Dropped the game almost a year ago after finishing the Belobog arc. Picked it back up for the 1 year anniversary celebration and almost immediately pulled Acheron and her 5 star Light Cone and now the game feels fun and worth playing again. I see the big numbers Slashed Dream does and it instantly gives me a dopamine rush.

Also both The Xianzhou Luofu storyline and the Penacony storyline were a LOT more interesting than the Belobog one because one felt more distinctly rooted in Chinese mythology and the other was this surreal dreamscape sci-fi murder mystery and they both were much more unique compared to the opening Belobog story which was a pretty standard sci-fi civil war story I've seen many times before (I still liked the actual characters though)

There's tons of new content and game modes to explore coming back almost a year later as well, I'd say they've improved the game a lot. I do still wish the combat wasn't so simple, but even with how simple it is, I've been addicted enough to spend another 60+ hours on this game since I picked it back up, so I guess that should say something. It also helps that HSR might be one of the most generous gachas that I've ever played giving F2P users the chance to earn thousands of Stellar Jade (The currency you use for the gacha pulls) so you could easily save up 100s of pulls even as a F2P user.

At the end of the day I'm glad I picked Star Rail back up and have been enjoying my time with it a lot and will probably continue to play it on and off because now I'm pretty invested in the world and characters and I look forward to seeing the continuing adventures of the Astral Express crew.

Dragon's Dogma II is basically just more of the first game, but with a bigger budget and more polish and in some ways it's better than the first, but in others it simply is not. If you're a Dragon's Dogma fan you know what you're getting, but if this is your first experience with the series here's a little bit of a run-down.

You play as a chosen one known as the Arisen, you've been marked by a great dragon and it has stolen your heart, now you're on a hunt to fell the beast and reclaim what was stolen from you. The actual story is pretty simplistic and barebones but where the game makes up for that is in the world-building and lore that is fascinatingly detailed and in-depth alongside some solid optional quests that help flesh out the side characters more.

A unique thing Dragon's Dogma is known for is the Pawn system. Pawns are other-worldly beings that only the Arisen can summon and command, Pawns are AI controlled, but function like player controlled avatars and act as your travel companions and party members. Players get to create both their Arisen player avatar and their main Pawn which other players can summon thanks to a shared in-game lobby. While Dragon's Dogma is a completely single-player game, the Pawn system gives a sense of camaraderie comparable to that of a legit co-op game in a way no other game does knowing that the Pawns you're summoning were create by other real people.

The crowning jewel of Dragon's Dogma has always been its combat and much like the first game, combat is what carries Dragon's Dogma II as well. There's 10 different Vocations which act as your various classes that range from a sword and shield user known as a fighter to an archer, a dagger wielding thief or a spell-slinging mage among others making for tons of variety to suit nearly every playstyle. The combat in Dragon's Dogma II is more streamlined thanks to making each vocation only able to utilize one type of weapon and only 4 skills at a time, (I lament the loss of my Mystic Knight vocation and magic classes having far less spells as well) but the game makes up for the lack of complexity with polish because combat feels more weighty and satisfying than ever before and since each vocation only has one weapon type (Other than the newly added Warefarer) that allows for them to feel more fleshed out with deeper move-sets.

Exploration is the other major focus of Dragon's Dogma and it does so in the least handholdy way possible akin to a Souls-like, so much so that I would say roughly 70% of the game is entirely missable from side quests to entire portions of the map especially if you were to just do the main story missions because the game incentivizes you to go out into its world, explore and create your own adventures. The level of freedom the game gives you even extends to quests making for a more authentic RPG experience allowing the player to complete most objectives in more than one way. Exploration itself was a double-edged sword for me because while it was one of my favorite things about the game because when it was good, it was GOOD and finding cool new areas like the Ancient Battleground, Misty Marshes, Mountain Shrine or Dragon's Breath Tower were some highlights of my playthrough but, it was also my least favorite seeing as how the map is 4X bigger than that of the OG Dragon's Dogma, but the amount of actual content in both is roughly the same and it certainly doesn't help that the map doesn't have enough variety and most of what you're going to be exploring is mountain sides and forests. Having such a massive map and limited fast travel just feels like unnecessary padding as far as I'm concerned and I would've preferred a smaller, more condensed map like the first game.

The actual locations and unique dungeons are spread so far and between that a huge part of the map is just empty space to be filled with tedious combat encounters and sometimes they just get too repetitive especially when most of what you're going to be fighting is just goblins and wolves. Even fighting massive creatures like the griffin or cyclops starts to lose its luster later in the game when you've fought them 50 times each, I just think the game could've done with more enemy variety to spice things up and it's disappointing neither the Hydra nor the Cocatrice made a comeback from the first game and special enemies like Medusa or the Sphinx can only be found in one location in the entire game.

