Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom! is a well-oiled machine.

If I were to whittle down YTGV to a catch-all sentence, I’d call the game “Mario 64 Meets Crazy Taxi”. You explore open sandbox style worlds full of gears to collect, and in certain levels, you’re set to a timer and need to carry locals to their destination.

As the player of a 3D platformer, you're always placed in the driver position of your character. How you operate this vehicle is dictated by the toolkit the developers hand you. Typically, the most common place tool would be your jump.

Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom! does not have a dedicated jump button.

Of course, there is a way to jump. Like any car, the optimal way to gain height is to cancel your spin out and flip your vehicle over and into the air. This spin move normally allows you to dash forward, which helps with verticality when you're on an incline. You can cancel twice before a cooldown timer takes its effect, but if you land on a surface, you'll regain that charge.

You’d think that’d be all your tools but put a stop on your brakes: there’s more than meets the eye here.

Before you shoot up an incline, if you tap the A button at the right moment, you’ll soar even higher than before. Similar to Mario Odyssey’s diving onto Cappy tech, this move is a game changer for your traversal. Your tiny little taxi car mind as well become a full-blown plane with the amount air you gain.

You could casually drive through YTGV without this move, but the game calls for you to keep searching for more goodies to collect. Whether that collectible be the main gears, an assortment of cash, or the many silly hats, each have given me the drive to 100% complete this game. YTGV rewards veterans of 3D platformers with depth of skill to master, along with grit to tightly crafted end game levels.

There’s a specific tone cast upon YTGV. A vibe that reflects what I think was the mindset of the developers making this: silly, wacky, feel good, fun. You can tell the developers aren’t native English speakers, so dialogue often comes out in bizarre ways that’s comical within its own right. This also translates to the random insertion of memes and references throughout the game coming across as insane non-sequiturs. Normally this would be a problem for me, but the game is just so charming from just how much fun the developers are having that I can’t help myself from smiling too. Punchy synths reverberate out your car speakers, sunny beach side views with bright blue skies, the good times are here to stay with YTGV.

I think YTGV embodies what it means to be a video game. Fun, dumb, stupid, addicting, nonsense. I’m not sure I’d crown YTGV with the title of “Most Video Game Video Game To Ever Video Game”, as that title has hard competition, but it’s most certainly in the running.

Honestly, the most fun I have had with a game in AGES. A pure blast of silliness around every corner of every level, this game never fails to bewilder you with its absurd premise and equally absurd execution of said premise to perfection. The artstyle is charmingly low poly, and animations are bouncy and choppy, giving the game a unique vibe in conjunction with the flat out stupidity around every corner. Its a sensory overload in the best way possible.

100%ing this title was a constant joy, every level is packed with fun and challenging obstacles, which can be overcome with the very simple yet VERY deeply rewarding moveset you have access to - utilising slopes in the terrain of each level is key to gaining massive bursts of height and distance. Mastery of the simple moveset in conjunction with the level design truly unlocks the pure insane fun this game can offer.

The only drawbacks I had with the entire 100% process were limited to a small handful of levels; particularly ones with an overhead top down perspective (which removes the depth from the otherwise freeform movement system) and a couple with very tight time limits to contend with. Otherwise - everything is amazing! Go buy it and play it NOWWW!!! (you even get a super silly exclusive hat for buying within the first month of launch, so go do it!!!)

Incredible soundtrack, unique levels, silly story and characters, TONS of goofy hats to collect - everything about this game is just a joy to experience from start to end.

I might’ve said this in my review of the PSP remake but the sad truth with this game is it was made to be an ambitious and bold experiment in an era of looking forward for the future of Megami Tensei. This has become evident to me (a “megaten maniac”) with the fact that no video game company nowadays would throw away a system they built upon to make a spinoff that boldly would try and do something so risky like being cinematic (based on interviews this seemed to be the main goal). Sadly this creates a tedious gameplay experience that hides a genuinely good story and one I feel like is the most “wow I need to go outside and live my life now” Persona game I’ve played honestly. Whether it’s having the best use of a hidden video game character for legitimate thematic relevance, the crawling darkness of peering deeper into the mind, the absorbing darkness and coolness of the music, or the inner reflection on loneliness in a genre that’s kind of all about playing a long as game by yourself. I think Megami Ibunroku Persona was a great and interesting experiment.

https://youtu.be/2DYqwhSTeGQ?feature=shared

The premise was fascinating, the world of Thaumaturgy was dark and intriguing and the idea of taming demons to help you fight sounded like fun. But sadly the story is a drag, the characters are stiff, and there was way too much walking back and forth. The combat seemed exciting at the start but quickly turned into a dull repetitive action. I really wanted to like this game, I can see a lot of people found enjoyment, sadly me and this game never clicked. I managed to finish the main story and I like the idea of giving you meaningful choices to make throughout the whole game, but it's far too slow/boring for me to see what different choices may bring.

You can see my whole review here: https://youtu.be/jFDaQmlQSXQ

Oh man... I wanted to love this game. I still liked it, but I wanted to love it.

The concept and art are phenomenal. The setting is well researched. But the gameplay and dialogue are really subpar. The detective bits are incredibly handholdy, and the combat bits are too shallow to draw one in. the major story cutscenes are unforgivably stilted, and many lines of dialogue should have been read aloud before recording.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. I want to see what the devs can do next, so I'm happy I bought at full price. But still, I can only recommend it to CRPG fans who are REALLY interested in games set in well-researched historical settings.

A short, sweet, solid adventure game about solving puzzles to make plants grow. The vibes are nice and the puzzles are logical and while clues aren't actually recorded in your in-game journal they usually aren't far away from each other. The game's not super plot-driven, its mainly the protag dealing with stuffy British eggheads not taking her seriously because she is a woman doing science ala Mary Anning, and this carries the game enough and it even has a nice ending. Overall just a chill game worth checking out.