My opinion has shifted on Tekken 8 since it made a splash back in January. What started as a global event and a celebration of Tekken and the FGC as a whole has turned into perhaps the most tilting, dishonest fighting games ever created. I’m not writing this all pissed-off after a lackluster night on ranked. I’ve stopped playing for a few days and I feel no reason to go back.

Tekken 8 is miserable.

The first obvious issue is the heat system. It’s horrible. With a press of a button you get an attack that is fully tracking, plus on block, fast, armored, and launches if opponent is airborne. Once in heat, many characters get insanely powerful moves that do everything. Launch, plus on block, infinite range, you name it. Not only are these moves incredibly unbalanced and braindead, but they rip much on the integrity of Tekken straight out. Tekken has always been a knowledge check type of fighting game. There has always been bullshit moves that you need to lab. However, that’s not the case with these heat attacks. There’s absolutely nothing you can do. There shouldn’t be moves in fighting games with no counter play. They feel cheap to go up against and they feel dirty to use. It’s so disingenuous and braindead.

Heat is not the only problem however. Everything is just so over-tuned. Defense is a guessing game. It seams like every attack clips you if you try to sidestep, even with plus frames.
So many strings jail on block so you can’t duck and punish. Neutral is gutted by insanely powerful WR moves that are nearly homing and grant plus 7 if not more. Low parry was nerfed significantly making defense much worse. Many of the best characters in the game have heat smashes that fully track and grant plus frames, leaving you a sitting duck in neutral.

Defense has been gutted. Neutral has been gutted. Offense has been simplified with braindead moves. Pluggers are still a problem. Rank boosters quit after one lose. Feng still isn’t nerfed. Dragunov is still doing 70% on one launch. Devil Jin still has his heat smash. Xiayou still has a mid-mid-mid string that’s plus and a non-launch punishable unseeable snake edge. Counter-hit and homing throws are still a problem.

With all these factors, I find myself wondering: “is this even better than Tekken 7?” I hold out hope that with some balance patches and some key nerfs that Tekken 8 can still be the greatest Tekken. But as of now? It’s probably the worst Tekken of my lifetime.

I'm not a big fan of the horror genre in general, but if the other Resident Evils are as good as this one, I might change my mind.

Love the aesthetic and the puzzle solving. Not too complicated but it also requires you to use your brain. Similar gameplay to The Last of Us where items are scarce. However, they're even scarcer here with how much health the enemies have. I like it. Requires you to be conservative and plan ahead. Kind of like how you would go about it if a zombie apocalypse happened in real life. I like it when game get realistic.

This game is almost perfect. Almost. The one draw back for me is how many times you got to play through it for the platinum trophy. 4 playthroughs for both characters and both scenarios on Standard. Additional playthroughs may be needed to S rank, but I got them all on my first try somehow.

1 playthrough on Assisted for the no item box, no using healing items and walk less than 14,000 footsteps trophies. It's possible you won't get all these in 1 playthrough so you might need to do 1 or 2 more. Lastly, there's 2 hardcore playthroughs for both Leon and Claire. In all, that's 7 playthroughs minimum. I appreciate that the game's not too long, but considering both characters and their 2 scenarios are 80% the same to each other, it gets repetitive real quick.

Sure, the opening segment is different, and so are the puzzles, but you always got to get the 3 medallions, get a parking garage pass, get the chess pieces, use the crane to knock the dude over, get the pesticide solution, and fight the dude again. I love single player story games, there my favorite types of games, but one flaw they all share is that they're not all that replayable. 1 or 2 100% playthroughs is enough, but 7?! Playing the same story 7 times minimum can kind of numb your mind and take out the enjoyment the more times you play it.

Resident Evil 2 is still a great game. I would give it a perfect 5 stars if the trophies were a little more forgiving and didn't require so many playthroughs.

Compared to RE2, RE3 substitutes the puzzles for more shooting & action. I don't think this was a good idea considering how clunky and awkward the movement is. The rolling feature is nice, but is kind of inconsistent.

The biggest flaw with RE3 is Nemesis. It is such a horrible boss. You fight it like 10 times thorough out the game. Dude's practically invincible yet it can't seem to kill you. At one point, it picks up a rocket launcher and shoots it at you, but the rocket's have a blast radius the size of a frozen pizza at the supermarket. Tyrant in RE2 was scary & you always had to work around him. Every time Nemesis showed up, I was annoyed.

Jill is pretty and badass, but doesn't stand out as much as Leon, Ada or even Claire for that matter. Carlos is forgettable & Nicholai is such a nonsensical villain. His motives make no sense. I genuinely would have enjoyed the game more if he never existed.

Overall, I still had fun with RE3. It's an above-average game, but not good enough. This game feels like such a shadow of RE2. I do appreciate not having to do 6 or so playthroughs for the platinum.

The back third is a complete slog. As soon as you revive humans you better get ready for vague objectives and fetch quests galore. Kinda reminds me of Breath of Fire's end-run, but even worse. It's super ambitious for an SNES title I'll give it that, maybe with only Chrono Trigger or FFVI in competition for what it was trying to achieve.

I get that they were trying to make this almost world-building simulation take place within the confines of a JRPG, but figuring out what to do is always a problem at this point. The western portmanteau for the title, Terranigma (Earth/Riddle), is definitely more apt than the Japanese, Tenchi Souzou (the creation of heaven and earth). But it's less Zelda puzzles and more what do I need to do to progress? Lots and lots of that.

First third is amazing and now I realize why I always lost interest somewhere after that.

If we're being real this is the culmination of ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Ilusion of Gaia as it has traces of all of those games directly in its story and design.

