Earningcone1442
After finishing Spyro 3 Reignited I felt very conflicted. Content wise, I think Spyro 3 is probably the best of the original trilogy, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I played the worst version of the game after finishing it.
I took a break from the reignited trilogy after finishing Spyro 2 back when the game released in 2018. I remember hearing about all the performance issues and glitches with 3 specifically and figured I could take a break and wait for the glitches to get patched since I was feeling some burn out after completing Spyro 1 and 2 back to back. Based on what I had heard about Spyro 3 when the trilogy originally released, I think a lot of those original glitches and performance issues were fixed, but I still experienced a lot of really annoying glitches and performance issues even now in 2024. My game's performance slowed down to a crawl multiple times and the skateboarding races ended up being really annoying since I experienced multiple instances of Spyro trying to half pipe of the middle of the race track, completely killing my speed and making me wipe out most of the time.
To focus on some positives, I think Spyro 3 does a better job of balancing the new ideas introduced in Ripto's rage with the core collectathon gameplay from Spyro 1. I think most of 3's minigames are better than 2's. I'm really glad the spirit particles from 2 are gone and think that it makes the levels feel less repetitive and formulaic than 2's.
I think Spyro 3 also has the best story and villain in the original trilogy. The cutscenes with the sorceress are great and serve as a great motivation to take her down.
I know the different characters tend to be hit or miss with people, but I generally liked them. I think they provided a nice variation to the gameplay while mostly staying true to spyro's core gameplay. I think Sparx's sections are probably the weakest since the controls never fully clicked for me and it probably has the least to do with the core gem collecting of the trilogy.
Overall, I think Spyro 3 is alright. I think I can say it's my favorite of the trilogy, but I can't help but feel I would have had more fun with the original. I was shocked with the lack of polish still present in Reignited's Spyro 3, and while none of it is game ruining, it was still really annoying to deal with and ended up sticking with me more than the stuff I liked about the game.
I took a break from the reignited trilogy after finishing Spyro 2 back when the game released in 2018. I remember hearing about all the performance issues and glitches with 3 specifically and figured I could take a break and wait for the glitches to get patched since I was feeling some burn out after completing Spyro 1 and 2 back to back. Based on what I had heard about Spyro 3 when the trilogy originally released, I think a lot of those original glitches and performance issues were fixed, but I still experienced a lot of really annoying glitches and performance issues even now in 2024. My game's performance slowed down to a crawl multiple times and the skateboarding races ended up being really annoying since I experienced multiple instances of Spyro trying to half pipe of the middle of the race track, completely killing my speed and making me wipe out most of the time.
To focus on some positives, I think Spyro 3 does a better job of balancing the new ideas introduced in Ripto's rage with the core collectathon gameplay from Spyro 1. I think most of 3's minigames are better than 2's. I'm really glad the spirit particles from 2 are gone and think that it makes the levels feel less repetitive and formulaic than 2's.
I think Spyro 3 also has the best story and villain in the original trilogy. The cutscenes with the sorceress are great and serve as a great motivation to take her down.
I know the different characters tend to be hit or miss with people, but I generally liked them. I think they provided a nice variation to the gameplay while mostly staying true to spyro's core gameplay. I think Sparx's sections are probably the weakest since the controls never fully clicked for me and it probably has the least to do with the core gem collecting of the trilogy.
Overall, I think Spyro 3 is alright. I think I can say it's my favorite of the trilogy, but I can't help but feel I would have had more fun with the original. I was shocked with the lack of polish still present in Reignited's Spyro 3, and while none of it is game ruining, it was still really annoying to deal with and ended up sticking with me more than the stuff I liked about the game.
2020
Really cool little platformer, like they really didn't need to go this hard. It's really impressive how much content is packed into such a short little game. Each level is tightly designed with engaging action platforming segments, little hidden collectibles and lots of fun little references and easter eggs celebrating the entire history of playstation and a lot of its core series.
I don't think I've played a game that made as full of a use of its controller since ape escape. It's hard to describe what it is about Astro's playroom works as well as it does, it's just really fun and it feels like the devs had a lot of fun making it.
Astro's playroom is just super charming and cool. It doesn't take long to playthrough or even 100% and it's one of the best ways to introduce yourself to the PS5 library. If you have the means you should check it out. It's a game anyone can get a lot out of.
I don't think I've played a game that made as full of a use of its controller since ape escape. It's hard to describe what it is about Astro's playroom works as well as it does, it's just really fun and it feels like the devs had a lot of fun making it.
Astro's playroom is just super charming and cool. It doesn't take long to playthrough or even 100% and it's one of the best ways to introduce yourself to the PS5 library. If you have the means you should check it out. It's a game anyone can get a lot out of.
Ace Attorney, but British! I had never played a Layton game before PL vs PW, but this game left a very strong first impression with Layton trying to throw hands with a monster in the first 5 minutes. Going into the crossover, I was told it was much more of a Layton game than an Ace Attorney game. If that's true I'm excited to eventually get to the Layton series.
The gameplay is split about 50/50 between the Layton and Ace Attorney styles. You get your Ace Attorney courtroom scenes with (what I'm assuming are the standard) exploration and puzzle solving playstyle from the Layton series replacing what would be the investigation segments from the ace attorney games. The two styles mesh pretty well, and kind of works like the investigation segments from Ace Attorney 1 with added puzzles.
While I think the two gameplay styles fit together for the most part, I went in to this game primarily as an Ace Attorney fan, and I'd being lying if I said I didn't miss some of the added investigation mechanics from AA 2 and 3.
The story is pretty good and the character writing is all super fun. I can't speak for the accuracy of the Layton characters' portrayal, but Maya and Phoenix felt like they were plucked right out of the original trilogy. The way the characters all meet each other is perfect too, super funny!
I thought the story was really interesting and well paced. The writers did a great job of continuously escalating everything and making each plot point hit really hard and crazy. I'm not sure it fully sticks the landing and I think the ending reveal kind of comes out of nowhere. However, the reveal is used effectively in the final courtroom segment, so it's not a deal breaker for me.
The court scenes are pretty good as well. I've heard the new mechanics come back in future AA games so I'm excited to see how they are further developed. The new courtroom structure was interesting as well, and I had a fun time adapting to the new type of logic used in the new setting. I think the middle court cases felt a little too formulaic at times, but they contribute to the story in an interesting way. The new prosecutor is fun too.
Overall the AA and Layton crossover is pretty fun. It's got a lot of fun character interactions and the story gets really crazy really fast. I don't think it quite sticks the landing towards the end of the story, but it's more consistent in quality than Apollo Justice and is still a crazy fun ride a majority of the time.
The gameplay is split about 50/50 between the Layton and Ace Attorney styles. You get your Ace Attorney courtroom scenes with (what I'm assuming are the standard) exploration and puzzle solving playstyle from the Layton series replacing what would be the investigation segments from the ace attorney games. The two styles mesh pretty well, and kind of works like the investigation segments from Ace Attorney 1 with added puzzles.
While I think the two gameplay styles fit together for the most part, I went in to this game primarily as an Ace Attorney fan, and I'd being lying if I said I didn't miss some of the added investigation mechanics from AA 2 and 3.
The story is pretty good and the character writing is all super fun. I can't speak for the accuracy of the Layton characters' portrayal, but Maya and Phoenix felt like they were plucked right out of the original trilogy. The way the characters all meet each other is perfect too, super funny!
I thought the story was really interesting and well paced. The writers did a great job of continuously escalating everything and making each plot point hit really hard and crazy. I'm not sure it fully sticks the landing and I think the ending reveal kind of comes out of nowhere. However, the reveal is used effectively in the final courtroom segment, so it's not a deal breaker for me.
The court scenes are pretty good as well. I've heard the new mechanics come back in future AA games so I'm excited to see how they are further developed. The new courtroom structure was interesting as well, and I had a fun time adapting to the new type of logic used in the new setting. I think the middle court cases felt a little too formulaic at times, but they contribute to the story in an interesting way. The new prosecutor is fun too.
Overall the AA and Layton crossover is pretty fun. It's got a lot of fun character interactions and the story gets really crazy really fast. I don't think it quite sticks the landing towards the end of the story, but it's more consistent in quality than Apollo Justice and is still a crazy fun ride a majority of the time.
2024
I tried my best to go into reload relatively blind, I played FES beforehand but I didn't watch a majority of the trailers or any of the gameplay footage. Going in, I was expecting reload to be good and fix most of my issues with FES. After playing FES and reload almost back to back, I was surprised at how faithful reload was. Most of the changes made feel additive and serve to improve the pacing of the original game's story while also fleshing out a few characters' motivations.
My biggest issue with the original game was its over reliance on rng in the 100% experience. This is the biggest detractor for me whenever I think about replaying FES (just the thought of spending hours rerolling move inheritance while fusing personas hurts). As expected, reload fixes this by letting you pick the moves you want to inherit directly which I really appreciated. I was not expecting the game to go even farther and retool Elizabeth's requests that heavily relied on rng in FES. There's no more rerolling floors to try and get a gold chest to spawn only have another small chance of actually finding the weapon or item you're looking for. Additionally, while reload still has gold shadow requests, the shadows don't immediately disappear if you so much as look at them, so you actually have a good chance to hit them and not have to waste 30-60 minutes having to reroll floors trying to get them to spawn again. These changes alone drastically improved the completionist experience for me.
The original game is also notorious for having a strict time limit when going for max social links. Reload does a few things to alleviate the stress of trying to complete everything (more opportunities to increase social stats, hermit not taking up a whole day, etc.). I still ended up maxing my last link the day before the final boss, but my playthrough was very unoptimized. The game adds new hangouts/storylines for the male SEES members so most of the time I managed to save on social links was spent maxing these as well. I still really appreciated the added flexibility in maxing out all the social links and it only adds to the replayability of the game for me since I never felt the need to be super particular about doing every link on a specific designated day like I did on my 100% run of FES. The idea of replaying the game and optimizing my route just gives me a sense of satisfaction that I haven't felt since playing Majora's Mask for the first time.
Party members are controllable now, and while I am a defender of FES's battle system and think the hate for the AI party members is very overblown, I can't deny direct party control just feels better and helps speed up the pace of fights.
Tartarus has a lot of changes too. I ended up appreciating the new camera angle a lot more than I thought I would since it greatly reduced the amount of ambushes due to me swinging my sword too early or my aim being off by just a little bit. There's also more stuff to do in tartarus besides climb floors and fight bosses/enemies now plus a few new floor gimmicks to change up the gameplay every once in a while. Being able to run and fast travel on floors you've explored before are also nice QOL changes that help keep the pace of the game going. I liked tartarus in the original game, so I'm not sure if these changes are enough to sway the people who hated tartarus in the original game, but I'd imagine the QOL changes alone would greatly improve your tartarus experience if you hated the original.
