While I beat Devil May Cry first, I'm reviewing this one now as it's the most fresh in my mind. Devil May Cry 2 is the infamous sequel to Devil May Cry, a game which had its own share of problems, but was overall enjoyable. Devil May Cry 2 on the other hand, has good gameplay on paper, but in execution, it plays a whole lot worse. Starting off, the improvements.

The amulets were a cool idea, and you can upgrade your weapons. Oh, and you can quick swap guns, now, and the controls are ever so slightly better.

Alright, now the downsides. For one, DMC2 is absolutely WAAAAAAAAAY too easy. DMC wasn't too difficult, but if you weren't prepared, you could easily die. DMC2 feels patronizing in comparison. If you've ever heard of DMC2, you've heard of how infamously overpowered guns are, and it's ALL true. Guns tear through enemies in this game, and also juggle enemies. Swords are nigh useless in this game because there feels like there's little combo game here. Unlike the delay based systems of DMC1 (ex. Attack, Attack, Small Delay, Attack), DMC2 has the player hold the stick in a specific direction to pull off an attack (ex Attack, Attack, hold Left, Attack). I didn't even know this was possible until the 5th mission; I had to look it up on the wiki. And even then, most of the attacks push away your enemy instead of keeping them in one spot, which is usually the opposite of what you want. And even if you did want to use the moves, half of the time it doesn't even work, but thankfully this game doesn't rank you based on the variety of moves you use, but rather how long you can keep up the damage, and how much you dodge attacks. So in the end, who should give a flying fuck about the swords? Half of the bosses encourage using guns anyways, and if ANYONE knows ANYTHING about DMC2’s awful boss design, it's the fucking INFESTED CHOPPER. I'm serious, 90% of the battle is just you shooting at the chopper off-screen, dodging easy ass bullets, and it gets old and repetitive FAST. You do this for about 2 minutes, and it's really irritating. The other bosses also lack the satisfaction of DMC1’s boss design; they're far too easy to bruteforce. The only time I actually died to a boss was the Infested Chopper fight, not even to the boss itself, it was that burning building climb with me trying for over a minute to get on a platform that I fell off of, because DMC ain't no Mario 64, that's for sure. Could they not cut that shit out from DMC1? Aaaand that's where I gave up essentially. It wasn't really fun to begin with, and the Infested Chopper as well as several other DMC fans tell me that DMC2 isn't worth finishing. I didn't even try out Lucia for god’s sake, I was just that uninterested. DMC2 is absolutely not worth any more of my time, and it's probably gonna stay that way for a while.

Pyre is a resoundingly "okay" game that was honestly pretty good but unfortunately the runtime went a little longer than I felt it needed. For me it was a typical Supergiant experience: Top of the line visuals (namely in character design,) impressive work put in an original world, a dedicated Darren Korb soundtrack, and a unique gimmick that drives gameplay. I liked it quite a bit more than Transistor and Bastion, though not as much as Hades, because I felt like the gameplay loop until you have to repeat it ad nauseum was fairly entertaining. Space basketball is a pretty neat concept and I'd like to see it explored more in a game down the line, but the loop felt a little stagnant as Pyre went on. I will say that initially I was upset that I had to change up my party as the game went on to get the actual ending of the game, but I appreciated the nuances different character archetypes brought to Pyre. Ultimately I felt like some of battles against NPC's felt like they were simply waiting for my reaction or cheating the AI reaction timing to certain things, but overall it was fine.

In the end, I found Pyre to be a simply "good" game and nothing really more than that. The runtime went a bit longer than my liking, but I'd consider this to be one of Supergiant's better titles. I'd recommend it to anyone who can catch it on sale or is a fan of their material in general.

"Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry."

- Richard Feynman

Despite being a puzzle game, Cocoon seamlessly fits into the realm of sensory exploration experiences, akin to titles like Journey and Sable. As you calmly navigate this world devoid of the fear of death, a dynamic, meditative soundtrack accompanies you, perfectly synchronizing with the textures of your surroundings.

