AND NOW I FINISH!!!

Yakuza like a dragon (which from now on I'll just call Yakuza 7) was a game I had for a while but never got around to finishing. It was actually my first Yakuza game I got on PS4, and I went in assuming it was a spinoff due to the new cast, setting, battle system, and the fact it wasn't a numbered entry on the box. So a reveal 2/3rds into the game that it did in fact tie into the main series combined with that part having an insane difficulty curve meant I never finished it. But that changed, and god damn, this might be one of my all time favorites.

The game ditches it's main cast for a new character, Ichiban Kasuga. And this man is an absolute legend. He's a bombastic goofball ready to help out anyone regardless of their current reputation, seeing the world as a Dragon Quest like fantasy for the hell of it, as he comes into his own with the help of a team of great characters as he uncovers the mystery behind a set of betrayals in his life.

And the main story is great. The new Yokohama setting and it's unsteady peace between rival factions leads to a lot of interesting conflicts, especially as more and more secrets collapse into a final conflict that had me greatly emotional by the end, even if the story falls into the usual Yakuza writing traps like giving a hint certain villains will redeem themselves only for them to die later (you know the part I'm talking about, and it's possibly the worst example in the series) and having themes of standing up for oppressed groups only to have you fight against the homeless people you stood up for ten minutes ago. The game also leans into the Yakuza wackiness in it's main story much more than in previous entries, and for the most part it pays off, managing to be serious when it needs to be with some real emotional gut punches. The other party members are also great, with all of them having great arcs (even if one gets resolved in a post credits cutscene) minus the optional party member who's just a real nothingburger of a character.

And one of the big things about this entry is the turn based combat, which is...fine. The moves all have the impact they need to feel satisfying to land, but the game is insanely easy minus the massive curve I mentioned, and another fight later on (although that one is also really easy to exploit) as well as the fact I didn't really feel the need to experiment with the job system, just picking a job for each character and sticking with it for the game. Also, finding decent weapons for some jobs (enforcer) is really obnoxious. And it's not long before you have a party and just spam the same moves through every fight (turns out all those villains could have thrown darts until they took over crime syndicates this whole time, who knew?)

But what I think this game does better than any Yakuza game is side content. The main way to get money like the Y0 real estate is a business management sim, which is pretty in depth as well as really fun, especially the part where you bring a chicken to a shareholder meeting and it becomes the MVP of the whole side campaign. And the game also has the best substories in Yakuza. The Korean actor, the ghost one, the Baby formula one, all amazing. Especially due to the new summon system allowing you to bring these characters back in really fun ways.

So yeah, one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played, and I'm so glad it started my journey through what is possibly my new favorite game series. Hopefully soon enough I can get a good deal on Judgment and IW, because once I do, I'll be ready.

After a seemingly never-ending period of stagnation for most who weren’t die-hard fans of the Mega Man franchise, receiving game after game after game AFTER GAME that did nothing more to expand upon the franchise in a way that would be worth constantly going back to again and again and again, the series managed to pull itself out of that rut with the original Mega Man X. For the most part, it was still your average Mega Man title, but it managed to pump in just enough speed, action, new features, and iconic elements that would not only help start up a brand new sub-series for this franchise, but would also bring the series back up from its rut to shine brightly once again. So, after that brief detour into nirvana, the classic set of Mega Man games would continuing doing its own thing for a bit, releasing another NES and Game Boy game now and then, but then, the time came to where Capcom decided to finally take the classic series to the 16-bit era, and they would naturally do so with the next chapter in the mainline series, simply known as Mega Man 7.

Just from the sake of circumstance alone, Mega Man 7 exists in this… odd little bubble, especially for the time that it came out. People were already so used to the hotness that was Mega Man X, loving how that game would take the classic formula and expand it in not just that game, but future sequels to come out, so whenever this game came out, it definitely went pretty much ignored by most people, for very clear reasons. Even today, when people go back to the classic games, this one is probably gonna be one of the last games anyone ever brings up, just because of the fact that it just kinda… exists. However, don’t think for a second that I am gonna diss this game because of that, because let me tell you…. I FUCKING LOVE Mega Man 7. Seriously, ever since I initially played it however many years ago, I have loved it oh so dearly, much like plenty of the other Mega Man titles, and if I can be so bold to say this, I would even consider it to be my favorite entry in the entire classic Mega Man series. I can definitely see why others would have a vastly different opinion then mine, which I will definitely get into as we go on, but for me, this game manages to continue the classic gameplay that we all know and love, while also adding just that little bit of extra content, to make it so wonderful to go back to even after all this time.

The story picks up sometime after the events of Mega Man 6, where Dr. Wily is FINALLY put behind bars by Mega Man, and the world seems to be at peace once more… that is, until due to Dr. Wily’s absence, several backup Robot Masters that he created out of fear of failure are activated, who would then start searching for Dr. Wily for quite some time. Eventually, they would locate where Dr. Wily is being held, and would thus start a rampage in the city to get him back, so it is up to Mega Man to get back in action, see what is going on, and defeat Dr. Wily once again in order to save the world….. again… for the millionth time………… the struggle never ends. The plot is pretty standard for a Mega Man game, but I do like how it does have some continuity with the previous game, and I really appreciate that they don’t try to hide the fact that it is actually Dr. Wily who is the villain the whole time (RIP Mr. X).

The graphics are absolutely fantastic, having an art style that I think fits classic Mega Man PERFECTLY, and having plenty of great enemy, character, and boss designs, as well as plenty of great animations to be seen throughout, the music is, naturally, pretty fucking great, having plenty of great tracks that I love like this one and this one, but I will admit, a lot of the tracks are a little too “samey”, which can make it feel pretty repetitive at points, and the gameplay and control is exactly what you would expect from a typical Mega Man game, except there are now elements of Mega Man X leaked into it, which does wonders to make the game much more interesting and fun to play, especially for me, who sees this as a match made in heaven, clearly.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Mega Man yet again, go through plenty of different levels in whatever order you want (for the most part), run, jump, and shoot your way through plenty of different robo baddies, big or small, that will attack you on your way, gather plenty of different health/ammo pickups, different types of Tanks, extra lives, and plenty of upgrades to assist you in both the short and long-term, and take on a lot of bosses that are….. complete jokes most of the time, but there are one or two difficult bosses in there, so hey, I guess that… somewhat makes up for it, especially when you acquire their special weapons to use as your own against the many other foes that await you. A lot of what you typically expect in a Mega Man game is here and accounted for, which is already great for someone like me, but all of the new additions, the art style, and more make this what I would consider a damn-near perfect entry in this series, despite its very apparent shortcomings.

