Gree
2001
Practically every facet of the game radiates with a bespoke craftsmanship that can be seen in every game Fumito Ueda has directed and I enjoyed its minimalist simplicity immensely. A must-play perhaps??
Also Backloggd change the cover of this game to the original non-dogshit version NOW!!! Or else things will get nuclear . . .
Also Backloggd change the cover of this game to the original non-dogshit version NOW!!! Or else things will get nuclear . . .
2023
THEY MADE FINAL FANTASY 13 FOR STRAIGHT GUYS
While this may sound obtuse at first glance, I truly couldn't stop thinking about FFXIII in the last third of me playing this game. To me they're both packed equally with things to love and very sloppy writing, it is your predisposition that'll be the key in determining whether you end up liking the game a lot or not. Fortunately for me I liked both XIII and XVI despite their issues (yippie!)!
Most of my frustrations with the game are in its story, it reminded me a lot of FFIV (a game I consider to be a likely inspiration) but not in a particularly charming way, more so in its SNES-era "and then this happened" type of storytelling. I felt several beats could do with some more explaining and the finale only loosely ties into the narrative ambitions established at the start of the game.
My most prominent issue is with some of the character writing, most notably that of the antagonists. They range from "I'm craaazy!!" at worst (this goes 2/3 of the antagonists honestly) to "I want revenge/power!!" at best. It's appalling even by FF standards and out of the ones I'd played I'd only definitely rank them above the antagonists of FFX and IV I guess. Maybe they shouldn't have set up half a dozen nations each with their own leaders and cultures if the depth of their motive is going to match that of Scarmiglione from FFIV. This problem also extends to the character writing of most of the plot-centric women in the game, another dreadful contrast to some of FF's previous examples. I like Mid a lot but every other major girl is either an unstable/insane psycho or roughly as useful as the main protagonist's dog. And no peoples' problem with Jill isn't how she is as a person or that she isn't girlboss enough, it's her lack of agency and meaningful contributions to anything the protagonists are striving towards.
Anyway what was up with how they wrote Barnabas? Am I crazy or did he not say anything of note in the entire game? At least he looks and sounds pretty darn cool . . .
To round it off on a positive note - because I did actually like this game despite my issues and disappointment - the combat may outstay its welcome near the end of the game but it's ultimately a home run for the game, enhanced thoroughly by the sheer variety of bosses with unique movesets to tackle. The visual design language on certain boss moves being taken from XIV is brilliant and it's something I've wanted action games to do for a while now. It wasn't quite 7R it was close and I had a lot of fun with it. The set pieces are incredible and awe-inspiring, the story is fairly well paced too while also feeling packed with content, something that is sure to appease those who felt burned by XIII and XV (or even XII somehow!). The visuals, aesthetic, music, voice acting and prose is also downright excellent. Clive is pretty cool too.
That's all I got folks! Bring Yasumi Matsuno back
Maybe me finishing Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions a week before playing Final Fantasy XVI was a massive mistake oops hehe
While this may sound obtuse at first glance, I truly couldn't stop thinking about FFXIII in the last third of me playing this game. To me they're both packed equally with things to love and very sloppy writing, it is your predisposition that'll be the key in determining whether you end up liking the game a lot or not. Fortunately for me I liked both XIII and XVI despite their issues (yippie!)!
Most of my frustrations with the game are in its story, it reminded me a lot of FFIV (a game I consider to be a likely inspiration) but not in a particularly charming way, more so in its SNES-era "and then this happened" type of storytelling. I felt several beats could do with some more explaining and the finale only loosely ties into the narrative ambitions established at the start of the game.
