I'm invested in the original game and its characters, I'm invested in this game and its characters. I've had a lot of time for the original game to marinate and I can say that I enjoy pretty much every character and their arc and while I don't exactly feel the same with this one, that's not disappointing to me and this was my most anticipated game of 2021 so I mean that. This is a sequel, I expected as much and it didn't let me down, it's even better than I thought.

This is a NONSPOILER review because I think it's best experienced by actually experiencing it so I'll keep a lot of character, story, and even gameplay details out other than how the very VERY beginning of the game starts out with Rindo and Fret.

Let me give credit where credit is due, Rindo is voiced by Paul Castro Jr. who is a new voice actor and I was honestly impressed by his voice more than anyone else in the game, I love his voice and while Rindo has some pretty big shoes to fill as the main, I think he does it. Rindo seems to act pretty accordingly to the situation he's put in. He's not as edgy as Neku but he has enough push to him to where he would be considered the "negative" of the group but I would rather call it "rational" because he brings up some valid points, stuff that I myself was asking. Putting yourself in his shoes, that seems pretty accurate.

Fret on the other hand is a bit of the opposite, an optimist if you will. He's not really a "bad" character, just in comparison to the others, he's not my favorite. I think that there needs to be someone in his position who tries to uplift the team, but he's just a little annoying about it sometimes. Also get ready to hear "Galaxy Brain, ACTIVATE!!" literally hundreds of times, as much as he talks, you'd think he'd add more variety.

IMPROVEMENTS:
I'm not going to complain about certain gameplay elements or limitations that carried over from the last game except one. The camera. It's fixed to where you have no control over it in the city areas and therefore can't get a proper look at everything, whether that works in its favor, I'm not sure because you get used to it but it's just a small peeve you start out with.

The combat is pretty loyal to the first game which is surprising. I personally didn't like the original gameplay because it was so limited on the DS, a lot of room for error, but having it on console expands the system and lets you use buttons rather than mashing a touch screen, improving on almost, if not all, gameplay fronts. However, because it's based on a game from 2007, the system may seem a little outdated to some, it's really up to you, it made a fan out of me, making it more fun.

I played the original in bites, not because of lack of enjoyment but because I felt like it was a game I could only get into for so long at a time but with this game it's the complete opposite. Maybe it was the DS hardware that hampered the original but I say it's a decent success on this game's part. I also felt that Persona 5 seemed a bit formulaic in its story context and gameplay layout with each castle but this game, while having patterns, it changes before you get the chance to really catch on. I could predict P5 but I couldn't predict this, each day was a mystery, I knew you'd fight people but I didn't always know who or when which is crazy considering that P5 had all the choices!

A small improvement that I'll suggest for combat is having short rhythm based moves or even QTEs, like how in the original Shiki had the directional pad moves which were annoying but still varied from the rest of the gameplay. There are definitely new things that you can do, but there are a few aspects worth complaining about. You can unlock certain abilities and once you enable them, you can't disable them. The only one that it personally applies with is the ability to enable individual health bars for enemies, rather than an overall one. Which sounds good but-

I personally don't like that it's always floating above their heads, if it was on the side screen, that'd be one thing but constantly above their heads? No deal. I actually had to go back and load up an old save to get rid of it. But with unlocking certain abilities comes with quality of life aspects so if you're not in love with the gameplay at first, give it a little bit because you might be able to unlock whatever piece you're missing.

There's also "soundsurfing" that adds to your groove meter that you can use when running around and it said that you press (in my case "X" on PS4) to the beat of the song which is a cool concept but it really isn't clear how to use it because I try matching the beat and I get nothing and have more success just button mashing. The groove meter can drop when it's not supposed to, like when you literally can't attack during the buffering of a special or switching between battles in a chain (The "Get Ready" screen) And if you're in a proper boss battle, you HAVE to fight, it's like a trainer battle in Pokémon which is especially annoying when you accidentally press "retry". It has no reason to be there when I already know that I'm not prepared for the boss and can't back out.

Do the trailers spoil it?
Originally, I only saw the first and or second trailer and knew I wanted it so there was no reason to see any more but it was kind of overwhelming with all the characters they were showing off in just a single trailer. I don't think they needed to go that far but I understand why they did. I understand why they showed a lot of things that they did but I think it's a bit easier to SWALLOW when it's introduced in-game. I even found myself doing all the side-quests and being engaged in the side-stuff in-game. But I knew about people pointing out spoilers so after I finished it, I went back and looked at the other trailers and OH BOY. The final trailer shows some stuff and I'm SO glad I didn't watch it. They straight up show some out of context death scenes as well as different alliances and betrayals, not to mention parts of the freaking ending. The launch trailer is no better, it's just like that trailer but cut down. You may not have context but you can draw some hefty conclusions and that alone makes me question, why? I'm not sure if there are many reveals that they DIDN'T tease, it's like they went out of their way to hit every single one. Whether it's Square or Nintendo, they need to figure out how to cut a trailer, heck, hire me, I at least have the editing skills and know what's interesting enough to show and what's too spoilery not to show, come on!

Is it newcomer friendly?
I heard a lot of things like "it drops you in without mercy so pay very close attention" (in terms of story, that is) so only people who played the original game will be able to get it. But I beg to differ, I think it does a pretty good job of filling you in while putting you in the shoes of a new player (both in the game and out) AND keeping the mystery of whatever happened since the last game coming in small pieces. Most of the dialogue text boxes are voice acted so it's not really a slog to read. To prove my point further, the premise starts out very similar so it should be easy to clue in what exactly happened in the last game. Of course you're going to get more enjoyment out of it if you played the original but I don't think you'd be totally lost if you started with this one and played to right before the ending because then it kinda has to do stuff without preface, so you're going to be confused by much of the emotional weight that it carries. But it still gives you plenty of time to catch up on the original, whether through the game, videos, or lore, this game has you ask the questions, so fill in the blank. It has a nice length to it so you'll have until the ending to figure it out. Also, Final Remix teased stuff that this game makes clarity on but I wouldn't call FR mandatory. (Except maybe no numbers on the hand? Maybe even I missed something there.)

The music is pretty brilliant as well as fitting.

I expected something like Tomb Raider Legend mixed with some photography and for the most part, that's what I got but I didn't expect as much combat as it has and it's not half bad. I didn't think I would even like the photo taking aspect especially with a GC controller but I ended up using it immensely (it's not always required).

There isn't really platforming or even a jump button unfortunately but I can tell that the people who put this together are gamers and put care into it because it's gleaming with personality and doesn't fall into common traps a lot of other games do. Take sidestepping for example, normally you can easily fall off the edge and many deaths in general are unjustified due to poor controls or poor execution. I never felt that with this game, sidestepping along an edge is literally just holding forward on the control stick, you don't get stuck, it's not insanely slow, and the puzzle like nature is actually pretty nice.

The vehicle controls are actually pretty accurate, I was easing through a minefield without breaking a sweat, the problem is the jumping and shooting. There's a certain boss you have to beat with the hovercraft (a few times) and it's hard to shoot at because you have to keep everything under control at once while keeping up with the boss.

