Genuinely cute minigame disc. Includes letting you dress Yukino up like a nun, tsum-tsum looking mini mascots of the cast, and of course, the ever so famous Brown toilet minigame.

It's not much, just an extra content game riding off Persona 1's initial success, but it's still pretty cute, and gives information that used to be only available in the club book on the characters. The manual it comes with genuinely has some of my favorite official art ever... ever!! (That's two links and you better look at both!!)

The Digital Collection isn't too much to write home about, but it's fun, and doesn't sell itself as more than the minigame collection it knows it is.

3/5

A really great platformer, coming from someone that's a bit picky with the genre. Similar to what others have said, the game is challenging, but fair enough that I felt I could properly learn from my mistakes and feel as if each death was my error rather than an issue on the game's performance. Additionally, the game feels really great on the Switch, too.

I loved the Prince of Persia-esque mirror characterization throughout the game, with a more in-depth look at this other part of yourself, and eventually reconnecting to better reach your full potential in both story and gameplay mechanic. A lot of what I loved in Celeste is how it chose to tell its story in the Prince of Persia format, even outside the mirror aspect, with mixing its gameplay elements with story with little to no pauses in between. The story itself is lovely, using the platforming to symbolize the difficulties of holding yourself back and getting over certain internal challenges. Its message made me never want to give up on a stage, and instead push through it with patience and practice. It was pretty hard to put the game down haha.

I know the creator makes mention that she wrote Madeline, our protagonist, while closeted and struggling with her gender identity, which after learning about made the message of the story even more powerful to me and made Celeste a great addition of trans representation in media. By and large, another super awesome indie game of the 2010's, with a lot of well-deserved recognition.

4/5

Easily has to be one of the best improvements from its predecessor. I can understand a lot more of the complaints about the first game now with having the second God of War as a comparison. This game just FEELS so, so, so much better. Your attacks actually feel rewarding, as the enemies are significantly less spongy, and the move sets you learn throughout feel much more effective.

The boss battles are awesome, and even more immersive than the first game, with some even having really unique and cool elements that help them stand out in comparison to other games (Perseus' invisibility comes fresh to mind). The game moved a lot more smoothly, with barely any backtracking in comparison to God of War 1, and with a fun variety of environments and enemies that kept the story more engaging.

The story was still dumb, just like the last one, but was also more fun to explore and figure out. There was a lot more reference to different Ancient Greek stories, and even featured the Titans as prominent characters! Again, stuff isn't the most historically accurate, but I don't think it's too expected when God of War is clearly an entertainment > education kind-of game, so it's not something to really knock against it. The "twist" with Zeus being Kratos' father didn't get much reaction from me, and seemed too hellbent on forcing in a twist à la Star Wars without much thought besides it allowing a twist into the story. I think it would have had more impact on me if it was someone I was used to hearing about throughout the series' story, like if Ares was revealed to be Kratos' father instead, making the story force him to question his killings even more so, but at this point, I don't think the game actually wants to make Kratos come to terms with his actions lmao (at least not yet)...

Overall though, God of War II is a very, very fun game with not much more to it. I had a really good time playing it, but don't think it's something I'm going to rush back to play again anytime soon. It is absolutely a high-recommendation I'll give to someone looking for a gnarly hack and slash, though! Won and done!

3.5/5