i love quake, but i can't help feeling like it tainted the shooter scene. if it weren't for the genre-defining quakeworld update, maybe we wouldn't have to deal with an endless barrage of esports titles designed to drive their players into a maddened frenzy (though i could just as easy blame warcraft).

as for valorant? fuck anyone who supports this beyond soulless game. massive red flag! avoid the fans at all costs. every single friendship i have had with a valorant player has gone down in flames.

OH, THIS IS BY THE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS PEOPLE? THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING LMAO

if we get an onslaught of mediocre "lethal-company-likes" in the wake of that game's success, i'm going to be pissed - though i will say that i think content warning is worse than a cut-and-dry ripoff would be. a number of the developer's decisions actively confound me, such as including human fall flat movement physics... in a first-person game. why? for what reason? does this add anything other than a slight sense of detachment from my player character? content warning is yet another entry in the endless list of popular multiplayer games that needlessly combine popular gameplay trends to create gimmicky experiences with little-to-no replay value. you might laugh at it with your friends, but only because you'd laugh at anything this stupid with your friends.

oh, and we didn't end up laughing at it. we ended up fighting, because this game punishes you heavily for exploring. this makes the second refund on my steam account. at least the monsters were cute.

I grew up with this version (Wii) of Unleashed, and it's always been a goal of mine to come back and beat this thing since I never did as a kid - I think I got stuck on Shamar - and man, it held up. I always thought, in retrospect, that that shorter bursts of speed from this game's boost was really disappointing compared to the continuous boost of the 360/PS3 game and later Sonic games in general, but actually playing this, I kind of like that it makes you think more in the moment on if you want to boost or not. You're pretty much always going top speed in other boost games, but here you have to think "is this a good time to boost? Will I accidentally launch myself into the stratosphere?" Though there are other times where even if it seems fine to boost, you'll suddenly come up on some enemies you couldn't see before and now you can't take an upper pathway, or a boost pad will rocket you into the skybox because they didn't want you to boost there. Overall, though, it's kind of an interesting dynamic.

I like that the settings of this game are more varied than other globetrotting adventures in games. Yeah, Italy and China based areas are typical, but you don't tend to see levels in games based off Greece, southeast Asia, Inuit settlements in the Arctic, or, hell, even the Middle East is often underrepresented, but they're all here and it's really nice. They even got Michigan in here - thanks Eggmanland!

Easily the most controversial part of Unleashed is the main gimmick of the nighttime stages where Sonic gets a bit fluffier, stretchy, and way slower. People really don't like the slower paced platforming, and the very obviously God of War inspired combat. But I've always loved these parts so much. First of all, the vibes are incredible. You're often accompanied by smooth jazz as you romp through the local towns, and while the graphics aren't top tier or anything, I think it's pretty pleasant in the nighttime stages. The combat is pretty shallow, but I think it's fun enough to bear throughout this game.

I made it my mission to go for 100% completion in this game, and it was a blast for most of it. I mostly got all S ranks in the nighttime stages barring a few fumbles, so those were one-time deals. Daytime stages were definitely more troubling, but learning the levels and mastering the movements of this game was really satisfying; the time limits to get S ranks were just low enough to need to work for but not so low that it was frustrating.

But that's just talking for the main levels' goals. The more I looked into 100%, the more annoying it became. In each area of the game (except Eggmanland), there's a shrine that contains 3-4 rooms opened by collecting Sun Medals and Moon Medals, each of these rooms are more or less puzzles where you switch between Sonic as a hedgehog and as the Werehog. These rooms aren't too bad (except on that was particularly annoying), but I eventually found that I needed 69 Moon Medals (that's not a joke, they just happened to go with that amount) to open somewhere around 5-9 rooms - don't remember the exact amount. But I had beaten every level possible. Well, it turns out that you need to collect every single piece of concept art, music, cutscenes, and tips in order to do everything. And the game is really bad about telling you where these are, vague hints of where they are. They don't tell you specific levels - hell, they don't even state the continents by name you just need to know that, say, Chun-nan is the third continent (despite being the fourth on you visit). The game doesn't tell you if you've gotten all the items in a level. It doesn't tell you if a villager in the town has an item for you. It doesn't tell you if a new Gaia Gate has opened up. You just gotta figure it out yourself or find the surprisingly sparse guides people have made out there.

I think the worst part is your reward for doing everything. The level you unlock is the worst one in the game. It's in Adabat for no real reason, you're running on winding paths that make boosting nigh impossible, there's almost nothing on these paths, and getting hit one time makes your restart. You ultimately unlock the special short films which are neat but... c'mon, no one wants to go through all that effort to get those one Wii quality. I don't really expect games to have great completion rewards, but if the path to those rewards are tedious and full of poor menuing, then it's a sad day.

I always knew that if I went back to this game, I'd still like it, but I really didn't expect to get as much out of it as I did. I still haven't played the HD (for lack of a better term) version, but I've always thought it looks fun as hell and cranks up what like about the Werehog and daytime stages tenfold, so I'll be happy to get around to that eventually.

it's almost three in the morning as i finish this up. i started the cleanup at ten p.m. if that goes to show how bad the collectibles are

I KNOW I'm gonna get my ass beaten for this but I really with this game was closer to SaGa Frontier than it was Scarlet Grace as far as Progression and character recruitment goes. I have only done Bonnie & Formina which I honestly think is a GREAT start point, you have lots of variety, you have 6 world options it's really solid and both characters are really cute.

