9/10 - THIS GAME KICKED MY ASS AND I WOULD LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN

GOW 2018 but good, this game was such a great experience. There's def a lot of stuff about this game that I think a lot of people don't give credit towards which I do wanna go over. I know the game isn’t supposed to tell an incredibly serious narrative but god damn it I had so much fun with the story. It knows it’s not supposed to take itself seriously and it just has fun with a lot of stuff it tries to do. There wasn’t a single cutscene in this game that had me bored or made me want to skip. The voice acting itself is also insanely good. Yes some of it is cheesy but it fits with the tone of this game and is incredibly entertaining. I especially love Gene and Azels voices. I didn’t expect going into this game to be loving the soundtrack. There isn’t a single song in this game I even thought about wanting to turn off. All of the songs are just bangers. I’m very fond of Floating Fort. The combat is well, fantastic but I don’t think I needed to tell you that. The different movesets you can create take this game to a whole nother level. I like the approach the game takes with its utilization of the combat since it felt more about efficiency than trying to be stylish. The difficulty level meter is just genius. The enemy design is very good as there aren’t any enemies I had gripes with off the top of my head. While the general stage design is usually straightforward I don’t mind it since I prefer they focus on the gameplay for the whole game.
There are a few gripes I do have. Just mainly with some bosses as a handful of the big demon guys were just kinda alright but they never reached the level of awful. Despite it being incredibly hard, it never felt unfair as you’re always in control of each situation that you’re in and the tools you’re given are more than enough to complete each stage. All in all I can say that this game, despite being one of the most difficult games I’ve played, is also one of the most fun.

Before saying anything I wanna bring something up. A friend recommended that I install a cheat to use the spin dash at the start. While I did use it, I tried to restrict my usage of it and to put it lightly this game would be a 1 or 0/10 without it.

(Dropped on the third island) Good god, I genuinely don’t know what to think of this franchise anymore with this and Superstars. I came into this game super wanting to love it I really did and I can see some elements of why people like it but good fucking god this is one of the most dull experiences I’ve had with a game. To be fair, I do wanna talk about two things I enjoyed with the game. The story from what I experienced was really good. I think I still prefer the Adventure games, Unleashed etc, but a huge step up after Lost World and Forces. I love the writing a lot and how much the characters are fleshed out considering that they were flanderized in the previous games and Sage was a great addition to the cast. The music is also the strongest it's ever been. Same thing as before, it's a great step up from previous games. The only tracks that I thought were kinda weak are the overworld themes but they weren’t bad. With my positives out of the way this game is basically the equivalent of somebody's first attempt at an open area game. Terrible doesn’t even begin to describe the level design. All of the open terrain is just randomly placed everywhere throughout the map with no thought or reason. 6 rails in the air, speed boosters randomly placed that lead to nothing, it's just a huge mess. None of the terrain has any thought put into it or takes advantage of Sonic abilities. Speaking of Sonic himself, good god did they sure learn from Forces. Yes I’m aware that you’re able to change the controls and how the game feels but it doesn’t even begin to fix how Sonic controls. He just feels stiff and awkward to control and is just not fun to play around with in the hub world itself. His movement overall is pathetic and if it weren’t for Heroes, this would be the worst controls I’ve gotten to experience in a game like this. The structure of this game is just plain awful. It is just so repetitive and nothing is done to ever spice it up. Once you’ve cleared the first island you already know how the rest of the game is going to be. The puzzles are just a complete joke. They are either super easy and/or monotonous. Similar to what I was saying about the structure, after the first island you’ve basically seen all of the puzzles so if you didn’t enjoy them the first time sure hope you’ll enjoy it again for the rest of the game. The cyberspace levels, good god if I wanted to play the previous games again I would just open them up. It is incredible that the team thought that it was a fun idea for the player to just play through rehashed levels from previous games with the already terrible control and feel. I understand that some people get a kick out of these levels for the speedrunning aspect, but for me if I wanted to do that I WOULD JUST PLAY THE ORIGINAL GAMES. Good fucking god the combat. I understand it’s for kids and it’s supposed to be simple and easy to pick up but at that point just throw it out entirely. I thought the combat sections in 06 went on for way too long but who knew I had it good. Sonic’s moveset is just incredibly dull and you either mash the attack button, cyloop or end up just spamming a projectile if you really can’t be bothered. None of the regular enemies encourage any sort of unique playstyle and are just boring. The mini boss enemies are somehow even worse. Not only are they uninteresting in design but THEY TAKE FOR FUCKING EVER. I DON’T EVER WANT TO FIGHT ANY OF THESE BECAUSE IT IS JUST SO BORING TO SIT THROUGH. YOU WAIT GOD KNOWS HOW LONG BEFORE THEY CAN FINALLY LET YOU ATTACK. None of these enemies are even challenging, they just take forever. I really REALLY wanted the bosses to be the highlight of the game and to be fair the first boss is. It really is exhilarating to play and somewhat tries to make the best use of such a garbage combat system. While the first boss is fantastic good fucking god I don’t ever want to replay the second one. Again it is not challenging at all, it just takes forever because they force you to do a running section that takes way too long and completely kills any enjoyment I had leading up to it. The actual boss itself is just a mess and is more annoying than anything. I don’t know what to say anymore. This game has just been incredibly disappointing and just takes everything that made a game like Breath of the Wild incredible, and just ruins every aspect of it.