Although a mind-bending, reality-distorting puzzle game, Cocoon is surprisingly frictionless and frustration-free. Most puzzles are solvable relatively quickly, contributing to a smooth and enjoyable gaming experience. However, this ease doesn't detract from the overall quality of the experience. Cocoon's puzzles are well-designed, and the intricate connections between them are impressive and, at times, even staggering.

Video games can often be seen as a language unto themselves. As players navigate the expansive and dynamic gaming landscape, they find a shared lexicon that extends beyond a particular game's specific narrative or aesthetic. Whether one is mastering the art of precision platforming, honing strategic decision-making in a real-time strategy game, or perfecting movement and aim in a first-person shooter, the fundamental principles of play often carry over.

Cocoon is able to gamify this phenomenon by teaching players its language—one they will need to navigate its world and solve its puzzles—all without saying a word.

Ultimately, the game strikes an effective balance between being an easygoing adventure and a showcase of intricate puzzle design.

It's got some killer boss fights, too, if you're into that sort of thing.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a flawed game. I was often frustrated with its combat and story pacing. It all too often confirmed my fears about the new direction RGG Studios wanted to take this series in. I can't exactly blame them for trying something so drastically different, as this was at the time the 8th main line Yakuza game. After all the trials and struggles of Kazuma Kiryu, it was definitly time to move on. And despite all the issues I had with Like a Dragon, they actually did the impossible once again and rose up to the challenge to deliver one of the best games I have ever played.

And it's all build on the shoulders of its new main character: Ichiban Kasuga. He is in many ways similar to the series main boy Kiryu. An orphan raised on the rough streets of Tokyo, getting taken in by an enigmatic father figure with deep ties to the Japanese underworld. And while they are so similar in upbringing and the morals they stand for, along with the color of their suits literary being inverted, RGG immediately shows you the difference between them all in their introduction. In the PS2 original and Kiwami, Kyrui's intro is quiet. We follow him as he makes understated treats for a money collection job, confident, professional. Ichiban is also introduced during a job collection Money for the Yakuza. Unlike Kyrui, he is not threatening, nor is he a professional as we see him desperately chase some low life through the streets of Kamurocho before throwing himself off a balcony screaming and flattening his target with a body slam. This is Ichiban Kasuga. He's loud, he's easily excitable and above all else: Fully dedicated to whatever job he's doing for the people he considers family. Ichiban won me over hard. Throughout all the stories funniest and also the darkest moments, and this story gets fucking dark, Ichiban is here to push you along with his borderline retarded optimism. The story came together incredibly satisfying, gave me chills on multiple occasions, and the ending almost broke me. Is the pacing all over the place ? Yes, sometimes I was tearing my hair out when it decided to move along at the pace of a melting Iceberg, but just like many games in this very series, the payoff is 100% worth it. Ichibans speech at the end especially was incredible and Kazuhiro Nakaya, his Japanese voice actor, deserves all the awards in the world for what I think is one of the best performances I have seen in basically anything. I absolutely don't want to spoil anything in case you haven't played it yet, so I'm just going to move on to the gameplay and fully recommend Yakuza Like a Dragon on the strengths of the story alone.

The gameplay was a mixed bag. I don't think they flawlessly managed to transition from action combat into a turn-based rpg. I would best describe it as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle because despite the many options you have with the new job system, it mostly comes down to choosing between three basics options. Either targeting single enemies, doing large AOI attacks or keeping on top of your parties health. Enemies only ever become a problem whenever they heavily out level you, and even that was only an issue during one particular boss fight where the game basically kicks your ass and tells you to fuck off. Go grind, you scrub. It was certainly appropriate considering who I was fighting, but it didn't make it any less annoying that the story basically was put on pause in order for me to grind in the game's boring as fuck dungeons. And that might be my biggest personal issue with Like a Dragon. The side content seems to have been a major priority during the development. Admittedly, it's the best and most fun side content, Yakuza has ever had. Every side story and mini-game you could think of his here. From an entire management sim, a full on Mario Kart clone and even the entire arcade version of Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown. It's all great and all, but be aware that you will basically be forced to do some of those side quests at some point in the story. As one of the many people who like to play Yakuza by mainlining the story and then slowly enjoying the side content in Premium Adventure, that certainly was a roadblock I had to overcome in order to have a fun.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon still was an incredible game for me, and I'm now fully onboard with whatever insanity Infinity Wealth looks to be. RGG Studios continues to be the GOAT in an industrie that decided to increasingly suck ass, and I can not recommend enough that you get into this incredible series. RGG I love you all but also fuck you for teaching me what a coin locker baby is. That scene will probably not leave me for a while, as well as the eyeball scene. That was just fucking gross, man.