Taking inspiration from its younger sibling series, this game now adds hidden collectibles and upgrades that you can find throughout the game, and there are a FUCK TON of these things to find too, ranging from simple stuff like the letters R, U, S, and H that can grant you the Super Adapter, to some more hidden goodies and secrets that you can find such as being able to get Proto Man’s shield. While I wouldn’t necessarily say all of these upgrades are all that useful (Beat got a major downgrade in this game, unfortunately), a lot of them are a big help, especially later down the road, making the game that much more fun whenever you do get these and take full advantage of them. Not to mention, they aren’t that hard to find either, which makes one-hundred-percenting this game feel like a breeze, which is a nice change of pace for once. The secrets in this game don’t just extend to the items either, as there are also plenty of different hidden pathways you can take in stages if you know where they are, and there is even a hidden track that you can find in a certain stage if you know what combination of buttons to hit whenever you are going into the level. It sucks that it only plays once, but as a fan of GNG, this shit is legendary to me.

Alongside that, not much is changed about what you can see and do in this game, but there are several new, noteworthy additions that would become staples of the series, such as with the new characters that show up in this game, Bass and Treble. These two are pretty much just meant to be the rivals of Mega Man and Rush, with you fighting against him in the beginning intro stage of the game, who you will then find/fight again multiple times throughout the remainder of the game, and in this game, he is…. kinda whatever? I mean, he’s a cool character and all, and I love that he becomes a staple character in the series from here on out, but I dunno, aside from his final fight where he and Treble combine to take you down, he doesn’t really come off as that interesting or likable. Despite that though, he does get better in later games, so it is great to see that they stuck with him for quite a while, and he would even get his own chance to star in a game right alongside Mega Man as well…………….. to mixed results (we are gonna have fun with that game, let me tell ya).

In terms of how the game itself plays, it does play pretty much like your standard Mega Man game. Ya run, ya jump, ya shoot things, ya get new powers, ya set fire to the forest and murder all of the innocent animals because Mega Man is an asshole…… y’know, the usual shit. If you have played any of the other games in this series before and since this one, you know pretty much what to get out of this game, and it still manages to be really fun and addicting all the same…….. to me, that is. Yeah, we may as well bring up one aspect of this game that does manage to turn people away a lot of the time, and that is that, compared to the other Mega Man games before this, this game is… kinda stunted, at least, in terms of the main gameplay. It still plays and feels like Mega Man, but your movement speed feels reduced, all of the environments and enemies feel a lot bigger and more condensed, and Mega Man himself has a MUCH bigger sprite than before, making this game kinda feel like a bit of slog in comparison. Despite all that though… I have never really been bothered by that at all. Yes, it is undeniable how sluggish this game can feel compared to the other Mega Man games, but the way that you do move, shoot, and find all of these hidden secrets and upgrades still feels really great, just as great as playing one of these games should feel, and I manage to have a fantastic time with it either way. Does this make me weird? Eh, probably, but if you didn’t think that already at this point, you clearly haven’t been here long enough then.

Now, despite how much I will praise and defend this game, I can still definitely agree with some common criticisms that this game faces, such as the fact that some of the boss fights in this game FUCKING BLOW. In the previous Mega Man games, whenever you got to a boss with the weapon that was their weakness, it made the boss fights relatively easier for the most part, but there was still that sense of challenge that you could plainly face with a lot of them. In this game, however, if you go to any boss with their weakness, they become YOUR BITCH. Anytime you hit them with the weapon, they will get stunned long enough to get into a lock, meaning that you can constantly hit them over and over again before they even get the chance to do anything, and they will die very quickly. This isn’t an issue with all the bosses, but for some like Cloud Man, Junk Man, and ESPECIALLY Spring Man, they don’t stand a chance against you like this, which does kinda make them less fun. Ah well, at least we have other bosses that are still challenging…. even if they can be a bit much at times (fucking Wily Capsule, man…).

Aside from that though, the only other criticism in this game that I have is that the cutscenes, for as little of them as they are, are REALLY slow. Throughout the game, there will be plenty of instances where you will have characters talking about something, such as after you get a weapon in one of the main stages, or even after you defeat a boss, and while a good number of these have text that you can speed through, a lot of other times, you have to just sit there and waaaaaaaaait for them to go by, and maybe it’s just because I’m an impatient shit, but this drives me crazy. This is especially true with the intro cutscene, where whenever you start the game, you HAVE to watch this opening sequence of Mega Man, Roll, and Auto driving through this city, and then seeing Mega Man find Dr. Light, and everything else that follows. There is no option to skip this scene at all, so yeah, it really is somewhat of a buzzkill whenever I come back to replay this game and this cutscene shows up, meaning I just have to sit back and wait, tapping my foot impatiently. But hey, it’s ok, because in the good ol’ Mega Man tradition, we do get some fun little typos that are funny to see in some of these cutscenes. Makes you laugh and remember to just have a great time with the game.

Overall, despite how different it may feel, some pretty pathetic bosses, and how some of the cutscenes can be quite an annoyance, Mega Man 7 is yet another phenomenal entry in this phenomenal series, keeping the gameplay as fun and addicting as ever, adding plenty of fun upgrades and secrets to find and use throughout, and having the kind of presentation that makes this feel like a true, proper evolution for the classic series as a whole. I would absolutely recommend it for those who are big fans of the other games in the series, as well as for those who are tired of the 8-bit look that a lot of these games tend to get, because this one manages to be a massive upgrade in the looks department, and you will most likely end up loving the gameplay just as much as well. But y’know what… now that I think about it, I may have been a little too harsh on the cutscenes in this game, because you know what, they aren’t THAT bad……….. because trust me, they could’ve been a whole lot worse.

Game #595

He's a freak out the sheeeets and the other guy gets his own cinematic with dramatic lighting just to spout "Moshi moshi?" to the fairer sex. It's time to get acquainted with- wait, what? Oh, it's a common entry point for the series. I'll try not to bring up content from the other games. That said, most of the major players from Yakuza 3 to 5 were still not brought back. I'm satisfied with the substory cameos, though. People were fucking crazy in the late 90s. They had more money and adult entertainment than they knew what to do with. They do know, actually, but I don't think I'm strong enough to give the deets.

After Yakuza 3... this is a strong contender for best story, so far. 3 had tourists, kids and pets roaming the streets of Japan and it's kinda weird they stopped existing afterwards, but now stray cats and dogs can be found again. Fittingly, Majima doesn't sport the role of the straight man that Kiryu has wink wink, actively splashing fuel to the fire. Though when push comes to shove, this Kiryu can be less straight...the man.... less man straight well it's Yakuza bruv when you kill a man he dies and when you give him backshots your name is Mr. Shakedown.

