Played this through Game Pass only to find out it's gotten a lot of attention in the last couple days! I've played enough to be satisfied with it and wanted to give my thoughts on the game as well as my perspective on the discourse.

Vampire Survivors is fun, but it's nearly immediately clear how little depth there is to it. One of the appeals of any roguelite is how it handles its items - how are they found, how do you upgrade them, how do they interact with each other - and VS really disappointed me in this regard. Once you have an understanding of each weapon and its evolution item, it feels pretty hard to make a build that doesn't work, lending a real feeling of samey-ness to every run. This might have been mitigated a bit during the early access period as I believe the weapon evolutions were not listed in-game prior to 1.0, but I'm not sure. Furthermore, the permanent upgrade tree is absurdly generous, giving you extremely powerful upgrades like extra damage, damage reduction, duplication, and even a revive for not very much currency. I haven't tried the curse upgrade yet (think Hades' difficulty modifiers) so this might help a little in that department but hard to say how much of a difference it could make. Few of the unlockable characters really feel necessary to use IMO thanks to a good portion of their individual attributes not leaving a large impact on the run. The more unique ones are fun but still ultimately lack much in the way of truly making the game feel different. TBOI Repentance's Tainted characters these are not. The presentation is obviously minimal, with the light flair of the funny names and bios for items and characters being the only standout bits. I had a good time mowing down hordes of silly monsters with my ridiculous screen-shaking birds and Bibles but there's not enough here to really keep me coming back in a way that something like TBOI or Hades might.

As to the discourse itself, there's been a lot of talk in recent days of VS being predatory with regard to how it's built from a design perspective as well as to how shallow the gameplay is, making it something of a "time waster". I strongly disagree with both of these claims. The dev has gone on record talking about how the game is designed like a slot machine (and he evidently has ties to gambling program devs?), rewarding players with big flashy stuff for little player input. Even in spite of his interview, I still don't think it makes a lick of difference. VS lacks literally any way of getting your money beyond the initial (extremely cheap!) purchase. The idea of it robbing you of your time as opposed to money is maybe worth thinking about in a "Huh, interesting…" sort of way, but there's really no tangible way to back it up. The conversation has been had before, so I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but this claim should really be leveled at something like League of Legends or FIFA, games that do genuinely want to rob you of your money openly - that's where the real criticism should be focused, not miscast at VS.

The whole notion of it "wasting your time" is silly when you consider that A) all games waste your time and B) people will already happily sink 4000+ hours into DotA or CS:GO, so it's hardly something unique to VS.

There's nuance as to what degree every game is wasting your time I suppose, with the more blatant being ever so slightly harder to defend, but once you get into the minutiae of that reasoning it feels like a very slippery slope to viewing every single piece of media with this lens. Not only is it needlessly pedantic, it also seems like a really bleak way to view the things you like. Like at what point do we just start crafting a Rotten Tomatoes + HowLongTo Beat Reddit karma average quotient to determine whether or not a game "will be worth the time"? To put it simply, if we're going to condemn one game for this, we might as well condemn every game for this.

So how do you remake one of the greatest and most iconic games of all time? Well, I’d say you should double down on the things that made it what it was while trying to improve on the elements that have either become dull with age or simply weren’t necessary in the first place. As it happens, Capcom did basically precisely that with Resident Evil 4 Remake.

Gameplay-wise, I was a little worried playing the Chainsaw Demo, as the combat felt a little off, just slightly too much wobble on Leon’s gun, a little too much reaction from enemies, that sort of thing. I did give the demo more than a few runs and this wore off pretty quickly, and definitely did not persist into the full game. Part of it is most likely that the Silver Ghost (now without laser sight at the beginning) just sorta sucks. Everything else is near full upgrade in my mind. The parry adds so much to the gameplay loop and the creative ways in which you can engage a group of enemies, adding another option to Leon’s veritable toolbox of mechanics. The melee attacks all come together even more smoothly than the original, lending a lot of feeling of flow to fights. The guns feel great, the new additions are fun, there’s a ton of variety in how you approach your loadout, all still done through the fantastic attache case.

Graphically they did an incredible job upgrading the visuals, this is a pretty damn next-gen looking game, and the work they put into adding detail to the various important parts of the map is really fantastic. The iconic village looks even more real and lived in than it used to, the castle is huge and imposing, and the island and its labs are a great mix of mechanical and sedimentary. Almost every character looks improved overall.

But all that said, this is not a perfect game. The central change from the original game is obviously Leon’s moving aim system, adapting a variation of RE2’s gun combat from the stand-your-ground system. I don’t actually see this as an out and out negative - RE4R and RE4 are different games, and both will give different experiences, which is a good thing. RE4’s gunplay is a unique, puzzle-like system that gives it a very singular identity. RE4R is going for a more modern action-oriented style, which works to its strengths. I lead with this in the negatives section as I think it’s one thing people will / have focused on in criticism of this remake and I don’t personally agree - both games have their place. For the most part, the things I don’t like are, like the original game, certain setpieces or pacing options. But it’s a give and take! In the original, I hated the hive, the truck section, Mike’s gunship section on the island, a few rooms in the castle, and the entire filler section in the underground on the island. Save for Mike, these have been taken out or vastly altered, which is great. On the other hand, I really dislike the new minecart section, which is pretty dull overall and feels wasted. The double gigante fight with Luis is also pretty mediocre, which results in a perceived dip in quality in Chapter 11 for me. The bosses basically stay a weak point of the game, with the exception of Krauser and Salazar, who were vastly improved. Big Cheese is still pretty lame. If you check my original review, I noted that I felt Saddler should have a second phase in his fight - it seems Capcom agreed! It’s not really a gameplay segment but I was glad to see a big goopy tentacle guy to kill. In terms of tertiary content, I was undecided on whether or not the addition of crafting materials was good or not - giving the player the option to choose what ammo they need in addition to what they’re already picking up is good, but it adds a layer of unnecessary micromanagement that the original seemed to make an effort to avoid. The new shooting range is utterly fantastic fun and a wonderful addition to the Merchant’s character but I hated the randomized charms as rewards. It’s a dull grind and I think they would’ve been better used as rewards for the sidequests.

What Capcom really went above and beyond in this Remake is adding things where they were needed - the village is now a large, fully explorable map. The boat is now controlled and opens an entirely new area. They’ve added a chase sequence in the gorge before the Big Cheese fight, which I thought was excellent. Overall, there’s a lot of very smart reordering of rooms / areas just to make the pacing and flow make more sense. The castle is now more of an actual place and less of a haunted house with bizarro disconnected rooms. That ridiculous aforementioned underground section has been removed entirely, and the minecart appears in a more logical place. There’s a lot of this sort of thing, which is very very smart. Again, there are missing or changed rooms here or there that I was sad to see gone - the shaman who runs around the square room, for example - but it’s not really worth being disappointed by these things.

As the credits rolled and I reflected on my 20-ish hour playthrough, I was shocked to be hit by a full on vocal credits theme - Craig McConnell and Sam Drysdale’s “The Bullet or the Blade.” It’s a pretty good song in general but, more importantly, its placement is immaculate, urging the player to think deeply about the game. But not just the game, but actually the story. The original Resident Evil 4 is a fantastic game, as I’ve noted above and in my original 5 star review, but it lacks something in terms of characterization for Ashley, Luis, background on the village, stuff like that. It gained some of its cult fame from being arcadey, begging for multiple playthroughs and highscore hunting, as it were. This game is no different in that regard, but Capcom have managed to add in enough detail and emotional weight to the characters and story that it now truly works as a cinematic story, and not just a fun action game with sorta relevant background. Ashley’s growth throughout the story, Leon’s struggle with his past, Luis’ redemption, even Krauser’s obsession - they all carry a lot more weight than they ever did in the original, and IMO it lands. Resident Evil 4’s layout was always something magical - the player goes through a triptych of unique, separate locations with a bevy of memorable fights and rooms. The actual structure is sort of comparable to Dante’s Inferno, the player descends (or ascends) through varying levels of hell as Leon learns of the depths to which this Spanish community has been corrupted and bastardized by a cult seeking their own twisted goal. The village will always be the thing this game is known for, and Capcom went the extra mile to add a whole lot more reasons to care about how it came to be what it is.

I went back and forth a little bit on what to score this, but I gave the original game a 5 despite the issues I had with it as its overall identity and fun factor reach far above those negatives. I feel pretty much exactly the same about Remake, despite the issues themselves being different. The iconically good core gameplay was treated with the utmost respect, and the additions and changes are overwhelmingly good, with the strength of the story finally coming to light, giving Ashley, Luis, and even Leon all more to do. The wisecracking comments and silly pirate merchant are all still here, perhaps even enhanced by a more seriously considered storyline. As far as I’m concerned, every remake should strive to be this good.

I first started Alan Wake years ago, but only got into the tutorial before my attention wandered. After playing Control on release and with the hype for Alan Wake 2 building, I figured it was time to sit down and play through the remaster. While this is still probably the right call for maximum enjoyment of the sequel, I found the original game to be dull, frustrating, overly long, needlessly repetitive, and honestly outright bad.

The story is Alan Wake’s only real appeal. What clearly begins by resting on the laurels of Twin Peaks does blossom (with the help of the excellent Control) into a wider narrative that is genuinely engaging. For the most part, anyway. I won’t go into too many specifics because I do think that’s what makes the game tick. It’s relatively well delivered, but paced terribly and is overly vague. There are a couple details that get expanded on in the DLC and the spinoff Alan Wake’s American Nightmare that do originate from this game, but… they’re not really actually explained. Even the wiki is a little unclear about how certain details line up. It stinks that you have to get info from so many other places to see the full broader narrative, but I guess that was the intent from the start, so it’s hardly worth criticizing. The full cast is shockingly small, with really only Alan and Barry and the Anderson brothers being consistent characters. Agent Nightingale is basically absent from the story and the other Bright Falls residents are genuinely window dressing. Still, despite these issues, there is an appeal here. YMMV if the game itself is worth trudging through for that.

