Hellblade: Senua Sacrifice and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II when compared together, feel like a give-or-take duology that beautifully bounces off each other in a symphony.

The first game has the better story, thanks to its singular focus on Senua and her psychosis, while the second game comes just close to overtaking Sacrifice as it takes Senua singularity, and gives her a purpose larger than life, an almost shamanistic task of taking down the giants and lead a group of people, which inadvertently takes away the story's focus on psychosis as that plot thread was already resolved in the first game

Gameplay wise, I knew what to expect and got what I was l looking for, a story led interactive adventure game, but as a sequel, 2 makes some sacrifices that are both necessary, but some confusing to distinguish itself from the previous games. The puzzles, for example, are few, longer and simplistic to the point some didn't need to be here, like that hour-long hidden folk trials, and combat, which I admire how raw, visceral and violent it is, feels a bit sloppy when trying to time attacks, read enemy movements and the lack of charge stabs and kicks makes it the more confusing why the simplification when it would've actively contributed to the presentation

Speaking of presentation, this game is nuts. I would confidently call this a digestible spiritual successor to Kane & Lynch 2 Dog Days, as the game employs a ton of post-processing to make it as filmic as possible, like an anamorphic lens, black bars, chromatic aberration, distortion, film grain, it's immense the number of techniques employed for this as well as the character's fidelity, which is industry leading.

Had they not simplified some crucial combat mechanics from 1 and expanded on the puzzles, I feel it could've surpassed the first game

Legendary. From the moment it starts you know it's special. Beautifully crafted, great audio, a game with soul,purpose and yet somehow makes a world so big worth exploring. A legend reborn from a legend.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth feels like a game I created in a dream when I was a kid. This game is proof that dreams come true. One of the most heavenly crafted games I’ve ever experienced. The perfect battle system: Final Fantasy VII Remake! It is a hybrid of ATB and action based and offers fans of both systems.

FF7R is the perfection of the classic ATB system. It has the most balanced combat system ever; end game utilizes abilities & spells from early on even on hard mode.

I'll die on the hill that FF7R has the best modern FF combat systems by a wide margin and should serve as the basis for future titles.

Very flawed title, but a timeless legendary gem nonetheless. The combat system & party system makes this game a 10 for me, and it makes the problems easy to ignore.
Besides Soulsborne, this is my favorite combat system of all time.

(No spoilers)

I went into this game with fairly high expectations in certain aspects. Those being story, characters, gameplay, and spectacle. And while those are some of the most important parts of a good video game, it does fall short in things that I consider minor but others may not. This review focuses on a lot of the negatives, but I want to make it clear that they do not outweigh the positives and I now consider this one of my favorite games of all time.

My biggest problem is the pacing of the main story quests. This game reaches some of the highest highs I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in a video game, but in the second half it frequently it pulls you back down with menial fetch quests that do nothing but keep you busy while the next spectacle is prepared. There is a precedent to this style of storytelling, giving you time to breathe before going all in on the next major event (for an example of expert story pacing, see the Resident Evil 4 remake), but it happens far too often and does nothing to properly engage the player. While they are relevant to the plot, they also lack any urgency or importance. These kinds of things should be relegated to side quests, not the main story.

Regarding side quests, they are by and large not very good. They do an okay job of building on the world around you, but there is just nothing particularly fun about going to a location and holding X to gather materials (especially egregious that some of these instances happen during the MAIN quest). I shouldn't be surprised since this is a developer known for their MMO work (a genre where side quests are mainly a means to get XP) but I can't help being a little disappointed.

As far as other side content goes, the developers explained there are no minigames or life skills like previous entries in the series as Clive's story is not a happy one and it wouldn't have made sense. I just don't agree, and it sucks that they aren't here. Outside of that, the bulk of side content lies in the hunts, arcade mode, and Chronolith trials. If you're fiending for combat, these are here for you. These are extremely good, and go along with my other biggest praise of the game.

The general combat and individual encounter design is some of the best I have ever played. There were many, many boss fights and hunts that I did in my 30+ hours (so far) and not once did I feel like an attack was poorly designed. It is absurdly fun weaving through telegraphs and interacting with so many cool Eikon abilities.

I have so much more experimenting I need to do, but it's clear from what I've used that every ability is strong in one aspect or another. The mastery system lets you mix things up pretty significantly and there is a lot more player choice here than I had initially thought. The combat itself also has a lot of hidden depth. My one tiny little complaint is toppling enemies with Garuda is so damn good I feel like I'm leaving damage on the table if I'm not using it, which brings me down to only two Eikon slots. Regardless, there are a staggering number of ways to initiate and hold a combo, whether using Eikonic feats or even commanding Torgal. Sure, you CAN beat the game by button mashing--which keeps the barrier to entry low--but there's no way I'm going to do that.

