This was my first Yakuza game, and it completely hooked me into the series. I'm glad I was recommended this because I think I found one of my favorite series outside of Persona and Danganronpa.

To start off, I'll talk about the story. This was the main reason I kept playing. It has one of the most realistic and engaging stories I've seen in a while. It feels so genuine, maybe helped by the fact that there's no supernatural elements (unless you count Ichiban's schizophrenia, lol). Its characters are definitely its strong-suit. I think in the beginning, it was very slow, which is why it took me a bit to finish this, but once it picked up, it picked up. I can't compare it to any other Yakuza games yet, but I assume that's how it usually is.
Story: 9.5/10

Next is my second favorite part about this game: the music. I don't see it discussed a lot, but this is some of the best soundtracks I've heard in a while. It completely pumps you up during fights and 100% adds to the tone of the story.
Music: 11/10

Next is the gameplay, which is iffy for me. I love turn-based combat, but there's a lot about this one that is off to me. Not only are the moves terribly balanced (Joon-gi Han's head trauma, god) but pretty much 75% of the moves on each character are useless. Idk what was going on in Sega there, but yeah. I also hate how the auto mode doesn't fast-forward, because god are the animations long as hell. I kind of dreaded running into Sujimon... As for the boss fights, I had a hard time with a lot of them, but that was what made theme exciting for me. I absolutely LOVED the challenge of the boss fights. It always felt good to defeat them. For the RPG aspects of the gameplay, it felt like there was too much for you to do. Not only were the side quests like, way too much, but there were TONS of things you could do and it just felt overwhelming. I decided to ignore most of them and focus on the story. If I didn't. I probably wouldn't have finished this game.
Gameplay: 7/10

For the voice acting, I played the dub. I think the dub voice actors did an amazing job, as much as it's criticized. Kiryu and Majima's voices were... odd choices, though. I love Robbie Daymond, so of course I loved Zhao's preformance, but I also adored Joon-gi Han and Ichiban's. I love how Joon-gi Han actually has a Korean accent, and how low and chill it is. when I listened to his Japanese voice, I felt it didn't fit his sort of melancholy tone to his character. Ichiban was just perfect. He perfectly captures the goofy but also rough-tone of his character. Props to these dub voice actors; you do better than most English dubs.
Voice acting: 9/10

Overall, I fucking loved this game, and it'll probably go down as my favorite ever. Thanks for teaching me capitalism and family, Yakuza 7.

"Even a fly lives for a day"

Final Fantasy IX is a very strange game. A decades-long reputation and countless Final Fantasy ranking lists made it impossible to go into this without expectations; knowing it's so widely regarded as one of or even the best entry in the series is hard to ignore, but I tried my best to stay reasonable, and even expected not to like it as much as 7, and to compare the two as little as possible as I played.
This worked out pretty well in the end, but unfortunately my thoughts on this game in isolation ended up being even more confusing as a result..

If you sit on the title screen for a moment, you'll see images of the party members, each with a title and a thought related to their personality. Virtue: You don't need a reason to help people. Sorrow: How do you prove that you exist? May we don't... Devotion: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Solitude: I don't want to be alone anymore. -- These honestly make for a great first impression, and had me going in with even higher hopes that the characters would be fleshed out with rich and well written arcs surrounding their unique perspectives. I don't want to go on too long or trample anyone's love for the title, but I'm so disappointed that this ended up being untrue.
To be clear, a handful of characters do get some proper development and go through real growth. Zidane, Garnet, and especially Vivi, all succeed in this regard in my opinion, and make for some of the most interesting elements of the entire game. Steiner and Eiko definitely get their growth as well, but in a much more 'secondary' feeling way, with less ongoing presence, and this is even worse with Freya and Amarant, who seem to have their whole stories told in just a few specific moments with very little going on outside of those. (And then Quina honestly might as well not even be there I'm sorry. Their menu screen says "Indulgence: I do what I want" or something but what it should've said was "I like food, that's my whole character" 😅)

