Gonna try not to be biased as this one of the games I played for hours on end through the years until now as well!
I speedrun this, so I'm always happy for a buggy glitchy game, But the glitches in this are beyond me.

Achievements did not appear for the game on release week, one is currently unobtainable, and its mostly just grinding. How fun, lots of missed opportunities for some creative ones.
The loading sound was removed and changed for the 1st game, everything else worked fine on that, Now the second game, that's where the problems come in.

Missing assets on Naboo, like an entire wall is see through, Enemies and allies Even myself would spawn out of bounds on Naboo.
The new hero hunt mode for all maps completely breaks AI, on Kamino every enemy had no idea where to go, so they resorted to spinning in a circle then running off the edge.

Galactic conquest is broken if you play as the Empire and try to buy a new upgrade I was greeted with a crash every time, meaning I could not play that mode unless I was CIS, Rebels or Clones :(

Apart from that, the game is basically the same (if its not broke why fix it) In this case it was the company trying to add new things like the mode that broke it :(

Wait for Sale on this, or just buy the old ones on the xbox store. Much better.

Forward unto Dawn... of a new era! Yeah, I know, bad pun.
Halo 4 starts a new saga for the series, the Reclaimer Saga, and I won't beat around the bush, I know that this one is quite divisive among the community.
Unlike something like Halo 3 which seems to be universally praised, or something like Halo 5: Guardians, which many people hate, Halo 4 seems to be in a weird limbo of opinions.

As a newcomer to the series, this left me intrigued, but I also welcome a new direction. We had the original trilogy and two side games with Bungie. Those games have done wonders for them, and they've been great journeys. For 343 Industries, it was probably going to be very tough to follow them up, so... instead of surpassing them, why not do something different?
Instead of competing with the quality of something like Halo 3, it's better to try and do something new, and hopefully the series doesn't get stale.
Of course, we still want a new game to have good quality behind, and that's where opinions seem to differ.

Halo 4 picks up 4 years after Halo 3, with Master Chief and Cortana getting pulled into a new planet. This planet used to belong to an ancient race of individuals called the Forerunners.
There's a lot going on in this story. From the deepened relationship between Chief and Cortana, from the battle against Didact (a member of the Forerunners), to the small drama that happens because of Cortana's condition.
Because of the number of new concepts being introduced to Halo's lore, I can imagine this can be off-putting for a lot of people.
Being that I'm new to the series and don't have the same expectations people used to have back then, I can't help but feel biased in my assessment of this title.
The story was not perfect. I feel like some of the bits of drama were a bit contrived, and that Didact, while intimidating in his own right, could've been fleshed out a bit more.
I do know that there are Terminals that you can find throughout the game that give you a bit of backstory to the Forerunners. I was able to find 3 during my adventure, and I'm not sure if there are more. Regardless, I feel like these could've been better integrated in the plot itself.
Additionally, the Covenant's return feels like it was haphazardly explained. I'm not sure if there is any supplementary material that explains their return better, but I believe that this could've been improved.

In spite of my criticisms with the plot, one of my favourite things that this game does is the dynamic between Master Chief and Cortana. At the beginning of Halo 4, we get a small glimpse into the life of Chief and why he's the way he is. I was already intrigued when they went into his backstory, but one of the things they point out is that Spartans like him are very anti-social.
Then, the game's story goes out of its way to show that a Spartan can grow a deep connection with someone. So far, Halo 4 seems to be the game where Master Chief talks the most and I really liked it! I appreciate the folks over at 343 Industries making Master Chief more of a character this time around.
And there were also many moments of this story that I felt were well-written.
It's not a great story, but I had a good time seeing it unfold.

Now onto the gameplay! For the most part, 343 Industries played it mostly safe. Many of the classic weapons return, but some new Promethean ones were added, and these were okay. Some of them I liked, others didn't tickle my fancy. This game also further cements that the dual-wielding from Halo 2 and 3 is probably not coming back, as seen in 3: ODST and Reach. A bit of a shame, but I can understand why they made that decision.
I'd say level design was pretty good and well paced for the most part. I feel like maybe the final mission went on a bit too long, but besides that, don't have many complaints on that department.
The new enemies... were a bit annoying, not gonna lie. What doesn't help is that they make you fight a bunch of them, so I recommend practicing patience and covering yourself well enough to defend against them.
I ended up using melee attacks a lot more than my previous Halo adventures, because they were good at taking down most of the enemies quickly.

The presentation in this game is marvelous! Considering that this game was made on the same system as Halo 3, I'm surprised how much Halo 4 was able to showcase with the Xbox 360 hardware. There's a lot of great environments to see, and facial animations are probably some of the best so far!
The soundtrack is also pretty good. We got some new composers this time around, with Neil Davidge producing the OST. Even though it's sad not to hear the classic Halo theme, the game's new theme, Atonement, is wonderful to hear, and I did like some of the diversity in the soundtrack itself, like some of the techno-like tunes.

