As I sit here writing this review, let me clarify by saying I love the Yakuza franchise for all it does with both story, minigames, substories, and characters. Several things go through my mind when thinking about Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan/Yakuza Kenzan:

The annoying combat, the annoying minigames, the amount of sidequests...
But... the story was a beautiful tragedy. We see a Kiryu more expressive and non broading. We see characters who aren't just a villain, but a confused individual. We see amazing developments of humor, love, loss, anger, and happiness.
The ending of this game hit exceptionally hard. It's a poetic end.

It's a shame Sega never released this in the West. Because this games story is amazing.

The combat is not the best, however in if I have to put it in a tier list, it's just slightly better than Yakuza 3, (yikes I know).
The miniganes for Courtesans (Kenzans version of Cabaret Club Girls) can be fun with Bowling... and that's it, the other 3 minigames are complete trash. The one minigame with the red hockey puck is completely unfair (you f*** up once and it's game over). The lack of karaoke is sad, considering Ishin apparently has it.

But look, reguardless of the combat and minigames... this story is beautifully written, with exceptional characters... (wellllllll...except the main villain who can essentially be boiled down to me bad because I want to rule country with iron fist)

Still the ending is one of the most touching endings you'll see in the franchise. I'm not going to force you to play it if you don't know japanese (Though you can use KHH walk-through I recommend)
I recommend watching KHH videos on YouTube, just to see the story unfold. It's so great, I honestly hope this and Ishin get ported (well in this case they should give Kenzan the Kiwami treatment to fix the combat and minigames. As well as add extra stuff). These games are amazing.


#bringkenzantothewest
#bringishintothewest
#bringYakuzaBlackPanthertotheWest
#BringYakuzaBlackPanther2totheWest
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Super Mario 64 is one of my favorite Mario games ever. It's one of those games you can come back to and still have a great time despite its age. With that being said, what if I told you I didn't grow up with Super Mario 64, and never got to officially play it until years later? Yes, my introduction to the game came through this remake made 8 years after the original game came out, Super Mario 64 for Nintendo DS. This game boasts new stars, updated graphics, and 3 brand new playable characters. With all those quirks, this game should be great! Should.

For the most part, the game is unchanged. There's still the castle, you still collect power stars to unlock new areas and there are the same 15 courses you know and love. Although, things immediately start off different. First of all, you don't start the game as Mario, you start it as Yoshi. In an admittedly fun cutscene, Mario hops out of the pipe akin to the original opening following Peach's invitation for cake at the castle. Luigi and Wario also hop out of pipes adjacent to his, racing him to the castle to get to him first, all while Yoshi sleeps on top of the castle, referencing his appearance at the end of the game in the original Mario 64. Lakitu wakes up Yoshi saying Mario and co. have been in the castle for a while and haven't left yet, so it's up to him Yoshi to see what's going on. You unlock the other 3 characters by fighting specific bosses, but of course you need Mario to access most of the game normally.
So now, let me bring forth the biggest problem with this game: The controls. The original SM64 controls near perfectly, how did they mess it up? Simple, a run button. That might not sound like much but it definitely screws up the flow of gameplay more than you'd expect. You have to constantly be holding down the run button if you want to get anywhere, and you're going to be holding the run button when you jump. So what if you want to dive jump or jump kick too? That's 3 buttons you have to hold down, and it is not comfortable. Not to mention since this is on a DS there's no control stick, but a D-Pad. Yeah, play a 3D Platformer with a D-Pad. I'm playing this game on a 3DS admittedly, and the Circle Pad does help a tiny bit but it'll still have you wishing you had a regular controller. You can also use the Touch Pad for movement, which they REALLY want you to use for some reason. On the topic of control, let's talk about each character individually.
First is Yoshi I suppose, since you play as him first. Honestly, though? He controls great. He flicks his tongue out in classic Yoshi fashion, flutter jumps, he can eat enemies and spit them back out, and even lay an egg for a temporary projectile. It's clear he wasn't made for this game very much though, as they give the option of playing the game with the cap of a character from the get-go after unlocking one of them, starting the level in a transformed state as Mario/Luigi/Wario. Isn't it weird this is the only game where you control just Yoshi in 3D? If he were to get his own 3D Platformer they definitely need to use this control scheme as the basis.
Mario is mostly unchanged, he has pretty much all the moves you know. One thing I like is his wall kick is updated into a wall jump. One thing I hate though, and I guess they do this to give him a sense of uniqueness from the other characters, he's the ONLY one that can wall jump.
Luigi is lighter than Mario, and sports a mini flutter jump of his own. His backwards somersault also has a float descent, which can come in handy.
Wario is probably the worst out of the 4, he's the slowest and his jump is the weakest. He is, however, the strongest, and he's the only one that can break the special black bricks.
In addition to every character having their own playstyle tweaks, they have their own unique power up ability. Remember in the original game where Mario had to unlock a new cap and it would show up in the level where he needed to use it? Here, things are a little bit different. Each ability is locked to a specific character, Mario has the Wing Cap, Luigi vanishes, and Wario becomes metal. This means for specific Power Stars you have to switch to that character if you want to collect it. It's a novel idea in making each character important, but it's a lot more tedious than it sounds. Plus, the character caps I mentioned earlier? You can find them in levels to do what you need to do, but there's no way to remove the caps without taking damage, which is also annoying.
The style is fine. All the characters and enemies are upgraded to their current designs. Some look better like Skeeters and Bullies, but rest in peace to the original bug-eyed, psychedelic patterned Scuttlebug. In another interesting change, MIPS does not appear in this version, but instead regular rabbits. In the beginning of the game you have to collect a rabbit with Yoshi to unlock the castle key. Which, just seems like padding, but it's to introduce the new concept of catching rabbits to unlock minigames. Some of them are actually pretty fun, admittedly, but to unlock new ones you have to catch rabbits as each character which is more trouble than its worth.
The ideas this remake present aren't bad on a base level, but you'll be begging to play the original Mario 64. It's just more freeing and less restrictive to play, and there aren't too many improvements in this version over the original.