I have said before that Ragnarok is my easily my favorite GoW game. The way it weaved its massive tale of the Norse mythology, how it neatly tied it all at the end, and the massive strides it took to flesh out GoW 2018's combat fundamentals; it's a crowning achievement. And yet, it doesn't stop there. Valhalla feels like another leap forward, one that is taken with a good reason. While Ragnarok mostly deals with the world around Kratos, Valhalla looks within him, as he deals with a possible path to the future that is deeply connected with his past; a self he no longer wishes to be. Utilizing various lessons learned from the booming Roguelike genre, Valhalla shows this struggle through gameplay, as each repeated attempt to understand the self are displayed outwards: gaining a variety of powerups to approach things differently each time. Looking at things from a slightly different perspective. To keep moving onwards even when you have to start over, and over, and over, until clarity is achieved. But there is no end to self improvement. Valhalla always awaits you, and it is why this DLC is a gift that we all should be grateful of.

This is probably the most stylistically pleasing racing game I've ever played. From the start of the intro video, browsing the menus, to actually racing in game, it's audiovisual perfection. The late 90s graphic designs, trademark PS1 style 3D graphics, and of course, the outstandingly catchy techno-jazz soundtrack, it all supports and completes each other. Oh, and did I mention that the game has great sound design? The way they implement the stereo effects is really good, especially considering it's a PS1 game.

As the race starts, you'll be treated by mostly great and varied track designs and arcade-leaning controls that holds up quite well. Whether you're eating through those corners by drifting, or just cleanly doing your job with a tight grip machine, it's all good fun. Maybe if you're like me and are used to modern, less arcade-y racing games, you'll need some time to get used to the controls, but that's just a matter of time.

In terms of game modes and features, it's a solid but relatively light package. The main attraction, the Grand Prix, is a series of races you can finish within an hour or two, featuring light stories that is actually more impactful than I would have expected. You can tackle it with one of four different "teams", which will decide the difficulty of the GP (and also decides which story/characters you get to see), and one of the four "sponsors", which decides what kind of cars you'll be driving. The GP mode is essentially a relatively quick tour of the game's best features. You'll be put into high stakes races and short story monologues that makes you care even more about the races, while the game's impeccable presentation supports it all. Want more racing? There's other modes like time attack and VS mode that'll keep you in check once you're done with the GPs, which you could finish in one sitting (by which I mean finishing all the four team's story). It might be a bit too short for some but I think it's great that it never gets close to overstaying its welcome.

R4 is a must play, not just for racing fans, but for everyone in general. No matter what, there's something here that will amaze you, whether it's the gameplay, aesthetics or soundtrack.

I love this game so much. I think the best way I can summarize my feelings about this game is to describe how magical it feels when I'm doing the most mundane things. Zooming in a random cupboard, seeing Ryo's early 3D robot-hands entering the view and awkwardly open it, and seeing whatever is in store inside; it feels me with child-like wonder, like seeing somebody pull off a successful magic trick for the first time. It's an absolute joy to simply exist in the game's world, and the game excels at making it so easy to immerse yourself in it. No other game feels quite like this. Not even Shenmue II, which has an entirely different kind of magic, at least to me. But we'll get to that game some other time.

Anyways, my only gripe from before is the controls. I didn't quite feel in tune with Ryo as a character in that sense. But replaying this now for the platinum trophy, I don't feel that way anymore. Maybe it's because I'm not playing it under duress of completing it ASAP, but all his moves and mannerisms just clicks to me. I knew exactly when he can move freely, and when he would need a bit more patience and deliberate inputs. It's great. I'm having the time of my life, being completely connected with this game I adore. I didn't feel comfortable giving this game a 10/10 before, but now it's the easiest thing in the world.

Also, I took some street photography style in-game screenshots. I don't normally plug my virtual photography stuff here but I think it would help to visualize how I personally see the world of Shenmue. A view with my rose-tinted lenses, if you will. You can check them out here.

