RGG finally made a game as good as Yakuza 0 with so much content and stories available with changes to the combat that make it soooo much better. Snake style being introduced in the mix makes fighting enemies with weapons much more bearable, and the parry system with the EX surrender heat actions is fun. Thank god they got rid of mortal wounds from the first game because it really was annoying and didnt bring anything interesting to the table as you desperately try to dodge deadly attacks. Now, it adds in mortal reversals to have a reliable counter against bosses. The buffs to the other styles is much appreciated too; crane desperately needed buffs for it being terrible in the first game.

The stuff to do in the overworld and in the school are gargantuan, but to make it short here is what I thought about the minigames in the clubs. Dancing club is good, Robotics club is kinda bad, Boxing is the best minigame there is, Biker gang is pretty solid, Esports club is literally just "do like to play vf5", Skaters is good aside from the racing (it's Dragon Kart but terrible), and the other 3 (photography, girl's bar, casino) are nonexistent. There are other minigames that are fun, but I wanted to focus more on the school stories since it's the big chunk of content here. Side cases range from pretty generic to pretty entertaining, but the former takes up most of it because a lot of it feels like filler. Amon is as usual the insane secret boss fight that tanks your frames.

I don't have much to say about the story other than as per usual with RGG games it's pretty good. Kuwana carries this shit hard... the best character in this game.

I felt this RGG install was just good as Yakuza 0 but doesnt knock it out entirely. If I were to talk about how much I enjoyed the amount of content here then this would just be an essay so I tried to shorten it as best as I could. Very good game that is better than the first Judgement--had rarely any problems with it.

This is a better game than Judgment. The story is incredibly nuanced with an amazing villain, the beat-em-up gameplay is the best I've ever experienced, and it has an incredible amount of varied side-content. The soundtrack is also phenomenal, and there are some quality-of-life inclusions for getting around Ijincho. My only issues with the game are some weaker moments in the last quarter of the narrative, but this is a damn-near perfect game for me.

Hours played: 106
Platinumed?: no, need to do a Legend playthrough
100%?: yes

Live A Live is wonderful. It's hard for me to really articulate why without getting into every little detail, but it's precisely that attention to detail that elevates this past "just some standard SNES JRPG" that we didn't get in the west for nearly 30 years.

Tokita's meticulously planned scenario, a series of disconnected vignettes spanning eras of the world from prehistory to the distant future, is a beautifully-executed -- if not lore-light -- little series of adventures, with some unexpectedly surprising twists. It reads like an affecting tribute to the human spirit; success and tragedy strike the cast in waves, and each character learns to overcome their adversities in their own way.

This sort of philosophy finds its way into the gameplay segment, too. While a pretty standard JRPG by most accounts, LAL implements different "styles" into each character's chapter, almost like a deconstruction of individual elements that make RPGs what they are. One chapter focuses on recruiting and training students; another, running around a town and snatching items up on a time limit to prevent a raid. One is All Battles, All the Time, another gives players the ability to read minds for extra information. Each has a different point of emphasis and plays up to its genre inspirations, from kung fu flicks to giant robot anime, spaghetti westerns to Street Fighter.

Punctuate all of these cool ideas with a legendary soundtrack from Yoko Shimomura, one of the undeniable composer greats, and you have yourself a breezy little adventure that upends a lot of JRPG standards and has an inspiring, satisfying conclusion for what seems like a bunch of disconnected stories. Highly recommend going in without any kind of idea what to expect.

For what it's worth, there is a demo available on the Nintendo eShop that allows you to play early segments of a couple of the chapters in case you're not sure what to expect from the gameplay itself.

I dont even know what to say right now. This is a thing of beauty and will be a staple of Jrpg talk for MANY years to come. I am so glad to have dived into the series earlier in the year.

Im not even going to lie I cried badly at the ending lmfao.

This game is a prime example of what developers should do to make their sequels even better from QoL improvements, new mechanics and keeping everything fresh but also never straying too far from what the fans love.

