Kingdom Hearts on PS3! Considering they were "forced to buy a used copy" to reverse engineer the first game, it's impressive they were able to transfer it over so well, and with such amazing video output and flawless performance! The inclusion of the "between game story", with Re:Chain of Memories and the 358/2 Days cutscene movie are a nice inclusion for diehards, though casual fans are likely to skip or not appreciate them. This release is largely obsolete now with the PS4 version including 60fps and PC including higher framerates and modding support.

Outstanding PS2/PSP remaster collection, one of the best of the generation. Each game has custom 2D assets made to replicate the original look at 16:9 at a much sharper resultion than the PS2 was capable of, and every game runs at a solid 60fps despite MGS3 and Peace Walker originally running much worse! If you have a PS3 or 360 still lying around this is almost certainly your best option to play these classics. Fortunately this is based on the latest versions of each game with most bonus content included, unfortunately doesn't come with any new material outside the games and a sleek menu. Also no skateboarding/Snake vs. Monkey 😞

Overhated? For sure, in the same way Sonic '06, Dark Souls 2, and many other notably unfinished games are. Though I would struggle to call it good either. Environments are some of the coziest in the series. I'd say the new characters are pretty fun, and the music is nice at times as well.

Combat is a chore, everyone knows this game is a blockfest but did you know this remaster has a shorter quickstep in some versions? Afaik this has never been officially fixed on PC for this game or Yakuza 4. That would have made my playthrough better. In fact, playing on any difficulty but Hard would have done that too...

Absolute garbage PC port that will go down in history as a modding community win. To be fair FromSoft did not have the resources and Bandai Namco did not have the brainpower to make this port what it needed to be. The resolution was fixed around 720p. The framerate was capped at 30. What ever could we have done?

But then, hours after the disaster, a beacon of hope arrived. The fabled dsfix, spoken of only in legends today, arrived with the simple goal of getting the render resolution to match the output resolution. The resulting fixes that got attached to this project were instrumental to the game's success in the eyes of an entire generation of PC gamers who would never have touched such a laggy Xbox 360 game.

Imagine a world where this never happened. Would Dark Souls 2 ever get the PC attention (and publisher insanity) that it did? Would Dark Souls 3 have ever come to PC? Would Souls at 60 FPS ever really have happened without dsfix?

tl;dr I often still play using this version instead of the Remaster.

This game is 5 stars but this port certainly isn't! The biggest selling point of this game is the gorgeous backgrounds. Some of them are much higher resolution than the Gamecube version. Some aren't. Many are in between at completely random and arbitrary changes in level of detail. The lighting engine seems to be quite a bit different, the difference is minor but I'd say mildly noticeable and just a little worse compared to the original release. The new models and textures are nice, though it's weird to have costumes where Chris and Jill have different face structures.

I do like the added difficulty levels, this game is ruthless for series newcomers. The new analog controls are a necessary evil for getting more people to try this game I understand, but I urge every new player to try using the d-pad and learning tank controls (it makes this game and others like it so much better) even if it feels tough at first.

This was a tough one to write for me. Somehow I've played almost every single numbered game in this series and I feel like I'm missing something here. Is it because I didn't watch the movies this game is trying so hard to emulate? Most likely. But I'll try to understand this game on its own terms as best I can. It's the logical endpoint of the sales of REs 4 and 5 in the US. Obviously people wanted more co-op, more action, more explosions, more gore, more hollywood style... The cutscenes are great schlock for the most part, don't get me wrong.

This game has really deep combat as far as I understand. I never got into it because to me the perks all felt superfluous and I never knew when I was or wasn't supposed to hang around and shoot things. That was always clear in 4/5, you'd always know when you were in danger and should kill enemies, and only rarely and when you understood would you be tasked with avoiding and running. There's great weight to some of the animations, but the base movement is far too fast and fluid for your character to feel like they actually inhabit the space their model occupies on screen.

In fact, I'd say most of the game feels flat and paper thin in the visuals department. This was at a point engines like this started to look horribly dated compared to games like Far Cry 3, Batman: Arkham City, Skyrim, Dark Souls, and many others in the console space. There's a pretty egregious overuse of almost-black shadows in this game, making the whole game poorly lit like a Christopher Nolan action movie. I guess if you've got your monitor/TV and game configured right you shouldn't have too much trouble with visibility... but then how does this dumb "art style choice" fit this gameplay style at all?

Perhaps I am too deep and I'm asking too many questions. I went in expecting dumb fun with a friend. That was the same thing I expected going into RE5. However, that game blew me away in having area design and combat variety. Maybe this got me thinking RE6 would continue the tradition? It certainly doesn't for me.