I played Kiwami, but I was glad to see the combat again here. We are eating! But is it good? This is more confirmation that the moveset never was the problem. We were warned, this is what happens when you give a chimpanzee a machine gun. The random super armor on enemies was especially egregious this time around. Is this how disco forged our men? I have that crazy theory that Kiryu can only sprint in this game because he's... under 30 years old! Supposedly. But then he kinda rember in future entries. Never tell him to take a hike, because chances are, he's in Beast style and will actually grab a hike and maul you with it.

It's weird thinking of this Majima as one people may have gotten to know first. But they are very unlucky!! That is the peak of his career. His styles also have nada to do with the true dawg of Shimano. A bat and dance moves? Can't I use a knife and ninjutsu? What's the point in showing the watermelon flashback if not to instill in the player's head that he must be an expert knife user that can fruit ninja irl. Riddle me this. Why is Kiryu's real estate better than Majima's real dump of a club? Because an eye for business has less worth than two forced to commit yubitsume that's enough yakuzing cya next entry or my name isn't goror majimer, the Apex Predator named Princess.

WOW! I vaguely remember playing this when I was a good bit younger, but I hardly remembered it at all. I'm glad I got the urge to play through New Vegas again thanks to the TV series like so many others I'm sure! The whole unique aspect of it all completely giving you almost a survival horror-esque feel with the bomb collars and the ghost enemies and their unique animations as well as a very interesting linear type of storytelling with its great characters which reminded me of the first Bioshock a bit(another one I need to replay soon). As I have gotten older and experiencing this expansion again I definitely see it in a new light. Especially playing way more in 1st person then I used to since I have gotten more into the fps genre. Really itching to play the others and see how well they hold up to me now! It is always so interesting how you see things in a different light once you age and become a bit more mature lol.

It's pretty disappointing.

While the combat flows better than similar games, a lot of Wuthering Waves still feels half-baked, ranging from technical performance to the UI and worldbuilding. The characters' voicelines repeat themselves anytime you open a menu, there are huge lag spikes and I experienced a random crash too. Like I said, it's just disappointing, considering the game already had two beta tests and it still came out like this on release.

As for the story, I didn't find it particularly engaging from what I've played. After a cool intro cinematic, you're subject to an one-hour exposition dump, which could have just easily been explained as "there's dissonance in this world, so these monsters have appeared; you can also absorb their powers", but instead you get to hear increasingly verbose explanations about everything and their cool names. (Tacet Discord? There's a lot of things you could name monsters, but why would you name them Tacet Discords?)

I'm trying to not end this review on a negative note, there's still some enjoyment to be had in Wuthering Waves - the character designs look good, the first city you visit is pretty, the combat feels smooth and the animations flow well, so if you're a fan of Kuro's previous game, Punishing Gray Raven, this might interest you. As for me, I can't really see myself getting hooked on this world because of the established reasons, so I'll continue playing my gacha of choice about some train in space. Some kind of star rail.

I don't really have a shit-ton to say about Pikmin 4, it's just more of the strategic and satisfying goodness that these games are known for. The stages and their designs are all pretty good (except for the last one that I just didn't enjoy for whatever reason) and the return of caves was really well done as well. Night missions weren't that fun but you're only required to do four to beat the game, so they aren't egregious either. Oatchi makes things a little bit too easy, to the point where I didn't ever really find myself getting off of his back unless I absolutely had to, but I don't think this ease makes the game much worse, if anything it makes it more accesible for people getting into the series which is absolutely fine by me. Dandori battles and challenges are really fun and can actually get really challenging towards the end of the game which is great. My biggest complaint here would be the story and characters, they just aren't nearly as interesting as the other games in the series. None of the rescue crew have distinct personalities that make them stand out like Olimar, Louie, or any of the characters from 3 do which is slightly disappointing see how much I love all those characters' writing. And the plot reason for the game happening being to save Olimar and other castaways stuck on the planet is fine enough, but there's not a sense of urgency seeing as they're all still alive just as Pikmin-people hybrids that seem to be doing just fine. Overall these aren't big complaints and the game is still really good despite them, I just wish they were a little better. Overall though, Pikmin 4 is a fine addition to this legendary and underrated series and one that I'm happy has done decently well for itself. Here's to a future with many more great Pikmin games and this series finally getting the love it deserves!

I did not expect to enjoy this game a lot as it's very simple as it is the first of the series and with replayability with the different classes. The turn base combat is as simple as it gets and it comes to be the beginning of what the series would turn to today of innovating on new ideas. That being said despite the game being (mostly) easy the game has its annoyances with random encounters which I now remember how annoying they can be sometimes. Dungeons are short but they have a lot of dead ends if you don't know where you are going which results in it feeling longer than it should combined with the random encounters. The plot is very silly with the villains end goal which really comes to show how the series' various convoluted plots were ingrained in the series beginnings

quick note, i got this from @duhnuhnuh 's list of free steam keys. very nice of em. the only requirement was a review, which i already do. go look through it if theres anything you want. i see classic doom's still not taken, which i'd totally recommend.

peakdeus or poodeus?

i cant tell! seriously, this game is such whiplash for me. on one hand, its got the worst unlock system ive played in any shooter, has some of the same aesthetic problems as doom 2016, and also shares a lot of gripes that i have with doom 64. on the other, when the game fully leans into its strengths, and you get in a good groove, it rocks.

so first off, lets talk about the shitty shop system. try saying that 10x fast. in keeping with the classic doom tradition, theres a heavy emphasis on exploration of levels to find secrets and stuff. this means that the game's currency, ore, is scattered around levels and you have to find them to unlock certain guns and abilities. by itself, this wouldnt be a big issue. my issue comes from the fact of just how much ore you need to collect for these upgrades. for the SSG and energy gun, you need 15 ore each. if youre someone who likes exploring everything, you can probably get these within the first 5 or so levels. but for me, i prefer linearity in my shooters. so it took me about 75% of the first map to unlock. when i say first map i dont mean first level, theres a kinda dnd system where you have a mini guy that moves around a map to access levels. theres like 4 of these total in the game, 3 of which are relatively short. so when it takes me that long to unlock an energy gun/SSG that kinda pissed me off. whatever, ill just grind out the ore to get what im really after: the dash and double jump. after using a guide replaying many early levels to find all ore, i was able to get the SSG. great, just gotta replay like 5 more levels or so and ill have enough for the dash/double jump. except, thats not the case. those things cost more than the ssg/energy gun. this peeved me off. i decided fuck it, ill play the entire game like 2016 instead. because i didnt want to waste another hour replaying levels for vital tools of your moveset which should have been unlocked through gameplay.

note: the next paragraph had to be rewritten cuz i lost about 30 minutes of work on it. i don't like this draft as much as the initial but what can you do?