I mean it's Huniepop but a clicker, so I'm gonna say from the outset two things.

1: No this is not as good as Huniepop 1 or 2, for many many reasons.
2: I wouldn't go and say it's a porn game. It's more like a fuck up your wrist simulator.

If you see someone playing it and assume they're beating off, I guarantee you they aren't. They're either mashing the shit out of their left mouse button or have the game paused as they go put their wrists on ice. There is no chance to watch or see any lewd things, no chance to beat off. There's only pain and suffering, and it's not even the good kind ya sick freak.

Baldur's Deflate 3

It's been a long time coming and it's finally came, for Bun B Weepboop to get his shot at the game and the results are... well... we beat it? Last year was filled with a plethora of large-scale video game releases and unfortunately a finite amount of time to play them. In my quest to play as many GOTY nominees and new titles as I could, I had to prioritize games based upon the feasibility of completing them within a certain time frame and their general approach of play. In deciding how I wanted to tackle the year, this led myself to selecting long RPG's like Final Fantasy XVI and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in lieu of other nominees like Marvel's Spiderman 2 and the relevant Baldur's Gate 3. I dodged Baldur's Gate largely because of the time investment necessary and my life embarking on an increasingly busier schedule, but a large part of my avoidance came down to the fact that it is a Larian Studios CRPG. I'd previously put thirty or forty hours into Divinity Original Sin 2 to milquetoast results, the game was fun to play with friends but its open-ended quest design and generally uninteresting world and narrative failed to pull me in. With Baldur's Gate 3 finally on sale and a new year on the horizon, I purchased it with the intent to play it as soon as I returned to my home and computer following a vacation.

Just about everyone I know fell head over heels with this game, either because they were D&D heads and had finally gotten their video game manifestation of the years playing the legendary tabletop IP, or because they found the near infinite possibilities of exploration and quest-solving attractive. I lent my ear to each of these people and their affinity towards BG3, happy for them to get the lengthy RPG it seemed forever wanted by the gaming world, but thinking I would personally never touch the game. I asked and listened to each one my friends and peers about the who's, what's, when's, and why's of why Baldur's Gate 3 was so good before I ever thought about my purchase. The common answers melted down to the lengthy involved questlines, rich world with decades of lore attached, a complicated D&D combat and world traversal mechanic, and a narrative ever so mysterious. Going into it, this was quite attractive for the most part, despite gaming as a genre having been fairly in depth and mechanically significant since the advent of the new millennia, it's felt like we've been continuously chasing a title in which our choices sincerely mattered and the agency of us within a fantasy world was paramount. If only this legitimately held true in Baldur's Gate... more to come on that later.

I'll start with what I liked about the game, and maybe that will diverge into my issues and qualms with it as well, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. One of the many things I didn't like about Divinity Original Sin 2 (DOS2) was its heightened level of ambiguity in quest design and locations. The journal, or attempt at one, within the game would say things along the like of "Well we talked to a wizard, wizards know magic, maybe somewhere on this island there is a wizard who likes magic a lot" and that would be your clue to find a magic spell to continue upon your journey, without an indication of where specifically to go. Of course this is a slight hyperbole but it was a microcosm of a challenge I had with narrative direction in Larian's previous large scale effort. In BG3 I largely didn't have that issue, as there was a "show on map" option for many of the questlines, all of which seemed to quickly update for new direction once new information was discovered along the journey. I've ranted and raved about quest marker design and the general lack of knowing where to go in games quite often in my reviews thus far, and I have to give credit to Larian for understanding the QoL this brings to BG3. I don't have the wherewithal anymore to exhaustingly read each note or follow each fine word of dialogue as to my next movements within the story, that would be unfair to the average gamer and attention span within the 21st century. What I do have is the ability to recollect summarized information and work with general hints as to where to move next, and BG3 did a fairly good jo overall with that.

