This was... really not good.

A short form review for a short form experience, with a runtime of maybe four or five hours at best, Final Fantasy XVI's final DLC is a complete departure from what made the main title so good. Ultimately (heh) the issue with Rising Tide is that it's both not interesting and infuriating. The new locale Clive and the gang find themselves in is isolated much like the Echoes of the Fallen DLC. There's not much to do in the realm of exploring, and what you can poke around and interact with wasn't worth the price tag. The village and its populous are kinda just there with no real varied culture or intrigue to make me wish to interact with them further, and the setting chugs the Playstation 5 somehow to Bloodborne levels of framerate. The unfortunate thing for XVI here is that it is not Bloodborne and won't get a pass. I don't know, if I'm engaging with a civilization and its dominant unbeknownst to the greater world and largely lost to time, I'd like them to stand out just a little bit past their appearance?

The combat in Rising Tide frustrated me at similar levels as EotF did just before it, in that you're playing through a dungeon with raised difficulty levels (Which is okay!) however you're throttled by an inability to return to Outer Heaven and restock at any point. Now when you game over you can refresh potions... but this felt like a pretty annoying workaround. Bosses, namely the ultimate one, are genuine sponges taking a frustrating amount of time to defeat even if you're well equipped and geared for the task at hand. This was an issue I had with Rebirth and it rears its ugly head again here in the last bit of XVI we'll get. If I'm doing stagger damage of over two million... you'd hope to get a sense of vindication in healthbar removal moreso than you'll get in Rising Tide. Poorly tuned DPS checks, overwhelming mechanics that lack visual clarity, an enemy that is constantly flying away from you all in addition to the aforementioned sponge issue make for a resoundingly aggrivating experience.

For someone who was a massive fan of the main game in FFXVI and even had it as their Game of the Year for 2023, Rising Tide unfortunately tarnishes the legacy of an otherwise stellar title. It doesn't add much to the excellently crafted personas of Clive, Joshua, or Jill, as you get little in the way of conversation or captivating quotables, instead thrusting the player into a lukewarm time. I do not recommend Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide.

My favourite thing about the fifth generation of Pokemon is that it has an entirely new and strong Pokedex with all unique Pokemon. This feels like such a gamble for the series but it absolutely paid off, I love using only new Pokemon in my team whenever I play a new Pokemon game but it's not always easy to find a good variety with the few new Pokemon added, but an entirely new Pokedex allows you to experiment with the wide range of new Pokemon without falling back on the ones you're already comfortable with from the previous generations. Honestly, I can't believe they haven't done this since Black & White, I would love to see another game take this approach.

The story was great and the different areas were really cool, I often find certain areas a bit of a drag in Pokemon games but I was hooked throughout my entire playthrough of Pokemon Black, I found myself interacting with every single NPC I came across which I normally don't have the patience for.

If you're a Pokemon fan and haven't played this yet, I 100% recommend you to do so, it's a must-play for me.

This is honestly one of the most nothing games i've ever played and here are my thoughts on the game.

Graphics - 4/10
Nothing inherently wrong with this games graphics but man do they just look generic as hell and have no uniqueness to it. Some of the textures look pretty shit as well in some of the levels however they weren't so bad that I wanted to stop playing

Gameplay 3/10
Gameplay starts of fun but when you have played more than about 30 mins its just repeated button mashing with no unique combos or anything so it gets extremely tedious in the late game and towards the end I wasn't enjoying the gameplay so I wasn't to impressed

Story - 2/10
Honestly I couldn't even explain what the story of this game was as there was absolutely nothing to explain it just a hell of a lot of talking in missions with bosses that made absolutely no sense or why they are here or why they are trying to attack us so honestly the story is the worst part of this game so don't go into this expecting a good story

Performance - 2/10
I played this on the series x and this is x/s optimised so it wasn't a Xbox one version or anything and when I say this game runs like total shit. It was fine in the start of the game but about halfway through basically every game I was having major frame drops and this game really isn't graphically intense so I have no idea why it runs so shit. Cant comment on other platforms but definitely don't play the xbox version

Music - 5/10
Honestly the music was probably my favourite part of this game although its not really saying much. It does have some really good instrumentals in it however it also has some very strange ones that don't fit the atmosphere of the missions however the music in this game definitely wasn't bad, not something id listen to outside of the game but nice to listen in game.

Overall - 4/10
the game started well for me but a mix of a non existent story and shit performance just made me wanna get the game over and done with so I can go and finish something else. If you're not atleast a slight fan of gundam don't play this game

Garfield Kart: Furious Racing is a remake of its 2014 predecessor adding 2 more characters, improved graphics, and not much more. The controls are equally bad but I found it even harder to get used to the movement in this one because it feels much more slippery. The best addition to this game is the ability to play with friends! While this game is extremely janky, unpolished and difficult to control, playing with a friend is so much fun.

I only recommend this game if you've got a friend to play with and you can get a good deal on it. I got this and the original game in a Steam bundle for £1.47 on sale and it was worth every penny.