I might want to do a more in-depth review later but I'm just glad I finally beat it now. I liked the ending quite a bit, but getting there was pretty rough. This went from a 4.5 to a 3.5 game for me sadly. Mainly due to the vagueness of the story and the translation.

One more bucket list title completed.

The Room but without Tommy Wiseau.

The black sheep of the original four Team Silent games, but is that rightfully so? Well it for sure is understandable. Henry Townsend is the definition of a dull and one dimensional character. Pretty much in contrast to Heather who is arguably the most 4-dimensional character I have ever witnessed. However SH4 has the series most interesting villain. Tommy Wisea...I mean Walter Sullivan. He sure looks like Tommy though lol.

Anyway the story about Walter and the 21 sacraments is pretty damn intruiging. The enemy design is great. Enemy sounds are pretty damn odd though, especially those burping monsters. Combat is worse yet easier at the same time. Once you got the axe you become invinvible ruining much of the horror. Imagine how dangerous those Twin Victims (one of the best and most underappreciated monsters in the franchise) would be with Silent Hill 3 gameplay and combat mechanics. The handgun is kinda like a shotgun shooting through multiple enemies sometimes.

The level design is great but I miss the radio and flashlight. The escort mission isn't as bad as in RE4 but witout it and the backtracking is something I could do without but I don't really mind it. Akira Yamaokas score is a masterclass. Room of Angels anyone?

9/10 Ghosts haunting your apartment.

Everyone that follows or knows me might know that I'm a huge Dinosaur nerd and I'm also a huge fan of the Resident Evil franchise. What do you get when you combine these two things, correct Dino Crisis. Because of that I always wanted to play Dino Crisis for years but for some reason my Dino Crisis 1(PC) Version doesn't let me save my progress. Then I tried to play Dino Crisis 2 and luckily I can save my progress in this game. So here we are and the first thing that I noticed quickly is that Dino Crisis 2 isn't a survival horror game in the style of the Resident Evil like the first Dino Crisis was. It's more of a arcade like game and the majority of the game comes down to mowing down hoards of dinosaurs this may sound repetitive but the game manages to stay interesting by frequently giving you new weapons to fight all kinds of prehistoric reptiles like Raptors, Oviraptors which are your main enemies but you will also encounter Allosaurus, Triceratops and even Marine Reptiles like Plesiosaurus or Mosasaurs. I was surprised that Dino Crisis 2 even included lesser known prehistoric animals like Inostrancevia. Yes, I said "prehistoric animals" on purpose because Inostrancevia, Mosasaurus, Plesiosaurus and Pteranodon aren't Dinosaurs but this was just the Dinosaur-Nerd in me getting the upper hand. Visually the game is still beautiful if you consider when it was released and same can be said about the surprisingly good looking cutscenes.
The controls are arguably the best and most responsive tank controls which is necessary for the arcade like gameplay. Dino Crisis 2 also throws in a few rail-shooting segments which were extremely fun and a a nice change of pace. All in all I really enjoyed this game, it's not hard to beat because of it's focus on action and the arcade like gameplay that rewards you for high combos. I would have like a bigger focus on survival horror but thanks to the genre shift Dino Crisis 2 manages to create it's own identity. Yes the story is nothing special, still the big variety of enemies, weapons and set pieces made the gameplay very entertaining. But the water segment can go fuck itself. Now Capcom, please give us a remake of Dino Crisis 1.

Games I finished in 2024 Ranked

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

"Now we are empty. Now we are nothing."

Graphically, artistically, and narratively the best one of these at the time of its release - but demonstrably the worst in terms of its combat. Like yeesh, these never had the most optimal fighting systems to begin with but here everything seems to happen a second or two after you initiate it (or try to, with how much more often you'll be caught in a move in a series where that's already super common), the dodge roll is as nonfunctional as it's ever been, its blocking sucks, fury mode or whatever tf that was sucks almost as much, and the secondary weapons feel clunky and unnecessary. It's easy to see the faultlines from being bogged down by seventh-generation lameness - particularly its tacked-on and tossed-off multiplayer mode, which invaded many single-player flagships at this time to satisfy the hunger of casual CoD addicts and is absolutely LOADED with a laundry list of stupid microtransactions. But it's also one of the best looking games on the PS3, like seriously fucking WOW. Look at this wild behemoth!! Its spectacle is fitting and in no short supply to match - scaling and fighting through the massive Apollo statue, riding all those giant mechanical snakes, and the enormous Hecatoncheires prison (the latter of which being a strong contender for finest setpiece ever in a GoW game) and more all pop right off the screen - they're some of the greatest environments in the franchise flat-out. Plus it's cool seeing Kratos with some actual pathos here, smiling and shaking/holding people's hands in a way that actually feels natural (unlike, say, Hitman: Absolution's take on its antihero). I gotta give at least some points to a prequel that actually feels semi-authentic (can't say the same about Ghost of Sparta). Amulets are cool, final boss is epic, not even nearly the worst entry - honesty, one of the better ones! Has flaws but so do the others.

Out of all the WRPGs (western RPGs), I've played thus far. Pathfinder: Kingmaker(PK) is without a doubt the most complex and rich in nearly every category I long for in the genre. And to Owlcat’s credit, the Kickstarter backed CRPG almost achieved full marks. Multiplex of systems, deep mechanics, extensive kingdom-building, matched by a fascinating world-building and filled with memorable characters. A long story, featuring multiple endings. Real-time with pause combat. Dense fantasy single-player title in an isometric perspective. And yet I can’t help but find the whole experience of clearing everything possible in over 130 hours a double-edged sword. Full of sharp awesome content. Yet underneath lies a blunt edge full of troubling matters. Alexander Mishulin, Creative Director at Owlcat Games eloquently sums up the matter in an 2020 interview saying “...Huge Pathfinder system ruleset was left tricky and unclear in many ways for the new players unfamiliar with the tabletop game.”

