So first of all a giant thanks to my buddy Brandon for gifting this to me. Realistically if this doesn't get gifted to me I never play this game. The trails game (falcom other series) burnt me out. I had zero desire to play any more of their games. However this game was a delightful surprise in so many ways and fixes so many issues I have with the trails series.

First of all the comabt is way more fun for me. Just simple hack and slash and dodging around but super quick and easy to pick up. The story is really solid hear, it takes a while to cook (like all falcom stuff) but once it does it cooks hard. The characters are all great here. There's real consequence and meaning and sadness to the plot here, and at times reminded me of a final fantasy like story in that regard.

Being able to explore just a giant island and feel like a pirate was pretty cool. Finding all the people that had washed ashore kept it interesting.

I do wish the story got going sooner or some hours were cut here, and the map was finnicky and I wish was stronger.

There's some falcom jank here too (the slow pan introductions/the presentations/cheesy dialogue/everyone way too happy)

But overall this was a great game and one I can easily reccomened. Can't wait to check out ys ix at some point!

Rise of the Ronin was my first Team Ninja game, so going in, I didn’t know what to expect. As someone who isn’t the biggest Souls-like fan, it could’ve easily not been for me. It was the opposite. The story, being a sucker for 19th-century historical nonfiction (with some player choice thrown in there), is quite good. However, I felt as if there were too many allies, a little over 30, with most of them being pretty bland, with a few exceptions. I can’t do this review without mentioning the frame drop and how dated the PS5 already is. Frequent dips into the 30s for an action-heavy game can be off-putting, but it was helped by a patch after launch that stabilized it mostly.

Where the game really shines is the combat. Boss gauntlets, stealth, parrying, a variety of weapons and builds to play around with—the whole nine yards. Once you get the parrying down pat, it’s one of the more satisfying games I can remember playing. The stealth doesn’t feel forced, the gunplay is excellent, and the main antagonist is fun and difficult but has a good balance.

Overall, this was a good game. The beautiful setting of Japan during the Edo period, decent characters all around, and masterful combat. If that’s what you’re looking for in a game, I say go for it.

I have loved Dragon Ball basically my entire life, I’ve played tons of different games based off the series over the years and while I’ve adored tons of them this one has become my new favorite. Playing through the entire saga of DBZ from start to finish is amazing, and it really feels like you are living in the world as you fly through all the locations you recognize from the series.

I understand why people who love the “RPG” in the action-RPG genre but as someone much more into action games this was perfect for me. There are tons of RPG systems here you can use, but ultimately they are all additive and as long as you are spending a tiny amount of time leveling up your moves as you play through the sagas this game plays just like a fighting game. The combat is just deep enough where I never got sick of it, it has tons of flash to it and makes you feel like a total badass as you teleport behind enemies and unleash a powerful move to wipe them out. Despite being named Kakarot you do play as a good number of characters which was much appreciated. All of them are fun to play and have great unique move sets.

The open world is very basic, you can find the dragon balls and make wishes which is a great feature, but it mostly exists just to fly through and get from mission to mission (as well as pick up XP orbs like Crackdown). This was fine with me as it was very quick to navigate and filled with side quests that put the spotlight on lots of lesser used characters, especially tons with original Dragon Ball characters that were forgotten.

The last thing I want to shout out is the production value, the game does a great job adapting the entire story and while it does a good solid job most of the time there are moments they really go over the time. These moments are reserved for only the most special moments of the series, I won’t spoil them but they are done great justice here and are super memorable. This was just a great way to experience such a pivotal series in mine and many other’s lives so I’m very glad I played it.

Flecks and glimmers of something that could've been great sprinkled throughout Valhalla, but ultimately culminates in one of those most bloated and empty games in the franchise and a real sign of the times for modern open-world gaming as a whole. Valhalla does try and remedy the tried and true Ubisoft formula with some small tweaks and changes, more dynamic gameplay puzzles, a non-linear story arc structure, and the return of the upgradeable hub base.

For the positives, I enjoyed the story arc structure for the most part and thought it was a decent switch-up for an otherwise bog-standard Ubisoft open-world type game. I also believe that the overhaul of sidequests to becoming dynamic events you discover in the game world akin to something like Red Dead Redemption 2 was compelling. I also thought the slew of collectibles, and being able to customize Eivor and Raventhorpe to be adequate and engaging collectible design.

However,
The nature of Valhalla being an RPG, and Ubisoft leaning more into this vast, hundred-hour RPG epic with dialogue choices, results in Eivor becoming a blank slate for the most part. In an otherwise character-driven series, Eivor is an empty husk for the player and no amount of character dialogue choice is sufficient to deepen them as such. The glimpses we see of Eivor in cutscenes and being, I don't know, a character is something I wish we saw more of. A warrior living in the shadow of his jarl slash blood brother is a good starting concept. The fixer for the real "protagonist" of these characters' stories. Unfortunately, the game just can't help but get in the way of itself and have these ultimately meaningless wannabe Witcher 3 dialogue choices that have very little consequence to the story.

