHH