VHSdinosaurGO
2020
If Silent Hill were a movie franchise, this would be the direct-to-video sequel made by a team that had no idea what made the originals work. It feels like a tale about social media dependence and cyber bullying written by a 50 year old that hasn't used social media since the Myspace days. The game spends its entire runtime mercilessly beating you over the head with its themes, leaving no room for interpretation.
2020
It's a fantastic and emotional side story bridging the gaps between Yakuza 6 and 7 and also between 7 and 8. Gaiden is much shorter than a standard Yakuza/Like A Dragon adventure; at about 5 chapters clocking in at roughly 40 hours to achieve a platinum trophy/100%achievements. While the side content is fun, it is noticeably lacking. The substories are one of my favorite parts of this series and they are very very minimal in this entry.
It was a fun "What If..." story in the Yakuza/Like A Dragon world. The weapon styles felt fun to bounce between and there was no lack of additional tasks and games to play in the open world of Kyo. However it becomes intensely grindy when you even attempt to fill out the completion logs. After 75 hours I had to throw in the towel after getting my completion percentage to just 68%.
I actually liked the shorter scale of the game as it didn't feel bloated to the point of monotony like in Valhalla. Gameplay wise it feels much more in line with the original run of AC 1-4, which was fun for me in a nostalgic sense. I may be in the minority, but I missed the modern day elements as they are almost entirely absent from this game outside of a cutscene or two.