Since we all know at this point that this game is an absolute masterpiece, let this review be a sort of tribute to this game's unbelievable soundtrack. Zelda's music has always been some of the most iconic in gaming, but this has to be my favorite OST in the entire series. There were multiple times while playing where I had to put the controller down because I was so caught off guard by the jaw-dropping music. It features brand new, excellent compositions as well as tracks that mash up multiple different motifs present throughout the series in a way that seems almost impossible. Some of the best examples of what I'm talking about can be seen in the Wind Temple and Hyrule Castle themes. To me, these two tracks are masterclasses in composition and should be considered some of the best pieces of music in Zelda history.

This is the highest 4.5/5 rating I can possibly give a game. As much as I absolutely adore this game to death, I cannot justify giving it a 5/5 because there are certain flaws that shouldn't be ignored.

First, the good. This might be my favorite story ever told in a video game. It's at least up there in my top 5. Benedict, Frederica, and Roland are phenomenal characters and they perfectly evolve alongside the growing politics of Norzelia. Decision-making in this game is incredible. The combat, while weird at first for someone more used to games like Fire Emblem, is very engaging. I especially like how each character is given a specific niche so that it's worth bringing in a more gimmicky character for a particularly tough chapter.

Tragically, though, this game has some missteps that made me reconsider giving this game a perfect score. Some voice performances are far from stellar. Even Serenoa, the main character and one you will hear talking constantly, has several very stilted lines. Serenoa is actually written very well, but it's harder to see that when he sounds so...wrong at times.

I played this game on hard mode, which was a very fair and fun challenge for about 70% of the game. For the remaining 30%, I wondered if those chapters were even playtested on hard mode. They genuinely seemed impossible - maybe hard mode is meant for a new game plus playthrough, but on a standard new game it was a fairly uneven and frustrating experience.

Still, solely for the phenomenal story, characters, and decision-making, this game is a masterpiece. I can't wait to do another playthrough once 2022 stops bombarding me with other masterpieces.

Since Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was announced, I wanted to play through this game and its sequel in time to play 3 on day one. I was NOT expecting to be so hooked on this game that I’d complete it and its add-on story in just a couple weeks.

Xenoblade Chronicles might be the best-paced RPG I’ve ever played. Even though there were so many sidequests piling up for me to complete, I kept playing more and more of the main story without stopping to take a break because I just needed to see what was going to happen next. The main cast is nearly perfect, the twists are all well-written and earned, and the music accompanies the richly realized areas and cinematics so perfectly that I expect to be listening to the OST for years to come.

I actually really enjoyed the combat as well, even though I hear other games dramatically improve on its concepts. The only gripes I have with the game are the density of unnecessary sidequests (cut the number in half and double the rewards from each quest and you have a much better system, in my opinion) and the general jankness the game can have at times.

From looking around the internet it seems that some people have mixed feelings on Future Connected, but I absolutely loved it. They gave much-needed closure to Melia’s character arc, Kino and Nene are wonderful additions (though I could do without the “meh-meh”s) and the new tracks are so good that it has me even more pumped for XB3’s OST. Oh, and the Ponspectors make the game an 11/10 for sure. Ponspectors till we die!

Bloodborne and I did not get off on the right foot. I was borrowing my friend's PS4, but instead of taking it to my own place to play, I started off by visiting his place to play the game. This meant planning out specific times in the week and trying to make as much forward progress as possible.

This external stress made the flaws of Bloodborne's beginning more apparent and exponentially more frustrating for me. The blood vial and bullet economy at the beginning is harsh, Cleric Beast is (in my opinion) a subpar boss for introducing the game's combat, the performance is inconsistent, and there are a few mechanics that the game does a terrible job of explaining, even more so than other FromSoft titles. My frustration reached a peak with Vicar Amelia, a great boss that unfortunately broke me down due to external stressors and the constant grinding for blood vials.

But I was also a fool. I took the PS4 (with my friend's permission obviously) and began playing on my own time. And as I kept playing, I learned to love this game. Holy hell, what a masterpiece. Bloodborne has one of the most inspired and fully realized settings and themes of any game I've ever played, and shit just gets more and more real the more you progress through it. Although I find Dark Souls' themes more powerful and thought-provoking, the world of Yharnam is truly unlike anything else I've seen before. There are so many tiny little details that are easy to miss, but they all add up to make the world feel as fully realized as Miyazaki possibly could.

I fell in love with the combat; I did a Skill/Bloodtinge build with Threaded Cane / Repeated Pistol and while the start of the game was rough for me, it ended up being a super fun playstyle. The bosses are consistently strong, too. I can't think of a single main one I actively disliked, save for some fucked up chalice dungeon bosses. And on the topic of chalice dungeons, they are actually pretty fun. I got burned out of them by the end because there's just so many, but it was worth it to check out all the additional bosses.

The DLC is also incredible but you've definitely heard that before. The most impressive thing about it to me is just how much content is actually in it. This thing is like three whole new, super large areas and 5 brand new bosses, some of which being the very best that FromSoft has ever created.

So yeah Bloodborne is a masterpiece and I was dumb for thinking the game was bad. Just uhhh please port it to PC and fix the blood vial economy and then the game is basically flawless 👍

TLDR: If you were scared off from trying this game due to it being "the bad one," you would be doing yourself a disservice by not experiencing this.