The real death knell for Alan Wake is the gameplay. For a narrative focused game, almost nothing you do is related to the actual narrative. The cutscenes and manuscripts tell the story, and the bulk of the chapters (“Episodes”) of the game itself are mostly traipsing through forest segments fighting shadow people. The third person shooting mechanics here are laughably shallow. Alan’s flashlight burns the darkness off of infected people - “Taken” - (who I guess are beyond saving despite that, because he then kills the shit out of them) and your weapons kill them.
You have a pistol, a shotgun, a hunting rifle, and a variation of each (ex: pump shotgun). Flares act as “get off me” tools and flashbangs are grenades. That’s about it. Alan moves like a tank through a swimming pool of high-grade molasses, and his stamina is awful, giving you very little mobility in fights. A not-super-reliable dodge can save you sometimes, but once you’re surrounded you’re likely to take damage regardless, as the terrible camera and bad environmental design allows enemies to easily swarm you. There are really only about 5 enemies, and they’re all variations on either lumberjacks or fishermen. I figured from the first chapter that this was an aesthetic choice for that part of the story, and I would go on to fight, say, Taken engineers, or Taken chefs or something. No, it’s just lumberjacks all the way down. The game loves to just send Alan into the woods to fight things, and it is actually a majority of this game’s runtime. I cannot stress just how dull and repetitive these sections are - I groaned audibly when I figured a chapter was ending only to find out I had multiple more forest segments to go. The game also only knows to switch things up by taking away your weapons, not by throwing new enemies or challenges at you. Alan will regularly get into a car / helicopter / window accident that causes him to run into the woods, having forgotten or lost his guns and ammo, forcing you to scavenge new ones that are exactly the same. The game will throw a wave or two of enemies at you over and over until you reach a checkpoint, get given ammo for every gun you have, heal, and then do it again.

To be a little more analytical, Alan’s iconic flashlight doesn't work effectively as a mechanic since it is REQUIRED to make enemies vulnerable - there's nothing clever you can do to manage a crowd like in Resident Evil 4, you literally just have to focus one Taken at a time and kill them all. The addition of the flares and flashbangs helps, but these are just an escape from the central mechanics being extremely weak. The level design is atrocious, and it feels like the increase in enemy numbers is always hiding the fact that the mechanical depth is simply not enough to create any meaningful sense of progression throughout, resulting in a need to bury the player under the weight of sheer numbers and the time it takes to flashlight each enemy down before killing them.

In terms of pacing, there's rarely any payoff to a bunch of different objectives - when Alan runs from the cops (sigh... into the forest) and he sees the radio station, you'd think that once you get there you'll get character building, context, even just a break from woods-walking. Nope, the second you see the DJ inside, a cutscene plays and the cops shoot at Alan through the window so he jumps out and runs into the forest. Not a single second of this exchange is worth anything, it is blatant and embarrassing filler. The player is teased with an objective, a possible meeting with another character, a break from the mediocre gameplay - only to have it last less than 20 seconds before returning you to a carbon copy of what you did for the last 15 minutes. The other objectives outside the woods feel like busywork: get this gate open, go get a generator running, etc. Episode 5’s walk through the abandoned Bright Falls is a real highlight of the game as it is not just a break from forest segments, but also feels connected to the narrative and worth engaging with.

some bullet points:
- sheriff breaker is an agent of the bureau of control, which is kind of awesome
- there's this one clip of the dark presence taking Alan's wife that plays probably 10 times in the story when he like has a flash of pain in his head and it's only like 0.8 seconds long and it repeated so many times i thought my game was bugged
- Nightingale calling Wake different authors' names is pretty funny
- the possessed barrels and girders flying at you suck so much
- i hope you like Adidas bc this game could be an ad for it with how much that one enemy in the tracksuit shows up
- Barry gets a head torch and Alan wants it. yeah me too man, me too
- that final "boss" is such a whimper to end a game on
- the whole final act is weirdly quick and anticlimactic for a game that's already double the length it should be
- the episodes of Night Springs that play on tvs are the most well written part of the game, they really capture the tone that makes Control feel so special

I feel like I haven’t even really touched on how many things about this game bothered me, but I’m going to end there. A truly frustrating and dull experience that offers gameplay so wretched that I did consider stopping and watching a Lets Play for the last half. While looking some stuff up about it, I saw someone say that they believed this was the best linear third person shooter ever made. I truly hope for their sake that they played RE4 or Dead Space after they made that comment, because it is a grim statement otherwise.

Two months ago, I finished Lost Judgment. I started Yakuza 5 back in the third week of August, and it’s now December. I took a break from Yakuza intentionally, so I’d be fresh for Lost Judgment and so I could let Y5 breathe a little. As a result, it feels like I’ve been playing this behemoth of a game for my entire life. As befitting of the game, this review is going to be very long, I expect. But, in short, one of RGG Studio’s crowning achievements and a great experience overall. Spoilers ahead.

I’m going to tackle this by chapter, since that makes the most sense. So, first up: Kiryu. This game starts off a lot more cinematic than maybe any other game in the series, or even Judgment. There’s a lengthy cutscene showing Suzuki / Kiryu’s daily routine from waking up, seeing his girlfriend(!?), going to work at the taxi company, and finishing out the day at a ramen shop. It’s incredibly well-done, and sets up the idea of each chapter as its own individual story. The framing for Kiryu is great - separated from Haruka and the other kids for an unknown reason, arguably at his lowest point. IMO this very intentional pacing goes a long way in making this game hit home. It’s not present in every character’s section, but it does a great job differentiating this from the rest of the series, especially Yakuza 4. Kiryu’s story is compelling, with him trying to avoid the responsibility of helping the Tojo after seeing Daigo, and then avoiding the Tojo guys that investigate Daigo’s disappearance. It introduces Watase, who’s a very fun character and one of the stronger Omi guys in the series. Kiryu’s section features two great fight sequences: the rather good fight in the branch Omi office and the absolutely incredible and infamous Kiryu vs 100 Tojo officers. What a great way to cap off his section.

Every character in Yakuza 5 has their own bespoke minigame tailored to their story. Kiryu’s is taxi driving and taxi racing. The game actually breaks these up into two parts, “story” and “side” missions. In Kiryu’s case, the story is about taxi racing, and the side is about taxi driving. I found the latter honestly pretty aggravating, and I couldn’t be bothered to do more than the introductory one, but the former is great fun. RGG managed to make a serviceable driving physics engine, relatively similar to Mario Kart, once you get to know it. The story of this section is quite good, and it cemented my intention to do the sidestories for each character.

Kiryu’s location is Nagasugai, and it’s probably in my top 3 or 4 locations in the series. It’s well-realized, pretty big, and feels different from Kamurocho. It also feels graphically impressive, and is a real step up from Y4’s Kamurocho. The ramen minigame is super fun (even if I only did it once), and it just feels like a lived-in city. Collecting the garbage is a funny little way to bring that home, even if the garbage is just the same shine effect for every ground thing in the series. Overall, Kiryu’s section feels like a mini Yakuza game. If you had just packaged it for $25 with all the substories and content in the city and ended it after the final fight, I’d be alright with it.

Saejima’s section starts off terribly, repeating the prison sequence from Yakuza 4 for no real good reason other than the plot demands that Saejima be back in prison. It’s a scary prospect and worried me that the game was about to nosedive in quality, and, while it does for a few minutes with the minutiae of prison fetch quests and nothing but uninteresting dialogue, the prison sequence is far better than Yakuza 4’s, and serves a much better purpose. Saejima’s escape with Baba is a terrific portion of the game, and leads to the bear and the mountain. The arc of Saejima helping look after Baba and investigate the town is excellent and aside from the next chapter, one of the bigger departures from the norm that the series has ever done. You have a very small “city” part with the village and a larger open world with the mountain, and that’s it. It feels claustrophobic and open, and Saejima is even more of an outsider than usual. One minor complaint I have about this section though is actually in its localization. For anyone aware of Hokkaido history / culture, the village is clearly a Matagi village, bear hunting and animal worship included. In fact, they SAY Matagi at one point (either Saejima or a villager), but the localized subtitles cut it out, and just refer to them as “ritualistic hunters” or some such thing. I get that when Yakuza 5 first came out, there was still the belief that gamers in the west didn’t care about Japanese culture or history, and the game itself almost didn’t release, sure. But this is Yakuza 5 Remastered, released in 2019, and the team did go back and make changes to the script in other locations, so it’s very disappointing that they left this cultural tidbit unknown to people who don’t speak Japanese. Putting that aside, I love this section and the hunting minigame. Again, I only did the main story and not the side ones (which are more like hunting substories, really), but going up against Yama-oroshi is really satisfying and the gameplay of the hunting is quite well done. I lost about a week to just playing an hour or so of that a night. Saejima’s actual plot-relevant section in Tsukimino is pretty forgettable, as is the stuff with Baba. Tsukimino is a bit weaker as a location than Nagasugai, IMO. The mountain is so weird and fresh by comparison to everything else in the entire series that Tsukimino’s relatively standard layout is a bit less interesting. The pervading snow and Christmas feel is a nice touch, as is the snow festival, but I just didn’t find myself getting too attached to it on the whole. Combat-wise, Saejima is a bit more interesting than he was in 4, although he quickly becomes completely OP with the Herculean Strength ability, which renders him immune to all flinching and interruptions when he’s in heat mode. It makes every boss afterwards a bit of a joke, honestly. Otherwise he’s got more cool double finishers and charged moves, plus the ability to pick up big stuff and swing people around. His heat actions are pretty brutal. Both he and Kiryu are absolute demons in this game, you genuinely feel for the random goons they dispatch.