Perhaps one of the defining features of this game is its tone. I would consider it an "inbetweener" it seems kid friendly for the most part but it's rated T for Teen, it has a dark side, which is mainly saved for the end but it's sprinkled throughout and not something I would expect to see in an average game style like this with its cartoony nature. Coming from the same guy who made Rayman, it starts to piece itself together, I can see why it's a cult-classic but I feel like you'd have to play it in order to see fully, especially with the sequel looking vastly different from this one.

For a good amount, I felt on top of the game because I had so many units, yet I never felt "underchallenged". Now, let's talk about the title. I'm not sure, why it's called that, I had a few fears with this game such as it being too edgy or raunchy for its own good but I don't believe any of those initial fears came to fruition. I would even play the sequel if it ever comes out. That ending boss was also pretty cool gameplay-wise.

Where do you go next after Zero Mission? Samus Returns aka Metroid 2? Metroid Prime which takes place between Metroid 1 and 2 or Super Metroid which is probably most accessible?

Well, here we are, where my journey originally started. I can definitely see where things went wrong too.

So, this game is mostly about immersion but its held back by the Gamecube, the controls are stiff, the aiming is a bit wonky because you're not using a C-stick and instead have to mostly rely on the lock-on, it's like a first person classic Resi game. Dodging can be a nightmare and scanning isn't always easy while you're fighting.

It doesn't feel like an adaptation of Zero Mission, I can tell this was going for something different, which I'm okay with, in fact, I think it needed because I found Super and ZeroM to be a bit too similar but now I understand why some people prefer 2D Metroid over 3D. (there's even a cool looking 2D fan remake of this one)

Now I know I just said that they went with something different here, more extreme, but I'm about to contradict that. You see, there are definitely elements here that are ripped straight out of the franchise. Enemies for example are very similar. You know those ones that circle the platforms? Those are here, which seems really odd to me considering they follow the same movement pattern, it just sticks out from the rest. This is Metroid's first jump to 3D afterall so surely there are some kinks to be worked out, much like Super Mario 64. Look at the sprites for the mushrooms (1-ups included) then versus now, if you didn't start with that version then it sticks out like sore thumb.

The ball could still use some work, I feel like it's not so reliant on jumping with bombs but it's more precise so whenever you do do it, it's hard, you can't just spam like you used to, there's a bit of timing and luck involved. But the ball itself is a bit slippery and the camera the ball specifically uses could use a bit of work as well. They did however make the save points heal you and even replenish your missiles so that's one thing off the checklist.

Perhaps my favorite highlight from this game is the bosses. I like these bosses, they feel more flexible with their attack patterns and how to beat them, I love to see variety rather than just a bunch of bullet sponges, setting this game apart from many other FPS'.

I talked about traversal and how that scared me with backtracking but I think I figured it out. It's a lot more fun going to these areas than the ones in Zero Mission (not to knock the ZM ones though) these areas just make a point to differentiate each other. Eventually it will tell you where to go, which is fun because sometimes I'd find myself walking around aimlessly like "Where is a door I haven't gone in yet?" There were even points where I'd have to approach an empty spot of the map only to see it blocked and have to approach from the complete other side of the map which I absolutely hated in ZM and am convinced only exists for that reason. If you're backed against a door, your shot can reflect off the door and hit you even if you're facing the opposite way. Then enemies have better range than you so they can shoot from a distance but unless you close that distance then you can't hit them back. Some people may like that but I'm just pointing out "It's there!".

For a GC game, it looks pretty good. Fish in the water. Water condensation and reflections on your helmet. Most times the music is even better than ZM. Lots of lore to collect and scan, I know I liked doing it in ResiReve and I liked doing it here (the percentage you scanned and collected amount to what your ending will be, similar to ZM). I'm glad I had the sense to collect the artifacts along the way though because they ended up being mandatory, which I'm surprised? You would think it would lead you to them unless it just planned on giving you the locations once needed them to progress?? Idk, I already had them all by that point.

I suppose if I had to ask for something specific for the future of the franchise, it would be a more involved story, I know Other M delves into that but I hear it's not that good. Don't be afraid to do something different in terms of structure either (gameplay included). Zelda handles story quite nicely with lack of dialogue (audio anyway), Halo found a way through Cortana and the Arbiter. Prime is cinematic about its approach but it's kind of like "yeah here's where you start, here's a map, fight some bosses AAAaand we'll see you at the end." As far as story does go, it looks to be that the Metroids aren't the ones at fault, it's the pirates for experimenting on them and trying to clone and fuse them which kind of reminds me of a lot of things but if that was the original plan to go with since the beginning then I think they were ahead of the curb and also might explain why there's so many Ridleys in the first place, as "Meta" means self referential, which in this case means 'not the original'. I really like that, I always assumed that the same Ridley was on the brink of death so they kept bringing him back by giving him mechanical parts.

The story seems contained pretty much exclusively through real means, how do you find intel on alien pirates? You scan their logs and translate them making Samus seem all the more alien and alone. Context is done through scanning and reading and I realized that a little later than I would've liked. While it brings a realistic and interesting spin on the narrative, some of the stuff can be said through cutscenes. That makes me sound like a weeb who only watches the dub because he doesn't like reading but that's not it at all, I did read, I mentioned Zelda, it's just that none of it is dialogue, it's second-hand. Accurate to the story but you have to work to get it. I never really read the collectable stuff in games because I never feel it necessary or even relevant half the time. But in this case, writing this down makes me like it more for its accuracy and feel guilty for how I'm approaching it but I know that not everyone will like that aspect.

I don't think I would've liked this when I originally started it as a kid anyway, I was more for games that you can pick up then throw back down and still know what you're doing when you return. I liked easier linear games that didn't require much exploration. So this probably would've kicked my butt back then, especially with those GC controls. I'm not sure that it's the best place to start with the franchise, not so much for story, but so much for getting the hang of the play-style and core concept in order to enjoy it to its fullest.

Final verdict is that it's a good game if you meet the requirements for a good time.

-Comfortable controls (whether it be GC, Wii, U or whatever else)

-A mindset to like Metroid in the first place

-That includes backtracking^^

-Determination to read the lore

If you can find a way to achieve those, I think you'll like it. Don't get me wrong, I was hard on this game but I can't give it anything lower than a 4/5. I am curious to see how the other ones stack up though because if this one was that good on its own then I would suppose that they could just keep building on it and make it better, right?

This is the first Metroid game I ever beat.

The thing that was most noticeable to me when I started it is that it's been a while since I've played a GB game. I've missed that music. But other than that it feels pretty straightforward, definitely for those newbies of the series but I'm not complaining, that's "exactly what I needed". It has the normal "get the bomb, torpedo, morph ball" etc. but I assume that's every game.

Part of the thing that scares me about Metroid is that I won't know where I'm going or get stuck in a specific space but this one seemed to give me "exactly what I needed". Here's a map. Get the blinking Chozo spots and you'll be fine. You can figure out where to go pretty quick. I'm all for exploring in games but I think it's best done in a 3D space (and while I love my linear games) Metroid is kind of synonymous with mandatory exploration in order to proceed.

