Good little game. Serviceable metroid-ish progression with very simple gameplay. The character art very much carries a lot of the game's appeal and the interactions are entertaining. Combat is okay, bosses are pretty weak besides the final boss which is pretty cool. They make you backtrack to scuttletown before every dungeon and it is very unnecessary and tedious. Jumping is too floaty, level design is pretty simple, abilities you get don't see much use besides the dash. Minor gripes include me not liking how shantae's eyes are all green in her sprite and squid baron breaking the 4th wall to talk about his status as a miniboss is cringeworthy. Overall enjoyable time.

Very fun throwback to old shooters. Satisfying weapons, decent variety, mostly good level design, cool enemies and tight atmosphere. I didn't really find it spooky like they were trying to convey and the bosses were lame. The voice acting of the narrator also sounded awkwardly like a guy putting on a deep voice. Was also not a fan of small things like areas where you can only see with your flashlight and that weird tumble you do sometimes when you fall and makes you lose your direction. Moment-to-moment gameplay was fun enough to make up for the flaws though.

I was excited for an open world metro when it got announced but upon actually playing it, I realized the atmosphere of the metro tunnels was what kept the game fun and interesting. The surface is boring to traverse and explore, the enemies are not fun to fight and their tendency to be in large groups practically forces you to stealth or lose all of your ammo in a shootout. This is fine for a stealth game but in metro, crouch movement is tediously slow and sometimes the ability to knock out someone just does not trigger. The lack of russian voice acting also hurts the game and what I saw of the narrative was pretty weak. The closer metro gets to AAA games, the less appeal it has to me.

Very pretty game. Visuals and music are stellar, setpieces can be pretty majestic. The game is hampered by obtrusive swimming controls and the devs tendency to go NO THE SETPIECE IS ON THIS PATH DO NOT GO THAT WAY which often stopped me from going the correct way until the fish decided to move that way too. It's only a little over an hour long but it suits the type of game it is and I didn't pay for it anyways so whatever. I would like to ban all media from using the theme NATURE GOOD MACHINES BAD from now on.

I prefer the first game because japan is just so much cozier than hong kong or kowloon but I recognize the merits of the 2nd game well enough. The ability to skip to the next story event when you get to the destination is a godsend, the hong kong section (particularly the temple and learning from the wude masters) is pretty good. The final section of the game with shenhua, despite mostly just being walking around, made me feel the shenmue soul hard. However I do not like the kowloon section of the game which is a pretty big problem because it is half the game. The buildings are same-y, it's hard to navigate, it's flooded with annoying QTE segments, the entire "shadowing yuan" part sucks, the part where you have to get to the top of the building by crossing like 20 beams sucks, the 17 floor yellow head building is not fun and they have an issue with repeatedly telling you what to do "run when the lights go out" says Ren every single time. That being said Kowloon has some nice aspects too, there are some fun interactions between Ryo and Ren, the story beats are alright, and some of the martial arts challenges are fun to do like catching the acrobat or beating up the half blind guy. The boss fights also suck. Shenmue's combat isn't great to begin with but having every boss feature a QTE near the end that makes you restart the fight if you fail is terrible. Not to mention half the bosses are unbeatable and the other half require a strategy of "constantly dodge and sometimes throw a few punches". The QTEs also felt unreliable in general which leads to most of my other gripes but that may just be because my controller is a little messed up so I won't blame the game for it. It was a good experience overall but I definitely prefer shenmue 1.

About as good as every other battle network since the gameplay and plot structure remains mostly the same. I appreciate that they largely cut down on the amount of backtracking you need to do and the liberation missions are pretty fun. Colonel is cool and getting to play as other Navis like shadowman and toadman was really nice for a change of pace. I think the story was somewhat weaker this time around and the problems to solve didn't feel as dire as in prior games so that balances out with the gameplay improvements.

A good portion of the game consists of serviceable slice of life scenes with a likable cast of characters. The scenes with the girls could have been trimmed a bit considering how many of them are focused on food and romance and it begins to feel repetitive. Haku is a fun main character when he's not stuck in harem-esque antics and the scenes centered around his past are some of the most compelling in the game. The ending is absolutely kino and really brings up the whole experience. I would have liked more scenes with the male characters interacting for some variety, especially considering how fun characters like Ukon, Sakon and Maroro can be. The gameplay is decent, mostly made fun by the QTE attacks though the strength of the enemies can feel inconsistent at times. The CG art is great but the presentation of the silly little chibi models can take the oomph out of some scenes, especially in the first war. The story is unfortunately prone to relying on cliches at times but makes up for it with a strong cast and intriguing underlying plot.

