Trying to organize my thoughts about the game is harder than organizing the puzzles in it.

In general I think the puzzles are fun to solve, and there are some good highlights around chapter 3, but it also has some big lows with puzzles with pixel perfect positioning (I'm looking at the tomato sauce cans) and just weird stuff when divining the developers intent becomes the bigger puzzle.

I could live without almost everything in chapter 5. But I guess if you really like cats the last sections works best, didn't do much for me though.

You could say the perfectionist inside me loves the concept of A Little to the Left, but then it also has trouble fitting everything neatly when there are some rough edges and extra bits that don't feel like they belong here.

Reading over my review of FFXVI before I posted this, I realized that this is by far my longest review I've written and probably ever will write (ended up being exactly 2500 words when the most I've done before is a little more than 1000) so if you're not interested in reading that, I'll sum things up with one sentence. Final Fantasy XVI had the potential to be great, but it just ended up being boring.

Final Fantasy XVI is a perfectly serviceable video game. It doesn’t feel like it was hampered by external pressures, a tight development schedule, or constant rewrites and redesigns like the mess that was FFXV was. It doesn’t suffer from any game breaking bugs, egregious performance issues, or any of the other problems that most modern AAA titles release with. It feels like a (mostly) complete product that was what the development team wanted to make. They wanted to make a “dark” Final Fantasy game that’s heavily inspired by western dark fantasy with flashy action combat. The problem is that the game they wanted to make is, as a whole, incredibly dull. I’m not the kind of person to normally whine about the casualization of video games, but FFXVI’s core gameplay is so unbelievably basic when compared not just to the character action games it’s trying to emulate, but also to Square’s own catalog of action RPGS that it feels like a clear attempt to dumb things down for a larger audience. In the last five years, Square Enix has released Trials of Mana, NEO The World Ends with You, NieR Replicant ver. 1.22, two different Star Ocean games, both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth, Stranger of Paradise, Harvestella, and Valkyrie Elysium. Dragon Quest Builders 2 as well if you want to count that as an action RPG. Go just a little further back and you have to add NieR Automata, The World Ends with You Final Remix, and Kingdom Hearts III + ReMind to that list. I have not played Valkyrie Elysium or Second Story R myself, but I have played all of the other games I listed for at least a few hours and every single one of them has a better combat system and at least a slightly more interesting plot than FFXVI. If the game was made by a different studio and pushed out as a new single player epic exclusively for the Sony Slopbox 5, then I’d probably look at it a bit more favorably when having to compare it more to games like Horizon or God of War than to NieR and TWEWY. That’s not the case, though. This is a flagship product from Square Enix. Square. Fucking. Enix. One of, if not the biggest names in RPGs and Japanese games as a whole spent years on this game and developed it alongside some absolutely fantastic titles, but somehow it ended up being overshadowed by their own back catalog and paling in comparison to its more direct inspirations.

On paper, FFXVI sounds rad as hell. You play as a guy who can turn into a giant fire monster in order to fight other people who turn into giant elemental beasts, swap between a bunch of different elemental powers, and even has a dog companion. You fight alongside characters like your childhood friend who wields both a rapier and the power of ice, a charming outlaw who smokes and can call down lightning at will, and several other less colorful companions. You’ll travel the world and destroy the very foundations of society in order to save mankind as a whole, all while fighting against an unjust system and freeing magic users who are seen as little more than monstrous tools by their own families. It’ll be a flashy action game with things like air juggling, perfect dodges and parries, and even a stagger system for larger enemies. The game definitely has potential, but it just doesn’t live up to that. Moreso on the gameplay side than the story side, so I’ll start by getting my story complaints out of the way first.

