I would have considered playing more of A Space for the Unbound if the gameplay wasn't so bad. Visual novels like this would benefit greatly from cutting the fat. The shallow minigames, rudimentary puzzles, and numerous fetch quests feel like unnecessary padding. Why bother having gameplay at all if it will be this half-baked?

Based on the two hours I played, the story leaves a lot to be desired. Tonally, it feels all over the place. It was constantly bouncing between serious and silly moments in a way that never really meshed together well. Also, the old-school/rigid gender roles are prominent here, and that detracted greatly from the love story for me. Do people still think this is what a healthy relationship looks like? It feels very one-sided.

Review in progress:
The art style is hideous, the puzzles are simplistic (most of the difficulty comes from pixel hunting and backtracking), and the story is weak. Some items can only be interacted with after an arbitrary story trigger, which gets tedious. Return to Monkey Island's plot leans way too heavily on nostalgia and has almost no new ideas of its own. Elaine's character has been completely butchered. She acts like a completely different person in this game. Guybrush continues to act much more stupid and mean-spirited than in the original, to the point where you wonder why anyone even puts up with him. The ending is somehow worse than 2's. It's not clever and feels like yet another cop-out. The characters acting off-brand isn't justified by the twist, either.

Review in progress:
Monkey Island 2 is a comprehensive downgrade from its predecessor. The story is subpar and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They made Guybrush a complete idiot and a huge jerk. He wasn't particularly bright in the first game, but it wasn't this bad. It feels like his character has been flanderized here. Why should I root for this character or believe that Elaine would even want to be friends with him? The ending is one of the worst I've seen in a video game and derails the whole series. The puzzles are more cryptic and frustrating this time around. The new artwork looks bland and unimpressive, but at least you can switch back to the original.

Final Fantasy XV feels half-baked. All of the common criticisms seem to be accurate based on the 4 hours I played. The characters and world are underdeveloped, the side quests are bland, and the open world is empty. Even calling this an open world seems laughable when there are invisible walls for areas the game doesn't want you reaching (despite them being clearly traversable). The combat is shallow and repetitive. All you need to do is hold down the attack button and dodge occasionally. The supplementary systems (warping, "magic" AKA glorified bombs, and ally attacks) don't make it any better. I didn't hear any memorable music. Sitting in the car and doing literally nothing for 3-5 minutes while heading to a destination is miserable. The fuel mechanic is more tedious than immersive. Dungeons lacked the puzzle solving that made them

The graphics are above average, but the poor performance/optimization detracts from the experience. I had intermittent stuttering on a PC that should easily be able to run this game. Some technical aspects are also lacking (no footprints in the sand, grass appears to be mostly static, towns feel empty, etc.) The lack of a manual save option in dungeons is annoying, especially when I want to change gear or allocate skill points before a major fight.

I shouldn't need to consume a bunch of supplementary media to get a half-decent story.

I wasn't impressed. Fable II doesn't fix any of the issues I had with the first game.

The combat is shallow and button-mashy. Everything can be killed by spamming X. The nonexistent difficulty means that there's no incentive to become stronger, which is part of what makes RPGs compelling. The lack of armor is especially strange. Having to hold down a button to collect XP was a dumb design decision. In what scenario would I not want to receive it?

The glowing trails and mandatory treasure-finding dog companion ruins most of the exploration. The gameplay for a lot of the side activities (smithing, woodcutting, etc.) consists of a dull and monotonous minigame.

The morality system is black and white like with most games from this era. You can either be a virtuous hero or cartoonishly evil. There are no interesting/morally grey decisions to make like in The Witcher 3. It's unengaging and artificial. The deeds that I got "evil points" for weren't even that bad. In what world is refusing to marry a random person immoral? You're also punished for looting civilian corpses despite there being no option to return the belongings to their families.

You can interact with NPCs, but it's mostly relegated to a shallow gesture system and they are all are essentially indistinguishable from each other, so why bother?

Character models are less hideous than in Fable Anniversary, but are still ugly. The aggressive use of bloom makes the game look dated visually. It definitely has that early 7th-gen asthetic. At least there's color...

The story and characters are forgettable. The world isn't compelling and I didn't care about what was going on.