The thing about conspiracy theories and perhaps most ideologies is that, while the broad outline is inarguable, the actual specific details tend to vary from person to person. ‘Flat earth’, for instance, can be anything from ‘the earth is flat and this is being concealed from us’ to ‘the earth is flat so that, when the rapture comes, God can put all the sinners on one side and throw them off the planet’. The commonly accepted tenets among believers are thus nearly impossible to meaningfully categorise.

And… In my time with GTA4 over the years, ever since it came out, I’ve come to realise that the game posits the ‘American Dream’ itself as a conspiracy theory, with both the same general failings and the net negative effect it has on almost everyone.

Before I really get into this, I need to lay my cards on the table:

I fucking hate the GTA series. Ever since I was exposed to it (against my will, by a friend who thought it was the best shit ever made), I’ve seen it as nothing more than South Park for people who have panic attacks when they’re forced to think about something.
My opinion has only plummeted as time passes, with each replay of the PS2 games or GTAV crushing my already abyssal opinion even further into.
Not helping this is that the last ten years of GTA have simply been GTAV, whereas in 2013 the last ten years of GTA had been a whole bevy of entries and spinoffs. Granted, most of them were bad, but still. GTAV is my least favourite GTA, and perhaps one of my least favourite games of all time. Its supersaturation is exhausting.

But I’ve never applied any of this to GTA4, a game I view as not only the best GTA but perhaps one of the best stories/worlds ever realised in the medium.

A pretty significant part of why I give GTA4 a pass is down to the level of self-awareness it has. Previous (and future.) GTA protagonists had a tendency to come across as robotic, amoral psychopaths with no character consistency and a pretty significant disconnect between gameplay and narrative.
GTA4, meanwhile, portrays its characters as psychopaths on purpose. It’s the entire point; these people are assholes. It’s a welcome relief from GTA5, but I can’t really get into why this early in the review.

You may have heard, in the past, people decrying GTA 4 as the odd one out or even ‘the bad one’ and I feel it’s important to understand why.

This game opens with a broad, faceless Scottish man getting whipped while screaming ‘DADDY’S BACK YOU BITCHES’ several times. As opposed to immediately setting up a plot hook, a big bad or anything of the sort, GTA4 simply features Niko pulling into Liberty City, meeting his alcoholic brother and doing his best to make ends meet. It maintains this slow, grounded pace for the entire runtime up until the credits roll.

And… people didn’t like it! GTA fans specifically hated it. That ‘daddy’s back’ declaration in the intro was because the game took 4 years to come out. Which, in the 00s, was basically an eternity. They wanted another San Andreas - a content-rich, needlessly bloated long game headed by a poorly written psychopath - and instead they got what’s essentially The Sopranos in videogame form. This is primarily why GTAV is Like That and why GTA4 tends to be forgotten.

It’s hard to actually blame Rockstar for this swerve, though. Their intentions were pure: Assuming that GTA fans really loved the social satire and the madness of their protagonists, Rockstar developed a game where the critique of America is at the forefront and the narrative actually focuses on why the main character is like that.
Unfortunately for them, however, the humans behind GTA evidently changed their tune between San Andreas and GTA4 whether they were aware of it or not. At some point, America ceased to be funny to them and started being horrifying. It really, really, really shows.

GTA4 opens up with Niko’s arrival in Liberty City and almost immediately the game sets its tone. Roman - his cousin - arrives drunk off his ass in a shitty little car, the radio is playing Ukranian pop music and all around you is just… absolute fucking poverty. Roman’s taxi business is a cheap converted warehouse, people live under rail bridges, the nearby amusement park is completely abandoned and shit dude even the nearby park looks like ass.

What really strikes me, though, is that for all the talk of ‘a new life’ in America the game actually makes it clear that the first area is nothing of the sort.

In the story, it takes several hours for named characters with typical ‘American’ accents to actually appear. Till then, it’s primarily Serbians, Albanians, Jamaicans, Russians, Puerto Ricans and others scattered around. Outside of the story, the vast majority of pedestrians you encounter are ostensibly foreigners. As opposed to creating an alien atmosphere, Broker is rife with familiarity for Niko. So much so that his declaration of ‘I swore I wouldn’t kill anybody here’ rings hollow regardless of the player’s actions up until that point.