I also want to make a special mention to the endgame/post-game content being very lackluster basically turning the game into a pseudo rogue-lite and doing the Majora's Mask 'If you don't compete this in so many days, the game ends' thing. There's only a couple optional bosses and there's not really anything new to explore either despite some new parts of the map opening up, it's just more empty space. The 'Unmoored World' is a cool concept and works well with the lore and narrative, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired and the fact once you finish the game you just immediately get thrown into NG+ kinda sucks too.

Despite it's lack of enemy variety, slightly empty world at times and rushed 3rd act, Dragon's Dogma II more than makes up for its flaws by being a game with a fun and polished combat system that has plenty of variety and depth to suit all kinds of playstyles, tons of small details to really immerse you into its world, a fantastic sense of freedom that let's you play however you want and a truly top notch sense of adventure and exploration at times. Dragon's Dogma II much like its predecessor is a very flawed game, but it's also a great one with tons of undeniable heart and soul behind it and is easily one of the best open-world RPGs in years right alongside Elden Ring and the Witcher 3.

Yakuza 6 is the 7th mainline entry in Ryu Ga Gotoku's Yakuza/Like a Dragon series, the first on the newly implemented Dragon Engine and the final chapter in the Kazuma Kiryu saga.

Yakuza 6 takes place directly after the events of Yakuza 5 and opens with a bang because following the aftermath of Yakuza 5, Kazuma Kiryu once again faces a prison sentence, this time for 3 years with the hope that this will be the final prison sentence he'll have to serve and when he gets out he will be able to live a happy and normal life as a civilian with his adopted daughter Haruka and all the other orphans at the Morning Glory orphanage he runs. Naturally nothing can ever be so simple because the only thing Kiryu comes back to after 3 years is the disappearance of Haruka which leads him on a search to find his daughter at all costs and in doing so he gets wrapped up in yet another gang war for control of Kamurocho that involves many factions from the Tojo Clan, the Chinese triad, the Korean mafia and even extends its reaches to Hiroshima. The narrative of Yakuza 6 is a slow burn and doesn't really pick up until the 2nd half of the game, but the whole 1st half serves to build up all the new characters that are introduced. I think that's one of my only minor complaints about the narrative because while I liked the new characters a lot by the end, it feels weird to focus more on a bunch of new characters and turn series regulars into nothing more than simple cameos when this is meant to be the climatic finale to Kiryu's saga.

If Yakuza 5 was all about following your dream no matter the cost even if it means sacrificing family, Yakuza 6 is about the complete opposite with themes of family bonds and parenthood and just how far someone would be willing to go for their family and their children and this is seen through parallels of various characters and their motivations throughout the game. I think Yakuza 6 has one of the best narratives in the series and also one of the best explorations of parenthood in gaming in general with so much thematic depth which really gives you a lot to think about while telling a compelling, emotional ending that's fitting for the tale of Kiryu as it's a very personal narrative that serves to give Kiryu even more development and growth as a character because that's one thing Kiryu has never done is stop growing and developing as a character, even at the very end of his story.

Beyond just the main narrative of Yakuza 6 another thing I loved was the world-building. The world-building of this series just gets better and better with every entry. Yakuza 6 definitely feels like the climatic ending of Kiryu's journey because it manages to bring back and reference so many things from Kiryu's past both in the main story and in the side stories as well and it truly rewards the player for playing all the games in Kiryu's saga. I also love how the world of Yakuza is ever evolving and growing just like the real world and Yakuza 6 really tackles themes of traditionalism vs modernism and just how much has changed in the 3 years Kiryu was gone, how the Yakuza of old and the beliefs he was raised on are dying out and being replaced with (arguably) much worse people and ideologies that just don't have the code of honor he's used to.

If you're a fan of the Yakuza series then you already know it is known for having plenty of sub-stories/side quests and Yakuza 6 is no different having over 50 of them. I think Yakuza 6 has some of my favorite sub-stories in the game since there's a lot that harken back to previous stories in the series which is fitting for Kiryu's final chapter. There are also a lot of funny and wacky side quests that show how much technology has advanced in Kiryu's absence from Kamurocho and how he's learning to adapt to it.

A thing I was quite disappointed with when it comes to Yakuza 6 is the lack of side content because coming off Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 5 which had the most amount of side activities and mini-games in the series to date, Yakuza 6 is surprisingly very bare bones. There are still the staples of karaoke and darts and a handful of Sega arcade games, but gone are so many of the best side activities of previous games like gambling, the colosseum or even bowling and pool and the new activities that have replaced these classic ones just aren't as interesting. The two biggest side activities being the Clan Creator which serves as an RTS style mini-game where you take on gangs in the streets from a top down view while ordering different units just has little depth to the strategy and offers even less difficulty and the baseball team side activity is boring because it plays itself and only lets the player actually interact a couple times each match.

