This series became my LIFE for around 8 months and to be caught up for a new release felt so GOOD to be apart of.

Probably one of the best Yakuza games and RPG's in general that I have ever played. From the Hawaii setting, Party Chats, Combat, Mini Games and Side Content there's ALOT to enjoy in this game.

The story is the only department I was slightly let down in but luckily any parts that I thought were meh was carried by the best cast of characters I think to be in the Yakuza series yet!

Peak Game, Peak Series, Peak of PEAKS

It's probably easiest to describe the Infinite Wealth experience by describing my final 90 minutes of play.

The beginning of that block was spent running between every restaurant in town to order, literally, the entire menu on the off chance of catching one of the stupidest conversations conceivable between my party of characters whom I've grown quite attached to. Stupid jokes, everyone piss drunk and fucking up every enemy encounter we ran into, and the sheer absurdity of how much food I shoved down their throats on my quest to max out Kiryu's levels through any means necessary.

90 minutes later I experience the emotional nadir of my gaming career with the abject emotional sucker punch of the game's final musical sequence, an experience that had me in tears. Not to linger of how much of a loser I am, but it wasn't a misty-eyed sniffle so much as a head-in-hands bawling. The clarification is worth it to highlight the emotional capability of Yakuza 8, and for people who have played it, there's absolutely no mystery when it comes to the game's secret weapon.

Anyone who's played Yakuza 7 will sing the praises of its protagonist Kasuga. There's no surprises left to be found in this eighth installment; Kasuga is Kasuga is Kasuga. And what Kasuga is is a supernova of charisma. It's foolhardy to make a claim on the entirety of fiction across mediums, but contained to the realm of video games I feel pretty confident in singling out the writing of this character for excellence. Without going into a full character study, I'll say that the writers have found a successful mix of emotional depth and unwavering moral compass. The latter might imply a lack of growth or arc, but instead it's a constant string of challenges for Kasuga's character to shine through. Even if you know where it's going, it's never not exciting to see him keep on the righteous path despite all that goes on around him.

(This is my first parasocial relationship; how am I doing?)

It's the attachment to Kasuga that enables the emotional climax of the story. What, to me, initially seemed like an unrealistic act of forgiveness became the only logical course of events. Of course he resolved things this way, he's Kasuga. It's difficult to write about without spoiling things overtly, but it's a moment that will stay with me for a long time. One of my favorite scenes I've experienced in fiction.

Something I find fun to speculate is the complete opposite experience one could have while playing Yakuza 8. Infinite Wealth has two protagonists, of course, with the other being series idol Kiryu. I'm a secondary; I'm a late-comer Kasuga stan. For most fans Kiryu is the star of the show, and Infinite Wealth is a (backdoor?) tribute to the character and the series. A surprisingly large percentage of the content is dedicated to sending off Kiryu.

This includes references both overt and subtle to events and characters from all of the previous games in the series. Even random spinoffs like that survival horror zombie game (???) are paid homage. This is contextualized as Kiryu making peace with his life in light of his cancer diagnosis. I'd lying if I said it wasn't alienating for someone with no point of reference, but it's very easy to see that the game is not interested in catering to that group. Most of said content is optional, anyway. It's nice that fans have a chance to participate in a living funeral.

Kiryu has his own arc and spotlight within the game, including a scene immediately following the final boss that strikes me as particularly moving should one be familiar with the character. The notion that someone could have as strong of an emotional reaction as I did for a different character speaks to the quality of the game's writing.

I had been penning this review in my mind as I waddled along what was ultimately an 88 hour adventure. Until the story paid off at the end, I had envisioned most of this would have been written about the design of the open world.

Open world's in games are almost a joke these days. You look at your map, see thousands of icons that don't mean anything, climb a tower somewhere, and click fast travel buttons the vast majority of the time. Infinite Wealth has some of this nonsense, but it was the first time I had felt naturally encouraged to explore a world in a very long time.