The gameplay is standard. It's a slower Odyssey, with more of an emphasis on chunky finisher animations. This is where I encountered Valhalla's most bizarre issue: The Audio. I don't believe I have ever played a game with audio this compressed where I can physically hear the bitrate. In the Year of Our Lord, Present Day, I cannot understand the development choices that resulted in such abornally godawful sound quality in a really fucking expensive video game.

Additionally, for the narrative, its choice to use non-linear and story arc structured narrative kinda fell flat? Alot of the stories you follow are vastly the same. A young man, destined to be Jarl, doesnt want to be a Jarl and Eivor says hey you should be Jarl, and they're like only if you fight in this big battle for me and then he's like "okie dokie I'll do that for you, pal" and then you do it and the arc is over and you report back to do another one. There are some that are legitimately fun or engaging, one that comes to mind is dressing up as a pagan Halloween creature and solving a murder (to find who will be the next Jarl, mind you).

Finally, i have a gripe with your gear. Gear is no longer a droppable item, its something that you must attain from a shop or from looting the world map. Because of this, I felt like the loot pool was just really small, and I would rock the same outfit and weapons for a large majority of the game. I would have to go out of my way to try out different weapons in hopes of not becoming bored. Why would I swap around and "experiment" when I can just have the thing that does the most damage? It's not like there is any depth to the combat or anything.

In the end, Valhalla is a bigger and worse version of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I don't understand how Ubisoft pulled off Odyssey, and why I enjoyed that game so much, but I felt like Valhalla exacerbates the glaring problems with Odyssey and dials it up to 11. These RPG games are here to stay, unfortunately, and I hope Ubi learns their lessons from this one because I just cannot see myself spending this amount of time in a game like this again. Shrink the map, dial it back on the RPG-ness, and just have some characters that can make their own decisions. Sometimes I don't want to choose things, I want you to do it for me!

I just absolutely adored this game and could not put it down. I love tactics games and this unique turned based hybrid real time was just perfect for me.

Lets start with the story. There are some good twists overall but it's a pretty simple fantasy storyline of good vs evil which I really enjoyed. The characters are great and I love how involved with the story most of them are. They also have dedicated support conversations for every characters which fleshes out all the characters nicely. You are able to choose a partner in marriage which plays a big part in the story with a nice fully voiced proposal scene. The support conversations reminded me a lot of Fire Emblem which you can see this game has heavy inspiration from.

The gameplay as I mentioned combines turned based strategy with real time. Throughout the game you will earn honor points which let you upgrade how many units each battalion can hold. You only start out with 2 units per battalion but you will eventually get to twelve units with 5 characters per. This sounds confusing but it all gets introduced slowly and is easy to wrap your head around. You move these battalions in real time but can pause at any time. You setup what characters and what type of moves you want them to do most often or for specific circumstances. There is a ton of customization and it's a lot of fun to experiment. They have a bunch of different difficulty options which give you different levels to find your perfect comfort zone, and it can be changed whenever.

The world map is the biggest and best surprise about this game. It is fully interactive with tons of resources and secrets to find. Each village you build up with increase your honor score and then you can assign a guard which will auto gather resources for you. The graphics are just gorgeous in typical Vanillaware fashion. The characters always look great and the battles are super flashy.

Overall I just adore this game and can't say enough good things about it. Vanillaware you did again!

So this is a game that I honestly had no intentions in playing. I'm not a giant pewdiepie fan by any means, but when you go with the gutless tact of copy right striking a youtuberr for no good reason, I do not want to support your game or studio. Eight years later however, with Studio Campos long gone, and this game on gamepass I decided to finally bite the bullet and give it a shot, since I've been told by a few people that this would be my kind of game.

And yeah it really was.

The game overall had a really intriguing narrative, with really two stories going on, the main character trying to escape his horribly depressing reality, and a mystery that's unfolding around you and getting lost in that, which I think kind of relates back to the first part. It's a fairly simple solution, something you should have seen all along, but you as the character really just wanted to dive head first, come up with giant conspiricies, and ignore the brutal reality of why you are there in the first place.

It's a somber ending too, one that's very thoughtful and I enjoyed. The gameplay isn't anything to write home about obviously as a "walking sim" but it keeps you engaged the entire time. I had a lot of little technical bugs and quirks, I'd get stuck often which broke the immersion for me, but nothing too awful overall.

Overall I really enjoyed this game. Thought it was great. I'll be deducting a half point for the developers being little babies, though.

So a 4/5, BUT 3.5/5 will be the final score. Be better folks.

Crisis Core Reunion was an essential game to play for me, especially with a Rebirth being released recently. Zack is a lovable oaf, Genesis is an interesting villain, and some other familiar faces are overall the best parts of the game. Some chapters drag on a little too long, Genesis trying to reveal his plans through poems is somewhat annoying, but I still enjoyed my play through.

For a PSP game, the combat still holds up, yeah it’s button mashy like Kingdom Hearts but it’s part of the fun, and the Materia system is still the best.

If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy 7, or are thinking about playing Remake, play this game.