Another major disappointment for me with Yakuza 6 was the combat itself. Once again Yakuza 6 has the unfortunate task of being the follow-up to two of the best games in the series with the biggest amount of variety and diversity in the gameplay and compared to Yakuza 0 or Yakuza 5, Yakuza 6 is just so bare-bones and repetitive. Yakuza 6 is the first game since Yakuza 3 from 7 years prior to where the only playable character is Kazuma Kiryu and beyond that there are no different combat styles either, so it just leaves your options in the combat department very lacking and I felt I was mostly using the same combos and the same moves for almost every situation which got a bit stale by the end of the game and when there are not many side activities to break up the monotony of the combat that just makes how repetitive the combat is even more apparent.

However Yakuza 6 was the first game to feature the newly implemented Dragon Engine and I think testing out the new engine (which would be vastly upgraded and perfected with future games) is the biggest reason the game lacks in so many areas, but the Dragon Engine also improves the game in just as many areas like making the world more seamless because now battle encounters don't have a loading screen before hand and you can enter buildings without loading as well which means if a brawl occurs on the street it can now even continue in the local convenience store. Besides making battles and the world more seamless than ever, the Dragon Engine is also just beautiful making the world of Kamurocho look the most lively, realistic and gritty that it has ever to this point in the series. It's hard to believe Yakuza 6 is a game from 2016 because graphically it easily stands toe-to-toe with most modern games.

Yakuza 6 to me is similar to Yakuza 3 in many ways. Both focus primarily on building up Kiryu's relationship with new characters, both take Kiryu to a new town, both have similar themes of parenthood and most importantly both are fantastic narratives that are trapped in less than fantastic games. Yakuza 6 offers tons of depth in its narrative, character development, themes and world-building, especially for those who have followed Kiryu's story from the beginning making Yakuza 6 one of the absolute best stories in the series, but unfortunately every other aspect of the game from the combat to the side activities are sorely lacking in depth or variety compared to previous entries making the climatic finale of Kiryu's saga more than worth experiencing, but far from the masterpiece it could've been and deserved to be.

"No one can escape their past. The sins we've committed and the sadness we've caused...No matter how far we run, our past remains, as ever-present as the moon in the sky. It looms in wait...for the day when we are forced to face it. But only in doing so can we truly make peace and move on in hope towards tomorrow."

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies is the 5th game in the mainline Ace Attorney series which came out 6 years after Apollo Justice and it has the unfortunate task of being both a big return to form for the series as well as a follow-up to Apollo Justice and while I enjoyed the game a lot and think it gets too much hate, I do think it also spreads itself too thin and because of that some plot threads feel much less developed and certain characters don't get enough screen time.

Dual Destinies takes place roughly a year after the events of Apollo Justice. The legal system has entered an era known as "the Dark Age of the Law" where lawyers and prosecutors are more concerned with winning than finding the truth and to do so they'll take any means necessary, even fabricating evidence and falsifying charges and due to this the public has lost faith in the courts. The legendary Phoenix Wright, his protege Apollo Justice and their newly appointed junior Athena Cykes who's an expert in the field of analytical psychology all work with the goal of building up the public's confidence back in the courts while defending their clients and looking for the truth. To accomplish this they'll have to go up against the master of psychological manipulation Simon Blackquill, a convicted death row inmate with a penchant for Japanese culture and history who is also a practicing prosecutor.

I mentioned earlier that the game spreads itself too thin, but I think Simon and Athena truly steal the show as this feels like their game with most of the overarching narrative revolving around them, I just wish Athena would've gotten a bigger lead role since this is basically her game and she mostly only acts as the partner/supporting role while Phoenix or Apollo are the lead role despite not actually getting much focus on their overall stories. Phoenix acts mostly as a mentor figure to the two and it works well for his character, but Apollo only gets a couple moments to truly shine in the game which is weird considering the game is part of "The Apollo Justice trilogy". Once again why I say there were just too many ideas at once and some didn't get fleshed out as well as they could've.

The gameplay is mostly the same from previous Ace Attorney games, but now in full 3D and a bit more streamlined making it easier and less cryptic, which can be a good or a bad thing depending on who you ask. There's also the addition of a new mechanic in Athena's Mood Matrix which allows players to look for inconsistencies in emotions and adds more variety to court sessions besides your standard cross examining and it also fits the psychological theme and is the perfect foil for Blackquill's own psychological manipulation. I will say, the biggest disappointment in the gameplay is not being able to inspect and examine everything around you like in all the previous Ace Attorney games. A huge part of the personality and charm of Ace Attorney is doing just that and witnessing the banter between characters like with Phoenix and Maya in the OG trilogy or Apollo and Trucy in Apollo Justice. I think cutting down the amount of those interactions means some of the newer characters didn't get as much depth to their personality as they could've as well.

