I kinda stink at fighting games, and I can’t play them at all anymore due to seizures, but when this came out and the mere thought of having to press more than one button at a time WASN’T enough to kill me, I had a great time with this game. I do miss the absurd complexity of the past games in the series, and a lot of the personality from those games has been lost as well, but Arc Sys have still managed to make something pretty compelling, and they’ve added a lot to it since launch. It was the only fighting game I bought at launch so getting to be part of the initial wave of everyone figuring things out is really special to me.

I think this is one of my most replayed games ever. I typically like my character action games a little more punishing than this one, but I would argue it’s a near-perfect gateway into the genre as a result. The skill ceiling is high enough to keep you coming back, and the skill floor is low enough that more casual players kinda can just mash their way through most of it. On top of that, you get all the Platinum hype that you expect. This probably still has the best parry in a game besides Third Strike, too.

Neat little run-n-gun, with a bit more focus on the platforming compared to other run-n-gun games. All the weapons are fun to use, and the game makes great use of all of them. It’s got a very charming style, and a nice, simple story with a well-communicated point. The unlockable hard mode that dramatically redesigns every level in the game is genius. It feels more like an expansion or a sequel than a simple change in difficulty. However, the real star here is the level design. Daisuke Amaya freed himself of level design duties, leaving that responsibility to Kiyoko Kanekawa, and it shows. It’s simple, but everything that should be conveyed to the player in a game like this, is done masterfully.

One of my favourite games I’ve played in the last couple years. I believe it’s quite cheap as well, so give it a shot.

To get the bad out of the way first, I think it’s a tad long in the tooth and I’m not a big fan of the way they changed skill inheritance in this one. Combat is expectedly great for an SMT game, but I prefer Persona’s ‘one more’ and SMT’s ‘press turn’ systems over Strange Journey’s alternative. I would’ve liked a little more focus on story, and the main characters are too transparently just manifestations of the different moralities.

The best things about the game are its dungeon crawling and its atmosphere. I expected the dungeon crawling to become tedious before long, but they throw new ideas at you frequently enough that I never felt it became tiresome.

They do a great job at making the world feel really hostile and alien. Everything is out to kill you, even the world itself. It’s a crude caricature of earth. It’s super cool. And Shoji Meguro’s orchestral OST is the perfect accompaniment. The first area theme is the most evil sounding shit ever.

Other than that, it excels at basically everything you expect an SMT game to excel at. Play this, it’s really good.

Might have actually been my most played GameCube game as a kid. The weird humour and just general insanity of it has always resonated with me. Super easy to pick up and play, with or without other people. Tons of variety. It certainly works better as an handheld game, but otherwise it’s kinda perfect.

Even though I loved it at the time, I probably took it for granted. You can never really know how valuable things like this will be (personally or monetarily) without the benefit of hindsight. Now, however, it’s one of my all-time favourites and I hold it close to my heart. One of the best Christmas gifts I’ve ever received.

Another comfort game. I love when a game is fully committed to making you engage in really mundane tasks. Walking down the hill from your home, passing all the other houses on your way into town, maybe trying your luck with the gacha along the way, making sure to grab some cat food on the way back home, slowly crossing things off your checklist. This shit is exciting to me. Shenmue nails all of that perfectly. Over the course of the game, I became intimately familiar with Yokosuka and its denizens. It almost felt like a second home. It’s one of my favourites. I love it.

I’m a little torn on this game. On the one hand, the writing is fantastic, quite possibly some of the best I’ve seen in a game. But its reluctance to commit wholeheartedly to its survival mechanics brings it way down for me.

I was initially very excited by the prospect of having to wear different outfits depending on the weather, having to store larger items on your horse, maintaining a healthy weight, methodically searching for supplies in drawers and such, however, it quickly becomes clear that you don’t actually NEED to do any of this. It has all these great ideas, but due to its nature as a mainstream AAA game, it lacks the confidence to make any of these mechanics important. I’ve seen a lot of people say that the sluggishness of the game is a problem, but I would argue the true problem is that it doesn’t lean into it harder.

Another thing; the world is beautifully realised, undoubtedly, though I don’t think it’s as well designed as the first game’s map. In RDR 1, there are tons of smartly placed landmarks to guide you through the world, so much so that observant players will be able to navigate the map without having to rely on a mini map. Best of all, 1 manages to do this without making its world feel all that video game-y. It’s pretty organic. In 2, I frequently found myself getting lost and having to rely on the map and mini map to guide my way. Maybe it’s more realistic? I didn’t have as much fun traversing it, though. Still, it is very pretty, so getting lost in it isn’t the worst thing.

Oh, and the soundtrack is fucking amazing. Modern games made in the west don’t tend to have particularly memorable soundtracks imo, but I would say this one stands toe-to-toe with a lot of Japanese games even. Insanely good.

Also one of my favourites. Does a lot of things better than 1. Everyone else has probably talked about all the things I love about the game in a more articulate manner than I could so I wanna share something I realised the last time I played this that I haven’t seen many other people mention.

I LOVE how simple the story is here. Almost immediately from the outset you know what your end goal is; the suicide mission. The entire game is building towards that goal, constantly reminding you of the severity of that mission. It’s really lean and very effective. It leaves things open for more intimate stories throughout the rest of the game, and it stresses the importance of the suicide mission. I love it, so.

One more thing; I genuinely like the mining mini game. It’s very therapeutic.

I don’t actually think this game is as great as people say it is, but it is one of my favourite games of all time.

It’s not very good as a shooter, or even as a RPG really (although I do miss the light role playing outside of conversations that was mostly abandoned after this one). For me it’s all about the setting and the atmosphere they’ve created, and how well they immerse you in it. It’s one of those universes that I really wanna be in for real. No other game has captured the feeling of being part of a really dense sci-fi universe for me. It’s so good.

My favourite Yakuza game and one of my favourite games in general. This one seems to cop some flak from people for perhaps overstepping its bounds a bit, but for me, it’s precisely because of that ambition that it’s my favourite in the series. It probably is too much, it is fairly messy, but there’s so much love oozing out of this thing, I can’t not get swept up in it. There’s also a nice little meta aspect to its ambition seeing as the story is all about dreams and aspirations. You can truly feel the passion that went into Yakuza 5.

I’m also really hoping that the new maps in this one make a return someday. I love them. Please RGG, pleeeaaaaassseeee.