Overall, Halo 4 was a decent experience. I can definitely see why it's very divisive amongst the fanbase, but I can say that I had a good time playing it. The story was decent, the gameplay was still fun despite its issues, and I just had an overall good time.
It doesn't end the Master Chief Collection on the highest note, but it left me satisfied enough.

I'm not sure when I'll get to Halo 5: Guardians though. At the time of writing this review, it still does not have a native PC port, but even if it did, my PC probably could not run it. It was already a miracle that my PC could handle this one, and it wasn't always the smoothest experience. Maybe someone could make a low-end mod for it, I don't know.

With Halo 4 done, I'm now done playing the main games of the Master Chief Collection. One day, I plan on making a review for it, but not yet.
Although, even though I am done with Halo for now, I am not completely done with the Master Chief Collection... or should I say, the Mustard Beef Connection!

To be concluded...

An altogether short and sweet mario 64 romhack. I would say that some of the stars were unbalanced but I realized that most of them came from me overanalyzing what I was supposed to do and trying to do more work than I actually needed to. There are only 30 stars, a decent-but-not-evil level of challenge, and the whole thing even runs pretty damn solidly on the actual N64 itself! No real reason NOT to give it a go if you are into mario 64 tbh. there's also mean bean machine music used for some reason

Did you know that in 2004, a great accident took place where several victims were apparently beheaded in public with a mirror repurposed as a saw? Look up "mirror inflation rule34" for more info... So... ah, good, you have not fallen for my tricks. Seeing Meta Knight get owned in a 5 seconds cutscene made me believe that anything could happen from this point on. One could mistake this one for its GBA predecessor, as they share the same... about everything, but the affectionately dubbed Mirror Company has given us a nice slice of kirbyvania. What's the worst that can happen...?................ Well, I've had a healthy dose of fun. A dawg is a dawg, and Kirb is Kirb.

Nobody ask Kirby about the time loop of Candy Constellation. Seriously I entered the area and could not get out of the 6 same rooms hellooo child services this pink child has been: kidnappd 🤣🤣 such are the trials of a metroidvania. Aside from that, exploring has its perks. Kirby has different skin colors, and diferrent Kirbys, and... why are there so many Kirbys??? Is the hour of the Mass Attack upon us already. But clearly, only the pink one is putting in any effort, no red Kirby you do not have "goofy rizz" start vacating that Moonlight Mansion room in the boonies and put in work posthaste. Still impressive in a basic kind of way. I assume they just get assigned rooms and are not actually doing anything when you're not here. Like a classroom once the sub teacher "will be back in 5 minutes".

I guess my boy is getta pilferin'. The treasure system is much better realized in Squeak Squad, but we take the Ws we can. I don't know who made all these mini-bosses respawn, but they officially classify as hindrances, I'm damn hindered by this. The teleportation mirrors have Melee Marth range, at least, but I did die more often than the usual Kirby experience. It wasn't quite the walk in the park you'd expect, but it's also easy to navigate for the genre. Also... get this... I thought you could only destroy the iron blocks with hammer. That shit rare af. If only this mf knew he could fire 🤣 oooh the shame he brought on his entire family tree. But Mom... do you know why all those new enemies didn't even come back in further entries, let alone Squeak Squad or were heavily nerfed? Yeaaah Mirror Company had some trouble down the road. Why do I gotta fear the basic star blocks, whyyyyy. I'm baby

This time, to get to the scary final boss (another one of them), you have to beat nine shareholders shard holders. I think it's a great lesson to instill in that generation's youth, to not throw away your shit when you can fix it 👍 but on the other hand, Kirby's movesets fuckin suck 👎 so if you get any copy ability with more than one move, treasure it. I think you may even get the scare of your life with a certain hand in a certain room... no more half-measures. By sheer happenstance, I also know about the underground dealings that led to Mirror Company's inclusion of the Ohio theme song as an unlockable treasure chest. Look up "ohio big chest" for more info.

It's a reasonably ambitious attempt to make an on-rails 3D space game on the atari, and for the most part it works. There are 3 different game modes at play:

1. The main game mode involves flying in a pseudo 3D space where you try to shoot enemy ships for points and see how many you can earn in the arbitrarily-set time limit of 2 minutes and 16 seconds. The enemies scale in size depending on your distance in a choppy-yet-still-understandable way, and there are asteroids that can't be shot and you just gotta dodge em. There are no lives, so your punishment for running into an enemy is getting stunned for a second or two as the game flashbangs you with blinking lights. You can change how quickly the enemies fly into you as well as whether or not they come one at a time or in pairs. It's okay!