While I have some complaints with Dual Destinies and it's not a perfect game nor the best in the series, I also think it gets far too much hate and thanks to the addition of new gameplay mechanics which kept the gameplay fresh from past entries and the compelling overcharging narrative and mystery between Simon Blackquill and Athena Cykes, the two new characters who have become personal favorites, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Dual Destinies and that just makes it another strong entry in the longest running and most consistent visual novel franchise around.

I never played Yakuza 5 back when it first came out, but even 12 years later the sheer ambitious scope of this game is baffling. Featuring 5 playable protagonists and 5 different settings to explore all across Japan, Yakuza 5 was truly a massive expansion that took the series to new heights never before seen.

Yakuza 5 takes place 2 years after the events of Yakuza 4 and starts out with tensions between the two biggest Yakuza groups in Japan, the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance as the truce between them begins to deteriorate and an impending Yakuza war is on the horizon. Former chairman of the Tojo Clan and Yakuza legend Kazuma Kiryu now living in Fukuoka as a taxi driver under the name of Taichi Suzuki gets pulled back into the fold when his friend and current chairman Daigo Dojima goes missing. At the same time Kiryu's adopted daughter Haruka is living in Sotenbori following her dream to become Japan's number 1 pop idol and other stories are unfolding all across different cities in Japan involving ex-convict Taiga Saejima, moneylender Shun Akiyama and former baseball pro Tatsuo Shinada, each with their own dreams they'll do anything to achieve. Just how will all these various characters and their individual dreams connect? I can promise you it's probably not in the way you'd think because the narrative of Yakuza 5 is full of twists and turns and never felt predictable.

Yakuza 5 is written in that Tarantino-esque way and split into 5 different parts with each part having multiple chapters and focusing on fleshing out one character and their story arc at a time before switching to the next one until finally reaching the climatic finale where all the characters and their individual narratives intertwine. Yakuza 5's narrative is both massive and masterfully written. Full of complex plotlines with twists and turns galore and rich and engrossing character arcs enough to equal that of 5 normal games, the narrative of Yakuza 5 stands as one of the best in the series to this point. How far would you go to achieve your dream? What would you be willing to sacrifice?

The narrative isn't the only ambitious thing about Yakuza 5 though, the sheer amount of variety and diversity in every aspect of the game constantly keeps Yakuza 5 feeling fresh. The developers went to great lengths to make every character play and feel different whether in combat or outside of it. From getting to experience Kiryu's job as a taxi driver and street racer (in an homage to Initial D) to Saejima's time spent hunting bears in a small mountain town or Haruka working to increase the reputation of her idol agency by participating in dance battles and publicity events, no two characters feel or play the same and all the various sub stories feel more closely integrated alongside the main plot which helps flesh out the world and side characters much more than any Yakuza game before it.

If you've played a Yakuza game before you know one of the things the series prides itself on is the amount of diversions from the story and Yakuza 5 is no exception from that rule featuring a wealth of side activities and mini-games outside of the story related content. Pool, darts, air hockey, karaoke, various gambling games, a Virtua Fighter 2 arcade cabinet and even Taiko no Tatsujin are just some among the myriad ways to take a break in between story missions.

Speaking of fighting, as mentioned before every facet of Yakuza 5 has so much variety that keeps it constantly feeling fresh after hours upon hours and that includes the combat too with all 5 characters having their own unique battle styles (Haruka not actively engaging in combat and instead having rhythm game based dance battles instead) from Kiryu's classic brawler style to Saejima's grappler and heavy hitting charge attacks or Akiyama's fast-paced athletic footwork there's plenty of combat variety to keep you thoroughly entertained even when fighting low ranking goons in random encounters for hours (and trust me, you'll do a lot of that because the random encounter rate in this game is high)

Yakuza 5 stands tall as a pinnacle of the series, featuring both one of the best narratives in the series (Especially for those who have followed Kiryu's story since the beginning) and some of the most in-depth character arcs as well alongside detailed world-building that breathes life into the world of Yakuza like never before and an unbelievable amount of captivating side content which makes the penultimate game in Kazuma Kiryu's saga a journey that will stick with you long after the credits roll.

"Kamurocho, it's a city of dreams where even from the gutters you can shoot for the stars"

Judgment (Judge Eyes in Japan) is a 3rd person beat 'em up/action RPG spin-off of Ryu Ga Gotoku's mainline Yakuza series, but other than taking place in the same city of Kamurocho there's almost no ties to Yakuza and Judgment stands alone as a self contained story separate from the Yakuza series so don't worry about having to play them before Judgment.