The battle system for this game is great and I feel like it's something that just constantly gets better the more SaGa games exist.

If I were to give some advice for fans that want to do more than one playthrough(This game is designed around that) do not do Ameya's story first do literally anyone elses and then do hers.

If I could jump that high...would I ever find the ground again?

Is it bad to jump that high into the sky of nostalgia? To let yourself slip away and put your head into the clouds? Will those clouds of nostalgia turn you against your peers who don't see the vision? The vision of a children's playground for you to jump around to your heart's content? Planting yourself on a little conveyor and riding on it like a first-person roller coaster? Pretending to pet the non-threatening round green birds that chirp "kiwi!" if you dare to shoot them?

I wish I could jump like Robbit, I wish I could shoot lasers like Robbit, and I wish I could make funny noises whenever I took a step forward like Robbit. Why is life such a bore? Why can't it be just playgrounds and rainbows? Why can I not be just like my hero Robbit? Fighting funny evil men with funny palm tree jellyfish henchmen.

Was it my mom's fault that she bought me this during a time where I got nothing for a majority of the year due to being a poor December baby? Is she to blame for this mess? My poisonous care for a simple video game that I had played too much? The rare time where I can attach my mom to a game instead of my gamer dad? My yearning for days that I didn't need to care about getting up for work in the morning? When I didn't have a constant worry for the struggles of others? Is it truly bad for me? To just make me forget, and make me care only about smiling and struggling to hold back my emotions? To just, feel once more?

Is it bad for me to feel like a kid again? For just one hour?

Why must life be so grounded...?

Let's go Robbit, let's jump and go...for old times' sake once more....

Today is my birthday! And for such an occasion, me and my bestie are playing through the Ace Attorney trilogy, in what is the first revisit I've had to the original games since I was a child

Anyone who knows me knows the importance the AA trilogy had in my early years. As an adult, I'm somewhat forced to view the game in a different manner, but I can also now look back to see the purpose this held to me, in the past. To be a child in the western world is to be ignored, I think. Especially a child like me who could understand these things more than most. Adults play little lords who can offer no refuge from the agony they bring, purposeful or not. It always seemed to me that everyone was making base mistakes that I could never fathom, that reflected off them and burned into me because children have no say in anything that goes on around them. And I could never understand their actions- I could never understand the screaming, I could never understand the deeply ingrained violence, I never understood why no one listened or could even parse things that were immediately obvious to me. Or why no one felt spurred to change. For years, I just ghosted the world feeling like one big tear all the time, very alone, but I would rather be alone than be with people like that. But I never forgot it, the extreme frustration of being that child. The child who is forced into situations with no voice and no autonomy, getting punished when I myself could not say anything back, lashing out and being unable to convey my desperation. Its pure bile and anger to be there.

I had so many feelings and thoughts about this growing up, the above can only be a tame simplification of many years of displacement. But one day, I caught a glimpse of a weird lawyer game on my shitty little ipod's app store in 2013, and things kind of changed. As I played, suddenly, I could see what it was like to have a voice. I could see what it was like to have friends, to find a family. I was introduced to a manner of things through Ace Attorney, a new manner of thought even, which at the time felt very cathartic to me. It reinforced a conviction that I've held since I could remember and I could see myself a little in it, sometimes. It was a comforting space. As an adult who knows more about the world than I did then, the writing isnt so mind-blowingly fantastic. But boy, as a child was it sure fucking incredible. To shout your objections and have pure, undeniable proof of what you meant at terrible people who otherwise would never see it. It was the spark of that more than the actual meat of it.

As for this game itself, it's more about what it did for me rather than what it is. To encourage thinking for ones self, to encourage that faith in an informed conviction. And that which fueled my fire for creative work, that I am still drawimg today. I talked about this a lot in my aai2 review, and I will talk about it again, but the introduction of Miles Edgeworth resonated with me so much back then. Who doesnt want to watch their shitty father bash their head into a wall- but that meant so much to me then. Actually, I forgot that this character largely introduced the concept of homosexuality to me. I would have figured myself out sooner or later, as I would with all these things, but at the very least I finished this game back then with an appreciation for a masculine demeanor and a strong need for a fitted suit.

I'm kind of rambling, and not well, but its my birthday so I'm allowed to. In present times, I'm noticing many spelling errors and sometimes a lacking of tone. And sometimes I feel like it relies too much on a joke so that the whole thing comes off as clowny, but I also feel like it might just be the english translation that made things this way. This was the first of its kind after all, and I've seen how the series has grown, so I can cut it some slack. Turnabout Goodbyes and Rise from the Ashes are still fantastic cases, and what's been even more fun than running down memory lane is watching my best friend experiencing it with me for the first time. I cant explain how much I absolutely love every piece of these games, though. They feel like a part of me, and I'm fairly proud of that. Its been a blast, and I cant wait to rediscover the rest of the series again.