The IP is incredibly different from what I dabbled in Baldur's Gate 1 last year. And the old Fallout titles. Feels a lot more in-depth not just in terms of pen-and-paper, but in different rules and how the mechanics are implemented by Owlcat on Paizo’s ruleset. I’ll run through the positives first before I dive into my mixed feelings. Full disclosure: I played 100 hours without mods before relying on them to end credits. I’ll denote a mod section properly later on, but if I don’t discuss it please assume I'm discussing vanilla.

Storywise I found to be a slow-burn. But ultimately an enjoyable affair. You start in a competition for the rights to become baron/baroness of the Stolen Lands. A large swath of unclaimed land with no leader. Think bandit territory except fantasied to the gills. Crypts and hidden tombs full of nocturnal creatures sinisterly lurk. Local settlements are plagued by monster attacks and the occasional banditry. Fill your wanderlust and discover ancient ruins and dungeons! Full of traps, puzzles, and of course great treasure awaits! But take care, whimsical fey beings roam here and there so beware! For better or worse, depending on your choices in dialogue you may come across interesting outcomes. Discover a key piece and be led to a hidden location out on the world map! Or used in a way to uncover another hidden check. Where the locals and monsters alike will be found in all manners of the noble to villainy spectrum. Take heart, for finding a true pure soul in such a hostile place may seem dangerous! Yet behold! Beyond the borders lie a people still living brightly and drinking merrily in taverns. Singing to their heart's content without end!

Before I sing on further, I must talk about the initial priorities after becoming Baron/Baroness. Consists of the gameplay overview without combat. A gentle reminder, to not go gallivanting off into the wilderness following the wanderlust compass. Rather, one must remember to research curses. Curses are something unexplainable and mysterious occurring within your lands. And it is up to you to research why. There are more than 13+ of these curse events that need to be resolved as you progress through the game's many acts. All of which contain a time limit to complete under “xxx’ day. Doing so is one of the key requirements to unlocking a secret ending and progressing through the main story conveniently. Refrain from doing so and the consequences will be severe. I didn’t have much issue with deadlines. Bona fide lenient as long as you prioritize what to do. A general loop emerges: Enter building management -> research curses, solve problems, assign advisors, resolve advisor concerns, construct structures in settlements, invest in building points(BP) or use them for erecting structures or helping pass a bill using BP. Finished? Good, we're not done. -> Check the journal to see any main quests. Usually, one or two pop-ups and its a number one priority to complete. -> Once finished then you're allowed to finish any sides and errands. Followed by companion quests -> If you have any days left on the clock. Explore the map, discover new dungeons, finish off random mobs trying to kill you while traveling, and unearthing loot by turning over rocks and crannies you see are all worthy endeavors. The priorities may seem daunting at first, but I assure you have ample weeks to months. In finishing any important tasks before moving on to the rest. Generally, Traveling around and researching will consume most of your precious days. However, there are certain ways to mitigate any losses later on. I’ll include some links later on for extra tips.

Plethora of classes to choose from and upgrade. More than fifteen main jobs. And several archetypes within. A barbarian, for instance, specializes in an armored hulk, mad dog, or invulnerable rager. A cleric branches off into a herald caller, ecclesitheurge, and crusader. All with their unique powers and skills offered. I stayed as a paladin and found it decent. My primary joy came from the multiple allies who joined my merry band. Swapping into a different profession if inclined, but I kept them as their base class to see how it feels to use them. At the end of the day, I concluded they’re fun to use. One serves as a tank such as my tower shield specialist while my inquisitor summons undead to serve as handy meatshields. My bard’s songs randomly stun my enemies. I and my barbarian cleaned up! Rinse and repeat and voila! Dead guys in the aftermath. Granted not all encounters will not go as smoothly as one would think. Plenty of surprises await in store for any curious adventurer.

Should be noted there are special prestige classes. Several are not selectable at the character creation. As you progress and meet certain requirements they become available as your second class. I’ll be honest with the exception of the Wildcard DLC. I was not able to use any of these prestige ones. As a result, I am unable to comment on them other than some being powerful and others meh from what I skimmed online. Overall essential in understanding classes, since comprehending their capabilities will mark triumph and despair concerning the combat portion.

I mainly used real-time with pause(RtwP) mode. For those unaware, in CRPG's this means each action your party makes is conducted at the same wavelength against the opposing enemy side. Casting spells takes seconds before casting but attacking is ongoing when not in cooldown. Trading blows until one side is gone. For those uninterested in RtwP. Owlcat implemented a turn-based(TB) method. Activatable anytime with a single press of a button. Initially, a mod early, the devs decided to add it for those not enthused in the RtwP approach. As someone who favors turn-based. I have to say the move was pretty based. But I couldn’t stand doing TB for every fight encounter. My entire playthrough would’ve easily doubled or tripled. But the inclusion of the mechanic later on after release I appreciate a great deal especially if I get tired of RtwP. Convenient when needed.