My most prominent issue is with some of the character writing, most notably that of the antagonists. They range from "I'm craaazy!!" at worst (this goes 2/3 of the antagonists honestly) to "I want revenge/power!!" at best. It's appalling even by FF standards and out of the ones I'd played I'd only definitely rank them above the antagonists of FFX and IV I guess. Maybe they shouldn't have set up half a dozen nations each with their own leaders and cultures if the depth of their motive is going to match that of Scarmiglione from FFIV. This problem also extends to the character writing of most of the plot-centric women in the game, another dreadful contrast to some of FF's previous examples. I like Mid a lot but every other major girl is either an unstable/insane psycho or roughly as useful as the main protagonist's dog. And no peoples' problem with Jill isn't how she is as a person or that she isn't girlboss enough, it's her lack of agency and meaningful contributions to anything the protagonists are striving towards.
Anyway what was up with how they wrote Barnabas? Am I crazy or did he not say anything of note in the entire game? At least he looks and sounds pretty darn cool . . .
To round it off on a positive note - because I did actually like this game despite my issues and disappointment - the combat may outstay its welcome near the end of the game but it's ultimately a home run for the game, enhanced thoroughly by the sheer variety of bosses with unique movesets to tackle. The visual design language on certain boss moves being taken from XIV is brilliant and it's something I've wanted action games to do for a while now. It wasn't quite 7R it was close and I had a lot of fun with it. The set pieces are incredible and awe-inspiring, the story is fairly well paced too while also feeling packed with content, something that is sure to appease those who felt burned by XIII and XV (or even XII somehow!). The visuals, aesthetic, music, voice acting and prose is also downright excellent. Clive is pretty cool too.
That's all I got folks! Bring Yasumi Matsuno back
Maybe me finishing Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions a week before playing Final Fantasy XVI was a massive mistake oops hehe
Play Ghost Trick.
2020
The game's so unique it's easy to love despite its rough edges that resulted largely from being more ambitious as a game than the original. It's also beautiful on a visual level. It was hard taking a screenshot of the world's locations that didn't look fantastic
Oh and Wayne is like real cool for a character that barely talks, dude
I wish I could one day gaze upon the world in the way he does
Oh and Wayne is like real cool for a character that barely talks, dude
I wish I could one day gaze upon the world in the way he does
More like SNOREna - The BORING Country
2019
sometimes the joy derived from play and the little things in life is meaning enough
2021
PERHAPS THE MOST CONFLICTED I'VE FELT ABOUT A 5/10 IN A WHILE
This ain't your dad's 5/10 that's bland and inoffensive enough to not leave any impression whatsoever, this is one of those that has heaps of strong qualities paired with a lot of baffling ones. It goes without saying that the wide range of side content is welcome as usual and one of the strongest aspects of the franchise so I won't labour the point. There's some excellent music here too which isn't unusual for the series at all, with two of the boss themes being some of my favourite in the entire series.
Visually it's probably the best looking game in the franchise so far and the combat has a lot of great aspects to it on top of being a massive step up from the experience of fighting at 25 FPS on the PS4 in the original Judgment. The one-on-one boss encounters especially are probably the best they've ever been on the Dragon Engine games when it comes to gameplay. Ever since the shift to the Dragon Engine the combat has seen a shift to a more crowd control focused style which utilizes a frequent use of physics to emphasize the player's ability to bob and weave between attacks and exploit openings that sends crowds of enemies flying. While this is a shift I very much liked (and will die on this hill defending Yakuza 6's combat as a result), it didn't translate into boss fights as gracefully, making you often feel like you're just waving your AoE-tuned arms and legs at a brick wall. In Lost Judgment they finally nailed this and it made me enjoy its bosses a lot when I cared about what was going on narratively, giving much more of an impression of trading blows with a peer.
Sadly the main source of my frustrated feelings on the game come from the story. The way the story tackles bullying is for the most part pretty great and is paired with an excellent couple of opening chapters. But after that it lost me for a while in its pacing, with a lot of waffling going on for roughly the first half of the game. This isn't a first for the series but the game that comes to mind with a pace this tedious would be Yakuza 3 which I'd consider the worst in the series.