Why is that? I think it stemmed from "Here's what is making people finish our games faster so let's give them a handicap." much like how they made the SNES Lion King as difficult as it is. But I know it carried over into the franchise's later games as well. So I'm not too keen on EVERYTHING being hidden, I couldn't imagine playing this with NES graphics, you would never be able to finish it without a guide. Side stuff, I understand but having it be necessary is just going to be a hamper with me, whether I realize it or not. The overall atmosphere and scenarios get it though, I didn't see all the Alien movies but this is just what I would want out of a movie like that and I doubt any of them actually live up to it.

But I have some things that I hope the future of the series already improves on. For example, using bombs to jump as a morph ball. It feels like a very easy to miss mechanic and you just end up spamming the button until it works. Later you get the high jump mechanic which of course lets you jump as a ball without the bombs (just not as high) but why not let me start with it...?

There were some points where I got softlocked because I would speed boost in an area that wasn't all the way broken through and one end would get closed off while the other wasn't open to begin with. Now you can load up a save but I have a new solution...fast travel. I don't even need to elaborate. This one might be a little much to ask because I'm a baby but if you die and go back to a save point, can you make it so that save point heals you? Sometimes there just isn't a Chozo nearby, like when you're battling those metroid bloodsuckers, it's more just a chore to run farther, save points heal you in the pirate ship though for whatever reason. Now this one is justified, the ability to turn screw attack off. There are so many points where I have to freeze enemies to jump on them only to kill them.

I also wanted to mention this section where I thought I was softlocked in Brinstar when you get the Varia suit: I entered from the left instead of entering on the right to get the Chozo blocking the path. But there was a way to bring the little purple bugs to eat the vines in the lava after I got the Varia suit in order to come around the other side. Some of these mechanics feel experimental, like they were ahead of their time but I imagine they feel more fleshed out as time goes on. The movement feels pretty fantastic other than that, almost like I'm good at the game, it looks cool.

And you know what's crazy? The OG had 5 ENDINGS. This one has 8! That's insane, is this the first game that did that? (Looks it up) I guess Castlevania 2 and Metroid were neck and neck, coming out around the same time, revolutionary! I'm not sure how I got the one I got (I think it has to do with how you spent your time) but I just looked up the rest. You can even unlock the OG game with this version so it's hands-down superior, it even adds 2 extra areas. One of which feels similar to the concept of Dread, like a trial run. Overall, I had a fun time and didn't feel overwhelmed by the backtracking or dying. Even without the save states, I felt like the in-game save points were nice enough that I could just do it normally. Contrast that to Hollow Knight. Oy Vey.

If you're playing this on Steam, make sure you opt out of beta on your account because for some people it doesn't launch the first time around (including me) and that's the way to fix it.

I gotta say, you start out as a police officer and it looks like it's going to be a crime to crime basis, you do one mission after the other in succession with no real overarching story or anything but then once the first few are over, you get promoted to a detective and the cases become fuller with more story and just content overall in them.

Sometimes you'll fail a mission only to have to rewatch the cutscene again, as far as I know, those are unskippable. I reached the infamous "Are they lying?" sections and I now understand because sometimes the voice and acting doesn't match the facial expressions they're making and some will be so bland that it's hard to tell. It's like that in real life but hard to put into a game. I can't really complain though because you can look up from your pad and see their face and 9/10 it's hilarious to look at, I wouldn't even call it a gameplay negative especially for a PS3 game. I look at it as "If just the eyes are moving, doubt. If their face or jaw contorts too then they're lying. And straight face is truth." That's not 100% of the time but it's what I go by. Sometimes they'll just be stating something which makes it a bit odd to categorize it and Phelps will say things differently than you might have wanted him to but I kind of understand why it's like that. Instinct points help too which act as your 50/50 and lifeline like in 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire'. I've been playing the OG version, the remastered version does things a bit differently but I don't think I would like it any better.

The car is fun to play around in, I've had so many laughs with it, leaving my partner then stopping for him to run up to the door then drive away from him, teasing over and over, it's so much fun. You can hop in any idle car or bump someone to make them get out then take their car, it might take from your score some but it's not too big of a deal unless you want the 5 star ranking only to get an achievement, you ARE the police afterall and do you play a GTA game to not abuse the system? Now, you can't just walk in anywhere or do anything quite like GTA, there are limits and you don't spend as much time roaming the streets. Each door with a golden knob or golden bar can be opened, the others cannot. You can actually run into people and knock them over leaving a blood streak on the sidewalk. A lot of them will be carrying flowers, you can knock that out of their hands, that's something I always liked in Spider-Man 2 for the Gamecube along with the dialogue "I'm walking here!" The world is great though. The little details I see and hear throughout the game just make all the difference and make it feel like a Noire experience. From the jazz music playing every now and then to the visual style, to the black and white mode and even me running into a pole and Bekowsky yelling at me "Do you think this is a tank!?", the way these people talk just feels classic and witty, like it has a vintage feel to it on top of everybody seeming like a bumhole that doesn't want to give any more info than asked, which makes your judgements on characters a lot easier, the faces can be goofy at times but the roles they're given are interesting and makes me want to either side with them or call them out for lying, it's one thing to make that a game feature, it's another to make me WANT to use it and this succeeds.

If you've played previous Rockstar games then it might be a bit of a different experience for you but in my case, this is my first, normally you play as a villain with Rockstar, this one, you don't and that interests me. As for actual story, it doesn't really matter how you play, you might be able to bag some of the crooks faster or easier or get achievements but it's all a pretty relative end goal, sometimes something will happen to the suspect but it's kind of rare but I feel like most of the gameplay makes up for the story.

A lot of the side missions are chase sequences and I did a majority of them but it's fun every now and then because you can shoot their feet or legs and they'll stop (shoot too much and it kills them though) you can fire warning shots, you can tackle, you can brawl, sometimes they'll take a hostage and you'll have to prevent them from shooting, it has a wide range of ways that you can handle it to either nip it in the bud or play with the chase. It could use a little more control to defuse the situation easier, like a melee button, because you don't control whether your gun is in hand or not, you can't brawl if there's a gun in your hand, but you can beat them over the head with it, the problem is that it's triggered, there's no melee button, so you kind of just have to guess where the hitbox is and hover around them until something happens and you arrest them (if they don't shoot you first). There isn't really a peaceful route though because most of the time, they'll be shooting at you so you don't have a choice but to take them out. You can hover the reticle over certain targets and they'll give in but I did it maybe once or twice, it didn't give me an option any other time, so I know they could've made it more peaceful.

The game is split up into sections where you get promoted to new types of cases, now I know that there are different people who specialize in different things so it's accurate but it's just odd to see it in a game because it's car after car mission and then it's homicide after homicide, I never felt too wore out on any of them, so they don't really overstay their welcome, it's just doing them all in succession rather than a car case then a homicide then an arson, it's a minor nitpick. You also get different partners with each department. Phelps himself is kind of milquetoast but he's probably the most levelheaded of the game, I kinda like him (except for that turning point). Brekowsky is funny. Galloway is a bumhole, I didn't mind driving away without him, he normally just sits there anyway. Roy is a racist meatlug, I didn't like him even when he wasn't the partner. And Biggs is tolerable and cooperative for the most part.