FSR did a much better job keeping me engaged than The Silver Case mostly due to the 3D environments and character models but also just for the more lively atmosphere. As usual with Suda the dialogue and plot are nigh incomprehensible but it's weird enough to be entertaining and the constant strange interactions with new quirky characters every chapter make the backtracking much less of a slog than it could have been. The gameplay is still pretty weak and the game isn't free from tedious sections but it's expected at this point. Also while the game's puzzles benefit from the DS touchscreen, everything tends to look way too blurry and the framerate can take a hit in the larger areas which is annoying. Also it has clair de lune so it's kino.

Dangerously high IQ VN. Remember 11 cuts out a lot of the fat found in other VNs and has some of the best pacing I've seen in the genre. The constant dynamic switching between 2 completely different settings and groups of characters keeps the game from feeling slow and important events and interactions appear at a steady pace. This does unfortunately have a drawback in that since you spend little time interacting with the characters normally, you don't really get attached to them. Characters like Satoru and Yomogi are likable in how dependable they are. Kokoro and Hotori are fairly inoffensive. Keiko, Yuni, and Utsumi are interesting due to their importance to the plot. The twists presented in the game, while interesting and clever, don't have the same impact as those from Ever17 or the zero escape games. That being said, that's only referring to the twists presented to the reader in an easily understandable way. The other mysteries presented by the VN blew my mind when reading the analysis afterwards and captured my interest with the ridiculous amount of thought put into the underlying plot elements. While I love the answers I got and seeing all of the hints and truths I missed in my reading, it's difficult to credit the game for it considering the ending is blatantly unfinished and does not make an attempt to clarify many of the mysteries presented in the rest of the story. It's also fairly annoying that important tidbits are spread throughout the bad endings which are annoying and time-consuming to get too despite the fastforward mechanic since it doesn't just let you skip the whole scenes outright. Also the music is good and the art is noticeably better than Ever17's. While it's hard to say Remember 11 as it is is a great VN, I respect the depth and subtlety put into its plot as well as the moment-to-moment dire atmosphere and compelling mysteries regardless of the incomplete finale.

The best battle network game by a small margin. Best gameplay in the series, the best story (although still nothing amazing), and very little padding. The chips are fun to use, annoying enemies are absent, and optional content in the form of classes and cross navis are implemented instead of tedious backtracking making for a very pleasant experience. The context and dire situations from previous BN games are present after being half-baked in 5 and the network is much more painless to traverse. The bosses are fun to fight besides circusman who's a nuisance and the final boss which is a massive pain as per usual for the series. I'm not sure who thought it would be fun to keep the player from using any direct-shot chips because it isn't and restricts playstyle significantly. I quite liked the villains this time around but the friendly cast was relatively weak. Mick is a brat and Tab barely exists so I would've preferred if Yai, Dex and Mayl just moved with Lan instead. Elementman's stage was probably my favorite in the entire series. It's sad thinking the series ends with this game but there are a lot of series that wish they could get half the amount of games BN got so I can't complain.

It's got soul reminiscent of the early PS3 days and the idea of playing as a mercenary in the hundred years war is really cool. The atmosphere is nice and trampling over the enemy with your overpowered halberd squad is a blast...for a few missions. The game is unfortunately very repetitive and unlike with dynasty warriors you don't even get new stages or variety beyond your chosen weapon (which is restricted by levels you need to raise individually). The game wants you to spend a lot of time equally leveling up every class but if you just level up the one you like, there are pretty much no penalties and it makes for a much easier experience. The story is also sparse and you need to go through many copy-pasted missions between cutscenes which are short and typically of little importance. The fame bar increases too slowly unless you avoid easily completing the objective to run around and mindlessly kill enemies which makes no sense considering a mercenary that could end a battle in minutes would surely be extremely famous. It's unfortunate the game has such glaring flaws since being in the bar with all the other mercenaries and taking requests from the bartender has a very distinct appeal that few games really capture. The character creator is actually pretty nice too.

The story is standard fighting game fare in that it's a mess that constantly jumps around all over the place with little to no context. Cutscenes are all 10 seconds long or less and characters fight over absolutely trivial things. The fights are also all only 1 round each and super easy. Honestly I would've preferred if they dropped the silly Raidou plot and just stuck with having goofy character interactions throughout the tournament. The gameplay is fun and the girls are cute but sadly the content is lacking. Even the costumes are irritating to unlock considering you can only get them RANDOMLY while playing the lackluster DOA quest mode. While it's still a decent fighting game, the 3DS game was better at providing a complete quality product.