It's really good, like REALLY good, but honestly I think it might take me another go around to truly call this a 10/10. I think most of that comes down to its narrative. The most interesting thing about it is thinking about all the possible permutations that could take place, otherwise it's just pretty standard fantasy-fare. Also, I found Act 3 somewhat tiresome, level scaling just gets so out of wack towards the end of Act 2, I'm not sure if this is due to how I played, game design, or the difficulty I was on, which is why I think I should play it again. Which I don't mind, because its SUPER fun.

Sadly J.K. Simmons is in this game for like a total of 15 minutes though so I have to deduct it points for that as well.

(Leon's Route)

Played on a whim after finishing Alan Wake II so I could better formulate my opinion on that game and on the survival horror genre overall since that was really my first dive into it. Really enjoyed this.

I thought the first half of this game was amazing. RCPD's design was so much fun to explore and even when I didn't know where to go the game does a pretty great job at guiding you and making you feel somewhat smart about it. I do wish Tyrant was in the game more because he was easily the part of the game that was most fun and felt like something I had never played before. The story, I wish wasn't so backloaded but I imagine that's probably different for Claire's run. Also, the sewer is awful, the G mutants are just not fun with the items you are given during that section.

Could certainly see myself returning to this every few years, I also really want to check out Route B at some point (and of course go back to REmake).

One of my most anticipated of the year... and I really tried to love it. I interacted with all of it's systems; outpost creating, ship building, researching, spending a countless amount of time in the character creator, and I just can't find myself to love this game, or even like it that much.

Most if not all of that comes from this games terrible gameplay loop, it feels like it's designed in the most intentionally obnoxious way possible. Open a cumbersome menu -> loading screen -> menu -> loading screen... you get it. Not only that but the strengths that have gotten Bethesda's previous works so much acclaim just aren't here due to a want of a massive size of a world you don't want to spend any time in. Elder Scrolls and Fallout's emphasis on having this huge world to explore with handcrafted location is replaced with autogenerated repeating structures and I'm not really sure as to why they decided to do that. Planets are just not fun to explore and because of that the resources to do ANYTHING else is just tedium.

The one highlight is how the story ends, it's without a doubt the most unique thing this company has done with one of it's titles in a long time and because of that I would be willing to return to this game down the road... if there is a ton of QoL added to the game as well. I don't think I'll ever get the constant scratch to visit the expansiveness of the Starfield like I do returning to Tamriel or the Wasteland.

Sea of Stars is certainly a game that rewards you the more time you put into it... until it doesn't. The art is great, the soundtrack? Even better. It really does feel like it pulls from the best parts of Earthbound, FInal Fantasy VI, Super Mario RPG/Paper Mario, and Chrono Trigger. The gameplay is a really great evolution of turn-based rpgs that makes really smart changes to how mp systems usually work and they add a lot of tools to make overworld exploring quite fun and rewarding.

The writing is fine when the scope of the story is small, but as it slowly and then quickly expands into typical rpg-fare- which is to say, save the world from a malevolent being, the cracks really start to form. The biggest of those cracks being really boring main protagonists. The choice of making two protagonists makes sense when doing a whole sun/moon thing sure, but they are both just super plain avatar characters. The rest of the party is fun but don't do nearly enough to make up for having cardboard main characters.

The other major crack is how rushed the third act of this game feels like. Characters leave and join your party/cargo so quick none of it feels natural. The ending too feels so stinted it made me knock this down half of a star because of how let down I was. There is a true ending but looking into how to achieve, it was a bit too much of a time sink for a game I was already starting to feel burnt out in.

Overall though I did really enjoy my time spent in this world and would happily return for DLC or some kind of sequel.

I think this retroactively makes me like the base game of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 less, because this blows it out of the water in almost every single way.
This feels like what 3 always should have been and while the base game has great moments, some of the best in the whole franchise, Future Redeemed feels like what the marketing would told us 3 would be.
The OST is better, the progression is better, the cast is better (though that's mostly due to Rex and Shulk coming back and being quite faithful to their initial representation), and it does the whole message and theming of 3 in about 1/4 the amount of time in a way I enjoyed more.
The expansion does suffer from weird pacing issues but at least there's not a map-wide fetch quest right before the final dungeon!

Ended up playing this on a whim after it being in my backlog for so long, really glad I did. It's aged quite well, the visuals still hold up as does the unique level design. The writing is really great too, haven't laughed at a game this much in a long time. I think the pacing is a bit odd but I guess with a game that can be beaten in <10 hours it needs to ramp up pretty immediately. I think the end drags on a bit long but maybe that's just the effect of the Meat Circus on a players psyche....

....also its a shame the game peaks in the first minute with the introduction of dogen boole, love that guy.

Such a great game to break in my new Series S, one of the best I've played in the last two years. An amazing aesthetic and really great combat keeps this short adventure feeling fresh every encounter. That soundtrack too, you find yourself bopping your head without even realizing it. The story is weak, but serviceable enough, but the characters are really loveable and endearing. Ran excellently too, no noticeable frame drops even when its covered in enemies. I hope the inevitable sequel is able to follow something a bit closer to Devil May Cry's combat and reward you for actually varying your attacks, my major issue with this one is you can get max rank by just spamming the light attack combo over and over while cycling through your ally assists.

Cult of the Lamb is really interesting because the flaws are so evident that every person that plays the game picks up on them, yet the hook is so addicting that you keep playing despite them. The initial premise is quite strong, half town sim, half rougelike with a really great artstyle that sells the tone they’re going for. But both concepts are not taking far enough and about halfway through it feels pretty repetitive. The devs smartly made the days feel about five minutes long though so you always have something to do in town, and you lose faith so fast while on dungeon runs you have to spend at least two days raising it back up when you return. But the town management is quite fun, seeing your numbers incrementally raise up every day so I didn’t hate the time I spent with the game. Unfortunately as the town grows, performance just got worse and worse for me (switch handheld) and there were frequent bugs and crashes as well.