It's kinda hard for me to fully articulate my thoughts on a game that essentially existed for a solid 8 years while I've rushed through the story content in only two months. There are feelings I've not been able to quite feel due to my lack of history, and important context I can't help but lament missing.

So I speak here not as an old veteran, or even as someone with at least some history with the franchise like I had with FFXIV, but as someone who was sapped into this game this very year for a silly reason and couldn't help but forge through to the end.

Okay, so, game's good. I don't think I have much of interest to say concerning the gameplay, it's fairly engaging hack n' slash that does its job at worst, and uses fairly inventive tricks to heighten the story moments at its best (especially impressive for a mobile game).
What I signed up for, and I was really interested in however, was the story. I have an...acquiantance shall we say (wink) who had started this game around last year and praised it a very decent amount. I held strong for a while, but in the end I just needed to know what the deal was. What was she seeing, feeling, that I was missing out on. And I...understand now. Honkai's story is a heartfelt, beautiful ode to a lot of the themes that person and I hold dear in our chests, it's a deeply emotional plot that generally always kept me wanting to see more of the world and setting. It goes beyond the game and into the multimedia too. The numerous mangas, the two VNs, the numerous animations, the silly chibis, everything works together wonderfully to create what is one of the most comprehensive and insanely "full" experiences I've had with any story.

And here comes the part where I'm gonna be a stinky poo poo and complain about gacha again. Yes it's a gacha, yes I hate those, and yes I hate that this game is one too. In fact, if all my praise thus far is to the highest degree, I think the medium of the game still halts it from becoming a true and tried favorite in my heart. It's an unfortunate moral shield I still hold, but I cannot in good conscience praise this game again and again without the very large asterisk of: this game is still of the genre that aims to suck out your money with edulcorated gambling.

However. I praised this game first because what I saw, what I played and what I felt throughout my whole experience, from the writing to the characters truly did take their roots in me. Kiana, Mei, Bronya, Fu Hua, Elysia, and all the others who've had numerous arcs across multiple media and chapters were written genuinely and with a sincerity that affected me to my deepest core. So I want to emphasize that while I abhor this game's medium, it's something I can't really fully blame the writers, animators, designers and developers on. (Who am I blaming then? Capitalism.)

In short (lol); Honkai Impact 3rd is a beautifully written game with some stumbles here and there, especially in the first half of the game where it's clear the general outline of the plot was not quite as well defined. The gameplay is as fun as it should be and the multiple strong emotional moments have had their effects on me, to the point I'm a slightly different person for having experienced all of what Honkai had to offer. I just have to lament that this isn't a game one can ethically consume. And this will apply to any gacha I play in the future, which I guess makes me slightly part of the problem too, even despite my f2p status.

But I can blame capitalism all day (and I DO), in the end it's these complicated and mixed feelings that make up the bulk of my thoughts. I love this game, i love the world it developed around it, and I love the stories it made me go through.
But more than any of that, I love the insight it gave me into the passion of the person I hold dearest in this whole world.

Thanks Alise, may we keep fighting for all that is beautiful in the world, together.

Honestly what more can I even say. Mahoyo is just a 'perfect' visual novel, in the sense that it is one of the more finely crafted and attuned pieces of its genre. The visuals, the music, the plot, the characters, everything works in perfect tandem to offer a truly compelling and beautiful experience, and I honestly can't praise it enough.
I also have to mention the wonderful cast, especially the main trio, and the different dynamics that are developped throughout the story between them. Alice, Shizuki and Aoko are amazing characters on their own, but its the strength of their relationship that truly carries an otherwise quite simple plot.
All in all, this was a genuinely great read, and if there ever comes a sequel, I will have great expectations from it.

Impeccable story-telling, a really tight structure and pretty fun gameplay make up a truly excellent craft.

So why can't I care more about it.

The game is, on paper, not only flawless but a lot of things that personally appeal to me, through some themes, the writing and the structure of the scenarios. Yet, I can't help but feel hollow anyway, and not the kind of hollow that comes from an outstandingly good experience.

After such a theoretically great game, I just feel...meh. It was aight.