In my honest opinion, an enjoyable isometric gameplay emerges. Regarding the many systems at play. Battles are somewhat challenging relying on your crew's profession. For instance, if you improperly manage equipment, health items, and proper class understanding then you may be in for a life of hurt when confronting multiple foes in a large open area filled with scattered mobs. I struggled early on since I had zero Pathfinder exposure. Meaning I rushed into things without thinking, quick-saved like my life was about to expire. To make sure I gained a favorable outcome and spammed abilities like a madlad. Kindly erase those foolish ‘jump before thinking’ mentality and realize no one will hold your hand gently. Despite a wealth of options available to reduce difficulty which I will talk about later on. Look at my character and witness how one tab from the summary may induce information overload. What is AC? Fortitude? Reflex? Will? The difference between wisdom and intelligence. Knowledge arcana/world? lore/nature? Sounds rubbish, who needs these skills? Alignment? Bah, who cares. Well, my friend I do! A great deal since you must understand a sizable chunk to succeed. I won’t go into complete minute details, but suffice it to say each terminology is important to survive. Basic stereotypes do exist though, so no need to worry! A mage is squishy early on, but a glass cannon. Ranger and barbarian are viable builds and hybrid classes are available for those who wish to slot into a job outside of the standard ones.

Have no fear of the daunting Pathfinder homework ahead! I did only the bare minimum cause I wanted to get straight into the thick of things and still managed fairly well. Here’s a secret that has never failed me when playing any CRPG. Buffing/debuffing/summoning is honestly the bread and butter. And will undoubtedly your life easier. Without any of those above, I would not be able to win against my adversaries. Helped me so much to the point I spent over 100 hours buffing in less than a minute before engagements. In the blink of an eye. Yeah, I'm not kidding about those buffs. Crucial in starting up a massive advantage before striking any foe ahead. Summon any pets, skeletons, elementals, or animals at your side ahead of any battle so attackers will be dumb dumbs and attack them foolishly. As if they are the priority. Debuffing is equally important. Any Atlus JRPG fan should know from Megami Tensei how skills like reducing enemy power, missing an attack, freezing them, and whatever manner of debuffs to inflict. Will turn the tides in your favor. The same principle applies here. Min-maxers like myself who love adjusting little morsels of numbers are in for a real treat. Countless loot is around, as a result, I never had an issue strengthening my characters and applying any spells to their repertoire. No requirements to micromanage level-ups either. If checked in the menu. And since I started from beginning to end credits with the preference on. You are in good safe hands. An indispensable accessibility feature reduces the steep cliff into a more manageable one for newcomers to the series.

Do keep this in mind. It's inadvisable to spamming spells and abilities without a drawback. The consequence of using magical abilities means the 'charge' will be used up. Mana is unavailable. Instead, your party will have a certain amount of ‘charges’ so to speak on how many times to reuse a magick discipline. A basic 'fireball' for example may have one charge. In spite of that, within the magic system for some classes, possible to increase multiple slots. Consequently granting more amounts. Area of effect, cones, and single targets, bouncing are all attainable parameters, so watch out not to hurt your allies. Lest you need to revive them after the battle ends. After an engagement with an enemy, a non-combative status will occur for all. Any damages and spells used along with health will not return to their original condition. This means every skirmish with a mob will leave you bleeding. Continue fighting and sooner or later the effect of 'fatigue' will emerge. A debuff handicapping with horrible stats. Go further and you may become exhausted incurring further penalties. To counter a weakened state, one 'rest' is recommended, and rations to heal back to 100%. Be warned you may be ambushed by nearby hostiles. It's these little things that pile up later on when you expect a benefit there must always be a drawback in some form. Not much of an issue provided players remember to buy rations and set their PC to scavenge for rations out in the wild.

In the wilds and civilizations players will need to contend with the text and dialogue system. You will inevitably conduct a wide array of meaningful conversations. For instance, talking yields a host of options. Both are informative to educate, pushing to the next segment in a quest, moving the conversation forward with lore passages highlighting key information whenever you need, and taking a gamble in stat-oriented discourse to affect an outcome. Crucial to give context to the rich history in Pathfinder where putting the mouse cursor will describe any bolded phrase. Appropriately connecting any relevant lore with anyone. Where paragraphs on gods, nations, political figures, religion, etc. will be described when highlighted. Hearing a disgruntled futilist dwarf talk about the impending doom of the end of days from the god Grotis transforms otherwise static boring sentences into flavorful dynamic words to remember and an “Ahah!” moment arises. Stumble upon reading a book about certain dangerous religions only to learn later about a crazy cult related to said religion. You will inevitably come up with many of these examples. Nevertheless, conversations are susceptible to stats; you have to needle your way through unique text. Granting extra experience and new conversational topics to discuss with whomever you meet. Such a deeply intricate word system is only part of the whole gameplay pie to understand why I adore talking to my party to understand their backstory, relationships, and history and develop them further with their quest lines down the road.

Under these circumstances, the world-building is richly implemented and flourishes through meaningful lines as I meandered my way to talk to important NPCs whenever I traveled. Be it a villain, an unsuspecting stranger, or an upstanding citizen of the realm. All are not spared my inquisitive nature to converse! In my delight, speaking yields both favorable and unfavorable outcomes concerning a dice roll. Meet the stat check to enable the dialogue requirement, but plausible still failing the result. Meaning my goals for a peaceful resolution between two angry interracial groups could be thrown into the fire. Erupting a bloody feud betwixt two leaves me no choice but to eliminate both or take one side. Invigorating my soul and leaving me contemplative to carefully consider a circumspect approach. Take information with the grainiest of salts and don’t label everything in simple good or evil manners. Difficult to judge whether the NPC is acting in the best interest at your behest while secretly holding a dagger behind their back unknowingly to your eyes. As a result, Non-conflict encounters are unique here, where fights interrupted are an uncommon occurrence with a conversation box, hearing their plea and moving on from there. I’ve had the personal pleasure of converting evil dastards onto my side while subjecting good souls to betrayal. Interconnecting later on in a future side-mission or main narrative where your previous actions will have a consequence later on. I befuddled a group and investigated a murder or caused mayhem on the populace by lying to whomever. Offered a mysterious item I picked up just for this occasion. Bribed, persuaded, intimidated, or sought further lore knowledge. No one is spared from my decisions and I lived with the consequences of my actions.

