"Alan Wake 2" is one of the most immersive experiences of my entire life, if not the strongest in this respect. I haven't had such chills while playing since playing "Death Stranding". This is absolute madness, AWESOME, no words! I fell in love with this game very quickly. It hit the perfect spot because Sam Lake's fantasies are just so much my taste. This game is so wonderfully fucked up, it has amazing ideas in building a narrative, and structurally it crushes the competition - an uncompromising show off with no limits, the gaming industry has never seen such horror before! An experience unlike anything else. Which can be compared at the story level...

If you love "Twin Peaks", you will fall in love with this game. And not because the creators were clearly inspired (we get Black House, Return, coffee, FBI, Mr. C and finally the town itself - those who know Twin Peaks know), but because, like Mr. Lynch, they have heads full of fresh unique ideas that are sometimes hard to believe are actually included in this game and because this game doesn't hold the player's hand and you either get into it and find a festival of greatness or you don't. Because it's not for everyone. The game can be really slow, only teasing some interesting themes from time to time. However, even just "walking around" in this game is seductive. Because of this atmosphere! Dense, disturbing, completely absorbing. While playing Wake, I forgot about the real world. This game completely took over me and all I could think about was it. A real phenomenon and a demonstration of the possibilities of games. A title that should definitely prove to everyone that games are something more. Especially since Alan even plays with combining means of expression - we get literary elements, live-action fragments (pure CINEMA!) and great musical pieces.

Moreover, this game remains very intuitive to a large extent, which works great, but also requires the activation of gray matter. The creators strive for full viewer immersion for good reason. Many "puzzles" require a lot of involvement in the perception of the game world and thinking that involves literally taking on the role of the character we are playing. Moreover, Alan can be really scary, because even a horror veteran like me made my heart skip a beat a few times. Plus, boss fights are such an adrenaline rush... Never before have I been so afraid for my "game" life as I was here.

I also forgot to add a certain part of the game where there is an atmosphere taken from Kubrick's "The Shining" and it works phenomenally. But to sum up - "Alan Wake 2" exceeded all expectations, becoming one of my favorite games in general and providing me with a completely new immersive experience, for which I will be eternally grateful. I had a lot of fun and I can only recommend it, but only to those who buy such atmospheres.

Oh, and what's important - you can play it without knowing the first one. I haven't played the first part myself, which I will do soon, of course, because it's hard to be separated from Alan.

Alan Wake II is a prime example of how taking a big fucking swing can really pay off.

Its 13-year-old predecessor was met with a mixed reception (strong atmosphere; naff characters and combat) and sadly failed to get its intended sequel made at the time. But, despite my dislike of that first game, it was heartwarming to see, at last, Sam Lake championing Alan Wake II, all the way to the recent Game Awards.

Even from that first teaser trailer, it was clear Remedy was doubling down, putting everything they had into this. The result is a culmination of ideas born from their prior games, including Quantum Break and Control, notably the seamless blend of gameplay and live action footage.

And if Twin Peaks was a key inspiration for the first game, the second is very much its own Twin Peaks: The Return - crazier, scarier, and richer from its many years in the metaphorical slow-cooker - even the plot (SPOILER ALERT) is very much The Return: new characters piece together past and present events in order to bring back the absent hero trapped in the Black Lodge/Dark Place.

This Return segment focuses on player character FBI agent Saga Anderson, investigating cult ritual murders in different areas of Bright Falls, using a ‘mind palace’ system to organise jigsaw pieces of the case, profile suspects and keep count of how many wall-mounted deer heads she’s caressed. I found these detective segments so enjoyable that the later levels as Alan, wandering around his mind (in a form of Otherworldly New York Plaza), were underwhelming by comparison. There are some game highlights in playing the title character, such as a spooky hotel and a movie theatre; and who could forget the Herald of Darkness musical segment?! But Saga’s… saga moves the story forward at a more engaging pace.

The combat indeed feels weightier but no less annoying for the most part. The enemies that can speed-dodge attacks are a nightmare to pinpoint in darker areas where they hide and throw stuff at you. I also found it frustrating when circling back to areas to find hidden items, only to constantly have enemies respawn for the same annoying fight on lower ammo. There are a couple of horde-based enemy sequences, similar to the first game, which also border on tedium. All of that said, most of the boss levels still manage to be quite tense.

All the stuff with the fictional Old Gods of Asgard band, the Alex Casey movie segments and Wake’s usual bullshit writing can be campy and indulgent as expected, but Sam Lake gets away with it, this time, by having the rest of the game be just as bold and bombastic. Its heightened visuals - notably those live action ’monochrome visions’ and the dark murmuring figures aberrating in and out of the moody environment - make every moment unpredictable.