I think this might just be my game of the year currently. Its so damn hard to pick this year lmao

This is coming from someone who typically avoids the genre at all costs-- let alone touching a series known for the grinding-- but Disgaea 5 nails its gameplay loops and map design in a seemingly accidental perfect balance. The way you can assess each situation with any given party of characters is hardly comparable to much else, and all of the usual progression mechanics allow for "ways of getting there" to accommodate varying skill levels, rather than necessary time sinks. Overload abilities bring incredible nuance to every situation as you figure out how to apply them on the fly. All of these things come together in such a way that still makes it insanely accessible.
Disgaea 5's art style brings its HD hybrid animation to a peak with smooth transitions between attacks, and each ability doing very much with very little. Environments are fantastic but very readable and attacks are over the top and more insane than you could ever expect.
The game's greatest shortcoming is easily the story, something which used to be the highlight of the other Disgaea games, however it was still terse and effective for changing locales. Even that being said, characters don't ever become stale and always have their fun little moments.
Top this all off with my personal favorite soundtrack of the series, and you have a pretty exceptional game for the genre that is still accessible to even the fresher players.

It’s a bit hard to fully divulge my feelings about AI: Nirvana Initiative at the moment, even after a few days of having beaten it (Only just platted it earlier today). What I can say is that this is without a doubt a worthy sequel to the first game, illuminating issues I didn’t think about in the first game and just expanding upon the already intriguing concept.

It’s a hard one to talk about especially as, admittedly, I wasn’t too sure how to feel during the game’s first half. It certainly feels slower and it becomes noticeable how much more linear the story goes this time, as you don’t have a major split down the path like in the first game. Thankfully, much of the set up in this first half isn’t the pseudo-science that had to be explained. Rather much of the early game diatribes actually hone in on the games’ philosophical or thematic beats (i.e. Uchikoshi’s wikipedia spiel on what he learned about buddhism and simulation theory). Unfortunately, going through the first half begins to feel much more like learning certain half-information about the games’ “HB case”. Not to say these bits of info are entirely useless. Upon finishing the game in its entirety does it become apparent how meaningful some of the hints dropped throughout the first half are, it's just a matter of dealing with some of the vague details of the case.

To make up for this slower pace, we start the game with Ryuki, an entirely new character to the series, and a pretty interesting protagonist overall and the result of Yusuke Kozaki’s horny imagination gone rampant, Tama. Shelve the horny though, Tama’s actually pretty fun and her relationship with Ryuki throughout the first half is great. For the second half, playing as Mizuki is also quite the joy even if she isn’t too different from how she was in the first game. Similar to Ryuki, her banter with Aiba is also a joy and it's fun to see the similarities and differences to when Aiba was in Date’s skull.

Much of the first game’s cast returns and some of them kinda just run their same schtick or run a new bit this time around, but to make up for this we have tons of new characters and much of them are enjoyable or (intentionally) despicable. Some of them kinda run the same bit over time but where I think they shine compared to other characters in the first game is that most of them actually have an arc. AI 1’s cast is great but the game itself plays out more like a standard mystery but with branching paths that drop major clues by the end of most of them. Most of the cast throughout doesn’t have much room to develop outside of a handful, the rest kind of just serve their role. AI:NI rather has much of its new additions be the subject to character flaws, traumas, conflicts and relations to explore via the psyncs. Speaking of, I think the psyncs throughout are a massive jump in quality compared to the first. The first’s are pretty fine but much of the second game’s have new gimmicks or neater setups to differentiate them, and they usually have a much better time developing and reaching conclusions for these characters. The first had a couple of stinkers and a few that are just okay, but it was hard to think of my least favorite in this game. Even the more time/action intensive somniums have neater gimmicks to differentiate between them (I keep forgetting how many somniums in the first game are set in the same abandoned factory).

Also I do have to give props to both the cutscene and music direction, I feel like the atmosphere is much stronger for whatever ‘beat’ the game is going for at the time than in the first game. It still has its cheap quality (the ending video played at an extremely lower quality than the rest of the game for me) but this still remains a really great looking game and much of the game’s higher quality cutscenes and somniums are filled with memorable moments. Although admittedly, as much as I like the game’s music it does tend to lull me into a trance during certain investigation segments.

Lastly, I’ll say that the game’s final chunk up and throughout the last bit and into some of the post-game ‘secret hunting’ did a lot in kinda wrapping my opinions as I was going down the game’s trophies. It was already a good expansion on the first game but the last chunk really sealed my liking for this game a good bit more. It might take a bit for me to decide whether this is an all time favorite or not but I'm glad that despite the initial slog I thought the game was going through, it actually ties up pretty well. It’s still Uchikoshi at his hackiest, and there’s a lot of eye-rolling at where the plot gets taken. There’s still way too much horniness and terrible, terrible jokes (even more courtesy of there being a terrible comedian character, Komeji). But this definitely stands as a worthy successor to what I previously called Uchikoshi and his team’s best work.