In this overly familiar world, Niko succumbs to fatalism and returns to bad habits like so many other characters you meet going forward. Fatalism runs through this game like a fault line, and a very early line sums it up perfectly;

“We can pick the game, but we cannot change the rules.”

GTA4’s cast is mostly people who’ve succumbed to this fatalism… Except Roman.

I often run into people who decry GTA4 as overtly cynical and pessimistic. It’s not difficult to see why, but I’d honestly argue that GTA4 is a relatively realistic-leaning-optimistic title and Roman exemplifies this tenfold. Despite having experienced the same horrific Yugoslav Wars in Serbia that his cousin did, Roman is a relatively optimistic man who takes the events of the game in stride despite the odd breakdown. He saw all the horrors, moved to America and actually accomplished the surprisingly difficult goal of establishing a business and owning a home.
Roman has a presence throughout the entire game, and serves as a fantastic foil to the relatively cynical Niko who constantly sees the worst in every situation. It’s telling that the ending in which he dies is almost universally considered to be the worst ending. I also hold a special fondness for his repeated calls to go bowling/play pool/etc. I didn’t realise it in my youth, but his and other friends’ calls serve as excellent stopgaps in a story that can kind of rush ahead at times.

Looping back to what I said at the start though, this game’s approach to the ‘American Dream’ is distinctly ahead of its time. It came out in 2007, when Call of Duty 4 had made imperialism mainstream again and American jingoism was still surging. This was a point in time where even games not set in the ‘modern day’ were rife with it - it’s omnipresent in Mass Effect, for instance, and still there in Gears of War. GTA4’s stance of ‘America fucking sucks’ isn’t revolutionary, but it is notable considering it’s peerage.

Unlike a lot of its themes, this one isn’t subtext. Early on ‘American greed’ is explicitly referred to as an infectious disease and it’s reiterated several times over. One of Niko’s first and most defining lines is “Capitalism is a dirty business”, which is pretty impressive given how ‘capitalism’ has become a no-no word in AAA gaming and its equivalents in other mediums. Can’t bite the hand that feeds, after all.

As for the American Dream itself, GTA4 treats it as a conspiracy theory. Several characters buy into it, most notably Roman, yet none of them can agree on a core definition. For the actual Americans, it mostly means some acquisition of status or wealth which is considered deserved due to their efforts. For the immigrants, it’s a mix between a fresh start and a relief from either past horrors or past crimes.

For Niko’s it’s all of the above.

He accomplishes none of these.

The last line spoken in GTA4 discounting phone calls is:

“So this is what the Dream feels like. This is the victory we longed for.”

There’s no definitive answer to what GTA4 thinks the Dream is, only that it’s considered abominable.

Moving on for a bit, what struck me the most during my replay is how well this game has aged. Barring some off-colour jokes about trans people and an oil baron being treated as a good person, there’s nothing particularly eyebrow raising or even just painfully dated. The humor is still funny, sharing much of its comedic DNA with something like Always Sunny, and despite the muddy models/texture I’d say Liberty City is still beautiful. A combination of great lighting and ambience only helps.

And the story, man the story… Easily one of the greatest crime fiction stories ever told.

At its core, GTA4 asks one really simple question: “What kind of person would you have to be in order to do the things most GTA protagonists did?”. Unlike its immediate successor, it doesn’t glorify any of these people. There are no attempts to make rapists likeable, antisemites/homophobes are universally awful people with no exceptions, and those obsessed with wealth are at best portrayed as sad souls flying too close to the sun. At worst they’re rightfully portrayed as selfish vain pricks who believe they’re owed the world.
As opposed to being about an event or what have you, GTA4 is an exploration of one man’s conscience and his experience with a world that’s paradoxically alien and familiar.

Well, not just his.

The friend system in GTA4 is much-maligned by more mainstream audiences, but even in 2008 I considered it an excellent system that only adds to the world and cast. As I said up above, they help pace the story especially from the midpoint onwards, and the dialogues Niko has with them tackle some subject matter that AAA games just completely shy away from even when they’re being ‘dark’.

Dwayne’s friendship chats dig deep into existentialism, suicidal despair, and other aspects of depression that are painfully salient in the 2020s amidst a growing loneliness epidemic. At one point, Dwayne muses that years of hardening himself to misery only left him unable to care, and that he’s struggling to remember how to care about anything outside of prison.