2. There's a variant of the main mode where instead of shooting enemies the button speeds you up, and the aim of the game is to see how far into space you can go. The only enemies are the invincible asteroids so it's just a matter of dodging. I found it reasonably cheesable to just hold diagonally in one direction and only change if something comes directly your way.

3. There's a bonus game mode called "Lunar Lander" which takes place entirely in 2D. I thought at first this would be a conversion of the arcade game of the same title, but it's actually more just a game where you play as a moon lander and chase the moon itself around a blank empty space, and if you manage to tag it you get a point. Though with the atari graphics and tag-like gameplay it really feels less like you are a moon rover trying to make contact and more like you are a blue horse trying to take a piss on a giant cookie. You can toggle these moving squares that the lander needs to avoid if you want there to be a little extra sauce, I guess.

It's a pretty decent game, I can appreciate the ambition for the kind of perspective that they were going for which atari hardware generally doesn't lend itself towards. The gameplay even feels decent enough with the stiff-ass joystick controller as well, I didn't have to do the ol' mega drive controller trick to make it more playable. There are two player modes for the main game and the moon lander game (the moon lander version seems like one person gets to control the moon which could honestly be a fun time), but I wasn't able to try those modes out. And this game is a launch title?!?!? The only real thing is that the time-based nature makes it seem more like RNG to get a good score as you just gotta hope for as many high-ranking enemies to spawn as close to you as possible to get an impressive score, and even then generally your score will be the same throughout as the time limit and spawn rates for things are generally the same. They could have made it a lot more competitive if they stuck to the ol' life system and had the time mode as a side thing or something. Regardless, I really can't fault the ambition at play here nawsay, shoutouts to atari

A waste.

I didn't finish the original Hellblade. I remember spending about an hour wandering through a forest where traveling through a gate would change the surrounding terrain, and it just kept going and going and going far longer than it had any right to. It was a ridiculously badly-paced section that was placed early in what was set to be a padded game, so I stopped. In the wake of the news of Xbox shutting down some of my favorite modern studios, I was surprised to see that they'd picked up Ninja Theory back in 2018; I hadn't noticed, given how many companies Microsoft has been keen on acquiring in the past few years. To be perfectly transparent, I was going into this sour. It was with my arms folded and my face screwed up that I downloaded Hellblade II — a sort-of defiant "well, let's see what Xbox thinks is worth keeping alive if not Arkane and Tango". What I had managed to play of the original game was, at the very least, interesting. I figured Ninja Theory would be able to tread water and release something that was about on par with the last title.

It's worse.

I wrote in my Breath of the Wild review that people who thought that game was doing anything seriously impressive or novel probably haven't played many games. It wasn't an especially polite thing to say, and it ruffled some feathers, but I stand by it. I'd like to take this opportunity to go further and suggest that anyone praising Hellblade II for being like a movie probably doesn't watch many movies; if they do, they don't have any actual understanding of the medium beyond blind, uncritical consumption. I've seen praise get heaped on this for its cinematography when it's comprised almost exclusively of over-the-shoulder shots, the most bog-standard drone flyovers you've ever seen in your life, and simulated shaky-cam group shots where everyone stands stark still in a circle while having a conversation about nothing of importance. This is shot, cinematographically speaking, like shit. Watching this feels like someone gave a film student an eight-figure budget. Take a shot every time you're in one of the over-long combat encounters and Senua gets grabbed from behind to transition into the next battle.

While I was settling in expecting a visual feast, this is more of a visual buffet. Maybe a visual McDonald's. It looks good, to be certain, but it's really not that impressive. The mandatory upscaling present here forces some compromise to be made where it really ought not to be; DLSS is hailed as being the best option of the lot, but it still leaves shimmering artifacts on the edges of models where it can't quite get the anti aliasing right. Switch over to FSR and you can mostly get rid of the edge-shimmer, but it similarly demands that you manually set the sharpness a bit too high and fuck up the graphics everywhere else. I can say without hesitation that I've seen a lot of games that look significantly better than Hellblade II. For probably the same amount of money and about six months earlier, Alan Wake 2 does everything that this wants to and more convincingly. Go back a few years to Detroit: Become Human or Death Stranding and it's plain to see that those are far more impressive works from an entire console generation prior. I wouldn't normally give a fraction of a fraction of a fuck about graphical fidelity, but seeing all of the praise for how good this game looks makes me wonder if our eyes are working the same way.