Haruka’s section is probably the single best “chapter” in the studio’s history. What an incredible stroke of genius it was to take the relatively rote formula expected of a Yakuza game (beating up dudes, running around town, etc.) and completely turn it on its head with a character that the audience has developed a bond with over multiple games. To get mechanical for a second, it just goes to show how ingrained certain parts of the yakuza formula were by this point that by the simple act of removing them you get some really fresh perspective. Haruka being able to explore Sotenbori and do stuff at her own pace without running into punks every 8 seconds is such a minor thing but it adds so much. Haruka’s idol training is brutally fun, including both the surprising variety of side stuff and her mainline Princess League story with its rhythm game gameplay. And it’s not just fun, it’s a very smart twist on the perspectives of the main characters. Much in the same way that it worked for Judgment with Yagami as an outsider to yakuza struggles, Haruka is not going down the path of the Tojo Clan. Her perspective and approach to the world is vastly different from Kiryu and the gang’s. Her story is interesting, too. The characters introduced in this section are some of the best in the game, and the twists and turns of the chapter are exciting. Mirei Park is a fascinating character, and her connection to the broader story is both surprising and clever. And then Haruka’s section gets even better! Akiyama comes into the fold! Some people complain about his inclusion being too minor, but I disagree. Akiyama lends such a grounded personality to any scene he’s in, and acting as Haruka’s guardian (especially when things kick off) is a great bit of fanservice and character building. Akiyama is, notably, a slacker and something of a ladies’ man. Having him buck up and protect Haruka when it’s necessary is a great bit of growth - arguably better than some of the other mainstays of the series have ever gotten. Haruka is a badass in her own right, this section makes that plenty clear. She lives on her own in Sotenbori, works and trains really hard, and takes no shit from anyone. The part where Katsuya explains to Kanai that Haruka is essentially a hardened yakuza from her years around Kiryu, Ryuji, Nishiki, etc. is fantastic.

Shinada is super weird. He’s obviously the odd one out in terms of his connection to the story and because he’s the only new character. I was sort of ready to be underwhelmed by his section but it’s pretty good overall! It focuses a bit less on the yakuza politics and little more on the individual story of Shinada, which is compelling. His side activity is sort of meh, but it’s not terrible. I wish he had had a real baseball minigame, but I think that’s something in Y6? Shinada’s part is quite funny, and Takasugi, the lender that hounds Shinada for the length of it, is a really great character. The details of the Nagoya family were lost on me a little bit, if I have to be honest, the game refers to a bunch of people by name several times and I had forgotten who they were. Shinada’s weapon trainer is fantastic, Ayanokoji is a funny guy with some really fun fights and a hilarious arc. Shinada’s city, Kineicho, is probably the weakest in the game, lacking the quality worldbuilding and layout of Nagasugai and also lacking the definitively different vibe of Tsukimino. Ultimately it kind of just feels like a mini Kamurocho, which is in turn a little disappointing since you’ll be in Kamurocho in a couple hours for the finale.

The finale is weird. Firstly, it’s 5 chapters long, so it’s like multiple finales wrapped together. The first ones are basically just giving the context for why each character comes back to Kamurocho, which means that Kiryu’s first chapter is like 8 minutes long. Shinada and Akiyama meet up, which is cute. The 3rd chapter finale is the first real one, with the big rooftop fight between Saejima, Kiryu, and Watase and Katsuya. I really like this fight and the leadup to it, just very stupid meathead stuff, reminiscent of 2’s ending. The part afterwards is pretty bad, however. Maybe the weakest cutscene in the whole game, where Kurosawa’s plan is revealed and Y4’s gun shenanigans return as every person on the planet shows up on this roof to shoot each other. It sucks. But then the real finale starts once Shinada is brought into the fold of the main gang. The finale finale is pretty darn good, IMO. RGG does the smart thing and switches between several perspectives throughout it, giving us a bird’s eye view of what’s going on in Kamurocho. The first cutscene is EXCELLENT - Kiryu and Akiyama fighting outside the Millennium Tower is a real highlight. To get negative for a second, Y5’s final bosses are all… mediocre. Saejima’s fight is just Majima, which at least is explained sort of okay by the game (it’s still pretty dumb though), but it’s not an interesting fight. Shinada’s fight is thematically interesting, as he and Baba are very different people. Baba is running from the responsibility of his treason against multiple people and grappling with his past while looking to give up on his future. On the other hand, Shinada has never shied away from responsibility, and cannot abide Baba’s threat against Haruka, even if he doesn’t go through with it. It’s a pretty dull fight though, since this is the 3rd or 4th time you fight Baba and he doesn’t make for a fun antagonist for Shinada’s moveset. Akiyama’s final fight is awesome from a context perspective, with an all-timer cutscene after it, but the fight itself is dull as hell. Kanai is a boring character to have be the final boss and his gameplay is just lame. Not very hard but not very fun. Then… Aizawa. The guy who really shouldn’t be the final boss. His fight is, again, very cool from a setting and QTE standpoint, but it’s not that cool narratively and I found it absurdly easy. Playing this game on normal was perhaps a mistake as Kiryu’s upgraded tiger drop shreds Aizawa at insane speed. The final scenes are interspersed with Haruka’s moments on stage, as the whole finale has been. After the fight with Aizawa, Haruka reveals her intent to quit the idol biz. While I really don’t have the problems that some people do with her decision making and choice here, I think it was a missed opportunity from a gameplay perspective. They already made the effort to overlap Haruka’s last song with the final fight, so they really should’ve made it a playable rhythm section. Haruka is the only protagonist that doesn’t get a “final boss” and I think the game suffers for it. I’m sure it would’ve pissed the people who disliked her gameplay off even more, but I don’t care. The after credits cutscene is nice, and seeing Haruka and Kiryu reunited after the whole game apart is great, although I felt like a full 5-protag final cutscene might’ve been more effective.

To give some broader thoughts on the story, I think it’s alright. It’s quite strong in the individual pre-finale chapters as a mystery, slowly unwinding on this unknowable plan. It builds like this throughout the game and then just… sort of… stops. The game more or less ties up every detail, but it ultimately just comes down to “a guy wanted to take over / crush the Tojo and Omi(?)” and doesn’t get much more interesting than that. The bigger picture stuff with Park, Majima, and Katsuya is not so much a new thread but a get out of jail free card. Majima doesn’t refer to Park or Katsuya in the ending, so it basically just served the purpose of setup and tying up the loose ends of “why did that guy do that?” instead of making any real meaningful addition. On the whole, I felt like each individual chapter was better than the finale, and the slow drip of plot content in those chapters was pretty effective - Kiryu finding out about the Omi and Majima, Saejima hearing about Majima and getting expelled from the Tojo, Haruka being let in on Park’s past and Katsuya’s ambitions(?) with Akiyama at her side, and Shinada hanging out with Daigo. Those individual stories are probably better than the sort of disappointing Kurosawa and Aizawa team that ends the game, but that’s okay. Yakuza 5 is essentially a collection of 4 separate games and stories with a broader interconnected plot and I’m alright with the broader one being just whelming. It felt like there were several moments where a cutscene could’ve been added to help sell various parts of the finale, but I imagine that at a certain point RGG just wanted this behemoth of a game to be done, so that’s fine.

Quick bullet points of other positives that don’t fit into any section: Taiko no Tatsujin!!!! The photography guy! The chef guy (who is a real professional chef)! Santa Saejima! The karaoke options! The Akiyama dance battles! Shrimp Shinada! The substories are really good!

I know I’ve forgotten tons of stuff. This is a MASSIVE game, almost to its detriment, and it’s a given that I can’t mention everything. I have no idea what my final time ended up being because the suspend feature on PS5 breaks the gametime tracking in the Remastered Collection, but I’m sure it was upwards of 70 hours. Despite that, I ended up getting only ~32% completion. Insane.

This is the game that essentially closed out Yakuza as a massive, multi-character experiment and led directly to the end of Kiryu’s story (through both 0 and 6), and what a way to go out. There are parts of the overarching story that don’t land perfectly, sure, but the individual stories do work. The oddities of the universe are the best handled they’ve ever been, the writing is consistently funny. It’s ambitious, maybe even dangerously so, but it succeeds on those ambitions 9/10 times. It wormed its way into my brain and has some of the best character moments in the series, as well as remarkably solid gameplay from start to finish. Not to mention the absurd scale of the content available. I may have been a little all over the place in this review, but I want to be clear that this game was like a drug for me for 3 months and I think it’s excellent. I ended up making a lot of memories with this game, oddly mostly about food. We had salads one night after I started Kiryu's section, I played Saejima's hunting section nightly while we worked through this gigantic cake someone bought us, and we had tacos from this new place on the night I finished it. It's weird how you can attach memories to parts of games like that, but it really does add something to the experience. Overall, one of the strongest efforts in the series, and easily my favorite mainline entry, just ahead of Yakuza 3.

Up next: Ryu Ga Gotoku Ishin!

God of War (2018) is a solid game wrapped up in an unbelievable amount of 8th generation nonsense. There's a relatively compelling emotional narrative here, alongside serviceable combat and some pretty good looking vistas. Unfortunately, it's just dragged down by so much needless filler and so many boring puzzles.

The central narrative is what compelled me to keep playing. Kratos and Atreus make for an interesting pair, and the father-son issues grow and change in interesting ways throughout the game's 20ish hours. It's never really all that shocking, but watching Kratos' icy exterior slowly defrost is fun regardless. The side characters are a mixed bag. Sindri and Brok are mostly annoying, Waititi-esque comedians that left me wishing they would shut up, but Mimir is a welcome addition that really helps break up the silence between Kratos and Atreus. Freya is a little all over the place but her presence is at least warranted and she serves a good purpose. Since netiher Thor nor Odin are actually in this game, Baldur is pretty much the main villain and he does not live up to that title.