There was nothing else for me to really hold on, nothing to brainrot over, nothing to personally care for.

It's like a very good painting. It's beautiful and expertly crafted, but after I go home from the museum, I'm gonna just think about something else.

The Missing is...a hard game to talk about. I think it really needs to be experienced to be understood. It's also a hard game to recommend, given both the content warnings required (extreme violence and body horror) and some of the subject matters tackled (self-harm, dysphoria, suicide). However, it touched me in a way very few games have managed to, and i couldn't be more thankful to have played it.

The gameplay is basically if Limbo or Inside decided to make death a mechanic. You struggle forward using the harm the environment brings to yourself, by using your limbs to solve different puzzles. In and of itself, it's just a dark twist on a pretty-overdone genre, but this gimmick in turn perfectly resonates with the core themes of the game and the story itself.

I'm sorry i'm keeping it vague, i genuinely want to say the least bit possible aside from what could genuinely hurt some people, so please heed the warnings of the first paragraph, and if it seems like it won't bother you TOO much, go ahead and play it.

The Missing is an absolutely breathtaking experience and one of the best uses of ludo-narrative in a game i've seen in a long time. You suffer along with the main character, and the visuals, sound design and ambience all contribute to it so goddamn well. And that Finale is legit one of the best i've come across in gaming period.

So uh, play it, but only if you feel you can take it, because it IS a very hard game. Not in terms of difficulty mind you, just in terms of...uh...taking it all in.

Edit (18/10/2022): I have different pronouns now, thank you Swery.

Aside from the pretty persistent performance issues and a few annoyances (holy shit fuck fishing), this game is such a perfect little microcosm of what I want from a Zelda game.

It's chockful of wacky characters, engaging puzzles, really fun exploration and a surprisingly sweet yet melancholic storyline.

You can realistically do most of everything in around 10 hours, so the full price is absolutely not justified, but this was gifted to me anyways soooooo...

Idk what else to say, the game is fun reggie.gif

I fucking love this game.

I feel lucky to have found an easy way to acquire it now, but I've been curious about X for years now. And surprise, it's amazing.

There's just so much to love that I can't quite sum up here, or i'll be writing pages for a fucking backloggd review lmao, i'll try to be brief.

The open world is amazing, the different biomes feel distinct yet fitting in the larger landscape of the setting, and exploring its every corner feels both rewarding and just super fun, ESPECIALLY when you unlock your giant robot and THEN when your giant robot FLIES. The biggest "holy shit" i've had was discovering the flight mechanics has next to no limits and I just had this huge, insane world completely within my reach. The world is big and dangerous and menacing, but it's also inviting, and fully discovering everything is made incredibly fun like nothing else.

Other aspects of the gameplay are also great. Now i can't pretend i understand the whole combat system, especially with the mechs, but it FEELS cool, and really, that's all that matters.

Just like 1 and 2, the game features a lot of sidequests, sometimes chains that unwrap throughout the story, and a lot of them give really neat development to the side cast and the setting at large, which makes them more like an addon to the main story rather than something i'd call "optional" content. It's genuinely great.

As for the main story, while I understand people felt underwhelmed since the actual plot itself is not that deep until like the last 5 hours of the game maybe, I've found the strong thematic and emotional core of the main characters' struggles to carry each chapter really nicely. Also, and this might be a hot take but..

...this game is clearly meant to have a sequel lol.

As for what we have on our hands standalone, I still appreciate it on its own merits, but there is next to no doubt in my mind an X2 would vindicate most of the criticism levied against X story-wise.

All in all, my one regret is not having had enough time to truly sink my teeth into every sidequest, affinity mission and other shenanigans because of pesky irl reasons. Maybe I will eventually come back to those, who knows. But for the meanwhile, Xenoblade Chronicles X has been an absolute blast and I cannot praise it highly enough.

As a sequel, Ar Tonelico 2 is one of the most impressive upgrades i've seen in the genre. The story is much more involved, the characters generally better rounded, the gameplay reworked into something even more engaging and the general themes by which the first game shone are very much still present, and only flourish further with the added stakes and conflicts.