Make sure you collect at least some of the newspapers because luckily I did (all but 1, I was so peeved when found out though) and I saw the payoff during the major turn of the story for Phelps, it would've been pretty crappy without them, same with the ending. Now the ending itself isn't a "good" one in my opinion, I think it takes some things too fast and didn't really build up for certain parts of it but the game is long enough so it really could've. I do think it 'could' be a good ending with what it was implying, it's a bit bitter but a bit too subtle to really realize and understand it, I didn't even get the full perspective until I looked it up and thought "yeah, that makes sense".

Making this purely gameplay for now

The complete experience is overhauled so that you're not exploring this big open area to find one little dungeon, instead it's set up so that you have "islands" and bridges to them so that you collect specific pieces to unlock the dungeon, bingo bongo, it's that simple. It may sound like a hassle but really, those ones are kind of the dungeon in themselves, you more or less just collect the treasure after that but then there are some regular dungeons that you just spawn in from the get-go, no key necessary (mainly the keywords that aren't main quests.)

The movement speed is much faster in comparison, it's almost like you have a speed charm on at all times, which for someone of my nature who gets dizzy easily, this is not in my favor but it becomes manageable and matches the size of the worlds. I do wish there were a few more movement options though-

Unfortunately it doesn't control very well…

The combat has proper combos and specials, if you thought it needed more flash, there you go. It still feels similar in nature with the hack and slash but you don't really do everything from the menu anymore, you can leave your party members to their own and treat them as you would Donald and Goofy from KH. You don't hear their battle quotes as much but that's because you hear those same six ear grating grunts and groans from Haseo, it gets old very very quickly.

But like said, the combat at its core is still similar to Kite's because he's an Adept Rogue but you get an extension later on that allows you to play a bit differently (more like BlackRose would) which is a big shift with going from fast paced small attacks to slow paced big attacks but I also feel like should've been done for variety, it's a toss up.

There's a morale bar, where doing things right such as taking care of your party members, using special attacks and so on and so far will start to manifest the bar to fill up, once it does, you get a team attack, normally a stat boost like a rage factor. Doing stuff like that can net you more exp and prizes after battles so rather than every enemy dropping a chest, they just give the crap straight to you. At the end of a dungeon/your leave, you'll get a ranking which tells you how efficient you collected everything, the better you do, the better prize.

You can block now which I don't normally use but hey, it's better than running around like an idiot hoping you don't get hit with the way the hitboxes were in the past games. Hubs are pretty large, to the point where there are even warps so that's quite handy. Even the dungeons themselves have warps that you can use both to get out at certain points and a rest if you need it, recovering your HP and SP, saving all your items.

With the concept that you were once a PKK, there will be instances where you run into a big blue circle in the middle of a field. This is a player battle which you can choose to intervene in and help to take out the PK. Man, did that climb right up my alley.

Now, difficulty. I said about how underneath the new skin, it still feels like IMOQ but a lot of it is dependent on difficulty. A lot of things from IMOQ return such as scrolls, fairy's orbs, trading, buying equipment and stuff I found essential to .hack beforehand. Now I'm not one to say that it should be loyal to the .hack games before it but I didn't even find myself using these things, I didn't need to. With some of the items, that was only good for dungeons which past a certain point is no longer the main quest, it's the Arena which items can't be used in and many of the players don't have anything to trade anyway. With IMOQ, you didn't have that luxury of choosing a difficulty and it just started throwing curveballs, causing you to exhaust everything at your disposal, I beat the final boss by the skin of my teeth. But this time you have some lead way even having an easy "story" type mode where you just kick back and knowing the reputation, I picked Normal but I prepared for a battle like I had in Infection and I ended up being ahead of the curve, I'd actually almost compare it to Kingdom Hearts 3's normal mode. On one hand, I want an easier experience than I had with Infection but at the same time, I think the dedication I put into that game put me into a corner because I knew those things and I didn't need anything like that anymore and nothing replaced it so it felt a bit empty. And I didn't skimp, I did all the side missions and stuff which actually ended up being pretty good because some featured characters that don't appear as much in the main story.

This game isn't without annoyances though like Chickie Dadas (yeah, that's what they're called) but having the Hungry Grass to compare it to from IMOQ makes everything seem like it's not worth complaining about. What's weird is that with Infection, I spent about 18 hours getting to level 30 and this one I spent less time and got to level 40, how does that work?

I think someone technically could play this without IMOQ. As far as story, there's a recap in the options if you want it but as far as gameplay goes, it certainly helped to have already played it because I would've been so lost towards the beginning. It was more just figuring where stuff was moved to and how it was updated for me. There's a wealth of information at your fingertips, from lore to instructions to worldbuilding and additional story content to a greater extent than the previous series, it can be a lot to chew on which can be overwhelming at first. And I was already familiar with how .hack works. That and you get a whole lot more out of the game (as if it isn't already vast enough) seeing all the references and connections. I certainly recommend it but at the same time, I understand the novelty of playing it without prior knowledge (as well as much better accessibility).

From an overall standpoint, it improves on almost everything from hack but I still feel it has more potential and will improve. What an ending though, ho boy! Everything leading up to it was meh but the ending got me hype for the next one. For now I'm going to give it a 2.5 out of 5 because of how average it felt for most of it but it definitely had it's moments and I said "for now" because I'd like to look at the bigger picture once I finish the final volume and anime, this was just an appetizer.

Most of what I knew about this game came from Dunkey's video. I knew it was a beat-em-up sort of thing with elements from Yakuza and other open world games mixed with a Chinese flare and a decent amount of cursing but it didn't exactly break many molds that I heard of despite its audacious story premises.

One day the main menu theme came up on my YouTube theme and I've been listening to it ever since and that was enough to put it back on my radar so I put it on my Steam watchlist. I thought maybe I'd pick it up when I was done with Yakuza as a sort of side game thing but then I saw that you can drive in this game and that set me over the edge, maybe it wasn't just a Yakuza clone, I was going to play it. I bought it during one of the Steam sales for super cheap, definitive edition too so it has all the content, not as big of a fan of the remixed menu music but it's fine.

Immediately what stuck out to me was the atmosphere, everything is all warmly colored with a dark wash to it, gangs, slums, tightly packed market spaces, a variety of NPCs roaming the streets, it seemed like a good time. But let's take a shortcut to combat for a bit. The combat is very reminiscent of Yakuza with things like interact-able environments where you can throw someone through a window and stuff but it doesn't feel heavily reliant on weapons which is fine with me, it gives it a bare knuckle brawl sort of vibe that you'd see on the streets. It also adds countering though which is pretty cool, that alone can make the combat seem different and varied because you can give it more flow.

