I can think of few Yakuza games with as much issues as Yakuza 5. From the messy and convoluted storyline; to the mostly weak antagonists, to its unwillingness to fully explore some of its subject matter. But I can also think of few Yakuza games I enjoyed as much as Yakuza 5. In terms of combat it's my favorite game behind Zero, the variety of its movesets and improved boss design from 4 made for so many enjoyable encounters. And the minigames are some of my favorite in the series. Taxi driving as Kiryu, hunting as Saejima, idol industry work as Haruka, baseball as Shinada; not only being mechanically enjoyable but are able to give some genuinely heartwarming stories that furthered my appreciation of the characters. But as I mentioned earlier I don't feel that positive when it comes to the main plot. Yakuza 5 has one of the most inconsistent plots in the series, having some of Yakuza’s best scenes along with one of its most messy storylines. Kiryu and Saejima’s parts have some great character work, but Saejima’s part suffers from pacing issues and the convoluted storyline. Haruka and Akiyama’s part was really fun to play, but is brought down by inconsistent character writing (Mrs Park and those two cunts from T-Set) and an unwillingness to fully explore the dark side of the idol industry. Shinada’s part was really fun because of how much I like Shinada and his relationship with Takasugi, but I didn't like a certain plot twist and the home run subplot started to bore me around the end. The final part puts on display a lot of these issues I mentioned, yet when I played that final chapter I left the game feeling really satisfied. It's a touching resolution for the main characters that puts on display what makes each of them so great, and it also includes two of my favorite boss fights of the series so far. This game is such a perfect encapsulation of what Yakuza is, flaws and all. And while I wish some things about it were different, I still had a great time playing through it, and it reminded me yet again what makes these games so special.

The more I think about it this is probably my favorite video game. It's very far from perfect, having a good amount of jank and some really weak areas in the late game. But it still manages to be such a special overall experience. The level design and atmosphere surpasses any other Soulsborne game I've played, the combat is fun and allows for so much variety, the boss roster although inconsistent has some incredible highs (Manus, Kalmeet, O&S), and it has a strong emotional element thanks to its endearing side characters and thought provoking themes. It was a bit overwhelming on my first playthrough, but upon replays it has become something of a comfort game for me. I've replayed this game 3 times now and I still have yet to get bored of it.

Exploring Racoon City Police Station for the first time is one of the best video game experiences I’ve had. The combination of tense atmosphere and intricate level design made this area both terrifying and a joy to explore; giving me a newfound interest in survival horror gaming. But unfortunately I can’t say I enjoyed the rest of the game nearly as much. The level design isn't as strong, but also suffers from some terrible boss fights and sections where you play as other characters. But besides all of that, these sections past the Police Station start placing more emphasis on the story, which I got bored of really quickly. There's nothing bad about it, but everything from the dialogue to the story beats felt so generic. Which could work if the tone of the game wasn't so self serious all the time. And on my second playthrough all these issues I had became much more apparent, slightly souring the overall experience for me. I had a lot fun with the RE2 Remake and I'm interested in playing other games in this series, but I just wish that the rest of this game lived up to those opening hours.

While this was a fun game, I feel pretty comfortable calling it my least favorite Souls game so far. What FromSoftware has done here is extremely impressive in terms of scale and visual design, but it does so at the cost of what made me love these games. Despite the massive amount of content in Elden Ring, it feels less satisfying to explore due to the amount of copy-paste content. This along with the late game difficulty spike made this game pretty fatiguing at times. The boss roster is probably the worst out of the Souls games I've played, even in terms of main bosses there's so few I would call good, and even those don't come close to the best bosses of Dark Souls 1 or 3. And in terms of storytelling and lore, this is the least I've cared about a Souls game. The Dark Souls games may have a lot of ambiguity, but they more or less tell you everything you need to know about its premise and themes. But even after beating Elden Ring I feel like I wasn't given nearly enough information despite the increased amount of cutscenes and dialogue, making any motivation for progressing the game beyond gameplay nonexistent. Even if I enjoyed most of my time with Elden Ring, I can't help but look at it as a bit of a letdown. And I can only hope that this isn't a sign for FromSoftware games to come.

