As fundamentally good as C&C but now with good campaigns! Base building missions often have clear objectives instead of "wipe them all out" and the puzzle missions have more focus on experimentation over save scumming. Red Alert delivers all that was promised in the original C&C

The FMVs are obviously a pleasure and this game contains all the individual pieces of a good RTS, but the campaigns are a nightmare. Missions come in three flavours: infuriating, tedious, and 30 seconds long. An important game, sure, but more a rough draft for Red Alert.

A little too edgy, a little too comfortable, a little too simple, a little too involved, a little too bleak, and a little too much of a power fantasy--truly I have never played a more mixed bag than this. The only thing clear-cut about it is that the beastman stuff is mad racist

FFII is a nesting doll of interesting but completely invisible systems attached to some incredible early jrpg gimmicks, all held together by the sudden, startling presence of an actual story with a bad guy who rocks. The world is in peril and The Emperor hates you.

ARR's introduction to Eorzea is the slowest a whistlestop tour can get. The experience could be improved by having some enjoyable characters for the ride, but between all the racism and misogyny we only have time for maybe 3 guys I could talk about for more than 15 seconds

every single little detail of this game could only have been devised by a brain the size of jupiter

the tech of the xbox 360 allows AC6 to simulate a million enemy and allied planes immediately behind your fighter (a multirole fighter as every mission is like 8 missions in 1), following your every move, never once shooting at each other because they all know you're the player

you have 1 moveset + 3 switchable buttons (2 of which are on cooldowns) to cover 40 hours of fighting boring enemies that mostly wait to be killed, all while watching an unhinged plot that keeps going "your father always loved his slaves... unlike your harlot mother"

this dying world is so full of life--one comically tiny solar system made emotionally vast by a thousand carefully crafted wonders and horrors, all connected by a deftly woven mystery that comes complete with digital corkboard and string

yo they were not exaggerating about this being a resident evil mansion damn

a dungeon is a map, not an aesthetic. in Soul Hackers 2 the map is always onscreen by default, and in order to see the repetitive subway tunnels you have to peer through the growing translucent labyrinth that lends them meaning. a refreshing cast and plot are a bonus

Dark Cloud is too much grind, combat is too fiddly and repetitive, and the last third of the building projects offer no creative leeway. Still, scouring a dungeon to retrieve shops and NPCs to add to a village remains undeniably satisfying

if movement feels good you are 90% of the way to a great video game. you have to REALLY fuck up that last 10% to make a bad video game. Gravity Rush 2's one big fuck up is as follows: there isn't a Gravity Rush 3

in P3 social links were designed to make you choose how to spend your limited time on this earth. in P5 they're for letting you tailor your dream high school experience, where you're aloof, confident, and sexy enough to fuck your teacher

Is that good? I dunno. the dungeons blow

50% crunch, 40% vibe, 10% listening to your weird friend say the most fucked up shit imaginable and just nodding like, "yeah bro I get you." Nocturne is raw SMT: a dungeon crawling aesthetic experience fuelled by incredibly satisfying combat and party mechanics