Don't get tricked by the cute exterior, this is one of the most infuriating games ever conceived.
Essentially a slot machine that tricks you into thinking it's more skill than luck because you'll see the community throwing around fancy words like "current meta" and "viable build".

Trying to have fun with the billion different pets the game provides you with? Get fucked nerd, "The Wet Aunties" summon a 50/50 Rhinoceros that one-shots your entire squad. Back to the mosquito dimension with you.
It doesn't even feel good to win, since it usually ends just before you finally manage to create a satisfying team.

File under "Games that are actually just fidget toys for when you want to listen to a podcast" along with Vampire Survivors and all that other brain slop.

Extremely unserious game where random stuff happens because it’s cool. I’ll be honest, it was a bit jarring going from RE2:Remake (the only other Resident Evil game I’ve played) to this, especially since I thought the survival horror aspects were the best parts of that game, but I had a great time after getting into it and embracing the goofiness.
I like how they specifically went out of their way to make Leon be the lamest cool guy of all time. Like, check this shit out. Why did he do that.

Action games are an inherently silly medium. I personally really don't enjoy that whole ultra-realism thing a lot of newer games are trying to pull off. It's cool that RDR2 has your horse's balls shrink in cold weather or whatever, but too much realism is clunky, because real life is clunky and badly designed. Let me have fun!
"Press E to do a cool backflip", "Climb a ladder to get invincibility frames and dodge an attack" and "Literally just get a rocket launcher and instakill the final boss" might sound like pretty stupid concepts, but who cares, they're sick.

As I said, I haven't played the original RE4. I don't know what's new or what's changed, so I can't add anything to that discussion, but I had a blast playing this. Huge props for making an "escort mission" actually fun. I genuinely missed not having Ashley around when she got taken away.
Some random nitpicks off the dome:
- Surely there are more possible sidequest ideas than "kill 4 rats for the sixth time".
- The soundtrack is a mixed bag. Nickelback ass credits song, made me chuckle.
- Saddler is boring. Wish he had more than 2 zeptoseconds of screentime.

Another anecdote to wrap things up: I played this on a laptop because I'm insane, and had a chocolate bar on my table about half a meter away from the exhaust vent. Motherfucker got pulverized.
Worth it to see every pore on the Regenerador's asscheeks in crystal clear HD though.

Persona developers learn how to pace a video game challenge (impossible)

I have very mixed feelings about this game.
On one hand, it’s got some fantastic characters (especially Nanako and Dojima), a lot of memorable moments and some genuinely funny dialogue. Probably the only game to have a dialogue prompt to compliment another man’s cock after he lost his underwear - they were truly firing on all cylinders when they wrote that.

On the other hand, it’s bogged down by insanely boring, randomly generated dungeons with the most pathetic excuses for gameplay gimmicks known to man, designed to waste as much of your time as humanly possible.
Who could forget everybody’s favorite “floor that randomly teleports you”, or the classic “floor that requires you to backtrack two floors up”.
Then there’s the story. I don’t have any issue with the overall message, even if it’s not very deep, but the pacing of everything was agonizing to sit through. There’s so much downtime and zero urgency to anything. I swear to god, I could have started a family and had 3 children by the time Naoto recovered.
Despite trying to be a murder mystery, the characters find a grand total of 0 pieces of evidence pointing to anyone for 80 hours, as the game desperately chucks false suspects at you to try and pull some cheap “Gotcha!”s.
They fuck around for a whole year and then the game remembers that it's a JRPG in the final act and inflates its stakes from 0 to a trillion in like 30 minutes by doing your regular "God's going to destroy the world" shtick that felt extremely out of place and tacked on.
Plus the actual real suspect is kind of underdeveloped. Dude has like 5 minutes of screentime not counting their social link. Definitely better than Persona 5’s villain though (not a very high bar).

Just a random final thought: I think Persona games would benefit from shortening the social links. Make the max level be 8 or something like that. They always add so many side activities that I never touch because I want to finish the characters' stories. Like fuck no, I’m not going fishing - it’s Sunday, grandma is waiting for me.