Other than that, it's your run of the mill combat system. A lot of other things are pretty reminiscent of what I've mentioned with Yakuza such as side-quests, finishers, even the karaoke but the ability tree has a little gimmick worth mentioning. It's split up into two paths because if you don't know, you play as a cop posing as a gang member so you get cop points and triad points and you use those to unlock different abilities. This doesn't affect the run as a whole because there's only one ending but there is side material where you can act as a cop and take down a quick riot in the back alleyways with a few of your other cop buddies. As well as the main quests being split between those two but any quest deals with the system where doing things lawfully rewards you more cop points and not so lawfully more triad points so there's that.

It has some cool finishing moves like you can do wall kicks and then jump kicks. There was this one part where you had to take pictures for this lady and this guy photobombs you in front of the sunset, it's really funny but the goal is to try and get him out of the way so what I chose to do is pick him up and throw him into the ocean, it's just so great the kind of comedic moments you can create.

The NPCs and cars can be the same models and walk right next to each other but the world is so vast and there's so many variations that it's fine. Sometimes an enemy will grab you from behind and it tells you to kick which is meant to kick another enemy in front of you but sometimes there is no enemy to kick so you're left at a stalemate until the reaction command decides it wants to change to something else.

The actual Steam port itself could use a little more because I was using my PS4 controller but it only recognizes Xbox so when it says "press X" I would but where the X is on the Xbox, is the place where the square is on the Playstation, so I messed up all the time. The camera is also a bit shoddy at times, especially while driving, it made me dizzy (which is easy to do nowadays but still) you can hold back on the analog stick and it shows a reverse view. You can do U-turns a little easier though if you get the hang of pressing circle and then 180 the control stick. So yeah, I think if you don't like this game initially, give it a look up online because there's a ton of stuff that you can do that the game doesn't tell you and it made the experience that much more enjoyable for me.

But other than that, if you can see it, you can usually drive it, doing those side missions unlocks bonuses which sometimes include vehicles and clothing. There are some dumb missions sometimes though, I'll say that much. Like this bus vs bus one that took absolutely forever, basically anything you have to run them off the road and destroy their car is a really tedious mission to try and beat. You can paint them usually too but it's kind of odd for bikes especially because of how far away the camera is and how dark the lighting is, there's no way to swivel or zoom or anything, it's just static. But yes, you can run into parking meters and get money from them so I guess it evens out. It wouldn't even be too farfetched to say you can drive the Batmobile.

I'll talk about the DLC in a separate post later on but as far as a rating goes, I'm a bit mixed. Because a 7/10 seems fair but in terms of personal value, while I think it delivered better on what it was trying to do, there are games that I've given lower scores and liked more such as Resident Evil 3 Remake, Metroid Other M, Prince of Persia Warrior Within so I might bring it down to at least a 6. Is it underrated? Yes, there's nothing really wrong with it, I like it's asian representation and there's a lot of care there, but despite that I just don't feel overly passionate about the game.

It’s sort of linear but that doesn’t necessarily bother me. In fact, I thought it was going to be more of a walking simulator but I found that you get a slingshot which doesn’t sound like much but they make it pretty impactful. It’s not a stealth game but there are stealth sections so you can throw rocks and pots to distract and sling if you really want to hurt something. But you also knock things down to go to the next area, it’s a nice companion without just being a gun or sword, it really makes you feel like David from David and Goliath. I remember being impressed with just how much it reinvented itself right after learning a new technique.

It’s also got crafting, not an absurd amount and not as required if you don’t want it to be but it’s more for things like holding more rocks in your bag as well as crafting materials and bettering your slingshot for accuracy and drawback speed.

The atmosphere is also pretty great, there’s this part at the beginning of the game with an apple tree that looked straight out of a painting. But these guys are French so there’s a lot of that influence. Like at the beginning Amicia’s hair is tied with pink string and put up like a rose but afterwards she makes three braids leading into one, I appreciate the design quality. It’s also a longer game than I thought, from previews, it just looked like a tech demo but no it’s a full 10 hour game. (at least for me it was 10)

The story focuses around a girl and her brother which I’m sure you’ve already gathered as well as it revolving around rats, which is true but these rats are afraid of the light so you can imagine the mechanics it tries to incorporate. It’s like a better Alan Wake. But because of the brother’s illness, he hasn’t really gone outside which can be a problem because he wants to venture out and catch the frogs and see the windmill and stuff which causes him to run away and play hide and seek. He even talks very proper like most of his experience with words has come straight from a book.

But I will admit some falls in the storytelling because they set up all these questions like why is her brother sick or rather what is he sick with? A simple one. Why is the inquisition after them? And my first day of playing it, I played up to chapter 4 which is when they explain all those things and I found the answers to be kind of dumb. They try to incorporate alchemy and the plot turns into “I gotta go get this book.” Bleh! But there’s this one section where they make you sacrifice a pig and make alchemic fire, why not just make a firework or bomb or something? It’s just kind of too far out there, it just goes off the rails from there and I can’t believe I’m saying this but it could’ve been more grounded and have had a greater effect in my opinion. Speaking of though, this can be pretty brutal and dark, there was this one scene where Hugo (the brother) says “I can smell something cooking, is it a fair?” In an innocent like voice then Amicia (the sister) says “It doesn’t sound like a fair.” So I joked “No, we’re cooking bodies tonight.” Or something along those lines. My dark sense of humor and wouldn’t you know it, they’re burning a person at the stake. My jaw dropped.

There is a companion system where you can tell someone to go and turn a wheel or where to cause a distraction (which I hope gets expanded upon for the sequel). On a gameplay level, this is really fun, there are some really standout moments. The only complaint I have on that front is the final ability, it can be janky sometimes especially when you first get it. So yeah, I’d give this game a much higher score, I mean, when I was first playing it, it was checking off all my boxes, but the story didn’t keep that up.

I was excited when this game was announced, it looks like a bit of Stranger Things mixed with something else. I really liked how the main character looked so I bought it when it came out, I didn't watch much of it until it launched because I wanted to go in fresh and blind. I think that was the best way to go about it to be honest because it's sort of like a horror/thriller/action genre and I really like it.

I won't spoil it for you but here are some of my thoughts since I finished it. The game NAILS the eerie feeling, everything seems kind of out of the ordinary, I died laughing when I found the jukebox, but it introduces you to this world that you can't really describe. It keeps you on your toes and makes you think everyone could be a potential bad guy because everybody in this game seems crazy but I love it, it sets up that doubt. I imagined it to just be an asylum type prison thing where you had to escape and I was wrong (still would have been cool) but no, it's not even just an office area, it varies immensely, I didn't expect it to be so big.

The gun can change forms (shotgun, flare, pistol, etc. (no sniper sadly) and that's really cool because you can go and upgrade them and give them traits to make them better, I personally go for the shotgun which is rare for me and games.

Now this game isn't perfect, it has a few flaws. For example, for the bosses, if you die, then you get sent back to the last control point, which can be a hassle because you have to sit through a loading screen, run back, start the cut-scene again then mow the enemies down (except the very end, it seems generous there). This isn't new for any games, some have been much harsher but I guess KH spoils me with that restart the boss thing. Speaking of bosses, they aren't even really bosses, and there aren't even really levels, just missions. The 'bosses' are more like enemies that take a spotlight but just somewhat above average. It's not really at the end of every mission or anything, they're pretty rare tbh and it's different to see it that way. Does that make this game easy? Oh heck no, this game has one difficulty so if you want hard, it will give you hard, take the missions you want, I would say as many as you can.

