A shitpost taken to its ultimate conclusion, Nightmare Kart attempts to capture the setting and characters of definitely-not-Bloodborne in a kart racer/battler. Nightmare Kart's campaign will take the player loosely through some of the key locations and encounters from Bloodborne. All the maps are very recognizable from their source material, and there's a ton of creativity in giving each character their own cool unique karts as well. The structure of the campaign typically alternates between races and battles, and while the races are a fun enough time the battles feel quite poor after the first boss. Combat often involves guns and if you can imagine Mario Kart battle mode where every player is picking up auto-aim guns and whoever shoots first wins, that's about what you can expect.

My feelings on this game are roughly akin to those of JoJo All-Star Battle. It is an absolute labour of love from someone who very much appreciates Bloodborne, but that faithfulness comes at a cost of a game that could feel and play better than it does. Still, it's a free fan game and I am pretty glad it got made, because it at least looks and sounds great.

A pretty stellar point-and-click FMV detective game, Contradiction: Spot the Liar! puts you in the shoes of Inspector Jenks to get to the bottom of the death of Kate Vine.

As you wander around the little town, you'll meet a handful of colourful characters whom you can press about the various clues you come across. As you ask people about different topics, you can use their various statements to point out contradictions which reveal their lies and progress the story. Though simple, it is quite engaging and there were a few times I really had to think about who to search for contradictions on and for what. The game also has a pretty solid hint system if you are really stuck, and delivers just enough direction without giving the answer away (unless you really want it to). From a gameplay standpoint, the only criticism I have is that while the game does have a fast travel system, you actually shouldn't use it as there are key scenes with clues that you will only come across if you are deliberately travelling everywhere normally. Someone who is being liberal with the fast travel will find themselves stuck at a couple of points because they will miss these.

From a visual standpoint, the FMV scenes are all shot quite well. Characters (ESPECIALLY Jenks) are expressive and wonderfully portrayed, and the cinematography/lighting really nail the atmosphere of sleepy town with some secrets perfectly. The UI is simple to navigate and lays out all the information you need to know well enough too, though playing on the Steam Deck I would have loved some more proper controller support as it is designed with a mouse cursor in mind.

Overall, fans of detective games like Ace Attorney and the like will not go wrong with Contradiction. There are certainly some elements of the plot which demand further exploration, but the journey is well worth the price as it stands.

Crow Country is a pretty cute little survival horror game with a PSX style - fixed camera angles and (optional) tank controls included. You play as special agent Mara Forest as you explore the now abandoned theme park Crow Country, shooting (or dodging) monsters and meeting up with other survivors.

There are puzzles to solve, weapons to collect, and secrets to find. Tonally and plot-wise it's a lot closer to Resident Evil than Silent Hill. There are some good jokes that contrast to the solid atmosphere when the game really wants to creep you out, and some genuine moments of tension to go with it.

If I had any negatives I might say I wish the game was a little longer (or maybe just bigger areas). That said, fans who are really into it have ample incentive to replay the game with bonuses unlocked after completing it with different ranks. Movement feels pretty good too so I would love to see some speedrunners take it on as well.

Overall, while Crow Country didn't blow me away like Signalis, it makes me happy that the PSX-style really has some fans in the indie world. It's charming and has an engaging enough plot, so I recommend it to anyone who enjoys survival horror.

After the worldwide breakout now-in-3D sensation of FFVII, and the more experimental, out-there FFVIII, FFIX returns to the same style of adventure as the older games. The tone and setting is a lot more traditional fantasy as you journey around the world of Gaia that is shrouded in mist (and mystery). The first half of it really did remind me of the structure of FFIV and how your party members are often swapping in and out as the story progresses and sometimes you'll even play as other members off doing other things. Eventually though you do get more free reign over the world, the ability to pick and choose your party members, and in my opinion is where the game starts to fall apart a little bit.

Gameplay-wise it is your standard ATB. Bars fill up and each combatant takes their turn, and Limit Breaks have been replaced with the Trance gauge. A secondary bar fills up under various circumstances and it augments that characters appearance and allows them to take some unique actions. Zidane gets access to his powerful Dyne skills, Vivi the black mage can do two black mage spells a turn, and so on. It's definitely an interesting take on Limit Breaks, and I thought the Trance designs were very cool. Of course too, the main gimmick is the ability system. Each piece of gear has different abilities or spells attached to them that different party members can learn. Use that gear for long enough and the party member can equip the ability regardless of if they are wearing the gear. On paper it seems like a nice idea, but especially once you have your full party it just becomes cumbersome to check every piece of gear with every party member. It really feels like the game just wanted to encourage the player to focus on zeroing in on their favourite three party members and forget about the rest. If they really do remake this game, I hope this gets a massive amount of QoL to not make it so cumbersome to interact with.

