I can understand why this game initially drew so much ire, but as someone who's been playing for a good few months after jumping onto the final version, Street Fighter V is a very fun time, although there are still quite a few issues.

The first one is single player. I don't play fighting games for singleplayer, but even still what's here is doodoo. The story mode is infamously poor, and that's basically all there is other than just basic arcade modes.

Presentation can be somewhat of a mixed bag. Most of the characters look good in this game's style, although some really don't. One major problem is how this game doesn't feel like it pushes much of anything forwards. Ryu has the same theme and design he's always had, and many legacy characters are in a similar spot. However, many later characters get a much better treatment as development really improved. The music is good, but a lot of the themes are just remixes of pre-existing themes.

Gameplay is quite fun, although defensive options feel a bit difficult to use effectively. Keep in mind I'm barely a gold player so I'm no expert, but I find that the game favors offensive play and feels a bit limiting. Another issue I take is how the V-system works. A lot of the moves are fun to use, but for most characters the V-system is what lets you do the coolest stuff that character can do. As an Ed main, his V-trigger is a really fun ability that allows for crazy combo setups and mixups, but I can only use it if I've been hit enough. It's a limiter that rewards you for actively not winning.

The other thing is a lack of good tutorials. There's a lot of interesting stuff to this game that I could really only learn through external sources. It was through them that I truly began to like this game a lot, so it's a shame that you have to dig around elsewhere to really learn how it works.

Now that sounded like a lot of complaining, but I do really enjoy this game. I'm able to very frequently get fights, and constantly learn new techniques or ways my opponent will throw me off, more than 60 hours deep.

Playing this game a lot just makes me more and more excited for sf6, which looks to solve all the problems this game had and more, although I would still recommend playing SFV if you want to warm up before 6. It's a very fun time, even with it's issues.

This is a neat little adventure game. It's got some creative puzzles, a great atmosphere, and good writing with some really likeable characters. The game uses some neat "computer" mechanics, that I kinda wish had some more depth. In general, the puzzles could have been a bit harder or more interesting. The times that a proper challenge showed up was fun, but somewhat rare. Walking around and finding stuff to figure out how to progress was consistently enjoyable, but I do wish there was a map to make trying to find one specific item you need just a bit easier. The plot is pretty neat, and somehow doesn't roam into annoying territory, although it gets close. It's mostly bolstered by the likable characters, which go quite a long way. In short, good atmosphere and plot, simple but fun gameplay, it's a pretty good time.

A pretty fun beat-em up with great presentation. One of the key elements a game like this needs to get right is the sound design and animation, since combat being satisfying is essential. These are both pretty great, and help keep the game fun to play. There's also a decent amount of variety with enemies and obstacles. The bosses are the highlights. Each one is different and fun, although one is a bit annoying. The game looks great and has clearly had a ton of effort put into it. Each shopkeep has unique designs and voice acting, the menus are clean and nice, and there's well done fully animated scenes and manga panel sequences too. The game's story and humor is pretty stupid, and a decent amount of it worked for me. A lot of it missed, though. Music's good, it does the job. Although I wasn't really a fan of the vocal tracks. I can recommend it to anyone looking for a fun beat em up.

This game is a bit all over the place, but consistently fun throughout. Thanks to the structure of hunting down four antagonists, there's a consistent sense of progression and variety. This does mean that some particularly cool areas like the castle don't get a ton of time to shine, but no areas overstay their welcome either. The faster pace and action compared to RE7 is quite fun, and leads to a lot of fun combat encounters. The "survival-horror" has certainly taken a backseat (excluding one noteworthy segment), and conserving my resources didn't feel particularly important a lot of the time. Excluding the final boss, I had tons of resources and only died a small handful of times. Maybe playing on hardcore would be a bit more fulfilling. Regardless, fighting is still very fun, and the re4-style merchant is a welcome addition that allows for more customization and progression. The game is oddly inconsistent in a lot of ways. The tone, speed, gameplay focus, all of it switches around pretty regularly. I could see that bothering some people, but for a low-attention span individual it keeps me hooked. Anyways, game's pretty good. I'd recommend.

This might be my favorite portable sonic game (although I haven't played Rush). It's an odd mishmash of sonic 2 and 3 primarily, with level themes from 2 with new designs, gimmicks from 3, and music from all over the place. It's pretty fun, and the screencrunch doesn't really hurt the game suprisingly, spare one or two times a bottomless pit comes out of nowhere. Even then, the level design is fairly forgiving, where falling often leads to a path that takes the player back up to where they fell rather than instant death. Boss fights are rather fun too. It's a great time and an easy recommendation for sonic fans.

Franken is an interesting game. It's easily beatable in less than an hour, and is definitely worth the brief time investment. The gameplay is deliberately as simple as possible, which I don't strictly think is a benefit. The humor is pretty much the only thing the game has, and the writing is pretty funny. It's so blunt and absurd, and combining that with the scenarios, rpg tropes, and some funny music choices means I was consistently entertained. But I can't help but feel as though there were opportunities to spice up the humor through gameplay. Maybe some sort of twist on RPG gameplay to make even more jokes, instead of just making it one button. Cool game, I'd like to see more from this developer.

Eh, it's alright. I was excited to check this out on gamepass as a fan of rhythm and FPS games, but I was left fairly underwhelmed. Most of the stuff in this game is done... fine? It looks okay, but it's not particularly memorable visually. The weapons are average and not especially satisfying. I enjoyed the music, but it didn't feel well-suited to the rhythmic nature of the game a lot of the time. Combat is once again, alright. This leads into what really is the biggest issue for me. The game just doesn't FEEL great. Shooting to the beat lacks the satisfying sense of rhythm it really needs to succeed. Comparing it to BPM: Bullets Per Minute, the difference is night and day. While this game is much more varied in many ways than BPM, BPM makes up for it by feeling excellent to just move and shoot, with very satisfying reloading and timing. It's something this game just doesn't have. What you've got here is an alright fps that, despite it's neat ideas, feels derivative and uninspired.