Combat is frustrating. This game's difficulty balance is all over the place in the worst of ways. Regular enemies are complete fodder, but bosses have like 2.5x the amount of health they feel like should have and do exponentially more damage. The game's reliance on the over-the-shoulder camera for the cinematic views results in some of the clunkiest camerawork in combat I've seen recently. Compare this to Resident Evil 4, which I just played, and the difference is night and day. In RE4, the camera's perspective is baked into the game design, not the cinematic design. This means that enemy encounters are built in such a way that managing your blind spot while shooting is key part of how the game plays. In God of War, it feels like the opposite, and like the combat designers had to work around the issue instead of integrating it. As a result, you get some extremely irritating enemy placements in your blindspot, and the bright red indicator for an approaching enemy or projectile is lazy and ugly. Bosses, particularly the atrocious Dark Elf Lords, will routinely fall out of combos and runic attacks, and generally just get to do whatever they want, pushing you around and using invincible flying projectiles.

What I mentioned in the intro is the game's biggest failing. What I'm calling "8 generation bullshit" refers to the endless use of levers to raise gates, freezing gears to stop things moving or to move them, waiting on slow elevators, climbing up marked rock faces, and having to get stupid metroidvania upgrades to open places. Furthermore, it heavily features a completely useless gear and stats system, ala Assassin's Creed Odyssey. There's even COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS levels! The XP and money you get are pretty much required, as the game's open world is so narrow as to be essentially linear. If that's the case, why do I even have to craft armor and get weapon upgrades? It's not like there's any large portions of the game where you can miss tons of XP, so the need to "build" your Kratos is completely unnecessary. I reached 100% on the skill chart at like 80% of the way through the game with no side content completed, so why do I have to gather thousands of bits of XP anyway? Why does loot drop on the ground? These decisions are utterly baffling to me as they do nothing but get in the way of the emotional narrative being told. I've seen this game compared to Uncharted 4 several times as a not dissimilar emotional reboot / ending to earlier campier iterations. I feel like the comparison does not act in God of War's favor, as Uncharted 4 completely eschews the numerical, gamey nonsense in order to make its narrative as immersive as possible. Drake doesn't have to level up his weapons perks to fight, and the game is all the better for it.

In that same vein, the pacing is just too slow. I actually quite like how this game's main quest is actually just an errand of sorts, waylaid by the plot, but it just takes way too long to actually happen. Toss in the endless and extremely boring puzzle rooms where you have to do 1 thing with either the axe or chains in 3 different ways, interspersed with combat encounters, and it just adds up to too much. I think there are entire setpieces you could easily cut from this without missing anything. Even the setpieces I did like felt like they went on way too long, like the flying ship or Tyr's vault.

The good stuff: It's quite pretty, especially with the PS5 update option. The cinematic camera, while pretty dumb in combat, does give the game a nice flair that puts Kratos in the center of the action and grounds all the setpieces. The dragon boss is the peak of the game. It's inventive and silly and absurdly over the top, which is a welcome change from fighting recycled elemental trolls that all die the same way. Mimir's a very good addition to the crew. The stuff with Jormungandr is probably the only time it feels like it actually manages to achieve a sense of scale, and I quite like those segments. The leviathan axe itself is a fantastic weapon, and throwing it and having it come back pretty much never gets old - a great use of a kinetic ability that the player is rewarded for constantly using. The first trip to Thamur's corpse to find the shard of the hammer is probably my favorite in the game, and it's the only time where it felt to me like the level design was anything interesting. The final section of the game is pretty strong (even if the boss is recycled), and the final cutscene is nice.

I did end up playing through the whole thing and bought a copy of Ragnarok, so take my criticisms with a grain of salt. It's enjoyable popcorn material that feels uninventive in its use of the played-out systems that defined the PS4 era. If you can get past that, you'll enjoy it. I wavered a bit between a 3 and a 3.5 but the final hours had so much of the "go here, pull this lever, fight this combat encounter, now do it again on the other side" that I had to lower it. Looking forward to Ragnarok regardless.

Last week I finished Judgment, using it as a palate cleanser of sorts after 0-K2. I was eager to see what Yakuza 3 had to offer after hearing about Okinawa and some varied opinions on the story / whole experience. Although at first I found myself sort of unsure of how I felt, I came out really positive on it.

I know that some people really don't like the story and, in retrospect, I can see why, but it totally worked for me. Excluding 0, 1 and 2 are basically variations on the theme of inner yakuza politics and war, with 2 being the more mature and interesting look at those themes, IMO. 3, on the other hand, is this absolutely over the top romp that integrates all these different things. While, yeah, there is a guy who gives you 20 minutes of exposition halfway through the game, I think it does genuinely do a good job balancing the grounded, intimate story of Okinawa and Morning Glory against the insane outer story. It reminds me a lot of Takashi Miike's film Dead Or Alive 2: Birds, which may have been the inspiration for Kiryu's retreat to the countryside as well as the presence of the "vibes".

Graphically, there's obviously a large drop from the Kiwami engine and especially from the Dragon Engine, but Yakuza 3 has some standout parts regardless. While this is probably the overall blandest Kamurocho I've played, the neon lights have a signature glow, the HUGE number of people on the streets are a welcome addition, and the skyboxes are really pretty. But aside from Kamurocho, Okinawa is absolutely gorgeous, and Ryukyu is probably the best explorable area in the series yet. The shops, the street, Kiryu's hawaiian shirt, they all add to the incredible vibes of the first half of this game.

Aiding the insane vibes are the cast of characters. The whole Ryudo family is a treat, with Rikiya obviously being the star of the show. The kids of Morning Glory, while slightly annoying at times, are endearing, and their problems serve as a nice contrast to what Kiryu usually deals with. Haruka's role is really well done too, as she becomes the adult when Kiryu isn't around, which is a good evolution of her story. The new characters in Kamurocho are slightly mixed, since Kanda is basically just a rehash of Shimano with some new quirks, but Mine is just fantastic. Easily one of the best antagonists / new characters in the series, up there with Ryuji for me, maybe even better. [Name Expunged] is sort of a dumb inclusion, but that just adds to the over the top story, so he gets a pass.

The combat is one of the weakest parts, but it's not unbearable. Since this game isn't a Kiwami, it's obvious how little there was in the upgrade tree originally, and how you don't have that many options in combat. The essence moves are neat, and Tiger Drop is very strong in this iteration, so there are some things to take the edge off.

Substories and minigames are a mixed bag. Some of the substories are fantastic, like the acting school one (which has a full-on cutscene ending, not something you really saw in K1 or K2) as well as some of the stuff around Ryukyu. Minigames were pretty bleh though. Coming off Judgment didn't help, but it's mostly stuff that was in 0-K2, which made it feel fairly same-y (granted, Yakuza 3 originated several of them). Cabaret, for example, is downright awful by comparison to its 0 / K2 iteration. Revelations, though, are a great addition that add a good amount of zaniness to the world and give a compelling reason to learn new moves.

Yakuza 3 is probably the most off-kilter of the games I've played so far. Its combat is the weakest, it's the least attractive, and the side stuff didn't engage me all that much. On the flipside, the story ramps up the insanity, the new characters are good, and the vibes are second to none. I sort of treated this as just a Story+ run, clocking only 25ish hours (the least in the series for me), but that was honestly probably the best way to experience it for me, especially since the upcoming games are significantly longer. All in all, Yakuza 3's "experience" is superior to its gameplay, but that's just fine by me.

Prior to this, I wasn't huge on Uncharted overall. I like Nathan Drake but Uncharted 1 is a pretty meh affair and Uncharted 2 rubbed me the wrong way entirely, despite the incredible cachet it carries. I'm also not a fan of ND's foray into The Last of Us, so I went into Uncharted 4 with some skepticism. I'm pleasantly surprised to say that not only did I like it, I downright loved it. As long as you're willing to deal with cover shooting as a central mechanic, I think you'll find A Thief's End to be a fantastically fun cinematic action adventure with the strongest narrative in the series and probably the best visuals ever put to a screen.

Story
The previous games were such deeply impersonal stories of supernatural treasure hunting that, by comparison, A Thief’s End
is a vastly different beast. The emphasis on narrative here is so much more pronounced than any of the trilogy. Perhaps, at times, too much so. This is Naughty Dog hot off the heels of The Last of Us, which quickly became not just a contender for Game of the Year, but all-timer material in the eyes of many. The shift in writing style is pretty noticeable, and I would say that it does clash with the nature of the series, mostly at the beginning. In Chapter 3, Nate, now in his… midlife crisis, let’s say, turns down an offer for a job at first. He cites a lack of permits as reason to steer clear, saying not getting the money “beats going to prison”. Yes, this is after the events of Chapter 2’s flashback to prison, but this is Nathan Drake. He slaughtered thousands on a blood-soaked rampage across Asia in the main trilogy, so forgive me if I’m not 100% sold on this new lifestyle of his. Once this little arc finishes and Sam shows up, the narrative begins to pick up steam. The brothers play off each other beautifully, and a little playful banter feels a whole lot more natural than when Nate talks to himself with nobody around. The story itself is hardly anything to write home about, but each beat is competently carried out, all the peaks and valleys included. Rafe is perhaps slightly underwhelming as a villain, but the final fight is good nonetheless. Nadine is definitely underdeveloped, but I'll assume that Lost Legacy fixes that somewhat. Nate and Elena's relationship is really well done, both on the "cutesy married couple having dinner after work" front and on the "past they tried to leave behind" front.