Lastly, Alan Wake II couldn’t have come at a better time. With a piss-poor opening to an uncertain Silent Hill revival that is Ascension, and (rather fantastic) remakes such as Dead Space and RE4, this year of survival horror was very nearly dismissed as a nostalgia wave for older classics, plus maybe some indie outliers. With a sequel that is far better than anyone could’ve expected, Remedy breathed new life into the genre, showcasing a whole new horizon of potential, graphically, narratively and stylistically.

Absolutely a DLC quest in every sense, but damn if this wasn't fun.

After almost half a year since beat the game on Final Fantasy Mode I re-adapted to the combat much quicker than expected. By locking the DLC quest behind 4 or 5 previously-optional ones, I got to get some practice in with measly level 85 enemies before heading into the new lvl 95+ dungeon.
Still almost 20 levels below most of them, it wasn't difficult per se but it did allow for much flashier encounters and more ults and so on -- Enemies all having a billion hp on FF mode got a bit tiresome because the game is so long that by the end it feels like it's just dragging it out, but honestly I think it kind of worked in this DLCs favour, as it prevented me feeling like I was breezing through and gave me more time to, well, play.

The DLC still only took 3-4 hours in which is a good length for what it is, I assume (/hope?) that the other quest releasing next year will be more narratively-driven vs this one being combat, but mostly just so we get some more 'meat' out of it.

In a way this DLC had me feeling a lil souls-y with its bosses, but that may just be my smoothbrain interpreting reading patterns and timing dodges as some unique concept lol. I'll wrap things up but if you're unsure about getting this and you like the combat in the main game, do it. The final boss was a ride, at first I sorta wished it was something more recognisable, but once it got going and the music kicked in and- 😩 So good man, I had a lot of fun with it.

Thanks for reading as always, didn't expect the finale of this to hype me up enough to review but here we are!

First Summer Uika, I love you. I am in love with you.

Kazuma Kiryu is a very important character to me. I only started with Yakuza 0 back in 2021 but I quickly became obsessed with the series. And with Gaiden, I now have to grapple with the fact that Kiryu may be leaving us soon (again).

After playing through Like A Dragon, Judgment and Lost Judgment I was happy to be reunited with the Dragon of Dojima in this intensely personal chapter of his story. I loved how the narrative interweaved with Like A Dragon's, and the final chapter hits some incredibly emotional beats.

The new characters are all excellent, including the wonderful Akame (who has officially usurped Yuki as my number 1 Like A Dragon Waifu). The shorter, side-story runtime allows a much pacier story, similar to Lost Judgment's The Kaito Files. The final few scenes left a lump in my throat, and Takaya Kuroda absolutely killed it in his voice performance. In a perfect world, Kuroda would be mentioned in the same breath as Roger Clark and Stephen Ogg in the all-time greatest video game character performances. The substories are great as always, with such shenanigans as Kiryu grappling with "ChotDDT" and teaming up with a certain Kamurocho detective leaving me with a huge grin on my face.

My only complaints are pretty minor; Agent Style isn't as fun to use as it appeared at first and I stuck with Yakuza Style for the majority of the game, and every enemy seemed to have so much health. Every fight - including simple street fights - took way too long and I would end up actively avoiding street thugs because they were so annoying to get through.

Though it may be a Gaiden, this is an essential chapter of the Like A Dragon story that everyone should play in the run-up to Infinite Wealth.

I am not emotionally prepared for what's to come.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was a game that I adored so, so much, that I couldn't bring myself to start writing a review for it. I could talk about that game for hours, and yet, I'm lost for words.

There is no way to properly explain the way this series hits any more. Half the reason I never tried writing about XC3 was that so much of what I wanted to say would touch on spoilers in one way or another, and given the nature of this expansion the same is going to apply here. (So this is more a rant summarising my feelings on this series as a whole)

One thing I will say, however, is that I am honestly devastated that my memory is as bad as it can be, in particular with this franchise. I have loved, loved all 3 parts of this trilogy but if you asked me to even summarise one of the first 2 games I'd get maybe 5% of the story right, it kinda sucks😭

I'm pretty confident that 3 is my favourite, and not just for recency bias, but the combat, the party, the world, the story, the relationships and development of the characters.. It is truly deserving of the label peak because it genuinely sits at the top of the JRPG mountain in my opinion. I fucking love that game dude, they even added a navigation line to follow!
(Unfortunatley, this expansion removes that again 😭 2 games and 2 expansions to finally stop me from getting lost only to rob me of it again, wounded!)

