The Medarot games are never as good as you want them to be, and this one is a bit more in the middle, or even lower end, in terms of quality. It's very weird, feels like it should've focused on different characters, the menus are terrible, and it's waaaay tooo looong aaaand slooow.

Also, not the game's fault, but the fan patch is ATROCIOUS. Nonsensical descriptions for a lot of stats and abilities, awkward, swear-filled dialogue, broken music and graphics which I've NEVER seen a fan translation do, and of course, transphobic slurs.

The greatest PC game of all time? Fuck no.

Half Life 2 is a pretty impressive tech demo but besides that a lot of it feels like a downgrade from 1. The biggest offender is just how atrocious 2s pacing is in comparison to the original, with so much control being taken away in order to show a story (that imo doesn't really do much) or show some neat Source engine tech. While I wouldn't call 1 perfect (shit like On A Rail is pretty boring) it didnt get THAT bad. Half Life 2 has some truly abhorrent sections like both vehicle sections and ESPECIALLY Nova Prospekt which make going through 2 a slog. Its a shame because I do feel that HL2s gameplay is pretty fun, with a solid arsenal (albeit a bit too big) and the atmosphere fucking rocks throughout. I can only hope the Episodes salvage HL2 for me because otherwise its one of the most overrated games I've ever played.

6/10

coming off of wild arms 1 it was interesting to see what they changed and what worked and what didn't

i had a lot of fun playing and the game has a lot of pretty high highs but those lows really kicked my ass and made me wanna stop playing

to name a few: a lot of the dungeons are just complete hell, the battle system is still really simple and easy to a detriment, the translation is written really dry and boring, the story pacing is kinda bad, the puzzles can be infuriating..

still, i had a fun time playin thru it. nothing wrong with some classic ps1 jrpg slop. also i did a 100% run and filling up the monster album was complete torture, i would not recommend doing that at all