The story itself is alright. There is a recurring theme of finding meaning in one's own life, and that shines through in some of the characters (Zidane, Vivi, Garnet, and Steiner in particular) but sadly everyone else feels like they are missing the rest of their arcs. I love every playable character to varying degrees, but I wish I got to know half of them better.

The world itself feels quite compact. The various towns and dungeons you do go to are gorgeous thanks to the lovely 2D background art, but I was really surprised that there weren't more things to go see and do as part of the story especially after FFVIII which felt comparatively massive. On the topic of artstyle too, I never did get used to the human 3D models (particularly in the many pre-rendered cutscenes). The shape of their faces imposed on the sort of chibi models drifted into uncanny valley for me, so I really just felt all the budget (and storage space) that went into those could've been better used anywhere else.

While it has perhaps sounded like I have been overly critical of Final Fantasy IX, I do think it is worth playing for FF fans. There is a solid soundtrack as always, cool bosses to battle, and if I really want to be honest Vivi alone is worth it - just maybe wait for that rumored remake.

Wearing its very clear inspiration on its sleeve, Rabbit & Steel takes many recognizable mechanics of FFXIV raiding and applies it to a side-scrolling rogue-like. Fight round after round of unique bosses as you float around to dodge attacks and keep up your own skill rotation.

There are a number of classes, and after each round you are scored based on your DPS. Even on normal (and in co-op up to 4 players) it is quite challenging and there are a lot of different attacks and mechanics to keep track of at all times. The music is tremendous and gives me vibes reminiscent of FFXIII, and it is very satisfying if you can make it through a fight without taking damage.

As it is highly replayable with a high skill ceiling, I certainly expect I'll be playing this for some time in the future. I only have a couple criticisms, one being that some key effects or buffs don't feel as visible as they could be, and in a game where movement is everything, items that reduce mobility feel like an immediate throwaway. But I want to keep at it and get better, if only to hear more of that soundtrack.

Here we are with another very clear labour of love and passion from Vanillaware, the studio known for their distinct, charming artstyle and refusal to settle on any one genre of video game. Unicorn Overlord is an RTS-with-pause type of game where battles take place on sections of the overworld map you run around on. You have Valor Points which you can use to dispatch units or use special abilities, and you must direct them around to take over key points of interest and eventually the enemy Command Post while protecting your own. Each unit is comprised of up to five members on a 3x2 grid, and the further you progress into the game, the more soldiers you have to pick from - and boy are there a lot of them.

It starts off following the general premise of Fire Emblem RPS with an FF12 gambit system on each member of a unit to determine who will do what and when. Someone take damage? Have your cleric target the lowest % HP member, but only if they are below 75% if you want to be more conservative with your healing. Or what if an enemy unit has wyverns and knights? Make sure your archer's arrow attacks prioritize the wyverns for maximum damage. There are a ton of conditions to choose from, and thankfully the game will pick out some typical logic for you when a new soldier or ability is unlocked, but those with the know-how and strategical mind could really break things open even on harder difficulties. Most units will have a weapon slot and a couple accessory slots, and maybe a shield plus something extra when you promote them. Of course, most of the good equipment will also come with bonuses to number of actions you can take, or new abilities, or just stat bonuses so there's a lot to think about in that regard too. There's something like 60 named characters in the game to recruit, as well as generic units you can hire and customize at forts as well so there's plenty of room for flexibility in how you want to play. There are definitely some foibles to the combat like manipulating RNG being both trivial and baffling, but as the difficulty curve started to ramp up I found myself completely tearing down my formations to remake them a couple of times throughout the game. Ultimately RNG can screw you over less so long as you make a good unit and put it in the right situation. As someone who is experienced with tactical games but not a genius, I felt like the second hardest difficulty gave me just the right experience.