Anyway if you can't tell I'm already losing myself, these games have got me bad, man. It is all heart, I have no brain, no thoughts (no memory 😔) - I barely understand myself how they've touched me this much, but there's an undeniable charm and sincerity to them that's really just 😩

To make some comments about Future Redeemed specifically, I fully understand the reasoning behind Matthew et al, but I can't help but wonder if I'd have preferred somehow getting to bring things to fruition with familiar faces. Matthew is great don't get me wrong, but his specific personality archetype is an interesting one to go with for the main character of this expansion lol.
Also, without saying anything else: Holy shit the glow up, the future is not the only thing being redeemed god damn.

Final thoughts I think I preferred the combat and overall dynamics in the main game vs this, and locking arts and accessory slots behind finding rare items instead of your player level is kinda oof, but I got by. It felt a bit like XC3 but stripped back a little instead of further improved which is a shame, but with the bar set by XC3 I really don't think there was anywhere to go but backwards anyway.
Difficulty wise there was one boss near the end that was a huge spike for me, but admittedly I'd been playing somewhat lazily until then anyway and it didn't take too long to overcome it.

Overall: this is insane. This series is nothing short of beautiful and if you don't believe me then the soundtrack alone can prove you wrong with ease. I don't know if I want more or not but I definitely want more of something from this team. Do not let British voice acting put y'all off these games bro, yes I know XC2 sounds kinda goofy but you can play in Japanese if you must and even if you don't I guarantee that the voicework does not detract from how good they are. (Also Mio and Nia's accents are too good to pass up on smh shame on you)

Thanks for reading to all who did, hope it's okay that this is just word vomit but I really wasn't kidding when I said I have no words. Hope you're all having a wonderful December and enjoy any festivities you may or may not partake in. Until next time🙏

A game that does not deserve to be compared this badly with Resident Evil
I mean, they are made by Capcom, fair, and they are quite similar, but come on, it's gory horror with dinasaurs! What's there not to like ? Except the literal tight corridors filled with dinos...
The characters are cool, i like the choices that you can make because it really makes you think ''damn, should i do some hard puzzles or just beat up dinosaurs? '', and i am all up for it !
I really liked it, for 1999 game the cutscenes (like the ending one that is like... prolly the only one there lmao) are pretty cool, just like with silent hill 1, it's admirable.
The voice acting is sweet, there is this jankyness to it that i particulary like, the combat is pretty cool, i like how detailed this game is.
Different bullets for different things, different heals for different things, there is even bleeding that isn't exactly the best thing but it is a good detailed touch.
Different key cards for different doors, even if you wonder around, if you pay enough attention it will be good enough, and i like it! You have to fight for the progress, and you have to really connect the dots quite well.
Also i started on nov 22, got a lot of progress in nov 23 and got stuck at the generator part because i missed i have to get a fingerprint sample from dr. kirk, so... if you don't connect the dots you see what happens, lol, i just now finished it on 4 dec after just watching guides of what i should do, even though it's the smallest detail that is mentioned in the game, lol. But that's just me being terrible at gaming.
But anyway, an enjoyable little geim, that i enjoyed more than Resident Evil, and i'm not saying that i hate resident evil, but come on... this one has so much small details to it that makes it so cool.

Excellent. Looking forward to the next one!

Jedi Survivor is better than Fallen Order in just about every way in my opinion. I enjoyed the first game for sure, but I was never really 'excited' for it, nor this. After beating this one, well let's just say the reveal for the next one is going to be hype 😌

The story (while starting a little weird considering where FO left off) was pretty straightforward, but is told in such a way that I think this worked to its benefit. There were still twists, some more obvious than others, and only one moment that was egregiously silly. One reveal in particular seemed so glaringly obvious that I spent the whole game calling it out and then questioning whether I was just being cynical or if it was a red herring, and while I am of course a genius who clearly knows everything, my favourite thing about this was that the game handled this event in such a way that it was possible for me to have this ongoing struggle, and I think that's cool as shit. When I was proven right it wasn't with a sigh and an "of course", it was an "I FUCKING KNEW IT!!" - and if a game can get me that invested and excited over a "cliche" or an "obvious" reveal then it must be doing something better than everything else I'm just sayin'.

The characters in particular shine bright in this entry. Cal is a genuinely interesting protagonist and while a lot of the arcs and tropes he goes through in this can be compared to similar stories, some as recent as this year, that doesn't detract from how much of a blast it was to experience his. Cameron Monaghan's performance is as great as expected and by the end I really found myself invested in Cal's story, and I will be there when the next chapter of it releases.