(Minor story spoilers)
I like how the history of the pirates founding Libertalia mirrors Nate and Sam's relationship - they imagine a pirate utopia, founded on common respect when helping each other under the pretense of Sam's precarious situation, only to realize the pirates duped the colonists and massacred them after Sam reveals his lie and Nate is left for dead. It's a simple trick, but very effectively done.

Gameplay
I'll get the combat out of the way first - I'm not really a huge fan of cover shooting in general and both U1 and U2's were excessively passable with their slow bullet speed and shaky aim. 4 improves it in some ways - more contextual cover, better movement, relatively fun stealth and some weapon variety - but ultimately it still doesn't impress. In particular I'm not fond of the large reticle for aiming, having your shots group within a certain range is kinda just frustrating. Guns with actual sights make the combat a joke, which shows how it was balanced around not having them. The use of ropes to swing around during combat is cool but underused and not game-changing. Fortunately, for all the complaining I just did, this game boasts way fewer combat encounters than the previous games and they genuinely don't overstay their welcome. Also, there's no yeti-type bosses, so that's a plus in my book.

Shooting aside, the rest of the gameplay is excellent. The climbing feels the best it's ever felt, with far finer control over Nate. Better yet, he doesn't fling himself into bottomless pits all the time! All exploration feels fluid and natural, despite the fantastical physics. I did a bit of a "oooohhh" when doing the climbing after Nate's boat crash, which doesn't allow you to jump from hold to hold, instead requiring you to guide the injured Nate more slowly and deliberately with just the analog stick. Getting a long climbing and exploring sequence is what I looked forward to the most, which I feel is high praise considering how much I groaned when I had to climb things as Kratos in 2018's God of War. Vehicles feel great too, and the rope is a great addition to the overall moveset. Plus, using the winch to hook up and maneuver the car is wonderful. All the little physics toys they came up with are just delightful. Same with all the contextual dialogue you get for doing them or working up to doing them. The constant flow of banter is the strongest it's ever been and it lends so much life to all the characters.

One of the things I hated about the aforementioned God of War was its liberal use of the most mind-numbing "puzzles" one can imagine, a veritable conveyor belt of throw axe -> freeze thing -> pull lever -> lift thing -> recall axe, repeated as needed for periods of narration. Uncharted 4's actual puzzles are not only much better in terms of variety and difficulty, they almost never repeat. As a result, the game never deviates from the core idea of a cinematic narrative, never dives into ideas that stick out as overtly "game-y". There are no character levels, no quest markers, no perks, and no map. The game fully commits to the idea of a fully cinematic adventure and wants the player to completely forget the standards of the open world game. In a way, I found this stark, dedicated linearity quite refreshing after God of War, Xenoblade 3, Gotham Knights, Cyberpunk, etc etc. We spend so much time on backloggd praising the benefits of intricate gameplay and deep mechanics all coming together in thoughtful ways that it feels a little like blasphemy to say, but I really enjoyed this 20 hour movie.

Looks
I actually played the Legacy of Thieves Remaster for PS5 for this, but I'm logging here because of the disparity in play count (sue me). In this regard, I admit that my experience doesn't match the original release of the game. But boy howdy is this game gorgeous. Naughty Dog are pioneers of graphical fidelity, and their work on facial animation in particular is shocking. This game is just downright staggering in the visuals department. The lighting, the detail on the texture work, as well as some technical thing I'm not sure I can put my finger on - ambient occlusion? TAA? I don't know, but whatever it is, it lends a certain visual sharpness I've never seen before. Couple that with the incredible performance on PS5, with near instant loads and a frame rate that seems untenable on console hardware for the quality of picture, and you've got a strong contender for the best looking game of all time. The Madagascar section might be one of the most visually stunning things I've ever seen in a video game. Same for several parts of the island, as well as the boat segment and mansion party. All of this to say that I took an absurd number of screenshots.

Final Thoughts
I'll just end by saying a couple of my favorite setpieces include the whole of Scotland, Twelve Towers, New Devon -> No Escape, Join Me in Paradise, and At Sea -> Marooned. The absolute best ones however are Nathan's dinner with Elena, the clock tower, and the auction, with the Madagascar car chase after Sam being probably the most fluidly designed action sequence I've ever played in a video game.

So yeah, high praise for Uncharted 4. My preconceptions of it being entirely overwrought and dull were completely off the mark, and what I was happy to discover in its stead is a stellar action adventure experience with some real heartfelt moments, especially as a closing chapter to one of gaming's iconic franchises. Highly recommended.

I've played 6-8ish hours of this, which is not really enough to give a full review, just a few thoughts ahead of the English localized remake coming out in a couple weeks (which I will play in full).

I do read and write Japanese so I can follow this game - for the most part anyway, there's a lot of older period vocab and speech patterns that come more easily to native speakers. Think Olde Englishe but Japanese. I wouldn't recommend playing this if you don't, it's just too text heavy to bother, IMO.

This is a weird little game. I think what will most blatantly surprise people who are completely unaware of this game's roots is how different it is to the mainline series. Combat is completely different, focusing on your gun, sword, and mixture styles instead of fighting straight up. It's not ridiculously different to the brawler gameplay, but it's a lot less clean and sillier. People will be surprised to learn that it has multiple open world zones separated by loading screens, and sometimes linear ones. Full-on Meiji Kamurocho this ain't. Overall, mechanically this is a little clunkier and jankier than the mainline games (unsurprisingly) and I'm curious how much they buffed those out for the remake, considering it seems to me that a lot of fans in the west are expecting it to be like Yakuza 7 in terms of quality and presentation.

The story is obviously the main draw here, and while simplistic in overarching stuff, the individual notes are pretty cool. You kinda need to know the context of the Meiji Restoration and the last gasp of the Bakufu and what exactly the shinsengumi were and why it's important... but if you have a general grasp of that stuff you'll get a lot out of it. RGG's real stroke of genius here is not Kiryu Ryoma, but instead bringing over dead or minor characters from the main series and giving them room to run around and have fun. The most obvious is Mine as Hijikata. It's so nice to have him back in a major role and he really gets to shine. Baba and Park are fantastic, too, alongside the mainstays like Majima and Saejima. Oddly Nishikiyama is hardly present in the first third of the game, but I believe he plays more of a role later. I'll get into it with the Remake review I'm sure but I really dislike their decision to replace several of these faces/VAs with either Y0 or Y7 characters - the lieutenants especially, but I'll save that rant for then.

Stuff I enjoyed: The substories are a lot of fun - the one to do with the dancing crowds as well as the Lady Who Never Stops Fucking Talking will be well received in the remake, I'm sure. THE BATH HOUSE FIGHT IS AMAZING. The animations and detail on costumes and whatnot are great. The opening song (Clock Strikes - ONE OK ROCK) is super good!! If they remove it from the remake I'll kill them! Ryoma instantly spawns slippers when he walks up the stairs in the Shinsengumi base.

Stuff I didn't enjoy: The crafting stuff is super lame, and I've heard it only gets grindier and worse farther in the story. Some of the level design can be a little odd. One of the first bosses is kinda bad and slow. Lots of unnecessary button prompts and menuing, but that might've just been exacerbated by being aware of playing it in Japanese. The upgrade tree is Y0-style, which is my least favorite upgrade variation in the series.

So yeah, just some quick thoughts to get out before the remake. Cool time, but not super high in my personal RGG-verse rankings. We'll see if that changes!

Having played most of RE2R and RE3R, with a few hours of REmake behind me and a need to play 7 and Village, I decided to play RE4 for Halloween this month. After my first 15 hour run, I'd say it deserves its reputation as one of the greatest games ever made and stands as a testament to tight gameplay and excellent pacing.

The overall vibe of the game is so well-achieved. Leon wisecracks at the villains, the dialogue has a flair of the 1980's action movie, the overall oppressive vibe of the village gives way to the intimidating castle. The island is maybe a slight step back in some ways, but the laboratory section is one of my favorites in the game. Ashley, Luis, and Ada all have relatively small roles in terms of dialogue and action, but they make themselves iconic despite that. And the merchant. Oh man, the merchant. What a silly idea for your upgrade mechanic to be a funny guy who just shows up.

I think one of the things that this game does so well is its pacing - pretty much every single room is a new idea or a new location being thrown at you and you never really have a good sense of where you are in terms of completion or how far from a group of enemies you are. Opening a new door is always an interesting moment. Will there be Ganados behind this? Will there be a boss fight? Every area feels surprising in what it might throw at you and the game segments the areas so well that never really drags on at all - well, at least until Chapter 5. Bits like the underground catacombs and minecart section feel like unnecessary filler. They can still be interesting at times, but this is a 15 hour game that backloads so many bosses and ideas that the extra areas without true story elements just end up feeling out of place. The upgrade system feeds you a steady set of new guns and gameplay options every chapter, really walking the line of balancing feeling powerful with feeling underequipped quite well. The attache case is an interesting addition to this side of the game, forcing you to make decisions about what you want to keep and what you don't really need so that you can be prepared with all the rest of your equipment. I found the Red9, semi-auto rifle, and riot shotgun to be my personal favorite loadout. The rifle in particular is shockingly powerful and definitely the most important to manage ammo for difficult encounters.