I appreciate Crystar for pointing this out in her review, but Hellblade II has a very funny concluding monologue. Ending the game on the statement "all the questions were answered" implies that any answers were given, and further suggests that any questions were asked. There's not all that much that's ambiguous here, and the parts that are don't manage to raise any interesting questions. I had a feeling that the giants didn't actually exist, which Senua seemingly confirms at the end when she screams it at the final boss. "There are no giants, it's just you", she says. Unfortunately, the giants not being real means that most of the game didn't actually happen. All of the characters who were talking about giants weren't. All of the characters who died fighting the giants didn't. Everyone who thought they saw Senua kill a giant didn't. The natural disasters that the giants caused were just random and unrelated; whether they ended after Senua "killed the giants" is either another coincidence, or they didn't actually end at all. Cut all of this away, and there's really not much story left. Senua and her friends (who may not exist) trek across the land (which might be ravaged by natural disasters) while fighting the undead (who may not exist) so that Senua can get a blessing (that definitely doesn't exist) from a group of underground mystics (who definitely don't exist) until they get to the slaver king's doorstep and beat him in a fight. This reads like one of those early-10s fan theories about Rugrats being Angelica's dying dream. I know I like to exaggerate for comedy's sake when writing reviews like this, but this is a stone-faced recap of what happens. There are no jokes here.

The command to not pay too much attention to the writing comes a little too late into the game, long after you've already sat through dozens of ridiculously trite scenes. The bar for the writing sits around the point where Senua cries while looking at her bloody hands, and the voices in her head say "you have blood on your hands", just to make sure that you understand. The voices aren't much more than exposition fairies. They exist to recap story events that just happened with breathless awe, never giving you a chance to think about anything being said. A character will mention something that Senua hasn't heard of — giants that control the weather, let's say — and the voices immediately pivot to acting like confused toddlers. "Giants? What are giants? Can we kill a giant? Are giants real? They can't be real. There's no such thing as giants. We don't know what's real. Giants might be real. What does he know about giants? Why is he telling us about giants? I wonder how much he knows about giants. Does anyone know what giants are? What if he's lying? Can we ask someone else about giants?" It continues at this pace for about five hours until the game ends. The voices chattering on and on is one thing, and I could at least understand it as something the devs were doing to intentionally provoke the player, but this constant motor-mouthing falls apart when you enter into combat. The voices somehow don't have enough lines to cover these incredibly strict and linear fights, so they're constantly repeating themselves. I heard the line "their bodies strong like rocks, you have to hit harder!" four times in a single encounter, and at least ten in total before the game ended. I was half expecting them to start asking if I had any potions, or food. Add this to the canon of game characters who manage to annoy the player by spamming voice lines like they're running HLDJ.

Pacing is, regrettably, another factor that Ninja Theory has regressed on. A vast, vast majority of this game is spent holding the left bumper and up on the left stick. You walk forward, and you walk forward, and you walk forward, and Senua's never really in much of a hurry to get anywhere. You'll have a good twenty minutes where you're doing quite literally nothing besides walking in a straight line while the voices ask questions about shit that you already know. They'll also celebrate you figuring out the solutions to the ridiculously simple puzzles in the most simpering way imaginable. I do not need to be told that Senua is a very, very smart girl who can do no wrong when the game told me where the symbol was, and then automatically solved the puzzle for me when I held the focus button vaguely in its direction. These over-long sections where you walk around and do nothing are occasionally interrupted by over-long combat encounters where you tap dodge and spam light attacks, and that's where the fun really begins.

Most of these fights are fucking silly; the part where Senua interrupts the ritual is easily five minutes, as is the cave fight, as is the undead raid on the village. This is only as much of a problem as it is because Senua can only ever fight one enemy at a time, which makes them drag. There are about nine distinct enemy types that exist in the entire game, and they all take turns to lazily swing at Senua and slowly get chipped down. A lot of games that do mob fights will have some enemies hang back while others slowly come at you, but this doesn't even attempt to give you the illusion. Senua never has to fight more than one enemy at a time, regardless of how surrounded she is. What really gets me is the fact that this wasn't a problem in the original Hellblade. Enemies would come at you in twos and threes, and that was even in the earliest fights of the game. This is a total regression of a system that was already pretty thin, and the fact that Ninja Theory have cut out a majority of Senua's attacks to streamline the combat even further than it was boggles the mind.

There are glimmers of something good in here. I really do like the part in the cave where Senua starts to get the blessing from the hidden men, and the entire place lights up like a LIDAR scan. It's got some genuinely good pacing, too; you've got puzzle sections that lead into little combat encounters, and then those lead into walking sections, and that leads into a stealth section, and then it leads into another puzzle. It's the only place in the entire game where any of these systems feel like they're working together in harmony, rather than existing solely to interrupt one of the others for going on too long. It's a shame that Senua has to exist outside of that cave. I thought it was a good place for her to be. It was interesting, at least.