If you're trying to get into the modern persona series, I'm not sure if reload is the best game to start with over royal. Reload is very faithful to the original game and the original persona 3 can be a bit of a slow burn. In contrast, I think royal's opening is a little faster paced and it's first conflict leaves a stronger impression/hook. If go into reload with this in mind, I think you'll really enjoy it.
To address the elephant in the room, it does suck that we still don't have a definitive persona 3 experience since reload lacks the P3P exclusive content, but with The Answer dlc being confirmed, I feel I can confidently say that reload is the definitive FES experience for me.
Overall, I really loved my time with reload. Persona 3 is just a really special game, and the new changes really enhanced the overall experience for me. I love the added character stuff and it only serves to help flesh out the world I loved from the original game even more. Reload might be the closest a non-pokemon rpg has felt to a comfort game for me. I know I'm going to replay it and experiment with new routes many times in the future.
My biggest issue with the original game was its over reliance on rng in the 100% experience. This is the biggest detractor for me whenever I think about replaying FES (just the thought of spending hours rerolling move inheritance while fusing personas hurts). As expected, reload fixes this by letting you pick the moves you want to inherit directly which I really appreciated. I was not expecting the game to go even farther and retool Elizabeth's requests that heavily relied on rng in FES. There's no more rerolling floors to try and get a gold chest to spawn only have another small chance of actually finding the weapon or item you're looking for. Additionally, while reload still has gold shadow requests, the shadows don't immediately disappear if you so much as look at them, so you actually have a good chance to hit them and not have to waste 30-60 minutes having to reroll floors trying to get them to spawn again. These changes alone drastically improved the completionist experience for me.
The original game is also notorious for having a strict time limit when going for max social links. Reload does a few things to alleviate the stress of trying to complete everything (more opportunities to increase social stats, hermit not taking up a whole day, etc.). I still ended up maxing my last link the day before the final boss, but my playthrough was very unoptimized. The game adds new hangouts/storylines for the male SEES members so most of the time I managed to save on social links was spent maxing these as well. I still really appreciated the added flexibility in maxing out all the social links and it only adds to the replayability of the game for me since I never felt the need to be super particular about doing every link on a specific designated day like I did on my 100% run of FES. The idea of replaying the game and optimizing my route just gives me a sense of satisfaction that I haven't felt since playing Majora's Mask for the first time.
Party members are controllable now, and while I am a defender of FES's battle system and think the hate for the AI party members is very overblown, I can't deny direct party control just feels better and helps speed up the pace of fights.
Tartarus has a lot of changes too. I ended up appreciating the new camera angle a lot more than I thought I would since it greatly reduced the amount of ambushes due to me swinging my sword too early or my aim being off by just a little bit. There's also more stuff to do in tartarus besides climb floors and fight bosses/enemies now plus a few new floor gimmicks to change up the gameplay every once in a while. Being able to run and fast travel on floors you've explored before are also nice QOL changes that help keep the pace of the game going. I liked tartarus in the original game, so I'm not sure if these changes are enough to sway the people who hated tartarus in the original game, but I'd imagine the QOL changes alone would greatly improve your tartarus experience if you hated the original.
If you're trying to get into the modern persona series, I'm not sure if reload is the best game to start with over royal. Reload is very faithful to the original game and the original persona 3 can be a bit of a slow burn. In contrast, I think royal's opening is a little faster paced and it's first conflict leaves a stronger impression/hook. If go into reload with this in mind, I think you'll really enjoy it.
To address the elephant in the room, it does suck that we still don't have a definitive persona 3 experience since reload lacks the P3P exclusive content, but with The Answer dlc being confirmed, I feel I can confidently say that reload is the definitive FES experience for me.
Overall, I really loved my time with reload. Persona 3 is just a really special game, and the new changes really enhanced the overall experience for me. I love the added character stuff and it only serves to help flesh out the world I loved from the original game even more. Reload might be the closest a non-pokemon rpg has felt to a comfort game for me. I know I'm going to replay it and experiment with new routes many times in the future.
For the longest time, Hit and Run has been one of those games that's always been on my radar but I've never had the means to actually play myself. I've loved the simpsons since I was a kid so I'd always wanted to play it, but once I actually got my own copy of the game, for the longest time it would be one of those games that I'd pick up, play for a bit, then drop it before every finishing the first level. This was my third attempt at actually finishing the game and it finally clicked for me.
First of all, if you've ever been in a similar situation to me where you'd drop the game because of the repetitive gameplay loop, I'd recommend going for 100%. This is what I did this time and taking the extra time to explore Springfield and look for collectibles really helped break up the repetition of the earlier driving missions, while I was still getting used to the controls.
Going on to the positives, this is without a doubt the most engaging and lived in Springfield has ever felt in a Simpsons game (at least out of the ones I've played). The hubs are all fun to drive around and explore and filled with so many little details, jokes and references. It's very clear the devs had a lot of fun designing the hubs and it only adds to the charm of the game for me. The sandbox is also just really fun to mess around in whether it's testing out new cars and costumes or just being a general nuisance (kicking the npcs is more fun than it has any right to be).
The writing is also great and feels right out of the classic era of the show. The actual plot is pretty nonsensical, but the game has fun with it and never takes it super seriously.
The controls can be kind of hit or miss. It's very clear that most of the focus was spent on the driving controls because the driving feels great and is really fun. The best cars have that perfect fast and loose feeling and provide that "easy to be use, but tough to master" controls design that makes completing tough drifts or taking harder to access shortcuts feel really rewarding the later you get into the game.
On the other hand, the controls that do not involve driving are really janky. Going for 100% will require some platforming and it doesn't feel good. Everyone feels oddly heavy and the double jump timing in particular feels super awkward and delayed. The closest description I can think of is that it feels like Crash's weird double jump timing in crash 3 N sane but more delayed. The weird thing though is that Hit and Run's platforming is consistent in it's jankyness. So while it never feels good, it's far from impossible and you can adjust to the weird heaviness and double jump timing with a little effort.
I'm also not a fan of how the cost of the costumes and vehicles scale up in the later levels. On it's own this isn't a problem, but the game reuses a few levels without adding more places to get the coins needed to afford the later mandatory vehicles and costumes. I don't think this would be a problem on most casual playthroughs, but buying all the vehicles and costumes is required for 100%, so that means coin grinding will be required if you wanna go down that route and it sucks.
Lastly, the final level really drops the ball. The set up is super fun, but the second half of the level just consists of doing the exact same drive 3 times and it's very repetitive. The difficulty curve can also be all over the place in this game. The final mission has become pretty infamous for this, and while I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is it's still noticeably harder than the missions leading up to it. Level 6 also has this issue with the mission where you have to destroy the laser gun stands (I still don't know what I did differently from my previous attempts in my one successful one) and it's also an issue in a lot of the street races.
Overall, the strengths and charm massively outweigh the cons for me. The open world is the best in any simpsons game and the writing and voice acting are all perfect. I'd still probably say The Simpsons game is my favorite Simpsons videogame between the two, but I'd have to replay that game in order to say for sure.
First of all, if you've ever been in a similar situation to me where you'd drop the game because of the repetitive gameplay loop, I'd recommend going for 100%. This is what I did this time and taking the extra time to explore Springfield and look for collectibles really helped break up the repetition of the earlier driving missions, while I was still getting used to the controls.
Going on to the positives, this is without a doubt the most engaging and lived in Springfield has ever felt in a Simpsons game (at least out of the ones I've played). The hubs are all fun to drive around and explore and filled with so many little details, jokes and references. It's very clear the devs had a lot of fun designing the hubs and it only adds to the charm of the game for me. The sandbox is also just really fun to mess around in whether it's testing out new cars and costumes or just being a general nuisance (kicking the npcs is more fun than it has any right to be).
The writing is also great and feels right out of the classic era of the show. The actual plot is pretty nonsensical, but the game has fun with it and never takes it super seriously.
The controls can be kind of hit or miss. It's very clear that most of the focus was spent on the driving controls because the driving feels great and is really fun. The best cars have that perfect fast and loose feeling and provide that "easy to be use, but tough to master" controls design that makes completing tough drifts or taking harder to access shortcuts feel really rewarding the later you get into the game.
On the other hand, the controls that do not involve driving are really janky. Going for 100% will require some platforming and it doesn't feel good. Everyone feels oddly heavy and the double jump timing in particular feels super awkward and delayed. The closest description I can think of is that it feels like Crash's weird double jump timing in crash 3 N sane but more delayed. The weird thing though is that Hit and Run's platforming is consistent in it's jankyness. So while it never feels good, it's far from impossible and you can adjust to the weird heaviness and double jump timing with a little effort.
I'm also not a fan of how the cost of the costumes and vehicles scale up in the later levels. On it's own this isn't a problem, but the game reuses a few levels without adding more places to get the coins needed to afford the later mandatory vehicles and costumes. I don't think this would be a problem on most casual playthroughs, but buying all the vehicles and costumes is required for 100%, so that means coin grinding will be required if you wanna go down that route and it sucks.
Lastly, the final level really drops the ball. The set up is super fun, but the second half of the level just consists of doing the exact same drive 3 times and it's very repetitive. The difficulty curve can also be all over the place in this game. The final mission has become pretty infamous for this, and while I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is it's still noticeably harder than the missions leading up to it. Level 6 also has this issue with the mission where you have to destroy the laser gun stands (I still don't know what I did differently from my previous attempts in my one successful one) and it's also an issue in a lot of the street races.
Overall, the strengths and charm massively outweigh the cons for me. The open world is the best in any simpsons game and the writing and voice acting are all perfect. I'd still probably say The Simpsons game is my favorite Simpsons videogame between the two, but I'd have to replay that game in order to say for sure.
1999
I wanted to go back to my roots and play a fun monkey game. After experiencing Ape Escape, I don't think I've played a game that accomplished everything it set out to do so perfectly since Celeste.
Ape Escape is so fun and it's full of that old school ps1 charm. The premise is super unique and the art style is great and just fills you with that warm feeling of comfort that you can only get from a chunky ps1 game. The goofy voice acting comes around to being great and just makes the game all that much more enjoyable.
I don't think I've ever played a game that took as much advantage of the controller as Ape Escape either. It's obvious the game was designed with the dualshock in mind and the game does a great job of utilizing every feature of the controller without making it overly complicated.