In Judgment you play as Takayuki Yagami, a disgraced former defense attorney that got a client he believed to be innocent an acquittal, but they ended up murdering their girlfriend shortly after so believing his "judgement" wasn't sound enough he left the lawyering profession behind. Three years later, still living with the guilt of his failure as a lawyer, Yagami is now a private detective based in the city of Kamurocho, alongside his best friend the ex-yakuza Masaharu Kaito the two run the Yagami Detective Agency and get wrapped up in the mystery of a serial killer known as "the Mole" who kills Yakuza by gouging their eyes out.

Judgment is a murder mystery and what good is a mystery without twists? Thankfully there's plenty of twists and turns in Judgment that will have you guessing all the way until the end and with each new reveal the plot gets even more complex introducing more characters and slowly pulling at the threads of a grand conspiracy until everything is finally unraveled for one of the most climactic finales I've ever experienced in a video game. The way everything comes together in the end and how all the plot threads and characters connect is just absolutely masterful writing and gives such major payoffs in the end.

Another thing worth mentioning is the incredible voice performances both in sub and dub which really help bring this cast of characters to life. I especially have to commend Takuya Kimura and Greg Chun for both making Yagami one of my all time favorite characters.

As with most Yakuza games when not tackling the main story there's a wealth of side content to complete as well. From the 50 "Side Cases" which act as Judgment's form of Yakuza's sub stories and could be anything from helping someone find their lost cat to getting proof of infidelity these smaller cases are how Yagami makes his living paying in both money and experience and they help flesh out the world of Kamurocho better. I will say that one of the side cases which revolves around rival gangs and spans the length of the whole game is cool and one of the best side cases, but the mechanic it introduces with the "Threat Meter" and how the gangs become more aggressive and increase the random encounter rate a lot until you go out of your way to beat the gang leaders becomes tedious and breaks the flow of the story at times.

Along with the side cases there's also a friendship system that allows Yagami to become friends with almost everyone in Kamurocho by helping them with their smaller matters, all these characters have their own minor arcs and also give benefits once they're your friend from giving a discount at a shop to helping in battle or even unlocking new side cases, there's always incentive to befriend everyone you see. There are also plenty of mini-games in Judgement with everything from darts and poker to Mahjong and Shogi or Virtua Fighter 5, Outrun and even a Kamurocho themed rail shooter called "Kamuro of the Dead", plus my personal favorite a VR Mario Party-esque board game called "Dice and Cube" you could spend hours of your time on the mini-games of Judgment alone.

Gameplay of Judgment can be broken down into two types. The first being Yakuza-like beat 'em up combat. During combat Yagami has two different combat styles based on kung-fu, the "Tiger" style which is primarily used for 1v1 fights and the "Crane" style which is used for crowd control against multiple enemies. Yagami can also perform special cinematic finishing attacks known as "EX actions" and even after seeing them for 50+ hours I never get tired of how over-the-top and stylish they are, the martial arts choreography (especially in the boss battles) is just action packed and top notch. A new addition to Judgment that the Yakuza series didn't have is a mechanic known as "mortal wounds" and this happens when a boss or powerful enemy does a charge attack or uses a weapon like a gun or sword on Yagami. It'll permanently shave off a piece of your health bar until you go to the doctor or use a med kit and honestly this is one of my biggest complaints about the game and I don't understand why this was even added because it just breaks the flow of combat and becomes tedious at times.

The second type of gameplay revolves around Yagami being a detective and outside of combat you'll engage in Ace Attorney-like investigation segments where you have to search your surroundings for clues and evidence in a first person mode and when not searching for evidence you'll also have to use disguises and tail suspects in stealth missions and that brings me to my next biggest complaint about the game. There are WAY too many tailing missions and some near the end of the game or during specific side quests get very tedious and felt poorly balanced. I like the concept of tailing and giving the game more of a detective feel and I understand wanting to show off a new mechanic, but they went a bit too overboard with it as far as I'm concerned.

Graphically Judgment is a beautiful game and replaying it on PS5 really helped enhance the realism which really fits the gritty tone of the world and story and the OST is great too with jazzy noir sounding pieces that enhance the detective atmosphere to triumphant and bombastic orchestral tracks that have a very law-and-order feel or crunchy heavy guitar centric tracks for intense boss fights, there's plenty of variety to the OST and it all fits the themes and enhances the atmosphere of the game.

Overall Judgment is an incredible game with a murder mystery narrative full of crazy twists and turns that will keep you guessing and plenty of compelling characters including a fantastic lead protagonist with tons of depth and development further enhanced by great voice acting performances. Featuring hours upon hours of enjoyable side content, fluid and stylish combat full of top notch martial arts choreography and intense boss fights, beautiful graphics and an OST full of memorable tracks and while it's true there's a few flaws and tedious new mechanics such as mortal wounds, tailing missions and the over abundance of random encounters thanks to the threat meter, these are very minor problems that only slightly detract from my over all enjoyment of the game and both the story and combat of the game are so good that I've thought about the game non-stop since the first time I played it 5 years ago and that's ultimately the reason I decided to replay the game and if a game made that strong of an impact on me you can bet I also strongly recommend it and think everyone deserves to have that kind of experience as well and take it from me, Judgment will give you an experience you will not soon forget.