hell, even if they didnt, at least make them the first thing you can buy from the shop. when casually looking for ore, it took me about 12/22 levels to unlock the dash. that's way too long in a boomer shooter that clearly takes more from eternal/dusk than it does 2016 in its design. the level design in this game is weird tho. nothing in the game requires you to use the double jump or dash, but it's clearly begging you to use them. this puts it in a weird limbo, where the game ends up feeling incredibly easy, since most encounters are designed around only sprinting and shooting, but made significantly more fun when using the dash and djump. about 90% of levels i beat with 10 deaths or less, and about 50% of levels i beat with 5 deaths or less. i played on hard. the games also easy bc of the way respawning works. in most shooters, when you die the enemies of that encounter reset. the nexus points in prodeus make it so that if you kill it once, it stays dead. this whole system makes the game braindead and i wish encounters could simply reset with you. again though, this decision might have been made bc of how its the game's design doesnt rely on shop unlocks, so if someone collected zero ore, then it might be pretty difficult for them to get through encounters without the enemies staying dead. yet another reason the fucking dash and djump should have been unlocked in levels. the djump i had only unlocked before the penultimate level this leads to another thing. my muscle memory to use both the dash and djump was never developed due to the game not requiring you to use them, and also being incredibly short. by the time i was finally getting into a groove i was already basically done. this shit sucks, bc the game would probably be A LOT more fun if levels were fully designed around djump and dash. but idk, bc of the easy gameplay it leaves it feeling not satisfying.

there is one level that denies this philosophy, though. the "final boss". the final boss is just a huge gauntlet that kinda randomly ends and supposedly the story will get finished in the dlc. hopefully with a real boss too. anyway, the gauntlet requires you to move like there's no tomorrow, and is the only relatively challenging fight in the game due to no access to the nexus points. this fight is where the game shares a huge amount of dna with doom 64. in doom 64 the final fight is complete ass and i only beat it bc of spamming BFG shots at the end. here, the enemies are a bit more bearable once you get used to them, but even with the djump finally unlocked it was a bit of a struggle to find my footing in that fight, constant projectiles and hard to see whats what.





as for the gunplay, it feels incredible even with all these setbacks. not only do the guns feel powerful, which ill talk about later, but when you get into the groove with enemies its awesome fun. however, it does fall into that trap that many shooters experience. rocket spam, and no gameplay reasons to have most weapons. in the later half of the game, theres plenty of rocket spam, which if you know me youll know i hate in shooters, why make all these fucking weapons at all if in late game you just end up spamming rockets and shotgun? not every weapon needs a "set" purpose like in eternal, but at least something like ULTRAKILL where every weapon and every alt type of weapon has a fun use. like with ULTRAKILL its so fun to keep swapping and killing everything in crazy ways. in eternal you need to swap to stay alive. but in prodeus, i hardly see a use at all for the pistol past even the first level. i dont see a difference between using the energy blaster and the machine guns. i think the MGs are hitscan, but you rarely end up out of ammo to swap through everything. except a few cases where your ammo supply is bone dry and its incredibly hard to kill things. why do the fists exist? honestly they shoulda just made the pistol the default weapon with infinite ammo. i just dont see why half the weapons in the game exist. rocket spam does exist for a reason tho, and thats just cuz it still is fun as fuck to jump around the map shooting rockets, even if not the most engaging.

as for the ost, it really surprised me,seeing how im not the hugest hulshult fan(or so i thought, being how i didnt remember most tracks from his eternal dlc work or dusk). in reality, i found his work on prodeus insanely good. i think he just put a poor taste in my mouth with dusk bc that was mostly atmospheric stuff which i dont care for. i love reflections of violence off dusk. hes great here and i think its primarily because of the dynamic(? dunno if thats how to correctly describe it) ost in prodeus. you got your BORING atmospheric ambient tracks but they seamlessly transition into crazy good heavy metal tracks during fights. some favorites include cables and chaos, spent fuel, and dark matter. i definitely wanna give his doom eternal stuff another shot when i happen to replay it, whenever that is.

lets talk about the aesthetic. i mentioned in my first paragraph how it shared some problems with doom 2016's aesthetic. the aesthetic in that game is mostly just orange and brown, which leads most things looking samey. the same is true for prodeus, but the game has an ace up it's sleeve, the sprite work and sounds. the level of artistry to make every sprite at every angle is insane, i honestly think it cancels out how everything in this game is either red, blue, or black. like seriously the aesthetic rocks, cuz the sprites make it unique and stand out. thats not to mention the gore and blood effects which further make it stand out. in doom 2016 and esp eternal the gore was relatively cartoony and over the top, but in prodeus it's dripping with this edginess that isnt present in the doom games. it looks insanely good while you melt down rows of enemies with the machine guns... and dear god do they got the sound design on point, too. the reload noises for each weapons is great, and you feel the impact they bring. the energy gun, too. impact of every weapon is nice and meaty, the only one i didnt initially like was the SSG sfx, but it definitely grew on me.

i feel im going in circles now so i hope you can now see why im at an impasse with this game. i had a lotta fun at points, but at the same time, there's a lot holding it back from its true potential. i think im gonna give it an 8 for now, but could very well change.

Ultimate Gradius Review Part 2.
(Covers Gradius I, II, III, Advance, V, Rebirth, GB Gradius I, GB Gradius II)

Hello this is Mali/Mals/Pitaya/whatever you’d like to call me, and we are back with another Gradius review! Except this time, we’re going to be skipping Salamander as I have already made a comprehensive review on that game, along with International and Japanese Lifeforce which is covered in that same review. Gradius II, otherwise known as the bizarre title of Vulcan Venture internationally, is the 1988 successor to the original Gradius or in my opinion, the successor to Salamander.Most, along with Konami has said that Salamander is just a spinoff of Gradius, but I disagree. I don’t believe that for a game that has been so relevant to the series, it gets the spinoff treatment. I’m looking back at Puyo Puyo and how that game is also a spinoff of a Japanese exclusive dungeon crawler dubbed Madou Monogatari! It’s great too, and it also features Puyos as enemies in the game.

But honestly, while many consider Gradius II as the best in the series, I disagree because after replaying this game, this game feels more like a remix of the original Gradius, Salamander, the MSX Nemesis 2 (different game as the MSX games follow a more cohesive story, I might get down to them later down the road) and even Japanese Life Force, to some extent. There's some weapons that gotten carried over (Pulse/Ripple Laser, Spread Bomb (a revised Napalm from MSX Nemesis 2), 2-Way Missile,), but then new to this game, there’s the Force Field, which finally protects your entire ship rather than guarding the front, a tail gun, which is a double that shoots a bullet from behind, and the Photon Torpedo, which is a missile that drops straight out of the options and the ship. It’s unconventional but it can pass through all targets except for something that’s indestructible. With the weapons, also comes in the stages that are also inspired by the stages found within the ones from the above. How about we talk about the story first, and then we can get to the stages, alrighty?

