A phenomenal experience. One that I'll probably never forget. A stupidly detailed open world which so much random stuff to find and with visuals that can honestly carry the entire experience. Though the story is what really makes this game and holy fuck. The writing is impeccable, the slow decline of each of the characters is palpable yet subtle. Arthur Morgan is one of the best protagonists in any piece of fiction. Though of course this is soured by gameplay that's not as fun as I'd like it to be. Combat can be fun but fairly clunky and when the game expects you to do a lot of it (cough cough chapter 5) it can definitely feel like a slog. And I don't like constantly pressing the run button to ride on horse, that's annoying.

This game is clunky, both in it's storytelling and gameplay. It's a bit of whiplash going from Kiwami 2 to this one since the combat is a definite downgrade. If the enemies aren't blocking as soon as you press square, they're dodging 100 times in a row and I really wanna know where that comes from. Other than that, I think the story is also a noticeable step down from the previous games. The first 4 of 12 chapters are entirely fetch quests that do show a different side of Kiryu but so many of these would be better as substories (Also, there are 119 substories in this remaster which is fucked up). Besides that, there are some incredibly obvious red herrings that still manage to have disappointing conclusions. Though Rikiya does give the game a good few stars.

Definitely a step-up from the first game though it does share a lot of it's DNA with it. I'm still not into the story very much (like, at all unfortunately), but, the game is a lot of fun regardless. The combat and boss fights in particular are much better. Adding the DLC weapons from the first one while adding a few more and then on top of that adding many more abilities and options for each one adds a lot of depth to character building. The dark realms are also fantastic and consistently change the atmosphere and tension of each boss fight that uses them. The counters are also a fantastic addition, and tbh I didn't even know for most of the time that there were three types that had different animations depending on which spirit you had equipped. This is a big, meaty game, though I should say I was getting a little burnt out by the time I reached the credits. But hey, I liked the setting so much, I decided to visit Japan. So that's why it took 2 months to finish this one.

Fucking... I bought a PS5 for this game and I was not disappointed in any capacity. It's a remake of one of my favourite games of all time. I still feel like this remake isn't necessarily warranted, but at the same time, they put so much care and attention into this game that any worries I had were decimated by the time I played the demo. Put simply, the game is absolutely fantastic. One nice thing as well is that it doesn't make the original irrelevant. So I can go back to the original for more reason than just wanting to hear Luis say "Big Cheese" again.

Ugh, what happened? I wonder if I was too unfair to X5. X6 had all of the issues I had with X5 with some of the worst level design in the entire series up to this point. It still has the bullshit of heart tanks only being awarded to the character that collected it, which completely defeats the purpose of allowing you to choose your character every mission. Also, what's up with potentially coming across unwinnable fights depending on which bosses you completed first? Also, why would you ever use normal X? That's just a major handicapped. If you're given the option of playing with armor that gives you multiple benefits including half-damage or without that, why would you ever pick the latter option?? Unless of course you really like this game and if that's the case, good on you. I wish I could see what you see.