Monster Hunter with a Fortnite style building gimmick, a fraction of the depth of a real MonHun game, far less monsters with much less interesting designs as well, too much emphasis on the gimmick and nowhere near enough polish on the combat and animations. However even with all that said I'd argue Wild Hearts is still the best Monster Hunter style game that wasn't developed by Capcom and had some serious potential and cool ideas, but the execution left a lot to be desired and I just lost interest after about 20 hours into the game after finishing chapter 2. Apparently EA completely abandoned the game too so all the technical issues are never getting fixed and there's never going to be any more content added or expanded upon so honestly it's hard to even care at that point.

Helldivers 2 is basically Starship Troopers meets Earth Defense Force and the most fun I've had with a co-op shooter in ages. The gameplay loop and progression is great and constantly rewarding and while I hate the concept of live service models in games in general, Helldivers 2 is easily one of the best and most fairly executed live service model systems I've ever experienced thanks to the devs giving the player the opportunity to earn the premium rewards without actually spending a single dime on micro-transactions just by finding bonuses in the missions themselves and gives you extra incentive to go off the beaten path in missions and explore every planet to its fullest.

Helldivers 2 is far from perfect, it's a very buggy game (Both literally and metaphorically), it has major server issues and half the time you won't even be able to log on and it could use much more variety in the mission objectives, enemies, weapons and locations, but it will still provide you with hours upon hours of mindless chaotic fun liberating planets from waves of bugs and bots and spreading managed democracy far and wide with your boys.

I'm doing my part!
Proceeds to drop a 500KG bomb on teammates

Essentially Battlefield mixed with Apex. Refreshing to see a shooter that isn't just another battle royale and I enjoy the 3v3v3 objective game type. The movement feels great especially playing as a light build and using the grappling hook, the destructible environments are very fun and interactive, toppling an entire building so the cashout falls away from the enemy team is a very satisfying feeling. However the lack of content like more maps and game modes makes the game get very boring, very fast and there's so many balancing issues as well which means that how enjoyable the game is is entirely dependent on if you're playing with a well coordinated squad of people and that's not even mentioning the horrible AI voice work, overly-grindy monetization and mediocre gunplay mechanics as well. I think The Finals has potential and good ideas, but overall the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is set 7 years after the events of Trials and Tribulations and just grips you right from the start with one of the best opening cases in the series. Turnabout Trump is dark, it's mysterious, it introduces new characters and old alike, it takes Phoenix Wright our happy, lovable protagonist of old and turns him into a shady, morally grey homeless looking man who might be willing to bend the law if it means reaching the truth and boy does this case have an incredible twist too. I think that's what Apollo Justice excels at is all its complex twists. That whole first case really sets the tone for Apollo Justice in its darker portrayal of both Phoenix and the law itself and gives us plenty of mysteries to unravel as well like what happened with Phoenix 7 years ago, why isn't he practicing law anymore and just how are Apollo and Trucy involved? The subtle foreshadowing throughout the game and the way everything connects together by the end of the 4th case Turnabout Succession and the whole overarching narrative with the Gramarye Troupe was all just masterfully written.

My biggest problems lie with the middle of the game. Case 2, Turnabout Corner is a fun case thanks to the characters and it's written well enough, but it's also completely filler to the overarching narrative and just feels like padding, whereas case 3, Turnabout Serenade is very important to the story and gives some characters good development as well, but both the gameplay of the case is tedious (Watching the same clip over and over and using the mixing board so much) and there's a massive plot hole/moment where you have to suspend your disbelief and the writing just tanks a bit there.

However both the opening and ending cases are some of the best in the series that I've experienced to this point and while I have some gripes with the middle cases, they still aren't awful and I mostly enjoyed playing through them they just are not quite as good as the start and end, but the game expands the world of Ace Attorney in exciting new ways giving us many new interesting characters like Apollo Justice who acts like Phoenix's protegee, Phoenix's daughter Trucy and of course the flamboyant rockin prosecutor Klavier Gavin and watching how all these character's stories tied together alongside Phoenix was a truly thrilling experience I won't be forgetting anytime soon.

I love Arkanoid and I love brick breaking type games when they're done well, Dungeonoid is an interesting premise with some of the worst execution I've ever seen. Giving an Arkanoid type arcade game an RPG style twist could be done well, but you won't find that here, instead you'll find awful map designs, poor power-up balances and repetitive looping music that'll have you wanting to stop playing before you even finish the first zone.

