this did its job of making me excited for 8 and accomplished very little else.
they are showing a willingness to make kiryu as a character and kuroda as an actor extend way fucking further than he did in the prior seven games - i don't think i can even visualize kiryu so consumed by helpless despair that snot is coming out of his nose as he trembles and weeps for any incarnation of the character prior to this, and that flexibility relative to the series baseline is what i appreciated about ichiban. i was dreading kiryu's return for infinite wealth, but i think they might actually have a real angle for him.
that being said, this game sabotages every part of its narrative, mechanical, thematic, tonal, and character construction for 80% of its runtime in the disgustingly cynical decision to make it a $50 game instead of a focused DLC or interlude. if this game was a DLC that shipped without any side content past substories and the ayame network, but used that smaller scope to tell a focused, well-paced narrative without constant utterly horrific pacebreakers this would be fantastic, and you can very much tell that something of that scope was closer to the original intent than this.
until the literal point of no return, there is not a single plot beat in the entire game that doesn't have 5-30 minutes of utter dead air between it and the next thing of value. i have little interest in these games' coliseum matches and this game makes you do them on literally six different fucking occasions. you constantly go between it and the couch, and it means that you become hyper-familiar with exactly two alleyways in sotenbori as you repeatedly walk back and forth between two points of interest instead of these games' ability to make you ping-pong between a variety of locations throughout the world.
it's a fascinating companion piece to 6, both for the obvious narrative connections, but also in the way that both games are fundamentally compromised. 6's insane ambition and messy development create a seamless experience with chunks missing, and a plot that is essentially white noise as their best-laid plans fizzle apart in the pursuit of pure polygon-pushing. it's something i have sympathy for. gaiden is, instead, something that has flashes of true brilliance and pathos, with a unique atmosphere and a real desire to be connective tissue and closure all at once. its failures come from pure fucking greed and a meaningless search for length over focus. i can't forgive it for the fundamental cynicism of the decision to charge $50 for this
they are showing a willingness to make kiryu as a character and kuroda as an actor extend way fucking further than he did in the prior seven games - i don't think i can even visualize kiryu so consumed by helpless despair that snot is coming out of his nose as he trembles and weeps for any incarnation of the character prior to this, and that flexibility relative to the series baseline is what i appreciated about ichiban. i was dreading kiryu's return for infinite wealth, but i think they might actually have a real angle for him.
that being said, this game sabotages every part of its narrative, mechanical, thematic, tonal, and character construction for 80% of its runtime in the disgustingly cynical decision to make it a $50 game instead of a focused DLC or interlude. if this game was a DLC that shipped without any side content past substories and the ayame network, but used that smaller scope to tell a focused, well-paced narrative without constant utterly horrific pacebreakers this would be fantastic, and you can very much tell that something of that scope was closer to the original intent than this.
until the literal point of no return, there is not a single plot beat in the entire game that doesn't have 5-30 minutes of utter dead air between it and the next thing of value. i have little interest in these games' coliseum matches and this game makes you do them on literally six different fucking occasions. you constantly go between it and the couch, and it means that you become hyper-familiar with exactly two alleyways in sotenbori as you repeatedly walk back and forth between two points of interest instead of these games' ability to make you ping-pong between a variety of locations throughout the world.
it's a fascinating companion piece to 6, both for the obvious narrative connections, but also in the way that both games are fundamentally compromised. 6's insane ambition and messy development create a seamless experience with chunks missing, and a plot that is essentially white noise as their best-laid plans fizzle apart in the pursuit of pure polygon-pushing. it's something i have sympathy for. gaiden is, instead, something that has flashes of true brilliance and pathos, with a unique atmosphere and a real desire to be connective tissue and closure all at once. its failures come from pure fucking greed and a meaningless search for length over focus. i can't forgive it for the fundamental cynicism of the decision to charge $50 for this