Pros: I really liked some of the costume designs and overall it's a presentable jrpg with decent production values.

Cons: nothing here really comes together, and after spending nearly 25 hours with the game I don't see how it's gonna improve on anything. It's just so stiff, and boring. The music – for a game in Shin Megami Tensei series that focuses on vocalists and performers – is plain mediocre. The combat shows promise at first, but systems in place are very rigid and don't allow for any interesting decision making. Progression is linear and doesn't offer much variety in how you can build characters. But the most insulting thing here is how devoid of subtlety the story is, how plain the characters are, how one dimensional every problem or conflict is. It plays off the setting of idols unamusingly straight, endorsing and dignifying the industry that's a constant source of abuse and stigmatization to artists. That's just... sad? And boring. It feels like Atlus made Tokyo Mirage out of obligation rather than passion for craft and barely tried to take into any interesting direction what was potentially a really neat crossover. After pushing tens of hours through I just don't see how it's gonna get likeable

Halo 3 owns. Even 13 years after release this game managed to grab me with such a tight grip that I finished the game in one sitting with a few breaks, and it was a blast.

The semi-tactical sandbox combat envisioned but not fully realised by previous 2 games just finally worked without reservation. Halo 3 is the Halo that suffers the least from the rut of point-and-click midrange hitscan since nearly every weapon is good for something and the balancing is just right. You find close quarters combat and rush attacks to be a viable approach for a lot of situations, and that's something I felt was lacking from previous games. It owes a lot here to revised brutes who succeeds at being the enemy with interesting AI and behavior patterns to play around yet also be massive sacks of meat willing to charge at your position and engage in melee combat.

And Halo 3 didn't only find solid footing in combat, the campaign itself is a rollicking gautlet of great levels. It's varied, it's perfectly paced, level layouts make for intense and fun combat scenarios, venicle sections are always there for a good gameplay reason and they never drag it down. Not only it avoids almost all issues I had with other campaigns, it also managed to blow me away with certain set pieces that weren't just great visual feast, they also provided incredible gameplay scenarios that perfectly complimented game's combat framework. Kudos for pulling off the thing most action games try and fail at.

Sadly it's not all perfect. After peaking in The Covenant mission the game dwindles a bit and hits you with two pretty monotonous (though not bad) levels instead of taking it even further with intensity of encounters. The story has the right tone going on and new allies are fun but plot isn't worth separate discussion. Still I didn't expect a Halo game win me over so much. A new fav.

Added this game to backloggd database just to slam it with low rating. Misconstrues Touhou characters and puts them in top 10 epic Mother moments to hit the quota of references, asking you to clap when you see a familiar thing. No consideration for what makes both of these series great and how they can play off each other's strengths to create something meaningful. Pros? Some of the music mashups slap pretty hard and some of the humor does land, but these moments are far and between. I might be asking too much from a 12-year-old fangame, but it's well regarded in the community and fairly – it's a waste of time.

Playing this in 2022 was a mistake, and I can't believe the fan base considers original Gears games better than Coalition output. Gears 5 has many ways to force you out of cover and create interesting positioning decisions – be it explosives, rushdown melee enemies, flankers, or enemies that require flanking to kill. Here the peak encounter design is to give an enemy a high cover where your only consideration is which flank they have exposed to shoot from. Set pieces were impressive in 2008 now aren't much more than shooting galleries and some contextual actions in the environment. And oh god these games used to be brown, so, so brown. Wish I left Gears 2 as a distant memory of summer split screen past, time hasn't been kind to it

Weird relationship with this game. There are many glaring flaws and I usually saw Halo's influence on the industry as harmful, but there was a good fun to have with Combat Evolved and I hold respect for some of its neat aspects rooted in Bungie's RTS history.

Initially it's honestly kinda a drag. The promise of weapon sandbox doesn't hold water since three most abundant weapons feel the best and most effective to use and cover you up for all combat situations. Impressive covenant AI doesn't get an opportunity to shine since encounters aren't pushed any far on the initial batch of levels which range from merely ok (the halo and silent cartographer) to awful (attack on the control room). The fresh change of pace flood brings is thwarted by what could be a single worst level a high profile FPS game ever threw at the audience.

I was ready to write off the game after that but then the magic happened: the game started throwing covenant and flood at each other and let you become the third, and sometimes even fourth side in combat. With this, encounters started playing out like short-scale RTS battles you participate in as a single soldier and they truly became a sequence of interesting decisions. When you should enter the battle, what side to approach from, which ehemy to prioritize? The game also stops holding back the elite power as you are put in some really demanding combat situations. And despite comitting the grave sin of making you backtrack the levels already beaten, it remixes them up enough and presents interesting set pieces so it's not a problem anymore.

It's all great stuff, but loaded in the last 25% which stops original Halo from reaching ranks of favorites for me. But it set the stage for the series that I wasn't able to experience before, and now that MCC hit PC it's a very captivating binge with interesting highs and lows. Cautious recommendation

Got vibes in check, but honestly underwhelming. Kirby lives and dies by the breadth of things you can do, and there's exactly ten proper copy abilities with mostly perfunctory upgrades plus like 6 mouthful modes you use for the same contextual actions ad nauseam. This lack of gameplay options makes it a very monotonous affair until like the final hour where sick bosses finally rejuvenate the action. It's alright, but overall I'm not convinced Kirby benefits from Z-axis that much. HAL could totally make a sick third-person action game though.

The concept of BPM shooter is intoxicating, and fundamentally Hellsinger achieves the promise of an FPS game that subjugates the player to the flow of bass riffs, bestowing the growl of burly Swedish men as the highest reward for good performance.

Your enemies are underwhelming though, not beholden to rules of rhythm as you are. It's quite telling that modding in faster songs makes the game EASIER, which I see as not getting the second part of BPM game equation quite right.

Also, very front-loaded in terms of OST. If you found yourself impressed with the music from the demo you might simply not get that from the back half of the levels. Serj cameo is very neat though.

Cool game overall, just falls short in a few key ways to be truly rad.

It took a bootleg Switch port with 60 fps framerate and camera control for me to stop worrying and love Mario 64. This game is a hood classic for a reason.

It's the non-handholdy nature that's missing in later Nintendo games. M64 isn't afraid to leave you one-on-one with the world that doesn't have a defined easily predictable structure and layout. It will cleverly nudge you in the right direction, but this never feels condescending. There is a confidence and trust in the player that they will come in grips with controls and figure out what's required out of them on every stage of the game. The learning curve of controls is also something entirely unique to this era of gaming, Physical and weighty player characters in games is something I find a lot of enjoyment in so Mario where every move has to be a commitment is something right up my alley.

It's the level design that holds it back in my opinion with most levels falling in just kinda ok category. Though there are great exploration stages (hazy maze cave, cool cool mountain, tiny huge island wet dry world) and linear platforming gauntlets (tick tock clock, all bowser stages) amongst levels that don't have much in the way of interesting platforming or problem solving.There are a few stages which are just generally tedious to clear with rainbow ride being the biggest offender here. Also I understand that N64 cards had limited storage, but the lack of variety in music really started to irritate me when I heard Slider for the 50th time.

Overall tho I'm glad that I familizarized myself with one of the gaming touchstones and had a good time while doing so. It's a good game.