Anyway, due to this, the game fell a little short for me on the party front, and all the times I'd heard that the characters are so well written became a confusion as to how, when less than half of them even have a story to begin with. Freya's arc in particular is very powerful, and the concept is excellent, but as with a lot of the game's moments, it happens and then it's over, if that makes sense? There's no lasting impression, like being told an emotional story and then immediately putting a movie on. Idk this may just be me but I felt like a lot of scenes would've benefitted from being allowed to breath a bit more and giving me time with a soft song to let it sink in. Sure I could've just stopped playing and sat there, but that's not how I play :p

I've rambled a lot already so to quickfire some other thoughts I have: The combat in this game felt really bad, I'm sorry. Like all of it, I played on PS so I had the cheats to instantly trance and do 9999 damage, but even by the late game when I had good equipment and high levels the fights either felt unfair or just took way too long. The delay between every attack and whatever slows things to a crawl I never ever would've gotten through it playing normally. By the final area I still didn't have a single summon available on either summoner so idk what the deal was there, and after maxing out my levels and abilities to have a full party of Lvl 99's, Zidane's base attack was doing 4000+ damage and my summons were doing less than 1000.. why game 😅 This is probably me being stupid and not understanding something, but yeah not for me, big dislike. And phoenix down's reviving you with less than 0.5% of your hp is comically useless idk how you're supposed to do anything with that!

Narratively, the story took a hot second showing it's face but once it got going and especially in the endgame I ended up liking it. I can understand why the core principles and themes of the game resonate with people so strongly, I just think the execution of a lot of the arcs and the gameplay itself take away from it a lot more than I would expect for a game with a reputation so strong that when I started it the only common issue I knew people took with it was the battle intro being too long 😅

Ultimately, I definitely like this game, I dare even say that it's a good one, very good maybe. It's just a shame that the good is buried underneath so much that felt undercooked to me. Lots of really great ideas all thrown into a pot that's too small to fit them - some of it may be cooked to perfection, but you've gotta eat through a load of under or overcooked food to get to it, and that sucks.

People have been pretty vocal that this game should get a proper remake in the way that FF7 has been, with some even saying it should've gotten one instead of 7. I used to think this was just because they prefer 9, and the 7 v 9 rivalry will never end, but even as someone who prefers basically everything about FF7, I think I kinda get it. Neither game is perfect, of course not, but in terms of which game has the potential to be greater than it was if given proper time, care and a much improved execution? Maybe.. I believe that the best possible version of FF9 could improve upon its original more than the best possible FF7 could.

This ended up running a lot longer than planned so I'll cut myself off here -- hope you're all keeping busy with your backlogs in what's turning out to be a somewhat quiet year for the industry. I've not been reviewing/rambling as much recently because it takes me so long to type 20,000 words per game, but next on the docket is the latter 2/3rds of TWEWY and then honestly I might jump right back into Final Fantasy with my first proper playthrough of XIII, the controversy will continue :p
Thanks for reading everyone, hope you're well! 🙏

Having now beat it twice, I feel pretty conflicted on this game. The combat and bosses can be really awesome when they get a chance to shine. The music has clear inspirations but is beautiful all the same. However, most of the story has no heart, the writing is terrible, the side missions are almost exclusively mid, and the art direction has no cohesion.
The only thing more stale than most of this game is the conversation surrounding it. But when the game has as hype as a final few hours as it does, its hard to not be excited for a possible sequel

Oh, Sonic Adventure 2...

At first, the shift from hub worlds to linear storytelling was a change I had to get used to - the pace of doing levels back to back feels way different from walking around Station Square aimlessly to get to the next stage and I didn't like how it felt here. However, my stance changed about halfway through the HERO story (which I played first), and I began to appreciate the storytelling of the sequel over SA1, because you get the story (on your side atleast) told in chronological order without having to puzzle it together and you constantly switch characters, so it doesn't get boring. So on the HERO side you're already getting a full story about Sonic and his friends alone, but the villains are contextualized in the DARK story. Personally, I preferred the DARK story, it just felt like the more complete package overall and the cast is more interesting.