Anyway, I'm not sure I buy Ninja Theory's Games for Impact-bait shift in the past few years. I see their logo and I think back to how they would write Monkey killing escaping slaves because it was badass, or that GDC talk they did for DmC: Devil May Cry where they dedicated a section to making fun of Dante for being gay. The company, to my knowledge, has never really had a reckoning for any of that. Tameem Antoniades seems to have slipped out the back door just in time for this to release, but he's still got the sole creative director credit. I'm willing to believe that Senua's actress Melina Juergens actually believes in what she's doing — she's said in interviews that her father had a psychotic disorder, and she seems to have the most solid understanding of the crew when it comes to how the narrative ought to handle Senua's mental illness — but I'm not extending that faith much further than her. There's something about the documentaries that Ninja Theory self-publishes where they go over how very, very carefully they handled psychosis (we promise!) that doesn't pass the sniff test. I don't think it's bad that this exists, and I won't erase the people who have said that these games have been genuinely good reflections of their own mental illnesses; I just have some strong doubts that Ninja Theory is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. One look at their back catalog suggests to me that they only wanted to make a Serious Mental Health Story because their old shit stopped selling and they could tell which way the wind started blowing. With the constant distractions of giant-slaying, risen undead warriors, and the sins of the fathers subplot, the current big game on the market "about psychosis" barely has time for the psychosis.

The conclusion that I'm forced towards, reductive as it is, is that people who love Hellblade II don't play anything else. They don't really watch anything else, either. I don't know what they do. It's not worth just harping on the fans, though; I don't think many people dislike this game for the right reasons, either. Complaining about a game not offering a good enough playtime-to-dollar ratio is peabrain shit. People also cry about Senua being Sweet Baby-core because she's got peach fuzz and bug eyes, all acting as though she isn't the the textbook definition of conventionally attractive. And the game isn't bad because it's story-focused — the game is bad because it's fucking boring. You engage with it in a boring way, and it tells a boring story. This isn't an inherently broken game. The concept is fine. It's the execution where Ninja Theory makes it clear that they've got no fucking clue what they're doing.

Great photo mode, though.

Alright let's start this off right. I have played all versions of P3 before this and I have to say, overall, this is the best version of Persona 3. It did get a bunch of nice new things, but the budget for this game seems way more reasonable and lower scale than you might expect. It really does feel like the ultimate PS2 RPG in that respect. It's about as faithful of a remake you could possibly ask for. I had so much fun with this release, I tore through it in less than two weeks.

Seriously, everything's been remade to spruce up the P3 experience that oldheads can appreciate, and at the same time make people who started the series with Persona 5 comfy. I cannot believe it struck such a balance. The dev team put a lot of thought into everything.

What I like most about Reload is the quality of life improvements on the dungeons. The dungeon crawling is no longer is sloggish nightmare in order to get what you need (XP, Money, Personas). You only need to grind if you really want to to get ahead for the next cropping of sections. It really makes a world of difference being able to spend 2-3 hours in a cropping of floors getting what you need and then optimizing the next month with social links. I used to hate doing the dungeon parts of the game and now I easily see it as one of the best parts. Persona 4 could REALLY use this kind of balancing and quality of life upgrades.

It's only flaw is being too committed to original releases. The plot is pretty slow for the first few months. The Arcana Link side stories are not nearly as interesting. The S.E.E.S. crew is not nearly as interesting as the P4 or P5 crew. I am happy to report Junpei has been fixed to be your typical bonehead idiot than really obnoxious creep. Everyone else is more or less the same. My favorite link Maya is a blast from the past. She is cringe and uses 2005 1337sp34k. She is playing the long shut down Shin Megami Tensei MMO that the game admits was destroyed by World of Warcraft. She's an alcoholic who bitches to teenagers about how much her boss sucks. Definite wife material.

If you've played a Persona game before, I suggest cranking up that difficulty because by the end of the 3rd month I was fucking busted. The only real difficulty on Regular is people not knowing how the game wants you to play, and of course figuring out a certain monster's weaknesses. Thanks to Fuuka's abilities, you can figure out any creature's weakness right away. The only real challenging fights on a Regular level are the sponge-y creatures that have no weaknesses at all and is essentially a party item/SP drain, but from how dungeons work now you'll be loaded with minor healing items to get through most things without thinking twice.

Persona 5 Royal is a better game when it comes to interactions with characters and world-immersion, but Persona 3 Reload is just a better playing RPG that cuts out all the fat and gets to the shit you really want out of the rather old school dungeon stuff. All the new abilities and quality of life features make this a must play even if you have played Persona 3 before. If you are the brainrotted type who thinks Persona 5 is only RPG on the planet worth playing then you MIGHT be looking at your second ever RPG. Congratulations!

