The game is very good, yes. You've heard all the positives by now anyways (in case you missed it, I'm talking about soundtrack, artstyle, characters, gameplay and level design), so I'm just gonna mention the small things that keep a very solid JRPG from being a 10/10 in my books.

The most apparent flaw in the game in my opinion is the pacing and how the story sometimes unnescessarily drags on just for the sake of padding the game's length. Sometimes the dialogue goes on for ages, just to resolve a matter that could've been solved in two or three sentences. Oh well.

Now the next issue is how the developers treat the Royal-only girl Kasumi Yoshizawa. Unlike many others, I don't believe that she feels shoehorned into the story and never overstays her welcome. Of course she's going to get screentime, but that's because she's one of the main additions to Royal and NEEDS that screentime to shine and stand out among the rest of the cast. Like I said, this wasn't an issue for me, but rather how they integrated her into the gameplay. I'm not going to spoil anything specific here, but I'll just say that she unfortunately joins very late in the story and you can't use her in your party any earlier. Really a weird choice if you advertise her so much, feels like Atlus just didn't bother enough to rewrite the story to include her earlier, since that would be very possible given the in-game circumstances.

With the main complaints out of the way, there isn't really a lot I could list as a negative. Atleast not enough for me to substract a whole star. As I mentioned in the beginning, the game is really good and the third semester in one of the best written arcs in the franchise, so I'd recommend anyone to play through this game atleast for one time - it doesn't matter if you've already played Persona 5 or never touched a JRPG in your life, the first playthrough of this game is magical and absolutely worth your time. Thanks for reading :)

Yakuza 6 was a turning point in the series in more than one way, so I felt the urge to express my thoughts on the game I've had for a while now.

This is the first entry made with the 'Dragon Engine', which also was used in the newer games of the series like Yakuza 7 or the Judgment duology. It's notable for the more fluid combat and ragdoll mechanics, but also introduced small changes like directly being able to walk into street fights without having to sit through the loading screens disguised as intros. I won't go too much in-depth about this, since the review is about the game and not the engine :p

Let's just say it feels very obvious that Yakuza 6 was the first game to run on the Dragon Engine, as the combat is really wonky and a lot of heat action moves from the previous games are just missing, even simpler ones. People love to meme about Yakuza 3 enemies blocking all of your attacks, but it's honestly almost as bad in 6. Not to mention that fighting groups of enemies at once in this game is a disaster, since they WILL stun you. Repeatedly. Very fun. Fortunately the combat in general was fixed in later games and Kiryu got a proper Dragon Engine moveset in Kiwami 2.

After complaining about the combat for a while now, it's time to name the strong aspect of Yakuza 6 - the story. It might be very divisive in some regards, but in my opinion it's one of the best stories in the franchise and has lots of well written and memorable characters. Without giving away too much, it feels reminiscent of Yakuza 3's story, but in a new light.

The side content in this game... exists. All substories in this game are voiced, but I only found a handful of them actually interesting and memorable. Substories are always a subjective topic so your experience with them might differ from mine. Some other new side activities include spearfishing (rail shooter), the gym (press some buttons) and the Clan Creator, which I won't go in-depth about because I personally hate that minigame. To put it short, you deploy troops in battles to take down other troops, paired with a pretty generic and boring side storyline.

In conclusion, Yakuza 6 has a great story, but suffers from the annoying early Dragon Engine combat and the side stuff is mediocre at best. Not the best game for a cohesive Yakuza experience, but still a good finale for the Kiryu Saga.

(Also it's locked to 30 FPS on consoles, just a heads up :p)

Time to mix drinks and change lives.

VA-11 Hall-A was the final game I beat in 2023 and what a great sendoff it was. Huge thanks to @wheatie again for providing me with a copy of this game as a christmas gift - please consider showing her some support!

As a visual novel, VA-11 was quite different from the ones I played before, since I never got around to actually playing a normal slice-of-life VN. Considering I've (nearly) only played murder mysteries in this format, it was a nice change of pace to read a visual novel with a welcoming and cozy atmosphere for once. The cyberpunk aesthetic and soundtrack are a perfect match for the direction of VA-11 and quickly help to immerse you in the setting. I might just talk about the soundtrack a little more while I'm at it. The game allows you to pick 12 different songs from a diverse collection so you can set your own soundtrack. There's an integrated music player so you can listen to your favorite songs on shuffle and repeat or even skip some if you're not feeling them at the moment. Thankfully you can always switch out the jukebox songs each in-game day, so if you happen to really dislike a song, you can just swap it out for something else. So yeah, there's that. However, a good visual novel shouldn't need to rely on the soundtrack alone to be enjoyable, it also needs unique and entertaining characters. VA-11 has quite the quirky cast; seeing the talking Shiba with sunglasses for the first time certainly got a good chuckle out of me. His name being Rad Shiba didn't help.

The actual gameplay itself is really simple and nothing noteworthy. You click some ingredients on the right side of the screen and drag them together to mix a drink. While this mixing mechanic is just a plot device most of the time, sometimes you'd also get different dialogue from the customers, depending on the amount of alcohol they had. Somehow I only realized this when I already was nearing the end of the game, but I don't think it makes a huge difference, just a different topic every now and then.

That wraps pretty much everything up I wanted to say about this game already. It's a solid experience and I'd strongly advise anyone who likes cyberpunk settings or a good visual novel to try VA-11 out. Just please listen to my advice from earlier and don't rush it - take breaks if you're feeling bored. Grab a snack and just enjoy what lies ahead.

Thanks for reading. See you in 2024!

I can say with full confidence that this is my favorite game of all time and it's a great rerelease of the Wii u version. I enjoy the music, the characters, and the questionable localization that came along with this game, I skipped my finals to buy this game day 1 when it released and I've been doing a run at least every year since. The characters are adorable and I love how they sound and look. When I went to Japan I made it my mission to find a Japanese copy of this game and it's soundtrack I love them so much

Really wanted to tough it out and beat it but, god, it’s such a tough one. So aesthetically pleasing, both musically and visually, but just feels like torture to play, and level design is very anti-player. Made worse because after a couple of levels I realized that a Scott Pilgrim game should’ve been an Earthbound-style RPG and probably would be if they decided on making a game post-Undertale, lol. Will always love this as a novelty which is why I don’t regret getting the Limited Run of it, and maybe I’d give it another go doing online co-op, but, well. Scott Pilgrim, if your life was a game I would punch it.