Outside of that, there were a few items in which I was generally impressed with BG3 and greatly surprised about going into it. Majorly was the effort put into making the characters of the game complicated and fleshed out against the lukewarm and mostly uninteresting narrative at hand. Each character within your party, should you recruit them (of which I successfully did with each able NPC,) is vastly different and has their own motivations to move through the world and story of Baldur's Gate. Your interactions and conversation with Karlach will forever and always be different than they are with Astarion, and likewise with Gale, Shadowheart, etc... Though I had significant issues with the way a majority of these plotlines resolve, I have to give the staff at Larian some serious credit for crafting the stories of your constituents and making them relevant all the way until the end of the title. In an RPG, the motivations behind your party members to continue along the journey with the main character is integral for creating a believable and striking story. Even in some of my favorite titles of all time, the mark here is missed (cough Final Fantasy cough,) but BG3 was able to tie in the cast with the story. For the most part this was a success, and this is tough to do without divulging spoilers, but one of my most significant gripes with this game was the actual difference you make in their lives upon the completion of the game. Though I felt like the characters were intricately written and different from one another, each with their own needs and values that applied to defeating the big bad and moving on with their lives, I couldn't help to care for just about any of them.

In an effort to be unique, I felt like certain party members were different just for the sake of being different and had no legitimate value to care for. Like Gale is cool and all, and his plight of being an effective walking bomb is tragic, but what does he really do in conversation or in act throughout the entire 90 hour+ runtime for me to care about? Shadowheart's questline involves a deep and serious conversation about her faith and life up until the events of BG3, but why does that matter to me? Again, Wyll's character dilemma involves a binding contract with a devil that it is up to me and the gang to resolve... but why? And why does everything have to be an ultimatum? This felt like a cheap narrative mechanic that the majority of successful western RPG's I enjoy do not use. It's fine to have a tragic ending, it's okay to have characters die, but when you understand that each of the cast members within BG3 are going to have some tragic ultimatum at the end of their respective questlines, that becomes tired. I look at Mass Effect for example, another party based western RPG that I consider to be amongst my holy trinity (ME3, RDR2, and The Witcher 3,) which sees Commander Shepard and the Boys take on galactic big bads with the fate of the universe on the line. Your party members from game to game have their respective tragedies and relevance to the survival of the Normandy and galaxy, but they don't all involve some frustrating stipulation you have to grapple with at the end. One of my major gripes with BG3 is thus, resolving most of these questlines involves a sacrifice or impactful decision that doesn't feel necessary for the story of the game, rather just for emotional shock value. I cared about characters like Karlach, Astarion (sort of,) and Shart, but did I care about them enough to make the grand decision they are asking about? The answer resoundingly was no. In essence I felt like BG3 attempted to make the resolution of these questlines filled with a faux sense of gravity, and I'm not a fan of that.

You have a lot of scenes take place in camp with this cast in the first and second acts of the game, just for them to completely disappear in the third. I wasn't a fan of this rug pull as it personally felt like they ran out of ideas to make the in-between moments of BG3 interesting and focused on the players self-investigation of the end of the story.

I think a part of this manifested in the romance of the game, something that just about all my BG3 "super-fan" friends were quite into. Part of the fun in open-world/zone RPG's in which you control the avatar or social relationships of is choosing which of the games cast members you want to link up with. Now, I didn't really care about anyone in BG3 to that degree, as mentioned above most of the cast greatly waned on me in terms of care and motive, but I did try to pursue one for the why not of it all. This didn't work out, despite playing their storyline to perfection and pursuing their questline in the best of their interest, with max intrapersonal affinity, all because I missed a scene in Act 1. Now imagine I'm trying to move along the story and complete this game some forty hours later and can't move on with their relationship because of some error I didn't even know I didn't make in the first act. This more than anything felt cheap, as the game had not made any gravity of said moment clear down the line and did not indicate to me that I had missed anything. Several characters within the story approached my avatar for a relationship even though I didn't embark on this massive journey for them, and it had me pondering why this was so complex, and for what reason? Other RPG's made these romance and relationship checks much more cut and dry, and it worked far better in those scenarios. I hope the reader sees this moreso as a qualm with the lack of clarity in relaying plot/story checks to the player than anything else.


