Hot Pursuit is a very welcome entry in the series. It is still a little barebones and there are a lot of annoyances, but there is plenty to like about it. Much like the previous entry the tracks are stellar, but the big improvement comes in the driving - cars actually behave in a predictable manner making the core experience of driving fun which makes all the difference. I am less keen on the AI, but let's say they are passable.

There is still very little progression and I feel like the game only hits it's full potential with a really fast car which eliminates a lot of the variety vehicle wise, but once you do pick a good one going around the tracks feels great.

The tracks feel incredibly fast, and yet retain a very dynamic feel of twists and turns. The themes are visually fun and even though the tracklist isn't huge they are suprisingly customizable. Changing the time of day, adding rain and mirroring / reversing the track can create a large amount of combinations that manage to feel rather distinct. This pairs nicely with the new Expert Knockout mode which is basically just a better version of my favourite gamemode from the last game. The key difference here is that the tracks and conditions are randomized so you have a lot of different scenarios thrown at you.

A key addition is also the Hot Pursuit mode which was the first time the series truly focused on police chases. Dodging the police was quite fun on the racer side, although the big tradeoff is that the game wasn't likely able to render a lot of cars at once so police chases are only possible in a 1v1 race making the race part of it a little redundant. The police side is...considerably less fun because I don't really think the engine is suited well for ramming cars off road and you don't have that many gadgets.

Overall I would say I still had an enjoyable time though and I would even say that this is the first good Need for Speed game because as much as there is to complain about I can't deny that I had fun driving.

An improvement over the first game although still a rather lacklustre entry to the series. The stars of the show are the tracks that boast very nice theming and layouts. If only the driving itself was up to par. It ranges from fine if you choose a really good car to poor with a bad one. The physics engine seems to actively try to sabotage everyone at all times with it going wild every time two objects touch. It can be mildly amusing when it happens to the AI and you see big pileups, but most of the time it's just frustrating. I do think that this would lead to a very fun multiplayer experience though. Especially the Knockout mode which was rather fun.

This hurts even as a fan of less than stellar flash games

This is without a doubt one of my favorite video games of all time. Impeccable atmosphere and a sense of place. Unmatched exploration. It is just a joy to discover this world and well worth it even though the jank sometimes shines through.

Yakuza 5 is probably the most conflicted I have ever been about a game in this series. It excels at so many things and yet there's an almost equal amount of stuff I wish were done better. I'm torn to the point that you could tell me Yakuza 5 is either your favorite entry in the series or the worst one and I would probably see some merit in both views - for me it ends up somewhere in the middle.

It continues what Y4 did with the multiple protagonists and I am still not sure I like this approach. In my opinion they did not end up cracking the code to satisfying multi-protagonist progression / story until Yakuza 0 which came a few years afterwards. This large cast creates a problem with progression since you only get a limited amount of playtime with each character which means levelling is happening at supersonic speed making you an instant powerhouse and then you are forced to start all over again as you switch to a different character. In Y4 each character got around 7 hours of playtime which made it all feel comically fast, while in this one I clocked out at around 10-15. It feels a little better, but by improving one aspect the entire game as a whole started to drag for me. It's not necessarily the length itself, but rather the structure. This approach itself is very difficult to get right, but the feeling of slowness is likely made worse by the main narrative.

In Y4 the main narrative between each of the protagonists was closely intertwined with reveals that keep up a constant level of tension; Y5 acts more like a collection of short stories following the lives of each of our characters, but it is frequently undermined by forcefully inserting points of an overarching story that seems like it has no place in the narrative or reason to exist there apart from "well there has to be some connective tissue". Due to the insistence of all that being there, the personal stories feel a bit unfocused and drag more than they should. It is a shame because the individual tales are really well done. Not only are they interesting, but they are actively supported by all the side content both narratively and gameplay wise.

Something that really works well with that is the addition of Side-Stories, which are a collection of optional tasks, minigames that tie into the journey of your character and are far more robust than substories. Kiryu is trying to hide so he becomes a taxi driver with a fake name. There is actual driving, street races, contained narrative and a separate progression just for that job. Saejima gets stranded in a village during winter and has to learn hunting which comes with a proper system for all that where you out on hunts, and fulfil requests of villagers while trying to uncover a local spooky folk tale mystery. Haruka is an idol, and her entire Side Story is about going on talk shows, dancing, battling rival dancers etc. All of this is the heart of Yakuza 5 and is what makes the game special. I know I come across as really negative up above, but it is only because I feel like if the developers had chosen to go all in with this individual journey approach this could have been something truly magnificent. I understand some of the desire to have it all be connected by a more traditional 'Yakuza' story, but I think that would have worked much better if it was perhaps condensed to a single character and tied to their journey instead of forcing it on every single one of them.

