The artistic value of this one is undeniable. This is one of the most unique games I’ve ever played, and it’s incredible how much work and love the developers put into all the handcrafted assets, with all the characters, props and sets genuinely sculpted and painted. Seriously, they have my deepest respect. But is it fun playing it?

Well… I definitely wouldn’t call this the revival of LucasArts-like adventure games, no matter how much charm it has. It’s more like a really long, interactive stop-motion movie, with only some minimal gameplay elements, like “go there, talk to this person, then come back here”, stuff like that, so expect lots and lots of running around and, of course, even more talking. There aren’t even any puzzles to solve, someone always points you in the right direction. The story is interesting, though, and so are all the eccentric characters the protagonist meets during his journey of self-discovery. Even though there are some really funny moments, I wouldn’t call this a comedy… Let’s go with dramedy, I’d say, with a heavier emphasis on drama.

Harold has quite a lot of psychological issues he has to work through, like how he feels detached from society, his inferiority complex, his recent break-up, and that, in general, he can’t find his place and purpose anywhere. He’s not just physically trapped in a spaceship, but also metaphorically, and thus, a kind of melancholic, bittersweet, sometimes even depressing mood hangs over the plot all the time. The underwater setting and the strange atmosphere reminded me of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, if you’re familiar with it, you can expect something like that with a bit less humour.

Anyway, if you don’t mind that you get hardly any gameplay beyond running around, and watching many, many lengthy cutscenes, give this one a try. As I mentioned, it’s a delight to look at it, no question about that.

This game exceeded even my highest expectations in almost every way.

I could talk about it for hours but as with Remake I don't think it's possible for me to do it justice, it's peak. I've spent over 200 hours with FF7 Rebirth now and I could easily jump back in for a 3rd playthrough today.

This game is such an achievement, and home to some of the most beautiful scenes, characters and music in memory. If the final part is able to do even half as many things as well as this does, then we're in for a phenomenal trilogy of games.

As an aside, getting the platinum for this was insanely fun and surprisingly easy ... until the last few combat simulations. It took me around 40 hours over 5 days to get them done. I am begging that part 3 is easier 🥹
Thanks for reading folks, hope you're all doing well!🙏

I have so much to say about this game, but for now, I'll just say that, while my recent playthrough of MGS 4 made me like it a little bit less, replaying The Phantom Pain for the first time since it came out, far removed from all the hype and my own expectations for what I thought the game would be, made me enjoy it more and appreciate some of the elements that maybe I overlooked before, especially while contrasting it with the rest of the series and Kojima's games in general. It obviously has flaws, some really apparent, but I feel it also manages to convey its themes and messages through its story and mechanics in a very efficient way.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was a game that I adored so, so much, that I couldn't bring myself to start writing a review for it. I could talk about that game for hours, and yet, I'm lost for words.

There is no way to properly explain the way this series hits any more. Half the reason I never tried writing about XC3 was that so much of what I wanted to say would touch on spoilers in one way or another, and given the nature of this expansion the same is going to apply here. (So this is more a rant summarising my feelings on this series as a whole)

One thing I will say, however, is that I am honestly devastated that my memory is as bad as it can be, in particular with this franchise. I have loved, loved all 3 parts of this trilogy but if you asked me to even summarise one of the first 2 games I'd get maybe 5% of the story right, it kinda sucks😭

I'm pretty confident that 3 is my favourite, and not just for recency bias, but the combat, the party, the world, the story, the relationships and development of the characters.. It is truly deserving of the label peak because it genuinely sits at the top of the JRPG mountain in my opinion. I fucking love that game dude, they even added a navigation line to follow!
(Unfortunatley, this expansion removes that again 😭 2 games and 2 expansions to finally stop me from getting lost only to rob me of it again, wounded!)

Anyway if you can't tell I'm already losing myself, these games have got me bad, man. It is all heart, I have no brain, no thoughts (no memory 😔) - I barely understand myself how they've touched me this much, but there's an undeniable charm and sincerity to them that's really just 😩

To make some comments about Future Redeemed specifically, I fully understand the reasoning behind Matthew et al, but I can't help but wonder if I'd have preferred somehow getting to bring things to fruition with familiar faces. Matthew is great don't get me wrong, but his specific personality archetype is an interesting one to go with for the main character of this expansion lol.
Also, without saying anything else: Holy shit the glow up, the future is not the only thing being redeemed god damn.

Final thoughts I think I preferred the combat and overall dynamics in the main game vs this, and locking arts and accessory slots behind finding rare items instead of your player level is kinda oof, but I got by. It felt a bit like XC3 but stripped back a little instead of further improved which is a shame, but with the bar set by XC3 I really don't think there was anywhere to go but backwards anyway.
Difficulty wise there was one boss near the end that was a huge spike for me, but admittedly I'd been playing somewhat lazily until then anyway and it didn't take too long to overcome it.