This didn't really do anything for me. As someone who loved almost everything about Nier:Automata, I was very excited to check out its predecessor (or I guess the remake of it) to hopefully get another experience on that level. But I wouldn't even say I like this game. I struggled to connect with most of the characters, the themes felt pretty one note, I didn't like any of the endings, and the amount of times you have to replay most of game to get all the endings was ridiculous. Really wish I liked this as much as everyone else seems to.

“We are the Yakuza 4.”.

While I had a good time with Yakuza 4, I can't deny it's an absolute mess of a game. It has a lot going for it with 3 new protagonists who are all pretty interesting, additions to the combat system that make it feel fresh, some fun new side content, and a genuine sense of tension and intrigue in its earlier chapters. But unfortunately it's paired by the worst storylines of the series so far. Gradually piling up more and more stupid reveals that make it nearly impossible to understand or care about anything that happens after the halfway point. It also has these random scenes that portray the main characters in ways that makes them harder to empathize with (Saejima’s first scene with Haruka being the worst example by far). The boss fights also are awful, the amount of dodging and stun locking combos made for my least favorite bosses of any video game. Even if I did enjoy this game, I can't deny it's probably the worst of the series so far.

Just an incredible experience in almost every way. Out of all the Souls games I've played, 3 is the one I struggled with the most. It’s more accessible than the previous two in a lot of ways, but is balanced out by some incredibly brutal levels and enemies. This is also the Souls game with my favorite lineup of bosses. There's a few that I disliked, but the rest ranged from good to some of my favorite bosses in video games (The Nameless King easily being my favorite). The storytelling although abstract I found incredibly moving due to the existential ideas it touches upon. I was also a big fan of the callbacks in this game, the complaints I've seen about these callbacks always felt a bit surface level to me when they almost always add something to the themes and narrative beyond just being fanservice. My only real complaint for the game is the areas. Despite looking really good at times, the game’s color palette made for a handful that weren't visually interesting. But besides that the areas themselves have too many enemies and generally lack the creative level design found in Dark Souls 1. These issues didn't ruin my experience at all, but because of them I would rate 3 a bit lower than 1. Still an incredible game that I can easily call one of my new favorites.

I heard this was a divisive DLC but I wasn't expecting to actually dislike it. Ariandel was one of my least favorite locations in the game. Despite having beautiful visuals and some cool shortcuts, it has a lot of annoying enemies that made it a pain to play. I can't say I love the bosses either. Gravetender & Greatwolf was really annoying, feeling like it was just hard for the sake of it. Sister Friede on the other hand was a pretty good fight with beautiful animations, great music, and a challenging move-set. But the combination of its difficulty with how long it takes to finish did sour the fight for me a little bit, and I ended up summoning an NPC to speed things up. Overall a bit of a disappointing DLC.

One of the most bizarre yet compelling experiences I've had with a video game. It has so many problems with its technical performance and gameplay, yet there's something so endearing about it. The way it portrays people in the midst of a natural disaster feels melodramatic yet strangely human, and seeing the destruction caused by these disasters could be genuinely affecting at times. I just love how this game is able to balance tragedy, comedy, and moments of peace in a way that feels mostly coherent. But unfortunately I don't like the direction its story takes around the end. The tragedy element is hammered down a bit too much, there's a plot twist that's really dumb (but not in a fun way), and there's a plot point involving SA that I thought was handled very poorly. There were moments of Disaster Report 4 where I thought it could be one of my new favorites, but these issues did sour the experience a little bit. Still a very enjoyable experience that I would like to replay in the future.