Mechanically the game does a really good job of following up on its excellent pacing - both Leon's movement and shooting style help reinforce the strength of the moment-to-moment gameplay. You know what I said before about the surprise of opening a new door? It's followed up by taking a few seconds upon opening said door to go into your shooting stance and survey the situation before you. Is there something I need to worry about right now or am I relatively safe for the next minute or so? Leon's movement, the evergreen tank controls, also helps to sell this. You can't just run willy-nilly into new areas for fear of finding yourself surrounded - The tank controls make you brutally aware of where your blind spots might be and putting in the effort to analyze the situation and be careful with your movement is paramount. RE4 is a game of peaks and valleys - not in terms of quality but in terms of gameplay. I just talked about the moments where nothing is happening and you need to be careful about your surroundings, but the flip side to that coin is when the game decides that you've relaxed for long enough and throws you headfirst into a situation that genuinely seems overwhelming. Suddenly you're on the backfoot, switching between weapons and ammo types, trying to get a grip on the situation itself. It's this very ebb and flow of manic moments versus exploration that makes the game flow so well. Throwing Ashley into the mix is a great extension of this - You might have gotten comfortable with Leon, but now you have someone else to manage, and she can't defend herself. In this sense, most combat scenarios you find yourself in are really moreso puzzles that you need to figure out as opposed to shooting galleries. Headshot this guy, kick him, stab this other guy, back up, reposition, change gun type, heal, look for environmental hazards, shoot the guys up on top of railings, look for ammo… oh wait, that was the last guy. Phew. To put it simply, t's a constant give and take of mania and relaxation.

The bosses of RE4 are actually one of the few negatives in my book. The Gigante is alright the first time and Del Lago is a spectacle (if sorta clunky), but the rest are mostly just a shooting gallery. They also rely way too heavily on QTEs for dodging. I assume this came out of a need to actually have movement options in these fights since the tank controls offer essentially none. Saddler in particular is somewhat disappointing - especially since I was expecting a stage 2 to the fight. New enemy types are almost always more interesting than the bosses, like the Regenerators. Instead of being bullet sponges, these are genuine additions to the pantheon of enemy puzzle pieces, forcing you to learn their patterns and options and develop a plan of action for when they show their ugly faces.

RE4's story is light, and by design. It wasn't until Leon called Salazar "small time" that it clicked for me how minor an event this is for the RE universe. Leon manages the whole thing in like 48 hours and there's seemingly no risk of further contamination afterwards. Even Wesker seems only tangentially interested since he hardly reacts when contacted. I haven't played Separate Ways yet, but I might.

I'm really glad to have gotten this done with RE4 Remake coming in just a few months. I'm not entirely sure if they're going to be able to replicate some of the things that make this game great but everything we've seen gives me hope they can. This is a very special game, deceivingly complex and difficult to master, with a great aesthetic and overall presentation. It's no wonder why it stands as one of the greats.

I'm only about 30 hours into Elden Ring but there are some other games coming up that I'd like to put time into and I'm ready to take a break, so I'm going to log it now. By all means a quality FromSoft title that definitely grabbed me but one I feel has a few issues holding it back.

I'll start with the positives: I've had a ton of fun talking about bosses and secret areas with friends and the whole rollout has been a blast. Overall, I think that's actually the strongest suit of this game and what I'll end up looking back fondly on the most. The NPCs are colorful and funny and lend a ton of character to the world. Ranni, Blaidd, Roderika, Rogier, all very cool. I wish From had taken a step out of their comfort zone and made the narrative more character driven, but oh well. Combat is as good as ever, which is to say, very very good. Adding jumping was a great idea by itself, but the game just gives you so many options at all times. Even if I play boring ass melee builds and have no interest in doing more than one run of a From title, I can appreciate how deep the pool of options is. The "legacy dungeons" are extremely cool, Raya Lucaria and Stormveil are excellent locations that are a ton of fun to explore. I know there are more to come and I'm interested in seeing what they are. The QoL improvements are very nice, like Stakes of Marika and overall tuning to the menus and out of combat movement. Gone are the days of running and jumping jank, now we've got immediate boss respawns and teleports to anywhere on the map. The exploration isn't my favorite thing (more on that next) but it's still impossible to not be grabbed by it a little bit, running from point of interest to point of interest. It doesn't touch, say, Breath of the Wild or Ghost of Tsushima for me, but it's solid. It definitely helps give the whole game that "ah I'll just play another 15-20 minutes" feeling.

Okay, the negatives: I can't help but think the game would've been improved by decreasing the size of the map. I don't necessarily think the open world should be cut entirely, but if the whole thing was scaled to… 75% of its current size I think it would help the pacing and overall quality. Running around in the open world just isn't as engaging as it could be and repetitive use of enemy types and the mini-dungeons wears after a while. The map itself, while obviously aesthetically cool (and more than we ever got in other Soulsborne titles), can be a little obtuse at times. Like, there's a spot in the east of Liurnia that just doesn't show a giant-ass rock wall separating two areas. It's weird how the game handles some things, like fall damage. They made such a point of showing it off in previews and building these huge places that tower over stuff but still have fall damage? Why? On a more personal note, I feel like the return to dark medieval as the core theme was a step back from the imaginative worlds of Bloodborne and Sekiro (the latter I admittedly have not played), resulting in what is certainly more Dark Souls than it isn't.

To be REALLY negative for a second, it's absolutely absurd that From shipped this game in its current state on PS5 / XSX. Texture pop-in is rampant (some of the worst I've ever seen on PS4 or 5) and the game struggles to maintain ~50 fps with little on the screen. I'm by no means a total obsessive when it comes to performance and it's more than playable but the hardware is not being utilized well at all and it's pretty sad to see. ER has a cool aesthetic in places but on a technical level it's really not pushing the bar - honestly the PS5 not hitting constant 60 by sheer beef of CPU / GPU baffles me.

Despite it maybe being the draw of the game, I'm not really going to touch on bosses, because A) I've only seen but so many of them, and B) they all tilt me anyway so talking about balance or variety is out of my arena. I've enjoyed who I've fought so far, though. Rennala is probably my favorite. Questlines and endings, too, are not something I overly care about in my FromSoft games so I'll pass on judging those too. I will say when that guy had me clear his fort of monsters for him and gave me a shitty dagger as payment that I drove my sword through him like he was microwaved butter.

So, yeah. I guess this came off pretty negative, and I admit that taking a break from it was partially caused by the criticisms I kept thinking of, but overall I have enjoyed my time with Elden Ring more than a little bit. At its core, this is another mechanically tight FromSoft joint with a shitload to do and kill. There's things I would change if I were Miyazaki, but I can't disagree with anyone loving it a whole lot. I'm sure I'll be coming back to it in time.

It's actually kind of insane how good this is despite its position as a post-launch DLC. RGG took Kaito, a fan favorite character who deserved more time in the spotlight, and wrote an immensely compelling personal story for him. I wouldn't call any of the mainline Yakuza games bloated (maybe 5, but personally I don't feel like it's a bad thing), but trimming the usual fat and instead writing a no-nonsense 7 hour campaign was genius.

Purely by chance, I replayed the ending to the Majima Saga last week, and it's night and day when comparing the quality of these two releases. MS was lacking in unique content with only a couple fights, no real side objectives, and no fighting styles, making it feel pretty blatantly like reused content. Kaito Files, on the other hand, gives Kaito two unique styles with a large skill tree to upgrade through, some pretty funny side content in the form of his primal senses, and an absolute BOATLOAD of fights. In fact, the Kenmochi fight is maybe one of the best in the series.

The story itself is paced to perfection, jumping from beat to beat at a solid chop. For only 4 chapters and about 6-7.5 hours, it covered way more than I expected. The antagonist's motives aren't that shocking if you're familiar with the series, but the lengths he goes to end up being way darker than I expected, resulting in a pretty original tonal structure for the series. The finale is quite good. The epilogue after it, however, is hilarious. The mix of current and past Kaito is really interesting, Mikiko is a strong contender for best female in the series, and Jun's storyline is grounded and hits the mark 9 times out of 10. Special points for all the fanservice, like the constant Higashi gags and funny interactions with other series regulars. Yagami's texts explaining his absence are a treat.

On the gameplay side, Kaito's moveset is fantastically fun, adapting parts of Kiryu (some literally canonically taken from what Kaito has heard of Kiryu) but adding unique animations and new options to make it feel very fresh and fun. There are actually a few DMC-esque button + stick motion input moves, which are pretty rare for this series. I think 0 has a few? There are some pretty funny QoL things too, like Kaito getting an upgrade to wear his disguises freely around Kamurocho, something Yagami couldn't do in either game. The boss fights are fantastic, with some really good choreography and setpieces. The overall presentation here is slick as hell. Also, KF might actually make better use of the detective sequences than the main game does, there's some cool stuff in here.

I wasn't really sure what to expect with Kaito Files, especially for the $30 price point, but it delivered way more than I expected. This is essentially a mini Yakuza game with a surprisingly tight and impactful storyline, fantastic character moments, and the usual addictive gameplay. Highly recommended.

Almost exactly a year (give or take a couple weeks…) after finishing Yakuza 0, I’ve finished Yakuza 6: The Song of Life. I’m really happy to have finished the Kiryu saga, alongside the Judgment games, it’s been a great experience that is consistently enjoyable. Yakuza 6 itself is a little all over the place - the first on a new engine, while also being a bookend to a chapter in the series narratively. It can be a bit up and down throughout the story and it fumbles pretty hard at the end, but it has some good stuff and is, overall, a good time. Doesn’t reach the heights of the series for me and definitely fails on delivering a good end to Kiryu’s story but I had fun regardless. Spoilers to follow.