Without going into spoilers the biggest issue with the story is its handling of one specific character who has both a questionable amount of buildup and has their motive bungled just ever so slightly enough to make them come off as an incompetent jackass. This misstep is so severe to me that I can easily see why people generally give this a 8-10 if they didn't mind this. It's difficult to overstate how easy it is to see the appeal in why people love it, a lot of the quality excitement and emotion is all there but almost all of it falls flat due to this hangup. It's exacerbated to comedic proportions when Yagami continously offers sloppy reasoning and counterarguments to said character just so that they can come off as intellectual peers, which made Yagami a lot less likeable of a protagonist to me compared to the original game.
Seriously Yagami sounds like a drunk for most of the game and constantly repeats points that are established a chapter before at best and a minute before at worst.
Also the game's attempts at making the original Judgment's 'detective gameplay' feel less gimmicky and surface level ended up being even more intrusive and just as surface level so that's cool
This ain't your dad's 5/10 that's bland and inoffensive enough to not leave any impression whatsoever, this is one of those that has heaps of strong qualities paired with a lot of baffling ones. It goes without saying that the wide range of side content is welcome as usual and one of the strongest aspects of the franchise so I won't labour the point. There's some excellent music here too which isn't unusual for the series at all, with two of the boss themes being some of my favourite in the entire series.
Visually it's probably the best looking game in the franchise so far and the combat has a lot of great aspects to it on top of being a massive step up from the experience of fighting at 25 FPS on the PS4 in the original Judgment. The one-on-one boss encounters especially are probably the best they've ever been on the Dragon Engine games when it comes to gameplay. Ever since the shift to the Dragon Engine the combat has seen a shift to a more crowd control focused style which utilizes a frequent use of physics to emphasize the player's ability to bob and weave between attacks and exploit openings that sends crowds of enemies flying. While this is a shift I very much liked (and will die on this hill defending Yakuza 6's combat as a result), it didn't translate into boss fights as gracefully, making you often feel like you're just waving your AoE-tuned arms and legs at a brick wall. In Lost Judgment they finally nailed this and it made me enjoy its bosses a lot when I cared about what was going on narratively, giving much more of an impression of trading blows with a peer.
Sadly the main source of my frustrated feelings on the game come from the story. The way the story tackles bullying is for the most part pretty great and is paired with an excellent couple of opening chapters. But after that it lost me for a while in its pacing, with a lot of waffling going on for roughly the first half of the game. This isn't a first for the series but the game that comes to mind with a pace this tedious would be Yakuza 3 which I'd consider the worst in the series.
Without going into spoilers the biggest issue with the story is its handling of one specific character who has both a questionable amount of buildup and has their motive bungled just ever so slightly enough to make them come off as an incompetent jackass. This misstep is so severe to me that I can easily see why people generally give this a 8-10 if they didn't mind this. It's difficult to overstate how easy it is to see the appeal in why people love it, a lot of the quality excitement and emotion is all there but almost all of it falls flat due to this hangup. It's exacerbated to comedic proportions when Yagami continously offers sloppy reasoning and counterarguments to said character just so that they can come off as intellectual peers, which made Yagami a lot less likeable of a protagonist to me compared to the original game.
Seriously Yagami sounds like a drunk for most of the game and constantly repeats points that are established a chapter before at best and a minute before at worst.
Also the game's attempts at making the original Judgment's 'detective gameplay' feel less gimmicky and surface level ended up being even more intrusive and just as surface level so that's cool
2019
The Pacing?
GOOD
The Action?
SOLID
The Art Direction?
SOME OF THE BEST I EVA SEEN
The Bosses?
TOO EASY OR TOO HARD (was fun to learn the patterns of the difficult ones though hihi)
The requirements for the True End?
A BIT BLASPHEMOUS BUT COOL
The Game?
GREAT
GOOD
The Action?
SOLID
The Art Direction?
SOME OF THE BEST I EVA SEEN
The Bosses?
TOO EASY OR TOO HARD (was fun to learn the patterns of the difficult ones though hihi)
The requirements for the True End?
A BIT BLASPHEMOUS BUT COOL
The Game?