So yeah there are things I hate about this game, there are things I love about this game, but in the end it just wore me down.

Knight's Path: The Tournament is a free vertical slice of an upcoming open world action-RPG meant to give people a taste of the different systems it will be built up on. It largely focuses on selling the combat mechanics and skill progression but you do get a hint of the other mechanics as well. There's a tiny bit of exploration, tiny bit of questing, tiny bit of dialogue, etc.

Now as a standalone project there are clear shortcomings here: unfinished menus, placeholder voice acting (i hope), overall rough feel BUT somehow I was still engrossed for a good 6 hours and I do think that it succeeded in its primary goal which was to get me excited about that future project. Most of this hinges upon the combat feeling fun and satisfying and I think that if they can successfully expand everything around this core then the team has something quite fun in their hands.

2016

It was sometimes a little bit fun going down a mountain fast, but everything surrounding that core is actively putting me off from spending any more time on this.

On many levels, Ys Seven embodies everything a Ys game should be. Coming from Origin I immediately loved the sense of adventure that oozes from this game. It's one of my favourite elements of the series so getting that right is a big bonus. I love traveling the lands, helping people, collecting different items to progress, and upgrading my equipment. The map progression is satisfying along with interesting dungeons and landscapes to explore. There's an epic story about saving the region and as always - a banger soundtrack.

I enjoy the new party-based combat system as well. Ys always has satisfying combat, but it's naturally a bit scary when they switch their style every few games. Now it is nowhere near to being as polished as the two final Napishtim engine games, but it does remind me of Napishtim itself which very similarly had to introduce a new combat style in a new engine. We did sacrifice jumping because flying enemies have to be attacked by specific party members, but the overall feel of picking the right tool for the job is nice and party progression is well handled.

All apart from one aspect - for some reason, the boss fights in Ys Seven are quite poor. I can chalk some of it down to the more hack-and-slashy combat not being as well suited for boss fights (esp since for these you can use any party member freely without having to think about their damage type), but the primary issue here is that for the most part the boss fights themselves just aren't interestingly designed. There might be an exception or two, but for the most part, the phases aren't that interesting and you don't have to think or adapt all that much.

That being said I liked nearly everything else about this game and regard it quite fondly. I am interested to see how this party-based combat system evolves moving forward and whether we can see another jump in quality akin to the one between Napishtim and Felghana.

Origin is an interesting entry in the Ys series, as it drops many qualities that I would generally expect from one. The biggest one is that instead of an adventure, we get a straight-up dungeon crawl exploring the tower from the first game. There are various biomes, although I still ended up missing some variety. The game also has to be completed 2-3 times to get to the canon ending with most of the layouts remaining the same - something I am also not a big fan of. It is quite short as is and I feel like making the paths more unique would have added a lot to the experience. The saving grace here is that the combat is damn solid. Very similar to Felghana, but just a tiny bit tighter. It just feels really good to play. It was nice learning more about the lore of Ys as well and getting to beat different incarnations of all the bosses from the original game was very fun. Not fun enough to be in contention for my favorites in the series, but a damn good game regardless.

There's more content, but a lot of the charm of the first two games is gone so what is left is just a bit of a mess.

The new RTS mechanic was a little repetitive, and there's a distinct lack of cohesion compared the the LEGO games that follow a specific movie; but it is still a LEGO game and the base loop can still be fun.

Easily the best of the 3D universe games, although part of me does think that it loses some of its focus after we leave Los Santos. The game was at its best when it was focused on the gangs and the family. After that moment there are very cool missions here and there, but little ties it together narratively so my level of investment wasn't really as high as I would have liked. The map is huge and visually diverse which makes traversal fun, but it can feel quite empty at times. I am focusing a little too much on the negatives compared to the other two since it was THE game when I was growing up, but I did have fun. It is also an all around improvement mechanically compared to 3 and Vice City.

Pretty much like the first one, but with a bunch of improvements. A lot of the same issues apply and it is very probable that it wouldn't appeal to most people today, but I had quite a bit of fun with this.

Swords and Sandals I is probably the most buggy out of them all. It is easily cheesable and frequently frustrating. It isn't a very deep game. But it somehow captured me as a child, and even now I played though it in one sitting because I got addicted so there has to be something there.

I have been going through LEGO games for a while and was hoping for some sweet redemption after Indy 2, but this one also just feels off. They've tried to provide a few interesting levels, but in general it just looks quite bland and feels rushed after the first quarter of the game.