Packie meanwhile digs into the concept of being closeted, the pressures of toxic masculinity and how awareness of them doesn’t lessen them, and the double consciousness suffered by Irish-Americans who were born in America yet raised in an Irish Catholic upbringing. For a 2008 game, the treatment of queer people is surprisingly gentle and respectful and Packie’s self-questioning is approached with unexpected seriousness.

I realise now that it’s… very, very difficult to talk about GTA4’s story without spoiling it. Instead, I’ll just talk about the last act.

After hours of befriending people, working as a hitman/chauffeur and swapping out employers like they were a tarot deck, Niko is given two subsequent choices.

The first choice is, to be vague, a decision about whether or not to hold onto his previous identity, his life and trauma from Serbia. If you refuse, Niko and the rest of the cast state that it’s pretty unequivocally a good thing. If you accept… Well, TVTropes might suck but it rightfully lists GTA4 as the progenitor of ‘Vengeance Feels Empty’. Niko finds no catharsis in clinging to his old life, admits that he feels nothing, and while he’s not condemned by anyone it’s pretty clear that they don’t approve. Most tellingly, though; regardless of choice, Niko turns off the radio. Such a small thing, but it’s an impactful use of removing player control.
That said, refusing is very clearly the choice the developers want you to pick.

The second choice is essentially Niko being asked how he feels about his life in America. He can either chase the Dream, at which point NPCs mock him for being so stupid, or he can protect the people he cares about. Again, this choice is clearly weighted in favour of the latter (as the former costs you a vital gameplay feature), but what strikes me is how bitter the ending of the former is.
Niko greets the antagonist with ‘Welcome to America’ before putting an end to him. In essence, Niko gives himself over to the American Virus. It is fantastically grim, and only compounds how much the story nudges you to pick the latter choice.

But… I’ve done nothing but sing GTA4’s praises for the last 2000~ words. I unfortunately have to talk about the mission design.
When GTA4 came out, almost everything was decidedly ahead of its time. Other AAA games wouldn’t even try replicating the depth of its story for another five or so years, same with its open world simulation (which even GTAV took a step back from).

This does not apply to the mission design, which was archaic even at release. Missions are typically either shootouts, chases on foot, chases by car or tailing missions. These aren’t hard, in fact they’re quite easy. Unfortunately, the devs are aware of this and missions gradually become filled with either instant-fail conditions that can catch you off-guard because they’re not told to you until NPCs stop speaking, OR enemies simply become invulnerable until an event ends. Double unfortunately, the game also really likes to slam character building into the prelude of a mission, before the main event.

There’s no checkpoints.

None. Not until the DLCs.

A typical late game mission consists of a 5-10 minute drive with some impressively written and engaging character writing, followed by a shootout/chase/whatever you fail because of some poorly telegraphed condition or NPC with a rocket launcher spawning out of nowhere. You then have to do it all again. To the game’s credit, almost every mission seems to have two different sets of prelude conversations to pull from, so you’re rewarded - in a twisted way - for fucking up. Still, it gets grating towards the end as missions skyrocket in length and difficulty.

There’s also a small but grating matter; Rockstar didn’t renew the music license for the PC version and thus many stations are nearly gutted. This may not seem like much, but IMO the mid 2000s music and especially Vladivostok are crucial to the game’s atmosphere. The replacement music is not exactly up to snuff, and while it can easily be modded back to its original 2008 state it’s still quite the nuisance.

And… Man, if I don’t cut this review down it’ll go on forever. In the original draft, there were another 5k words after that music comment. Ruminations on how the game portrays immigrant solidarity, dissecting the ways in which the game carries a strong and tangible anti-capitalist message (ironic, Rockstar’s future considered), the surprising depth that comes with not portraying characters as white/black/hispanic/asian but as Irish/Slavic/Russian/American/Jamaican/African/Dominican/Spanish/etc etc, examining how the lack of customization and purchases is meant to reflect how Niko has nothing/how little money means to him and so many more little paragraphs.

