I never really got into Street Fighter; 2 and 3 were well before I really got interested in fighting games, and I really did not care for the visual style of 4 and 5. However, between World Tour, the crazy character creator, and overall just general aesthetic of the game I felt like this was finally the one I wanted to jump in with.

First and foremost, the story in World Tour mode is by no means great. The plot is fairly cut and dry, your created character is on a journey to find out WHAT IS STRENGTH and meet the cast of the actual fighters along the way. As you meet each new "master", you can change your normal moveset to match theirs, and as you rank up the style/develop your social link with them, you can learn more of their specials and supers as well. Running around the world itself feels almost like a Yakuza game where random goons will run up and start STREET FIGHTS with you, and how easily you can kick their ass depends on how close you are to them in level. Beyond that, there's also a clothing/equipment system to upgrade your stats (and a glamour setting you unlock fairly early to ensure you can separate your desired look from your best stat gear), as well as a selection of fun minigames that teach you some fundamentals like motion inputs, charge inputs, and parrying. The highlight really is being able to give gifts to the masters, rank up your bond and style with them, and even their text messages to you get pretty entertaining. They even made it so maxing out their bond unlocks the second costume for each character in online/versus modes. It took me about 25 hours to beat while I was scraping all the side quests I could, so the content is certainly there and it's one of the most impressive story modes I've seen for a 2D fighter.

Another big driving factor behind my SF6 rating here is the option for Modern controls. Admittedly, as a gamepad/anime fighting game player, I really never thought 6 button fighters felt good. The modern control options reduce your available buttons down from 6 to 4 and trade a higher selection of normals and higher damage for some easier inputs. It certainly makes the game more accessible for less hardcore fighting game fans, and it makes trying out new characters a lot more fun.

Beyond that, there is the standard fighting game fare. A battle hub where you can run around with your highly detailed (or highly monstrous) created character and sit down at arcade cabinets for unranked matches, a selection of built in Capcom classic arcade games that rotate in and out, the traditional arcade and training modes, tutorials, character, guides, everything you can think of. The menu-ing is a LITTLE bit too cumbersome, but most things you need to change are easy to set and forget.

SF6 really does have it all. Good netcode, lots of content, and is just in general really fun to pick up and play. I really hope Capcom does a good job supporting it, because I could see this being one I stick with for awhile.

Final Fantasy Origins really really feels like I'm back in Nioh. Visual fidelity aside which is a pretty significant step back, but the weapon switching, the loot, the skill trees, the combo building, and the combat in general are all very much pulled from Team Ninja's prior fantastic titles. The Final Fantasy window dressing REALLY does pull a lot of weight for me here, being able to use FF Classes and fight FF mobs is just what I wanted. They key gameplay differentiator that makes this game stand out from Nioh for me is the Soul Shield and Instant Abilities. The Soul Shield is like your parry which you can only hold out for so long, and when you get hit with certain named attacks, it triggers your "Blue Mage" capabilities and allows you a limited number of uses of that move. It also increases your maximum MP allowing you to use more spells/abilities. An early example was when I found a cactuar and used my soul shield against it, and was therefore able to use 1000 Needles a couple of times. This really helps the combat feel much more customizable and every job has a unique flare to it with it's standard R2 ability.

As far as the story goes, it is an earnest and thoroughly entertaining adventure. Jack is a phenomenal protagonist and his dynamic with Ash, Jed, Neon, and Sophia is a joy. The music is incredible, reflecting most of the Final Fantasy titles referenced in the game. A point of contention for some people seem to be the level design, but I actually quite liked it. They are often maze-like, making you feel lost with all the different directions to go along side the great shortcuts implemented. This makes me feel like I actually am in proper Final Fantasy dungeons as I run around looking for secrets and the way forward. All in all, SoP exceeded my expectations and I hope this isn't the last time we see Team Ninja crossover with Final Fantasy. "It's a mercy to forget."

An overall very solid action adventure 3D beat 'em up, Memories of Celceta has the player take control of Adol (and friends) as he maps out the forest of Celceta and tries to recover his lost memories.

As you explore the forest, your map is gradually filled in (with a percentage count to track your overall progress) and you'll encounter all sorts of enemies, gathering points, villages, towns, and NPCs throughout your journey. The towns and villages all have their own quest boards and shops that periodically update, so you'll be going back to each of them often. There's a fair number of dungeons too, some of which have some cool gimmicks and are satisfying to explore.