GREAT
2005
COLLATERAL SHOT
I don't think I'm able to explain how cool this game is
I love everything about it and it's wild that all of it's batshit storytelling is seemingly accounted for in its lore
I don't think I'm able to explain how cool this game is
I love everything about it and it's wild that all of it's batshit storytelling is seemingly accounted for in its lore
2023
Forspoken . . .
MORE LIKE FOUR-OUT-OF-TENSPOKEN OUT OF TEN
There are definitely open world games out there that are both more polished/consistent but also more boring than this one.
Game had a lot of genuinely good and novel ideas (hell I even liked Frey) that ultimately didn't come together into something enjoyable. Traces of presumably troubled development can be seen all over the place, most notably in the shoddy cutscene direction. Why do certain parts fade to black in the middle of a scene??
If you for some reason want to check out a game made on the Luminous Engine, go for FFXV instead. It's got a lot more to give.
MORE LIKE FOUR-OUT-OF-TENSPOKEN OUT OF TEN
There are definitely open world games out there that are both more polished/consistent but also more boring than this one.
Game had a lot of genuinely good and novel ideas (hell I even liked Frey) that ultimately didn't come together into something enjoyable. Traces of presumably troubled development can be seen all over the place, most notably in the shoddy cutscene direction. Why do certain parts fade to black in the middle of a scene??
If you for some reason want to check out a game made on the Luminous Engine, go for FFXV instead. It's got a lot more to give.
2001
THEY MADE CHULIP FOR CHILDREN
Wait...this came out before Chulip . . . ? No no no that doesn't make any...
I'm glad I got to play a Chuliplike that was made for idiot babies such as myself. I got to finally appreciate a lot of the qualities that I liked about Chulip without getting broken down by its mercilessly hardcore PS2 game nature.
Wait...this came out before Chulip . . . ? No no no that doesn't make any...
I'm glad I got to play a Chuliplike that was made for idiot babies such as myself. I got to finally appreciate a lot of the qualities that I liked about Chulip without getting broken down by its mercilessly hardcore PS2 game nature.
A game with a story that's half yakuza 3 and half yakuza 6 is a mostly enjoyable time
Erm...kyoudais... wasn't this game supposed to be about Ichiban...?
Hawaii's alright. I take issue with how they utilize it more so than the location itself on paper. It has hardly any distinct locations that are utilized in main story scenes, which makes it a lot harder to build a mental image of this 3D space. However, I must add, every enemy NPC speaks in generic 'guy we grabbed off the street' ps2-core english one liners and it is brilliant. I was smiling from ear to ear every time an American yelled "I'LL SUE YOU" to me or when a bleeding enemy said "I JUST DONATED TO A BLOOD BANK!" etc. It felt like I was in America. I've never seen a more damning example in favor of how non-English battle lines should be subtitled in English (why aren't we doing this yet? 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim did this 5 years ago)
This game is very odd. It's a good time. I love a lot of it, but the stuff I don't like is unusually frustrating and I haven't been annoyed at a story in this series (wait does Lost Judgment count . . .) since yakuza 3 or 5. The Yakuza 3-ness of the story structure is really funny actually, trust me. In both games I thought to myself "Ok now the story is going somewhere" before realizing two chapters remained until the game was over. Also one of the central antagonists is maybe some of the worst shit the series has ever seen, I love it.
Virtually everything except the main story is a clear step up from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. It's so good that the game is worth playing despite the main story, even in a game genre I primarily play for its sense of adventure across its main storyline. There's still a lot of narrative enjoyment to be had, primarily in everything they decided to do with Kiryu's nostalgia-core gameplay systems as well as the optional added characterization of your party members. I'm also finding it harder and harder to be pissy about Kiryu's story not concluding by Yakuza 6 (a game I love) when they decide to add even more excellent closure with every new title that features him.
Yamai is the best guy ever, he is the true number one and I love him.
I'm excited to see how the nuanced story of Wong is developed in future installments!