As for the gameplay, Adventure 2 brought some noticeable changes to the Treasure Hunt stages, put an extended focus on mech levels (which play similar to Gamma from SA1) and also changes the physics and controls a bit from the first game - nothing worse than no longer being able to overly rely on Sonic's spindash, as it's not overpowered anymore. You get used to it fast, but that was a death sentence in the first hours of playing! Concerning the Treasure Hunt stages... I'm not a fan of what they did to the radar, the beeping noise is even more obnoxious (and louder) than before and only having the shards show up in a set order is frustrating. However, sometime during Knuckles' final level it came to me that I've developed stockholm syndrome towards the Treasure Hunt gameplay and after reflecting and replaying the Knuckles stages again, I had a lot more fun with them than before. They're an acquired taste, a guilty pleasure.

You know what else is guilty of being TOO LOUD? The mech levels - just hold down the lock-on button and you'll get a free trial of tinnitus, all while you've got a full Michael Bay movie with thirteen different kinds of explosions going down in the background. Weapons Bed might actually be one of the loudest levels I have ever played in ANY game. It's not like the audio mixing was good to begin with, the volume of sound effects during regular gameplay is so comically overtuned and you might as well believe the conversations in cutscenes were recorded during a rave by how often the voices get drowned out by the music. But generally, the soundtrack of Adventure 2 really delivers. Favorite songs are Escape from the City, Live & Learn and E.G.G.M.A.N.

Not much more to say, except that I missed out on the Chao Garden in this playthrough entirely, just because I had no clue how to hatch the eggs. A shame, cause that's apparently a big aspect of the game - so I'll be sure to check it out sometime. What else, Shadow and Rogue are awesome and this game is a blast to play despite the issues. I'm considering bumping it up to five stars if the Chao part of the game turns out to be good. It's just chaotic and fun.

In which other game can you experience Tails using his special move of crashing the game twice after telling Eggman how powerful he is? I can't think of one.

One of my favorite RPGs of 2019 and yet another great game by Obsidian.

Interesting characters and planets to visit combined with good dialogue options, voice acting, decent gunplay, and surprising story twists and turns that are all wrapped in a fairly concise and short package (can be completed in less than 20 or even 15 hours).

A must-play for western RPG fans.

I am sitting at home alone sipping oral rehydration fluid and periodically going to the upstairs lavatory on this christmas day, the culprit? Hard to say, my Mum ate the same (albeit slightly undercooked imo) food and is feeling fine, so perhaps some kind of stomach bug. Away from my main PC and too sick to drive home, I played One Night : Burlesque.

I don't mean this as a putdown, but its clear that ON:B was developed on a rather small budget. I had never heard of the Warsaw Based RedDeer games before but it looked like the kind of adventure game that could get my mind off of feeling like shit and that it provided.

ON:B clocked in at around 2 hours for me, which underscores both the limited resources the game is working with and that what flaws the game does have are nowhere near enough to be dealbreakers and overstay its brief welcome.

Its a detective story set in a Burlesque club with a slight fantastical (or sci fi fi maybe?) element involving the main character's mind reading abilities. I soon transitioned from "Im playing this I guess" to "Ooh, thats an interesting idea" very early on when its revealed that in this universe mind readers are medicated to control their symptoms as their abilities are classified as essentially a mental condition akin to Personality Disorders. Now, obviously when you are writing on such matters you are opening yourself to criticism if your depiction is inaccurate or the comparison to real life conditions is made poorly or offensively, but I think its mostly well done in this respect.

Now admittedly, the idea might be pushed a bit at points in the excessive simulation of analogues for anxiety disorders, but I personally did not ever do a double take at some poorly thought out metaphor or the like. That being said, my ADHD is not really similar to any of the stand in conditions so perhaps others will find it more objectionable.

Either way, I find it an interesting idea I havent seen explored before, pathologies are generally treated as such due to their interference with every day function and their comparative rarity, so if people could read minds irl and even had trouble being able to "turn it off" without medication or training/treatment, well yeah that would be highly distressting. There are even laws in the game regulating its use and prejudice expressed by some reactionaries in game, although now that I think about it our protagonist makes judicious use of her abilities which might committ the cardinal sin of justifying the in universe prejudice? Well, the ableist characters are all villains basically and she is trying to stop the future murder of her best friend so I think that concern is ameliorated somewhat.

The writing, whilst not incredible, has a good grasp of character voice, pretty important in a voiceless VN. The structure is very fast paced and fragmentary, which is a bit of a problem when dealing with a detective story. At the end I was asked "Okay so who did it!(or is going to do, rather)" and I was taken by surprise, there had not been much time to stew on the facts. Appropriate, perhaps, for a story centered around a single night of cabaret and a frantic investigation before the finale.

