+insanely fast-paced, violent combat with a distinct platinum refinement to it
+making parries the main defensive option gives the combat a particularly aggressive bent, while still avoiding completely being a hack and slash
+the blade mode ability plus being able to get a full heal off of any enemy by ripping their artificial heart fucking rules, feels so satisfying
+even though it's not a proper kojima game they do a solid job making it "feel" like kojima's writing and incorporating metal gear lore/design
+excellent boss fights for the majority of the game, and they're usually pretty forgiving with the health pickups as well making learning each bosses' patterns less frustrating
+I sort of like the stealth honestly, I wish the radius for taking down an enemy was a little wider given how touchy the controls are but otherwise it's nice to approach certain areas this way with little penalty if you fail
+other than normal goons being cannon fodder as one would expect, many of the enemies are legitimately dangerous and it keeps the combat fresh late into the game
+this is a very setpiece-heavy game and it reminds me quite a bit of similar games from the generation before, one of the last of its kind for sure
+60fps on ps3.... this is so huge. obviously it's not perfect by any means but playing a ps3 action game actually running at 60 fps most of the time was shocking to me
+I honestly enjoy the story; even though it's all over the place it's a lot of fun and relatively cogent (especially considering the game it's a sequel to). it doesn't have time to explore some of its themes deeply but it really does try, which is a very important aspect of an mgs game imo
+definitely a platinum thing but I appreciate how this game both has a solid combo system and also makes it very acceptable to mash buttons. usually you can't have both and it's nice to see this game make it work
+so many off-the-wall insane cutscenes and sequences, they really cranked it up to 11 in ridiculousness. mariachi raiden...
+the ninja run sections are cute, I much prefer those to the random QTEs in bayonetta lol

-the camera is absolutely absymal, shockingly bad considering platinum's other work. an over-the-shoulder perspective just doesn't work for these kind of games, obscuring much of the screen with raiden esp when he's moving towards the camera, and the camera otherwise is prone to jittering and jumping inconveniently
-the second half of the game seems rushed, with two boss repeats, a 15-minute long chapter where you run through a previous area backwards, and very little in the way of regular combat sequences with a lot of cutscenes instead. thankfully the file 6 boss is an excellent fight
-enemy variety could be a little better... not that big of a deal because the game isn't very long
-I know he's a fan favorite and I loooooved his cutscenes but the armstrong fight was exceedingly frustrating on hard. it feels too focused on running willy nilly around the arena dodging his AoE moves without rewarding parries like the other bosses do, and fighting the camera the whole time doesn't help. most of the damage is dealt in QTE sequences which is a bad look imo, whereas on hard he can easily take out 2/3 of a health bar at once, or even instant death if he gets a wall-bounce during the flame walls section, esp since I had no reserve nanopaste. I could go on and on, and admittedly the fight was cake once nanopaste started dropping part of the way through, but this was such a difficulty spike after the previous bosses taking no more than 2 tries apiece (other than sundowner), I probably spent upwards of 20 continues here
-tutorials are pretty shoddy, and it really could use a more thorough explanation of Offensive Defense's properties especially since it's virtually mandatory for the second-to-final boss
-I could do without so many analog stick rotation QTEs, I hate having to put my palm on the stick over and over again, especially against the fucking mantiff enemies

for the first half especially I adored this game, and even though the second half left a sour taste in my mouth I still feel like this is an essential modern action game to try whether you're a metal gear fan or not. having played both zone of the enders 2nd runner and no more heroes 2 in the last month I'm given flashbacks to both of them in a positive way, and it's made me want to get back into playing platinum's oeuvre, esp since designer takahisa taura's ideas here seem to have leaked into nier automata and astral chain in some ways. also without question a must-own for ps3 owners given its excellent performance and metal gear ties

Man I really wanted to like this but jesus christ this just feels silly a lot of the time
30 hours of regugitating similar scenes, bad models, constant map transition scenes, bad effects, hit or miss puzzles just for the last 5 or 10 hours to have actual things happen isnt worth it. 999's structure made for a super enjoyable and fairly clever trip down alternative paths (with some pseudoscience) fun but the way this game attempts to accomplish that is obnoxious it feels like a good chunk of the game is just meandering through similar scenes to maybe get 1 or 2 useful pieces of information only for it to reach a final point in which its nothing but a nonstop of new, complex information to process. After a certain point in the final stretch I seriously wondered why this even really needed to be made? It's got some neat character moments, some puzzles are alright, its at least fairly forgiving with some QoL features (the flow chart/skip button). By the end the game gets interesting but would I say it's really worth the constant back-and-forth of the previous 30 hours, not really. Also god this game looks ugly like really, like christ this game would go up a point if I didnt have to stare at models that looked worse than mid-aughts gmod videos.

I don't really know where to begin with 13 Sentinels, mostly because hinting almost anything on the narrative side would spoil anything major. The most I can say is that 13 people summon robots to fight kaiju. I really don't want to say much because this is something where the less you know the better.
Instead I'll talk a bit about the RTS sections since those a bit more general. They're pretty fun on Intense but overall pretty simple with maybe a few interesting parts coming from the bonus objectives that might limit who you'll want to bring in. I like the visual designs of these section a bit although it can be a bit overwhelming in certain sections and later missions did tank the framerate a bit (especially the final mission). There's also a few QoL changes that I wish were present like knowing what the limit on turrets out was (I actually didnt realize you could send out more than 1 until late in the game admittedly), knowing what the max upgrade on weapons was, if there was even a limit on how many sentinel upgrades you can have, etc. Despite this, I enjoyed the combat sections a lot more than I thought and by that I mean I didnt realize interceptor and turret spam could trivialize a lot of maps until the last few battles. Still its fun to figure out what combos work best and min/maxing your sentinels for the final battle was incredibly satisfying. I'll also say that Area 2-10 will probably live in my heart as one of the best moments in the game imo; the music in this game is super good and that map exemplifies just how well Basicscape handled the music.
Everything I wrote basically accounts for not even 20% of the game, and not even the best parts of it. The other ~80% accounting for the narrative is insane and the way 13S handles it's structure, characters and the way you solve the mysteries are super satisfying. I don't want to say anymore than that because I would rather people interested in getting this find out for themselves what kinda game/narrative 13 Sentinels is. I had been distantly interested in seeing what Vanillaware was cooking up since seeing teaser trailers for it but after hearing rave reviews when it dropped last year had my interest piqued. I'm incredibly happy to say that 13 Sentinels not only satisfied my interest but surpassed them. I think a game like this deserves the praise its gotten with regards to how much ambition and love for the sci-fi genre went into this narrative, even with its RTS sections seeming weaker. I gushed about this game for this long and didn't even realize I never talked about the art, kind of the trademark accolade of any vanillaware game. It's great. More than great, even. All I can say is that I highly recommend picking this up, Vanillaware did a really good job and I loved every second of it (although area 3-10 was a pain on my run).

A very interesting and hoaky game courtesy of Uchikoshi. I enjoyed this game a lot but encountered a few bugs during my play time including one that had me reinstall the game (along with VLR). Definitely has a lot of braindead easy puzzles for most of it with most of the thinking coming from figuring out what hasn't been interacted with yet in the escape room. Thankfully the conveniences added to the most recent editions are very much appreciated and save the hassle of having to redo certain sections, escape rooms included. The character designs are super great but stylistically everything else is either just fine or unmemorable. The voice acting however is super fun mostly because of how nonchalant or over-the-top some of the performances can be at times. A super enjoyable experience especially when you hit the final route, although im worried whenever I hear this is the best in the series.
Junpei a real one though ngl