Starting with the characters, I actually like Clive as a protagonist. Yeah he’s kind of a standard brooding JRPG protagonist, but he has enough personality to keep things interesting and isn’t quite as aloof as someone like Squall or as generally disinterested as Noctis. Jill has a few decent moments, but just stands around or fights alongside Clive for most of the game. For being the main heroine, she has way less of an impact on the story than characters like Aerith, Rinoa, Yuna, and Garnet. Cid is great, though. I’m always a fan of that kind of dashing rogue character, but Cid steals the show whenever he’s around. Not only is he the driving force for almost all of the game’s first act, but his animation and voice just nail the whole devil-may-care persona he’s developed for himself while still making him come across as serious when he needs to be. Hugo Kupka is an asshole, but that makes for an effective villain so I didn’t mind it. Some of the side characters, especially the ones that populate the hideaway, are rather likeable, too. Everyone else just kind of sucks. Joshua is little more than a plot device for most of the game, serving to show up and either save Clive or dump lore on what the fuck Ultima is. Ultima himself is a pretty bland main villain, and even his mortal agents like the whole Waloed gang or Olivier are just boring. Anabella’s one-dimensional obsession with power and noble bloodlines is kind of funny, at least. The main plot itself also isn’t that bad, but it feels like the different arcs of the game (Finding the second Eikon of Fire, trying to save bearers, taking over as Cid and destroying the mothercrystals, Primogenesis, and finally the final showdown with Barnabas and Ultima) are kind of disconnected, especially everything that happened before the second timeskip. Clive pretty quickly just starts acting like he’s fine with having destroyed Phoenix Gate, killed hundreds of his own countrymen, and effectively having caused the downfall of Rosaria. As soon as Cid starts talking about how the mothercrystals are draining the aether from the world, any developments regarding the plight of the bearers is sidelined and shoehorned into side quests that are scattered throughout the game and then thrown in your face right before the ending. The same goes for most side plots such as the aether flood in Lostwing or Blackthorne’s whole character arc. Yeah they handwave this as needing to save the world itself before saving the people in it, but that’s a pretty bad excuse for dropping an entire core theme of your game in favor of leaning back on a somewhat standard FF elemental crystals and otherworldly evil plot. A lot of the Eikon fights also feel kind of shoehorned in, which is weird considering how heavily they were advertised. It’s almost like the fights were thought up first and the story was made as way to justify moving the player between them. Overall I thought it was fine, but a pretty average story overall. For a series that’s fondly remembered for its storytelling (I don’t think most FF stories are all that great, but they’re definitely a big reason as to why the series is as popular as it is) , that’s a pretty big failure.

If the gameplay was great, then it could make up for a kind of dull story, but sadly it isn’t. Clive is limited to a single sword combo, a few special attacks (a stinger, a charged attack, an air combo, and the ability to press triangle to shoot an incredibly weak magic shot at the enemy or to add little magic flourishes to your normal sword combo), using the d-pad to make Torgal attack an enemy, and his Eikonic abilities. He also gets a limit break which basically functions like a DT/transformation in other action games that changes your combo into an unintelligible mess of swirling sword strikes without making it feel that much stronger. You can equip up to three of these at once, and outside of changing the element of your magic (this never seems to matter but maybe there are a few enemies with actual weaknesses), they give you access to different special attacks on a cooldown timer and a different ability mapped to O. These range from basic things like Titan’s block/parry or Phoenix’s pseudo-teleport dash to some things that are actually kind of neat like Bahamut’s Megaflare that’s charged up by dodging attacks while stuck in a mostly-defenseless charge mode or how using Odin’s ability completely changes Clive’s combo (every Eikon should have done this IMO). You can also equip up to two special attacks on each Eikon, and even mix and match them once they’re mastered. They can kind of change the way you play, but the combat’s core flow never changes. For small enemies, you just wail on them with your basic combo and Eikonic abilities, and with big enemies you just chip away at their stagger bar until they get knocked down, then you cycle through all of your abilities on cooldown for the damage multiplier. There are no branching combo paths, no changes to Clive’s basic move set with different eikons, or even different weapon types, and there are really only three kinds of Eikonic abilities: ones that are attacks, ones that are counters, and ones that add a passive source of damage. Yeah things like Rising Flames and Upheaval may seem different, but the only reason you’ll ever choose one over the other is because one is on cooldown. Since the overwhelming majority of your damage comes from the stagger window where you can build up a damage multiplier, the fastest way to beat an enemy is to stagger it and then just use all of your Eikonic abilities in order, assuming they aren’t on cooldown. This becomes even more apparent if you decide to use the “ultimate” abilities for each Eikon like Flames of Rebirth or Gigaflare that have significantly longer cooldowns than the normal abilities. Because of these things, every encounter plays out exactly the same, regardless of what enemy you’re fighting. You can’t even really mess around with different moves or try to fight more stylishly. The only real change between normal fights and boss fights is that bosses have some QTEs scattered between them and get interrupted by cutscenes three or four times per fight. I have no problem with the skill floor being low in a game like this, but when every single fight is so similar and the skill ceiling is just about as low as the floor is, it makes for a boring experience. Eikon battles are a little more interesting since Ifrit actually has different combo finishers depending on how far into the base combo you are when you press triangle, but that mostly begs the question of why Clive couldn’t also have more than one way to end a combo. The combat would have been tolerable in a 10-15 hour game, but since a playthrough of XVI can take well over 60 hours if you decide to do most of the lackluster side content like I did, it’s nowhere near deep enough. Since there are also only the absolute basics of an RPG system underlying it, there’s not much of a wider reason to fight enemies other than because you find it fun.