I cannot wait for The Answer Episode Aigis in the fall. I cannot wait for the female MC route to come out even though its existence has been denied by devs, but you are fucking crazy if you believe them and think it's not happening. I am going to sell feet pics in 4K and probably going to have a good time doing it.

Play me out, Lotus Juice:

DISTURBING THE PEACE!
LOOK INTO MY EYES!
NOW TELL ME THE THINGS YOU'RE LAUGHING ABOUT BEHIND MY BACK!

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes feels like an anachronism. I don’t just mean this from how the game haphazardly scatters documents from 1847 and 2014 throughout the hotel set in 1962, or how it references multiple past eras of gaming with PS1 survival-horror fixed camera angles or DOS-inspired 1-bit adventure game segments hidden away on floppy disks, though these elements certainly play their part in creating what developer Simogo refers to as “collage of styles, ideas, and disparate inspirations.” No, what instantly caught my attention was how uncompromising yet thoughtful the game felt. In an era where most developers seem content to simply pay lip service to the great mystery/adventure games of old while over-simplifying their gameplay mechanics, Simogo seems to have figured out the formula of creating a final product that feels intricately designed, yet ultimately accessible.

I’ll admit that I’m not too familiar with Simogo’s previous work; the only other game I’ve played by them is Sayonara Wild Hearts. That said, I would not have immediately guessed that Lorelei was by the same developers from my first hour alone. In some ways, Lorelei presents an interesting foil to Sayonara. Sayonara’s persisting strength is its grasp on harmony: the epitome of what is essentially a playable music video, it’s pure and immediate gratification racking up points to the beat in this flashy and lush arcade game. On the other hand, Lorelei feels deliberately constructed to emphasize its dissonance. From the uncomfortably quiet manor clashing with the occasional audible off-screen disruption to the vibrating monochrome textures interspersed with low poly environment, nothing seems right in its place. It’s a much slower burn than Sayonara as well, with most players taking fifteen hours or more (in comparison to Sayonara’s two hour runtime) to navigate the sprawling hotel with no hand-holding provided whatsoever.

As different as these two titles appear however, they do have one thing in common: minimalism. For example, both games require just a d-pad/joystick and a single button to be played. Sayonara gets away with this because the available actions on input feel clearly telegraphed by the visuals and generally boil down to moving and timed dodges with the music. Lorelei similarly gets away with this because it deemphasizes more complex/technical interactions (i.e. the usage suite of adventure game verbs in look, touch, obtain, etc) with sheer puzzle intuition. Simogo describes this as forcing the player to “get a deeper understanding… and connection to [the world]” and just like Sayonara, “wanted the complexity of the game to revolve around this, and not dexterity.”

What makes this particularly impressive is how Simogo was able to strike a fair balance between simplicity and variety. According to the game’s development page, the game became “a very iterative toy box” where many different systems conceptualized over the game’s development cycle could interact and interplay with one another in different ways. Interestingly, I found that most of the solutions to these different puzzles were not that difficult or complex to determine. Even so, despite Lorelei’s simple controls and straightforward objective (figuring out passwords/key phrases to unlock new areas and information), the game is able to successfully obfuscate the means to achieve said objective by drastically changing the means in which information is presented to the player, for instance by using different camera angles and systems that allowed them to “change a lot of rendering parameters on the fly” from the aforementioned iterative toy box. Additionally, Simogo highlights key details from clues to ensure that players don’t get too confused, but leave enough ambiguity by never outright leading the players onto specific logic trains and refusing to provide any specific assistance (no in-game hint system and no specific feedback aside from telling players if they’re right/wrong). The result is a confident final product that understands the persisting strength of a good puzzle adventure game: a game that gives the player all the information they need to succeed while giving them the room to work out the connections themselves, and a game that constantly surprises the player with new opportunities to intuitively understand the world around them without ever feeling too frustrated by unfamiliar mechanics.

I do have to admit however, that there are a few instances where Lorelei’s minimalism and uncompromising nature can backfire. For instance, the lack of detailed player feedback aside from a right/wrong sound effect usually isn’t a significant deterrent, given that players can fine-tune most of the game’s one-variable solutions and are encouraged to tackle the hotel’s many branching paths and puzzles at their own pace, since they may not even have the pertinent information required and might have to work out other puzzles to obtain said information. However, certain late-game puzzles require multiple sets of answers (ex: a computer that requires three different types of phrases in a password), and it can be frustrating getting barricaded by such puzzles and not knowing which part of the answer requires more investigation. I’ll also echo some of the previous complaints regarding the controls, because while I appreciate that Simogo has crafted a base system where more complex controls aren’t required, I also don’t think that it’s a huge ask to add a “cancel/back” input for a second button. As a result, it takes significantly more scrolling to get out of menus or spamming random inputs to erroneously enter passwords if I want to back out of a puzzle, and the amount of wasted time per menu/puzzle really builds up over a playthrough.