If there is one notable strength here in PK then companions here are a breath of fresh air. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. Recruit all eleven comrades, plus two more from the Wildcards DLC. A wonderful motley crew full of contradictions and wild alignments from chaotic to lawful and those staying in the realm of neutrality. I adore my party's banter. Sharing wonderful stories and barbs anytime I rest. And their voice actors deserve only praise for going the distance. Seeing their background update during a loading screen is a small, but appreciative detail. As I progressed further in their questline. From the loveable optimistic bard who never fails to brighten the room, the tough barbarian exile who continues to thirst for a challenge, the curious explorer alchemist who underneath their arrogant exterior lies a heart of gold, the noble tower specialist who continues to make each stranger drop their jaw in awe at her beauty. The chaotic duo of eldritch scion and rogue wizard lent their bond to my group despite their horrible past. A stoic tragic ranger avenger, a dwarven futilist cleric, a goblin knife master, and others I could list but I'll save them for a surprise… Needless to say, all have a colorful history beyond simple tropes and evolve constantly throughout my journey. I won’t say any favorites since I like all of them equally, instead, I will remark my allies' goals are a must-play and some intertwine with the main story at length. Providing a nice integration into the story and commenting during side activities on their thoughts, feelings, and alignment. Your actions will favor or dislike you. Therefore, it's essential to think carefully about their beliefs, morals, and alignment to adjust your response accordingly relative to the situation. Complex and not one-sided, and not all that hard to keep with you by when the end credits rolled around. Heck, I operated a solid crew of five. With changes in the guard whenever any relative friend's objectives arrived. Some benefit from putting any relative members in a relatable matter for instance. Otherwise, serving an appropriate role in another area below.

Kingdom building surprised me a great deal. There are plenty of systems in place here to almost make me wish for a separate game to play exclusively. Heck, employing any of your companions as advisors who will approach you about a delicate matter related to any of the stats concerning your authority. Population, relation, military, culture, divine, loyalty, arcane, stability, espionage, and community. Accepting a new policy, rejecting or fashioning a unique dialogue choice conditional on the advisor’s characteristics. I was able to increase the guardsmen with more men and budget instead of leaving them to their whits. Fought espionage wars with another neighboring nation by honoring our dead spies than risking their status. Favored culture of the arts and freedom to use magic freely and threw away the bill restricting their passion. And so forth. Completing these requests and listening to my advisors leads to benefits and detriments. So take heed of your colleague's advice and choose the best course of action. In doing so you manage your domain from impending self-destruction. Be careless and your citizenry will revolt. Therefore, it is imperative for one to finish any dilemmas arising in priority rather than any opportunity points. Issues if not solved, worsen stats, so pray to RNGSUS you land on a good dice roll to resolve the conflict peacefully. Or quickload like me hehe. Opportunities are okay to ignore, but for those who decide to try them the rewards are equally as good as solving problems. Don’t worry about taking care of your vassals constantly, a timer will run on when resolved and a notification will pop up for any impending event.

An option to automate your kingdom exists, but I still suggest that folks embrace the system to get a feel of managing affairs in your nation while also investing your precious days. Pays dividends later on in the form of passives and supplementary items. The latter leads you to new objectives and random encounters providing free equipment through artisans(Specialists who join your nation, when you visit your new settlement when claiming a region), and investing in your crown pays dividends later on to grant permanent buffs like increased attack roll chances, immunity to fear, and faster movement when traveling and more. Constructing mage towers(unlockable once you level up an advisor's ranks) allows one to teleport with minimal downtime creating a genuine saver for those urgent investigations in your journal. Aside from leveling your partners in combat and dialogue, you advance their rank in their advisory role to have a better chance to resolve troubles and opportunities. Useful when RNGSUS will sway to your lucky side rather than the unlucky side.

Decent-to-quality sidequests and errands are plentiful and ultimately awesome to complete. Enhanced my experience during my adventures. Here is a small taste of what I encountered. Uncovering a dark mega villain through a long monster extermination hunt Mediated between fey beings on trees and preached to no end on civility, peace, and compromise during heated debates and mob pitchforks. Hunted weird cultics from weird satanic ones to disturbing groups with their nefarious agenda preying on helpless innocents like a pregnant woman in need delivering her baby for a price. Oh hell no. I saved her thankfully, but whether or not it was a good thing in the end leaves me still troubled. Engaged in a puzzle to resurrect a powerful, but evil ghost for sick armor and weapons. Participated in treasure hunts, fought bandits holding hostages, saved mythical creatures like dragons, and found a boy who cried wolf-like investigation whose outcome was vastly different from what I expected. Returned a Necronomicon-like book to a powerful hermit in the lands and traveled to other realms to investigate curses to reach and attain the absurdly difficult secret ending. Heck, I took advantage of alignment choices to brutally reach a good outcome. Nonetheless, I still time-traveled into alternate universes. By reloading to recruit horrible fellows into my cabinet. Yeah, I’m not proud of that at all…

Anyway, mod time. Earlier I mentioned I played vanilla for 100 hours. Once I reached that point I decided enough was enough and threw away the base content life. And subsequently enjoyed in greater detail the latter half to an insane degree with much-needed quality-of-life features. Below I’ll briefly outline some must-haves for anyone on PC.

Mod manager - Number one key ingredient for all kingmaker needs and easy to install any of the following to make your playthrough fun and eliminate the tedium.