Bruh I can't take this game anymore. There's hints of the original Shenmue spirit here but it's utterly twisted by a lack of honesty in its core component. You can tell this story in a better way if you just make a smaller, shorter game. Why delude yourself into thinking that you're an epic? I never seen a game try to pad its length out as hard as this, and I am not even the kind of person who slowly dies inside anytime a piece of entertainment media meanders in its pacing and such. Everything in the game is designed to be make the game longer, and there's barely enough rewarding moments to make it worthwhile. Having to train by learning new moves and improving your stamina is a nice idea, but the constantly meaningless prolongement of the main story is nowhere near good enough to justify the effort and time being put into said training. Not to mention the combat feels pretty unsatisfying by itself, it feels more like watching a bunch of hollow doll puppets flinging their appendages around. They did nail the nostalgic Dreamcast vibes through the environment visuals, the music is as good as always, and I like that you can call characters from the previous games and just chat for a bit. Still, as a massive enjoyer of the first two Shenmues (Shenmue 1 is very high on my list of favorite games), I can't help but be a little sad right now.

First off, big thanks to VincentNL and the rent-a-modders for the english translation patch! Wouldn't have been able to play this without their hard work.

Now onto the game itself... I absolutely adore it! It's a very entertaining Shenmue-like superhero beat em up adventure game, with tons of heart and soul in its comedic action writing, and top tier Dreamcast-era cozy vibes.

The game sets the tone very well, with a housewarming party that immediately introduces the quality of its writing, and the level of whimsyness you'll encounter throughout the game. Not to mention the wonderfully fitting opening music video, nailing the vibes of a lighthearted Tokusatsu romp. Also, how fun is it that the device you're using to keep tabs of your hero-for-hire work is called a Creamcast?

After that it slows down a bit, as it introduces you to all the areas you can explore one by one, and the general mechanisms of completing objectives in the game. It's a nice tutorial period that mimics the experience of exploring a new city that you've moved in. You'll quickly notice that although you can't move around your camera freely, you don't have tank controls like in Shenmue, which makes the movement feel quite natural. You should also notice the catchy track that plays when you're in the middle of your requests.

There's an economy system here, where you can get cash from completing requests, and you need it to stock up batteries for your superhero suit, buy food for your health points, pay rental fees for the suit, and also for suit upgrades. You'll lose half of the cash you have on you whenever you're beaten, so it pushes you to regularly visit the bank to deposit your money. It's not exactly a challenge to manage this as long as you don't overspend on items and such, but it's a nice feature that further grounds you into the game's world.

The variety of the requests is quite strong, as its not just a bunch of rowdy baddies you have to deal with. Being asked to help find somebody, shopping duties, solving family issues, bodyguarding, and so on. Most of it is quite simple in execution, you usually just have to figure out where to go and what to interact with, but a lot of these missions require a knowledge of the city's various services. For example, knowing where to buy groceries. This obviously rewards the player for taking the time to explore and paying attention to things.

When push comes to shove, it's time to beat em' up. It's a pretty straightforward combat system, if you played any old school beat em' up games then you should be quickly familiar with this. Aside from the usual fundamentals of knowing when to attack and keep your distance, there's combos that you can unlock by practicing against Segata Sanshiro in the college gymnasium, and special powers you can buy from your employers' basement hideout. Although not being able to control your camera can lead into surprise attacks by off screen enemies, I find this to be a quirk that I have gotten used to relatively quickly, so it's not exactly a big issue. I say that the combat is more than fun enough for this game, even if the last few missions have too many forced battle encounters. Being able to avoid random enemy encounters completely by staying in your regular human form is an appreciated feature.

In my view, a big design theme of this game is not overcomplicating itself. A lot of the game's mechanics, objectives and mannerisms aren't that deep, but they don't need to be. If you keep talking to people and paying attention to what they say, you can figure things out on your own quite easily, and it still feels very satisfying. The combat isn't particularly complex, but in turn it asks you to always be careful because enemies can damage you quite heavily if you let them. It's a philosophy that I very much resonate with.

Rent-a-Hero is easily my favorite Shenmue-like game. It overtakes its influence in many aspects, and I just can't help but smile at the games' silly characters and scenarios. It's a comical, but genuine portrayal of how strong people can positively impact their surroundings.

Pouring one out for the first game dev software that I actually enjoy using. I'll never forget the months-long period in which I spent a considerable amount of time seriously trying to learn modeling and music composing with the game's very intuitive tools. I only made a mostly accurate model of my Sony Walkman and also composed some very short tracks, all of which I'm very proud of, even if they're nothing beyond average. I hope other creative softwares take note on the fun and natural feel of Dreams.

Other than that, I really liked the game's fluffy surrealistic art style, and there's a lot of banger content that the community created, which I can only hope will remain to be preserved for as long as possible. There's quite a few experiences that I would actually pay for, including the Pig Detective games and the incredibly creative puzzle game Lock.