The structure also feels unique compared to other 3D platformers. Going in, I was expecting it to play like a
collect-a-thon platformer, but I was surprised by how unique it felt. The gameplay style is hard to describe, but it feels like it's halfway between a 3D collect-a-thon and a more typical 3D platformer and it was very refreshing.
Each ape serves as a unique puzzle that has multiple different ways of approaching it, depending on the gadgets you like to use or the type of movement/approach you like to take which helps replays stand out.
It's not a perfect game, but my issues with it are so small they're just nitpicks. For example, I never fully got used to the menu UI. It's hard to describe, but the menu options default to undoing what you just selected, so for example, if you want to load a save and select that option, the first option in the subsequent menu is to go back to the previous page instead of confirming you want to load the save. This just really messed with my muscle memory from playing other games.
I'm also not a fan of how the time trials are tied to 100% completion. Time trial modes don't really appeal to me in general and in games like Ape Escape, where there is no reward for 100% completion, making the time trials contribute to the completion requirements just feels like padding.
Ape Escape has always been one of those bucket list 3D platformers for me and I'm just so happy that it lived up to the hype. It's not one of my favorite games at the end of the day, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to do so perfectly and is just so fun and unique that I can't help but give it 5 stars.
Ape Escape is so fun and it's full of that old school ps1 charm. The premise is super unique and the art style is great and just fills you with that warm feeling of comfort that you can only get from a chunky ps1 game. The goofy voice acting comes around to being great and just makes the game all that much more enjoyable.
I don't think I've ever played a game that took as much advantage of the controller as Ape Escape either. It's obvious the game was designed with the dualshock in mind and the game does a great job of utilizing every feature of the controller without making it overly complicated.
The structure also feels unique compared to other 3D platformers. Going in, I was expecting it to play like a
collect-a-thon platformer, but I was surprised by how unique it felt. The gameplay style is hard to describe, but it feels like it's halfway between a 3D collect-a-thon and a more typical 3D platformer and it was very refreshing.
Each ape serves as a unique puzzle that has multiple different ways of approaching it, depending on the gadgets you like to use or the type of movement/approach you like to take which helps replays stand out.
It's not a perfect game, but my issues with it are so small they're just nitpicks. For example, I never fully got used to the menu UI. It's hard to describe, but the menu options default to undoing what you just selected, so for example, if you want to load a save and select that option, the first option in the subsequent menu is to go back to the previous page instead of confirming you want to load the save. This just really messed with my muscle memory from playing other games.
I'm also not a fan of how the time trials are tied to 100% completion. Time trial modes don't really appeal to me in general and in games like Ape Escape, where there is no reward for 100% completion, making the time trials contribute to the completion requirements just feels like padding.
Ape Escape has always been one of those bucket list 3D platformers for me and I'm just so happy that it lived up to the hype. It's not one of my favorite games at the end of the day, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to do so perfectly and is just so fun and unique that I can't help but give it 5 stars.
I was really interested going into The Answer since people either seem to really hate it or really like it, and I could never get a general consensus on it whenever I would ask people about it. After playing through it myself... Yeah it's a mixed bag, although I do find myself landing more so on the positive side of the aisle when it comes to this game.
The 3 biggest complaints I've heard people have about this game are: 1. Too much grinding/gameplay not being appealing, 2. People are acting out of character and 3. It ruins/invalidates the ending of The Journey. I think most of these complaints are valid and I want to address each of these separately and give my own thoughts on them.
Starting with the gameplay/grinding complaints: if you didn't like Tartarus or the battle mechanics in The Journey, then The Answer is not gonna be for you. If you did enjoy those parts of The Journey, then you'll probably enjoy your time with The Answer since that's basically all the extra game mode is comprised of.
As for the grinding issues people have with the game, I never experienced those issues myself. I got through the game very comfortably by using my first run through an area to explore/collect items and fight enemies then just bum rush to the boss on my second time through. I only had to grind twice playing through the game like this, and that was more so to help my other, lesser used, party members catch up to the levels of my more used party members.
Out of character complaints: I'm kind of mixed on this one myself. There were only 2 characters that stood out to me as being weirdly written/out of character on my play through, Akihiko and Yukari. I thought Aki was overly agro for the first few areas of the Abyss of Time, but he chilled out as the game progressed and become more like how he was in The Journey. I'm still really mixed on Yukari's characterization even after finishing the game more than a week ago. I do think they leaned a little too far into this new characterization for her and it does feel like it goes against her development in The Journey, but at the same time I understand that grief affects everyone differently and can make people act against their better judgement sometimes so I feel weird trying to compare her characterization between the two game modes directly.
The Answer ruins/invalidates the ending of The Journey: I don't get this complaint at all. Without getting too spoilery, the specific complaint I'm referencing is that The Answer invalidates the MC's sacrifice in The Journey. I didn't get that interpretation at all from The Answer's ending when I finished it and even had to rewatch it again on youtube to confirm I didn't miss anything and I still don't understand that interpretation. I definitely didn't interpret it that way, but I'd be interested in hearing more people's thoughts who did interpret the ending that way so I could get a better understanding.
As for what didn't work for me, my biggest issue is once again the fusion system. The lack of a persona compendium is annoying but wasn't game ruining. The worst it does is lead to some tedious battles to try and get the persona you want in shuffle time. I'd highly recommend anyone who's interested in playing the Answer having a fusion calculator and a list of the personas that are available in each area of the Abyss of Time in order to reduce the amount of battles required to fuse the specific personas you want. The personas that appear in shuffle time seem to scale with your level so I would find an area where the persona I'm looking for was a high level spawn and only shuffle time grind towards the ends of those areas to increase their chances of appearing. The VA work is really good too. Aigis' VA in particular really goes all out and was just great.
Similarly to The Journey, I still really hate the random skill inheritance. However, since the fusion system is much simpler in The Answer (there are only normal and triple fusions) I spent much less time resetting for decent movesets in The Answer than I did in the Journey. It didn't make those times I had to constantly reset for decent moves suck any less, but they were less prevalent which I appreciated.
As for what worked for me, I really liked the look and design of the new areas. The large rooms with the falling sand and the pendulums in particular stand out to me as just looking really cool. The music is always is also great. I know everyone says this, but it's cool how the new battle theme is the next verse of the battle theme from The Journey.
I also really liked the bosses (for the most part). The bosses all utilize a unique strategy and actual new enemy designs used in the bosses and throughout The Answer were all really cool and creative. This led to the bosses being more engaging and interesting to fight than the bosses in The Journey and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them.
Thinking back on The Answer, I'm definitely happy I played through it and I'd probably play through it again if I ever get around to playing through FES again. It's definitely got a lot of strengths, but the weaker/weirder stuff about it stands out a lot more than the weaker aspects of The Journey. There's still a lot to like and I think it ends on a good note, but whole experience felt very mixed throughout. It's a game I have a hard time rating, since my thoughts on it seem to constantly change every day, but for now I'm settling on an average but mostly positive score for it.
The 3 biggest complaints I've heard people have about this game are: 1. Too much grinding/gameplay not being appealing, 2. People are acting out of character and 3. It ruins/invalidates the ending of The Journey. I think most of these complaints are valid and I want to address each of these separately and give my own thoughts on them.
Starting with the gameplay/grinding complaints: if you didn't like Tartarus or the battle mechanics in The Journey, then The Answer is not gonna be for you. If you did enjoy those parts of The Journey, then you'll probably enjoy your time with The Answer since that's basically all the extra game mode is comprised of.
As for the grinding issues people have with the game, I never experienced those issues myself. I got through the game very comfortably by using my first run through an area to explore/collect items and fight enemies then just bum rush to the boss on my second time through. I only had to grind twice playing through the game like this, and that was more so to help my other, lesser used, party members catch up to the levels of my more used party members.
Out of character complaints: I'm kind of mixed on this one myself. There were only 2 characters that stood out to me as being weirdly written/out of character on my play through, Akihiko and Yukari. I thought Aki was overly agro for the first few areas of the Abyss of Time, but he chilled out as the game progressed and become more like how he was in The Journey. I'm still really mixed on Yukari's characterization even after finishing the game more than a week ago. I do think they leaned a little too far into this new characterization for her and it does feel like it goes against her development in The Journey, but at the same time I understand that grief affects everyone differently and can make people act against their better judgement sometimes so I feel weird trying to compare her characterization between the two game modes directly.
The Answer ruins/invalidates the ending of The Journey: I don't get this complaint at all. Without getting too spoilery, the specific complaint I'm referencing is that The Answer invalidates the MC's sacrifice in The Journey. I didn't get that interpretation at all from The Answer's ending when I finished it and even had to rewatch it again on youtube to confirm I didn't miss anything and I still don't understand that interpretation. I definitely didn't interpret it that way, but I'd be interested in hearing more people's thoughts who did interpret the ending that way so I could get a better understanding.
As for what didn't work for me, my biggest issue is once again the fusion system. The lack of a persona compendium is annoying but wasn't game ruining. The worst it does is lead to some tedious battles to try and get the persona you want in shuffle time. I'd highly recommend anyone who's interested in playing the Answer having a fusion calculator and a list of the personas that are available in each area of the Abyss of Time in order to reduce the amount of battles required to fuse the specific personas you want. The personas that appear in shuffle time seem to scale with your level so I would find an area where the persona I'm looking for was a high level spawn and only shuffle time grind towards the ends of those areas to increase their chances of appearing. The VA work is really good too. Aigis' VA in particular really goes all out and was just great.
Similarly to The Journey, I still really hate the random skill inheritance. However, since the fusion system is much simpler in The Answer (there are only normal and triple fusions) I spent much less time resetting for decent movesets in The Answer than I did in the Journey. It didn't make those times I had to constantly reset for decent moves suck any less, but they were less prevalent which I appreciated.
As for what worked for me, I really liked the look and design of the new areas. The large rooms with the falling sand and the pendulums in particular stand out to me as just looking really cool. The music is always is also great. I know everyone says this, but it's cool how the new battle theme is the next verse of the battle theme from The Journey.
I also really liked the bosses (for the most part). The bosses all utilize a unique strategy and actual new enemy designs used in the bosses and throughout The Answer were all really cool and creative. This led to the bosses being more engaging and interesting to fight than the bosses in The Journey and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them.
Thinking back on The Answer, I'm definitely happy I played through it and I'd probably play through it again if I ever get around to playing through FES again. It's definitely got a lot of strengths, but the weaker/weirder stuff about it stands out a lot more than the weaker aspects of The Journey. There's still a lot to like and I think it ends on a good note, but whole experience felt very mixed throughout. It's a game I have a hard time rating, since my thoughts on it seem to constantly change every day, but for now I'm settling on an average but mostly positive score for it.