Outside of combat on the world map, you will find yourself running around from town to town, doing side quests, collecting resources, and restoring towns in your efforts to build up your army. Restoring a town will let you access all of their facilities and station a guard there, and after every battle a stationed guard will collect resources from the region. Some cities will feature boats you can take to secluded shores, as well as taverns where you can feed your soldiers and build up rapport with them for special scenes (think Fire Emblem's support system). Most characters will have 1 or 2 partners who they will have scenes with besides the main character Alain, and Alain has 2-3 scenes with most other characters so there are a LOT to unlock if you want to see them all. In general, I feel like it's been quite some time since I've seen a new larger budget game come out where you are controlling a little guy running around the overworld a la early RPGs like Final Fantasy 1-9. It's charming, and really makes me feel like this was made by people who were really fond of that era.

The overall plot is.. okay. I guess it's partially on me for going in with certain preconceptions of recent stuff I have played, but for the most part, the central conflict is not a tale of political intrigue. The direction of the story is revealed fairly early on, but I would not go into this expecting something like Triangle Strategy, Tactics Ogre, or perhaps even Fire Emblem. I would say the main plot is honestly closer to Dragon Quest than any of those, where you're travelling around the land defeating evil with the ultimate goal in mind of defeating the big bad antagonist. It's totally fine, and admittedly a fair number of side quests do have some meat to them in that respect, it just wasn't really what I was expecting. Still, I will hand it to them for how many characters there are in the game, a whole lot of them are memorable from the charming Knight of the Rose Miriam, to the obsessive Melisandre, to the complicated Tatiana, they really did make a good effort to have most characters feel distinct. I felt bad that I didn't get to have them all deployed in my army at a time. The english dub/dialogue was quite good too, with care put into the distinct styles of speech and demeanour in each country you visit.

Still, for all the plot's shortcomings, it genuinely concludes wonderfully and there's plenty to do outside of it. My platinum trophy clocked in at around 95 hours, and it was just the nice slow burn, evenly paced game that I needed. For fans of tactical games such as those I mentioned previously (or even Valkyria Chronicles), I highly recommend you not overlook Unicorn Overlord.

In the never ending pursuit to make a rogue-like out of everything you can think of, here is Balatro which has turned Poker (kind of) into one. The basic premise is, each round you draw a pool of 8 cards and you have (typically) 4 hands and 3 discards to make as many high-scoring Poker hands as you can and reach the Blind value. Each hand has an associated point value and multiplier, and each card that contributes to the hand also adds its own card value to the points. Once you defeat the current blind, you go to a shop where you can use your hard-earned cash to buy various upgrades.

Celestial cards upgrade the value of a particular hand, spectral and arcana cards have various abilities to manipulate your deck by adding, removing, or modifying cards, and then there are Jokers. Jokers are where the real meat of the game comes from, as their varying abilities and large selection allow you to build out your strategy. You can really stack your multipliers into insane values, and as you climb through the increasing antes (and boss antes with often annoying effects), you try to ultimately defeat Ante level 8 for a "completed" run (although there is an endless option after you make it there).

There's a handful of decks as well to choose from with their own unique effects, and as you beat the game with each one you can choose to increase the difficulty with that respective deck for more and more challenge. All that is to say, I really don't have much else to say about Balatro other than it is damn addicting. Easy to pick up and play a few hands, try out different combos, and build out your collection as the game keeps track of which cards you've picked up before. Definitely recommend if you want a nice, chill time-killer that you will also slowly grow to hate.

In a similar vein to Lethal Company, you and up to three friends journey into a washed-out, dark facility. The gimmick here though is instead of scrounging for loot while avoiding monsters, you have a camera and have to record up to 90 seconds of footage of things you see or do down there, and then haul ass back to the pod. If you manage to bring back the footage, you will upload it to Spooktube to try and reach viewer milestones every 3 days. Views lead to cash to buy items, and better items lead to better views.

You also can save the footage to your desktop if you like what you've recorded. It's a decent gameplay loop and makes for some good laughs, just a bit lacking in environment variety as it is not randomly generated like Lethal Company. Still, it was good fun for a few hours so I would recommend trying it at least once if you can grab it for cheap (or did when it was free!).

You wouldn't think it, but there are a surprising number of conventions and tropes in the Monster Hunter franchise that fit well in a turn-based RPG, especially when you include monster catching/training. While I mostly enjoyed my time with Stories 2, the game often felt like it was having an identity crisis and was doing things that it felt like it had to do because that's how Monster Hunter does it, even when it did not make a modicum of sense.