I’m happy I played this, even if I didn’t really enjoy it that much. The endings for these games always get me weirdly emotional nonetheless. I like what the Persona games are trying to do. I’ll be there when Persona 6 releases in 30 years.

So, in conclusion:
I learn how to express my thoughts on JRPGs without writing a rambling, barely coherent wall of text challenge (impossible)

Crazy how one of the best video game soundtracks of all time is hidden away in an obscure freeware Metroidvania from 2006.

I first played this when I was about 10, before I even had an internet connection. Found it on a weird CD with a bunch of random games (used to be quite common in Slovakia) and I've been returning to it basically every year.
An absolute masterclass in ambience, sound design and just general vibes. It's like the entire game was injected with a comically large syringe labeled "Childlike Wonder".

Every time I hear the Hub level music, I feel like that GIF of Anton Ego taking a bite of Ratatouille. Shit's magical. Makes me have an existential crisis over a bouncing ball.

There's a certain asparagus quality to this video game, where your immediate reaction will be absolute disgust, as you bite into it expecting a high-octane speedrunning platformer, only to be immediately met with half an hour of anime characters talking about how heavy their boobs are, but later realize that it's actually not that bad and actually sort of charming.

Listen, I don't blame anybody for having a visceral reaction to seeing the words "simp" and "kpop" written on screen in bold font, but I think I have cast away my God-given right to criticize dialogue to the darkest pits of hell by having Danganronpa V3 at an 8/10. I really thought I would hate the story, but I was getting surprisingly invested in the characters by the end. I think it's just that immediate shock of "hey, wait a second, this is not what I signed up for" you feel at the beginning that drives people away.

The main thing here is the gameplay anyway, and I think 99% of people can agree that it rocks. It feels so good to control, glide through everything, slam into wall, lose 0.07 seconds of your time, press F key to restart because you're no longer perfect, slam into wall again, ...

You're not even doing anything all that impressive most of the time, but god damn this game makes you feel like the baddest motherfucker around. I often found myself pulling off the coolest moves ever, only to see that I'm like 500-thousandth on the leaderboard and barely qualified for the gold medal. Too bad, guess I'll have to go faster next time.
It's just so fun. Humans love going fast, humans love throwing rocks at brightly colored objects, humans love receiving shiny medals for going fast and throwing rocks at brightly colored objects. It's like the perfect video game recipe.
I like to believe that our primal ancestors are smiling down on us as we try noclipping through a wall to get to the purple gift so we can give it to the half-naked bunny girl and enter one of her CBT dungeon bonus levels. Merry Christmas. Save the turtles. Eat asparagus.

For a game where the whole shtick is the promise of creative wonder, it somehow manages to be less creative and interesting than Yoshi's Island, which is an almost 30 year old game about a stupid crying baby. Can you fight a frog from inside its stomach in this one? Can you turn into a helicopter? Yeah, didn't think so bud.
Most of the “crazy” Wonder Flower effects aren’t very exciting and feel like stuff previous Mario games would have just done in regular levels anyways, if you get what I'm trying to say.

Also sporting very generic level design which can't shake that whole "blocks on a grid made in a level editor" feeling, and the most forgettable soundtrack in any game I've played period, which is absolute insanity because this is Nintendo we're talking about.

It's still Mario, and Mario is dumb fun, so I can't say that I hated it or anything, but it sure didn't feel like this big reinvention of the franchise that Nintendo hyped it up to be. Really just more of the same with a prettier coat of paint.
Took me 4 weeks to beat because college is kicking my ass.

TL;DR: AAAA I HATE FUN AAAA

An extremely well-written and compelling story with a super endearing art direction, in which Shu Takumi finally proves himself capable of writing actual characters that aren't just one-note stereotypes. Mostly animals. He writes animals very well.
The central mystery kept me hooked for the entire 11 hours that this game took to beat.