~

Story
We take a good 2 steps back, and we revisit to the original Gradius where the Vic Viper has been sent to destroy and defeat the Bacterians, but this time, a new force from them was to be reckoned with: Gofer is the new antagonist and once again, the Vic Viper has been sent to stop them from succeeding in taking over not just Planet Gradius, but the
world as a whole. That’s actually it for the story!

Graphics
I have a bit of a mixed review with the Graphics. While they are impressive indeed, I don’t think that they have much of an upgrade compared to the Gradius and Slaamander. Especially with the latter! The latter was more colorful with the sprites and backgrounds, and LifeForce also added a fresh coat of paint to the original, even if some things had to be recolored. This one feels more like an upgrade of Gradius I which ironically is, and I think it really has to do with the limits of the time.

Gameplay
I actually addressed how this game works with the above, so I’ll just skip to my opinions on the stages themselves:

~

Artificial Sun (Phonenix)
The first stage of the game. This one is like Latis in Salamander to which that the place is all on fire, but this one work akin to the vertical scrolling stages in the original Gradius. This one has a bunch of suns with dragons coming out of them shooting out rocks with some enemies here and there. This one takes a bit long but it’s not too hard, either. The boss is just a giant Pheonix that shoots in blue wind (or whatever they are, I don’t know), and fire out of its mouth.

Alien (Big Eye)
Just like the first stage, this stage is not that bad, and it feels more like a beginner stage than anything. It reminds me of an expanded version of the second stage in the first Gradius, and in terms of the boss, you shoot the big eye when it’s open. Do be careful though cause after opening and closing his eyes, he will shoot a boulder out.

Crystal (Crystal Core)
Now we have our first Crystal stage. This one is pretty short and simple with a bunch of crystals coming from the right to the left. Depending on how well played you know the right path, this one should be fairly simple especially since most of the crystals can be destroyed by your shots. I will say though that there’s some difficulty in terms of how weird the crystals move and such. But then again, it could be due to hardware limits at the time. (Even though it’s not smooth on later ports)

The Crystal Core is honestly a great core and I’m glad that they referenced it in future Gradius games. It’s one of my all time favorite cores in the series because it’s normal in terms of how easy and hard it is. It falls in between both of them.

Volcano (Death Mark II)
This and the stage after this one are just repeats of the original Gradius stages. More specifically, the first and fourth stages. And honestly, I cannot find a single difference other than the fact that the layouts are different than each other. While the boss is from Salamander, not all hope is lost in terms of reusing bosses and assets. The Death Mark II gotten a huge upgrade! (even though the design of the ship looks the same). Instead of moving pathetically slow shooting the occasional enemy, this one is more erratic and shoots multiple missiles instead of one single easily defeated enemy, and upon breaking the small barrier, he actually shoots a LASER... Playing this game and going back to Salamander, I couldn’t stand the fact that Death Mark I doesn't even shoot a laser when I break the front of the ship. They have done justice to the change with Mark II, and I rather have this more than the Mark I

Revenge of Moai (Jumping Moai ︱ Big Moai)
This stage resembles the Moai stage from Gradius I, but with a new twist: the Moai turn red and shoot more aggressively. The boss, an aggressive Moai, leaps across the screen but can be quickly defeated by staying near its mouth, similar to the others. Upon its defeat, you encounter a three-headed Moai beast with heads on the top, bottom, and right. Each head releases five mini Moais that emit tiny rings. Simply target the heads to conquer this boss. Alternatively, you might allow the boss to self-destruct if you struggle to hit the top large Moai head, whichever strategy you prefer.

High Speed Maze (Big Core Mark II)
The first high speed stage! At this stage there’s barely any enemies, but the challenge comes from the speed, and the barriers that close in on you if you’re too slow. Sticking more to the right at the cost of having an extremely reduced reaction time will be the choice to go. After this, the Big Core Mark II comes in. This is a refreshed upgrade of the stupid Big Core Mark I from the original Gradius where instead of moving up and down with a tiny pea shooter as a weapon, this one does... the same thing, but there’s more lasers. At least the lasers combined look like a ship which is kinda cute.

Boss Rush/Parade (Big Core Mark I, Golem, Tetran, Gaw, Intruder, Covered Core)
Now we finally have our first true Boss Parade. Where it includes most of Gradius I and salamander’s bosses into the game for a comeback, along with changes made to make them harder.

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Big Core Mark I
I hate taking about this ship with a burning passion. This is the most overused Gradius core ever and just seeing it makes my head hurt. And within the changes he’s received from Gradius II, all that’s different is that he is faster, the barriers break into pieces that count as projectiles, and that’s about. Just blast him and get to the next enemy.
 
Golem
The Golem from Salamander works the same just as you’d expect it to: Wait until he opens his eye while dodging his hands, and shoot until it’s dead. The change with this one is that he closes and opens his eyes, and I believe that the ends of the hands shoot projectiles.

Tetran
Tetran has all of the hands fully extended out of the ship instead of gradually coming out during the boss, and what’s new to this boss is that the barriers also break into projectiles with the arms of the ship going in and out to spray more bullets at you. Eventually, it’ll just be stuck out spinning around the ship and it’s just the matter of using the same start as last time: get the options directly into the core and shoot until it’s dead.

Gaw
I’d say that this is one of the biggest changes from the original boss to the newer boss in this game. While it works like Death Mark I in terms of shooting out enemies (or the eyes of Gaw), these shoots out multiple and eventually it will start shooting a bunch of lasers. This one is erratic and itsit'srd to keep up with the boss itself.

Intruder
Finally for the returning bosses, this one is the intruder from Salamander which hs shoots out blasts of fire towards the player. This time, if you shoot him enough, hell scream and then split into three which is pretty much does the same as if they weren’t separate from each other.

Covered Core
And to end it off, we have another new core that’s the hardest of them all. This one constantly shoots missiles from the top and the bottom, and the barriers thankfully don’t break into projectiles. This one is difficult because you’re going to have to be moving all of the time and the missiles don’t always stay from the core into where it’s going.