But, honestly, not only is it a lot of filler (even by my rambling standards, see the Pathfinder review) but it is essentially nothing more than me dictating the entire game to you. While I would LOVE to write an actual thesis on GTA4, it’d take so much work that I’d have to be paid for it.

Ultimately, I’d say GTA4 has aged perfectly. It was amazing then, and it’s arguably even more amazing now. I considered it one of the finest games of all time when I first completed it as a youngling, and now that I’m an old fuck my opinion has only been reaffirmed.

Truly, when they put their minds into it, nobody does it like Rockstar.

Three Houses was not what I had envisioned when I imagined Fire Emblem on Switch. Now this, this absolutely is and it does an incredible job. Instead of Three Houses, this one took notes from Fire Emblem Fates instead. Thankfully unlike that game and Three Houses this one only has one story, and since it's a Fire Emblem Anniversary game it's a simpler back to roots story. It's really really refreshing to be excited for a Fire Emblem game from announcement to release, feel like this is the one and it is. It's one of if not my favorite Fire Emblem game now.

The changes to the formula all work in the game's favor. Trading priests for Monks allows your healers to have additional utility they didn't before, be it either blocking or fists. While they aren't incredible options, they're still options I for sure got use out of in the early game. A whole new mechanic is the Break system which also came into play more often early on but was a very welcome addition to further emphasize the weapon triangle which otherwise tended to get ignored as things went on. And it still does but when it comes into play you feel it a lot more as it saves or screws you. There's a counter to this too with Knights not being breakable and these new mechanics are all little things that improve the game. You can even have all your friends pound a unit at once...or have them do it to you if you try to juggernaut, so that won't work here anymore. The best one is the bosses, where they have more than one healthbar so you can't just beat them with a single powerful attack, often times you have to coordinate your team to take them down. Bosses also often move which is unusual for Fire Emblem so you have to be on your guard. And then when you beat a map you get to walk around the map and it's like "This is where I just fought and it feels really cool especially if it's an Emblem Paralogue, like you're walking through history.

These incredible mechanics aren't the only thing, there's also the new characters and music that are great. The story is mostly serviceable with only a few parts I'd say are bad but nothing ever reaches Fates levels of bad writing at least. Oh what else to say I could go on all night about this one.

I suppose the flaws: The Somiel is a step up from the Monastery for sure but there's a lot of stuff here that either felt pointless like the fitness minigames or felt unneeded like fishing (even if that is also better than 3H). These only earn Bond Fragments for the in-game gacha which also felt pointless. The only downside in gameplay is the game throws reinforcements to push you to the boss but sometimes it feels absolutely relentless about it to where it gets a bit excessive. But you have 9 rewinds a chapter so all's fair in love and war I suppose.

I was surprised I let some units die this time and that I put thought into "are they worth the rewind/restart" and even realizing that sometimes the answer was no. Honestly, as I learn more about the metagame I'm honestly thinking about playing through Engage again sometime on Maddening and trying new units and classes. This game is that fun. If there's any Fire Emblem you wanna come back to or even try for the first time, it's this one.

Celine is the best by the way.

Listen. I love all elements of this game individually. Digimon? ABSOLUTELY. Visual novels? Hell yeah. Tactics RPGs? Yup.

This game, and I truly hate to be this negative, blows. The visual novel portions are so tedious and poorly written. The smallest of story spoilers, but on the second morning of the game, the main character literally wakes up and asks each other character how they're doing. I'm sorry, but I don't care! And the mechanics of how the VN works feels like a chore.

I could forgive a lot of this if there was any vibe at all, but it's just nonexistent.

I've not been so disappointed in a game in a long time.

1.5 stars for tactics combat that is enjoyable.

I think the most critical thing I can say about Forgotten Land is that after having gotten 100%, I would greatly recommend that new players do not strive to do so. It by no means a time consuming task (clocked in between 15-20 hours) nor is it an overly challenging one (though post game does get tougher). The reason I make this recommendation is that overall, it makes what is otherwise a wonderfully pleasant experience a repetitive and tedious one.

The level design and gimmicks throughout each world are often fun and you have a nice variety of upgradable powers for Kirby to choose from. All of them feel good to use and have their own niche. For example, the ice ability allows Kirby to skate along any surface as if it were frozen, including water or sludge. Mouthful mode too is a cool gimmick on top of the copy abilities, even if still a little unsettling. I would even say that every boss encounter is well designed and I don't really have any complaints other than some of them dragging on a bit. Waddle Dee town is a tremendous idea and is host to a bunch of fun minigames, the colloseum, the sound test, and more.