While I did find the somewhat telegraphed ending slightly underwhelming given how elaborately the game wove its lore into its many clues, I nevertheless really savored my time with Lorelei. I might not have laser eyes, but I can certainly see this game’s approach upon system cohesion influencing many puzzle adventure games to come. As it stands, it’s another solid entry for Simogo’s innovative yet familiar library, and I’ll be thinking about its many secrets for quite some time. Perhaps it's finally time to delve into Device 6.

Hmmmmmm

Yeah so let me put a big sticker here on the front this was the first ever Square (Square in general) game I ever played and I vividly remembered being very hyped by it as an 8 year old. Kingdom hearts actually used to kind of be up there for Zelda with me like I’d literally be that one kid who’d be idk saying weird pretend stuff about keys and try and do the Organization XIII hoodie look lmao. So yeah I may be a bit nice with this one idk you be the judge.

I think it’s a bit important to put this right at the front because I’d say this game has been something I’ve found to be very cool for a large portion of my life (even if I did not finish this until today) and finally I sat down and finished this thing a year after I finished KH1 for the first time wow.

Now that I’ve finished CoM, I think I half find it to be something that very easily could’ve been so crazy if it was done differently but also it is a mess in its own ways (some unavoidable really).

For starters: I’ve at least sunk like 5-8 hours into every pre-KH3 KH game and man these handheld games just do the Disney worlds better lmao like the crossover charm does not overstay its welcome when the movie dump consists of 2 minutes of “here’s the deal, here’s how it ties with the main story now go do your thing” like dang the Disney worlds can actually be neat (I do not like Disney). Second and this may change when I finally finish KH2 next (and me getting very deep into 368/2 made me develop this opinion) wow I just like KH in these spinoff games where it’s like “this is a thing that’s happening to this character and they’re trying to exist in the situation” vs mainline games feeling like they gotta push the story every time there’s non-Disney dialogue because big franchise entry. The combination of memories being represented by the cards, some things being reconfigured because memory, our main cast going deeper into literally losing their dang memories (and these are supposed to be a goofy af kid, a duck, and an individual by the name of Goofy), the introduction of Nobodies just align well to the point I’d say this just worked more than KH1 from a writing perspective and as a standalone game even. I’m also gonna roast KH1 here (in a similar fashion to my review of it really) but wow all the worlds looking like rooms makes sense here for once lmao.

Okay so here’s the bad, this game’s existence is ambitious and brings KH’s action rpg combat to the GBA by having this card system instead of awkwardly trying to cram it into the system but you can tell it presses against the limits a lot. For starters deck building is a bit clunky, acquiring new cards is kind of a pain a little bit (this isn’t entirely an issue that made things hard but still just something I felt was awkward), and I think this concept also would’ve been a lot more interesting if like the character you played as didn’t have an already established weapon (that feels like the game really pushes you into anyways). If this sounds like I’m saying this shouldn’t have been a KH game, lol.

I wouldn’t dare say this game is better than KH1 (none of these bosses and the in-game mechanics come close to that game’s second to last final boss tbh) but it does some things way better and I feel like this was more of a good showcase for how the franchise’s concepts can work well when they’re not crammed into the awkward framework of plot->Disney movie recap->plot

Summary: I’ve indeed loved Yu-Gi-Oh for about 75% of my time on this planet

AND NOW I FINISH!!!

Yakuza like a dragon (which from now on I'll just call Yakuza 7) was a game I had for a while but never got around to finishing. It was actually my first Yakuza game I got on PS4, and I went in assuming it was a spinoff due to the new cast, setting, battle system, and the fact it wasn't a numbered entry on the box. So a reveal 2/3rds into the game that it did in fact tie into the main series combined with that part having an insane difficulty curve meant I never finished it. But that changed, and god damn, this might be one of my all time favorites.

The game ditches it's main cast for a new character, Ichiban Kasuga. And this man is an absolute legend. He's a bombastic goofball ready to help out anyone regardless of their current reputation, seeing the world as a Dragon Quest like fantasy for the hell of it, as he comes into his own with the help of a team of great characters as he uncovers the mystery behind a set of betrayals in his life.

And the main story is great. The new Yokohama setting and it's unsteady peace between rival factions leads to a lot of interesting conflicts, especially as more and more secrets collapse into a final conflict that had me greatly emotional by the end, even if the story falls into the usual Yakuza writing traps like giving a hint certain villains will redeem themselves only for them to die later (you know the part I'm talking about, and it's possibly the worst example in the series) and having themes of standing up for oppressed groups only to have you fight against the homeless people you stood up for ten minutes ago. The game also leans into the Yakuza wackiness in it's main story much more than in previous entries, and for the most part it pays off, managing to be serious when it needs to be with some real emotional gut punches. The other party members are also great, with all of them having great arcs (even if one gets resolved in a post credits cutscene) minus the optional party member who's just a real nothingburger of a character.