It's a shame this never got a PC release, it would have been one of the best things Sony have ever done. I wish the best of luck to Media Molecule on their next project, I hope this doesn't deter them from ambitious and creative ideas.

2022

First of all, I gotta thank my local coffee shop for the clutch brew. Made me all focused and hyped up and stuff. With the power of caffeine, I just spent an incredibly fun 5 hours, tightening my gameplay skills and getting enough powerful abilities, in order to set up the one run that will be enough to carry me all the way to the end. Ended up beating the final boss at age 44. Lots of room to improve, but I'm happy with it for now. I just want to gush about this wonderful game for a bit.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the art direction of this game is kinda underrated. The soft painting-esque look of the game is pleasant enough on its own, but the game continuously impresses with the kinds of environments that it introduces as it goes on. Not to mention how surreal it can be sometimes. The game is not afraid to break reality and move beyond it to create absolutely stunning moments. The boss fight in the 3rd area is an absolute highlight in this regard.

Now let's move on to the juicy meat; this game's melee combat system is simply impeccable. There's definitely a lot of learning and practicing to do on your own before the system truly clicks, but once it does, it's so exhilarating. My personal favorite part of it is learning how the defensive mechanics work. Dodging, deflecting, parrying, and avoiding; all separate moves with their own use cases and benefits, but the game demands you to master them all, in that order. It's a highly rewarding feat, when you have studied the enemies' attack patterns enough, and you know exactly what to do in order to achieve the outcome you want. My favorite combo so far is avoiding or parrying an attack, pushing them with the palm strike, and pummeling them with chasing strikes; it's the kind of offensive manuever that I associate with Asian martial art movies the most, and it's so badass.

So, the fundamentals of the game are supremely solid. But what makes this game truly special is the intricacies of its accessory systems. You only can get new abilities from Shrines that are spread in all the levels, and they have certain requirements: being below a certain age, or requiring a set amount of score/XP. You can just use the level shortcuts to avoid fighting too many enemies, and just focus on the boss fights, while skipping some Shrines because of it. But you can do the opposite, and be rewarded for your efforts; I got enough abilities to make all the weapons in the game last much longer and hit much harder than normal, especially with bladed weapons, and it wouldn't happen if I don't take the scenic route. This meta aspect of the game is a big, fun puzzle that only strengthens the game's core qualities.

There's also some smaller quirks and features of the combat that I find really fun to learn. For example, learning that doing enough takedowns will randomly turn an enemy into a "fired up" state, and avoiding these mighty obstacles by resisting the extraordinarily strong urge to do a takedown in the first place; their animations are so fun to watch! It's so hard to resist sometimes. Not to mention the fact that they make you invincible for the duration of the animation, so you can do them to avoid getting hit by another enemy. Another example is abusing the environment to your advantage, like pushing an enemy from a ledge, or pushing them to hit a wall. It's far more situational, but still useful enough to give you the extra edge if you are aware enough to execute them.

The boss fights deserve a spotlight of their own too. All of them are challenging affairs that properly test your skills, while also pushing you to plan things out to make things easier. For example, finding a way to carry a weapon to the fight. The final boss fight is noticably harder than the rest, and is much more skill-based since one of your powers is completely handicapped, which was kinda annoying at first. But I realized that this design choice adds so much depth and replayability to the rest of the game, since the game asks you to optimize your gameplay in every other level leading up to it, to give you enough cushion and leeway to prevail in the final fight. In that way, this boss fight isn't just about mastering this one opponent, but also mastering the game itself.

Lastly, the presentation of this game is clean af. The camera moves during the takedowns, the sound effects of all the punches and kicks, the aforementioned art design, and so on: they all unite to form a beautiful, confident, and distinctive look and feel.

I want to give this a perfect score, but I'm holding out until I see more of the extra content. I do, however, have the confidence to say that this game is the absolute peak of melee combat gaming. Easily an all-timer game for me, too.

It's the fifth time I finished this game, and somehow, I ended up liking this game even more than before. It's a honest attempt at a homage to the adventure movies of old, and it mostly felt like Naughty Dog were doing the best with the resources and experience they had. It's a big departure from their previous cartoony franchises, and they managed to stuck the landing. Most importantly, it sets the groundwork for future titles to improve on, and oh boy they certainly did just that.