All of that being said however, the problems come if you are trying to 100% the game. The objectives you need to fulfill to free each of the waddle dees (your main collectibles in each level) are hidden upon your first time through. Sometimes they're awarded for things you'll probably do through natural exploration (like find a secret room off the beaten path), but almost always each level has a curveball (like beat a boss using a specific weapon, or pose in a certain spot) which can and often will lead to most levels requiring two, three, or even four playthroughs as any objectives you don't complete are revealed one at a time. It greatly diminished the experience for me, because levels I initially came away from thinking they were nice, ended up with a feeling of "c'mon let's just get this over with" as I delved into multiple playthroughs. Speaking also of repetition, the game repeats boss encounters more often than Elden Ring. A lot of the design choices outside of moment to moment gameplay really feel like an effort to pad it out, like they wanted to make a Kirby game longer than 8 hours without actually making one longer than 8 hours.

All in all, there really is a lot to enjoy in Forgotten Land and it does capture everything great about Kirby - I just wish I didn't need to see it all three plus times.

I really had to learn to appreciate this game. I am not easily smitten by the prospect of a 3D Kirby game- it's novel, and I think the transition was done elegantly, (especially for it being HAL's first go) but the game gets no brownie points from me simply for existing. The game really needed to stand on its own to win me over. For a while, it seemed like it wasn't up to the task... but with a little patience, I met the game where it wanted me to.

My biggest gripe with this game is its difficulty progression. A lot of people complain about Kirby's difficulty, and honestly, I often think the criticism is a bit unfounded. Older Kirby games are pretty brutal. Amazing Mirror and Nightmare in Dreamland don't fuck around. Modern Kirby games like Triple Deluxe or Robobot weren't the mindless walks in the park that people make them out to be, either. Those games progress at a nice pace; each world feels very distinct from each other, not only in terms of motif, but also in engagement and overall design. Unfortunately, Forgotten Land seems to reference Star Allies' sensibilities for Kirby. The main game serves as an EXTREMELY casual experience. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but my hang-ups with the game began early since I wasn't really looking for that kind of an experience. Each world sort of blended together, nothing was really permeating for me, and it felt very mindless. It wasn't run-of-the-mill... but it was mindless.

Thankfully, this "issue" doesn't feel like a result of unintelligent design. Levels aren't designed POORLY, just intentionally easy- it all feels very purposeful. In fact, to counter the main game's rather easy difficulty, "Treasure Road" challenge levels are offered for those interested in something starkly demanding in comparison to primary levels. These levels are FANTASTIC; I found myself very intrigued by their structure. It's really new for Kirby to operate in the way the Treasure Roads do and, aside from the combat, this aspect of the game really showed off how Kirby can iterate on the genre. It almost makes me want a full game of Treasure Roads, instead of having them delegated to a side bonus.

It was only near the game's final world did things start shifting for the main game. Levels started demanding more out of me, punishing me out of collectables for messing up. Bosses started requiring more attention- I couldn't just breeze through everything, I actually had to start taking advantage of the game's tools. Kirby's moveset, my own spatial awareness, telegraphing from bosses, environmental changes; every aspect of the game started working together to make a great experience. This isn't even taking into account how the copy abilities effect gameplay! The only thing mitigating the experience for me during my play... was how long it took to get to that point. I don't mean to convey that the gameplay patronized me or offended me, but it is ABSOLUTELY concerned with accommodating a casual crowd.

And yknow what? I ended up really respecting that priority by the end of it.

As is standard with most Kirbys', beating it unlocks some post game to go through if you so choose. Forgotten Land's post game has the essential True Arena, but also "Leon's Soul", which offers remixed versions of the best segments across ALL the worlds in the main game- making them more difficult, changing attributes of bosses, and sprinkling McGuffins throughout. THIS was the 3D Kirby game I wanted. I had to sit up straight, grip my controller, and actually learn how to take advantage of the game to succeed- and it was VERY gratifying ESPECIALLY during the secret boss fights, which are arguably THE BEST in the series. It felt like I was being rewarded for something, but I couldn't really tell what. After my time away from the game, though, I realized I wasn't being rewarded... just accommodated.