To start off with, the plot is solid (especially for one rooted in the MH universe). You journey across several different major areas with your newly hatched Rathalos (who may never leave the party, this is Capcom's Charizard after all) in hopes of learning more about the prophecy that ruin will be brought to the land. Each new zone you journey to partners you up with a new buddy character, and you hear their Stories as you progress that arc in the plot with them. It gets a little formulaic, but all of the buddy characters are lovely and have compelling motivations. There is but one truly poor character in the game, and unfortunately it is Navirou; the Palico-turned-Funko-Pop who serves as the silent protagonist's mouthpiece for the duration of the story. He is genuinely grating and I don't even think I would mind so much if his design wasn't so out of place (just have him look like a normal palico!).

The combat system however, is quite good. You sort of have a layered RPS system where different monsters will either be focused on Power, Speed, or Technical attacks and you'll want to align both yours and your monster partner to use the attacks that beat it. You'll also want to pick the right type of weapon (Slash, Pierce, or Strike) that is strong against the part of the Monster you want to break. Each of the 6 available weapon types have their own quirks, and as you win more head-to-heads and occasional QTE sequences, you will build up your kinship gauge allowing you to get on your monster and unleash flashy, powerful attacks. While monster parts you've hit in the past will display their weaknesses in battle, the type of attacks the enemy monster has an affinity for will not. This turns it into purely a game of memory, especially when monsters enrage and switch up their tactics. It reminded me a lot of Fate/Extra in this way and is maybe one of my favourite parts about playing the game. There's a surprising amount of depth and nuance if you really want to dig into it.

Sadly, exploring the open world is sadly what drives me up the wall the most about the game. In the main Monster Hunter series, you set off on missions that are usually anywhere from 8 minutes to 40 minutes. All is quiet as you track your target, and when the battle begins is when the music flares up and really enhances the whole experience. For some insane reason, Capcom has decided that the open world in Stories 2 must also be silent at all times outside of battle. It is especially baffling when most of the music in the game is fantastic, but you just don't get to hear any of it for more than 50% of your time in the main story. There are lots of little caves and paths to explore and retrieve eggs to hatch into new Monsties to join you, but it is all silent during this time unless you get in a fight.

There's a pretty large selection of monsters in the game locking in at a little over 120, most of which are hatchable and can join your party, although they are spread out rather strangely and many of them are bizarrely absent for most of the game when there was plenty of room to introduce them sooner. As you might expect from a Monster Hunter title, this is because the game has a pretty sizable and in-depth High Rank post-game, but after 60 hours to get through the main story I really do not feel all that motivated to re-fight and catch all those Monsties again just to see a handful of new ones.

Despite all my gripes, I did genuinely enjoy much of my time with Stories 2. You can really see the potential for this series as a companion to the mainline action games, and I think if they made a Stories 3 after Wilds comes out, they could really have a banger. But for now Stories 2 is awkward, if not earnest, in its attempt to blend the popular action series with a turn-based RPG.

Adventure games are an extremely popular genre, but when you really get right down to the specifics of what makes a game feel like a real adventure, I don't think any game comes nearly as close as Dragon's Dogma and its sequel. Every venture out of town is considered and planned, and those plans are subsequently broken in different ways on each excursion. For me, Dragon's Dogma II is a series of hits of the same high that Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom or even Death Stranding provides.

Dragon's Dogma II puts you in control once again of the Arisen, a character of your own making who is selected by the dragon to control Pawns. In addition to a Pawn who is also of your own making, you can have up to two Pawns created by other players to form your party of four. Pawns can be any of 6 vocations while the Arisen has access to a few more specialized ones, and your team composition determines your approach to battles. Combat is largely the same as the first game, where you pick your four weapon skills based on your vocation on top of a couple of other baked-in unique abilities. You can also pick up and throw smaller enemies (or friends), as well as climb all over bigger ones a la Shadow of the Colossus. There's a little something for everyone with each vocation, and I am a big fan of both the new ones (special shoutout to Mystic Spearhand) and the slight reworks to the old ones. While admittedly there isn't a great variety of smaller enemies (mostly the same as the first game with some slight variations on Harpies and Saurians) and the large monsters could be spread out a lot more evenly through the world, but I personally never got tired of fighting cyclopes' or minotaurs whether it was my first time or my tenth time. You definitely feel a good sense of getting stronger as you and your Pawns chunk through those health bars faster and faster.