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Gofer Ship Interior (Demos, Crab, Gofer)
And now we finally shoot the opening to Gofer’s ship and finally into the mechanical base of Gradius II. This one works similar to the original but closer to the end of the stage, there’s moving blocks that attempt to close in on you (similar to the high speed stage) that you mostly have to stay to the right of the screen for which like usual, it’s dangerous due to hazards that that you can easily ram yourself into due to it showing off the screen. For the second in the series (I count the 4th boss stage in Salamander), there’s a wall core that you must shoot with the barriers shooting projectiles when broken and enemies coming out of the turrets from the top and the bottom. Breaking the wall core summons our first true walker: or the Crab in this game. This is a large enemy that’s indestructible that walks left and right and serves as the ultimate test of movement due to you being forced to move every time it moves, and what’s worse is that you have enemies coming from the left and right to make this even more rigorous.

And then we finally have Gofer, which thankfully, he doesn’t look like an egg. I still don’t know why they have designed him so poorly in that game, I swear... But he’s practically the same thing but in his original incarnation: He just says dialogue, you shoot the things that are connecting to him (or wait like a chad) and he’ll be dead. Now you finished the game with credits to congratulate you for the second time! Now you can continue this loop, or just call it quits and kill yourself until you get to the ranking screen.

~~

Soundtrack
This has got to be one of the biggest upgrades in terms of everything that the original Gradius and Salamander had started off with, ngl. With the Konami’s Yamaha YM2151, the soundtrack is able to sound a lot more richer and action-packed, something that is carried over for the rest of the series. Like, can we talk about Burning Heat ? The music for Gradius has gotten an intense overhaul that adds more to the experience of the stages, making them a lot more lively with each entry. Another important one to talk about is The Old Stone Age where it starts off as normal, but two loops in, it starts to become faster to go with the aggressiveness of the Moai heads. For this one, it starts off with one loop (don’t know why), but in-game, it’s two. Even the boss music from Gradius and Salamander have gotten upgrades to sound a lot more intense than the originals. And it makes sense! They are now harder than what they’re used to (except for good ol Big Core Mk I) and the upgrades reflect this new revised versions.
~~

Other Thoughts
As I conclude my reflections on Gradius II, I must acknowledge an oversight I've been conscious of throughout: my discussions of the bosses lacked strategies for defeating them. While this aspect I plan to delve into in my next Gradius review, I shall start taking into consideration the best ways to defeat the bosses. But then again, why would I do that if the start to most of the bosses remain the same? This is something that I'll do my best to revise as time goes on.

This is the second part of a two-part review for Monster Hunter: world, except this one will be for Iceborne. I strongly encourage you to read the first part here. Iceborne is an equally long game as World, but I don’t have as much to cover this time, so it should be shorter. This DLC has been hyped up for me way before I got into Monster Hunter, so I went in with moderate expectations, but considering my issues with the base game, I wasn’t expecting anything mind-blowing. Needless to say, it was a fantastic experience with a few snags, let’s get right into it.

Iceborne is a substantial DLC right away because it fundamentally changes how each weapon is played and what they can do. Longswords for example, get the Iai slash and Iai spirit slash. Iai spirit slash becomes an essential tool since landing it will allow your meter to naturally charge overtime, giving you more room to disengage from the monster without fully compromising your ability to perform your Spirit Slash combo. Iai Spirit Slash on the other hand is a higher skilled foresight slash that rewards you with tremendous damage, large part-break damage, and is visually striking. However, the issue with this particular move is the timing is far too tight at times, and it has a lot of factors that make it unreliable and random which severely hinders any sort of benefit it could provide on paper. I’m not an expert when it comes to how this move works, however, I recommend watching this video by Peppo, a former speedrunner about Iai Spirit Slash. It was incredibly informal, and was personally the decision for me to never use this move despite the theoretical potential and advantage it provides. With that said, the simple inclusion of Iai Slash makes Longsword much more forgiving to play despite already being rather easy. Other weapons I can’t comment on as much, however a lot of them usually tie into another mechanic introduced into Iceborne, which is the Clutch Claw.

Clutch Claw is a rather divisive mechanic overall. In concept, it allows you to latch onto a monster from a relatively close distance, once you are latched onto a monster you have a few options. You can “tenderize” that part of the monster, which allows for more damage to be dealt in that specific area. Tenderizing takes two strikes to tenderize with light weapons, while heavy weapons only take one. This would be a fantastic mechanic because it’d allow the hunters a much faster means of defeating monsters while also rewarding monster knowledge by tenderizing weak points to deal even more damage. The issue with this mechanic for Iceborne specifically are the monsters themselves, or rather their bloated health pools. Monsters in Iceborne require you tenderize them to deal adequate damage for them to go down at a reasonable pace, which bogs down many fights to “clutch claw and tenderize as soon as possible”. It heavily restricts the approach one can take fighting monsters in Iceborne, that’s not to mention how inaccurate The Clutch Claw also is. Aiming the clutch claw requires you to aim a reticle at the part you wish to clutch onto, if you aim successfully, then there’s no issue, but that’s the problem, the aiming is terrible. Monsters are incredibly fast and always moving, so having the time to carefully aim and clutch onto a monster is a nightmare, on top of its short range, you really need to put yourself in danger to do it. At least if you latch onto the wrong part, you can jump to other parts of the monster, but this can waste time and has incredibly odd input buffering issues from personal experience, but this may have been my own issue entirely by quickly hitting the buttons, it was annoying all the same.

Clutch Claw’s second important use is wall banging with the slinger. In World, the slinger was mostly used for environmental interaction and getting the monster’s attention while also being able to interrupt their attacks if timed right. Wall banging is not only better in every conceivable way to these options, but once again brings up a balancing issue, except in reverse to tenderizing. If you can clutch onto a monster’s face while they’re not enraged you can use up all of your slinger ammo to make them go sprinting into a wall, which will deal tremendous part break damage and have them topple over, giving you a gigantic opening. You can also adjust where the monster is facing to ensure they run into some obstacle or wall for the topple, which is useful. Wall banging pretty much trivializes any fight before Iceborne, and in Iceborne itself, it can be equally trivializing with the right coordination, guaranteeing a topple is already strong, but wall banging itself can deal immense damage to a monster as well. While I think the challenge of the monsters you fight in Iceborne can make up the difference here, wall banging at first is an incredibly satisfying and fun mechanic, but it’s far too easy and rewarding for something that only requires some slinger ammo and the monster not being enraged. Let’s not forget to mention that tenderizing the monster will drop slinger ammo for you if you use a light weapon, the game is giving you the resources to repeat this process over and over. That’s the fundamental problem with Iceborne to me, they design these monsters around both of these concepts, to tenderize, and to wall bang,, so to make up for that, they made monsters have so much health and resistance, if you decide not to use these methods, I’d argue your chances of succeeding later become vastly lower. Not to mention it can slow down certain fights to an absolute crawl, because you need to use the clutch claw, but if the monster is moving around a lot, and you’re just getting unlucky and knocked off a lot, you’re just kind of screwed. Granted you can still fight the monster normally, but with their health, and that lovely time limit adding pressure to be a bit faster, it’s a combination I did not enjoy very much initially, but you do get used to the new flow Iceborne presents, though I feel it dumbs down gameplay a lot and can be a crutch.