I say that because each mission gives you ability points and crafting points which you can use for traits for Jesse (MC) and for your gun. Some may even be higher health, higher energy and such. I'm still going to try and go back to see how strong I can get but I did quite a few of the side missions already. Getting back to difficulty, there will be moments where you'll be like 'Ha I can cheese this' and just use your abilities to get away from the enemies but you need to look around every corner because they will make up for it later, there's always enemies on the prowl, even if you snag a control point.

Another thing I'm not a big fan of is wasting energy and ammo. I suppose that makes it more realistic but a lock on button would be pretty good, it's suppose to do it anyway but sometimes it takes an extra second and that can mean all the more. Just a minor nitpick that a KH fan such as myself gets spoiled with once again. There was a part where I got stuck on a loading screen and actually had to restart my game because it wouldn't let me teleport. Sometimes it lags and the frame-rate drops pretty quick but this is my copy, I don't think I've seen any problems with anybody else's yet, not on videos, not on reviews, I even looked up problems but I guess I'm the only one so take that in mind that it might just be the disc as well as me using a standard vanilla Playstation 4 vs a PS4 Pro which can run it better. I guess you could chalk that up as it really pushing the limits of the console but I can forgive it because for one the graphics look so dang good, there's even some live action stuff and it renders in real time so it needs to add that extra layer to make it look good (I know that's what it is because the only other game I saw do that was Minecraft) but it makes it look cinematic and that's a good trade in my opinion. (for this game at least)

The whole "Taking control of enemies" or seizing them leaves you vulnerable because it takes a few seconds to do it, but they're pretty generous and you can move freely as long as you have the thumb on the button and I think enemies even take it easy on you because I don't think I died while seizing an enemy once. You can also upgrade it so that the seizing time is shorter so I wanted to point out how well they did with that ability. I love the levitation and I can't get enough of the launching, that's my preferred method of combat now actually. At the beginning it was punching so...ha!

This was a really good game, reminds me of a stellar chiller thriller movie like the Shining, keeps up an aesthetic, has good gameplay, what's not to love?

Yeah, this is the one with the door meme.

Graphics are improved from Kiwami 1 but the animations are still a bit stiff at times since it's based on a PS2 game. I liked the map of the first game and I got used to it but this one has a new map plus visitation to the old map so in my opinion, that automatically makes it better.

It's been about a year since I played Kiwami, as well as a year in-game, so what's new? Vending machines. Some new mini games. It doesn't show its hand at first but I feel like it adds a lot of new content, maybe not on the combat side of things but everything surrounding it makes it feel like a more complete experience.

You can fight in the stores and tear stuff up. And if you do, you can't buy from there until its cleaned up. I actually kinda like that detail even if it can be inconvenient, it gives you reason to control the situation but almost makes me WANT to bring thugs into places just to be chaotic.

The interface has changed a little but I can't tell if it's clearer or not, I'm indifferent. There are also side jobs now which act as side quests, like being a bouncer which basically acts as a Collesseum. You can even manage a cabaret. These aren't really mandatory but fun little additions and give more initiative to do more side stuff.

The story feels like where it would naturally go but I do feel that the setting can be changed. We spend just a little too much time in Kamurocho compared to Sotenbori. I've seen and fought in a lot of these places and while the scenes and setups are different...do we need another funeral fight? In fact it goes out of its way to include it because it starts with a small skirmish then has you leave and go back to town, so sure, ok, they know that it's similar but then it has you come right back once the funeral is over and do the run sequence and boss 😂 I'll admit that it's a shorter sequence than last time and doesn't take place at the very beginning though. It also made for one of my favorite fights thus far. He used a sword, I used a knife and still kicked his arse.

It has some really good shots but it feels the need to keep reiterating itself and telling the viewer what they're seeing. There's a scene at the beginning where it shows a sign to show you the setting (in Japanese mind you, so I can only assume it said Sotenbori but it looked cool!) then pans down to Kiryu, it then flashes back to just before then with the woman telling him about her son, explaining why he's there and then it shows the sign AGAIN and pans down to Kiryu in a different manner than before. It's like they had scenes in mind but weren't sure which perspective to use so they just use both. This doesn't really affect the story, just the visual nature and sometimes makes the characters seem dense. For another example, there's a time where someone mentions 'fireworks' in a cutscene and then Kiryu basically goes "I wonder what that means" and then he hears a commotion and is like "Must be the fireworks." Then they show an explosion on TV "Those must be the fireworks." No dip Sherlock, I think the audience can put that together. I'm viewing this from a movie standpoint because there are so many cutscenes (which isn't a problem but you're going to bring out another critique in me) I talked about how bored I was with Xenoblade's cutscenes, this isn't quite at that level but while this game drags sometimes, it has some really good highlights.

I'll be honest, I was against playing Yakuza 0 whenever I started this series because it just looked overrated but now I think the more of these games that I play, the more I wouldn't mind playing it. Especially seeing clips of it in the karaoke (and maybe seeing that Yuki is in both)

As far as length goes, I spent about 17 hours on the first Kiwami and while I did do more side-quests with this one, I never would've expected it would put me over 26 hours! So really, this game improves on the last one in almost every aspect, making it the superior model.

Inside opens and drops you right into the game, no cutscenes, no backstory, nothing but the title and a kid falling to the ground. The only thing left to do is to walk forward. It's a very cold and bleak night but there are some nice elements to it, the grass, the mud, some trees, leaves, this game looks better than it has to. That's when you start to climb over some things, such as hazards and gates, maybe this kid is trespassing.

There's a truck up ahead, there are a bunch of people loaded in the back, the first people we've seen, they must be moving house. Some metal objects in the background, maybe we're in a dystopian future, it's desolate. There are some more people, must be security with their flashlights, maybe they shouldn't see him.

We reach a concrete wall, barbed wire on top, let's knock over this fridge and hop over it, maybe this is a prison break. More people, more trucks, more fences. A Doberman barking, chasing him through the water, definitely a prison break. RUN. There's a gap, a ledge, we're hanging by tree roots, the dog can't reach us there. SAFE (for now). More people searching, chasing after the kid, people in front of him, what do we do? HIDE. They're shooting, they have weapons. More dogs. JUMP. Land in the water. That kid just keeps running. More strange things happen. This was just the beginning.

There isn't a gameplay scene that got me to play this, it looked simple and edgy but it was as easy as people saying that it was one of the best puzzle games to actually get me on board. I didn't know that I would be mesmerized by it and want to finish the game in one go, because once you start, it only gets harder to stop. I did however finish it in two-goes, it's not a very long game but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I want the soundtrack, it's great, not many games can pull that off but I wish more did. It can be played with one hand, only five buttons and I beat this without looking any of it up, it was a personal mission for me and I'm so glad I succeeded. (Though, I was tempted by the hook part) This is a must try.