I could only stand to play the game for an hour before I quit and I never want to touch it again. I played through about 10 levels and beat the first boss and that was enough for me because after awhile it stops being about breaking blocks and more about waiting for the ball to bounce in just the right spot to hit a switch or pick up a key item. It was less like playing a game and more like waiting to play a game and when you start waiting 5 minutes at a time just for the ball to reach the exit of the stage you know there's a problem and the level design is just very poorly thought out with too many gimmicks and not enough useful power-ups for the player to balance it out.

At least getting the platinum trophy is easy and doesn't even require you to beat the game, that's really the nicest thing I can say about Dungeonoid besides the idea for the game being cool, but a cool idea does not a good game make and this is just the epitome of shovelware. I only paid $2 for it, but that's still too much, I wouldn't play this game again even if it was free and I wouldn't recommend anyone else waste even an hour of their time on it either.

Due to work and family stuff this game took me a month to finish, an entire month (Which was like 100 hours play time), but it was more than worth every minute of time I spent on it and now I feel like that one Danny DeVito meme, the biggest "I get it now" moment I've experienced in video games in awhile.

The game was simply peak. Like holy shit, probably the best indie game I've ever played (Not counting like Falcom stuff and whatnot because while they're an indie company, it's a much different situation) and the fact this game was made by 1 guy and it was literally his life's work that took like 15 years to make is just so admirable and inspiring and you can feel the passion and creativity in literally every part of the game.

The plot for Astlibra starts out simple with the protagonist and nameless hero looking for his long lost childhood friend and home town, but it slowly evolves into one of the most insane and mind-bending narratives I've ever experienced, all I can say is it was certainly an adventure. Astlibra has a penchant for the kind of storytelling you'd find in a visual novel and the amount of plot twists is just crazy and the variety of philosophical themes explored is baffling, but the best thing is despite having so many different elements everything felt fully fleshed out and by the end there were no loose ends either, definitely the kind of game you want to go into as blind as possible due to just how surprising it can get.

I'll just say that Astlibra perfectly represents Thomas Sowell’s philosophy on choice. There are no solutions in life, only trade offs. You’re always giving up one thing for another.

However a lot of games feel that to make a good story they have to sacrifice gameplay, but Astlibra isn't one of those because the gameplay was also one of the most addictive gameplay loops I've experienced in quite some time and from the moment I picked it up it was difficult to put down. The combat itself might seem simple at first being a basic side scroller hack n slash/beat em up, but it only gets better and more complex as you find technique scrolls throughout the world and learn more moves and abilities because by the end the combat actually has so much depth to it and it's very challenging at times, especially the bosses which almost have a bullet hell feel to them at times like in older Ys games.

Although the most fun part of Astlibra to me is the depth in the customization which is just unfathomable between all the weapons you can find, all your spells and all the ways to upgrade and enhance your character from learning skills through mastering weapons, leveling up with experience and also using an item known as Force to acquire permanent stat boosts and abilities on a system called "Growth" which is like the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. I also love the grind of having to craft your own weapons/armor with material you get from different enemies, it makes the feeling of progression more impactful because you really work for it.

Astlibra is also just a beautiful game too, the background arts, monster designs and character sprites are gorgeous and done by Vanillaware alumni artist Shigatake and some can be a bit excessively horny at times (If you've played Dragon's Crown, you already know what I'm talking about) but it's all gorgeous art and really makes Astlibra such a beautiful game to play through making all the various levels so vibrant and diverse.

And the OST is also INCREDIBLE too. So many artists collaborated for the music, but there isn't a bad song in the game and there's so much diversity too with everything from full on prog metal to old school Nobou Uematsu sounding synth tracks, some strong melodic shredding with violins that remind me of Falcom Sound Team JDK's work especially the stuff they do for the Ys series and even some electronic type music too.

Astlibra is one of those rare gems where genuinely every thing about it is just so well crafted from the mind-bending narrative to the fun, fast, fluid combat and intricate progression systems which give so much customization, to the beautiful level design and art and the masterfully composed OST. While it clearly takes inspiration and influence from many of the classics of both the J-RPG genre and the visual novel genre, there's really nothing else like the game in terms of execution and I can't recommend it enough because of that. I know that it's an experience that will stick with me for many years to come and I can only thank KEIZO for dedicating his life to giving so many such an incredibly passionate and creative game that everyone deserves to experience.

Never played the original so I have no comment on that, but I will say that this game is truly such "a densely layered web of profound philosophical insights."

Presented as a first person adventure game where you play as Stanley and walk through his office building trying to find out where everyone else has gone while having your every single choice and move narrated along the way, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is a game that plays you. A mind-bending, self-aware, satirical, meta critique on the game industry, game development and developers, pointless re-releases and sequels which barely add any new content and ungrateful fans as well. This game makes fun of everyone and it does it in the funniest way possible with an incredible narrator that is as charming as they are deadpan and snarky.