Normally I would write a more detailed review here, but I did something slightly different: I wrote a "photo journal" instead! I took a lot of screenshots using the in-game photo mode throughout my playthrough, and I used them as the base for talking about my thoughts and feelings of the game. It ends up being similar to old video game magazine reviews, but much longer in word count. If you're interested, you can check it out by clicking here. Full spoilers warning! I won't be doing this too often but it was a very fun endeavor that I want to repeat again someday.

I've always liked Lost Legacy a lot. It combines all the great changes and improvements that Uncharted 4 brought to the Uncharted formula, but with the structure and pacing being more in line with the OG Uncharted trilogy. And on top of that, you have an entirely new main character dynamic to experience: Chloe's charismatic treasure hunter veteran presence clashing against Nadine's pragmatic straightforwardness. Now, this is 4th time I finished this game, and I'm still loving it as much, if not more than before.

I appreciate the small steps that ND took to add more spice to U4's gameplay, like the silenced weapons, or the lockpick-able safes spread all over. And then you have the open world section early on, which feels like a game inside a game because of how well-made it is, despite being relatively small and self-contained. Not to mention how well designed all the encounters are. There's a lot of interesting terrains and traversal mixed in these fights; I distinctly remember one where you are approaching enemies by way of multiple large pillars, so you can try closing in unseen by climbing through the longer paths, or just snipe away from afar if you have the means.

Then in the center of it all, the dynamic between Chloe and Nadine is just so fun to see. The girl talk between these two is so refreshing, in the grand scheme of things. There really is a future for the series beyond Nate, and I'm glad that ND explored this unlikely pairing of characters instead of something more predictable, like Sam and Sully. In a way, it only proves how flexible the Uncharted formula is.

And the most significant feeling I had during this playthrough is the fact that I do like Asav as a villain more than before. He's not quite the most memorable or well-written villain in the series, but I absolutely love the scenes where he goes on the offensive and fights our ladies head-on. Nadine described him as being more than what his exterior shows, and I feel like the game did show a bit of that, although he still needs way more screen time.

Also, the sequence at the end of the game is simply breathtaking. It's somewhat underrated because of how much it takes from their previous biggest set pieces, but it's definitely the most technically impressive set piece in the series. It's an incredible vertical slice of the Uncharted series as a whole, and it's a pretty poetic way to end it all.

Lost Legacy is not the gigantic leap forward that is Uncharted 4 (and it wasn't meant to be), but on all fronts, it is a great Uncharted game. I would put it as the 3rd best in the series. It is a cool and good thing that ND and Sony didn't just pump out a bunch more of these games and potentially bring down the series' reputation; the respect they have for one of their most successful series should be an example for everyone else. But man, I would love a new one someday, especially since its been 7 years hiatus, and there's barely anyone else that makes these sort of action adventure games these days. At least we have Indy filling the void soon-ish!

When a new FF mainline game drops, its hard to look away. This old franchise's only constant is that it keeps changing, and its always exciting to see whether this is truly the one for you. Took me a while to beat this game, but I can safely say that is is indeed for me.

Lets start with the story. What impressed me the most about it is how well it satisfies on both fronts of main and side stories. The main story has a rollercoaster-esque pace to it, with slow-ish buildups leading into the incredibly epic Eikon fights, where most of the biggest story revelations usually occur in close proximity, and it almost always delivers. Meanwhile, the side quests are nothing to write home about gameplay-wise, but the stories they tell successfully fleshes out many topics and themes that the main quest only hinted at or briefly showed. How cruel people can act towards another perceived to be lesser beings, the importance of fighting for the people you love, using your qualities for the good of everybody, and so on. Aided by the ingenious Active Time Lore system, allowing you to view supplementary information about the current story scene in a brisk manner, it's hard not to be instantly and continuously invested in FFXVI's dark but hopeful fantasy.

There are definitely kinks in the story's armor. The quality of the facial and body animations in most of the game's dialogues are passable at average, but the strength of its writing and voice acting are more than enough to compensate. The game nicely ramps up the amount of accessible side quest early on, but especially in the third act, the amount of side quests being thrown at you can mess with the main's story pacing in unnecessarily head scratching ways. If you're looking to do all the side quests like I did, its very much worth it since most of the side quest arcs have satisfying endings (shoutout to Jill and Torgal's quests, almost made me cry), but I feel that the pacing can be done better. I need not to look far behind, since last year's GoW Ragnarok achieved much better synergy between its main and side stories, although Ragnarok has less side content to grapple with.