Bag of Tricks - Solve 99% of any troubles you face. From side quests not occurring, to fixing a bug here and there. And to be fair I had very little bugs or crashes. I think outside of a handful of minor bugs my playthrough was nearly perfect. My convenient tricks were instant teleporting on the world map, instant rest + after fighting, instant auto-complete realm events, lock-picking unlimited attempts, force success/triumph on problems and opportunities, pass skill checks, and my personal favorite a romance counter which is crucial for the secret ending. Trust me. If you want the bonus act to activate I recommend it. These listed are my favorites from the mod, but there’s way more inside I never used.

Faster menu book zoom - When you launch the program, it takes a long eternity for the book which contains the standard menu options to proceed. Do yourself a favor and download them to save you extra. Adding in the command line ‘-skip intro’ from the program launcher when right-clicking the properties on Steam is beneficial too.

Buffbot - Takes less than a second to activate all the buffs you currently have. A necessary alternative than taking a minute to individually select each member and buff them to the nth degree I said previously. Use Buffbot once and be done.

Aside from the mods above. You have a wealth of selections to tune the difficulty to your liking. From the image I customized the normal settings, making encounters less of a chore and more on the easier side. Restricting to the confines of vanilla as much as possible. So I recommend tuning them to your preference.

Now then for my mixed feelings. Consider the following text as small to big red flags in varying degrees. I feel are worth noting down. I had to trim this a bit since this review is getting too long and I apologize for that.

Kingdom Building is a mixed bag. I love the aspect of erecting settlements and determining the kinds of architecture. However the ‘time-limit’ before the next act and what to do perhaps make newcomers feel pressured and quite honestly have no clue what to do. I had to frequently Google and ask my friends about priorities. Although frankly, I'm leaning towards being positive on the aspect. Sincerely cool having advisors and solving problems since you are a Baron. I found it more enjoyable than my playthrough with Ni No Kuni 2’s version. Which ultimately was all right with uninteresting sidequests. Here I kept coming back to my empire. Taking personal pleasure in being hands-on in my day-to-day. See how your settlements grow and flourish along with your subjects. It’s thrilling, satisfying, and most of all worth seeing all your efforts come to fruition. For general tips, I'll echo what before I play & walkthrough for advice. Was instrumental and made daunting tasks to fulfill become easier to manage.

However, tiredness will undoubtedly occur. I had to stop playing kingmaker constantly in 2023 due to fatigue. The sheer amount of content if you combine the DLC is a lot for anyone’s plate. Acts on average took me 20 hours give or take some change to complete considering there are a total of 8 acts. If you count the act-like DLC Varnhold and the roguelike beneath the stolen lands. You’re easily reaching 150+. This is a friendly reminder to stop and take a break in case you are feeling burned out. I played palette cleansers like indies and shifted into different genres from a CRPG in between chapters to refresh my willpower to keep going. The slow-burn narrative along with my mixed feelings on kingdom-building aspects among others leave me in doubt whether I unintentionally had resorted to sunk cost fallacy. However, I would say once you reach part 2 to part 3 then the plot beats start to heat up gradually into a snowball. Turning my interest from a “hmmm” to an “Oh now we're getting somewhere.”

I think some rules for Pathfinder in general are too restrictive and punishing. This isn’t a negative against Owlcat; rather they did a phenomenal job adapting the tabletop ruleset for the videogame audience. Paizo the company from my understanding created the IP and surrounding laws within. Here are notable head-scratchers. I am not allowed unlimited lockpicking? Once I fail an attempt it's impossible to try again. I had to resort to a mod to give me unlimited attempts. Moreover, no instant rest after skirmishes. Meaning in vanilla, if my heavily damaged party needs to rejuvenate I have to manually activate the button to heal where I am assailable randomly. And lord help my soul if I fail that encounter during the process. Thus my momentum of adventuring unimpeded is halted. Sure I soothe my comrade's health, but what happens when I run out of charges for each of my healers? Then I am incapable of reviving their vitality. Resulting in, busywork. Coupled with the majority of loading screens from entering my throne room -> kingdom management -> back to throne room -> going out to world map -> entering a new area on the map -> reverting a save if something awry occurs -> repeat. Granted not a major deal, but over the course of my long playthrough, it all adds up. As a consequence, I am forced to struggle whereas I could be enjoying. Maybe I'm spoiled by fast load speeds, but I did install this on a fast SSD. Maybe a faster M.2 drive would be better. Goodness, imagine playing this on an HDD…

Other miscellaneous stuff: Gameplay would hang. An uncommon occurrence during random battles. Perhaps an NVME is better? I played on a Samsung SSD with a decent PC that ran the highest graphics on max settings to optimal framerate. The hanging is like a split second. Usually, initializing textures and characters when starting and during loading screens to govern your principality or unpacking a file. Not something glaringly obvious since my overall experience is still positive. Nevertheless, it is something noteworthy. Moving on. Some portraits of enemies are not given a unique picture. We are faced with our characters' faces. Pretty jarring to witness as if any major enemy is well an imposter of us. Granted not all of them are like this, but the inconsistency is mildly weird to witness.