For fans of the first game, you'll also find the plot structure is pretty similar. A mostly straight-forward fantasy adventure with very light political intrigue that gets a bit weird with it as you go on. Above most other games, I highly recommend playing DD2 without a guide because the plot is counting on both the player's (and their Pawn's) ability to figure out the right direction and even beyond that, make mistakes. I can't count on two hands the number of major quests I royally screwed up, and yet still stumbled my way through the story. Some quest lines will even straight up drop if you don't make your own effort to pick them up and continue them, and many side quests aren't even presented to you unless you happen to talk to the right people. Whether you are in or out of town, curiosity is at the forefront of DD2's design philosophy. While still a bit on the barebones side, the main plot does have a few cool set piece moments, and the last few hours especially were stellar.

As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, the real draw of this game for me was the moment-to-moment. The exploration, the adventure. I took the same route out of Vermund countless times as I explored the Western side of the country, and by the time I eventually reached my intended destination, something different always happened. Maybe I found a new cave I hadn't spotted before with a new Pawn's help. Maybe I was ambushed by a Minotaur and knocked across a river. Maybe a Drake landed and utterly destroyed my party. The term 'friction' has been thrown around a lot to describe this game and its become a bit of a buzzword, but it is absolutely true. Traditional fast travel is (mostly) discouraged so that the player can experience lots of moments like this. It's a constant battle of tradeoffs, is it worth picking a fight with that Cyclops while the party needs a rest? Oh no, a Gryphon just landed on us and it's time to find out if we are prepared to fight it, or lead it back to the city where a good number of people will probably perish (but can be revived if you've got the item to do so). I could go on and on about all the cool moments I encountered, and suffice to say I thoroughly explored the map as best I could in doing so. It's been so refreshing just playing an open-world game like this where I can open my map and point at a spot and think okay, I want to go there because I want to. There's no icon there (yet) so maybe I'll find something cool. It is the antithesis of guided checklist open-worlds.

To be absolutely clear, it is not a game for everyone. I am not trying to gate keep or be pretentious about it, but the focuses and game design philosophies behind Dragon's Dogma II (and Dragon's Dogma for that matter) are very specific. It is more often about the journey than the destination, and the lack of fast travel and direction will probably cause a lot of people to bounce off. But for me, this is exactly the type of game I have been craving and as a follow up to the first game, I am happy to say that Dragon's Dogma II is just more Dragon's Dogma. At least at the time of writing, it's my GOTY of 2024.

While it had its own fair share of pacing issues, overall I was pretty jazzed about FFVII Remake. Midgar is blown up into its own game, new characters are introduced, and beloved characters and pivotal moments were expertly executed on. The general idea seemed to be to take things in a new direction while still maintaining those critical aspects of the story and characters, and I was absolutely on board for this. While Rebirth continues this same philosophy, it still ended up falling short in a lot of ways.

Rebirth begins more or less with the iconic flashback before thrusting the players into the world beyond Midgar. There are several regions throughout the game with their own towns and checklists of open-world activities. Side quests and minigames are USUALLY pretty good, but everything else is a lot of filler. Towers to climb, special battles to fight, lifesprings to visit, and so on. It's novel in the first couple of regions, but then gets to become tedious when you are doing the same stuff over and over. They're gorgeous locations to look at for sure, but I can't help but feel like the slowest paced part of the original game did not need more padding. If you liked Chadley in Remake (like me!) you will be tired of him going through this game. If you hated him, good luck. On that note as well, if you are making an open world game that demands to have a coliseum, you get to have one. Not two, not three, definitely not 5+!

Combat is fairly similar to the first game with two new party members you get to control with their own unique styles and focuses. You can make up to three different combat parties, and most dungeons in the game will force you to play everyone so no one ever really feels benched. The complaints about aerial enemies from the first game was taken to heart, and now most characters do not struggle with flying enemies. Cloud can both shoot projectiles and straight up launch into the air for those sweet air combos, and Tifa can use the new synergy skills to have another party member launch her into the air to do the same. Overall it still feels good, and a lot of the late-game optional harder fights feel really satisfying.

Overall, the narrative is alright. I mentioned that this is the slowest part of the original game as it tended to focus more on individual character development (especially for Barrett, Red, and Cait Sith) so I can't fault it too much for that. Whoever was in charge of writing the characters really understands them and why they are so beloved; I cannot say enough nice things about the cast, especially Barrett and Cloud. But at the same time, they have utterly demystified and abandoned all subtlety in regards to Sephiroth. It's a bit of a bummer because that's really the only thing I felt he had going for him in the original (and a cool sword), but I guess that's just how it is now. Maybe this is a harsh comparison, but it's almost like how they did Vicious in the Netflix adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. Sometimes less is a lot more.