One Eikon fight comes close to redeeming this game, however. A little after the halfway point, Clive fights Hugo Kupka, Titan’s Dominant. Kupka has been on a five-year long crusade against Clive since Clive killed his manipulative lover/one true love Benedikta Harman. Clive wins the first fight by cutting off Hugo’s hands, only to be interrupted by soldiers from the kingdom of Waloed before he can finish the job. They take Kupka back to his home and give him a pair of iron hands. This is an excuse to stretch out the Kupka arc of the game, move the actual fight with Titan from Rosalith to the middle of nowhere in Dhalmekia, and to have a scene where Kupka struggles to eat with his hands and throws a temper tantrum while yelling fuck. When Clive finally arrives, he finds Kupka having a schizophrenic episode where the naked ghost of Benedikta is convincing him to use the power of the mothercrystal to finally kill Clive. A pretty standard fight between Titan and Ifrit ensues, but when Ifrit is about to win, Titan finds and promptly eats the magical crack rock that is the heart of the mothercrystal. Turning into a giant tentacled monstrosity, Titan erupts from the earth and this theme starts playing.
https://youtu.be/7L_6atLQouc?si=g40adyLy3WVG776G
It is important to note that almost every track in the game up this point has been pretty standard fantasy fare (a few songs like the hideaway themes are actually quite nice but most of it is kind of forgettable, especially compared to other FF soundtracks). A fight ensues between Ifrit and the newly born Titan Lost that involves Ifrit running up the tentacles like a Sonic the Hedgehog boss fight, ripping one of them off, and plunging it into Titan Lost from above while yelling “Heads up, Hugo” The fight continues with Hugo now back in his normal Titan form and Clive/Ifrit using the power of the magical crack rock to create a pair of giant hands that he uses for a grand total of one attack. It’s pure chuuni nonsense, and it’s great. The fight isn’t particularly good, but the spectacle and sheer stupidity of it all makes it an absolute joy to play through. The fight with Bahamut comes close, as Clive and Joshua end up fusing to make a super Eikon of Fire that’s just Ifrit with some more spikes and some feathers coming off of him, then they chase Bahamut into space and stop it from using Zettaflare (made famous by Donald Duck during his heroic act of self-sacrifice in Kingdom Hearts III) and destroying the planet.

FFXVI could have benefited so much from having more of that stupidity in it, or otherwise embracing the goofier side of the series. It alco could have just been more fun to play, but considering this was made by the director of an MMO I don’t think that was ever really on the table. As it is now, the game is mostly just dull, and the story isn’t nearly good enough to make it worth sitting through. It’s much more competently made than the absolute mess that was FFXV, but that’s a particularly low bar to pass. It’s not comically shitty, but that also means it’s not the kind of trainwreck that’s interesting to play through. I feel like I SHOULD give this a 2.5/5 just to be consistent since I gave XV a 2 and XVI is definitely a better game, but I think I actually enjoy XV more than this despite its laundry list of flaws so they get the same score. There are other things like how the game makes you hold R2 to open a bunch of doors or how Clive is never shown to use any abilities other than Ifrit’s/Phoenix’s outside of gameplay until the final boss, or how the Ultima Prime fight is just a cutscene with some QTEs thrown in that I could say, but I feel like I’ve complained enough to get my point across.

I do really like how you hear Torgal from the speaker on the Dualsense whenever you pet him, though.

I actually liked this a lot, which surprised me since I wasn't the biggest fan of Remake. Maybe it's because I like Yuffie more than the Midgar cast, or maybe it's because Square wasn't trying to stretch the story out more than they needed to, but I surprisingly enjoyed the story. Without going into spoiler territory while still wildly speculating about a game yet to release, I like how they gave Yuffie a much stronger motivation for eventually joining up with Cloud's party than the one she had in the original FF7. Also if she's even half as fun to play in Rebirth as she is here, then it'll at least be a pretty decent game based on combat alone.

If the moogle hoodie isn't an optional outfit in Rebirth I'm going to riot.

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!).

The End Of Denial.

One of RGG Studios most ambitious games carrying the whole legacy of Yakuza as a whole and they fucking nailed it. The perfect love letter to the LikeADragon/Yakuza Series. Dual Protagonists with one of the best two to ever do it, the most yakuza plot and setting, the themes and messages, etc. I am so happy to be a part of this journey of games to see this from back then and to now when this game was released.

