Absolute meme. I can not believe some of the cutscenes in this game got past the planning stage. The cutscene towards the beginning where Jack starts playing Limp Bizkit after beating a boss is the funniest fucking thing a video game has and ever will do and I have never laughed harder than when I first watched that scene. And scenes like that are actually good for the game because without them it would be so fucking boring because the story actually does suck and not a single character is memorable in this game. I appreciate the complexity of the combo system and how you can customize you combos, but ultimately I do not think the game is good enough that anyone would have really used that feature. I probably would have finished the game were it not for the weird out of place looter shooter style drop system that equipment has. I feel like I spent most of my time organizing and throwing out equipment while playing this game because even the auto trash equipment feature was not fleshed out enough to actually dump the equipment I wanted while keeping the pieces I might want. Part of me does wish that FF16 had this games combat, because the combat is this game is actually really good and if paired alongside other game mechanics and features that were actually good, would put this game much higher up on the list.

This game is much more enjoyable once you abandon the copium of a full classic RPG experience. That is probably dead for the mainline FF franchise going forward. Once I embraced that fact a whole halfway into the game, my overall enjoyment from the game increased. I feel this game is much, much more comparable to the recent GoW games; a AAA action/adventure title with some light rpg progression elements sprinkled in. But unlike many of those games, the rpg elements actually make sense given the history of this game's franchise. I love a good cutscene, especially ones created by the technical masters over in SE's visual department, but even I got occasionally burnt out by little gameplay their was in between the movies the game played for me. Unfortunately, when those gameplay segments did finally arrive, they were all way too piss easy, even without the absolute baby mode creating accessories the game gives you in the beginning. Still, decent enough combat and a great, engaging story makes FF16 a good game despite its shortcomings. And what really makes 16's story great is the incredible acting from the game's cast. Byron especially is an immediate standout performance. Finally, a touch I personally appreciated was how absolutely comprehensive the lore database in this game is. A lesson I think any story driven game with at least a little bit of lore should learn. The Active Time Lore feature you can pull up DURING cutscenes is absolutely genius, and I literally wish every single game ever had it. I'm the type of player that loves reading through chunks of lore so the ATL, lore master in the hideout, and Vivian Ninetails were all wonderful aspects of the game that added a considerable amount of time to my playtime just by me flipping through mountains of paragraphs pertaining to the lore of the universe. (also Cid is daddy)

This game ticks off all of the important boxes for a gacha game for me: Good art/interesting character designs, fun manual gameplay that can still be auto battled if need be, in-depth and meaningful team building, and decently respects me as a player and not just a cash cow as much as a gacha game can (looking at you Genshin).
Far and away the best story I have ever read in a gacha game. I never thought the day would come where I would be excited to continue the story of a gacha event, but Nikke managed to do it. The soundtrack managed to blindside me in the same way by being far more impressive than anything I would have expected from an boobie anime game.
Possibly the most surprising expectation that this game has defied for me is in its community. It manages to not only be not the worst fandom ever (again, looking at you, Genshin) but is actually a good time to engage in. The subreddit is just a lowly pit of horniness and general degeneracy that uses those shared feelings to create an incredibly dumb, silly community that is fun to scroll through and laugh at the absurd jiggle physics tier lists and read the very uniquely strong and descriptive feelings of attraction other people have towards their favorite character. 3 and a half stars is the highest my conscience will let me rate a gacha game, no matter how much I personally love it.

Oh man, there is too much I could say about this experience. The most fascinating game I played this year and one of the most I ever will play (and the most fucked up). Somehow this little RPG Maker game kept itself planted inside my head for weeks after first discovering it during all of my waking hours not playing it even while I was playing through it alongside the likes of FF16 and OG Pikmin. Super Eyepatch Wolf has a wonderful video about this game that I would recommend anyone at least a little bit intrigued by this game watch.

Dated Steam review: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198070668389/recommended/1289310/

TLDR:
10. Pandemonica
9. Beelzebub
8. Justice
7. Judgement
6. Azazel
5. Cerebus
4. Modeus
3. Malina
2. Zdrada
1. Lucifer

Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198070668389/recommended/1203220

Naraka is a wildly unstable game; It freezes like nothing you've ever played - sometimes for up to around 8 seconds at a time. I've gotten multiple random disconnects when my internet connection to everything else on my PC was perfectly fine. Sometimes the game doesn't ever unfreeze and just crashes instead. Sometimes my internet browser will crash while playing Naraka and is unfixable to the point where I have to restart the entire machine. At least one of these problems is basically guaranteed if you alt tab for even a second during any loading screen. I can say with the upmost confidence that these issues have lost me at least 30 rounds, enough to make me lose count. Sometimes everything runs smoothly, but then you run into an opponent dealing with one of the aforementioned issues which ruins the experience anyways by either giving you an unsatisfying free kill, or by dying to a Chinese player on a VPN who is teleporting around the battlefield due to their 500 ping.