Combat
I’ll get combat out of the way - it’s RGG’s first attempt at the Dragon Engine combat, lacking obviously the improvements from the Judgment games, but even the minor changes that they made in Kiwami 2. Like that game, it can feel really good at times, with a far more fluid system and a lot of animations that link together nicely. When you get the flow going, Yakuza 6’s combat feels untouchable, like you’re choreographing the fight yourself. When it doesn’t, it can be annoying. You have far fewer options than in other games and the upgrade tree doesn’t do much to change this. Like many others have said before me, Y6 has startlingly few heat actions, which is unfortunate as a final chapter in Kiryu’s story. That said, Extreme Heat Mode is a cool inclusion, especially for the aforementioned choreographing options it gives you. Landing a slow-motion punch on the boss you’re fighting is extremely satisfying. This game is not hard, especially if you played Kiwami 2 before this, but even still the combat can be frustrating. Not a major deal though, especially considering just how much is new in this engine. This game’s long fight segments are absolutely incredible though, I want to stress that out of the gate. Probably the best in the series aside from Lost Judgment. The shipyard, the inn, Shangri-La, they all deliver in the best possible ways.

Story
The story is what defines Yakuza 6. This is the end of Kiryu’s tale, and it needs to deliver. It does. Well, for about half of the game, anyway. The start is strong, starting off immediately after the events of Yakuza 5, which was unexpected. They briefly go through a bit of time before Kiryu goes back to prison (alongside the rest of the Tojo brass) and before he returns to Okinawa. This section includes some brief supernatural stuff, with Kiryu seeing his past friends and family on the beach at Morning Glory. It’s a really powerful start to the game, and I wish there had been more of it. There's some good stuff in the first 2 chapters for sure, but it picks up so much in chapters 3 and 4 with the introduction of so many new characters and plot devices.
The introduction of Onomichi is fantastic, and the first chapters there are excellent. I agree with @Pangburn in that it might be the peak of the series in terms of storytelling. It stumbles briefly earlier with Akiyama telling Kiryu not to take Haruto (what the fuck was that about?) but then rapidly kicks it into high gear. Nagumo, Yuta, Hirose, and Kiyomi are really compelling characters and the small-town feel is comparable in quality to Y3. Someya’s introduction isn’t amazing but he rapidly gets better and better until he peaks at the end of the game. The long fight in the Onomichi inn with all of the Hirose family looking for Someya is incredible.

Around chapter 5 or 6, when Kiryu is, obviously, still looking for Haruto’s father, RGG decide to have the player go on this ridiculous wild goose chase for Tatsukawa, a character we haven’t met or seen. It’s essentially 2 straight chapters of filler. As I’ll get into later, this game really needed more time in the oven, especially at the end, and getting 2-3 chapters of no plot progression for an obvious ruse is massively disappointing. The player knows Tatsukawa is a nobody and it feels cheap to pretend otherwise. The introductions of all of these useless characters in and around Little Asia do little other than slow the game down. Ed is boring, as are the rest of the Saio Triad. They don’t have the appeal of the Liumang or the mystique of the Jingweon. Speaking of which, Joon-gi is a bright spot in terms of the tertiary characters. His role is insanely small, however, which makes the decision to revive him in spirit for Y7 way more understandable. His fight with Kiryu is a real high point for the Kamurocho section of the game.

As the game progresses towards the end, however, it takes a downturn in quality. Someya continues to be an excellent inclusion, but everything else gets worse. The Iwamis in particular do little other than dilute the pool of villains. The Secret of Onomichi is an ominous tease, and it ends up being… okay? Politically, Yakuza 6 touches on some really interesting aspects of post-war Japanese history, particularly the intense corruption as a result of the occupation and what followed. The Secret does a good job in that context, but it’s a silly reveal and one that has no impact on Kiryu whatsoever. Given that he’s played by Beat Takeshi, Hirose’s character switch is expected, but still not really earned. The whole final segment isn’t bad, however. The attack on the Millennium Tower and on Someya is fantastic. Someya’s theme is amazing and the fight is as well, with an incredible dynamic intro to boot. Then we get Koshimizu and Sugai on the TV screen and I started groaning audibly. Everything after this is a joke. Iwami is a terrible villain. He doesn’t really relate to Kiryu at all, and he just wants his dad’s role as leader of the Yomei - even though he really has no criminal experience. His fight is bad and the whole final cutscene is cliche after cliche. Essentially, they just fumble into the same old issues that have plagued the series before. In a way, I suppose that’s poetic, and I wasn’t really all that surprised to see Kiryu choking on bullets after someone failed to take Sugai’s gun. It's not surprising they went on to do Judgment and Yakuza 7 after this because it really feels like they were running out of ideas with Kiryu. The epilogue helps a little bit - Haruka and Yuta at Morning Glory is good. The bit with Daigo and Saejima and Majima feels like too little too late.

Presentation
Yakuza 6 is gorgeous. 5 was a good looking game, as is 0, but they were both making the best of an older engine. Moving into the future with the Dragon Engine was a great decision as it catapults the presentation in quality. Seeing the stuff from the end of 5 in full HD was insane. Cutscenes are more fluid than ever and model quality is shocking. Some of these shots of Kiryu look better than games that are coming out in 2022. Ryu Ga Gotoku have always had an eye for the look of their games and it’s most evident here. The karaoke scenes are better than ever. As @Pangburn mentioned in his review, it’s insane that we finally have autosave. Onomichi is jaw-dropping. In terms of vibe and aesthetic they really captured what makes a rural town different from Kamurocho. The breadth and variety of vistas here is astounding, with a ton of housing, construction stuff, restaurants, small vendors, a shrine, multiple smaller locations you can get to from a loading screen (including the vastly under-utilized Senkoji), and tons of pretty views. Getting to know the locals through the story and through the minigames is awesome, the town really comes alive through the story and it’s absolutely the best segment of the game.

Yakuza Kiwami 3
Yakuza 6 is, in a startling number of ways, a remake of Yakuza 3. It was a shorter game, showcasing a completely new engine that required a condensed dev cycle. Obviously, aesthetically it carries the same rural Japanese town vibe. But further than that - Kiryu is forced into the countryside to investigate the attack on someone close to him who's still unconscious, dealing with absurd minutiae from locals before going on to meet the small, local yakuza family who initially dislike his appearance but grow to love him and treat him as one of their own. Someya is a pretty obvious sendup to Mine - a businessman with a background like Kiryu’s who has a strong sense of morals and honor but is also quite capable physically. There’s a huge plot dump 75% of the way through the game when they realize they need to finally get on with it. Perhaps most blatantly, Yuta is a total Rikiya clone, the younger yakuza who looks up to and forms a brotherly / parent-child bond with Kiryu. Oh, and he’s literally voiced by Rikiya’s VA. In the same vein of returning cast, Miyasako returns to Yakuza as Nagumo, having previously been Kanda in Y3. As mentioned before, even emotionally this is basically just a retread of every theme from Yakuza 3: family, honor, giving up your life’s pursuits, sacrifice for someone else’s future, etc.

Kiryu’s Character
This game really starts to play with Kiryu's established character in interesting ways. For example, when Kiryu tells Haruka he's going to remain in prison so that she won't be embarrassed (para) to call him family, it's readily apparent that she didn't even think of that - Kiryu's little show of faith by falling on his sword doesn't mean much to her. In fact, she would much rather he just stay with her and the rest of the kids the whole time than make these honorable gestures that he built his character on in his years in the Tojo Clan. Similarly, despite his efforts to stay out of trouble, Kiryu can't help himself when Nagumo is in trouble, so much so that he'll give up Haruto to Kiyomi in order to lean back on his natural instinct to solve problems with his fists. He spends all this time telling the world that he's done with the yakuza life, but in reality he can't help but see every situation through those exact eyes. ​​It's pretty funny how Someya actually calls out Kiryu for this type of naivete. Kiryu goes on and on about ideals and dreams while usually forgetting to mention the violence at the heart of a crime family. Someya is a businessman like Mine, and he prefers to just raise money in legally-adjacent ways, specifically not shaking down people or whatever. It's a neat way to confront the central contradiction of the series - Kiryu is a good guy who propped up decades worth of horrible, horrible people.

How It Fails As a Finale to the Yakuza Series
@Blitz on Backloggd put it best when he said that there’s "So much left unsaid." Yakuza 6 makes the extremely questionable decision to cut nearly every single important character from the series out of its narrative: Haruka is out of commission, negatively impacting the whole message of family that it's trying to sell. Daigo, Majima, and Saejima are just completely absent, causing it to fail to capitalize on their importance to Kiryu and the series itself. I kept waiting for them to be brought back into the narrative after the beginning and it just never happens. The only characters that get any attention are Akiyama (deservedly) and Yuta. The finale really needed more to get across the weight of the end of Kiryu’s story. I would've liked to have seen past characters and events in montage form, a reflection of what made the series and what made Kiryu. Even just a simple 2 minute thing with a couple clips from each game - Nishiki, Ryuji / Kaoru, Mine / Morning Glory, Saejima / Akiyama, Shinada. Instead, the final cutscenes are just…there. Even the whole "twist" of killing off Kiryu is abandoned immediately, and in a very anticlimactic way, no less. Just a shot of Kiryu in a hospital with an extended cutscene with a nobody. If they wanted to do the whole "Kiryu is faking his death" thing, they should've had the Date & Akiyama conversation and nothing else until a brief shot of his shoes or suit appears in the frame as he watches Haruto walk. The direction they went with just really doesn't have any impact whatsoever. If anything, 0 ends up being more of a celebration of the series than 6 is, which is bizarre.