This is my first of the proper 3D Ys games, and the combat feels pretty good. You have your standard attack button to mash, as well as a number of skills which can be mapped to the four face buttons while holding down a trigger that cost SP. Adol in particular seems to have a massive amount of skills, as I unlocked multiple even during the final dungeon. As mentioned previously, there are also a handful of other playable characters that join the party who you can also play as. Up to three at a time can be out on the field, and you can freely swap at any time. All but one of them felt pretty good to play, so I definitely did not spend the whole game just playing as the main character.

Probably the biggest disappointment for me was the boss fights. In I, II, and Origin, bosses were memorable, had unique gimmicks, and in general were pretty tough. Celceta has maybe one boss on that level. Additionally, I harped on about this in my reviews for those other three games but the magic of levelling up is gone here. Your level doesn't feel very important and I don't even remember what level I was when I finished the game.

The story itself is okay, there are definitely a couple of fascinating ideas in the back half, but overall it feels pretty standard for an action adventure game. The characters were enjoyable and the main party at least gets their own little arcs (for the most part).

Overall, I think Celceta is a pretty comfy action/adventure. It's not gunna blow you away but it is satisfying and not terribly long (I did pretty well everything I could and got ~25 hours out of it). If you are into Ys, it's worth a playthrough.

Where do I even begin here? Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is nothing short of a culmination of so many lessons learned over the previous games, so many refinements in gameplay and writing. I certainly do have fondness for 1 and 2 to be sure, but XC3 is an absolute master class.

To start off, the main party of characters are the best they've ever done. Each one of them is well written and acted, and each have a significant role in the plot. I think most people would likely agree that both 1 and 2 had main party members that were a little weaker than others, but this time around I found each of them to be really special.

The story is a gripping, emotional tale as you've come to expect from this series. While I think overall XC1 told a slightly more focused adventure, 3 certainly has plenty of strong moments. Almost every cutscene is exceptionally well directed and for the action scenes, stellar choreography as well. You can really feel they had a budget to work with this game.

For gameplay, it's another giant leap over the previous installments. The job system really keeps things fresh with tons of fun classes to choose from, and being able to switch freely during combat adds a lot of freedom. Though the AI is pretty good, you can for example quickly switch to a healer to run over and revive someone yourself if you want to prioritize it. Or maybe you want to reposition your attackers so they are out of the AoEs being focused on a defender. Maybe my only complaint is that I wish there were more instances of the chain attack music not overwriting the boss music. There's a lot of incredible boss fight tracks that get interrupted because chain attacks are a core part of the gameplay.

And then there's the side content. Monolithsoft has clearly been slowly inching towards this and I'm glad we are finally here. Almost all of the side content I have done so far feels meaningful. There are lengthy side quests with stories that serve to level up your relationships with colonies (a la the XC2 Torna Expansion), and there are hero quests which serve to unlock new jobs and are all fully voiced. There's always been so much to see and do in these games but it finally feels like most of it is worth it. I know I want to see as much of it as I can.

I feel I could go on and on about this game, and if I were to go into spoilers here I absolutely would. But overall, at this time I feel like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is an essential JRPG. It does a ton of things better than a lot of the other ones out there, and I look forward to see how Monolithsoft expands upon it. Absolutely a game worth your time if you love JRPGs like I do.

Atari 50 is a fantastic compilation of Atari games throughout the years, from the arcade, to the 2600, to the Jaguar, and everything inbetween. As you go through the timelines you get to try out tons of classic games, sprinkled with high-resolution scans of manuals, print ads, and interviews from key Atari and other game industry personnel.

As far as game compilations go this is certainly one of the best ones out there, even if quite a lot of the games don't hold up well (if they ever were in the first place). It would have been nice to have some more famous titles as particularly licensed ones (such as E.T.) are absent, but with the quantity and even new creations it's hard to really complain. Especially when none of the games in the collection are half as bad as the penultimate interview, being several minutes with the creator of Ready Player One.

Prey is positively tremendous. It is a thrilling sci-fi shooter immersive sim that puts you in the role of Morgan Yu, a scientist aboard a space station during an alien outbreak. There are a wide variety of powers and skills to choose from to augment yourself as you see fit. As with other games in the genre like Deus Ex or Dishonored, you can choose to play stealthy or fight your way through every encounter, you can lean more on your human abilities or delve into the Typhon abilities (such as being able to turn into objects in the environment to sneak around, or use telekinesis to grab far away objects, or teleport).

There's a lot of mystery surrounding the story and no doubt many different endings to strive towards. It is thought provoking and hits a lot of the well known sci-fi tropes. I really slept on this game for far too long (especially considering my love of the genre), and I will definitely want to go back some day and do another playthrough making some different decisions. I do have some minor complaints (enemy dead body visibility being low, the biggest area of the station not having a map), but these are minor things. I hope they do another game in this universe some day.