Dont forget DL-6!

anyone who's known me for any amount of time could probably tell you that dragon quest is far and away my favorite series of all time, i love it dearly and to death. despite this, like most franchises i love, i struggle to reconcile with the wider opinions the fans of dragon quest hold, most of all the near universal acclaim of dragon quest 8. even the other dragon quests i don't "get" in the same way, namely 5 and 9, at least have something about them that i can understand being a hook to some even if i don't necessarily agree, but i just can not wrap my head around the fanbase's—and jrpg fans as a whole's—opinion on dragon quest 8. i understand that it had a lot uniquely going for it at the time, especially a demo for final fantasy 12, but despite most of what it had going for it at the time being less and less unique as time goes on the opinion of dragon quest 8 being one of the better dragon quest prevails, and i just don't get it.

don't get me wrong, i still enjoy this game! honestly having played every game in the mainline series other than finishing 11 at the time of writing this the only ones i even dislike are 2 and 9. in terms of positives i think dq8 has a great cast between the party and dhoulmagus, and despite the acoustics of the orchestral versions being questionable 8's soundtrack is really great. the final boss theme in 8 is unironically tied with 9 for my favorite final boss theme in the series, there was obviously as much love put into this game as every other dragon quest and that in of itself is charming to me.

however, that's sadly about where i run into the things i don't really care for. more than any other game in the series i find dragon quest 8 to be the embodiment of what most people who dislike or don't respect this series come to think of it; dragon quest 8 is a formulaic comfort food type of game without much notable to say outside of vibes and character writing. outside of dhoulmagus, yangus, and angelo there's not really that much to say about the story (and even what there is to say isn't crazy unique), the reliance on psyche-up and lack of distinct party variety outside of the 3ds version makes combat land on the less engaging side of what the series has to offer which is really not great when this game seemed to over-correct on people complaining about 7's combat-less intro (and to be honest nothing is more irritating to me than a sequel over-correcting on what made a much better game unique and appealing!), and the game is somehow on the longer end of dragon quest play times despite utilizing it the most haphazardly.

despite all that though, it's still dragon quest and i still get the base appeal! it's still a very strong 7/10 game for me and i'm glad i played it despite all of that because at the end of the day it's all dragon quest and i love dragon quest. it's just confusing and maybe a bit frustrating to see how common of a sentiment it is in the western fanbase to deride titles like 6 and 7 while parading a game like 8, maybe the most "generic" dragon quest in a series that outsiders deride for being generic, as a masterful golden goose of the entire franchise. i get that this game was the first 3d dragon quest, i get that it had voice acting and overseas it had an orchestral soundtrack, i get that there was a final fantasy 12 demo packaged with the game, and i get that plenty of people are nostalgic for this game but almost 20 years later with more and more people playing this game completely divorced from that context, what merits of its own does it really have? why out of every dragon quest game is it 8 that's so popular? i just really really don't get it.

What if some of the most inspired worldbuilding and atmosphere that gaming had to offer was packaged within a near-unplayable pile of garbage?

Frustrating, Infuriating, slow, buggy, REALLY BUGGY, badly designed, and incredibly interesting.
Every time I felt like I was getting into a groove with this game it would throw some obtuse block in my way to prevent me from truly enjoying it. I tried really hard to love this game and part of me does, the other 75% of me wants to kick it down a stairwell

It's been a journey of give and take: whenever I was really in the flow, it always managed to find a way to snap me out; and whenever I was losing my grip, it always found a way to yank me back in. Every great aspect of the game had its evil antagonistic clone that wasn't *equally* bad, but powerful enough to hurt the game's stronger points. Each great and charming character obscured by a slurry of aggravating witnesses, with humour that at a moment's notice can swing between genuinely funny and aggravating to even mash through. The great drama, spectable and flow of the trials broken by how abruptly they can grind to a halt when they demand the use of details from earlier conversations that have absolutely no record in the moment. And the compelling stories, themes and character arcs numbed by all my problems dragging me out of the experience as they grew harder to ignore.

I'm happy to concede that some of this stems from my own personal problems. I'm not incredibly attentive and my memory isn't very good, so a lot of the details I forgot might have been easier to keep track of for others. For similar reasons I felt like I had to push through most of the cases in one day, which naturally led to a lot of fatigue especially in the longer cases. Problems that started out feeling small but only got larger and more gnashing as I pushed through, to the point where even as I was watching the (probably really good) climax to the trilogy, I couldn't shake my resulting lack of investment and the feeling that I only finished it up out of obligation more than anything else. All that said, I did have more fun with the games than I'm probably letting on - I think the fact that I cleared three of them despite my brain's impressive resistance to everything these games expect from you speaks for itself.

I was a bit hesistant to post this considering most of it is dedicated to me talking about how challenging I found the silly lawyer games on a highly personal level but I don't think it holds any less 'merit' just because of that. We can try to ignore and talk around it but ultimately our own personalities and preferences are going to affect how we view and engage with anything, and that goes as much for my highly-personal musings as much as somebody else's ostensibly 'objective' review. Besides, I think stupid people deserve a voice as well <3