Maybe 3.5 stars is a little generous for how harsh this review is, but I genuinely do love all that they've done with the main cast in this game. At this point I am committed to slog through another 100 hour RPG to see where this journey leads, but while I left Remake feeling optimistic, I leave this one feeling very wary. Both in terms of the narrative and open-world, they really need to focus in and commit. Either be bold and commit to the new, or keep it faithful to the original plot. Either go more linear because there's still a lot of ground to cover, or let the player truly go on an adventure - because Rebirth felt a lot more like a guided tour.

When I try to think of notable examples of games in the space of co-op mission-based PvE, it's kind of crazy how the only big ones that come to mind are Left4Dead, Deep Rock Galactic, and PAYDAY because (for the most part), these are all really successful and fun when they work. Helldivers 2 most certainly joins the company of these aforementioned titles, and one I can see myself coming back to (friends-willing) over and over.

In the galactic effort to spread democracy for Super Earth, as a Helldiver you pick a planet on the galactic map (currently inhabited by either giant bugs or terminator-style robots) and from there, choose an operation. Depending on your difficulty setting, your operations will consist of varying numbers of missions and objective types. Drop in and run around to launch an ICBM, defend an outpost from a swarm, collect planetary samples, and so on. Depending on the mission type (and how thorough you can afford to be), missions usually range from 12-30 minutes and you are rewarded extra for completing an operation, making it very easy to play for long periods of time as it's just that fun.

After you return from a mission, you can use your hard-earned currencies to unlock new strategems (airstrikes or weapon drops called in by performing a DDR string on the D-Pad), as well as progress in the battle passes and modules to upgrade your ship. There's much to choose from and each player gets 4 strategem slots per mission, so there's plenty of room for synergy and customization.

Overall, it's a pretty good combat loop and the movement and shooting feel very reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid V. If I had something negative to say about it, I would say certain currencies being hard locked to higher difficulties is a bit unfortunate because 1) Communication and Cooperation is absolutely mandatory the higher you go (playing with randoms rules this out), and 2) The difficulty level really starts to feel less about spreading Democracy and more about running for your life from every encounter in the name of efficiency. Getting stomped doesn't feel great, getting stomped after 40 minutes of commitment just sends me into Dota 2 PTSD. While I also don't normally factor this sort of thing into my reviews unless it was a real detriment, but there have been a litany of bugs and glitches hampering the experience since launch, and each patched introduced something new and frustrating. I'm sure this sort of thing will work itself out as the devs chip away at it, but for now simply playing with friends has been a hassle.

Still, if you are looking for a really solid shooter to co-op with, this is definitely a great new offering. There's a ton of unlocks to keep the gameplay loop feel engaging, and if they keep their current cadence up I'm sure there will be lots more crazy new things to try out or shoot at within the next year.

Between 3, 4, and 5, Persona 3 was always my least favourite. Tartarus was a tedious slog, you didn't get to delve very far into your relationships with the people you were closest to, there were bizarrely no option to just be friends with any of the love interests meaning you just didn't get to finish Social Links, and above all there was simply no definitive version of the game with FES and Portable both having features the others lacked. But what Persona 3 did always have was a strong story, a well-defined message, a great main party, and of course, a tremendous soundtrack. While Persona 3 Reload disappointingly lacks a FeMC route, I am happy to say that it features everything else I could want from the game and more, and (unless you want to experience the better main character), the easiest version of the game to point to and say yes, you should play Persona 3.

For the most part, visually it is a stunning upgrade. There are new mo-capped(?) 3D cutscenes for certain moments that feel incredible, and in general the game is also a lot more vibrant while still retaining the colour palette of the original game with lots of blues and greys. You can tell they wanted to adapt a sort of similar style to Persona 5 and it works, with the exception of losing some of the personality in the old character portraits for a more "clean" look.

The soundtrack as expected is fantastic. While many of the less prominent songs are retained in their original version, there are a ton of new remixes. Lotus Juice returns on many of the vocal tracks this time with Azumi Takahashi in place of Yumi Kawamura. It's Going Down Now is introduced as the new advantage battle theme in Tartarus, and Colour Your Night is the new night time theme as Moon's Reaching Out to the Stars is shifted to be only in the day. Colour Your Night in particular is one of my new favourite Persona tracks, I ran around outside at night a bit just to hear it more. While long time fans of P3 might find the new remixes a little hard to adjust to, by the end of the game I definitely loved all of them. Takahashi's voice brings a softer vibe in contrast to Kawamura's, but it is in no way a replacement - they both fit just right.