Gameplay wise its a potpourri of minigames, dialogue choices and intertitles from the MC's perspective. It reminds me of the kind of cool european indie comics you would stumble across before eventually just going to the manga aisle as usual. I would compare it to something like OxenFree or Night in the Woods maybe, just a lot more brief of course.

Its an interesting phenomenon with adventure games, very story focused (and puzzle focused with the point and clicks) but feel the need to break it up somehow. I was somewhat reminded of Svoboda 1945, the Czech adv game about the Sudeten region and its history, or even Pentiment. I think the usage of small tactile minigames and sections are not unwelcome, so long as they never become too elaborate or different from what you have been doing to feel nonsensical/frustrating - looking at you, arcade sections in sierra adventure games! The earliest sequence springs to mind, in medias res the player is thrown into quickly finding the protagonist's meds before they need to rush into the stage. Not so memorable are the various mind reading sections, because they all require essentially the same minigame similar to Oxenfree's radio knob frequency twiddling.

In the end, I think ON:B manages to create a compelling enough experience for its runtime (and absolutely tiny asking price on switch currently) and gave me something to think about in between throwing up sessions. It took me so long to write this on my phone that I'm actually already feeling a bit better lmao. Happy Holidays Everyone

Post Script 31/12
Should add that the game was heavily discounted but sold with DLC which ended up being just concept art/artbook? Seems like a strange business model but I imagine for a small Warsaw based studio you need to play the storefront tactics, especially on switch. God, the eshop is such a fucking shitshow now. Happy New Year Everyone!

Fun concept, intriguing ‘psychic’ mechanic.
Nice visual style, with limited animation. The depiction of mental health is a bit iffy and sometimes things go a bit too fast. It is short (like 2 hours) so nothing overstays its welcome. It had some typos/grammar errors but I see this isn’t an English-based company so it makes sense. I think a more streamlined and longer game with this psychic mechanic would be fun, curious what they make next. If you wanna check this out, get it on sale, I got it for like $2.

Basically Adventure Time if it were more focused on its apocalyptic aspects, needless to say it was cool for that alone

And the story is pretty interesting, there’s no voice acting for the characters but the narrator of the story does a good job conveying its progressively bleaker tone. That said I wish there was a bit more to the gameplay itself since you’re mostly doing the same monotonous actions multiple times, with occasional platforming and a fair bit of tedious backtracking. It’s only a 5 hour game but it somehow still felt a bit dragged out

i want to rate this higher because it has such a cool setting and lore, and is stunning with bright, vibrant cartoon art depicting such bleak and eerie landscapes. it makes for an amazing setup, but the execution is sadly just awkward.

this is a 3-hour game stretched out to double that time because everything is slow. running is slow. crawling in and out of tunnels is slow. watching your boat dock and undock is slow. every single unnecessary camera pan is slow. finding the exact right spot you have to jump to get to the next edge and then watching mo slowly float back down because you missed is slow. i played when i was tired and sometimes i'd keep the joystick pressed left for a minute while i rested my eyes because i knew nothing would happen in those sixty seconds. you get the idea. oh, and that long climb you took to reach this peak? if you were wondering if you have to take the long way back down—yes, of course you do.

i normally have a lot of patience but this bothered even me. you know how hayao miyazaki said that stories need ma, like downtime in between story beats, time to breathe and observe the scenery? this game is like 80% ma forced upon you, broken up by 20% actual content.

i think if this had been a point-and-click game, i'd've forgiven it, because calling it a puzzle platformer is... generous. there aren't many puzzles and the platforming is mediocre. its meat lies in its story, not in the many platforms that exist just to make you press jump a few more times. if it had been advertised as a narrative adventure or maybe reworked as a walking sim, it'd have excelled, because the gameplay mostly consists of walking around slowly just to finally, finally press a button. and i like those games, but i don't consider them puzzle platformers.

am i irritated that this game made me play through a dozen hallucination scenes just because the main character won't wear a fucking mask while walking through several poisonous clouds of gas? yeah, maybe.