2007
I really enjoyed my time with persona 3 although I'm not sure I've played a game that's so highly regarded, yet has so many aspects people complain about.
To address the immediate elephant in the room, I think everyone's complaints about the AI party members are overblown. Before I started the game, this was the aspect of the game I was most worried about. By the way people talked about it, it seemed like you had no input over what your party members did at all, so I was happy to know that you could still give them some input through the tactics system. I'll admit I had a few rough AI party moments when I started playing, but as I progressed and unlocked more tactics commands this became more and more of a nonissue for me. Once I unlocked the knock down command, just doing the bare minimum of setting everyone to knock down pretty much solved any issue with the party system I had initially (e.g. Marin Karin spam, attacking enemies that were already knocked down, etc.). This also allowed me to finish most battles with an all out attack and pick up a lot of wand cards and extra personas in shuffle time which helped cut down on grinding.
I don't want to give the impression that the AI party members are better than being able to freely control them because obviously free control would be better, but I think the tactics system is better than most people give it credit for (especially as you start unlocking more commands as you progress further into the story) and proper use of it negates most of the AI's questionable choices about 95% of the time.
I know some people have issues with Tartarus as well, but I didn't mind it (although I haven't played any other dungeon crawlers to really compare it to anything). I found that it was a nice break between the everyday activities, and as I progressed further I found myself spending more and more time there as I had less and less to do in the social sim aspects of the game.
Instead, my biggest issue with P3FES is its over reliance on RNG. Going in to the game, I knew there would be some RNG. After all, the game's an RPG after all there's always some sort of RNG involved, but it's so much more prevalent in P3 than any other RPG I've played. There's RNG involved in when you recover from being tired, from finding rare chests required to complete certain requests, in finding extra personas, in fusion, and there's probably more that I'm forgetting to mention.
My biggest issues with the RNG were with finding certain rare items required for Elizabeth's requests. I went for 100% Elizabeth requests in my run, and finding some of those rare weapons in rare chests ended up taking way longer than it should have. Being able to find other items in rare chests after you've accepted the particular request in addition to the rare percentage of getting the rare chest to even spawn is just mean.
My biggest issue with the game is the RNG involved in persona fusion. I really grew to hate the fusion system in this game and it's all because of the random skill inheritance. For some reason this was the aspect of the RNG that just never wanted to work for me and I often spent multiple hours constantly rerolling movesets to get something usable in the persona I was trying to fuse. It gets even worse when trying to fuse ultimate personas (or just any of the personas that require more than 3 personas to fuse them). The more lower leveled/weaker personas that had terrible movesets involved in the fusion always seemed to have more of an influence on the final personas moveset than the actual strong personas whose moves I was actually trying to pass down. My most extreme example of this was when it took me more than 3 days of constant rerolling to get a Thanatos with an ok moveset and I ended up giving up and settling for a moveset that I still wasn't satisfied with (I don't need Mudo or mudoon when I'm trying to pass down Die for Me and Mudo boost!).
Moving on to the positives, I think the game still looks nice. The 3D areas are surprisingly detailed and of course the portraits and 2D cutscenes all looks nice.
The story was also really interesting. I think the game did a good job of introducing new aspects to the story that seemingly aren't connected only to reveal how it's connected to the overarching plot in a satisfying way. Additionally, the ending was really strong and got me.
I also really liked the main cast by the end of the game. I think P3 does a good job of showing how this group of people who are pretty much strangers or all have hidden beefs with each other grow and come together as a family.
The social links tend to be kind of hit or miss, but the good ones are really good and for the most part, the bad ones are just kind of boring or underwhelming. Most of them felt simple compared to future games in the series, but there's a fun charm to their simplicity and you really feel like you get to know the characters by the end of most of them. I do wish there were social links for more than just the female SEES members, but that goes to show how much I like the main cast. I know portable adds a bunch of new social links and I'm definitely planning to check it out some time in the future.
Plus it goes without saying, the soundtrack is amazing. I think the music chosen for each area fits perfectly and I like how the soundtrack is implemented into the overworld and seeing how everything changes the further you progress into the game.
Overall, I found P3 to be a really good time. If you're hesitant to try it because of the aspects everyone complains about, I would still recommend giving it a try (and if you really can't adjust to the AI party members, there are mods to change that). I really hope those complaints don't deter people from playing P3 since it's great aspects really outshine the aspects everyone complains about.
To address the immediate elephant in the room, I think everyone's complaints about the AI party members are overblown. Before I started the game, this was the aspect of the game I was most worried about. By the way people talked about it, it seemed like you had no input over what your party members did at all, so I was happy to know that you could still give them some input through the tactics system. I'll admit I had a few rough AI party moments when I started playing, but as I progressed and unlocked more tactics commands this became more and more of a nonissue for me. Once I unlocked the knock down command, just doing the bare minimum of setting everyone to knock down pretty much solved any issue with the party system I had initially (e.g. Marin Karin spam, attacking enemies that were already knocked down, etc.). This also allowed me to finish most battles with an all out attack and pick up a lot of wand cards and extra personas in shuffle time which helped cut down on grinding.
I don't want to give the impression that the AI party members are better than being able to freely control them because obviously free control would be better, but I think the tactics system is better than most people give it credit for (especially as you start unlocking more commands as you progress further into the story) and proper use of it negates most of the AI's questionable choices about 95% of the time.
I know some people have issues with Tartarus as well, but I didn't mind it (although I haven't played any other dungeon crawlers to really compare it to anything). I found that it was a nice break between the everyday activities, and as I progressed further I found myself spending more and more time there as I had less and less to do in the social sim aspects of the game.
Instead, my biggest issue with P3FES is its over reliance on RNG. Going in to the game, I knew there would be some RNG. After all, the game's an RPG after all there's always some sort of RNG involved, but it's so much more prevalent in P3 than any other RPG I've played. There's RNG involved in when you recover from being tired, from finding rare chests required to complete certain requests, in finding extra personas, in fusion, and there's probably more that I'm forgetting to mention.
My biggest issues with the RNG were with finding certain rare items required for Elizabeth's requests. I went for 100% Elizabeth requests in my run, and finding some of those rare weapons in rare chests ended up taking way longer than it should have. Being able to find other items in rare chests after you've accepted the particular request in addition to the rare percentage of getting the rare chest to even spawn is just mean.
My biggest issue with the game is the RNG involved in persona fusion. I really grew to hate the fusion system in this game and it's all because of the random skill inheritance. For some reason this was the aspect of the RNG that just never wanted to work for me and I often spent multiple hours constantly rerolling movesets to get something usable in the persona I was trying to fuse. It gets even worse when trying to fuse ultimate personas (or just any of the personas that require more than 3 personas to fuse them). The more lower leveled/weaker personas that had terrible movesets involved in the fusion always seemed to have more of an influence on the final personas moveset than the actual strong personas whose moves I was actually trying to pass down. My most extreme example of this was when it took me more than 3 days of constant rerolling to get a Thanatos with an ok moveset and I ended up giving up and settling for a moveset that I still wasn't satisfied with (I don't need Mudo or mudoon when I'm trying to pass down Die for Me and Mudo boost!).
Moving on to the positives, I think the game still looks nice. The 3D areas are surprisingly detailed and of course the portraits and 2D cutscenes all looks nice.
The story was also really interesting. I think the game did a good job of introducing new aspects to the story that seemingly aren't connected only to reveal how it's connected to the overarching plot in a satisfying way. Additionally, the ending was really strong and got me.
I also really liked the main cast by the end of the game. I think P3 does a good job of showing how this group of people who are pretty much strangers or all have hidden beefs with each other grow and come together as a family.
The social links tend to be kind of hit or miss, but the good ones are really good and for the most part, the bad ones are just kind of boring or underwhelming. Most of them felt simple compared to future games in the series, but there's a fun charm to their simplicity and you really feel like you get to know the characters by the end of most of them. I do wish there were social links for more than just the female SEES members, but that goes to show how much I like the main cast. I know portable adds a bunch of new social links and I'm definitely planning to check it out some time in the future.
Plus it goes without saying, the soundtrack is amazing. I think the music chosen for each area fits perfectly and I like how the soundtrack is implemented into the overworld and seeing how everything changes the further you progress into the game.
Overall, I found P3 to be a really good time. If you're hesitant to try it because of the aspects everyone complains about, I would still recommend giving it a try (and if you really can't adjust to the AI party members, there are mods to change that). I really hope those complaints don't deter people from playing P3 since it's great aspects really outshine the aspects everyone complains about.
I originally wanted to wait until the NG+ update was released before talking about this game's story, but given that it's probably not being released for a while and I've had a month now to reflect on my thoughts about the game I just wanna write about it.
As a lifelong spider-man fan, I love this game. I had a big grin on my face throughout the entire time playing it and no matter what I end up saying about the story, that doesn't change how much I enjoyed playing through it.
Starting with the positives, technically this game is great. It really feels like it was designed with the PS5 hardware in mind and warrants being on the new system.
Almost everything from a gameplay perspective also feels like a step up from the first game. The swinging feels even better, the new movement options are all fun and being able to pulls off long movement and trick chains to keep your speed and momentum just feels really good.
I also think the non spider-man missions were a lot better than in the first game. For the most part, they all felt faster paced while still making you feel vulnerable to whatever threats you had to deal with. I think they're spaced out well enough and fit within the story to not completely detract from the spider-man play style and it feels like they're designed in a much more open ended way that would allow you to just run through them and get them over with if that better matches your play style. By the end of the game Mary Jane feels like a resident evil character, and I mean that in a good way.
I'm kind of mixed on the combat. For the most part it still feels good, with the symbiote combat in particular feeling perfect. My biggest issue is with the gadgets. For the most part, they just felt like a step down from the original game and I found myself missing my go-to gadgets from the first game a lot. I understand the lack of the gadget wheel in terms of trying to streamline the combat, but the new system never fully clicked for me and I had to constantly remind myself to use gadgets during combat and never really experimented with them like I did in the first game. I also feel like the devs chose the strangest gadgets to bring back and I really ended up missing the impact webs, trip mines and web bombs in particular.
The side content ranged from good to ok for me. In general I really liked the smaller scale side missions and think they effectively show what makes spider-man unique from other super heroes. Other than those side missions it feels like a majority of them were overly reliant on combat and enemy beat em ups, and I think the game could have benefitted from a larger variety in the side content.
The voice acting is also great. Yuri Lowenthal really goes all out as Peter and is quickly establishing himself as one of my favorite actors to play the character. If he didn't convince you before in the previous games he will now.
