I'm not really sure where I got the impetus to replay Deltarune from, other than that I wanted a small game I could play over the few days before the release of Persona 3 Reload. I haven't touched Deltarune in two years but I was still able to beat Jevil first try on this playthrough, nice to know I've still got it.

Definitely the weaker of Deltarune's two chapters, but still a lot of fun. Great music, nice character development for Susie, though I think it only really finds its footing after she joins the party properly. Made me remember the release of Chapter 2, back when I still used social media, and all the theories and memes from the fanbase.

At the time of release my only console was my Switch, and this came out on Switch a week after it came out on PC. That week was spent dodging as many spoilers as I could on social media, despite desperately wanting to see all the memes and theories. Late 2021 was a very bad time for me, and playing Deltarune and interacting with the community was something of a bright spot for me. Noelle's arc in this chapter in particular was something I found myself relating to a lot. No wonder I probably replayed both chapters about a dozen times over the next few months.

This is an improvement on the first chapter in almost every way. The environments are better looking, the party dynamics are more solidified, most of my favourite Deltarune songs are in this chapter, and it feels like Toby has a better idea of what direction the story is going in. Undertale's influence feels a lot lesser in this than in Chapter 1, something I think is for the best as it allows Deltarune to stand on its own.

If you'd asked 14-year-old me what her favourite game was, she would've said the first of the World of Assassination trilogy. I loved that game. I'd played through every mission dozens of times and I had go-to routes so that I could get silent assassin on every mission (still remembered my routes for Paris and Sapienza but completely forgot the others). Despite that though, I never actually got around to playing Hitman 2 or 3 so it was nice to finally play them. The gameplay is great, the various minor improvements were enough to make the gameplay feel better without straying away from what makes it so good, and the levels from 2 and 3 are great sandboxes just like I'd come to expect although I do feel like the Hitman 3 levels feel more linear than their predecessors. I'm definitely gonna end up going back to this every few months to approach all the levels in a different way.

I was 12 years old when Injustice 2 came out, and it was the first time I'd ever been truly hyped for a game. I'd rush home from school every Thursday so that I could see the new character reveals, I'd watch in-depth analyses of each new trailer, and it was the first time I'd ever preordered a game, both so I could get Darkseid but also so I could play it as soon as possible. So this review is going to be tinged by a lot of nostalgia. Starting this game up for the first time since 2019 was legitimately one of the biggest waves of nostalgia I've ever been hit with. That being said, I'm a lot more critical of the games I play now than I was back then, and I've also read a lot more comics, so this review won't be one of blind adoration.

To get the biggest problem out of the way, I don't like the story of the Injustice games. Superman is my favourite superhero, and just saying that feels like an understatement. I genuinely don't know if I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't read All-Star Superman when I did. Above all else, Superman represents hope. The belief that people are good at their core and that tomorrow will be a better place than it is today. The whole "Evil Superman" trope one of my most hated elements of any fiction. It's boring. It's lazy. It's shallow. And when it's the Man of Tomorrow himself that's turned evil, it actively harms the way that casual fans see the character, making people think that Lois is the only thing keeping him human (don't even get me started on talking about how often Lois is fridged for these kinds of stories). And if we're being honest, I imagine that the billionaire with enough surveillance to make Big Brother jealous is far, far more likely to become a dictator than the embodiment of kindness himself.

The most frustrating thing, though, is that if you removed the "Injustice" stuff, I actually quite liked the story! The basic premise of "Grodd and the Society are up to some villainous chicanery, but it turns out that Grodd is working for Brainiac" is simple but it's pretty fun, and I enjoyed the character interactions between various Justice Leaguers. There's a part towards where Batman and Superman are working together and their interactions are more in line with the characters I actually like that made me feel like I was playing a Justice League fighting game, and the story already has enough Brainiac mind control/Poison Ivy pheromones/Scarecrow toxin to justify superheroes fighting each other! The character assassination of not just Superman but a dozen other characters, and the other edgelord bullshit that comes with the story is ultimately needless. Whenever the Injustice (derogatory) isn't showing up, the character interactions between the Leaguers are great (especially Green Arrow and Black Canary), and this has some of my favourite adaptations of both Supergirl and Brainiac, to the point where I imagine I will be picturing Laura Bailey and Jeffrey Combs' voices next time I read a comic with either character.

The gear system could be good if it wasn't tied to lootboxes. I have more gear for characters I've never played than I do for characters who I main because every time I open a lootbox and hope I'll get to customise the characters I like, it's always a gamble. I haven't seen a recent release with lootboxes and I'm so fucking glad they're gone.

So why am I giving Injustice 2 an 8/10 when I still have these problems? It's because, above all else, this is just a damn good fighting game. I'm not that big a fighting game fan and I had a ton of fun playing this. I'm not a professional games journalist so I can't really explain it well, but the controls are really good, it's really satisfying to string together combos or to use environmental interactions. The graphics look really good for a game from over five years ago and the voice acting is pretty good too. I've been playing this on my own the past few days, but I can't wait until I have some friends over so that I can play as Supergirl or Black Canary and obliterate them.

The feminist part of my brain acknowledges that the designs of women in this game are objectifying and oversexualised, but unfortunately the lesbian part sees that Poison Ivy kiss move and goes hfibsibfeisbfwbfibnnmm.