I've spoken on it a little before too, but the narrative of this game, something I thought would be the strong point of a near 100 hour experience, was genuinely unimpressive. It relies on a fairly tired fantasy trope in a world I as the player was wildly unfamiliar with. The story simply felt like something I was working towards, and not working with. The narrative at no point rather than the closing scenes of each act, felt like something I was actively involved in. There was no real attempt at worldbuilding, rather just letting you interact and converse with the denizens of the land about the respective plights within each act. I don't know, maybe as a Final Fantasy Fan (I hate that alliteration,) I'm a little spoiled about worldbuilding, but outside of the city of Baldur's Gate itself, do you really ever feel like you truly belong or understand the world of this title? My answer to that rhetorical is no. Even in a game like FFX, a short little cinematic of Tidus and the Blitzboys in Zanarkand gives you enough inference upon how the world is within that game. Beginning BG3 in a crashing Nautiloid with some vagrants who would inevitably become your party members, and no real hub world until the last act made me impartial to the world at large. Sure you have some inns and rests along the way, and a camp to call home but... it never felt to me like a place where I could see myself living in (in a fantasy setting.) Environmental buy in is something that matters to me a lot in a title like this, something that the aforementioned Witcher 3 knocked out of the park, going a mile to make the world Geralt takes on the Wild Hunt in feel like it’s a place he needs to defend and call home. In Baldur's Gate 3, in conjunction with the abrupt beginning of the game, I felt like I was rushed into a world I did not know, and simply had to pursue a big bad that was dead set on the destruction of a city I had never been to and did not care for. My plea throughout the ultimate act of BG3 to Larian Studios was to please make me care about this game, please make me care about these characters, please make me care about this world. The onus of buy-in should not be imparted upon the player, rather demonstrated by the game, and that I personally feel like BG3 missed out on by a country mile.

Another qualm I had with BG3 was the fact that I generally am not a fan of D&D, and not for the lack of trying. Now you may say, you idiot why are you playing a long winded narrative set in the historic world of D&D that utilizes D&D mechanics if you don't like D&D? I would reply with, well shut up! But, what comes with that is an unfamiliarity and general annoyance with the way the non-lore aspects of that IP are set up. To begin, every single aspect of this game is a dice roll... and I understand the reasoning behind that as I have played multiple campaigns of D&D, there is a nuance to discovery, speech, and combat that relies upon the chance of dice. Of course your character's intrinsic stats player a role in the success rate of these encounters, but largely you are at the mercy of chance. I dislike this... a lot, it makes for a bad video game experience. Is it true to form for the tabletop version of this IP? Yes! Do I like having to roll a dice for things like opening a chest that has two apples and a rotted herring? No! Do I like having to roll the dice because I'm trying to convince a talking cat to roll over on its paws? No! Do I like having to intimidate and persuade on a dice roll just to simply convince someone they smell funny? Also no. Of course those are probably all made up scenarios, but a general pull on the plight I had in the minutiae of BG3's over-reliance on dice rolls. For this reason combat was also aggressively annoying, every hit no matter how close or logical relied upon another series of hidden dice rolls. You had your chance to hit, the chance for the enemy to retort, the chance for an opportunity attack, the chance for a saving throw, the chance for this, the chance for that... it made for some seemingly unending fights with an over-reliance on re-loads, lest you wish to take the brunt of being burnt by RNG. I may be a little burnt after playing several Fire Emblem titles within the last year, in which the simple majority in an accuracy chart meant that you were likely to hit your opponent for full damage, but in BG3 with a 90% chance or greater likelihood to hit, I missed a frustratingly large amount. I legitimately never felt confident in my attacks, be it melee or at range, and again I understand this is true to D&D but man, it also felt true to a rather lukewarm combat experience.