You can't have a long story RPG without a cast of characters to fall in love with (or hate, oh boy we certainly got those), and XVI delivers with flying colors. Near the end of the game, there's a simple panning shot of all your allies in one place, and the fact that those few seconds almost drove me to tears just goes to show how much I care about these people. Hard to pick favorites but Jill, Gav, Byron and Cid are my instinctive picks. I also think that Clive is probably one of the best examples of the "punished main character" trope, he sincerely believes that his dream is possible, and that makes his every action much louder.

Moving on to the combat, I think it is quite successful on many layers. On the surface, the Devil May Cry-esque action is eye catching, intense, and hard-hitting. The act of playing it gets progressively more exciting as you unlock more of Clive's full potential, and you get to play with a wide variety of abilities that can be suited to your sensibilities. The common enemy types are fine enough, but the game absolutely delivers in the minibosses, monster hunts and bosses that you'll fight. And in its insides, the Eikon ability point and ability loadout systems manages to both limit the player to make it interesting and challenging, but also offer a substantial amount of freedom to thoughtfully maximize that which is available. I find it incredibly satisfying to discover how the new abilities interact with what I already have, and how I can "gain the system" to make my combination ideas possible. Being allowed to mix and match abilities of different Eikons and resetting your upgrade abilities at any time are some of the smartest game design decisions in this game.

The combat also has a few holes on it. For instance, its quite disappointing that the game never really fleshed out its air-to-air combat, since there's not a lot of moves and abilities that can support it, not to mention the lack of flying enemies other than the weak grunts. It gives me the impression that they chose to stop expanding the air-to-air combat in the middle of its development for whatever reason. There's also the problem of the common enemy grunts getting progressively less exciting to deal with as you get stronger, but the game also throws more tougher enemies at you later on, so it's almost balanced out. I also think that the progression and customization of your equipment and accessories can be done in a much more interesting way, it's pretty linear and basic for the most part. I wanted more accessories/equipment which changes a crucial aspect of the combat, like the Berserker's Ring, which temporarily gives you a different set of normal attacks after a perfect dodge. This could also be tied to the game's economy, where I had almost 400k in gil by the end of the game and there's nothing interesting to spent them on. It would be nice if I can buy some crazy accessories with only a lot of cash.

Now, lets talk about some other things before this review gets much longer. It's not exactly the most technically impressive game around, but I adore how beautiful many of the game's environments are. I only wished that we get to see more of the man-made landmarks outside of story missions, and I also thought that the weather got a bit too gloomy later on. The soundtrack is just so good, Soken-san killed it, I'm especially impressed by how much longetivity he squeezed from the main combat music motifs. And I think its wonderful how often the game updates NPC dialogues to respond to the most recent happenings in the world, even after side quests.

For its every single stumbling step, which are not few, FFXVI beautifully glides in many other areas, and I can't help but be mesmerized by what it has achieved. What you have here is a world filled with lovable allies, awe-inspiring rivals, and dark history; all connected by flashy combat and effective writing. There are a handful things in FFXVI that I feel mixed about, but ultimately it triumphs in its quest to deliver a meaty, heart pumping action RPG. This is easily my favorite game of the PS5 generation so far.

Rising Sun, like most other MoH games, is a heroic portrayal of the finest soldiers the WW2-era Allies has to offer. It kicks off with a bombastic but respectful set piece recreation of the Pearl Harbor incident, letting you experience the frantic chaos that occured, while giving you just a tiny sample of the horror and trauma. From there on, it slowly sets up a tale of a skilled soldier selected to thwart a Japanese secret plan, but not before showing you what its like to fight in some of the most pivotal battles of the eastern theatre as a regular joe.

There's a good balance between well known epic battles and the more fantastical infiltration missions, and there's a lot of cool settings to shoot your way through, like the night time Singapore harbor-city (my personal highlight, I can't stress how cool it is to see this era of urban Asia being realized). But I have to admit that there seems to be a slight lack of polish or some sort of lackluster design. There's a handful times where I was confused about what to do or where to go, particularly in the jungle themed levels. There are also some visually ugly sections, where it seems like the models or textures are a bit distracting in their relative downgrade. It's not dangerously frequent, but it happens enough times to worth talking about.