I personally didn't love the gameplay that much and found one half of the puzzles pitifully easy, while the other half was mostly trial-and-error (the game literally says so), forcing you to watch the same long cutscenes multiple times while you wait to do "that one thing" at the very end of the Rube-Goldberg machine.
I can respect how much they did with this incredibly simple one-button concept though, and the occasional gameplay switch-ups were a nice change of pace. Has a very "indie game structure" that is hard to explain with words. Not something you would expect from Capcom.

Moral of the story: Pomeranians fucking rule.

Short dumb game, got all the achievements in under 8 hours. Sort of a weird mix of Enter the Gungeon and Zelda, but without the exhilarating combat and roguelite elements of the former and the dungeon design and exploration of the latter.
What you're left with is a whole game of going through a completely empty world, killing some enemies, dying a bunch and retrying.
There are absolutely zero secrets to discover, don't even bother. I found a cool shiny Anubis statue, spent like 5 minutes trying to figure out what it does, but found out it was just a random level decoration. What you see on the map is all you're gonna get. Stupidly wasted potential, in my humble opinion.

You'd imagine the bullet hell combat, which is this game's main thing and 99% of the gameplay, would be any good, but it's super wonky. Your dodge-roll's invincibility frames seem to be hooked up to some sort of a random number generator machine, and you'll find yourself saying "How the fuck did that hit me?" pretty often (especially in those mini challenge rooms where you chase a crystal).
Most of the rooms are way too busy with hordes of enemies that spew insane amounts of bullets in random ways, that no bullet-dodging skill is going to save you from taking damage.
The difficulty is all over the place. Most of the midgame is almost unfairly difficult - the Ocean area in particular was the bane of my existence. ..And then I got the "Arch Lexicon +4", which is so incredibly busted that it completely trivialized any challenge and made me fly through the endgame with zero effort. I beat the final boss, which has 3 phases, in under a minute. I kind of felt bad, not gonna lie. Poor guy just woke up.

Also there's a strangely dark story for some reason? The ending made me feel like I walked into the wrong cinema or something.
Play this if you want some dumb fun for a few hours, but you'd probably be better off just getting Enter the Gungeon instead.

There was a moment in this game where I entered a strange, large room with nothing but a gallows puzzle in the middle. My instincts immediately went "alright, this is clearly a boss arena and once I solve that puzzle, I'm gonna get attacked by a bunch of monsters". So I did the puzzle, the game played a distant screaming sound and footsteps started approaching me. I reloaded my gun, and ... nothing happened. I spent a minute searching this weird foggy room for anything, but it was completely empty and I was free to leave at any point.

Now I'm thinking whether I would remember that moment if something actually attacked me there. Sure, I'd probably get startled for a few milliseconds once I saw a monster approaching me (and knowing I hadn't saved in like 30 minutes), but in the end, it would have probably been just another quick shotgun to the head - and I'm on my merry way.

This is why subtle horror like this will always be scarier than going "BOO!" in your face every 5 minutes. The fear of the unknown is the best fear to exploit when making a horror game, because whatever your brain comes up with when looking into the fog will always be scarier than what's actually in the fog. Fuck you brain.
And that's not even touching on the more psychological aspects of this game: the broken characters, tragic story, creepily unnatural voice acting, and of course the big twist at the end.

Also, just a funny anecdote, but I played this on PC and there were absolutely no loading screens between gameplay and cutscenes, so I kept shitting my pants every time a random cutscene started playing at full volume when I opened a seemingly innocuous door. That first Pyramid Head encounter got me good.

So yeah, this game's as good as they all say. Maybe I'm jumping the gun by giving this a 10/10 right after my first playthrough, but who knows - I can definitely see this becoming one of my favorite games of all time.

Looking forward to the remake. Hope they don't ruin everything by having Pyramid Head relentlessly pursuing you at all times like Mr. X.