Miscellaneous
>The substories, when given attention, are pretty fun. Y6’s variation on substories takes a lot from 0, upping the quantity of “bizarre / paranormal situation” ones and significantly cutting down on “scamming / character biography” ones. Stuff like parodying The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, or doing a ghost fight. The most notable is Ono Michio’s story, which this game became famous for. Ono Michio has, from my perspective, transcended this game in popularity, since making appearances in the other non-Kiryu games and having a metric shitload of fanart. For good reason, it’s an inspired choice of substory for Kiryu and it lends further growth to Onomichi as a believable location. Some of the substories are just introductions to the minigames and minigame related stuff, which is a shame. More than a few are references to ones from 0 (and I think specifically 0, not as much in the way of references to 1-5, which is odd) - the cult, Pocket Circuit Fighter, etc. My runthrough of this game was pretty short since I have other stuff to play and it wasn’t necessarily hitting for me all the time, so I missed a bunch of substories. I’ll be back to finish them and the minigames though, for sure.
>The soundtrack is pretty darn good. The combat themes don’t hit quite as hard as some of the series’ best, but themes like Someya’s are in the running for the gold. The karaoke selection isn’t incredible (especially with only one character to play…) but Today is A Diamond is an instant classic.
>The baby bit is really funny. Glad it only lasted a little bit but it’s a great annoyance.
>Like in Kiwami 2, I couldn’t stand Clan Creator. It’s different from that game’s version, more of a light action attack thing than the RTS style of K2, but I didn’t enjoy it regardless. Even worse is that it does what K2 would do, pulling the player aside with cutscenes in the middle of the story that seem like they’re going somewhere only to transition into explaining Clan Creator. Once I saw it happening I knew what was coming. Like its successor, it’s not bad but still not my thing.
>The live-chat minigame is incredible. Like in previous entries, they’ve managed to include something so BLATANTLY horny that I’m amazed the ESRB didn’t dock it a full point just out of spite. This is a fun and novel idea of course, but the real appeal is how incredibly funny it is. The localization here is absolutely perfect, replicating a ton of insane chatroom usernames and comments across the many many minutes of video content. These are probably the single most popular AV actresses they’ve gotten in the games yet, other than Asuka from K2, which only makes it funnier. Kiryu replying BOOOOOOOBS to Anri Okita is without a doubt a peak in the series.

Conclusion
The story gives me a fair amount of pause, especially in how it fumbles on delivering a satisfying retrospective on Kiryu’s ten year journey. That said, this is still another fun entry in the series. Even if the other characters don’t get attention, Haruka and Kiryu together is a treat. The ending is a little hamfisted in places and really should’ve just concluded at Someya instead of “little baby Iwami”, but there’s good stuff in there and it’s a poetic end to Kiryu’s mainline story - fading out into the background, letting the younger generation take the reins. This game’s vibe is very similar to Yakuza 3, which is a great compliment. Onomichi is one of the best locations in the series and its cast is equally good. Nagumo and Yuta are memorable as hell. Miyasako’s performance as Nagumo is honestly up there as one of the best in the whole series, especially in the facial capture. Someya makes for one of the series’ best villains. It has some fun minigames and some great comedy in its substories. It’s damn gorgeous and performance is surprisingly good. While it maybe needed to balance the time differently, the pacing is pretty good and it’s nowhere near as huge an undertaking as Yakuza 5. This is a quieter and more personal iteration in Kiryu’s story, tying up only a couple loose ends but ultimately giving Kiryu the ending he needed. Well worth playing, despite its issues.

Gonna go against the grain and say I had a great time with Ghostwire: Tokyo. I was really excited for it to come out and it didn’t really disappoint me. If you’re able to engage with it on its own terms and recognize that the combat is, yes, not fantastic and will get a little old by the end of the game, I think you can have a good experience.

This game got essentially no press, so I feel it's worth pointing out how excellent the open world truly is - it’s like Kamurocho in terms of the player:building scale and detail but spread out over a much, MUCH larger distance. This is probably one of my favorite open worlds in gaming and if you’re into the type of virtual tourism of Japan that Yakuza or Persona offer, I think you’ll get something out of this. The first area you really get to explore does a great job showing off the amazing number of unique objects and rooms and textures they managed to stuff into this game. Signs, objects, buildings, etc. All of this in a PS5 game that only comes out to 18 gigabytes! Which does lead me to the actual looks of the game, which are great! Okay, the framerate is lower than it needs to be and the FOV should be higher, but this is a damn good looking game with some excellent lighting. I spent WAY too long in the photo mode just snapping pictures of cool alleys and buildings. I’ve actually gone to the trouble of selecting a few of those screenshots and compiled an album of them if you’re interested - [album coming soon when I can find my USB3->C adapter].

One of the best ways to approach this game IMO is more of a ghost / supernatural meets modern world art piece with a focus on cultural exchange rather than a pure game. I say this because the combat is, as noted by many people, not incredible. In general, you have 3 types of ammo to fire from your fingertips, fulfilling basically an SMG / handgun, shotgun, and grenade launcher archetype each. You have a fairly ineffective shield with a perfect parry and a really bad melee attack as well as a bow to use for stealth encounters. Every fight will basically boil down to swapping between your elemental types and keeping a variety of the enemies at bay as they charge you or fire projectiles. Now, I played about half of Ghostwire at launch in March of 2022, and then came back to it a couple weeks ago. In that time, Tango pushed more than a few updates to the game, adding a bunch of pieces of content and extra missions, but more importantly a whole new set of mechanics as part of the “Spider’s Thread” update. The key addition being new alternate firing modes as well as the INTENSELY needed dodge. The fact that this game shipped without a dodge is kinda baffling, since your insanely slow walk speed and the limited camera use on PS5 meant that combat, especially hectic combat, could be really overwhelming and you could be left with few options for escape. The dodge isn’t amazing, but it does the job well enough and you can bind it to different things. They also added new charms, new tags, and an aerial ground pound and a chain assassinate technique, which I used often in the final hours. The actual enemy designs are great, I love how each draws from different parts of the Japanese cultural consciousness - the lady with the scissors, the child lost in the rain, etc. - and they have pretty disturbing looks. In terms of gameplay, they don’t usually impress too much and one or two are way too annoying to deal with, but they have a variety of different attack patterns and can feel threatening and the game keeps throwing new ones at you throughout the 25+ hours. The bosses are actually a pretty great highlight. I really enjoyed the Ko-Omote fight, which forces you to deal with the boss in a completely different way. Long story short, the shoot ‘em up gameplay is not deep enough to make the player seek out a fight for fun, but it will stay more or less engaging enough as the game progresses, especially with the additions made in the most recent update.

I love how genuine the whole thing feels, from the loving recreation of basically an entire ward down to the extremely detailed historical summaries and cultural contexts of the food items carried in your inventory. Tango and their localization team went the extra mile to give you tons of information on every single detail of the game’s world, down to the consumables and fill in the checklist collectibles. Sometimes it can feel like Atlus, for example, releases only make it to the West incidentally, like they never actually thought a Westerner would play their games but hey, cool if they do - Ghostwire feels like the opposite, like a game made by Japanese devs with the Western audience explicitly in mind. The post-launch support has also been really good, so it’s clear that Tango / Bethesda were listening to criticism and player feedback.

Most climactic moments include a lead up, whether that be making your way down into the bowels of the subway system or climbing up through a tiered shopping center / department building / office building, usually culminating in a big setpiece wherein the spirit haunts the area, messing with reality and sometimes outright placing the player in an alternate dimension. These are easily the best part of the game. The art team clearly had a great eye for interior design and the stuff they do to show off the “haunted” nature of any place is really neat - shifting objects in the room, flickering shadows, textures that flow from room to room, and my personal favorite: a hallway floating above the whole of the open world - and add a ton of character to these moments. In a way, it takes a page out of PT's book with the emphasis on these room and indoor segments - juxtaposing the go anywhere (and relatively rote) exploration of the open world with the controlled and contained experiential setpieces of the indoor.

The side cases are the best showcase of the aforementioned ideas and are usually pretty unique and fun, like mini ghost hunts. They often take classic ideas from Japanese cultural folklore and ghost stories to craft a little investigation for you. The bathhouse and inkwater dragon were particular favorites of mine.

The main story itself is nothing to write home about. The setup is genius, and the scattered clothes and empty streets of Shibuya are an absolutely prime setting for the game which never wore off for me - but the actual plot is kinda whatever. Hannya is creepy enough but he’s the only real character besides Akito and KK. His reasons aren’t super deep or super complex and the game’s beats are relatively cliche. Still, I enjoyed the banter between KK and Akito all the way throughout and they do feel like partners by the end. I did actually play the short little VN ahead of release, which, while hilarious in its own way, hardly adds anything to the game’s story or background. Hannya should’ve been built up a bit more or there should’ve been a few spoken characters running around Shibuya besides you that could act as allies or enemies, other sorcerer / detective types, perhaps? The calls from Ed and Rinko do not do nearly enough to fill that void.

The bulk of the fun of this will be down to the player. Do you enjoy the exploration of a gorgeous, nearly 1:1 recreation of a ward of Tokyo while doing Jujutsu Kaisen-esque modern-day onmyōji type stuff? You’ll have a good time. Are you looking for a deep story and deeper combat? Probably look elsewhere. For me, it ticked the right boxes.

Doing a replay of this through the Ultimate Edition to catch up before Alan Wake 2. What an absolutely fantastic time.

Control takes all the elements that detract from Alan Wake and improve on them greatly. Combat is frenetic and tactile and gives you good options for creativity. The story is told in bits and pieces, but much more cleverly and fully engaging than its predecessor. The switch from a half-baked Stephen King novel to SCP story gives so much great perspective on the supernatural elements and engages the player with little mysteries and stories the whole way. Remedy's technical prowess shines as the whole game is just gorgeous, especially with some of the coolest particle effects in gaming.

Won't go into details on the story, but nearly everything sticks. The cast of characters are great, and Jesse is a very good protagonist. I'll be moving on to the two DLCs, Foundation and AWE (Alan Wake) as prep as well.

Highly recommend checking this out. Engaging gameplay, a great and imaginative setting for a third person shooter, wonderful to look at, and paced quite nicely. Moments like the ashtray maze and the dynamite video really add to the unique quality of the experience. So happy that Remedy kept improving over the years.