My biggest issues with the game are story related. In short, the story just feels rushed and the game lacks the character work that made the previous 2 insomniac spider-man games so memorable.
As far as set up goes, I think the game nails this down very well. The opening set piece is fun and feels like a step up from the first game, while also serving as a good set up for Kraven. Kraven in general is really good in this game too and the new take worked for me. The game sets up Harry and Peter's relationship really well too and for the most part, I think everything story related feels consistent with the first game up until Peter gets the black suit.
Once Peter gets the black suit, the story feels like it's put on fast forward. It has most of the key moments required for an effective symbiote storyline, but it lacks the character moments to tie it all together and as a result it just feels rushed, the characters feel underdeveloped and the game never reaches that "O crap this thing is bad" moment that they story is building up to (at least from an emotional standpoint). Then when Venom is introduced, he feels very underutilized and does aspects from a lot of more recent interpretations without incorporating anything that made him interesting from the comics and other source material.
Something I've heard more recently that has stuck with me is also the thought that it's ironic how the game has themes of rehabilitation, but doesn't commit to that with spider-man's original enemy turned ally in venom.
All this results in a story that feels like it jumps from scene to scene around the 1/3 mark that doesn't check in with the characters in any meaningful way. It just kind of happens without having the emotional highs that the first game's story had.
The podcasts weren't as fun as the previous games for me either. Jonah's felt consistent to me, but I don't remember hearing it that often to really compare it to the previous games. The Danika one ended up getting on my nerves because she seemed to know too much about what was going on with the spider-men to the point of clairvoyance. I prefer how they were handled in the previous games and I hope the devs just stick to using the podcasts as fun world building and character interactions in the third game instead of using them as a way to re-explain the plot that we just experienced.
As far as the flame side story goes, I think it's alright. I think it sets up a really interesting take on and set up for a big character, but I can't say anything more than that because it doesn't amount to anything more than setup for a third game or future dlc. If that storyline continues with the same level of quality of the setup and concludes in a satisfying way, then it has the potential to the be the best take on that character though.
I don't want to give the impression that I dislike the story or the game because I still had a lot of fun with it. The gameplay is still great and feels like a step up from the previous games. The story just feels rushed and lacks the character moments that made the previous games so memorable and impactful for me which is disappointing because I consider the first game's story to be the quintessential spider-man story. This creates a weird contrast for me since the game doesn't have any major story or emotional moments that stand out to me like the previous games, but I still have a pretty vivid memory of fun little gameplay moments I had while playing through it.
At the end of the day, I'm still a biased fanboy though and I based on how happy I am that this game exists and how much fun I had while playing through it, I can't help but rate it highly. I know it's a game I'll come back to again at some point, but probably not until NG+ is actually released.
As a lifelong spider-man fan, I love this game. I had a big grin on my face throughout the entire time playing it and no matter what I end up saying about the story, that doesn't change how much I enjoyed playing through it.
Starting with the positives, technically this game is great. It really feels like it was designed with the PS5 hardware in mind and warrants being on the new system.
Almost everything from a gameplay perspective also feels like a step up from the first game. The swinging feels even better, the new movement options are all fun and being able to pulls off long movement and trick chains to keep your speed and momentum just feels really good.
I also think the non spider-man missions were a lot better than in the first game. For the most part, they all felt faster paced while still making you feel vulnerable to whatever threats you had to deal with. I think they're spaced out well enough and fit within the story to not completely detract from the spider-man play style and it feels like they're designed in a much more open ended way that would allow you to just run through them and get them over with if that better matches your play style. By the end of the game Mary Jane feels like a resident evil character, and I mean that in a good way.
I'm kind of mixed on the combat. For the most part it still feels good, with the symbiote combat in particular feeling perfect. My biggest issue is with the gadgets. For the most part, they just felt like a step down from the original game and I found myself missing my go-to gadgets from the first game a lot. I understand the lack of the gadget wheel in terms of trying to streamline the combat, but the new system never fully clicked for me and I had to constantly remind myself to use gadgets during combat and never really experimented with them like I did in the first game. I also feel like the devs chose the strangest gadgets to bring back and I really ended up missing the impact webs, trip mines and web bombs in particular.
The side content ranged from good to ok for me. In general I really liked the smaller scale side missions and think they effectively show what makes spider-man unique from other super heroes. Other than those side missions it feels like a majority of them were overly reliant on combat and enemy beat em ups, and I think the game could have benefitted from a larger variety in the side content.
The voice acting is also great. Yuri Lowenthal really goes all out as Peter and is quickly establishing himself as one of my favorite actors to play the character. If he didn't convince you before in the previous games he will now.
My biggest issues with the game are story related. In short, the story just feels rushed and the game lacks the character work that made the previous 2 insomniac spider-man games so memorable.
As far as set up goes, I think the game nails this down very well. The opening set piece is fun and feels like a step up from the first game, while also serving as a good set up for Kraven. Kraven in general is really good in this game too and the new take worked for me. The game sets up Harry and Peter's relationship really well too and for the most part, I think everything story related feels consistent with the first game up until Peter gets the black suit.
Once Peter gets the black suit, the story feels like it's put on fast forward. It has most of the key moments required for an effective symbiote storyline, but it lacks the character moments to tie it all together and as a result it just feels rushed, the characters feel underdeveloped and the game never reaches that "O crap this thing is bad" moment that they story is building up to (at least from an emotional standpoint). Then when Venom is introduced, he feels very underutilized and does aspects from a lot of more recent interpretations without incorporating anything that made him interesting from the comics and other source material.
Something I've heard more recently that has stuck with me is also the thought that it's ironic how the game has themes of rehabilitation, but doesn't commit to that with spider-man's original enemy turned ally in venom.
All this results in a story that feels like it jumps from scene to scene around the 1/3 mark that doesn't check in with the characters in any meaningful way. It just kind of happens without having the emotional highs that the first game's story had.
The podcasts weren't as fun as the previous games for me either. Jonah's felt consistent to me, but I don't remember hearing it that often to really compare it to the previous games. The Danika one ended up getting on my nerves because she seemed to know too much about what was going on with the spider-men to the point of clairvoyance. I prefer how they were handled in the previous games and I hope the devs just stick to using the podcasts as fun world building and character interactions in the third game instead of using them as a way to re-explain the plot that we just experienced.
As far as the flame side story goes, I think it's alright. I think it sets up a really interesting take on and set up for a big character, but I can't say anything more than that because it doesn't amount to anything more than setup for a third game or future dlc. If that storyline continues with the same level of quality of the setup and concludes in a satisfying way, then it has the potential to the be the best take on that character though.
I don't want to give the impression that I dislike the story or the game because I still had a lot of fun with it. The gameplay is still great and feels like a step up from the previous games. The story just feels rushed and lacks the character moments that made the previous games so memorable and impactful for me which is disappointing because I consider the first game's story to be the quintessential spider-man story. This creates a weird contrast for me since the game doesn't have any major story or emotional moments that stand out to me like the previous games, but I still have a pretty vivid memory of fun little gameplay moments I had while playing through it.
At the end of the day, I'm still a biased fanboy though and I based on how happy I am that this game exists and how much fun I had while playing through it, I can't help but rate it highly. I know it's a game I'll come back to again at some point, but probably not until NG+ is actually released.
My first thoughts when I finished wonder were, "wow, that was a pretty solid platformer."
I feel like it goes without saying at this point, but wonder feels like a breath of fresh air compared to the more recent 2D mario games and honestly feels like the next logical step forward for the 2D mario franchise. The level design finally feels creative and unique again and the occasional nonlinear approach to level selection was appreciated. I really loved all the music levels in particular and this might be my favorite bowser fight in the 2D mario series.
Wonder feels like it took a lot of the best aspects of previous 2D mario games and combined them all together while also bringing it's own unique mechanics and gimmicks to the table. Movement feels really good. If I had to describe it, it feels like a mix of the new super mario bros series and mario world and the two styles mesh surprisingly well.
The new powerups were all really fun and I liked the added utility and variety they provided to movement. It was really satisfying using them to traverse the levels in creative and unintended ways (I got way more use of the drill power up than I thought I would in this regard) or to creative new shortcuts to collectibles.
I was also a really big fan of most of the "break" and mini badge challenge levels. I think these brought a nice palate cleanser from the usual levels while providing engaging and unique platforming challenges that at their best, really made the most of the new movement system.
The only mini challenges I was not a fan of were the enemy gauntlets and a few of the find the hidden object challenges. The find worst find the hidden object challenges felt like a terrible mario maker level where you had to find the exact right spot to jump to find the invisible block which felt more tedious than engaging. I've also never really been a fan of time trials in games, mostly cause it brings out my inner perfectionist and I end up resetting way more often than I need to and the time trial enemy gauntlets were no exception to this for me.
My only other nitpick has to do with the games difficulty. I've always valued challenge in platformers (which is a big reason why I love the DKC series). If the platformer isn't particularly challenging, then I need to have a fun moveset to mess around with to get really engaged with it. Wonder isn't braindead easy or anything like that (I'd say difficulty wise, it's maybe a notch higher than new super mario bros ds), but it is definitely easier than the classic 2D mario games. Fortunately, the movement is super fun and polished so I wasn't ever bored playing the game, but I wish some of the levels (particularly the special world and later world levels) provided more of a challenge. However, I will say that I really like the new trend of making the 100% reward in these modern mario games a really tough challenge level and wonder is no exception to this.
Overall, I had a really good time with wonder. I feel like my thoughts on nintendo's modern 2D platformers tend to go up on replays since they tend to be super comfy games for me, so I'm interested to see how my thoughts on the game change on future playthroughs. As for now though, I'm happy a played it and I felt satisfied with my overall experience with the game, even if it is a bit on the easy side.
I feel like it goes without saying at this point, but wonder feels like a breath of fresh air compared to the more recent 2D mario games and honestly feels like the next logical step forward for the 2D mario franchise. The level design finally feels creative and unique again and the occasional nonlinear approach to level selection was appreciated. I really loved all the music levels in particular and this might be my favorite bowser fight in the 2D mario series.
Wonder feels like it took a lot of the best aspects of previous 2D mario games and combined them all together while also bringing it's own unique mechanics and gimmicks to the table. Movement feels really good. If I had to describe it, it feels like a mix of the new super mario bros series and mario world and the two styles mesh surprisingly well.
The new powerups were all really fun and I liked the added utility and variety they provided to movement. It was really satisfying using them to traverse the levels in creative and unintended ways (I got way more use of the drill power up than I thought I would in this regard) or to creative new shortcuts to collectibles.