Quickfire some other comments now the gush is over:
The environments felt much less overwhelming in this entry, and the navigation assist was a godsend in helping me not get lost. The maps are still pretty big and while I could understand people complaining about bouncing between the same few planets it didn't bother me at all.

The combat felt better as well, it's still not amazing with the stances being limited to so few combos, but having them at all was a nice touch. I do agree with the masses that only being able to switch between two of them at a time is a shame but it is what it is.

And most importantly: Merrin 😌

That'll do it, don't sleep on this one folks, in a year absolutely stacked with bangers this definitely sits up in the upper echelons, don't let the fact that it's still buried under other GOATs stop you from playing it!

Thanks for reading to all who did, hope you're have a great week. After I'm done with the P5T DLC story I'm gunna be going on a brief PS5 hiatus to focus on some Switch and PC games, not sure if or what I'll review of those but first up is XC3 Future Redeemed so stay tuned 🙏

P.S. I don't know whose idea it was to make the enemies in this game so pitiful that I feel bad for killing them but it's equal parts hilarious and 'aw :(' ... Hearing someone ask if Jedi wound people because they don't want to get wounded and then having to cut them in half moments later is 😔 RIP Rick, bud. ✊

Not a perfect game, but a fun one indeed.

I do think the first half was dragged a lot, but the last half was good and overall i liked the (again) new way to bring the P5 style to another genre.

Like i said in my Strikers review: i will be there for every last drop of milk Atlus get from P5... See you next year my fellow thieves!

Sure the combat could be better but if you think its bad clearly you've never impulse mega flare permafrost dancing steel into stagger will-o-the-wykes lightning rod gigaflare zantetsuken level 5-ed before and it shows :/

I struggled a good bit throughout my playthroughs of Final Fantasy XVI. It is now the third mainline game in the series I've beaten but at the time I started it I had intended it to be my first. Its a series I've always known i needed to try to get into, and the demo of this game was absolutely amazing, it completely blew me away. I was very unexpectedly hyped for this. And playing it I was like oh yeah this is def 5/5 material, after the Garuda fight I was so sold on the game. The music is fucking fantastic and I've never seen such awesome boss fights. But then after that the game felt like it had already peaked. There are still great boss fights through the rest of the game but they never were as impactful as the first 10 or so hours were for me. I felt myself increasingly disinterested in the plot and all the lore and by extension - the game itself.

All that changed near the end when I finally actually started doing side missions. I surprisingly ended up becoming quite fond of all the side characters in the Hideaway and to a much lesser extent the different characters out in the various towns and villages. The game has a pretty damn good cast. It was around that point that I was pretty hype for the end. And for the most part the finale delivers. Its plenty epic, and I was having a great time. But in the end, I was a bit disappointed in how everything wrapped up. That's not to say that there's really anything wrong with the ending, it just wasn't what I was wanting. How i feel about that is how I feel about Final Fantasy XVI as a whole. Plenty of great moments, but in the end still just a little disappointing.

Now that I've explained that I still think FFXVI is great, I have a lot more to complain about. Mostly minor things but it all added up over my 90 hours spent with the game. Some minor annoyances like enemy phases being tied to health bars so sometimes when you set up a stagger and start unleashing, the game just lets them sit there and recover without taking damage and you being unable to do anything for like 20 seconds before the next phase begins. There's also some battles in the wild where if the fight naturally goes a little further than where it started, enemies may just become immune and run back to their spawn point at full health. There's also without fail after every big boss, a main quest that's meant to let things settle but it just kills the pacing and feels like the game is wasting your time by dishing out forced side quests, sometimes several in a row. In the more dungeon-y areas the game is also pretty bad at leading the player along, there were several times I ran completely in the wrong direction because it doesn't make it clear what doors you can open unless you're right next to them. My final complaint is that Final Fantasy mode, the supposed hard mode for NG+, is a complete joke. Now I'm sort of glad it wasn't hard because it made the platinum obtainable for me and now that i have one for a mainline game in the series I don't ever have to bother again. But like, the games idea of hard is give every enemy 50x as much HP. For normal enemies it ain't nothin a level 5 Zantetsuken can't solve but any enemy with a stagger bar doesn't actually feel harder to fight, they just take ages to fucking kill. Even though i skipped every cutscene and did minimal side content, my FF playthrough felt longer than my first where I did basically everything. It just isn't very fun.