Several of the side activities presented in the game are intrinsically fun to work through. Aloha Links, the friend making mechanic, simply asks you to press the dedicated Aloha button in the vicinity of certain people on the street. There's 200 potential friends and you bet your ass I found them all. There's a nice sound effect that plays when you form a link, Kasuga looks like an idiot as he mispronounces "aloha", and everyone on the street is having a good time. It's a pleasing gag that, when combined with watching a friendship meter fill until you make a certified buddy to cross off the checklist, never gets old. Take a taxi everywhere and you'll miss so, so many friends. It's just not done!

Other things you would miss include the photo rally that tasks you with snapping pictures of key locations for extremely minor rewards. But of course the reward is in the fun of the treasure hunt itself, as the items you need to photograph are only relayed to you in the form of small, context devoid image that forces you to suss out where it could be. It's very satisfying to be wandering around only to get a sense of déjà vu from some landmark and realizing it's on your list of to-shoot photos.


I had a lot of fun with these two mechanics, but they are admittedly minor. What wasn't minor was the effect they have on your play through. You walk around more, you fight more enemies, you get more resources, you upgrade your weapons more, you happen across more opportunities to train your team of Pokemon (Yeah), you take some time to do side quests, you find the hidden conversations your party could have only by walking by certain locations, your relationship level rises, you work through the party members' individual quests, and I could go on.

The point is that be tacitly encouraging players to actually inhabit the game world instead of warping around it constantly, the game naturally and smoothly delivers a drip-feed of its systems. In other games grinding of some sort would be necessary. Grind for resources, grind for experience points, grind for opportunities to raise your bond with your party. Infinite Wealth incentivizes and trusts the player the find perfect gameplay rhythm that the developers had built into it. It's very impressive.

When you have excellent, well-considered gameplay alongside a story capable of genuine emotional connection. That's a winner. Yakuza 8 is incredible across the board, and the only thing left for me now is the crushing void felt in its absence.

"The Last Metroid Is In Captivity. The Galaxy Is At Peace..." - Results determined that was a lie.

Met-, sorry spoilers, I mean Sammy's third escapade with Nintendo is where her space adventures really hit their stride! As my first exposure to the series via the 3DS's e-Shop, I can see how it was a genre defining experience. It did Baby Yoda and Mando way before it was even a thing and this game proudly stands with Castlevania as the pioneers of the Metroidvania genre to this day! The set pieces and gameplay are still fun to play in.

After reading the Retro Gamer Super Metroid 30th anniversary feature, funnily enough, I fancied playing it. And play it I did. Absolutely soaked in unsettling atmosphere, and some great action platforming, it's a game that is not only brilliant in its own right, but actually made better by sequels like Prime and Dread.

I did have a few moments where I found it to be a little laborious. Some of the backtracking was a chore, and the wall jump and space jump were inconsistent, but I can overlook those as minor gripes in a game that I had a lot of fun with.

I don't really need to go over what's been said a zillion times already. Game good.

It’s 1996… 4 year old me can barely even play Super Mario World to a competent level, never mind a deep, complex game like Super Metroid. 1 or 2 hours was enough to get me to a point where I didn’t know where to go, so I would drop it.

Returning to this game nearly 30 years later, and I know see why it is considered a revolutionary masterpiece.

Stacking it up against games of the time and nothing comes close to how it looks, plays and feels.

The opening atmosphere, the game does an excellent job of making the player feel lonely and creating a desolate world. And the atmosphere through the game is top notch.

The sound. The shooting of the beam, the jumping and spinning sound, the music, the alarm sounds. Everything is on point and feeds the atmosphere, similar to the first Alien film.

The gameplay and power ups. Again, revolutionary for its time. Traversing the world is so much fun when you start to unlock some of the power ups.

The story. I had the benefit of having played Metroid: Zero Mission before this, so knew a little bit about what was going on. A simple story but a very effective one.

The outrageous, amazing ending. I loved it. So unexpected and exciting.

I couldn’t give it a rest. Super Metroid is one of those games where you just have to keep playing and want to find out what’s around the next corner. I didn’t even think about any other game whilst playing this.

I just can’t give it a 10. Mainly due to the confusion and the time it took me to figure out where to go at the end. This game does not hold your hand. And I know this is meant to add to the mystery of the world building and is meant to make the player carve his own path. But I just wish it gave you even a slight hint of what to do next. Near the end, when the paths become much more complicated, I felt a little frustrated at times. But it was satisfying when I did manage to carve a path. A minor gripe.