Gunplay-wise it's pretty decent. Usually the game won't just throw a ton of enemies at you at once (except in the last level, which is my least favorite level gameplay-wise), and the restrain is appreciated, especially since there's a good amount of enemies hiding in the trees or in some hidden pothole. The selection of weapons feel somewhat limiting, there's a lot of weapons that are only available in some levels, which adds a bit to the repetitiveness. But I always liked how exaggerated the enemy animations are when you shoot or kill them. It's a part of older MoH games that I'm most fond of, not only because they're fun to watch but also because it supports the "epic but cheesy war film" vibe of the game.

Another part of the presentation that supports the vibe is the orchestral soundtrack. It's a classic war film orchestra through and through, it never fails to support whatever scenario you're in. It's at least enough to balance out the awkwardly timed and animated set pieces, or the previously mentioned flaws in the level design.

Rising Sun can be uneven and rough at times, but there's still a lot to enjoy in its dramatic war tale, especially if you're fond of the exoticness of 1940s Asia.

What I find most interesting about Tekken 4 is its general vibes: it feels like a transition period between the PS1 games' early 3D design and the extravagant confidence of Tekken 5 and onwards. The graphics are obviously much more detailed than Tekken 3's, but it doesn't have the extra flair and pizzaz that Tekken 5 exudes, making it feel like almost surreal at times, in a way that only uncanny 3D CGI can conjure. Other than the character faces, its evident in the stage environments: the Airport stage (which is my favorite one here) has a overly clean and shiny look, and the distant early morning sunlight in the skybox gives it a dreamy quality to the entire frame. You can just feel it without being distracted from the actual fight. The game definitely tries to look pleasing to the eyes, not with overloading your senses, but rather through painting a strong vibe with loose brushstrokes.

You can also see it seep in the character designs. Compared to today's Tekken, T4 seems much simpler in comparison, and I appreciate it a lot. The characters don't have as many visual elements tied to themselves, but you can quickly tell the personalities that they embody. For instance, Lei's wildly loose open jacket is all you need to see to understand him. It's not to say that I don't like how extra Tekken goes with its design nowadays, I think most of the reveals of Tekken 8 has been quite pleasing, but it's nice to be reminded of this old era of less wacky Tekken.

It's also interesting to see how T4 experiments with the Tekken formula, although I don't think that it quite lands. I'm pretty sure I accidentally cheesed out my AI opponents a couple of times by just repeatedly smashing them to the wall, it's definitely nowhere as airtight as it should be, haha. Some of the stages also have slopes and different elevations, which is kinda novel but also a bit annoying in gameplay. I'm not quite sure about this but I think I missed a couple of my high attacks because I'm at a higher point than my opponents, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Also, I don't usually notice or complain about hitboxes but I've had a couple of funky missed attack moments that confused me. Other than that, the fighting is still fun and mindtaxing.

Highlights from the character roster and story mode:
- Wei is probably my favorite of the character here, his drunken master style is cool as heck and I like his lighthearted klutz vibes. Hwoarang is a close second, but his story ending is definitely my favorite one, it's cheesy and kinda wholesome.
- This iteration of Nina might be my favorite design of hers, her professional killer vibes feels like the strongest here, and I like her subtle eyeshadow. Also liked her story ending cutscene a lot. Still don't quite like how she plays though, haha.
- The new characters are just... meh, for me. I don't quite like Christie as much as Eddy. Don't really care for Combot and Marduk. Steve is cool though.
- This is most evident in Hwoarang and Julia's ending for me: the English VO here reminds me a ton of The House of the Dead 2's infamous VO. Take that as you will.

Tekken 4 might be not good enough to take too seriously, but it's still fun as heck, and its art direction scratches a specific itch that the other Tekken games just doesn't do to the same extent.

Before we get into the expansion Given Time, let me share my thoughts on the base game first, since they're obviously connected. The Far Shore is one of my favorite games in the year it came out. Its story of interstellar travel to flee a dying planet is certainly not a new idea, but the way it approaches this premise with a heavy dose of surrealist religious perspective, while still having a strong, rational scientific presence is remarkable. As the story driven campaign goes on, I grew attached to the smart characters who are trying their best to coexist peacefully within the new world they're in, even when a mysterious force forces the scout crew to adapt, or risk taking humanity's last hope with them to the grave. The game has a lot of small annoyances and rough edges, especially concerning how to progress the story at certain parts, as the game doesn't hold your hand often, but overall its unique qualities makes it a very worthwhile experience.