These issues are frustrating for sure, but it's amplified tenfold because past all of these constant technical issues is a wildly fun and refreshing Battle Royale game.

When Naraka works, its one of the most enjoyable multiplayer experiences I've had in a long time. The melee combat is a much more engaging and exciting take on the BR formula than any other game in the genre I've seen. The rock-paper-scissors formula of basic attacking, focus attacking, or parrying is simple enough to understand and get the hang of while more advanced mechanics baked in like jump/crouch/dash canceling, weapon and character specific combos, and souljades that change the properties of your weapon's attacks give the battle system some much appreciated depth that keeps you playing more rounds and striving to become a better player.

Gameplay is enhanced with 7 different characters each with unique, customizable abilities who are all unlocked for free at the beginning of the game - along with new characters confirmed by the devs to be released later for in-game currency. (Yoto Hime is only free for a limited time I think, so might not be free when you read this) With 5 different melee weapons each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses, there's a lot of mechanics to learn and utilize. Of course there are still a multitude of different ranged weapons to wield, each also with their own different properties, but you wont be winning any full on fights with just these ranged options. This is because of how fast and fluid the movement in the game is. With grapple hooks and fast vertical movement a la Assassin's Creed (and actually less frustrating than AC), there are plenty of ways to reposition and maneuver around a fight and find different angles of attack.

The game is surprisingly entirely skill based, with the only aspect not being totally level at first is the glyph system - which is reminiscent of old League runes. Unlike old League runes however, it's extremely easy it is to completely max out your glyphs in Naraka with currency earned from playing the game.

When you want a break from the BR mode, want to practice new combos and tech, or just want to de-tilt from the constant connection issues that got you killed very first 3 ranked games in a row, you can't do much better than the Bloodbath mode. This deathmatch style game mode is more fast paced and low stakes than the classic BR modes; with 10 minutes to score as many points as possible by killing as many other players as you can with the entire game's arsenal available from the start. It's an enjoyable change of pace and I hope to see more unique game modes released in the future.

When it works, Naraka is one of the most enjoyable Battle Royale experiences you can get. It's up to the devs at this point to keep me playing for a lot longer by ironing out connection and stability issues, because if left unattended for long enough it could change the recommendation of this review.

terribad Steam review:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198070668389/recommended/201810/

TLDR: New Order is a decently enjoyable campaign based fps, which admittedly are not really my thing to begin with. Mowing down and absolutely decimating packs of Nazis is why you play this game over any others imo. Rampaging against extremist, fascist regimes is certainly fun and satisfying, which is why the easier difficulties are more recommended from me. Feeling like an superhuman Nazi-killing badass is a lot more enjoyable than dealing with the frustrations this game brings on the hardest difficulties. Enjoyable experience but one I wouldn't partake in if it featured any enemies other than Nazis and one I wished I had just blasted through on easy mode for fun instead of grinding through Uber difficulty. 6/10

One of the first Metroidvanias I played outside of actual Metroid, Axiom Verge is a must play for fans of the genre. The atmosphere aligns itself with that of Metroid Fusion's, a tense, scifi near horror setting that utilizes player tension to keep them more engaged in the experience. The story provided within Axiom Verge is as interconnected as the level design the genre is known for, sprouting multiple fan theories in regards to the actual facts of the story on the game's wiki which are a joy to browse and try to wrap your head around. The sci-fi synthwave soundtrack is a jam all the way through and perfectly encapsulates the setting and tone of the game. The final product is even more impressive knowing it was all made by 1 man, level design to coding to composition. The only hiccups I had with the game was the vast amount of weapons the player can unlock that don't actually do anything other than give you a different type of gun to fight enemies, but with over 20 different guns to unlock the player has probably settled on 2-3 by the mid game. This makes unlocking new powers in the game less exciting because a lot of the time you won't ever actually use what you just unlocked. 8/10