And one of the big things about this entry is the turn based combat, which is...fine. The moves all have the impact they need to feel satisfying to land, but the game is insanely easy minus the massive curve I mentioned, and another fight later on (although that one is also really easy to exploit) as well as the fact I didn't really feel the need to experiment with the job system, just picking a job for each character and sticking with it for the game. Also, finding decent weapons for some jobs (enforcer) is really obnoxious. And it's not long before you have a party and just spam the same moves through every fight (turns out all those villains could have thrown darts until they took over crime syndicates this whole time, who knew?)

But what I think this game does better than any Yakuza game is side content. The main way to get money like the Y0 real estate is a business management sim, which is pretty in depth as well as really fun, especially the part where you bring a chicken to a shareholder meeting and it becomes the MVP of the whole side campaign. And the game also has the best substories in Yakuza. The Korean actor, the ghost one, the Baby formula one, all amazing. Especially due to the new summon system allowing you to bring these characters back in really fun ways.

So yeah, one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played, and I'm so glad it started my journey through what is possibly my new favorite game series. Hopefully soon enough I can get a good deal on Judgment and IW, because once I do, I'll be ready.

He's a freak out the sheeeets and the other guy gets his own cinematic with dramatic lighting just to spout "Moshi moshi?" to the fairer sex. It's time to get acquainted with- wait, what? Oh, it's a common entry point for the series. I'll try not to bring up content from the other games. That said, most of the major players from Yakuza 3 to 5 were still not brought back. I'm satisfied with the substory cameos, though. People were fucking crazy in the late 90s. They had more money and adult entertainment than they knew what to do with. They do know, actually, but I don't think I'm strong enough to give the deets.

After Yakuza 3... this is a strong contender for best story, so far. 3 had tourists, kids and pets roaming the streets of Japan and it's kinda weird they stopped existing afterwards, but now stray cats and dogs can be found again. Fittingly, Majima doesn't sport the role of the straight man that Kiryu has wink wink, actively splashing fuel to the fire. Though when push comes to shove, this Kiryu can be less straight...the man.... less man straight well it's Yakuza bruv when you kill a man he dies and when you give him backshots your name is Mr. Shakedown.

I played Kiwami, but I was glad to see the combat again here. We are eating! But is it good? This is more confirmation that the moveset never was the problem. We were warned, this is what happens when you give a chimpanzee a machine gun. The random super armor on enemies was especially egregious this time around. Is this how disco forged our men? I have that crazy theory that Kiryu can only sprint in this game because he's... under 30 years old! Supposedly. But then he kinda rember in future entries. Never tell him to take a hike, because chances are, he's in Beast style and will actually grab a hike and maul you with it.

It's weird thinking of this Majima as one people may have gotten to know first. But they are very unlucky!! That is the peak of his career. His styles also have nada to do with the true dawg of Shimano. A bat and dance moves? Can't I use a knife and ninjutsu? What's the point in showing the watermelon flashback if not to instill in the player's head that he must be an expert knife user that can fruit ninja irl. Riddle me this. Why is Kiryu's real estate better than Majima's real dump of a club? Because an eye for business has less worth than two forced to commit yubitsume that's enough yakuzing cya next entry or my name isn't goror majimer, the Apex Predator named Princess.

It's pretty disappointing.

While the combat flows better than similar games, a lot of Wuthering Waves still feels half-baked, ranging from technical performance to the UI and worldbuilding. The characters' voicelines repeat themselves anytime you open a menu, there are huge lag spikes and I experienced a random crash too. Like I said, it's just disappointing, considering the game already had two beta tests and it still came out like this on release.

As for the story, I didn't find it particularly engaging from what I've played. After a cool intro cinematic, you're subject to an one-hour exposition dump, which could have just easily been explained as "there's dissonance in this world, so these monsters have appeared; you can also absorb their powers", but instead you get to hear increasingly verbose explanations about everything and their cool names. (Tacet Discord? There's a lot of things you could name monsters, but why would you name them Tacet Discords?)

I'm trying to not end this review on a negative note, there's still some enjoyment to be had in Wuthering Waves - the character designs look good, the first city you visit is pretty, the combat feels smooth and the animations flow well, so if you're a fan of Kuro's previous game, Punishing Gray Raven, this might interest you. As for me, I can't really see myself getting hooked on this world because of the established reasons, so I'll continue playing my gacha of choice about some train in space. Some kind of star rail.