This game appreciates you for playing it. It offers to its demographic what they expected, but doesn't leave those who wanted more in the dust. By the time it was over, I realized I let my head wander. I had some casual fun for a while, and while I didn't leave my criticisms at the door like most would, I was accommodated by the time it was over for it. The game actually managed to make a sourpuss like me appreciate something I previously might not have enjoyed otherwise- that's kind of impressive! Kirby and the Forgotten Land isn't the best a 3D platformer can be; it isn't even the best a 3D KIRBY can be... but it treated me with confidence and respect, which I really appreciated by the end of it all.

To put it bluntly, I have zero experience with previous Final Fantasy games. I have no nostalgia about the series at all so the premise of the game came off to me as a Chaos-killing-meme-game and nothing more at first glance. But this game was made by Team Ninja, which is one of my favorite action game developer teams.
And Nioh 2 is -despite of its diablo-like loot system which I loathe- the greatest game I've ever played.
So, my hope was kinda high. The chaos-killing shenanigans in the trailer looked like God Hand-tier comedy and the combat system they have shown looked fun enough. It could have been 9/10 for its sheer entertainment value.

The core gameplay was, -as expected- amazing. This is not an exact copy-and-paste of Nioh formula.
Instead, they introduced an interesting form of the Sekiro-parry system, Soul Shield.
Soul Shield mechanic shows a cool compromise of reactive part and proactive part of this game. To use special skills or heavy attacks, you need some mana gauge. And how do you gain your mana? Well, you can gain some mana by hitting the enemies with normal attacks but parrying the enemies' attacks with Soul Shield is more beneficial. Soul Shield is tied to the player's "posture" meter, but unlike any other just-timed parry system, you can lengthen the parry window by spending the posture points. This is great because it makes the just-timed-parry system to be more than just "just-timed".
Not only that, but there is also other normal block function that supplements the Soul Shield.
It has high posture damage resistance (I used a shield, so the resistance rate can be different) but doesn’t give you mana when you block the attacks, which can be useful if the enemy attack timings are hard-to-judge so that you can’t safely parry the upcoming attacks.
Hopefully, you get the idea that this game’s fundamental defensive options are fantastic.

The job system and the "heavy attack" swap system are -maybe not the greatest thing ever- pretty solid.
Job is like Style in DMC in the sense that it can be swapped anytime for your own playstyle benefits, although there are only two slots.
Your weapon choice and the default heavy attack change depending on the job you "equipped".
Here's an interesting thing. As you grind a bit, your job level will grow up and you can unlock new types of "heavy attacks" that can be chained from normal attacks. For example, if the normal-normal-heavy combo ends with a down-slash in the default setting, as you unlock new moves, you can change the combo to end with a more powerful spinning slash. And you can unlock a new set of jobs by max-leveling multiple jobs. So, at least in terms of a customizable combo system, this game is a blast. Although it can be grindy if you want to try out different jobs.

Speaking of grinds, unfortunately, this game has so many downfalls to becoming the great experience I was hoping for.
I played this game on the Hard setting from the start to finish. I mostly stuck to the mage+melee-based jobs and actively used the team members.
I sometimes solo’d the bosses if the boss fight seemed reasonable to do 1v1, but it happened only three times (not including the final boss).
On the hard difficulty, Jack can die in a few hits and dangerous enemies always come in a pack. So, gear management is almost mandatory for your own safety and the team members. Here’s a thing though. I don’t know if this is a tradition of FF, but the loot drops and the item management are ridiculous.
A lot of enemy drops a shit ton of items when they die, so your inventory gets cluttered with garbage weapons and useless armors when you are not looking for the inventory for like two main stages. As a crutch, the game allows an auto-management button that automatically allocates the “best” armor and the “best” weapons for each character. Here’s another issue for this though. It is only optimal in the numbers. Since there are heavy attack skills that can be allocated depending on the weapons you have, there is a chance that the auto-management button can mess with the current skill set.
This means I have to change the weapon again for my skill set. A waste of time at best.
It’s better to have the button, but I still don’t get the point of this loot/management system when you can just have none so that I don’t have to click the damn button and fix the micro-error every time.

