Some of the most beautiful environments I've ever seen in a video game. You spend most of the time walking from one cutscene to the next, with sprinkles of combat and puzzles. The combat is simplistic but heavy-hitting, where you feel the impact of the blows struck by both sides. The audio and music are fantastic; headphones aren't advised; they are mandatory. The voices in your character's head get annoying, but that's the whole point of psychosis. While there were ups and downs, I found the game boring overall. I could have achieved a similar experience by using Street View on Google Maps with my wife and children behind me telling me I suck at life.

Having never played the original, I was excited to hear that the game was coming to modern consoles. My main gripe is that you spend a long time backtracking through areas. The story is mundane, but I can't say I expected much. The combat has the usual system of precise button inputs to bolster attack and defence. However, random encounters can sometimes drag longer than I'd like, even with the item you can use to skip the under-level ones. While it does have a slow start, you get into the groove of things after a while. The art style is fantastic; each diorama of a zone looks like you could physically make it out of paper.

I played some of these games back in the day, although enough time has passed that I remember nothing about their stories. This covers the first three games, which I will write about collectively as I played them consecutively. During the games, you find yourself backtracking all over the place in the real world and trying to figure out where you are going in the digital world. Getting around is a hassle, with no map to refer to, so you spend a lot of time going the wrong way. When this is then met with random encounters, it wears you down. Luckily, this collection has an option to make your base blaster literally 100x more powerful, making fights essentially trivial. In the end, though, busting makes me feel good.

I first played this last year when the Remaster came to modern consoles. However, with you now able to walk through environments, rather than viewing everything like a diorama, you feel extra immersed in the surroundings. Everything else about the game remains unchanged, even the dreadfully dull Tartarus, the dungeon that keeps going. They did try adding new elements to keep it interesting, but it's not enough to change the fundamental aspect of going through procedurally generated levels, hoping every corner produces a set of stairs. I had hoped they found a way to make it less monotonous. As always, the story, characters and music are top-tier. I loved spending time with these characters again, and sad to see them go again.

I have much in common with this game; I'm also not as good as Batman. Each of the four playable Batman sidekicks is remarkably less capable than their mentor. There's also no incentive to play as a particular character, so once you've picked one, you undoubtedly won't bother switching. Enemies become such massive damage sponges that I dropped the difficulty to Easy in the last chapter. It wouldn't be an issue if you engaged in the numerous copy-and-paste missions on the city map. While I believe that RPG elements make games more interesting, this was the exception to the rule.

Trading guns for magic, you play as one of the special few who can wield all three colours of the arcane. You are armed with Blue (a Rifle), Red (a Shotgun), and Green (a Machine Gun) to mow down your foes. The writing is fun, and the voice acting is good. Although, you might struggle to find a character you actually like, as they are all different shades of asshole. The game claims you can build your character to fit your playstyle, focusing on powering up one colour or evenly spreading your points across all three. However, it then throws you encounters that require specific colours to defeat enemies, spitting in the face of those claims. Sometimes, a game can simply be "good". They don't have to all be masterpieces.

Every fibre of my being wanted to love this, and in many ways, I do. However, I often felt weary of some aspects of the game. Some of the zones you travel to are very cumbersome, making it a pain to complete the numerous and dull side activities. That being said, the best parts were the linear parts that follow the main story, which hit unbelievably hard. The worst part of the whole thing is that it feels like no minigame idea was turned down. Some of which are mandatory, and some have weapons behind them. If you are a completionist like me, you'll have a rough time seeing everything the game offers.

Probably the best iteration in this long-standing series. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio never disappoints in delivering the perfect blend of seriousness and zaniness while showcasing some of the best visuals. Changing the location from Japan to Hawaii is a breath of fresh air, which goes a long way. The combat is much improved from the previous game, which raised the bar for turn-based RPGs. It's a shame they kept the mechanic of getting a game over if the main character is knocked out. The only downside is that I wasn't personally a fan of the main side activity. Still, none of that detracts from its overall quality. No one makes me smile as much as Ichiban Kasuga.

It has shades of the recent God of War games but is average in all aspects. The environments and enemies look amazing, but the overall graphical quality gives the impression that it's a few years older than it is. The combat is very satisfying, but the encounters continuously feel like an unfair assortment of vampiric creatures are thrown at you. Luckily, you are given a wide range of overpowered tools, fuelled with lightning and gunpowder, to dispatch them. Even if some of them take a few attempts to get through. Redfall wishes it was this good.

Unless you like your monster-catching games full of grind and devoid of heart and soul, I'd avoid Dragon Quest's attempt at Pokémon. However, they did manage to emulate Pokémon's recent frame rate drops and added their own awful voice acting and excessive loading screens. As for the creatures you'll be adding to your four-person squad, you'll change your members so regularly that it'll be hard to get attached to any of them. This is because monsters are separated into in-game tiers, with higher tiers eclipsing the lower ones in viability. This also has the horrible side effect that even if you find a creature you are fond of, you won't be able to keep it in your party for long. You know it's poorly planned when the default names of some monsters are longer than the character limit for names, causing them to cut off.