This is a really cute little Stardew-like game that trades farming for a bigger emphasis on gathering and alchemy. Sort of an Atelier-lite system. In fact, the alchemy reminded me a LOT of how it works in the Mysterious Atelier quadrilogy.

The game is not very deep (and overall very easy), but it was a really simple and fun time. I think my biggest complaints are that at times, the minigames are TOO easy, and there isn't really a lot of variety in gameplay once you reach a certain point. I found myself doing the same gameplay loop for several in-game days in a row, only deviating when a service wasn't available on that specific day. I don't think it was bad, but I do think wasn't as good as it could have been. I liked it, but I didn't love it.

Gameplay? Awesome. It's a bit on the easy side, but traversal and combat are pretty fun. The visuals looked nice too, but I do think they were a bit all over the place (different characters looked like they came from different games).

I do have a number of gripes, though. The story is just too out there for me to enjoy. The game just dumps you in the middle of this fantasy world that has way too many different pieces of jargon for me to fully understand what was going on. The game also isn't too clear on where some vital items are for continuing the story. You just have to explore. Which is usually fine. But this game doesn't have the best indicators on where things are. Also, I do wish there was an option to toggle on a minimap, that option was missing here.

Overall, I still had a lot of fun due to the actual gameplay. But the experience surrounding it? It could have been better.

Gameplay-wise? This game rules, I have very little complaints. Exploring and fighting feel amazing here. I loved just running down paths I've never been down before just to see what lied at the end of each of them. But the story leaves a lot to be desired. The pacing is pretty bad in my opinion. The last act of the game is extremely rushed, and I entered the final mission without even realizing it. It was kind of a bummer, since I wanted it to be a bit longer. In fact, I kind of feel the amount of quests in this game in general was lacking, I feel like there should have been double the amount there actually was.

Also, one thing that I REALLY didn't like was during the postgame, there was a chain of quests that I didn't do in the correct order despite the game indicating there was no such cutoff. As a result, a quest I had open automatically cancelled and there was no alternative. It really soured an otherwise solid postgame area.

It took a while for me to really get into it, but Atelier Ayesha was nice! This one's right in the middle as far as ranking it against the Secret, Mysterious, and Arland games. I also wasn't expecting to like Keithgriff as much as I did! I usually don't like characters like him.

I do wish that the games didn't look so brown and washed out. I get that's sort of the style they're going for, but I don't think it looks good. I also think some of the objectives could have stood to be a bit more clear. I felt aimless for much of my playtime. But if you've played through the other trilogies released on modern platforms and still want more, I still think this game's worth giving a shot.

This game is solid, but a few aspects keep me from really enjoying it to its fullest. First off, the game sort of throws continuity with a character into the trash right away, regardless of whether or not you've played the first game. It's a pretty lazy change that is pretty distracting until you get used to it. I also wasn't a huge fan of one of the protagonists in the game. You spend the first half of the game with them, but I just don't really like them at all, really. And lastly, I think that the game's ending was a pretty huge cop-out and reeks of Saturday morning-level shenanigans.

Despite my gripes though, I still had a fun time. The new characters were great, there were some creative somniums this time around, and the game has a pretty unique twist. I liked it!

Before giving this game a go, I got like, 3/4 through the game on P3P, but stopped for some weird reason. But I'm really glad I came back around and tried this game again. It's excellent. The new additions bring up the overall quality of life a lot and brings it more in line gameplay-wise with Persona 5. Both the turn-based combat and the daily life gameplay are very good.

Near the end of my time with the game, I loaded a save after realizing I wasn't going to get all of the social links in time, but I'm glad I did. After re-prioritizing what to spend my time on, I'm happy to say I just barely made it. The stories attached to most of the social links were really well-written, it was great to see them all pay off in the end. I feel like I was attached to these social links moreso than in the other 2 Persona games I've played. They were really cool! I do wish that I could have formed proper ones with my male party members, but it's not too big of a deal, I guess.

And dear god, the music is 100% the best part about this game. I think I legitimately spend like, 80% of my time playing this game bouncing along in my seat to it, it was awesome. While some tracks I think were better in the version of the game I played years ago, I think the majority of these re-recordings are a lot better. I don't know why people would buy Persona 4 and 5 music DLC when you have music as awesome as this.

Anyway, play this game if you're interested. You won't regret it. I'm crossing my fingers we get The Answer, since I never got around to playing that as well.

Overall, I think this may be my favorite Yakuza/Like a Dragon game. It felt so fresh and exciting exploring Hawaii, a completely fresh setting with new sights to see and new types of character we've never seen before. Some of my favorite villains in one of these games too, with one in particular standing out above the rest.

The side content was great too; Sujimon and Dondoko are the perfect length and don't overstay their welcome. They could absolutely be their own standalone games in their own right, given they get fleshed out a bit.

My only gripe was with the final chapter. I feel like the pacing was way too fast, and I think the ending especially was weak and unsatisfying. But the rest of the story was fantastic, one of the best in the series as well.

I loved this game! It's going to be tough waiting the full multi-year gap between games for the next one; I started 0 in 2021, a year after 7 came out, and hundreds of hours later, I can officially say I am fully caught up with the series now (if you ignore the games that didn't make it to PC). I can't wait to see what's next for this series!

While not a perfect experience, I had a lot of fun with this game. As my first Ys game, it was very easy to hop into, since the story barely connects with other entries. My biggest gripe was the pacing, in both gameplay and story. The game is very heavy in the last act of the game, pumped full of filler content of both types. I wasn't a big fan of that. But the combat was a lot of fun! It felt really satisfying switching between all of the playable characters here, and trying out all of their different moves they unlock over time. I liked it a lot!

For me, this game was kind of a mixed bag. I feel like playing the original actually hindered my experience a bit. The original game was more arcadey, fast, and more of an action game. This, well... The controls just didn't feel as intuitive or responsive. The combat also feels slow and stuff like reloading between dodges is obnoxious for most weapons, especially ones where you only get one or two shots until you need to reload again. It just didn't feel as satisfying to play when it came to combat.

I do like some new additions, however. The new main character, Saga, has a Case Board that's very fun to fill out and try and complete. And Alan's lamp adds a really cool element to the mix, though I feel this becomes underutilized in the second half of the game. His other main element of navigating his levels was pretty cool too.

The story is a standout here, of course. I have some gripes about some aspects of it, but overall I think does a pretty good job picking up from where the last game picks off. That is, if you pretend American Nightmare doesn't exist (seriously, I think I only saw like, 2-3 references to that game).

And overall, the game runs pretty well. The game is able to load/modify instances relatively well, but weirdly sometimes lags in the middle of video cutscenes, causing the audio to play with a one second delay. There were some annoying bugs with collectibles that were pretty annoying to deal with, too. But the game does some pretty cool stuff performance-wise, as expected of Remedy.

Oh, and this doesn't really reflect on the quality of the game, but playing Control first will actually increase your enjoyment. The two intersect in a pretty cool way, I dig it.

I think this game was fun! It's both better and worse than the original in a lot of ways. It's not perfect, but I'm glad I got around to playing it!

While I've just collected everything and did everything I could in the base game maps in both games, I can easily see myself returning to this game and playing it some more. The gameplay is so easy to pickup, yet difficult to master, and it just feels so satisfying to play. I do think that the character customization is pretty barebones, though; I wish there were more options. But overall, I had a blast with this game! I'm glad I finally got to play these games properly, and I hope we get other older Tony Hawk games released like this down the line!