Glad that I finally got around to beating this expansion. I originally gave up on it after getting stuck on Artorias, and it was only on my new game plus that I finished it. While I don't think it quite reaches the highs of the base game (Anor Londo & Undead Burg/Parish), I can't deny that this is a great expansion. The atmosphere is as strong as always, the NPCs were memorable (although a bit underdeveloped), the lore implications are very interesting, and the bosses were some of the best in the entire game. Sanctuary Guardian was solid, Artorias & Kalameet were great, and Manus was my favorite boss of the game. Although there was other parts I liked, these bosses for me were the standout part of Artorias of the Abyss. The only thing that really held this DLC back for me was the areas. As although the atmosphere is great, they are really annoying to traverse due to the amount of powerful enemies & the lack of bonfires. But even with these issues I still found Artorias of the Abyss really enjoyable, and it reminded me why I love this game as much as I do.

Besides having great visuals and a couple fun additions; this was kind of infuriating to play. I didn't like the gimmick with the ghost enemies, the placement of some bonfires was annoying, and the amount of ganking is just as much of an issue as in the main game. I was hoping I'd at least get some good bosses, but I didn't even get that. The Sinh fight was fine, but the fights with Elana and the Gank Squad were terrible IMO. I'm hoping I'll like the other DLCs more, as this just didn't do much for me.

I'm genuinely surprised that Yakuza 3 is considered one of the weaker entries of the series, as I personally had such a great time with it. The combat may be less polished than later games, but I still found it so much fun, especially in the last chapter. And like the other games, there's plenty of fun side stories and minigames to make spending time in Kamurocho and Okinawa really fun. The story may have some pacing issues, but as a whole I feel it's very strong. It puts on display what makes Kiryu such an endearing character (his kindness and empathy) but also such a tragic one (unintentionally putting those he loves in danger). This combined with some of my favorite side characters and one of my favorite antagonists made this story so compelling for me. And when it all culminated so beautifully in that final chapter, it feels very easy for me to call this one of my favorite Yakuza games.

Now I remember why I didn't bother finishing this lol. By no means a bad dlc, just a pretty forgettable one. The gameplay was fun and nice to look at; but just like the original game it's extremely easy. I beat the whole thing in only an hour on Normal difficulty. The story was also underwhelming. The premise of it was interesting enough and I get what they were going for with Gladio's development; but in execution it felt very underdeveloped and unnecessary. Like I said this DLC is not bad, but it's just so vastly overshadowed by Episodes Prompto and Ignis in pretty much every way.

Ehhh, I really wanted to like this one with how much of a fan I am of MGS 2 and 3. But there were too many things here that just don't work for me. The stealth action gameplay is pretty good despite me not liking the controls, but it also has large amounts of backtracking that were extremely boring. There were some fun boss fights with cool gimmicks, but some of the later boss fights were infuriating for me. I wasn't the biggest fan of the story either. It was strange since it has all the elements you see in later games. The anti war themes, the convoluted storylines, balancing of different tones, characters going on long monologues whenever they get the chance. Yet I couldn't help but feel bored by the story, not feeling particularly intrigued or impacted by anything that happened. It does have some scenes I genuinely liked and I appreciate it setting up all the storylines that the next games will build upon; but I just don't feel any strong emotions towards the plot as a whole. MGS 1 by no means a bad game, just one that I really wish clicked with me more.

Wow. While I would still consider Sons of Liberty my favorite of the MGS games I've played, Snake Eater comes extremely close. The gameplay for one thing was so much fun. I love how they combined stealth mechanics of the previous games with survival elements, allowing for so many interesting gameplay options. The story was pretty great also. It's fun and at times hilarious; but when it needs to it's absolutely gut wrenching. But just like the previous game I did have issues. While the story is overall good; it didn't quite have me hooked like Sons of Liberty did, and I really didn't like the writing of Volgin’s character. I also felt very mixed by the boss fights. Most of them were good with some genuinely great ones; but there were also ones that really annoyed me like The Fury and The End. These things hold back the game a bit for me, but just like Sons of Liberty it's made up for by how incredible the ending is. Where all the pieces that were set up culminate in a powerful conclusion that brought me to tears. Snake Eater was already great, but the ending being this perfect easily cements it as one of my new favorite games.