Owlcat’s version of Pathfinder gamified is an incredibly ambitious undertaking. Took me nearly a year to finish in its entirety and while I did have some annoyances from the ruleset, scattered loading times, and mixed feelings. There’s quite a bit to enjoy among the many systems within. I liked overseeing my realm. Making tough decisions based on fair policies and having an immediate effect on my subjects whether good or bad. I delved deep to understand the deep mechanics in real time and pause. Yet at the end of the day, I think the amount of gratification here despite the herculean effort the devs have encompassed with a gigantic stuff to devour is dependent on the user's experience to get down in the trenches. If I never knew about skill checks and buffing, then I would have suffered early on because of my ignorance in taking advantage of magical resistances. If I didn’t read up on how to manage my provinces better, then possibly in a bad alternate universe I would’ve game over in my 100+ hour run due to my improper handling and neglect of the state of affairs. And that is NOT a feeling I want anyone to suffer with. Considering the reports I've read online of users having the same issues of neglecting their nation. Please make sure to check 'invincible kingdom' in the options. Speaks volumes how much you have to devote yourself to bring out something worthwhile. And for me? I think this is certainly one of the greats along with Baldur’s Gate. As long as you dedicate enough energy inside and mods installed. A deep & expansive CRPG that doesn’t hold your hand, but rewards the most invested of players. Sadly I find this incredibly difficult to recommend to everyone. Except only to fans of the genre. I believe Mandaloregaming said it best "... you play this game more for the systems than for the writing." And I can’t help but agree with their statement despite him saying the line in his story section. I would say it also accounts for the whole breadth of the game itself.

Base game without mods: 7.6/10
Base game with mods: 8/10

References & Additional Material:
Interview with the creative director on Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Pathfinder: Kingmaker Classes overview and archetypes
Example of information overload from my character
Long road to secret ending - heavy endgame spoilers within
PK Difficulty Settings - Pretty extensive options to tune the combat modifiers to your preference.
Before I play & Walkthrough

Mods:
Mod Manager - Bag of Tricks - Faster Menu - Buffbot

This game needs no introduction, as it is one of the best installments in the Dragon Quest series. This specific version expands and improves the original experience in many ways, being one of my favorite remakes because it doesn't limit itself only with modernized graphics, but also updates and expands a lot of things and obviously also because it's literally as if you merged Dragon Quest VII from PS1 (my favorite DQ) with the original DQIV from NES.

Dragon Quest IV was a turning point in the series. After Dragon Quest III, the franchise had already reached its highest point in that era, and for its fourth installment the series had two paths to choose from, either they reiterated the concept of an open world and made the game even more gigantic and free, or they made the experience more linear, restricting the player from the freedom so characteristic of the first 3 games in order to have an adventure with a tighter design. Dragon Quest IV clearly went for the second option, but as unbelievable as this may sound, this did not sacrifice the sense of adventure that characterizes Dragon Quest, rather, it was enhanced.

Let's cut to the chase, one of the reasons why Dragon Quest IV is one of the strongest installments is because of how its story is divided into chapters. It was a concept that for its time was novel and was something that greatly improved the narrative and world building, but it didn't change the overall structure drastically, it simply served as another way to present the story and gradually teach the gameplay mechanics to the player. Each chapter is good for different reasons:

Chapter 1: Like the game that started it all, Dragon Quest I, this chapter begins with a single character, with a single simple task, in a small place, but teaches enough of the Dragon Quest world to introduce new players. It teaches the basics, such as the importance of talking to NPCs, the cycle of day and night, turn-based battles, the importance of buying equipment, etc.

Chapter 2: Just as chapter 1 could be a tribute to the first Dragon Quest, this one can be considered as the perfect tribute to Dragon Quest II. Here everything is more extensive, now we control 3 members in the party instead of just one, the amount of villages and stories we encounter is greater, and in the same way, the battles start to get more complicated. Here the player learns about the importance of status altering magic and how to strategize in combat.

Chapter 3: Forget for the moment everything you learned in chapter 1 and 2, chapter 3 presents us with a twist to give you control of none other than that character who always sells you weapons and stands behind the counter, a humble merchant. This chapter is great because at first you literally start out as an NPC, but gradually you become a treasure hunter and build up a fortune that becomes almost addictive as you focus on earning more and more money on top of earning experience points. It's a pretty unique and fun chapter.

Chapter 4: I told you to forget everything you learned in chapters 1 and 2, but now you will have to remember them more than ever, because things get more complicated in this chapter and you will need to be very cautious if you don't want to have a bad time. This stage of the story shows how behind the curtain the main antagonist was slowly moving the pieces to execute his plan, and well, it is in this chapter where we see the product of that and how the enemy is already too strong, to the point that the story ends abruptly with a somewhat unfortunate conclusion, which gives way to the last chapter in the story.

As unbelievable as what I'm about to say may seem, chapter 5 could very well be considered a complete game on its own, you could say that's when the real Dragon Quest experience really begins, so it will also be the part where I will structure my review in my more "classic" way.

Chapter 5
Dragon Quest IV is for me the perfect Dragon Quest game. It maintains the purity and sense of adventure of the first three installments, and not only that, but it was the first game in the franchise to prove that in addition to adventure, there can also be a good story to tell.

The story of this game is set in a new world, it is a standalone story in a separate universe from the first three installments so you don't have to worry if you haven't played another game in the franchise before. This time we take the role of a boy with green hair that due to certain events is forced to leave on an odyssey that will take him to meet a noble knight of a distant kingdom, a princess with a lot of courage and momentum and his two faithful guards. A very nice middle-aged gentleman who is a merchant and two twin sisters who seek to avenge their father. They all unite to defeat a greater evil, Psaro, who plans to re-discover the secret of evolution to take revenge against humans.

