I'm a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series, and with Final Fantasy XIV being one of my favorites I was very ethusiastic when I heard the news that Square's Creative Business Unit III was in charge of the next mainline game, Final Fantasy XVI. Each new trailer they showed for FFXVI was amazing, later they revealed that PlatinumGames and the Kingdom Hearts team helped with the development of the game, and several staff were Devil May Cry veterans. I tought that we would have the best Final Fantasy ever from watching those trailers and reading news, unfortunately that would not be the case. I started playing this at release, stopped for a long time and came back recently to finish it. I have many problems with Final Fantasy XVI, but it seems like going full action while still maintaining it an RPG wasn't the best decision. The game feels like everybody developed systems separately without exchanging information and just put them together at the end, they don't sinergize with each other at all. The eikonic abilities are cool, but they're not enough to sustain a 60 to 70 hour game, you can't play with anyone else in your party besides Clive, and Clive has junt one type of weapon for the entire game, seriously? I ended up using Garuda for the entire game, because Deadly Embrace and Gouge are so vital for staggering enemies that I couldn't think of another effective way to do this, other Eikon's abilities just aren't good enough. Using Titan is very fun though, since you finally have a block button. The level system is kinda useless as you don't earn that much experience defeating enemies in the field, and they don't even have stagger bars. You don't have to think about gear a lot because you always have the right materials to craft the newest gear set. The majority of the sidequests aren't great, and they just become interesting right before the end, before this they were just pace killers. Hunts are the coolest side activity to do, they are fun to battle and give nice rewards. I don't like that the game is basically divided into "stages", I mean, this is in line with other action games but I expected something different because this is Final Fantasy. The story... Well... It's kinda interesting in the beginning, it has some great scenes and concepts, but I think it loses itself a little when it distances from "we're Game of Thrones". That villain is just not good. The characters are great, I love Clive, but aside from him they're not well developed, I wish I could play as Jill, Torgal, Cid and others. The music is very good! I love Soken in FFXIV, still love him here in XVI. The voice actors are the best, congrats to everyone. And I just want to say that the final boss is awesome and I tought my PS5 would burn. Anyways, I'm hopeful the upcoming DLCs and PC version solves some of those problems because I really want to like this game more. And I will end this review by quoting a friend: "I will leave it these three stars, which don't seem like much, but know that they shine very brightly".

+ Unbelievably satisfying core puzzle loop, where you genuinely feel like the smartest person in the world when figuring things out.
+ Complex while never feeling overwhelming, and is neither too short nor drags on for too long.
+ Gorgeous minimalist artstyle.

- Slightly irritating and out-of-place stealth/action sequences.
- The final minutes of the game don't really land and are a strange diversion away from what makes the rest of the experience so good.

Bayonetta Origins is an incredibly unique game and this alone is a reason for this title to be celebrated. Its ideas aren't often seen in other games, and it explores gameplay ideas that are very satisfying to pull off. The visuals are amazing, the storybook aesthetic is charming and cute, I love the fact that we have a narrator. The relationship between Cereza and Cheshire has an interesting development, and the story pleased me as a whole. I love how I can't exactly fit the game into one specfic genre, metroidvania? Maybe, but it is also divided into chapters. Controlling both characters can feel weird at first but I tought I got better after some hours playing. The combat is fun and refreshing, exploration is rewarding as new skills are tied to it. Most of the Tír na nÓg, think of it as like Breath of the Wild's shrines but in this game, have really fun mechanics but I wish there were more of them that wasn't just another combat encounter. I also wish Cereza had some sort of attack other than binding enemies, but I guess this will be in Bayonetta Origins 2. And I must complain about the map, its very confusing and it's not helpful at all, the areas are too vertical and very confusing to navigate, I wish the map showed magic upgrades too. But all in all, as a huge Bayonetta fan I loved Origins, and I want more games like this!

I never had the opportunity to play the original as a VR title. My first encounter with the world of this game is I think the same as most people, via Gunfire Games' other title Remnant: From The Ashes.

After a few hours of playing Chronos I was finding the overall clunkiness a little frustrating, but the thing I found most interesting was seeing this perceivable arc from this game to Remnant. It's palpable what the team at Gunfire learned with this game and what they took into Remnant to make that game as good a game as it is.

Chronos is largely a pretty rote action RPG that is similar to other Souls titles in that the world is largely interconnected and it gives you very little information on how to proceed. That's about it for the comparison though, as the progression system is mostly a basic EXP level up system. They also have an interesting age mechanic, which raises your characters age as you die. This has an impact on your leveling by changing the cost of individual stats based on your age. When you're young, strength and agility are cheap stats to buy with your skill points, but arcane is expensive. The opposite is true once you hit your forties (about 25ish deaths, give or take). This is a pretty interesting system and I did find myself engaging with it by actually thinking about when I wanted to put my points into agility, etc. Good system.

Beyond that, the game is pretty okay. The bosses aren't that great, and there are a few enemies that are pretty un-fun to fight against up until you realise you can extremely easily stun-lock them against a wall and they stop being a problem and the game becomes more fun.

I recommend giving it a go! I got access to it via PlayStation Plus Extra and that honestly feels like the best place to play it at the moment if you're worried about financial investment.

Facilmente o melhor jogo rítmico que eu já joguei na vida. Ao mesmo tempo que é simples entender como jogar, ele consegue ser muito desafiador e se tornar o inferno completo como qualquer bom joguinho de música.

Acho que a coisa que mais me pegou foi o quanto é natural e o quanto você consegue sentir a música jogando - a melhor sensação pra mim é quando você roda o círculo, já clica e volta a jogar super rápido. Mesmo em dificuldades médias, eu me sentia animado e seguindo a música, é realmente incrível.

Se você gosta de jogo rítmico, Spin Rhythm XD é um jogo obrigatório, sem dúvidas.

Pretty torn on this one. I love its visual design, and how inventive and tactile the potion crafting feels. The overwhelming variety of ingredients and the traversal they allow on the alchemy map are wonderful, as are their cleverly color-coded designs. I enjoyed how the clients and the flavor of their demands changes depending on who you refuse service to (serve too many scoundrels and suddenly you’re only getting bandits and necromancers in the door). I don’t love the repetitive grind of the retail simulation, or the way it gates progression behind waiting on certain merchants to show up or certain ingredients to regrow in the garden. I also hated the way the alchemy formulas for the Salts and Stones depended on the same Stone from the previous stage, since I pretty much never wanted to make any of them a second time (it’s novel the first time, but tedious busywork after that).

Based on the dev’s roadmap, it seems like some of these complaints might be alleviated in the future; maybe I’ll pick it up again then, but for now I’m satisfied having created everything but the Philosopher’s Stone and a couple of higher level Salts.

played aprox. 8 hours? i love the concept but feel it asks for a little too much time commitment to play through completely. i only made the first crystal out of the machine, but once i saw that second recipe i knew i wasnt up for it. getting a level 3 brew requires some really precise planning as if you overshoot your movement, its done and will almost always require another ingredient. i think the haggling minigame is perfect as it takes exactly as long as it should. the cursor speed is a nice cruise and the refresh when you hit just feels so nice. but the whole game revolves around this singular mechanic of moving around the map, using these items to follow wacky paths. the problem comes in when it wants you to mortar and pestle every fucking plant to extract the most distance. i wish there was more "free" ways to move around as watering it down only gets you so far.

don't get me wrong, im harping on it alot but i do genuinely like what this game is doing. i wish there was a more relaxed version where i didnt have to economize each and decision i have to make.