But if I had to pinpoint one aspect in which this entry shines the brightest, it would be in its use of previously set up concepts, gameplay and lore ones alike, to greater effect than its predecessors. The cosmospheres especially play a lot with one's expectations from 1 and a lot of the player's preconceived notions are taken advantage of in clever ways.
However, you are actually locked from progress in other cosmospheres than the reyvateil whose story split you choose, something that mildly upsets my completionist side, but absolutely works better within the context of the game.

So what I say can't fully apply to Cloche or Luca's cosmospheres, because I ended up doing and (extremely painfully, thanks to a terrible grind) finishing Jakuri's cosmosphere, which had some of the most beautiful, sincere and heartfelt character writing i've seen across these two games. Holy shit I love her so fucking much.

Another thing I HAVE to mention desperately is the focus on Cloche and Luca's relationship throughout the game. The first game had been fairly lackluster in terms of inter-party dynamics, but the second remedies that by giving every character a foil, which further gives way to exploration of other types of dynamic, like fraternal or paternal love. And amongst these differing dynamics, the one Cloche and Luca share, which develop over the course of the whole game, is legitimately so emotional and made me cry multiple separate times. The game is genuinely great at letting the girls breathe and write themselves, instead of relying too heavily on the male protagonist, who this time around is often on the side as a supportive, yet helpful entity. Croix also feels more flawed and sympathetic than the A Little Too Shonen Lyner.

Overall the game follows suit to Ar Tonelico 1 in the way it delves into our mutual understanding and relationships between people, and it does so with a genuinely exciting plot, incredibly likeable characters, and a very loving message about the need to live our lives together, with the people we love and understand. Also Holy Fucking Shit Jakuri Deserves The World.

I had such a great time going through this game, and it was made even better by playing it with a close, genuine friend. It only strengthened my appreciation for the themes at play.

Thanks Radd, sorry for the fan club grind, that really sucked lmao.

Replicant is what happens when you uncrust a fundamentally crusty and janky game for an actually pleasant experience (a rarity in Yoko Taro's repertoire I'll add)

Does it succeed? I...am inclined to say yes!
The combat isn't the best, especially next to Automata's, but it's crisp and it feels visceral enough to be addictive. The story itself is hard to sum up, but I played already knowing everything until ending D, and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

What the game has as its strongest point without doubt however, is the cast and their dynamics and interactions. Alone, they're some of my favorite characters around. Kaine, Emil and Weiss especially. Together, they are my single favorite cast of characters in any media period.
The way they're written, how they bounce off each other, their comical scenes, their dramatic ones, they are amazing characters who resonate amazingly well with each other, and just for that alone giving the game 5 stars is easy af.

As an aside, the newly added Shipwreck and Ending E only serve to complement the cast even further and they perfectly fall in line with Nier's spirit, and I'm so glad they exist in this game.

With everything said, I do have some small gripes. The redo of part 2 would have been better done only once instead of twice (as an addition to the first time). The 3rd playthrough's additions could definitely have just been part of the 2nd's, and spreading them didn't feel particularly relevant to me.
It took me months to finish cause I kinda just lost motivation along the way, notably at the end where Endings C and D require you to do the final area twice in a row, despite you having done it twice before already.

Interesting to see how Automata would come to resolve all my issues here btw, it's an experience in and of itself to see what Taro took away from developing Replicant.

Anyways, all in all, and despite my gripes, I still consider Replicant a 10/10. Not because it's perfect, but because it's just that good.

I was always gonna come around to playing this eventually, from the resounding praise I heard to just the sheer vibes I got from it (having the same director as Ace Attorney also helped).

And what can I say? I was not disappointed in the least, just the opposite in fact! Ghost Trick is a short but phenomenal experience, meshing a fun, smart and addictive gameplay with gorgeous presentation, a quirky and lovable cast of characters and a really sweet and satisfying plot that ties itself in the best possible way.

I literally have nothing bad to say about it and I teared up a bit at times, and even when I was aware of some twists, I still got blindsided by others lmao.

In short, play Ghost Trick.

(Also...ugh...Radd won I guess)