Similarly, perhaps the thing I was most excited to hear going in was the new voice cast. Many of them feel very similar to their old actors and actresses, while others feel entirely new. Junpei and Akihiko in particular really killed it for me, with the former elevating the character far above what they were previously in my mind. All of the other social links are fully voiced now too, with Yuko and Bebe being big standouts.

P3 Reload also introduces a number of new ways to interact with your party members with new Link Episodes where you spend time with and get to know your male party members better. There's also new activities in the dorm at night that not only are fun little events, but also contribute to their capabilities in battle via their Characteristics. As an example, you can cook or watch DVDs with Yukari enough times, and SP costs of her healing spells are halved, then quartered. These events ALSO will increase your social stats or give you an extra useful consumable, so they do not feel like a struggle to fit into a game with an already tight schedule. It really goes a long way to help them feel like a group of friends who live and fight together, which was sorely missing in the original games.

And finally, we come to Tartarus. It's really hard to make a 200+ floor dungeon feel engaging, and admittedly it still felt a bit rough going in the home stretch, but the new improvements made a world of difference. First off is the visual style. Each block feels wildly different with striking aesthetics so it really feels more like 5-6 different dungeons at times instead of one big tower. Party members have a new theurgy meter which functions as a super and you gain meter for doing something particular to that character (Akihiko having buffs on, Mitsuru inflicting debuffs/ailments, etc.). They are absolutely overpowered and can invalidate a lot of fights, but they look flashy and damn cool so all is forgiven (such is the way in Persona). The Monad depths that used to serve as an end game optional dungeon are now sprinked throughout Tartarus via random doors and fixed passages, offering harder boss fights for reliable major tarot cards in shuffle time and greater rewards/chests. The major tarot cards you can now draw offer a lot of one-time or same-night bonuses in Tartarus such as greater fusion bonuses or getting to draw extra in Shuffle Time. They also even added a catch-up mechanic, where once per-excursion (or maybe Tartarus segment?) you have a chance of having a clock show up after opening special chests. When you touch the clock, you pick two party members that will level up to the MC's current level in the next battle. Something like this is SORELY needed in Persona where most of the time party members will just stay on the bench once they are placed there to avoid grinding. By the end of my playthrough, every single party member was in the mid-70s and I could freely select them as I saw fit for each battle. I remember one full moon fight in particular, I screwed up my team composition and died but that was cool, because I had the freedom to pick a different set of characters in the same night without feeling under-leveled. I really hope we continue to get mechanics like this, because for games with such a good cast as these, it's such a shame to not use more than 3 of them in battle.

There's a lot more I didn't talk about in this massive review of Persona 3 Reload, but above all I can now happily say I consider it one of my favourite Persona experiences alongside Golden and Royal. I'm sure it'll still get a re-release down the road as is the way with Atlus, but for now anyone looking to try out Persona 3 - this is the one to go for. You won't be disappointed.

After seeing a fair bit of the promo materials for Infinite Wealth, and especially after playing 'The Man Who Erased His Name', I had a single great fear going into this one. Yakuza: Like a Dragon had claimed the title of my favourite RGG studios game due in no small part to the new protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga. It is no exaggeration for me to say he is my favourite all-time RPG protagonist, and with how things were shaping up my fear was that he would have to relinquish that spotlight back to the long-time series favourite, Kazuma Kiryu. I am more than happy to report that these fears were unfounded and Infinite Wealth simply allows both these protagonists to breathe by simply jamming two massive games together in one.

To elaborate further, the scope of this game is insane. I have that same feeling I did when I first played Yakuza 5. A whole new map to explore in Hawaii on top of Yokohama and Kamurocho, and there are a massive amount of minigames (and even a proper ass game in Dondoko Island) to go with it. Want to play a Pokemon Snap-like where you take pictures of perverts wreaking havock across Hawaii? There's Sicko Snap at three of the bus stops around town. How about a dating app where you build Kasuga's profile and do rhythm game-like inputs to score a funny date? There's Miss Match. How about straight-up Crazy Taxi x Uber Eats where you race around picking up food, doing tricks, and stopping by citizens? There's Crazy Eats. All of these are pretty fun and have a respectable amount of content and incentive to replay them, and there are plenty of other reasons to manually explore around town like Aloha Links, the Photo Rally, and the Sujimon League rather than just fast travelling from destination to destination. Having a dedicated button to wave to the people you meet, a playlist full of collectible SEGA songs, and a segway really make it comfy to explore.