Yes, the characters I described before are the same ones that starred in the previous chapters, and it's great how they keep their level and items when they join your party in the final chapter, and thanks to the fact that this remake aims to update Dragon Quest IV to put it on par with the seventh installment, we have the party chat that adds much more depth to each character and is a very fun addition because of the types of dialogues you can find while talking to randoms NPCs and makes it even cooler to have these 7 charismatic characters in your party. Yes, maybe this game lacks the customization and class switching that Dragon Quest III gave, but in my opinion, having 8 characters that are distinct from each other and that you can switch between at almost any time is much better and more fun. If you're on the overworld map, you can switch between party members even in the middle of battle and everyone will gain experience even if they didn't participate in the battle, and there are even some dungeons where this is also allowed, which increases the possibilities for strategy and versatility in combat.

One of my favorite moments in the game is when you unite the whole party and the main theme changes. Up to that point each character had their own overworld theme, and I just find it super cool that there is a theme for all the characters together, when Wagon Wheel March plays it's just epic it fills you with power and determination, there is no moment like this in the whole series. And it's strange, but even though the first hours you already saw most of the world, when you get the ship the game manages to make you feel that you still have a lot to discover and the game leaves the linearity aside to give you the freedom to choose at your own choice and pace the order in which you want to explore the world.

At the beginning of the review I mentioned that this game improved exploration over the previous installments in compensation for the more linear structure, so I'll expand on that. For starters, the simple and small, but significant addition of the mini-medals changed the way we see the pots, barrels and closets, as inspecting these objects can always reveal a mini-medal. The great thing about these is that every time you get a certain amount, you will be rewarded with special items that you could not find in common places or stores, such as a sword that regenerates your life when you attack or pieces of extremely strong armor. The mini medals became iconic within the series and became a must-have for every subsequent game. Another thing that was improved were the dialogues of the NPCs, as they are now more fun to read. The villagers also create and spread rumors, you read them and that's what sparks your curiosity and encourages you to explore the world to find out if the things they talk about are really true, and the best thing about this game is that it hides very interesting secrets all over the world, like the sands of time, which allow you to restart battles if you use them as an object in battle, which is extremely useful in occasions where you are losing or when you find metal slimes, or the Liquid metal sword, which is a super strong sword that you can also find by exploring normally, and that's what I like about this game, that the rewards for exploring are really significant and are not limited to potions or ethers which is usually the only thing that dungeons hide in this kind of games. In the review of DQIII I talked about how your curiosity will always be rewarded and in this game that is taken up again and improved to make exploring more entertaining.

In this game we must also make a search for "magic items", but unlike the previous installments where it was just collecting items and these had no utility beyond allowing you to advance in the story, in Dragon Quest IV we have to collect the pieces of the armor of Zenithia, which feels much more rewarding and more interesting, because getting them not only makes you advance in the story, but also makes our main character stronger by giving him exclusive characteristics, such as the Zenithian Helm that increases immunity to paralysis and sleep, or the Zenithian Sword that when used as an object in battle activates the ability to take away the enemies' status upgrades and plays a fundamental role in the final battle. And overall, rather than feeling like a collection of towns and kingdoms, everything in the world of Dragon Quest IV feels more "alive" and connected, which was strange to see in older games and is something I really like about this particular game. Another factor that helps a lot is that although the game does not tell you where to go, the world and its secrets are designed in such a way that a guide is not necessary at any time to complete the game, which for me is a great improvement over the first games.

The graphic style is taken from DQVII, although a little more polished, and even though it's not the best of PS1, it's definitely one of my favorites for combining 2D pixel art sprites with 3D environments and giving you the possibility to rotate the camera.. As for the OST of this game, I can only say that it is exceptional and is one of my favorites. I think it was in this game that Koichi Sugiyama finally managed to compose even better songs. In general terms, I think this game doesn't have a single bad song, I know that here my personal taste comes into play a lot, but the songs in this game are very good. Without a doubt one of my favorite themes is the ship theme... I simply adore it and it touches my soul every time I listen to it. The town theme is simple, cheerful and always puts me in a good mood, it's also very catchy that I've even heard my parents and brother whistling it from time to time haha. The credits theme always touches my heart and makes me miss all those adventures I lived with this game, the first time I heard it made me feel melancholy certainly... And to tell the truth I could be much longer talking about the music, but that's not the point of the review.

This is simply a magnificent remake, it expands the soundtrack, improves the graphics, adds quality of life improvements like the bag, adds post-game with additional content and an alternate ending that resolves some loose ends and makes the ending happier (although personally I prefer the original ending), adds the party chat and changes that in chapter 5 you can control all the characters, unlike the original version where all except for the hero were controlled by an AI. Heartbeat really put a lot of dedication to the Dragon Quest games they developed and I guess it was such a case that they ended up burnt out and closed the company after the release of this game even though these games were a success in sales. A pity, because after Dragon Quest III for SFC and Dragon Quest IV for PS1 there were no more remakes that had so much attention to detail and that were released on home consoles (with the exception of the PS2 remake of Dragon Quest V, which is also excellent and made with a lot of dedication.).

Conclusion
And what else is left to say? It's one of the games I enjoy the most, it has a very good story with an interesting (if a bit tragic) protagonist and villain, an OST that I can't get out of my head because of how excellent it is, and frankly it's also one of my all-time favorites. It's simply a game that resonates with me a lot and is the first one that comes to mind when it comes to recommending a game in this series.

Undoubtedly its greatness is due to Dragon Quest III, even so, it is a game that manages to be extraordinary by its own merit thanks to the evolutions that it presented, which improved the way in which these games were designed. Dragon Quest III shaped the classic Dragon Quest formula, but it was Dragon Quest IV that perfected it.

Additional comment related to the review:
I hope that someday this game will get a translation patch by fans or a new remake, because the DS version has cut the party chat, and the only full version is the mobile one, but playing on mobile doesn't appeal to me. Even with everything, it was worth playing this game in Japanese, I think it became my favorite version of the game, although I do not recommend it.

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