Turn based RPGs tend to be hit or miss for me, even acclaimed ones. This one won me right over though, having a lot of shared DNA with my favourites in the genre. With an endearing story full of loveable characters, a lot of humour, a lot of heart and some truly out of left field twists, and a turn based combat model with a clever twist in the combo system that keeps you active and thinking through every encounter, this had my engagement from start to finish, even barring a couple hiccups (like it’s really abrupt ending which leaves a number of plot points unresolved).

Special thanks to my friend who was a backer and gave me his extra Switch code.

Baldur's Gate 3 is not a new or innovative game. What it represents is a specific kind of RPG that we use to get fairly often and games of its ilk are extremely rare these days.

In that way, it's a breath of fresh air to finally have an RPG with real depth, progression systems, decision making, and exploration.

The cast is straight up some of the best that's ever been in an RPG of this profile. While the main narrative is serviceable, it mostly serves as setting for the excellent character writing.

The immersive sim elements that made the Divinity: Original Sin games so brain teasing and addicting remain and are emboldened by legitimately good RPG combat and class design.

Having my build that I theorycrafted before even starting the game "activate" was a true moment of bliss.

The comments made about this game being polished to a sheen are likely from people who have not reached Act 3 where the game begins to crumble under its ambition. The amount of content cut from Act 3 causes many quests and NPCs who you have spent the better part of 70+ hours building on are likely to fall apart. As someone who played the game when it first released as an early access title years ago, I can tell you that Act 3 is still in an early access state.

The ending is unsatisfying and its clear that this is an unfinished game. However, I would much rather have a game that shoots for the stars but struggles to reach its ideal vision than one without a pulse altogether.

If this is supposed to be solo D&D experience, maybe it's a bit fitting that the ending hours are cobbled together and barely work, just like when your dungeon master throws together an end to a D&D campaign that people stopped showing up for.

We need more games like Baldur's Gate 3 and we needed them yesterday. Also, the definitive edition next year gonna bang frfr.

With Street Fighter, Capcom birthed the fight game genre.
With Street Fighter II, Capcom defined said genre.
With Street Fighter III, Capcom made arguably the apotheosis of the genre.
With Street Fighter IV, Capcom snatched the genre from the jaws of death.
With Street Fighter V, Capcom... missed?

Capcom had basically never missed with Street Fighter, the only exception being III, which went underappreciated before the pro scene showed what it could be. But they hadn't really missed with the series.

SFV was inarguably a miss, and even though it bounced back by the end of its lifespan, it was the first in the series to not have a massive impact of some kind. With Street Fighter 6, Capcom needed a win. And they sure as hell got it.

Street Fighter 6 does so much right, the amount of quality of life features is staggering, the online runs buttery smooth even when playing folks across the world and without ethernet cables. It's going to be damn hard to go back and play any other fighting game. SF6 set what should be the standard for fighting games going forward. Pretty much the only flaws with this game are found within World Tour mode, which also happens to be one of the games biggest strengths.

World Tour is a fantastic way to bring in new players, serving as both a story mode and a massive tutorial, and it does its job supremely. Unfortunately, the late-game gets to be very grindy, especially if you want to get every character's alternate costume. The only other method of getting these costumes is to buy them with real money, which is pretty scummy, just like locking off all of each character's main costume's colors besides the first two. You can get these alternate colors by getting drive tickets by completing challenges, either daily or weekly or monthly. Doing this will take an ungodly amount of time to unlock the alternate colors, but the only alternative is purchasing them with real money. Luckily there isn't much of this scummy-ness in any other part of the game, but it sucks that its there in the first place.

Overall though, SF6 is an excellent game, and one that'll only improve with eventual updates and dlc.

My first Souls game, and a wild ride I will never forget. I died so many times to the mob at Yharnam town square my weapons broke. Having not unlocked weapon repair, I had to start a new save. Somehow, I never thought of quitting. The 1% of Yharnam I saw already won me over. At some point, the game suddenly clicked with me, and it was relatively smooth sailing from then on. I felt I entered a whole new level of badassness when I got Blade of Mercy, only to be humbled by the DLC bosses. Orphan of Kos, or some say Kosm, shattered my soul into pieces.

I mean this in the best of ways: this game feels ripped straight from the PS2/Gamecube era. Such a unique experience that swings back and forth between very serene and laid back, and very hectic with the dire stakes and all the micro-management. The world, the characters, the creatures, everything in this game is loaded with personality, I always love reading the Piklopedia entries whenever I find something new. Yet there’s also these foreboding undertones, like this world and these creatures are a step above you, the final boss in particular is something I can’t help but fascinate over. The levels are fun to explore and interact with, the collectables are interesting to find, the bosses and enemies are all fun, the Pikmin are all well balanced, and you really feel bad when you lose them, that end of day cutscene is always sad to watch when a few of them are outside the circle. I really haven’t played another game quite like this, it’s something I’m sure to come back and play through again and again.

This game has been with me for most of my adult life and even as I write these words I struggle to come to terms with the fact that I actually just beat it. I absolutely adore Darkest Dungeon. It's cruel, terrifying, and punishing, and it's absolutely incredible. The tone, theming, and gameplay design are in perfect harmony, and I can think of few games that better fulfill their purpose than this one. I struggle to recommend it because it will not be everyone but if you're looking for a challenge, I can think of few better games to test your mettle with. What a masterpiece.

Most of the flaws with the former entries have been ironed out, weapon grinding is gone, the cyber elves are streamlined, now there’s a ton more customization options that let you go crazy with the combos later into the game, level design is top notch, harkening back to the X games, and the story I think is pretty compelling for Mega Man standards. My biggest complaint is how sporadic the bosses are. Especially with how long the levels are, without the Zero Collection’s save-assist feature, it’d probably be frustrating to make it all that way just for the boss to eat up your lives and force you to have to do it all again for another chance to even just see it’s patterns again.

it took three playthroughs for me to be able to beat this lol. first time i bailed on genichiro, second time i bailed on the sword saint. now i have defeated the sword saint with the hardest-to-get ending.

some of the minibosses are difficult because only because it has about 10 other dudes in the arena, and others are difficult only because the room you're in is 2x2 and the camera is intended for a minimum of 8x8 room size.

the feeling of triumphing over a boss might be the strongest in a FROM game. the feeling of obliterating a boss in one try is beautiful.

if anything my big complaint about the combat is when there's dust being kicked up and you see the Perilous symbol appear but the enemy is behind the dust cloud so you have to pick one of three reactions and pray.

another minor problem is you have to unlock the mikiri counter. i feel like a move like that shouldn't be locked in the first place.

i think the folding screen monkeys might be the best gimmick fight in a FROM game. it's so clever and fun and if you know what you're doing it's over quick.

the mist noble, conversely, might be the funniest FROM fight because it's the biggest troll fight in gaming since Mysterio in spider-man 2.

the musical score is probably the weakest in one of their games in a while. i swear there was only one battle theme and while the music isn't bad i didn't find many tracks memorable.

currently debating continuing my NG+ run to do Shura ending or not


i will say i dont get the "jUsT mAsH LB" critiques. i experimented with that and i died or got fucked up every time. maybe try being better at games idk