Overall: this is insane. This series is nothing short of beautiful and if you don't believe me then the soundtrack alone can prove you wrong with ease. I don't know if I want more or not but I definitely want more of something from this team. Do not let British voice acting put y'all off these games bro, yes I know XC2 sounds kinda goofy but you can play in Japanese if you must and even if you don't I guarantee that the voicework does not detract from how good they are. (Also Mio and Nia's accents are too good to pass up on smh shame on you)

Thanks for reading to all who did, hope it's okay that this is just word vomit but I really wasn't kidding when I said I have no words. Hope you're all having a wonderful December and enjoy any festivities you may or may not partake in. Until next time🙏

I don't have too much to say about Peakmin 4 but I'm really gunna miss Oatchi going back to play 1 and 2 ...

Biggest complaint by far is that some late-game cave enemies are super BS and can devour far too many piks at once if you don't have the right crew/approach (I'm ngl I soloed half the final cave as Oatchi) -- This wasn't bad for most of the game but it got to a point where I'd only have a couple dozen of one type and I'd lose all of them instantly if I got licked or knocked over or screeched at the wrong moment. Skill issue I'm sure but still a bummer.

In terms of positives though, everything else! Level designs were great, music is beautiful, having so many pikmin types was fun (even if half of them were so rare it was easier to use Oatchi) -- This was really fun to just sit down with before bed and I really can't believe I spent nearly 30 hours on it before reaching the true ending. There's something so addicting about figuring out how to get stuff done and then watching cute lil guys put the work in.

Really recommend this to anyone interested, super chill time (until it was the most stressful thing ever, but that's over now, it can't hurt me 😌) - easy to get into and honestly just buy it regardless so we real gamers can get a 5th one :p
It even has hands down the most hateable villain in all of media 🥹

That'll do it anyhow, thanks for reading folks, hope you're all well! I'm 110 hours deep in Infinite Wealth so hoping to finish that this week, review will likely end up similar to this one but we'll see -- Until then! 🙏

This isn't quite a 4/5 but I'm going higher to help the avg smh.

[Disclaimer: This 'review' is basically just a ramble I had in DMs with some edits to be real sentences and legible, if it feels like there's even less flow or format than usual, that's why! Also it's kinda long sorry oops ]

The hate for this game is so much more extreme than it deserves. Sure, I miss being able to throw cash registers as much as the next guy, I think they seriously fumbled by not letting you throw melee weapons, but I also think that the separated inventories is a benefit overall. Having only 10 slots or whatever and having to use them for food items, melee weapons and guns was arguably where the first games got their difficulty, but was mostly just kinda annoying. Getting stuck in a fight against humans with 8 melee weapons and 2 sandwiches was an easy way to lose hours of progress, and that's no longer an issue.

They've also removed the super restrictive timer in this game, which again could be called the 'difficulty' of DR1, but if we're being real that game's timers went so hard that if you weren't sprinting everywhere in the optimal order you couldn't do it anyway. There's definitely a charm to that, but the amount of times I failed something, even the entire story mode, just because I went the wrong way or got lost was frustrating. Especially when particularly useful items were often only found in corners of the map, so you'd head to the weapon shop before going to a psycho only to run out of time to fight them on your way back :p

Also, Frank is an ass and the plot is dumb, but there's no pretending that the first 2 games weren't just as silly. This one is just straight up zombie-killing fun, without the timer and with the map being more open with items scattered around more, it feels more like Dead Rising 3 did: You can mess around as much as you want, get sidetracked as often as you like, just play at your own pace. To me personally, that is what Dead Rising should've been like from the start.
Sure, I still wouldn't say that it's great or anything, but in a franchise that's built on killing zombies in dumb ways the only thing this does particularly 'wrong' is redacting our right to throw everday items, and honestly, I kinda got over this within the first 2 hours.

This game may have a random ass COD UI for some reason, but I don't understand why people are so mad or saying it 'killed the series'. When you encounter survivors in this game you can't accidentally kill them in 2 hits and when you save them they run off on their own. They actually run past zombies! Insane right, the first 2 games taught me that all survivors are obsessed with slowly walking to safety or sprinting headstrong into the horde 😭
I honestly believe at this point that it's just nostalgia. "Why can he be megaman" because it's fun killing dozens of the dead with a blaster why is that a negative 😩

I had never played this game before now because I was lead to believe that it was too over the top and had been stripped down to a sandbox. Just "here's a billion zombies and a bunch of dumb weapons, have fun" with no characters, story, nothing. Knowing it had a story and maniacs is all it took for me to wanna play it and now here I am having had a perfectly enjoyable time: It's Dead Rising, I experienced exactly what I expected to while playing a Dead Rising game 😅

To comment on the game proper: The UI is weird but it's dumb fun and that's really all it has to be, I don't care lol. Also the Christmas/Black Friday theme is perfect for this franchise, don't see enough praise for that. Hearing holiday music on the radio and pause menu is much loved by me, might make an annual habit of spending some time on this each December idk. Besides that the trophy list is atrocious as always. I want this series back, in the RE Engine please 😌

Happy Holidays everyone, appreciate you all greatly❤️