Overall, I’m so glad I have now experience this game in full. And I know see why people consider it a masterpiece.

there really is just no story nor game that even holds a candle to pathologic. one of the best written narratives ive ever had the honor of witnessing whilst also deserving the title of an 'anti-game'. i dont say that as a slight against it.

personally, i enjoyed the gameplay a lot, but, i recognize i am an exception and not the rule. cause of that, i cannot really recommend this game in good conscience, but, if you do feel determined enough to play it yourself, good luck.

make sure to get used to dodging plague clouds!

Anybody who thinks this is a suitable experience for either game is a fool. Both games run like shit, sound like shit, and look like shit, Silent Hill 3 is just slightly worse in all ways since the developers probably prioritized 2, and couldn't even get that right.

And anyone that claims "it ran fine for me" is either braindead or lying. Nobody has the magic PS3 that runs either game half as well as they did on PS2. Even with the Xbox Series X's overcompensation of power, these abominations they have the audacity to refer to as remasters still run horribly.

The only enjoyment anyone can get from this is listening to the new voice actors, which are terrible all-around for both games.

Within the first 5 seconds of freedom this game gave me, I immediately picked up the kitchen knife and used it in probably the worst way possible. The game didn’t stop me and it also didn't seem to care, and neither did I. But that was probably the worst way possible to start this game, because as it dragged on for hours the main thought in my head was, “We were cooking on the first route” which should have ended the game. Instead I was trapped in a torture chamber of nonsensical solutions and horrible dialogue delivery, with an ending that wasn’t even interesting enough to be worth the painful drawl. The image of Daisy Ridley’s weird polygonal feet are scarred into my brain forever.

While I find the trial and error bit of gameplay to be rather neat, it’s done in such an excruciatingly painful way here. Every do-over lacks the ability to skip the cinematics so you’ll feel your body rapidly age with every scene you’re forced to watch on repeat. The lack of options your character gets to work with are frustrating and unrealistic. The characters shamble around like zombies and there’s zero way to speed up the process to get back to a later segment in the timeline aside from some line skips. I guess had they implemented such a silly concept then the game would quite literally be 12 minutes long. Instead, you sit through hours of trying out the smallest changes, only to awkwardly miss-click something and have to redo the whole process again. With every make-out session your wife assaults you with unprompted at the beginning of every loop, the more reptilian I felt while playing this game. How icky it made me feel while I slowly became an iguana.

You’d think a game that allows you to stab the shit out of your wife in the first five seconds would have literally anything to say about violence or impatience or domestic abuse or literally anything? Maybe it’d point a finger at me and go, “You’re part of the problem!!” and question my immediate conclusion to stretch the game's choices to it’s most inhumane limits. Nope. It meant nothing, like it was just something cool you could do for the sake of it. Violence is actually the only way to siphon any useful information from any of the characters, in fact the peaceful communicative solutions don’t even open up until after you’ve murdered so it’s not like it’s not encouraged. But, it literally doesn’t acknowledge this as something awful nor does it affect your character in any real way. The game does not care, so why should you? Allowing me to start the game with the ability to do this really set itself up for failure. It never challenged my thought process, so I just simply progressed with not giving a shit. It's almost like game interactivity has a way of affecting the player if it's implemented in a meaningful way instead of just existing for "artistic" shock value.

At the end of the day, does it even matter? I went through all this effort just to land on a conclusion that I said out loud as a joke. When the twist happened and that joke ended up being the reality, oh fuck off. This is it. It’s just a game that let me murder my wife in the first 5 seconds of it and nothing else. Riveting stuff, guys.

How they got James McAvoy, Willem Dafoe, and Daisy Ridley involved in this is insanely hilarious. They sound like they’re phoning it in the whole time, like they don’t even believe in this game’s bullshit themselves. It’s artistic, I’ll give it that. But, am I buying it? No. I ate chocolate mousse while a man screamed at my wife and hogtied her to the floor right in front of me. Neat.