Woke up today feeling like a hater, so here are my thoughts on OFF.
I dunno man, I might be missing something but this just seems like a regular RPG Maker game with stylized graphics and cool music. You know, those default RPG Maker 2003 games with the default blue-haired protagonist where all you really do is walk around and fight random encounters.

The combat suuucks. You can definitely create an interesting battle system in RPG Maker 2003 that isn't just "spam your strongest move for 10 minutes". It's not a fault of the engine as so many people seem to claim. Look at Super Mario RPG - The Seven Sages, which was being developed around roughly the same time.

Some of the puzzles are fine (like that one part where you have to look for quiz answers on a calendar), but too many of them boil down to remembering and inputting numbers. Then you have places like that looping warehouse and the library, which seem to be designed only to waste your time.

I've heard people say that the story makes it all worth it, but ... ??? what story? There's some slight hints of symbolism here and there, but the whole thing seems like exquisite nonsense. If there truly is a meaning behind everything, it's too cryptic for me to care about, but also too structured for me to turn my brain off and go on a crazy ride.
More power to you if it resonated with you or something, but when I read things like "the ending made me cry" I simply have zero idea what people are talking about.

I expected the ending to explain everything, but nope, it just abruptly ends with a "lol you were evil all along >:), anyways here's some copyrighted music".
It should have been either clearer or even MORE avantgarde. It's stuck in a weird middle ground where my only reaction was "Oh, okay. I guess it's over". This whole game feels that way. If you want to make avantgarde nonsense, go full in!

Played this with a friend for about 7 hours until we both decided that it wasn't for us after spending 4 in-game days trying to find a single rock.
Gameplay loop does nothing for me. One of the worst and most unsatisfying combat systems I've ever seen. Frustratingly small inventory.
I get it's a survival game, but maybe give me a second to catch my breath so I don't feel like a dying Tamagotchi managing four different Excel spreadsheets to survive 24/7.
Sadly can't say I got a single ounce of enjoyment out of this. Filtered and skill issue'd - I'm aware.

I'll be honest, as somebody who was very on the fence about the first two Danganronpa games - I think this game has one of my favorite endings of any piece of media I've ever seen.

It makes everything worth it. In retrospect, all the dumbass characters and godawful dialogue of the first two games almost seem to be building up to the ending of this one in a weird way.
I really hope they stick to it and don't retcon everything with Danganronpa 4. Not because I don't want another game in the series, but because it would ruin this game and this ending. Props to the devs for having the balls to end their franchise in this way.

Some other random thoughts not related to the ending:
• Easily the best cast of the three games. The Shuichi-Kaito-Maki dynamic is unmatched. The worst character in this game (zzz Kaede zzz) is still better than 99% of the other games' characters.
• The person who ported this game to Steam should be tried and executed. Why the fuck are all the controls jumbled up? How do you even make a game like this lag and drop inputs???
• Psyche Taxi is the worst minigame in the series because it's incredibly easy and takes way too long. It's like a 5 minute long loading screen.
• I'm not gay, but Korekiyo is hot.

I'm a pussy, so I don't know what compelled me to buy and play this, but I'm glad I did.

The first few hours of this game are absolute terror, man. Running around the police station with like 2 handgun bullets and a half-eaten sandwich while zombies bang on windows is some classic fucking survival horror. Atmosphere on point.

Later parts of the game kept showering me with more and more bullets until the game turned into more of a traditional shooter. I think I finished with over 100 bullets to spare, which is kind of insane since I spent the first 50% of the game like a homeless drug addict scavenging trashcans for food. Game got WAY less scary after that.

Loved getting ominously walked towards by an unkillable hulk of a man. That character's fucking hilarious and I loved how he goes from easily the scariest thing in the entire game to a punchline. "Is this a fucking joke?" Yes, Leon, and it's really funny.

Who the hell designed this police station by the way. Also what's the point of giving me so many blue herbs if there's only one enemy that can poison you, and that enemy only appears in one extremely short waterway. That's it for the nitpick segment.

Alright, time to check out Silent Hill 2 next.