Erm...kyoudais... wasn't this game supposed to be about Ichiban...?
Hawaii's alright. I take issue with how they utilize it more so than the location itself on paper. It has hardly any distinct locations that are utilized in main story scenes, which makes it a lot harder to build a mental image of this 3D space. However, I must add, every enemy NPC speaks in generic 'guy we grabbed off the street' ps2-core english one liners and it is brilliant. I was smiling from ear to ear every time an American yelled "I'LL SUE YOU" to me or when a bleeding enemy said "I JUST DONATED TO A BLOOD BANK!" etc. It felt like I was in America. I've never seen a more damning example in favor of how non-English battle lines should be subtitled in English (why aren't we doing this yet? 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim did this 5 years ago)
This game is very odd. It's a good time. I love a lot of it, but the stuff I don't like is unusually frustrating and I haven't been annoyed at a story in this series (wait does Lost Judgment count . . .) since yakuza 3 or 5. The Yakuza 3-ness of the story structure is really funny actually, trust me. In both games I thought to myself "Ok now the story is going somewhere" before realizing two chapters remained until the game was over. Also one of the central antagonists is maybe some of the worst shit the series has ever seen, I love it.
Virtually everything except the main story is a clear step up from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. It's so good that the game is worth playing despite the main story, even in a game genre I primarily play for its sense of adventure across its main storyline. There's still a lot of narrative enjoyment to be had, primarily in everything they decided to do with Kiryu's nostalgia-core gameplay systems as well as the optional added characterization of your party members. I'm also finding it harder and harder to be pissy about Kiryu's story not concluding by Yakuza 6 (a game I love) when they decide to add even more excellent closure with every new title that features him.
Yamai is the best guy ever, he is the true number one and I love him.
I'm excited to see how the nuanced story of Wong is developed in future installments!
2022
Instead of following in Bayonetta 2's attempt at refining the strengths of Bayonetta 1 (keyword being 'attempt'), Bayonetta 3 correctly saw that there was no easy way of doing so without uninspiringly adding more stuff and instead decided to reinvent significant parts of the gameplay in the name of novelty.
The result is a stellar action game that felt as fresh to me as exploring the depth of Bayo 1 for the first time did. The Demon Slave mechanic - something I'd originally dreaded being horrifyingly clunky - is more smoothly implemented than I could've ever hoped and ends up adding a unique flow to the series' combat. I want to play Viola a lot more before saying anything definitive but for now it's safe to say that I liked I lot of the ideas they had with her even though some of the execution left a bit to be desired. She contrasts Bayonetta nicely in a lot of ways and I'm hoping to see her kit explored further in the future.
I don't mean to oversell it but I found the story to easily be the best implementation of a narrative for the series and it's portrayed in an appropriately large-scale manner while keeping the actual plot beats mostly simple (it stumbles here and there with the odd head-scratching moment).
The only reason I'm not ready to give this game a 5/5 or consider it better than Bayo 1 yet is because I know I have plenty of more hours to sink into the combat, my scores and getting several gameplay affecting (on top of numerous cosmetic) unlockables.
This game is wonderful.
The result is a stellar action game that felt as fresh to me as exploring the depth of Bayo 1 for the first time did. The Demon Slave mechanic - something I'd originally dreaded being horrifyingly clunky - is more smoothly implemented than I could've ever hoped and ends up adding a unique flow to the series' combat. I want to play Viola a lot more before saying anything definitive but for now it's safe to say that I liked I lot of the ideas they had with her even though some of the execution left a bit to be desired. She contrasts Bayonetta nicely in a lot of ways and I'm hoping to see her kit explored further in the future.
I don't mean to oversell it but I found the story to easily be the best implementation of a narrative for the series and it's portrayed in an appropriately large-scale manner while keeping the actual plot beats mostly simple (it stumbles here and there with the odd head-scratching moment).
The only reason I'm not ready to give this game a 5/5 or consider it better than Bayo 1 yet is because I know I have plenty of more hours to sink into the combat, my scores and getting several gameplay affecting (on top of numerous cosmetic) unlockables.