This is an excellent remaster of a classic Gamecube title that I think improved on the experience enough I'd recommend it over the original. The new lighting engine and material-based rendering really transforms the game's environment and enemy design and brings everything much closer to the concept art. There are a handful of small details the Gamecube/Wii version sell a little better but overall the visuals are noticeably better. If you are playing officially, I'd say this has replaced the Wii version as my recommendation for new players of this game.

The new control schemes really sell this version above all the others. I have yet to try with a Pro Controller (I'm interested in how it handles the motion aim) but with a USB controller and joycons, I found dual stick was transformative in how much better the combat feels when you challenge yourself not to lock on. Plus a free camera means you can jump more confidently, and the general feel is much better, helping the endless backtracking of this game feel a bit more varied. Playing the game like this, I was more easily able to see the influence of the PC first person shooters and immersive sims this game took influence from as well. This first game was so fascinatingly varied in its influences!

I noticed the difficulty was a bit re-balanced compared to the Gamecube version, but also different from the changes already made to the Trilogy updated Wii version. No spoilers on where, but at the end of the game they introduced difficult enemies originally only in one or two rooms in a few more places after some major bosses have died. More scan opportunities thankfully, but there are still scans you can miss. And unfortunately, we're back to the "square somewhere on the thing" style of targets? Metroid Prime 2's "highlight the whole object" targets were sort of already in Prime 1 thanks to Trilogy's backport, though I can imagine they probably didn't use that version as the base of this project.

My biggest complaint about Metroid Prime is that it's a huge game with slow movement that asks you to repeatedly go to the same places over and over. But if you get to the end and you don't know which missile containers you are missing, you have to waste hours of your life checking every single possible spot of 50 to figure out which ones you've missed. I've played this game over a dozen times, but the only times I ever complete it 100% is when I write my own item tracker. Metroid Prime 3 had a solution for this! At the very end of the campaign, if you choose to backtrack for item cleanup, there are dots wherever there are any pickups you've missed. They served not as direct answers to where to go, but clues of where to look in the room to find the path or puzzle to them. A great inclusion, but sorely missing in this game considering the problem is worse here than Prime 2 or 3.

At this point I'm nitpicking pretty hard I understand, so take this all as a frustrated fan. This is definitely the best way to play this game, and I'm amazed at the work of the new Retro Studios. I even actually have hope that Prime 4 might possibly be a good game maybe? Not so sure still.

If you're looking for Ridge Racer for 4 players, you're in luck! Otherwise 64 is probably the weakest entry in the series unless you value more content over historic context. This acts as a compilation game of sorts for tracks from the original PS1 pair of Ridge Racer and RR Revolution, along with a couple new tracks that are alright but noticeably worse.

My biggest annoyance with this one is "progressive collisions", where crashes aren't supposed to sap speed instantly like traditional RR. Oftentimes this means you'll crash into a wall without knowing how to steer given what direction it'll give you traction again isn't clear at all. Other times, cars hitting you from behind can literally phase through you, making you hit them and slow down in the process. Thankfully you can change collisions to work like in Revolution, making the game a lot more playable imo.

For a racing game with 8 tracks, the campaign structure will make or break the game. This one is really monotonous, with a long checklist of races that unlocks cars and new tracks as you fill it out. Once you get to the end, it asks you to repeat the whole thing at the highest speed class for who knows what. I got the devil car and can get the angel if I feel like it, I'll call that done enough and probably not think much on this one again.

For their first DLC of this kind, FromSoft really hit the ground running. From the moment you are pulled in to whichever boss you beat last, it's an enrapturing ride with the most consistently good gameplay throughout Dark Souls. The spectacle, storytelling, and just general detail of everything is some of the most complete and thorough to come out of the studio. And you can really tell this was a special project to them just as Dark Souls itself was, that everything they set aside during the game's development for this got all the attention it needed to fully shine.

Despite all that, I think this DLC pushes somewhat past the capabilities of Dark Souls 1 as a gameplay system. All bosses are fast and active enough that the flaws in input handling as well as limitations of the lock on and roll mechanics provide more deaths and wasted time than usual for this game. "git gud" me all you want but 15-ish playthroughs in and I still stop short after Artorias sometimes to not have to grind so long on bosses I don't like as much as him.

And frankly the reason it's 4.5 instead of 5 stars is this game codified the "Dark Souls formula" that I feel was run into the ground. Sure it's solid, but it's not as interesting as Demon's or Dark, and I think that's generally true of later Souls games as well.