To further the conversation about combat and a foreign experience with the inner trappings of D&D's long running history, I take issue with the fact that Larian did not feel it necessary to simplify or explain just about any of the mechanics of combat and status effects within the game. I hope you know what all the status effects do and how they combine, I hope you are privy to the advantages and weaknesses of spells and cantrips already, because this will not be tutorialized in the slightest for the player. I've joked before with my brother and friends about the tutorial section of Persona 5 and how it effectively lasts the first fifty hours of the >100 hour experience, but you know what it does do? Adequately explain the workings of another storied franchise and its involved mechanics and submechanics. Baldur's Gate has even more going on in the way that strengths, weaknesses, spells, counter-spells, and all the like interact, and it does almost zero to explain this to the player. Of course, should you have enough time to rival that of twenty year WoW vets to read every subtext of items and spells and their effects, you might know, but to the average joe these will go largely unexplained through the runtime of the game. Combine a obfuscated combat system with the "Oops-All-Enemies" nature of this game and you're in for a largely aggravating time. There were too many fights to count that started with the enemies of BG3 outnumbering your party four or more to one. This isn't the worst... in theory until you remember everyone has to act once before your turn relapses. I was in one of the last fights of the game just now and spent most of my time on the app formerly known as twitter, talking to a group of pals rather than having my hands on the keyboard ready to counteract whoever I was in combat with, because it took that long. This was uniform throughout an unfortunately long period of the game, outnumbered and outgunned, fighting powerful bosses that had their own unexplained gimmicks solved best by google and re-loaded trial and error rather than by working through the games motions. I get that its true to D&D to have fights in which the player is greatly disadvantaged in number and in locale, but as I mentioned above it really just makes for a gameplay experience most foul. I get why the narrative would want me to be locked in with a boss who has more than 600 hp and a cohort of demonic followers fighting at his behest, but is it fun? The answer reluctantly is no. This happened time and time again with slight variation, and I felt like what began as an enriching open-world experienced eventually led to a frustrating rehash of mechanics I disliked, over and over again.

Miscellaneous complaints to round this review out revolve around silent protagonism, a plethora of crashes and performance issues, and the abhorrent long rest mechanic. I chuckled a little too often at the emotionally heavy moments within the game in which a motivation speech was needed, or my character was having a heart to shadow-heart, only for my avatar to nod and say dialogue through text. I get that there's a lot of dialogue necessary in a game like this, and Larian likely wanted to truly convey that our avatar was an extension of ourselves... but to me it just felt like I was playing a boneless NPC. I did not feel like I mattered at all within the story, I was simply a vehicle for the plot. I did not understand my code of ethics, did I even have any? I couldn't grasp why anyone would consider me to be their leader or friend, I'd never even said a word. Baldur's Gate simply did not do a good job, in my humblest opinion, of making you the player character feel like a worthwhile member of your party. You could ask yourself "Who really is the main character" and I don't know if there's an answer.

In the end, I can't recommend Baldur's Gate 3 to anyone who values a strong narrative, freetime, or a game worth playing. It was pretty, I didn't want to put it down, but it eventually became a frustrating gameplay experience in a world I found largely uninteresting.

I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire

[Average Reading Time: 6 Minutes]

Kiwami means Extreme

After beating Yakuza 0 last year, I decided that this year I would continue exploring this series by playing Yakuza Kiwami. I've never experienced the original PlayStation 2 release of this title, so I can't compare it to that at all. While I am curious about that version, I'll have to save that dive for another day.

Playing this game was certainly a treat, for the most part. Experiencing the story of this game often left me excited to see what would happen next. It's very much a crime drama that has tons of twists and turns, so if you like those you'll love this. Even if you aren't too experienced with action games like this, this game is honestly pretty forgiving in terms of difficulty. I played through on the Normal skill level, and I was constantly being showered in health items and was able to make myself pretty strong very quickly, so I feel that anyone can brute force their way through this game if they wanted to. This is definitely an experience that can be had by anyone!