(This is Legendary Edition btw)

I hear so many good things about this series, moreso about the later ones than the first one though. So I got the ME2 demo on Steam and...I didn't like it. I liked being able to customize a character but it looked plasticy and the gunplay felt rubbery. Part of that might have been me preferring to play third person games on console and first person on PC though. So Legendary Edition came out and I thought I'd give it another shot, especially if they fixed up some of my gripes. I always hear how great the characters and choices are, which were some of the things I liked from BioWare's previous games and wanted to see come to fruition. This time we'll start with the first game proper.

When you hover over an item, it makes a circle but no button appears in the middle, instead, it's at the top of the screen, which is weird. There's a map but you have to go into the menu to access it and it's kinda uninformative sometimes, or maybe I'm just using it wrong. But once you visit an area, you can fast travel to it, if it's a world that allows it. The pause menu itself doesn't tell you a whole lot when it comes to controls either, in fact, it doesn't tell you anything, some stuff it doesn't demo for you so you kind of just have to experiment.

The sprint is shaky like a high school student's Powerpoint presention transition so I prefer not to use it. The music is pretty nice at times, it's really noticeable on the Normandy.

I don't think I would've had the patience for this sort of thing back when I first tried it but playing KOTOR made me a bit more tolerant for the things that it carries over. In fact, I was hoping that it'd be better playing it versus watching it and I think that's the case, there's a certain atmosphere to it that you can get into.

You can definitely tell it's aged, despite being a remaster, the graphics are fine for the most part (Feros makes you blind as a bat though) but the lines can seem robotic (specifically with Shepherd) and animations stiff, there are good animations though too, just some are stiff. The photo mode is fun to play around with but limited in the elevator. Why would I want to take pics in the elevator you might ask, well that's when Liara does her-
https://64.media.tumblr.com/4917091bc90146b34611c18786246a31/8741bc43372f5f9d-87/s540x810/9d6633e46672cb91558d41846bae1853cf10a3f2.pnj

https://64.media.tumblr.com/a21d7d9d2318a32504a110441b88a008/8741bc43372f5f9d-4e/s540x810/c35673b2ae71104f11b9977fa776245b405e50e8.pnj

Twitter flagged this one as NSFW, lmao.

Uh anyway, sometimes choices can seem like a Telltale game where you pick one thing and it says another, some options have the same dialogue or responses, I'm not going to really complain about it though since it's not just this game that does that.

The elevator rides give you context to current quests as if it's breaking news or an infomercial. Depending on who you have in your party, different characters will have different things to say and have conversations with each other, even remarking at the landscape and certain things in the area. This isn't the only game to do that but it's all these elements combined that just add to the atmosphere I was talking about. When Liara's mother dies, everyone that I had in a party with her by that point had told me that I should check on her, is that chemistry or what?

Seeing the societal structures of all these aliens is very diverse and interesting to pick apart, it makes me interested in not only the character but think twice when I come across one of their species. Like say there's a krogan, I'd start out by just taking it out but after getting Wrex you decide to just not equip him when fighting them to avoid making him slaughter his own species. Then when he tells you about the Genophage, you feel guilty for killing them yourself. Then when he asks to be the one to bring an end to it, it makes you feel sad. In some ways, these guys are betrayed by their species, that and they're the ones betraying them to be on your team. Deep stuff.

I think eventually it even gets to be like Fire Emblem where you have optional recruits and if you're not careful, you can lose party members permanently but for now that's not really a problem. You sort of make what you will of the combat, you can choose to command your party members around but you don't have to. You can choose to do stuff with your weapons (ie upgrading, switching out) but you don't have to. You apparently pick a class at the beginning but I don't think I did that. I think you need to make a custom character while I just picked plain old default John Shepard, which I wouldn't normally do but when I tried the ME2 demo, my character looked funky to stare at all the time. Worry not, what you lack (in my case, decryption) can be resolved by equipping a party member with that ability so yes, there's a "skill tree" of sorts but I don't find it all that complicated, maybe to use but not to upgrade.

I think it'd benefit from having actual bosses, there are special characters you fight but they aren't all that different from regular enemies. And the villain is a little cliche with his "if you can't beat em, might as well join em" mentality and only speeding up the process. I know he thinks he's doing people a favor but I think it would've been better written if there was more than that. Say Sovereign gets revealed and now Shep knows what he's up against, Saren could've revealed that he wanted people to find out through him so that people would be made aware (like the council that never listens) and do something about it. And yeah he knew it was inevitable but he wanted to act as the warning. Something like that seems like it could've serviced the story better but we have a lot of other great stuff to look at.

I actually expected a lot of what I got to be in the later games and that this one would be bare bones but this is far from bare bones, I actually have no idea what to expect for the later titles' gameplay because this one introduced everything I knew of. I clocked in around 17 hours, it was a good experience that I found myself excited to come back to. 4/5

There are no difficulty modes, you could see that as a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you think of its base. I hear some people say it's hard because they don't grind enough and I hear some people say it's easy because they grind too much or they're just really good at figuring out what to use for stats and building their kingdom, which I'll get to shortly.

There's a pretty smooth transition from fighting to traveling and vice versa, the only downside is that once you're engaged in combat, it locks you in so you can't escape until you defeat them or they defeat you. You do have a chance to run before they catch you though.

One of the the best things about the game is that it's not turn based. I've seen Dragon Quest XI gameplay where it looks like it should play more similar to this and I actually prefer this over FFXV combat. So it's not the same as the original for those who've played it. The other best thing about this game is its visual design, the whole reason I bought it. There were some character designs that I really liked as well as some that lack but all in a Ghibli-esque style.

In the grand scope of things, it’s a big world with tons of side quests. With some of the side quests, you HAVE to look it up, like this one where you make a tart for this guy in Goldpaw (pretty early in the game) but you can't actually make it until you beat the main story, I get having side-quests in areas that you can't do yet so no one area is deemed irrelevant and they do have certain side-quests and NPCs open up after beating certain missions but why not these? Why were these the exceptions? It just doesn't make sense to do it this way, if anything, give me the resources readily available. There's no reason I can't have a certain market or lumber yard when they're all the same but with different names.

Now my biggest complaint so far is the potential. Sometimes the person you do the quest for will join your kingdom but the game requires you to keep your kingdom a certain way in order to progress, so you can't just pick and choose your villagers, there's a minimum amount you need to have. That breaks the illusion of being able to customize your kingdom and getting to interact with your villagers in an engaging way because most of the time, you're just filling in another space. There's a specific point where the difficulty ramps up overall which was around the end of Hydropolis for me but it makes it very easy to fall behind on leveling your kingdom as well as your party. There are also "skirmishes" which have a similar playstyle to Pokemon Rumble (cool in concept) but in reality is pretty annoying. You even have to work on your skirmish forces' level separately through the kingdom research (as well as just doing more skirmishes) so there's a lot to keep track of.