The themes that Kiryu and Ichiban represent and show through their own games and this one is just really done well. How much they are able to change people through themselves and be the change they want to be positively, is just contagiously amazing. To come up from nothing, to be able to keep going in life even while struggling and to embrace those failures, regrets, past decisions, to be able to keep going no matter what is what this series is about and growing to be a better person and to embrace those happy moment in life, to keep on living no matter what, when you finally break through from coming from zero.

A game and series made this well with so much love doesn't come by often, that's why I love this series yakuza so much as a whole, it's filled with so much life and love. Everything about this game was perfect for me. Thank you RGG Studios for this series and this game.

“ ‪No matter how tough things might get, rest assured, they can always find a way through.‬”

'We all have to live on. Whether you're scum or not, it doesn't matter. You can't change a thing if you're dead. All of us, we have to keep going. And it's not light, nor is it dark. It's the grayest road there is.'

Ariamaru Tomi -The Invaluable-

Didn't care much for the original Nioh but had a blast with Nioh 2. Some systems still don't really work for me like the Loot System and Missions (mainly the side content being so repetitive) but refinements to the skill system and new mechanics like the Yokai skills/forms make this a much tighter experience all around. Also ran pretty damn flawlessy on the PS5 remaster, with load times especially being non-existent and a silky smooth 60fps throughout. A worthwhile competitor to the Souls games and a phenomenal action game in its own right.

9/10

There are ways in which this is slightly flawed as a rhythm game or whatever, but it is just not acceptable to complain about stuff like that in this case. Sorry. Magical, joyful game. It gets every pass possible. Soundtrack that on paper seems ridiculous but somehow works PERFECTLY. An avalanche of goofy PG-rated anime gags that might seem cloying or tired after a while, but no, charming as fuck, no matter how long you play. Honestly, I just wish there was more of it - there are nineteen songs and I think that if there was even one more I might have given this a perfect.

So this is gonna be a first impressions preview since I just started the game not too long ago, but as some might know, I think that Persona 3 FES is a good game with a lot of potential that's held back by the fact that it was ATLUS' first attempt at a 3D, modern Persona. There were things that I disliked about it, including how mediocre and weirdly handled some of the social links can be, how repetitive and eye-straining Tartarus gets towards the end, I'll even admit I found the song quality a bit all over the place at times and for lack of better terms, somewhat shitpost-y. There were a few other things I had issues with as well, but those were my core problems I had with the original game, so you could only imagine my excitement when I found out that the long-awaited remake was actually a real thing that was coming out, the thing that would finally resolve all my issues with Persona 3 and could claim the title to be the best of the modern games without the baggage it comes with. I spent months waiting and researching and anticipating this thing, and that day has finally arrived....

Yet it feels weird in a way? The visuals are absolutely there and they're stunning, the new voice acting is wonderful and a step up in some areas compared to the original game, the combat is snappier and fun....but I can't help but to feel that something is off. The ingredients are there, the recipe is coming together, but I cannot tell if something is missing or if the flavor isn't what I expected. It's like going from a car that feels like sometimes it might pop a tire any second now but it gets the job done and you grow really fond of it throughout the times you have it, to a brand new fancy sportscar with all the new bells and whistles, yet it feels more comforting to drive your old flawed junky vehicle. I know I'm basically just going on a tangent at this point, and my feelings could easily change as I keep playing the game, but I just can't help but to think of that silly little ol' JRPG from the PS2-era and the dubbing that had a budget of a penny and a dream.

I don't wanna say P3R is "generic" or "soulless" (though I think soulless as a criticism is severely abused and misused) because I don't think it is and it still feels endearing like FES, but is it as endearing as that game, even with the flaws it carries? I don't know. Maybe I've been so used to FES and how it presents itself, with the endless memes and clips and voice audios, and how much it stands out with its darker tone, that art style, that original soundtrack even if there are times where it feels like a panic attack is coming on (Although I think the genuine criticism I have of Reload so far is the remixes of the old soundtrack are also hit or miss for completely different reasons).

Maybe it’s the nostalgia goggles being on way too tight for its own good. I wish I knew the exact feelings right now, but I'm still figuring it out as I'm going along. Ultimately, I think anyone who's really into Persona 3 or has been extremely used to that game's existence may have a strange transition into this one, but for anyone who's new to the series or only exposure is Persona 4 and 5, this should feel right at home for you! Despite it all, I think it's great that Persona 3 has a chance with a new generation that isn't just a lazy AI-upscale version of Persona 3 Portable, and I hope those experiencing this story for the first time love it. Hopefully I find out how I feel about it soon as well.