I think I’ve addressed some negatives, let’s get into some positives! The monster roster for Iceborne is nothing short of utterly amazing! While I definitely had my favorites from World like Nergigante, Teostra, and Odagaron to name a few, Iceborne quickly introduced me to some of my all-time favorite monsters ever in both design and fights. Nargacuga’s blinding speed yet incredibly fair openings, Brachydios being a knuckle duster with explosive AoE’s, and Barioth’s blinding speed and aggression that can be stopped cold by shattering his wings. There were very few fights in Iceborne I didn’t enjoy or at least tolerated compared to base World, it gave the game much needed variety outside of World’s roster which felt very dinosaur and dragon loaded. Iceborne certainly doesn’t shy away from adding more of these types of monsters, but was pleasantly surprised to see more diverse design inclusions like Banbaro. One thing I could have done without are all the new variants of old monsters. In concept, I think the idea is good, but in Iceborne, they didn’t feel substantial enough at all to warrant including in my eyes. There are exceptions of course like Coral Pukei-Pukei, and Frostfang Barioth to name a few, but others like Ebony Odagaron and Nightshade Paolumu felt more like padding than worthwhile variants worth being in the DLC. That’s a negligent issue in the grand scheme of things, but still an issue regardless, still an amazing roster of monsters I was very pleased with.

Iceborne also has us exploring a new region: The Hoarfrost Reach. Hoarfrost Reach is a beautiful landscape covered in snow, but wasn’t too large or difficult to navigate, on top of being rather flat compared to the likes of the Ancient Forest, I was immediately a fan of this new area. One thing I was not a fan of constantly having to consume hot drinks to ensure my stamina wasn’t lowered by the cold. Thematically speaking, it’s incredibly cohesive and makes sense, mechanically? It’s bothersome to keep up with, but considering it’s not that often you need to refresh your immunity, it’s ignorable, but something I noticed compared to Elder’s Recess where you only needed to consume Cold Drinks for specific sections, not the entire map. We also get an entire new hub for this DLC, Seliana, wow. Seliana in stark comparison to Astera, was remarkably designed, much flatter, much easier to traverse, and had an unbelievably cozy and immersive feel. I loved everything Seliana had to offer in both layout and new activities such as the generator which just made certain items an absolute breeze to get without farming expeditions anymore. Seliana also had a much better and inviting Gathering Hub, with hot springs, more convenient layout, and again just really cozy. It has much better music, you get your own room you can customize and do side quests to obtain more decoration options which is an awesome inclusion that’ll give the game far more playtime and longevity for people who enjoy that. I personally only dabbled with it, but I was thoroughly impressed with how much you could do with it. As soon as I reached, I never went back to Astera, it’s just too bothersome and badly designed to navigate. I appreciate its verticality and scope, but Seliana is just more inviting and non-intrusive, it wins by a landslide.

Progression with Iceborne also felt far better than base world. A plethora of new monsters means more gear than ever to craft, and most of them are once again useful in their own right and look good to boot, with the added bonus of not having an armor set that can essentially carry you throughout the game like the Defender Gear. With that said, the last armor set in the game one could arguably obtain is far too versatile with how it’s designed, every single weapon or playstyle can be supported by it, and it’s due to this armor set that Iceborne’s endgame grinding is always the same, which is a huge detriment. Had the game allowed for any and all armor combinations to, in theory, be viable, it would have made building and using them long-term far more satisfying and valuable, but instead, what awaits you is a far superior armor set everyone uses, with zero reason not to, no negatives, no drawbacks, nothing, the only caveat being how you obtain it, but we’ll get there. Besides that one issue, the plethora of new options is great, and I very much enjoyed the progression in Iceborne more than the base world. I personally built far more weapons and armor in this expansion than my entire time in Base World because the monsters and difficulty increase every mission warranted it enough to feel important to do.

Iceborne unfortunately retreads the same issues the base world does with cutscenes, missions, and characters. None of it mattered to me, it’s all simply, once again, a means to justify why you’re fighting specific monsters, it works, but is completely unimportant overall. I once again found myself wanting to skip these cutscenes in favor of fighting large monsters. Characters are as one-dimensional as ever, but we do get a break from the Handler in this expansion for a little while, which was nice, but nothing significant. It’s honestly a tragedy these negatives still exist, as you also need to watch the cutscene first before others can join your hunt, which was equally annoying in base World, this same issue persists here. For as much as Iceborne improved upon base world, this was not one of those areas, and it’s a shame too because this DLC truly felt like it was really trying to right every wrong, but I guess it can’t all be perfect.

Let’s get into my largest criticism for Iceborne, the endgame, or more specifically, the endgame monsters you will be fighting. Now, it’d be hard for me to talk about this since it’s riddled with spoilers. I was inspired by one of my friends and inspirations, @DetectiveFail to use pastebin to discuss spoilers. So for the last section of this review, I highly suggest reading it here if you want my thoughts on it. For those who don’t, or wish not to, I will still give a brief summary here. Essentially, a lot of the final Monsters you fight in World boil down to DPS checks that don’t necessarily cater to skill, but more so how good your build is, and forces you to grind for something good enough to overcome the challenge. Monster Hunter already made it difficult at times to win due to the time limit implemented in hunts, and here that problem is exacerbated further. If your damage isn’t good enough, then you will simply wipe, that’s all there is to it. Not to mention the difficulty spike in the last two monsters especially is far too high, and I personally struggled to defeat them for several hours, to days. It was certainly rewarding and a huge accomplishment, but also an obstacle that will ensure I will never aim to complete this DLC ever again because the entire grind was rather unpleasant and not very fun. Instead it was incredibly frustrating and felt like the odds were always against me to win, this is ironically in the same spirit as Monster Hunter aims for, to feel an insurmountable challenge against giant monsters you can and will overcome. But here it feels legitimately impossible, and many have told me from talking about the final boss in Iceborne that they never came close to beating it.

This has been a very long review in the making, I appreciate everyone’s patience and support as I got this finished. I’m happy to say it is now finished, and ready to review some other great games I’ve been playing while working on this. Overall, I did love Iceborne, it was nothing but an improvement from the base game with tons of implementations, monsters, and ideas I felt were mostly good, others I can’t necessarily say I’d be sad if they never returned. While I do take many issues with the game and its expansion, I got to say it’s still a remarkable game. I’ve always wanted to get into this series, and I’m glad I did with this one! I can easily recommend it to others for the immersive monster behavior and designs, the soundtrack, and the fun combat that hits a few snags along the way. Thank you all for reading my review of Iceborne! Next time, we’ll be mixing drinks and changing lives! Until next time.