It's not a game you're going to replay much once you complete it and get the true ending, but it is certainly a one-of-a-kind, surreally hilarious and simultaneously chilling at times thought-provoking narrative experience that will stick with you long after you finish it.

Super Mario Bros: Wonder is appropriately titled because every single thing about this game will leave you in WONDER and awe at the sheer creativity. It's simply just a joy to play through.

We follow Mario and friends on a journey to stop Bowser's latest villainous scheme of taking over a neighboring kingdom to the Mushroom Kingdom known as the Flower Kingdom. To do this they have to collect enough Wonder Seeds and Royal Seeds across 6 distinct worlds in the Flower Kingdom.

I think when it comes to platformers level design is the most important thing and the level design in Mario Wonder is just unmatched in creativity and vibrancy. I mean this is the game that throws the singing Piranha Plants level at you as literally the 2nd level so you KNOW you're in for a good time and that's BEFORE you even add in the new Wonder Flower which completely changes the level and this is in EVERY SINGLE level and while a few effects do get reused, about 90% of them are entirely unique to their respective level.

From being turned into a Goomba and having to hide from enemies who can eat you to being turned into part of the level itself, I met every new level with excitement as I wondered what surprises were in store for me this time and that's just two simple examples you'll come across in the 126 stages of this game.

The creativity doesn't end on the level design though because there's 3 new power-ups as well which give so much variety on how to play through all the stages. Whether it be the Bubble Flower which lets you blow bubbles to jump on for platforming or the Drill mushroom that lets you drill under the ground or on the ceiling to reach areas you couldn't previously and of course we can't forget the iconic Elephant Fruit which allows you smack blocks and enemies with your trunk and store water to spray on dried out flowers. On top of the new power-ups there are also badges that give different special effects like a longer jump or a glide or making blocks appear for platforming which gives even more incentive to replay stages and try our new badges and power-ups to find new secrets hidden within every stage.

Music in Mario games has always been important, but it has never been as important as it is in Wonder with some stages and even bosses actually having the player platform in time and rhythm with the beat of the music, it makes me want a whole game like that. However that's not all that's good about the music in Wonder because the soundtrack itself is also phenomenal and arguably one of the best in the series with tons of fresh remixes of classic tracks and catchy new themes that are sure to become just as iconic as the classics.

Thanks to it being constantly creative and fresh with a plethora of unique ideas being thrown at you at every turn alongside incredible focus on music as well, my 15 hours with Super Mario Wonder is the most fun I've had with a platformer since Super Mario Odyssey first came out and it truly has me in WONDER of how even almost 40 years later Nintendo has managed to put out not only one of the most creatively innovative and fresh Mario games in the past 40 years, but also one that is simply bound to go down as one of the greatest of all time. If you're a Mario fan or just a fan of amazing platformers, you don't want to miss out on this one.

Five years ago I played through the OG Lords of the Fallen and was somehow able to finish the whole thing and like on an objective level Lords of the Fallen (2023) is a much better game, but it's still not exactly a good one and I'm not the same man I was five years ago because my tolerance for games I'm not having fun with is completely gone. I used to be able to suffer through something just so I "got my money's worth" and didn't feel like I wasted money, but I'd rather waste my money than waste my time and even just playing this game for 5 hours was too much time wasted for me.

This game is literally just Dark Souls II-II, but nowhere near as polished as that game because at least that was still made by FromSoft. The hitboxes are horrendous and it does the Dark Souls II thing where it has poorly placed enemies and gank squads just to make the game more artificially difficult. Also the whole gimmick of this game, the alternate realities is cool, but could've been done better because having to constantly pull out your lantern during fights to dispel a shield on enemies and bosses is such a horrible mechanic that takes you right out of the gameplay and combat and the exploration and world design still felt very linear even with the layered worlds and the combat and movement somehow feels fast, but at the same time clunky? I don't know how to describe it, but it's like Dark Souls if it was from an alternate reality where everything in the world just feels OFF by a centimeter. The attacks, the parries, the movement, all the animations just feel wrongly timed by a couple seconds.

Don't get me wrong, this is far from one of the worst games or even one of the worst soulslikes. There's things to appreciate here like the depth to build variety, the Legacy of Kain-like two worlds gimmick (Even if it could've been fleshed out better), the emphasis on platform puzzles, the top notch art direction and oppressive and dark world which really captures the souls atmosphere, but when Dark Souls II is already my least fave FromSoft souls game, there's no way I'm going to care about playing through a worse version of that game made by a worse company. I'd only recommend this game to someone if they just want to playthrough every single soulslike out there and especially if they can handle some jank, some ganks and liked Dark Souls II.