This was something I wasn’t expecting to play but the art style and it being an action game grasped me. However, it falls short in a few areas. The story itself is okay. Nothing crazy but it was very enjoyable for what it was and I have to admit that I had fun with a lot of the characters. I super love the way this game looks and as mentioned before I love the way the game looks. Everything looks so vibrant and I took some time to just admire the areas in the game. The gameplay itself is… just okay. It’s definitely not bad. It has a lot of cool mechanics like a parry that I ever so crave when wanting to play action games. However it sorta falls short. Only having one main combo kinda makes things a bit stale the more you play the game despite its very short length. Having more moves could alleviate this and the super moves you get later in the game do somewhat solve this issue but not by much. By the end of the game most encounters feel the same. The bosses on the other hand are good. Nothing crazy but I had a good time trying to learn them. Overall, I had fun with this game despite its shortcomings. I don’t know if I could really recommend purchasing it because of the short length and wanting 100% it.

This game was certainly an experience, there's a lot I liked and disliked about it soooo… The story is a shame because for the first two chapters it starts out really strong. I really like the setup and mystery revolving around Kiryu's agent shenanigans and I really like characters like Hanawa. But Chapter 3 onward just becomes a mess. It really tries to rush itself to tie the events of 7 together and you can tell they wrote themselves into a corner. Some moments that would have been really memorable and hard hitting just become cheap and garbage. They also somehow managed to write the worst plot twist that just ruins one of the characters. I’d say it’s honestly worse than the surprise final boss of Y5 and the Onomichi secret in 6. It almost ruins the story because of how cheap it is. The side content is very strong and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I really like stuff like the Akame network system and this game quite possibly has the best coliseum in any of the RGG games. The substories themselves are also really enjoyable but it's expected with these games. The thing I’ve been dreading talking about the most is the combat. Needless to say it’s a mess and a huge disappointment. I really wanted to like it and the new Agent style looks super cool but it just feels awful to use the later you progress. Its upgrades don’t really impact the use or utility of the style especially when you get to fights with huge crowds. The spider whip is cool at first but leaves you entirely open and don’t have that many opportunities to really use it when in crowds. It’s a major downside that it doesn’t work on any bosses and that's what kills it. The drone and the cigar grenade are cool on paper but having to hold down the buttons to use them just feels really awkward and when they do come out, it just doesn;t really feel like they make an impact.The rocket boots are the only somewhat useful thing because you can cheese crowd control but other than that it doesn’t mesh well with your moveset. As for the Yakuza style, it's fine to use. It would've honestly been better if they reused the old dragon style because it still isn't as great to use. A lot of the upgrades are weird, especially giving the roll when quickstep is fine and feels better. It’s just out of place and doesn’t fit a style unlike Yagami's Tiger style. I do like the addition of a triple finisher though, even if it is super clunky to use. The best way I can describe the feel of this game is that they wanted to have the long combos and juggle system of the Judgement games, but they also wanted to have the feel of early Dragon Engine games like 6 or K2. It just becomes a mess where while you do have the tools to do stylish combos, it’s honestly not worth doing because of how bad they feel to perform and how little variety there is to spice them up. When you do try to play it similar to the older games where it’s not based on