I was also a really big fan of most of the "break" and mini badge challenge levels. I think these brought a nice palate cleanser from the usual levels while providing engaging and unique platforming challenges that at their best, really made the most of the new movement system.
The only mini challenges I was not a fan of were the enemy gauntlets and a few of the find the hidden object challenges. The find worst find the hidden object challenges felt like a terrible mario maker level where you had to find the exact right spot to jump to find the invisible block which felt more tedious than engaging. I've also never really been a fan of time trials in games, mostly cause it brings out my inner perfectionist and I end up resetting way more often than I need to and the time trial enemy gauntlets were no exception to this for me.
My only other nitpick has to do with the games difficulty. I've always valued challenge in platformers (which is a big reason why I love the DKC series). If the platformer isn't particularly challenging, then I need to have a fun moveset to mess around with to get really engaged with it. Wonder isn't braindead easy or anything like that (I'd say difficulty wise, it's maybe a notch higher than new super mario bros ds), but it is definitely easier than the classic 2D mario games. Fortunately, the movement is super fun and polished so I wasn't ever bored playing the game, but I wish some of the levels (particularly the special world and later world levels) provided more of a challenge. However, I will say that I really like the new trend of making the 100% reward in these modern mario games a really tough challenge level and wonder is no exception to this.
Overall, I had a really good time with wonder. I feel like my thoughts on nintendo's modern 2D platformers tend to go up on replays since they tend to be super comfy games for me, so I'm interested to see how my thoughts on the game change on future playthroughs. As for now though, I'm happy a played it and I felt satisfied with my overall experience with the game, even if it is a bit on the easy side.
Retro did the impossible with DKC returns. They not only managed to revive a 2D platforming franchise, but they also made DK fun to play as. With tropical freeze retro did the impossible again. They managed to fine tune the new DKC formula and gameplay to the point of tropical freeze becoming one of the best 2D platformers of all time.
I love Tropical freeze. Between the original Wii U release and the switch port, it's one of the 2D platformers I've put the most time into. I've 100% this game too many times to count, I know where every puzzle piece is, I've 100% the game on the unlockable hard mode with every kong and I like the game enough to have gotten the max rank on the time trials for each level and even briefly having a world record (or at least number 1 on the online leader board) for an individual level for a very brief time. This is one of my favorite 2D platformers.
The returns style gameplay is back and more fine tuned to make for an even better experience. DK has a nice feeling of weight to him and it feels really good to keep a fast momentum throughout the stages. The SFX also contribute to this feeling. It just feels really good bouncing off enemies or rolling through a line of snowmads.
The stages are all amazing. These are some of the most well designed and creative stages in any 2D platformer. The stages play around with the foreground and background in new and creative ways compared to returns as well. The OST is great as well with a nice mix of amazing new tracks and remixes of classic DKC tracks. The enemies are also a step up from returns. They're more expressive and integrated into the stage layouts in more creative ways than the tikis were in returns. They're still not as memorable as the kremlings in the original series, but they're still a big improvement over the last games'.
I'm very happy that some of the previous kongs have been reintroduced to the series and each of them provides a nice difference in gameplay. Dixie is still great with her helicopter twirl, cranky is great for blasting through levels since his pogo conserves momentum, and diddy is just kind there to help you keep an even height with a short hover. I do wish that diddy had more unique style since he is consistently my least used kong in each playthrough. I only really find him useful for lining up hits on the final boss and I actively skip his barrels in levels if I have another kong with me.
I don't think the game is perfect, and there are a few small things that hold it back from being my favorite DKC game. The bosses can go on a little too long at times (although none of them are anywhere near as long as the endurance tests that were returns' bosses). I still like most of them and a lot of the bosses I didn't initially like have grown on me since they have fun time trial strats, but none of the bosses are as good as the best bosses from DKC 2 or 3 in my opinion. The final boss in particular is also really underwhelming and kind of mediocre. All the other bosses have a better sense of increasing stakes with new attack patterns as they go on, but the final boss just kind does most of the same initial moves with a few new easy to dodge attacks.
Some of the puzzle pieces can be very cryptic for a first time player as well. Generally speaking, I don't think going for 100% is too daunting and you'll get most of the puzzle pieces on your first run through a level as long as you're collecting suspicious looking groups of bananas. There are a few were you have to line up with something in the foreground or background which isn't super intuitive for a first time player or if you haven't 100% returns.
I also wish there was more variety to the bonus rooms. They're all some version of "collect all the bananas within the time limit" which isn't bad and there is a nice variety of different stages, but the original trilogy had multiple different type of mini games for the bonus rooms and this lack of variety is felt a bit towards the end of a 100% route. It's nowhere near burnout inducing, but it's something that could be added to a future game.
I also really wish retro would utilize more of the animal buddies. I love Rambi, but he's still the only buddy to return (besides Squawks but he's not playable). With the return of underwater levels, I wish Enguarde would return and I think retro could design some good Rattly or Winky stages since they play with verticality in a few of tropical freeze's stages (or even adding a Sqidder section to a bee stage would be fun).
The absence of a memorable big bad guy is also felt towards the end. K Rool was just so weird and memorable in the original rare games and his final bosses were highlights of those games. I hope that retro will either bring the Kremlings back or make the big bad of the next DKC game more engaging.
I'm hopeful that these small issues will be fixed in a previous game. The changes to the formula between tropical freeze and returns show that retro really loves the DKC series and is willing to celebrate and integrate what worked well in those games into their new series while still keeping the core returns formula. I'm confidant that they have what it takes to make the perfect DKC game if given the chance.
The small issues I have with the game are enough to keep me from giving it a full 5 stars, but tropical freeze is by far the highest 4.5/5 I can give to a game and a serious contender for one of the best platformers of all time.
I love Tropical freeze. Between the original Wii U release and the switch port, it's one of the 2D platformers I've put the most time into. I've 100% this game too many times to count, I know where every puzzle piece is, I've 100% the game on the unlockable hard mode with every kong and I like the game enough to have gotten the max rank on the time trials for each level and even briefly having a world record (or at least number 1 on the online leader board) for an individual level for a very brief time. This is one of my favorite 2D platformers.
The returns style gameplay is back and more fine tuned to make for an even better experience. DK has a nice feeling of weight to him and it feels really good to keep a fast momentum throughout the stages. The SFX also contribute to this feeling. It just feels really good bouncing off enemies or rolling through a line of snowmads.
The stages are all amazing. These are some of the most well designed and creative stages in any 2D platformer. The stages play around with the foreground and background in new and creative ways compared to returns as well. The OST is great as well with a nice mix of amazing new tracks and remixes of classic DKC tracks. The enemies are also a step up from returns. They're more expressive and integrated into the stage layouts in more creative ways than the tikis were in returns. They're still not as memorable as the kremlings in the original series, but they're still a big improvement over the last games'.
I'm very happy that some of the previous kongs have been reintroduced to the series and each of them provides a nice difference in gameplay. Dixie is still great with her helicopter twirl, cranky is great for blasting through levels since his pogo conserves momentum, and diddy is just kind there to help you keep an even height with a short hover. I do wish that diddy had more unique style since he is consistently my least used kong in each playthrough. I only really find him useful for lining up hits on the final boss and I actively skip his barrels in levels if I have another kong with me.
I don't think the game is perfect, and there are a few small things that hold it back from being my favorite DKC game. The bosses can go on a little too long at times (although none of them are anywhere near as long as the endurance tests that were returns' bosses). I still like most of them and a lot of the bosses I didn't initially like have grown on me since they have fun time trial strats, but none of the bosses are as good as the best bosses from DKC 2 or 3 in my opinion. The final boss in particular is also really underwhelming and kind of mediocre. All the other bosses have a better sense of increasing stakes with new attack patterns as they go on, but the final boss just kind does most of the same initial moves with a few new easy to dodge attacks.
Some of the puzzle pieces can be very cryptic for a first time player as well. Generally speaking, I don't think going for 100% is too daunting and you'll get most of the puzzle pieces on your first run through a level as long as you're collecting suspicious looking groups of bananas. There are a few were you have to line up with something in the foreground or background which isn't super intuitive for a first time player or if you haven't 100% returns.
I also wish there was more variety to the bonus rooms. They're all some version of "collect all the bananas within the time limit" which isn't bad and there is a nice variety of different stages, but the original trilogy had multiple different type of mini games for the bonus rooms and this lack of variety is felt a bit towards the end of a 100% route. It's nowhere near burnout inducing, but it's something that could be added to a future game.
I also really wish retro would utilize more of the animal buddies. I love Rambi, but he's still the only buddy to return (besides Squawks but he's not playable). With the return of underwater levels, I wish Enguarde would return and I think retro could design some good Rattly or Winky stages since they play with verticality in a few of tropical freeze's stages (or even adding a Sqidder section to a bee stage would be fun).
The absence of a memorable big bad guy is also felt towards the end. K Rool was just so weird and memorable in the original rare games and his final bosses were highlights of those games. I hope that retro will either bring the Kremlings back or make the big bad of the next DKC game more engaging.
I'm hopeful that these small issues will be fixed in a previous game. The changes to the formula between tropical freeze and returns show that retro really loves the DKC series and is willing to celebrate and integrate what worked well in those games into their new series while still keeping the core returns formula. I'm confidant that they have what it takes to make the perfect DKC game if given the chance.
The small issues I have with the game are enough to keep me from giving it a full 5 stars, but tropical freeze is by far the highest 4.5/5 I can give to a game and a serious contender for one of the best platformers of all time.
1997
I had a lot of fun with X4, but it's one of those games with really high highs and annoying lows for me.
I first started X4 way back when the legacy collection first came out in 2018. At that point, I had just binged through X1-X3 back to back and I started to feel burned out (this feeling was especially strong after I finally managed to finish X3's final boss). I ended up taking a break about 1/3 of the way through my X4 playthrough and didn't pick it back up until this year.
Presentation wise, X4 looks great. It took me a bit to get used to the new art style since I really love the sprites from the SNES games, but it really grew on me and feels like a nice step forward visually. The animated cutscenes look really nice too and could be surprisingly brutal at times (there's more some of the X4 cutscenes than some M rated games I've played). The english dub voice acting is also really funny to the point where it kind of comes around full circle and adds to the charm of the game (it's definitely nowhere near as bad as the Megman 8 dub for comparison).