One of the core parts of Yakuza Kiwami's gameplay is the combat. You get four different styles to fight enemies with, each having a unique playstyle. As you play, you'll get used to often switching styles on the fly, which can be done with the push of a button, to take advantage of scenarios that lend themselves to specific styles of fighting. You also gain access to special moves called Heat Actions, which use a meter to allow Kiryu to unleash powerful moves that make quick work of foes. Mastering the styles and learning when to use specific styles in combat is one of the best parts of playing this game. Nothing is more satisfying than building up a ton of heat with one style and then quickly switching to another to use a heat action that knocks out a crowd of foes!

You can unlock new abilities and combos for three of your styles by gaining experience points from fighting enemies, eating food, and completing substories (more on those later). One style, the Dragon style, can only be enhanced in specific scenarios. A majority of these scenarios revolve around a gimmick referred to as Majima Everywhere. Majima is not only a comfort character of mine (seriously seeing him always brings a smile to my face LOOK AT HIM GO THAT'S MY SON) but he is also literally everywhere. He's in alleys, dumpsters, cars, anywhere he can try to sneak up on ya and force you into a fight. By beating him in combat (which gets harder over time) you'll begin to unlock more moves and abilities for this style. You'll have to fight him a lot in order to get all the skills, so try not to go too wild with this if you really want to see the main story unfold. You don't need to worry about this, but it is fun having some tougher fights to keep you on your toes.

Speaking of things that keep players from seeing the story unfold, let's talk about one of the biggest draws of the Yakuza franchise, the side content! Mini games and substories await you, and man is there a TON in this game. Substories are basically side quests, often being very short. These will often reward you with cash, rare items, and experience points. The more of these you do, the easier it'll be to make Kiryu really strong! Plus they're all pretty entertaining and show more of Kiryu's goofy side (Kiryu is also a comfort character of mine I love my stoic strong responsible son who's very good at falling for scams).

Mini games are aplenty here. Karaoke, casinos, and bar games like darts will do a good job of keeping you entertained for a small while. There are two mini games that gained a lot of my attention during my playthrough, however. One is MesuKing, a kid's card game where you collect trading cards that display provocative scenes of barely dressed women wrestling and then use them to battle in Rock-Paper-Scissors matches against children (it's as insane as it sounds). These cards are scattered all across Kamurocho, and the more you find, the more options you'll have when setting up your deck. Despite it being Rock-Paper-Scissors at the end of the day, finding new fighters and moves to use and seeing them in action as you trounce the kid who always picks rock for the twentieth time is very satisfying.

The other mini game that ate more time than it ethically should have was Pocket Circuit! Players of Yakuza 0 will recognize this one. Collect parts for your car and tune it to be just right to get the edge over opponents on the race track. It's surprisingly really deep, and I often spent over an hour fine-tuning my racer to be able to get it to clear a track in first place. It's easily the most interesting of the mini games to play in this game, and I highly recommend any Yakuza Kiwami player to not overlook it!

Fighting and checking out side content also earns you Completion Points, which can be redeemed for items and abilities, like being able to run without getting tired or gaining accessories that allow you to find hard-to-see items. One accessory you can get allows you to see the locations of all currently accessible substories, and this one item brought my playthrough to a major halt. I began exploring everywhere, doing as many as I could because of how beneficial they were. This also caused me to get engrossed in finding every MesuKing card as well as spending way too much time with Pocket Circuit because of course there are substories tied to them WhY wOuLdN't ThErE bE? I got that thing in Chapter 4 and I think I spent over 10 hours of my playthrough in that chapter because of it. Do I regret any of it? Absolutely not. The side content of this game is great fun and absolutely worth seeking out. However, it's important that players don't get too lost in the sauce of the side content so they can see that plot unfold!

If I had to think of any issues I had with this game, it would be with some of the enemies you face towards the end of the game. Towards the very end, you'll begin encountering lots of enemies that use guns, which interrupt your combos and immediately knock you to the ground, requiring you to mash the X button to get back up before another enemy hits you while you're down. It is very possible to enter a situation where one enemy shoots you, you get pummeled by others, and then when you get up another enemy shoots you, repeating the cycle. These are escapable, but they are very annoying. I also began getting annoyed by some of the later game bosses, who really like to dodge out of your moves and begin countering you real fast. I found that the best strategy for these was to use the Rush style and quick step around them constantly to get behind them to punish them, but this quickly became the song and dance for most bosses because of just how many acted like this. I wanted to take advantage of other styles but their dodges didn't move fast enough to allow me to do some serious damage, so I'm a bit sour about that.