As a side note the itemization in this game is weak, and the crafting system is basic. But this has never been a strength of the series, so I'm okay with a couple stat sticks and damage/cooldown passives.

Rounding off this review with a final look at the positives, I found the story incredible when things were actually happening. It hit every emotional beat and by the end of it I was fully invested and felt the full force of its impact. The sentiment from other reviews is that it goes fairly off the rails in the final act, but personally I feel like it does so in a way that isn't alien to the JRPG genre. Not to dismiss any flaws, but there wasn't anything I was blindsided by and it never really breaks the mold on this type of story. It does fail to address a few things by the end, but not in a way that hindered my experience. The main villain is good but doesn't reach the same heights the best in the franchise do.

The Eikon battles are the peak of the game. When I mentioned highest highs, this is what I was referring to. I went in hoping they weren't just button mashing and QTEs, and it blew my expectations away. These are incredible, immersive battles between titans where scale and spectacle just kept getting bigger. I found myself finishing these and wondering how the next one could possibly be better--but it was every time. These encounters always happened at major story points, and the accompanying cutscenes never disappointed, with smooth transitions between cinematics and gameplay paired with, overall, some of the best English voice acting in video games. I never felt like the line delivery was flat or out of place.

The characters are amazing. There are some real gems in this cast, Clive, Dion, Cid, Byron, and one unnamed character in particular shone the brightest for me. Barnabas is propped up as one of the most powerful characters in the game, and he delivers on that with every moment he takes the screen. Jill unfortunately does not reach the heights that other major female characters in the series do, but I loved her relationship with Clive and she does have her moments. The side characters found in your main hub also fell short for me. They just weren't very interesting.

Creative Business Unit III, known best for their work on Final Fantasy XIV for the last decade, transfers a lot of their storytelling and game design experience to XVI, for better or worse. It's not perfect, but still holds a high score for me.

Thanks for reading if you did.

You cock.

Edit: Hey this game is too fucking long. I get that EVERYTHING sucks and things get only worse and like that's like a metaphor for life and climate change and war mongers that control our lives but like I want to ride a chocobo.

Also why are items that make the game fun withheld from you? For a game this long, you get items you equip that change the mechanics to be more robust and fun. You get these items AFTER 60 hours of pressing three buttons in player controlled combat.

That Titan fight is the most expensive thing I have ever seen in a video game. That's where all the FF14 money went. Into some Metal Gear Rising Dragonball Z shit. Amazing.

I want to like this game more, but it couldn't feel like a game 5 different game studios super-glued together to make a unique product which I appreciate and in some ways love.

The rough edges are felt and cannot be ignored because this game is too goddamn long and dumbass casuals are not going to figure out there are items in their inventory that make the game fun. I get why they are separated so as to curate the game experience but like literacy rates are plummeting and motherfuckers are scrolling r/bigwhiteasses in between gameplay segments. This game would have been received better if the default player combat experience was more fun from the start.

The world's most expensive and exhilarating cutscenes are not going to prevent people being bored long-term if their participation is not up to par. You got the DMC5 combat designer in this bitch and his work is essentially hidden from plain view. Come on, now.

Between Tears of the Kingdom, Hi-Fi Rush and this game. 2023 was a juggernaut of soundtracks. I think FF16 had the best overall soundtrack of the game's I played. The dude who wrote most of the music had like stage 2 cancer while writing it, so the themes of death go hard as FUCK in a very emotional way. Goddamn this game will make you sad and terrified. It's good stuff.

I'm not going to dismiss this game as torture porn. But I think it's small glimmers of hope and joy that you do see in this game that are insanely powerful. Like the game puts you in a state of acceptance of slavery, poverty, plague and needless warmongering only to pull your head out of the water to make you look at the rare Moogle or Jill's boobs.

The ultimate villain is dumb and kind of ruins some themes the game was running with, but not since like Final Fantasy 6 do you feel somewhat hopeless at winning against them. It's awesome.

FF16 plays around in a miasma of human misery to highlight what's truly precious in life to those who want to know peace. Is it particularly niche and inaccessible? It is to mainstream audiences for now. I think appreciation for what's here will only grow in time.

They should releases this with a re-wired combat system so I don't fall asleep 40 hours in but like you know Square doesn't do anything 100% right. I'm cool with the final product, but not as much as I had hoped.

I can't wait for this to come out on PC and melt everyone's GPU.