Halo Reach acts as a prequel to the first Halo game, giving fans a look at the events that lead to the fall of Reach, and their link to the events of the first game.
This also marks the final time Bungie would work an Halo game.
It's kinda sad to see them go, but the seeds were already planted since Halo 2, and both Microsoft and Bungie had very different ideologies, so I'm surprised they stuck around for this long.

I'll start off by saying that even though the premise is very interesting... I think the story was pretty weak. It was hard for me to care about many of the main cast, since I don't think their characteristics got explored too much. I think Jorge was the character I enjoyed the most, but only by a small bit compared to the others.
Like I said previously, it does connect to Halo 1, and seeing that connection was really cool, but it was cool because it connected to another game, and not because it stood on its own merits, if you catch my drift.

However, the gameplay of Halo Reach is really good! It plays pretty similarly to before, but now you access to one extra ability. It can either be a drop shield, active camouflage or a jet-pack! But by default, the one you'll always get at the start of each mission is... sprinting! They finally gave the Halo series a run button, and it feels good!
It's very comparable to the Stamina meters of recent Zelda games, but without the drawback of you becoming tired after you waste your run meter, which I appreciate.

The missions themselves were also pretty good! I really liked seeing the diverse environments of Planet Reach, many of them being locations we hadn't seen before in the series, like bars inside of buildings, for example.
Although some of the missions got a bit long, but they were still fun.

The graphics haven't that big of an update since last time, but the backgrounds really pop in this one, and facial animations are really good!
The soundtrack... I'll be honest, I only caught a bit of it. It was generally well composed, with it also being the last time Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori composed for a Halo game, but I couldn't remember much of it. That is with the exception of a theme that gets referenced towards the end of the game.

Overall, Halo Reach feels like it ends Bungie's run with the series on a high note. Its gameplay is probably the most fun in the series so far, but its story felt a bit lacking. While it didn't end on a note as high as Halo 3, at least it was high enough to make it satisfactory in my eyes.

Dropped on New 3DS. Yes, you’re about to read an unironic review on this version. I don’t think I’ll be the only one to say that this is absolutely the worst version of Minecraft. But first, what does the New 3DS Edition bring to the table?
Mario Mashup Pack - Already available on Switch and Wii U, and runs like hot ASS at that. It has a 30fps cap, but manages to run even worse than that; usually 20fps at the best. Sure, it’s a handheld console from 2014, but still.

2016x2016 world size - This is a legitimate knock against the old-school console editions. Consoles had a limit of 1024x1024; at least every console edition minus Gen 8. The New 3DS edition features a unique size of 2016x2016; bigger than the old-gen console editions.

Bottom screen - Similar to Terraria, New 3DS Edition uses the touchscreen for inventory, maps are displayed on the bottom screen, and the menus are… different. Not in a bad way; it just looks oddly interesting to me.

Updates all the way to 2019 - Not much to say here.

That’s it. There were literally no bonuses other than that, based on my experience with the game (and also checking the wiki). Now let’s talk about the negatives; a majority of this review.

The performance is a NIGHTMARE. The game has a 60fps cap in regular gameplay and 30fps in the mashup packs. However, it rarely manages to even GRACE 50fps, let alone 40fps. This isn’t necessarily bad, but this is a “death by a thoushand papercuts” deal.

The controls aren’t that great. The face buttons work fine but the C Stick is not suited for this game. This is a criticism of the New 3DS as a whole, but it’s not good for camera controls. This ultimately kills this game as you can barely aim your shots.

You know the main aspect of the 3DS? The 3D slider? It’s not present here, basically making this port entirely WORTHLESS. Why was this port even made?

Minecraft on 3DS is bad. It’s not a good port and it’s controls are frustrating. Don’t even bother with it as a joke. It’s an annoying experience.

Rapidly hit the point where the thought of booting up Marvel's Midnight Suns felt like punching in to work, and that's a damn shame considering how much of an X-Com mark I am. I signed up for tactical card-based RPG gameplay and base management, not a social sim with uncarbonated, room temp Joss Wheadon writing.

Every character here is reduced to one or two notable elements that are constantly harped on. Tony Stark, played by Josh Keaton under explicit instructions to do his best Robert Downey Jr. impression, is constantly making cracks about having to operate out of a scary magical castle. Dr. Strange's magical prowess is constantly under scrutiny, a dotard in a room of quippy millennials - "Dr. Spooky," they call him. Sister Grimm rearranged one of the clubs' acronyms so it spelled out "EMO KIDS" because she's so clever and quirky. Peter Parker LOVES pizza, can SOMEBODY please get Peter Parker a slice of pie!? No deep dish, it's gotta be New Yawk style, wooo, love da big apple!

Another way to put it would be if the beach scene in Persona 5 kicked off a running gag where characters had to constantly bring up Yusuke buying lobsters and equate some part of every conversation involving Yusuke to lobsters for the rest of the game. Just... close your eyes and imagine that. Lean back, get comfortable, absorb yourself in how "good" that would be. Congratulations, I just saved you $20.

I remembered Deadpool was in this game and that was the point I decided I needed to get out. It's not that it's overly snarky or self-depreciating in the same obnoxious, overbearing way the MCU is, Midnight Suns is to its credit more confident in its setting, but it's just so lame. Unfortunately, socializing with your team is a major component of the game - so much so that it's disproportionate to the actual tactical RPG elements - and unless you're willing to mash through all the tiresome character dialog to get to the conversation options that let you scream "do you ever shut up" and tank your friendship rating, you'll just have to put up with it.

Every day you have to run around this castle talking to heroes to raise their bonds, break down materials, craft new cards, fuse duplicates together, train with heroes to get daily stat buffs, send heroes you aren't using on away missions... Navigation around the castle grounds feels cumbersome, and you have so many tasks to do before you're ready to head out that combat starts to feel secondary against the lethargic pace of base management.

The tactical card-combat? It's fine. There's not really a whole lot I have to say about it. The early missions are decently challenging, and each character comes with their own attributes and pool of cards that helps give them defined utility in battle, like Sister Grimm, who is essentially your defacto buff/debuffer in the early game. Combat encounters still feel somewhat samey, but I was only about five hours in when I bailed, I'd have to imagine they get more diverse over time.

The most I got out of Midnight Sun was when I went on a nighttime walk with Blade and he mentioned not being able to see something, to which the protagonist quipped "that's because you wear your sunglasses at night."

"Hey, it's a fashion choice."

Blade was not wearing his sunglasses. I gifted him a skull I found on the ground. He seemed to like it.