juggles, you end up just wishing that you were playing the older games instead. Performing launchers just feels awful. Agents' launchers require the whip but the setup feels bad to use and it doesn’t matter anyway because you can’t use it on bosses. Yakuza Style’s launchers are better but not by much because you have to needlessly charge them to even do anything, sometimes to end up not even working. This might’ve been a thing with my experience of the game but locking on just felt awful. It doesn’t feel as fluid as the other games and you can literally just miss attacks outright. There are other design choices that just confuse me like that your party members can hit you and fling you away. I can forgive all of these things if it just wasn’t for this. THE STYLES THEMSELVES ARE WAY TOO SLOW. It is just such an issue and really kills the game. It just straight up makes the styles not fun to play at times (especially the Yakuza style). It makes the combat that was already kinda disappointing even worse. This is such a huge detriment to combat as I would genuinely go back to kiwami 2, 6 or even judgment because at the very least I can upgrade the speed of my combos (which you can’t in this game). It feels like those games without the speed upgrade and it just hurts so much as Lost Judgement fixed this issue. It really just drags the game down because the bosses are incredible and some of the best in the series. It just really sucks that you have to use such a messy combat system. I can’t express how much this brings the game down for me because they genuinely nailed it with Lost Judgment and the Kaito Files. It feels like we’re going backwards in the department and I don’t think I want any more action games from the studio if this is what we’re gonna get. All in all, as much as I ripped into the combat and parts of the story I still think this game is worth playing. A lot of people probably won’t be bothered by these issues and there are still a lot of strong moments. Especially the ending.

This game had a lot of things going for it especially with its graphics and presentation. But after completing the game it's just incredibly disappointing. While the physics and feel of the classic games remain, the level design is just straight up terrible. A lot of the levels seem to try to take elements from the worst levels of Sonic 1. They take an eternity to complete with exploration that is underwhelming and have gimmicks that are either make the level incredibly frustrating or just boring. The bosses are a good idea on paper but in execution they are also terrible. They take way too long to beat just because of the amount of waiting you do after hitting them once. And at the end of the game they just straight up become obnoxious. The music is a mixed bag as while there are some decent tracks, Sega thought it was a brilliant idea to bring in the Sonic 4 sound font literally nobody asked for. Overall the execution of this game is just terrible and I really hope people didn't pay $60 for this. Probably the most disappointing game of this year.

This is by far one of the most fun games I've played in a while. I don't think I have anything negative to say about this one. Every aspect of this game is crafted to such perfection. All of the weapons are fun to use, the enemies are greatly designed, the bosses are some of the best encoutners I've gotten to play against in any game. All of the different boons and power ups are incredibly fun to use and I love trying to experiment with each of them and make a crazy build. Theirs only one weapon I'm not crazy for but that's probably just personal preference to me. The rest of the weapons are such fun to use and I love their own respective move sets. Nothing in the game is cheap and everything is a fair challenge. It's just fun all around. The visual novel aspect of the game didn't pull me at first but getting the gifts and really getting into the lore of the characters pulled me in and I plan to finish them. Overall just fantastic and I'm very excited for the sequel. If I counted all the games I've played through this year, this is by far my favorite I love this one.