Diving further in, Dondoko Island is the new 'main' minigame in Infinite Wealth as the counterpart to the Company Management in Like a Dragon. Essentially Animal Crossing, you clear out trash on your island to make room for all sorts of buildings and decorations of your own creation as you invite various people to come stay for a few days and enjoy what you've built. Once you have the requisite resources and recipes (which you gain both actively and passively), you can build it right there on the spot and place it and move it around as you see fit. Create your own paths around each area to fit the style you want, and even redecorating isn't much of a hassle. A day on Dondoko Island takes about thirty minutes or so, and each day has daily tasks to help you rake in the Dokobucks which can be used to purchase upgrades, buy special decorations, or even just convert into straight cash. It was very addicting to push my island rank all the way up to 5 stars and I ended up putting the plot on hold for a long time just for how fun it was.

Now back to talking about the real game itself, there are a handful of improvements to the combat system. The big one here is the expanded movement during battle. You have a circle which you can freely move around in, and many of the moves and attacks for each job allow you to knock enemies into each other for extra damage. It becomes a fun little game on each turn of battle how to take best advantage of the positioning of your team. There are also new tag team attacks with each party member as you level up your bonds. There are still follow-up attacks and the ability to tag-out when you have more than 4 party members, as well as new Poundmates to summon in battle. Of course, there are also a whole host of creative new jobs in addition to many of the previous ones, which you can use to customize your playstyle and team composition. It's not a dramatic change over the previous game, but it is just enough to make the combat even more enjoyable. If the level difference is high enough, you can also just start a fight with a beatdown to skip the battle for slightly less exp gains. Doing absolutely everything I could, I felt like I outpaced the plot's enemies around the halfway mark, but managed to be on par for the finale which is the important thing. Unfortunately (and maybe this is my fault for hitting too many bad guys), there weren't really any battles that felt like a stiff challenge. The previous game had (IMO) two notorious fights that hit like a truck and one of which was especially awesome for it - but there has been no such equivalent in this game. Still, the combat and job customization has been fun enough for me to really care too much about that.

As I mentioned, the story is really doing both Ichiban and Kiryu justice. They both have a personal stake in the plot, and my attachment to both characters could not be greater. I won't sugar coat it, there are a LOT of cutscenes. This is not the game for you if you thought MGS4 was excessive, because you will often (especially in the first few chapters) just be sitting your ass down to watch a movie; but god damn if it isn't an engrossing one most of the time. In fact, one other thing I noticed is that the first and last scenes of all substories are also fully voiced. There are also a ton of conversations out while wandering the world that are also fully voiced. In general, there is a lot of audio dialogue in this game! Maybe more than I have ever heard in an RPG before! Unfortunately, the overarching plot and central conflict is also the weakest aspect of the game. It feels a little bit unfocused and even occasionally just sloppy with all the key players and motivations and many feeling under-utilized, and if I were to make a comparison it actually reminds me a lot of FFXIV: Stormblood in this regard. It isn't like it's terrible, there are genuinely wonderful character moments and the themes of reflecting on your past, regrets, atonement, and forgiveness are well established and executed. I also like that they are continuing to blend fantasy elements (such as boss fights) into the """""realism""""" of the RGG series. Just overall I would not rate it amongst the highs of the series like 0 and 7.

Qualms about the central conflict aside, it's a tremendously impactful and relatable journey. Even a certain collectible that unlocks about halfway through the game moved me with each one I picked up. There are certainly a number of over-the-top ridiculous moments in the plot, but such is par for the course with RGG. At its core, you can tell a lot of love and care was put into this game, the quality and amount of content is staggering. Only time will tell if this is the recency bias talking, but I strongly feel this is one of the best turn-based RPGs ever made, and I could not be happier with how they have pulled it off. My completion time was just shy of 100 hours, and I certainly want to go back and polish off the few things I did not get to. As always, RGG fans will not want to miss this entry and it still stands among the best. I really look forward to how they will continue this series (and go back to Waikiki, because it'd be a waste to use that city after only one game!).