In terms of the usual megaman x action and gameplay X4 is probably the best feeling and most polished so far. Runnning and gunning as X just feels really good and the maverick stages are super fun. The X4 armor is also one of if not the best fully upgraded armor sets in the series so far. I especially love the helmet and buster upgrades with the buster upgrade that leaves behind the energy ball being my favorite upgrade of the set. I'm not the biggest fan of the new boots upgrade, specifically the hover ability. Being able to air dash horizontally is as great as always, but I preferred the upward dash from X3 and found the hover to be a little too slow and pace breaking. I also thought it was a little too easy to activate the hover accidentally while trying to wall jump during some of the more intense boss fights which could be a little annoying. It's not bad, but it feels more like a downgrade compared to X's air movement in the previous game.
Like the previous X games, there is some required backtracking if you're going for 100%. This can be kind of annoying, but it's nowhere near as bad as X3's and I think figuring out the best route adds to the games replayability. I ended up doing the 100% speedrun routes for both X and Zero since it reduces backtracking (you only return to 1 stage as X and there's no backtracking for Zero) and I thought it was pretty fun and provided a nice challenge (especially on the X playthrough since I rarely had any of the maverick's weaknesses).
The stage designs for the mavericks are mostly great as well. It's really amazing that the devs were able to build stages that fit two completely different gameplay styles perfectly.
The OST is a big step up from X3's, but I think it's weaker than X2's and X1's. The closest comparison I can think of would be that X4's OST is similar to Banjo Tooie's while X1's (and to a lesser extent X2's) OST's are similar to Kazooie's. Both are great and fit their respective games perfectly, but one is more memorable and catchy while the other feels more environmental and ambiance like. I just finished the game a couple hours ago and I can only remember one stage theme off the top of my head (magma dragoon's), but I remember liking the music while I played the game if that makes sense.
I found the bosses to be pretty hit or miss. I love pretty much all the maverick fights and the buster upgrade made them all super fun and engaging to try and take down without their weaknesses when playing as X. However, there are a few that felt kind of unengaging and tedious. Fighting the colonel as X is particular was probably the biggest low point for me since he's not particularly hard, but he's a bit of a damage sponge. This combined with his smaller hit box, his ability to block your attacks and his small window where he can actually be hit made for a boss that just kind of dragged on for too long (and you have to fight him twice as X).
I'm also not sure if this is a hot take, but I really didn't care for the final stage and sigma fight in this game. I think the decision to put the maverick rematch gauntlet and the final boss in the same level was a really bad decision. In the previous X games, you could leave the stage and grind out your sub tanks or just grind in the hallway leading up to the final boss if you died. You can't do that in X4 so if you use your sub tanks on the sigma fight, you have to either suck it up and fight him without them or quit the stage, grind and then go through the entire boss gauntlet again before you can get a chance to fight sigma again (which I learned the hard way). Please save yourself the time and if you're struggling with the sigma fight, don't use any sub tanks and take a few lives to learn his attack patterns. You only really wanna use those sub tanks if you get a good run and need a little extra health boost during the last phase of the fight.
Being able to play as Zero is also amazing and by far my favorite feature of the game. Zero's gameplay feels like another step forward in the MMX formula and provides another style of fast action packed gameplay that the series is known for. It feels really good blasting through stages slashing through enemies. I also really love how Zero's upgrades work and this upgrade system hit the same spot that finding an upgrade in a really good metroidvania makes you feel.
The bosses are even better with Zero's gameplay and I think the different gameplay style helped improve some of the weaker bosses from X's campaign. The colonel fight in particular was so much faster when playing as Zero and just felt so much better.
Unfortunately, I think Zero's campaign staggers a bit at the end similar to X's with the final stage once again being the low point for me. I really hope the maverick rematches and the final boss are separate stages in future X games since it ended up dragging here again in Zero's campaign for me. A few of the rematches ended up giving me more crap than I was expecting (especially since I knew I had to save my sub tanks for the sigma fight afterwards). Weirdly enough I thought the sigma fight was easier as Zero than it was for X though. I was able to deal a higher amount of damage more consistently with Zero's upgrades (especially on the head in the third phase) than I could with X and I was able to finish the fight on my first try without the sub tanks.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with X4, but the stuff that annoyed me really annoyed me. I think part of that might be the game being overhyped for me. I don't think it's the best of the X series and X1 is still my favorite, but it might be the second best (I would need to replay X2 before I could decide for sure). I could see my rating going up with future replays. I'm already excited for my next inevitable Zero playthrough.
I first started X4 way back when the legacy collection first came out in 2018. At that point, I had just binged through X1-X3 back to back and I started to feel burned out (this feeling was especially strong after I finally managed to finish X3's final boss). I ended up taking a break about 1/3 of the way through my X4 playthrough and didn't pick it back up until this year.
Presentation wise, X4 looks great. It took me a bit to get used to the new art style since I really love the sprites from the SNES games, but it really grew on me and feels like a nice step forward visually. The animated cutscenes look really nice too and could be surprisingly brutal at times (there's more some of the X4 cutscenes than some M rated games I've played). The english dub voice acting is also really funny to the point where it kind of comes around full circle and adds to the charm of the game (it's definitely nowhere near as bad as the Megman 8 dub for comparison).
In terms of the usual megaman x action and gameplay X4 is probably the best feeling and most polished so far. Runnning and gunning as X just feels really good and the maverick stages are super fun. The X4 armor is also one of if not the best fully upgraded armor sets in the series so far. I especially love the helmet and buster upgrades with the buster upgrade that leaves behind the energy ball being my favorite upgrade of the set. I'm not the biggest fan of the new boots upgrade, specifically the hover ability. Being able to air dash horizontally is as great as always, but I preferred the upward dash from X3 and found the hover to be a little too slow and pace breaking. I also thought it was a little too easy to activate the hover accidentally while trying to wall jump during some of the more intense boss fights which could be a little annoying. It's not bad, but it feels more like a downgrade compared to X's air movement in the previous game.
Like the previous X games, there is some required backtracking if you're going for 100%. This can be kind of annoying, but it's nowhere near as bad as X3's and I think figuring out the best route adds to the games replayability. I ended up doing the 100% speedrun routes for both X and Zero since it reduces backtracking (you only return to 1 stage as X and there's no backtracking for Zero) and I thought it was pretty fun and provided a nice challenge (especially on the X playthrough since I rarely had any of the maverick's weaknesses).
The stage designs for the mavericks are mostly great as well. It's really amazing that the devs were able to build stages that fit two completely different gameplay styles perfectly.
The OST is a big step up from X3's, but I think it's weaker than X2's and X1's. The closest comparison I can think of would be that X4's OST is similar to Banjo Tooie's while X1's (and to a lesser extent X2's) OST's are similar to Kazooie's. Both are great and fit their respective games perfectly, but one is more memorable and catchy while the other feels more environmental and ambiance like. I just finished the game a couple hours ago and I can only remember one stage theme off the top of my head (magma dragoon's), but I remember liking the music while I played the game if that makes sense.
I found the bosses to be pretty hit or miss. I love pretty much all the maverick fights and the buster upgrade made them all super fun and engaging to try and take down without their weaknesses when playing as X. However, there are a few that felt kind of unengaging and tedious. Fighting the colonel as X is particular was probably the biggest low point for me since he's not particularly hard, but he's a bit of a damage sponge. This combined with his smaller hit box, his ability to block your attacks and his small window where he can actually be hit made for a boss that just kind of dragged on for too long (and you have to fight him twice as X).
I'm also not sure if this is a hot take, but I really didn't care for the final stage and sigma fight in this game. I think the decision to put the maverick rematch gauntlet and the final boss in the same level was a really bad decision. In the previous X games, you could leave the stage and grind out your sub tanks or just grind in the hallway leading up to the final boss if you died. You can't do that in X4 so if you use your sub tanks on the sigma fight, you have to either suck it up and fight him without them or quit the stage, grind and then go through the entire boss gauntlet again before you can get a chance to fight sigma again (which I learned the hard way). Please save yourself the time and if you're struggling with the sigma fight, don't use any sub tanks and take a few lives to learn his attack patterns. You only really wanna use those sub tanks if you get a good run and need a little extra health boost during the last phase of the fight.
Being able to play as Zero is also amazing and by far my favorite feature of the game. Zero's gameplay feels like another step forward in the MMX formula and provides another style of fast action packed gameplay that the series is known for. It feels really good blasting through stages slashing through enemies. I also really love how Zero's upgrades work and this upgrade system hit the same spot that finding an upgrade in a really good metroidvania makes you feel.
The bosses are even better with Zero's gameplay and I think the different gameplay style helped improve some of the weaker bosses from X's campaign. The colonel fight in particular was so much faster when playing as Zero and just felt so much better.
Unfortunately, I think Zero's campaign staggers a bit at the end similar to X's with the final stage once again being the low point for me. I really hope the maverick rematches and the final boss are separate stages in future X games since it ended up dragging here again in Zero's campaign for me. A few of the rematches ended up giving me more crap than I was expecting (especially since I knew I had to save my sub tanks for the sigma fight afterwards). Weirdly enough I thought the sigma fight was easier as Zero than it was for X though. I was able to deal a higher amount of damage more consistently with Zero's upgrades (especially on the head in the third phase) than I could with X and I was able to finish the fight on my first try without the sub tanks.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with X4, but the stuff that annoyed me really annoyed me. I think part of that might be the game being overhyped for me. I don't think it's the best of the X series and X1 is still my favorite, but it might be the second best (I would need to replay X2 before I could decide for sure). I could see my rating going up with future replays. I'm already excited for my next inevitable Zero playthrough.
2020
The post game depression hit hard after I finished royal. I kept telling myself I wouldn't jump right into strikers cause I had other games I needed to prioritize on my backlog, but I finally caved in (plus it felt appropriate to make a game about a summer road trip one of the last games I played this summer).
Strikers is pretty fun and does a lot of things I really like. I enjoyed the game giving some extra screen time to some of the more underdeveloped characters from royal and the new characters and storyline fit right in with the world and I ended up really liking them (Zenkichi is the goat!). The story was fun too and I really enjoyed a lot of the new set pieces and environments. It was not particularly groundbreaking but I'd say most of the reveals/twists were still effective and enhanced the story overall.
It took longer for strikers to really click for me than royal did. The opening is nowhere near as effective as it's predecessor although I never found it bad. The game finally clicked for me once the actual road trip started and there were more things to do outside of combat. I still miss the social links, but being able to do requests and talk to more people outside of combat was still appreciated. I really started messing around with the different combos and experimenting with personas and team layouts at this point which really helped the combat click for me.
The combat itself is fine. It's one of those easy to spam, but tough to actual be good with sort of systems. If you put in the time, you can do some really fun stuff with it, but if you don't want to bother you can get away with spamming a lot of high damage sp moves. I think the combat is at it's best in merciless mode and this is when the combat really clicked for me as something I actually really liked. Merciless really forced me to approach fights in a entirely different way since most enemies can one or two shot you. This really forced me to mess around with the timing of combos and when to use status conditions to restore SP or heal.