Another problem is the general enemy design.
There are some new elements I like, such as the chain execution: You can chain the execution if the nearby enemies also have zero posture. And there are unblockable attacks that force you to move and absorbable attacks that can be absorbed with Soul Shield and become your arsenal.
Not only that, but some bosses are also really good, like Fused Elemental which provides a good multi-boss challenge that ties two enemies creatively into one battle. Behemoth and Tiamat were good too.
But on the negative side, we have enemies that are so small that you can’t actually tell the attack distance (Tonberry), A tiny bat that spawns tornado out of sight, A beholder-like creature that spams explosive magic out of sight, bosses that spin like a cheap Beyblade even though they are clearly made of a chunk of iron(Iron Giant and Cray Claw), A boss so big and yet moves so erratically that makes my head spin(Marilith), A fast humanoid boss that has good patterns and yet has the worst SFX feedback you can imagine (You’ll see him near the end part), and the god-fucking-damn mindflayer.
Now, I know that weighty animations and clear attack tells aren’t the Team Ninja’s strongest toolset, but I remember that in Nioh2, they really improved the quality of the enemy design with the clear sound telegraphs (Remember the BOOM sound when the enemy does the red aura attacks?) and reasonable animations that are redactable for most people in that combat situations.
Compared to Nioh2, FFO’s enemies’ qualities are downgraded. These are some Ninja Gaiden 1 era janks if I have to exaggerate.
I’m guessing there is a reason why the attacks feel cheap. Since the enemy attacks are mostly told by a literal signal board, the devs must have thought that the signal would do enough tells for each attack. However, I would have preferred if they didn’t include the skill board at all. Instead, they should have provided a clearer colored aura on their attacks and better animation/SFX feedback. As a simple-minded action gamer, I want to read the animation, not a skill name.

Also, it is not related to the enemy design, but for a 30~40-hour game, the enemy variety isn’t that great. Yes, the bosses are varied, but the common enemies aren’t. After the midpoint, they spam the color-swapped enemies that are more annoying to deal with than the vanilla ones. This reminded me of Nioh 1’s problem, but Nioh 1’s humanoid enemies worked dynamically with their own stamina system, much more expansive movesets, and different kinds of encounters so the issue wasn’t that glaring. This game is screaming for more enemy types, but I’m doubting that adding new enemies would fix the issue since the general enemy qualities are kinda mess.

Since I mentioned the Nioh series, let’s talk about the levels because this game is also sharing similar issues to Nioh. Or maybe even worse.
The art "style" isn't bad, but there are no noticeable landmarks in most of the dungeons, and the lighting in this game doesn’t help you at all when you are fighting enemies in the darker area. The place is clearly having sunlight and yet the shadowy places are so dark that you CAN’T see the enemy’s animation, which is not a good idea if the game’s foundation is built upon the fast action.
The gameplay element in the level design department is quite underwhelming because the level structures aren't as convoluted as any Dark Souls, or even Nioh's main levels. Even though there are some shortcuts, I wouldn't say there were many branches to explore around ignoring the obvious main path.
Enemy placements are also monotonous. From what I've experienced, there are no ambushes using the blind spots, or showing interesting behaviors. They are standing right in the arena, visibly, standing still.
Also, the level gimmicks are either half-baked or don't provide interesting exploration elements.
Maybe it is because there weren't many contents to incentivize the explorations like the hidden Kodamas, but even considering that I felt like the dungeons in this game are working like arena after corridor after arena. It's serviceable as stages for action games, but I wouldn't call this an interesting "adventure".

The story was fun, but we have to admit that as an outsider of the FF series, the “chaos killing” mumbo jumbo got old at the end. Yes, Jack was charming in the Doom Slayer way, but his merit faded away at the end when the half of the end game cutscenes were full of anime drama that stimulates my emotion like a wet fart. At the end of the day, this game is the best form of 3/5 games. There are glaring issues here and there, and yet there are hidden charms that cannot be overlooked. Some people will love this game if they are a diehard fan of combat-experiment or an old final fantasy fan. (Since many people have pointed out that this game is full of old and new FF references) But for me, It just made me wish to see Team Ninja and FROM working together and making an absolute banger game by supplementing their weaknesses.