That kingdom research (for whatever department it may be in) says things like "this will take 9 minutes" or "this will take 25 minutes" but that's annoying when you have nothing else to do but wait for those to be done, when you need to level up in order to progress your missions. The kingdom is just a mandatory mobile game! You can actually speed up research but you have to spend your money, and not just regular money, oh no, this is a special currency that you only get from your kingdom, for your kingdom. The whole thing seems pretty counterproductive if you ask me, especially considering it's done in increments. To speed up a single research task you could be spending purchase after purchase to lower it by 10% each time, mere minutes to sometimes a wait above 45. All it needs are the microtransactions to purchase them with real money and you got yourself a gacha.

I believe MGS5 has something similar to the research part, but the difference is that I actually had fun with Mother Base in MGS, this one just makes me feel like I'm playing Clash of Clans. Once you get enough gold steadily coming in, it's not as big of a deal but it's definitely tedious. Combine that with the grinding, which took me way too much time just to keep up with the level gap of "Recommended strength" and my actual level. You're taking down hordes at a time and the XP just seems to slow down. I would be fighting enemies way above my level and barely even a scratch so I looked it up and it said it's more quantity over quality, (or in this case level) which is nuts to begin with but even doing so barely increased it at a solid rate, I got the exp necklace, messed with the tactic-tweaker, did side-quests, did a bunch of stuff with the kingdom itself and it was just never enough, it was like the game was trying to unnecessarily inflate its playtime. Now my best advice that actually ended up working, is to do the optional boss fights littered among the world (tainted monsters). I don't like them but they're the only things that seemed to give me a reasonable amount of xp and even some decent weapons. Mornstar, The Sword of Unity, end-game item with 270 damage? Try my Giant's Tooth or whatever it's called with 290!

The story isn't necessarily priority here, it kind of sets itself up from the start. You go to each kingdom, beat their boss, unite them. That about sums it up, that's not bad for a game like this but it's not as rich as many JRPGs and I hear even the first game so I doubt you would have to play the first one to understand it (at least I didn't). It also starts out as a sort of isekai where Roland is a president who gets sent to Ding Dong Dell to service a furry king...what a fanfic.

The first half peaked and then just became unenjoyable for me after Hydropolis. There was a boss late-game that I was into but it was sandwiched between 2 really dumb bosses, so it evened out. I'll give it a 2/5 or 4/10 overall. I don't really recommend it but if I did, I would recommend the Nintendo Switch version (which is apparently out now) because I got this on PS4 around launch (yeah, it took me this long) and I felt that it was best suited for the Switch as soon as I started because of the quest system. The only downside is that I hear that version runs poorly, which is a shame because honestly, I might've dropped it if the PS4 version ran that poorly. It actually ran pretty well, barely had any load times and has a massive world with consistent quality, quite impressive.

I heard it has a darker tone, like a horror game. Doubt. How dark can it get? The story revolves around going to Aether (planet name) to retrieve some lost federation soldiers. The first level has you walking into a room where most of them are dead, being fed upon by these bugs called Splinters which, you know, might be a little dark...Oh they're hanging, yeah, that's creepy. One of them getting sucked up like one of the barnacles from Half Life 2. You scan all these bodies and find the soldiers' logs before they died and then they're possessed by (well I'll just call it "dark eco") and start attacking you like zombies. Nice.

These aren't just any soldiers either, they look up to Samus, they might not personally know her but one person even calls her Santa Claus because of how legendary she is, imagine being a bounty hunter of that status finding the bodies of these people who looked up to you like that. That's not even as far as it goes, they went as deep as saying who sat in each of the seats in the crashed ship, as needlessly irrelevant as that sounds, it tells you how many people were on the ship as well as which ones still need to be accounted for. That's so smart! I love it. Sad though.

This is a different game, I can appreciate that, that's exactly what I asked for. I also asked that it added more story related cutscenes, got that too. I still scanned as much as I could though (as should you to get the story), but even that has an improvement with each item you scan being tagged green in the visor so you can differentiate what things do.

Green = Scanned. Blue = Not scanned. Red = Important. Simple but definitely worth noting. Not to mention the friendlier natives are MOTHS! And guess what? They talk, maybe not in english (or your preferred language), but they do have a few written dialogue scenes, just what I asked for. You find those bodies too...

Here's a small weird thing though. In Prime 1, you start out with stuff but your suit gets taken out of commission from the elevator explosion. This one, you start out with stuff but it also gets taken out of commission. And it's not like there isn't other stuff to get, but I'm asking to keep even just the bare essentials like morph ball bombs (you have the ball, just not the bombs) maybe they felt it would add to the experience if you went back to areas to unlock stuff you were unable to get because of a stupid bomb or measly missile but it's not very rewarding, anyway.

I also want to complain about the difference in menu, the map is the same but the place where you see lore and research and stuff has a really weird layout, stylized but weird to navigate through because it's like sorting through subfolders using gulp motion controls so you have to spin it around like a ball...it's a whole mess. With the last game, you had multiple visors, which I honestly wasn't really a fan of. I mean they cranked up the immersion factor but here? We have new ones but I don't really care for them, they pose the same problem I have with not starting out with ball bombs, gatekeeping. If it was a normal ability or mechanic, it might be fine but to force you to change the game view entirely? I don't think we need extra visors for Prime games going forth (I'm unsure whether it's in 3 or not).

The main feature that I was concerned about was the light/dark gimmick and the bubbles. I had no idea what that meant but it sounded horrific.

BUT let me explain it because it might sound worse in concept than it actually is. It's not really a shield, it's more of a stasis. This next part is going to sound bad but the dark air hurts you and light bubbles heal you so you recover from it immediately. Each bubble is powered by a crystal or light (there are even creatures that project them and you follow them to stay in the light) some you power by shooting but most are spread evenly enough that you're only outside the bubble in short bursts.

AND this is done in the dark dimension which is basically a mirror of the regular one with some things missing and some things added (Nintendo likes this feature and has used it in various games since then so you probably already know it (this might even be the origin of some of it)) that doesn't make it wore out though because it's only done in bursts. Imagine a specified section of an area that you navigate, fight a boss and then you go back into the real dimension where you don't worry about any of that. Not all of the light realm is translated into the dark realm. PLUS you get something that suppresses the damage from the dark eco even further. It's very graceful and didn't stress me out like I thought.

This is where this game starts to take a bit of a turn though because I mentioned how it was done in "sections". Well that's essentially how the rest is done too. You start off doing the Agon Wastelands and restoring that temple, and afterwards a few more separate maps. It's more organized that way and I feel like the backtracking is at least condensed to the area you're in rather than every map in the game (not 100% but more than Prime 1 imo) But when you do backtrack, it sticks out because it's so far away. Some are going to like the separation and some aren't, I understand both arguments.

There is a weak spot compared Prime 1 though and that's the bosses. I remember a good amount of the bosses from Prime 1, because I just played it, but I literally just played this and I disliked most of these bosses and doubt I'll even remember then and the ones that I will, will be for all the wrong reasons. I like the variety but most of the time, they're annoying to actually play, even the common enemies. The music just wasn't as memorable to me either. (And the extended emphasis on the ball in this game is atrocious.) On the plus side, I can say that I liked the story more than the first game.

In the end, I just didn't enjoy it as much as Prime 1. It does some things better than the original and that start was promising but it just didn't live up to my expectations. It was littered with too many little inconveniences.