So that's about all of my thoughts with Final Fantasy XVI. But to end on a more positive note: Jill is hot and Titanic Block + Counter is one of the most satisfying moves of all time.

Thanks for reading <3

-----TLDR----
+ Great cast
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Awesome boss fights throughout
- Story quality and pacing is wildly inconsistent
- Didn't like the way it ended
- Too many little gameplay grievances that add up

Nancymeter - 85/100
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #278)
Time Played: 92 hours
Completion #6 of November
Completion #210 of 2023

Really great RGG game, it kinda as a vibe of Yakuza 0 if it was longer tho. You need AT LEAST to have completed Yakuza 0, 1, 6 and 7 to play this game ! I enjoyed the minigames a lot and the way with the missions with Akame (best woman character now for me), it was kinda like jobs with Yagami in Judgement and that the approach I prefer. Gameplay great, they really improved it with Judgment. Agent style is fun with the gadget but that all. I mostly used Yakuza style as it does a great job both on AOE and single. I know Joryu isn't like Yagami but still would have seen Agent as a lot more AOE. Story wise, great but really short, every other Yakuza is longer than this one. So in the end, really great game (and the final twist omfg)

Like a Dragon Gaiden: Thank You Kazuma Kiryu

Ryu Ga Gotoku's flagship franchise continues on its emblazoned warpath through the current landscape of gaming, faithful to a unique approach at telling the story of organized crime in contemporary Japan. What I expect in entering a Yakuza/Like a Dragon is an excellently penned multi-faceted tale of deceit and treachery written with as many twists and turns as a late stage Shin Megami Tensei dungeon coupled with some of the most frustrating combat on the market. Lo and behold, I got that with The Man Who Erased His Name. Is this expectation fair? I think so, did it alter my enjoyment of the game? Not really?

Like a Dragon Gaiden (I'll just call it LADG) serves as a storytelling tool to explain the location and whereabouts of the famed Dragon of Dojima between The Song of Life (Yakuza 6) and Like a Dragon (Yakuza 7,) a game in which Kiryu is effectively non-present. Given the results of the ending of the sixth installment, he dons a fake name and skips town under the alias Joryu. My run-through of the first few chapters of LADG left me with a few qualms, mostly because it felt like I was getting the typical Yakuza formula of breadcrumbing plot in the introductory sequences under the guise of aimless action. You're tasked with taking on miscellaneous jobs and helping around several locations that don't immediately feel like they are transitioning the plot and location of Kiryu from one game to the next like this title is intended to do. Before the Yakuza magic picked up and I was able to identify where the plot was going in relevance to Yakuza 7, I felt like I was too engrossed in the menial and irrelevant for my liking.

The ship rights itself eventually but the second and third chapters largely were a waste of runtime in my humble opinion. There's a section within one of these chapters (nursing a headache so I have forgotten which exactly,) in which you have to help the woman who is assisting you in pointing you in the right direction on your mission. For intel and a safe roof over your head, she requires Kiryu to assist her in building up her network of mostly homeless informants (reminiscent of the Florist and other informant types in the previous entries.) To do this you must assist the denizens of Sotenbori with various tasks that range from getting things out of trees to taking photos of clowns. This isn't bad on paper but the required Akame Points (Akame being the woman you are assisting) to hit rank 10 of the arbitrary story-gated ranking system took wayyy too long and greatly inflated my run time. Unless I was doing something very wrong, which is very possible, I was not a fan of the time dedicated to sprinting all over Osaka to buy people food at various Poppo Mart's just to hope that I would soon be able to move on with the story. I get the importance of helping out in terms of the narrative, but it ran its course and greatly detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

The combat sucks, that’s it, that's the verse.

I had my score of this game a notch lower as a result of the above, but in typical RGG/LAD/Yakuza fashion, LADG resolves itself in an incredible way, tying in the closing sequences of Yakuza 7 and a look into the Dragon of Dojima's immediate future with the franchise. I won't divulge spoilers per usual, but I found myself doing my hardest to hide the waterworks as we at long last have seen Kiryu at his most vulnerable emotionally. Years and years of his life (and our lives as the audience) plays out on a small screen in his hands, leaving him to watch as he learns how the world has moved both with him and around him. For a man who has made a career out of his stubborn valor, it was great as a spectator to get to see him stripped apart at his most relatable and human.

I would absolutely recommend this title to anyone who is a fan of the Like a Dragon franchise. It's a great way to wrap up story of Kazuma Kiryu as our primary protagonist, and a very strong glimpse at what RGG has in store.