This game is wonderful.
Kirby can (yet again) do no wrong!!
The robot was used surprisingly sparingly, it's often the case that a new game's central gimmick can easily become overbearing so this came as a pleasant surprise to me. In turn it unfortunately comes across as a bit of a weak addition to the series as most of the time your play won't differ much from a lot of other Kirby games out there.
I also found that the mechanical aesthetic (while novel for Kirby) outstayed its welcome a little bit, although it's admirable how much visual variety they fit in with this in mind.
While it sounds like I'm ragging on it quite a bit I did actually like this game I promise! The levels are excellently paced and they are greatly improved by including 3 semi-mandatory collectibles per level that require some form of (by Kirby standards) fast thinking or puzzle solving which elevated the entire experience.
Overall it was an expectedly breezy time and worth recommending to any Kirbyheads who are trying to figure out an entry in the series to check out.
The robot was used surprisingly sparingly, it's often the case that a new game's central gimmick can easily become overbearing so this came as a pleasant surprise to me. In turn it unfortunately comes across as a bit of a weak addition to the series as most of the time your play won't differ much from a lot of other Kirby games out there.
I also found that the mechanical aesthetic (while novel for Kirby) outstayed its welcome a little bit, although it's admirable how much visual variety they fit in with this in mind.
While it sounds like I'm ragging on it quite a bit I did actually like this game I promise! The levels are excellently paced and they are greatly improved by including 3 semi-mandatory collectibles per level that require some form of (by Kirby standards) fast thinking or puzzle solving which elevated the entire experience.
Overall it was an expectedly breezy time and worth recommending to any Kirbyheads who are trying to figure out an entry in the series to check out.
LIKE A DRAGON GAIDEN: THE MAN WHO WAS BASED
This somehow feels like a return to form even though this series has been at its peak since Yakuza 0. Maybe it was cause I really didn't like Lost Judgment...huh.
Anyways, Ki- uh I mean Joryu Jazuma (that's his actual full name in this game) feels excellent to play as. The substories are excellent as usual. You know how this works!
It's downright hilarious whenever a character calls Joryu Jazuma by another name and he has to awkwardly go "uh....no that's not me...". It keeps happening, why does it keep happening? Surely this could've been avoided.
The Man Who Erased His Name spends a lot of this game being reminded that he didn't really erase his name, but they do call him based, which he is. He's The Man Who Was Based.
Uh I'm kind of waffling right now but the game has some excellent Joryu moments that made me laugh a lot and the final boss was surprisingly well executed despite my misgivings. It had everything I liked about Yakuza 5's final boss without all the stuff that sucked.
The game also surprisingly has one of the best final scenes in the entire series, that alone makes me want to rate this game unreasonably high, but for now it gets to be a 4/5, gotta keep a cool head for Joryu Jazuma, ya know?
This somehow feels like a return to form even though this series has been at its peak since Yakuza 0. Maybe it was cause I really didn't like Lost Judgment...huh.
Anyways, Ki- uh I mean Joryu Jazuma (that's his actual full name in this game) feels excellent to play as. The substories are excellent as usual. You know how this works!
It's downright hilarious whenever a character calls Joryu Jazuma by another name and he has to awkwardly go "uh....no that's not me...". It keeps happening, why does it keep happening? Surely this could've been avoided.
The Man Who Erased His Name spends a lot of this game being reminded that he didn't really erase his name, but they do call him based, which he is. He's The Man Who Was Based.
Uh I'm kind of waffling right now but the game has some excellent Joryu moments that made me laugh a lot and the final boss was surprisingly well executed despite my misgivings. It had everything I liked about Yakuza 5's final boss without all the stuff that sucked.
The game also surprisingly has one of the best final scenes in the entire series, that alone makes me want to rate this game unreasonably high, but for now it gets to be a 4/5, gotta keep a cool head for Joryu Jazuma, ya know?