Looking back at the development history of this game, as well as the discourse that surrounded it at launch and how it affected the overall public consensus, Dark Souls II is a REALLY interesting game. I truly believe that, if the internet had not collectively written this game off as a disappointment compared to the original Dark Souls, this game would have been considered a cherished oddity rather than an underwhelming sequel.

Instead of taking what Dark Souls did well and just doing that again, the team here experimented with basically everything they could think of, and threw it in whether it was actually a good idea or not. The result is a game bursting at the seams with equal parts "oh, that's cool!" and "oh, that's bullshit!" While some would aggregate these experiences and determine the game to be mediocre as a result, I have to commend the devs for leaving their comfort zone. Even in the frustrating parts, I was more amused than frustrated (except for Black Gulch, but that should really go without saying).

I'm aware of a ton of the changes made to Scholar of the First Sin and how they improved the game in some cases and made it a more...chaotic experience in others. Regardless, the higher enemy count doesn't do much more other than screw over the quality of a couple areas - namely, Heide's Tower of Flame and Iron Keep. Other than that though, I'm happy I went with version because this game is BEAUTIFUL! I was constantly captivated by the landscape and setpieces. The art design here is incredible.

Something I can't believe I didn't hear about prior to playing this game is how great the characters were. I liked a couple in Dark Souls 1, but I found them to be far more memorable in this game. My favorites are Lucatiel, Creighton and Aldia. Whenever these characters are on screen, I shut up and pay close attention.

Generally, I also found the lore here to be just as interesting as in the first game, and even better in certain places. They really go all in on the cyclical nature, and it's honestly exactly the type of story that needed to happen after Dark Souls 1 established everything with Gwyn and such. What else can you do for the middle child of a trilogy with a start and end that come full circle, other than to demonstrate the perpetuity of the cycle so heavily emphasized in the lore?

The DLC was overall quite good. I still think DS1's has all three of these beat, but some of them come close. My favorite is Crown of the Old Iron King due to the lore and bosses being spectacular (shame about the runbacks though).

I think it says something about Dark Souls II that I finished the game, beat all the bosses, and yet I still want to go back and play more for whatever insane reason. Is this Stockholm syndrome or is the game actually really fun? At this point, why not both?

Now that Balatro's latest patch fixed the one issue I had with the game - that the final two stake difficulty modifiers were completely antithetical to the game's design - this is effectively now an all-time great video game (and my GOTY so far). Huge kudos to LocalThunk; what he's created here is absolutely amazing. It sounds like he wants to add more to Balatro without bloating the game, which is the right move in my opinion. Based on the exceptionally well-tuned patch changes and how he clearly has his finger on the pulse of the community, I have no doubt in my mind that the game's future is in good hands.

(MY 500TH GAME LOGGED ON BACKLOGGD WOOHOO!)

I'm very happy that the greatest video game soundtrack of all time also came with a free incredible JRPG. Thanks Team Asano!

The best word I can use to describe Octopath 2 is delightful. This world, its various stories and characters, and the emotions that they evoke in the player, are all beautiful. I truly believe that this series has some of the best worldbuilding in video games right now.

I really enjoyed Octopath 1, but I had to always tell people to play the game for its combat, worldbuilding and music, instead of for its characters and story. I'm very happy that I can say Octopath 2 deserves to be played for all of the above. Not every story is a home run (Osvald's started out phenomenally but it started getting extremely messy by the end, and Temenos really deserved a better story given how interesting he is as a character) but the majority are very strong. I have to shout out Partitio's and Castti's in particular. Partitio's story just kept getting better and better until he was my definitive favorite character. Castti's chapter 3 is probably the best chapter in the game and chapter 4 genuinely made me cry.

I won't talk too much about the ending but I will say that the revelations were extremely interesting and the interactions between all eight characters were fantastic. The atmosphere and music were top notch in the final act, too. And of course, the final boss is a banger. It might be one of my favorite final fights in any game ever. Even the very last ending scene had me grinning like an idiot at 2 in the morning.

I struggle to think of what they can improve on if they were to make an Octopath 3, other than tiny quality of life stuff (the random encounter rate is a little high and got frustrating often), but that's just a testament to how fantastic this turned out. Please play this!!!!

It's kind of poetic that this came out in April, since it was April 2022 when I first started my Xenoblade journey. It's been just one year since I played through Xenoblade Definitive Edition and, after playing 2, Torna, 3, and now this, I can call this series one of my favorites of all time. Honestly, after Future Redeemed I have to genuinely consider the possibility of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 being my favorite game of all time, a prospect that I haven't had to think about since, what, 2010? That's insane.

Everything about this is beautiful. It not only gives fans an endless supply of tasteful nods to past characters and events, but it also pays respect to the characters in a way I could only dream of. Seriously, every character - even the ones we don't see on screen - are given the closure that they needed given the writing of previous games. The magnitude of this is unbelievable to me; few directors are able to pull something like this off.

This might be the end of the "Klaus Saga," but I'm okay with that. If there's anything I learned from Xenoblade 3, it's that we must move forward to new horizons, lest we trap ourselves in the Endless Now. Thank you, Takahashi-san, for this wonderful gift.