Most of my issues with the game became negligible the more I progressed. My biggest issue with the game is that I was not a big fan of the new level requirement for persona fusion at first. Now, I feel pretty mixed on it overall because if you use a fusion loop (which can be done relatively early with cheap, low level personas) you end up with so many persona points that the level requirements become pointless since you can dump them into any persona to level them up and still have millions of pp left over (I ended up with over 60 million persona points by the time I was done building my merciless team). On the one hand, the level requirement is a complete non issue since this is super easy to do, but I also don't think this should be necessary in order to fuse personas since it takes up a lot of time that could be used to progress further in the story or grind. I'm not sure the best way to fix this (maybe lowering the level up threshold for personas you use?) and it's ultimately not a huge issue, but it's something that I was thinking about a lot when I was playing through the story.
I will say this game is not worth going for 100%. Going for all the requests is fine, but the final trophy required for the platinum (the bond rank trophy) is really tedious since it will require you to either grind an end game boss for around 10+ hours or farm an earlier boss in merciless mode for around 6-7 hours.
If you really want to go for 100% I would recommend getting Joker to lvl 90 off that end game boss, then building a bunch of really strong personas with the spell master skill for a merciless run. Then play merciless up to the second dire shadow and farm that until you get max bond rank. This is what I did and I think it makes for a relatively fast and the overall least monotonous grinding experience (ended up only having to grind the dire shadow for about 5-6 hours since the bond also goes up a bit as you play through merciless).
Overall strikers is a good time. It's not perfect and it has a few annoying elements, but those are few and far between. It's a fun little adventure with characters I really like and it's a game I could see my rating increase for on repeating playthroughs. I'll definitely return to finish my merciless run some time in the near future.
Strikers is pretty fun and does a lot of things I really like. I enjoyed the game giving some extra screen time to some of the more underdeveloped characters from royal and the new characters and storyline fit right in with the world and I ended up really liking them (Zenkichi is the goat!). The story was fun too and I really enjoyed a lot of the new set pieces and environments. It was not particularly groundbreaking but I'd say most of the reveals/twists were still effective and enhanced the story overall.
It took longer for strikers to really click for me than royal did. The opening is nowhere near as effective as it's predecessor although I never found it bad. The game finally clicked for me once the actual road trip started and there were more things to do outside of combat. I still miss the social links, but being able to do requests and talk to more people outside of combat was still appreciated. I really started messing around with the different combos and experimenting with personas and team layouts at this point which really helped the combat click for me.
The combat itself is fine. It's one of those easy to spam, but tough to actual be good with sort of systems. If you put in the time, you can do some really fun stuff with it, but if you don't want to bother you can get away with spamming a lot of high damage sp moves. I think the combat is at it's best in merciless mode and this is when the combat really clicked for me as something I actually really liked. Merciless really forced me to approach fights in a entirely different way since most enemies can one or two shot you. This really forced me to mess around with the timing of combos and when to use status conditions to restore SP or heal.
Most of my issues with the game became negligible the more I progressed. My biggest issue with the game is that I was not a big fan of the new level requirement for persona fusion at first. Now, I feel pretty mixed on it overall because if you use a fusion loop (which can be done relatively early with cheap, low level personas) you end up with so many persona points that the level requirements become pointless since you can dump them into any persona to level them up and still have millions of pp left over (I ended up with over 60 million persona points by the time I was done building my merciless team). On the one hand, the level requirement is a complete non issue since this is super easy to do, but I also don't think this should be necessary in order to fuse personas since it takes up a lot of time that could be used to progress further in the story or grind. I'm not sure the best way to fix this (maybe lowering the level up threshold for personas you use?) and it's ultimately not a huge issue, but it's something that I was thinking about a lot when I was playing through the story.
I will say this game is not worth going for 100%. Going for all the requests is fine, but the final trophy required for the platinum (the bond rank trophy) is really tedious since it will require you to either grind an end game boss for around 10+ hours or farm an earlier boss in merciless mode for around 6-7 hours.
If you really want to go for 100% I would recommend getting Joker to lvl 90 off that end game boss, then building a bunch of really strong personas with the spell master skill for a merciless run. Then play merciless up to the second dire shadow and farm that until you get max bond rank. This is what I did and I think it makes for a relatively fast and the overall least monotonous grinding experience (ended up only having to grind the dire shadow for about 5-6 hours since the bond also goes up a bit as you play through merciless).
Overall strikers is a good time. It's not perfect and it has a few annoying elements, but those are few and far between. It's a fun little adventure with characters I really like and it's a game I could see my rating increase for on repeating playthroughs. I'll definitely return to finish my merciless run some time in the near future.
I played the original Re4 on gamecube so I never got to play the original separate ways. Based on what I'd heard, the original was alright but felt kind of tacked on as a way to justify people buying the game again on new platforms, so I was really interested to see how the remake would handle the SW content.
For $10, this is a steal. The DLC was surprisingly lengthy (for reference HLTB has it listed as about the same length as RE3 remake). I was really impressed with the new separate ways. I figured I would like it since at the very least it would provide more fun RE4R content, but they really went above and beyond with this and added some new fun mechanics and really flushed out Ada's story.
I really like the way that separate ways reintroduced (and in my opinion, improved upon) a lot of the content cut from the original game. The new U3 stuff is great and I like all the little changes they made to some of the original setpieces to mess with veteran players. The new content introduced is great too and fits right in with the tone/feel of RE4R and everything keeps that improved pacing from the base RE4R.
The ost is great too. It really enhanced the action scenes and the little spy guitar riffs were really fun and charming in that RE4 way.
The other characters the story chose to focus on were great too. I will die on the hill that remake Luis is so much better than the original and it's always nice seeing more Wesker (although as a hispanic person, I died a little inside every time he called Luis "Lewis").
It's not perfect, but the core RE4 formula is just so fun that I can't help but give it 5 stars. I wanted to jump right back in and start a new RE4R and SW playthrough immediately after I finished, which I've never really felt with any of the other RE mainline games.
For $10, this is a steal. The DLC was surprisingly lengthy (for reference HLTB has it listed as about the same length as RE3 remake). I was really impressed with the new separate ways. I figured I would like it since at the very least it would provide more fun RE4R content, but they really went above and beyond with this and added some new fun mechanics and really flushed out Ada's story.
I really like the way that separate ways reintroduced (and in my opinion, improved upon) a lot of the content cut from the original game. The new U3 stuff is great and I like all the little changes they made to some of the original setpieces to mess with veteran players. The new content introduced is great too and fits right in with the tone/feel of RE4R and everything keeps that improved pacing from the base RE4R.
The ost is great too. It really enhanced the action scenes and the little spy guitar riffs were really fun and charming in that RE4 way.
The other characters the story chose to focus on were great too. I will die on the hill that remake Luis is so much better than the original and it's always nice seeing more Wesker (although as a hispanic person, I died a little inside every time he called Luis "Lewis").
It's not perfect, but the core RE4 formula is just so fun that I can't help but give it 5 stars. I wanted to jump right back in and start a new RE4R and SW playthrough immediately after I finished, which I've never really felt with any of the other RE mainline games.
I was feeling nostalgic for gen 3, so I decided to play through an emerald randomizer in between some other games. My original rating is going up half a start because of the battle frontier. It's such a great addition that adds so much to the post game that I really wish I had messed around with more as a kid. I didn't go for all gold symbols this time (I've done that once and still need some recovery time before I attempt that again), but I messed around with all the battle formats for a bit and it's still just as great as the first time.
As far as the rest of the game goes, it's still pretty great. Hoenn is such a well designed region and I love all the little interconnected shortcuts between towns. It makes traveling throughout the first half of the game super streamlined and there's never much down time in between story beats.
Gen 3 is also a big step up visually from the previous games and the sprites still look great. Double battles are a nice addition that changes up the pace every once in a while and obviously the newly introduced abilities and natures are series staples now. The soundtrack is also fantastic.
The game's not super hard, but it still presents a nice challenge if you don't grind. It's always so refreshing going back to the pokemon games where the later gym leaders and elite 4 members have full teams that are at a much higher level than you.
As far as nitpicks go, the bag limit is really dumb and can be a big pace breaker if you need to go back to a pokemon center in order to deposit some items. There are also brand new HMs which nobody asked for and you'll probably cycle through a few different HM mons until you find one compatible with all the ones you need. I'm also not a big fan of this games victory road. The layout itself is fine, but I think it requires too many HMs to get through which means you most likely won't be able to use your full team in there.
If you haven't played gen 3, play emerald. It's the definitive version of the mainline gen 3 story and takes the best of ruby and sapphire while adding additional new content and revamping certain gyms. I can't deny I have a lot of nostalgia for this generation of games, since the gen 3 games and remakes were the pokemon games I played growing up, but they still hold up really well and emerald in particular offers a lot of replay value with it's new additions that still give me shit as an adult at times.
If anyone is interested my team was: Aggron (starter), Gardevoir, milotic, ampharos, scizor and torkoal.
As far as the rest of the game goes, it's still pretty great. Hoenn is such a well designed region and I love all the little interconnected shortcuts between towns. It makes traveling throughout the first half of the game super streamlined and there's never much down time in between story beats.
Gen 3 is also a big step up visually from the previous games and the sprites still look great. Double battles are a nice addition that changes up the pace every once in a while and obviously the newly introduced abilities and natures are series staples now. The soundtrack is also fantastic.
The game's not super hard, but it still presents a nice challenge if you don't grind. It's always so refreshing going back to the pokemon games where the later gym leaders and elite 4 members have full teams that are at a much higher level than you.
As far as nitpicks go, the bag limit is really dumb and can be a big pace breaker if you need to go back to a pokemon center in order to deposit some items. There are also brand new HMs which nobody asked for and you'll probably cycle through a few different HM mons until you find one compatible with all the ones you need. I'm also not a big fan of this games victory road. The layout itself is fine, but I think it requires too many HMs to get through which means you most likely won't be able to use your full team in there.
If you haven't played gen 3, play emerald. It's the definitive version of the mainline gen 3 story and takes the best of ruby and sapphire while adding additional new content and revamping certain gyms. I can't deny I have a lot of nostalgia for this generation of games, since the gen 3 games and remakes were the pokemon games I played growing up, but they still hold up really well and emerald in particular offers a lot of replay value with it's new additions that still give me shit as an adult at times.
If anyone is interested my team was: Aggron (starter), Gardevoir, milotic, ampharos, scizor and torkoal.