Overall, I really enjoyed Yakuza Kiwami. my playthrough lasted 31 hours, but probably would've been a little over 20 if I didn't do so much side content. I enjoyed exploring Kamurocho, playing mini games, fighting Majima, and seeing what the plot had to offer. Needless to say I'm excited to see how this is expanded upon in Yakuza Kiwami 2, and I highly encourage those who want to give this series a shot to play this game!

One of the games of all time.

I bought Transistor to see what all the hype was about amongst my circle of pals and general internet at large. After greatly enjoying Hades, a game in a genre I'm generally uninterested in, and not enjoying Bastion, I didn't know exactly how I'd wind up with Transistor.

There are things I like about Supergiant that they seem to knock out of the park each time: the music (thanks Darren Korb) and an isolated experience with an incredible art team supporting what's going on the screen.

What I don't like about Supergiant is after continuing to play their games is just about everything else within them. Hades, Bastion, and now Transistor have left me wanting a lot more in the combat of their titles. Transistor relies on intricate comboing of powers within a melding of real-time and turn based action, giving the player in theory agency as to how to set up engagements and take out the field in front of them. Where Transistor went wrong for me was exactly where Bastion also went wrong, a recycled and generally monotonous field of enemies that were barely improved or made more difficult throughout the game. This in addition to me discovering (through a direct recommendation) an "optimal" power combo made it so I could perma-stun entire fields of enemies and simply hold down the attack button to win. I wasn't struggling per se beforehand, but fights were taking a little longer than they should have... but why wouldn't I just look for the strongest combo and use that? I feel like this an intrinsic issue with the game, the way the combat is structured is that its more or less made to be broken, and the fighting in Supergiant games is already basic enough that this doesn't really do much for me.

There were several other elements of the loadouts and combat that I didn't like. The first being that you lose one power set temporarily when you die, having to come across checkpoints to grant you these back. I just... kinda hate this? It felt like an even worse take on the Fromsoft punishment formula, why am I being penalized even further for losing than having to retry a zone, why are you reducing my firepower as well? Secondly, I felt like Transistor does a generally poor job explaining literally anything in regards to mechanics or combo ability.

Outside of the fighting, I felt like the narrative was remarkably difficult to buy in to or give really any care about. The game stars a pair of lovers in peril, a woman named Red in love with a sword who apparently used to be her betrothed? I played this game for a live studio audience and had to ask a lot of questions for that to make sense. I don't know, and maybe its a general problem with how I consume media, but it's extremely hard for me to feel sorrow or buy in to the romantic plight of characters who I've barely known or were present before the events of the story took place. Why should I feel bad for these characters of whom I have never seen demonstrate love? Why should I demonstrate pity for a sword who was once a man that I've never met and never will meet outside of vaguely narrating the plot of the game? Sword-kun simply did not strike me as an empathetic entity within the game and I feel like the runtime and cold open played a significant part in that. I even got to the final boss and kept asking questions about the narrative would go, not knowing that the game had abruptly ended and I was viewing the credits.

There were simply no moments within Transistor in which I wanted to care about Transistor, which is as much of an indictment upon a title that I can give. Perhaps its me being spoiled by narrative driven games like Red Dead Redemption 2 or Nier: Replicant in which the long party exposition sort of forces the player to care about those around them, but Transistor had none of that. I had no reason to care about the characters, no reason to care about the world, no nothing. Between this, combat that left a plethora of things to be desired, and my least favorite Darren Korb composition to date, I can't recommend Transistor to anyone.

I thought Persona 5 was massively overrated until I played it in 2022. But the game was amazing, it fixes a lot of the gripes that I had with Persona 4 Golden. It had way better pacing, introduced a lot of gameplay elements from the SMT mainline games, and massively expanded the life sim elements. Being someone who enjoys SMT, I still find Persona 5 to be easy, but it's way more enjoyable than 4. Bonus points for having acid jazz as the main music genre.

The Royal Edition included one of my most favourite villain archetypes in gaming.