Jett's gameplay centers on driving the titular futuristic hover-glider vehicle, as you master its throttle overheating tendencies, the ability to postpone said mechanic by collecting and using vapors at the right time, and learning the art of handling it in order to tackle objectives or outrun hostiles. I'm playing this on the PS5, and I consider the Dualsense implementation to be essential to the experience, as the haptics and adaptive triggers and such contribute to a deeper understanding and connection with your vehicle. For example, the triggers will rattle when you're close to overheating. It's important to add that the vehicle has a learning curve, and it may take some time to fully understand how the game wants you to use it, which is not going full throttle each time, and not brute forcing your way through obstacles. Once you do, it truly feels like no other video game vehicle. Personally, the Jett is one of my favorite video game vehicles ever.

Now, with Given Time, the game capitalizes on the potential that TFS left on table. Like TFS, it is also a open world vehicular based experience, but this time around the story is much lighter, and you'll get to tackle the game's objective with much more freedom. After a short story-driven opening, you're set free to find and solve various obstacles in order to collect Brine Wisps, which are basically sentient flying orbs. These obstacles follow a couple main templates, which includes keeping up with a fast creature flying across the land, baiting certain creatures to activate a mysterious local flora, and blowing up rocks with heavy bombs. The game does not overstay its welcome, and although the variation of these objectives may seem limited, the way it tests your knowledge of how various objects in the world interact and the mastery of handling your titular glider makes it very engrossing. It reminds me of something like Skyrim or BOTW, where your solution to one of the puzzles may feel like you're cheating the game's mechanic, and it's quite satisfying because of it. If you have mastered the game's mechanics in TFS, then GT will be much more fun, in pure gameplay terms.

GT also seems to fix one of my slight complaints with TFS, which is the usage of its music. The soundtrack is pretty great, but a lot of the best tracks in TFS felt underused. In GT, they seem to use these tracks more liberally. I will post a video highlighting one of these tracks at the very bottom of this review, which I really recommend you to check out.

Are there still rough edges here? Absolutely. In fact, I think this expansion is slightly buggier than TFS. The framerate gets sluggish when you're going between the large sections of the map, the sun seems to be violently shaking at times, and the ending glitched out on me a few times (which was saved by a very timely patch). But I do not think that these are close to be dealbreakers.

TFW is a unique sci-fi game that pushed it self to be as unique as possible, while maintaining a coherent but somewhat limiting structure. GT lets go of that structure, and instead pushes the game to be the very best version of itself, without losing its identity. With this expansion, Jett has become one of my favorite games of all time.

Here's the video I talked about earlier, highlighting one my favorite tracks!
https://youtu.be/OadANTTiUJA

I have to say, I'm quite surprised by how much I enjoyed this game. It takes a lot of effort, time and energy for me to fully be invested in a game of this ilk, and thus I demand much more from these games. Most of them usually don't deliver, but Blasphemous does.

I think the game's best quality is the exploration. All the areas are interconnected in such fun ways, and each have their own design quirks that does more than enough to differentiate them. Not to mention many of these areas are drop dead gorgeous, making the most out of the art style. There's a couple areas where I find the obstacles to be somewhat annoying, but these are few and far between. Finding a hidden area or shortcut never gets unsatisfying, and there's a lot of them. The game is designed in such a way, that you could stumble upon some of these secrets by chance or accident, and these experiences will give you insight on how to find/access the other secrets. There are also side quests that are based on this hunt for the unobvious, which adds a lot to the inherent addictiveness of finding new things.

The design of these secrets leads to another point: approachability. Many other games try to present themselves as puzzlingly vague, and in my experience, the level of confusion that I have to deal with doesn't line up with what I'm getting as a reward. Blasphemous gives you just enough straightforward hints to enjoy most of its gameplay and narrative inner workings, without losing the satisfaction of figuring out its puzzles. It is relatively modest but filler-less in scale, which makes for a condensed-feeling game that doesn't overwhelm you. There's also a very helpful map system that allows you to process all the areas in a much thorough manner without overworking yourself.

But all of this would have been for nothing if the game is not inherently fun to play. Thankfully the basic movements and combat in this game are good enough. Jumping, dashing, and air thrusting through all the levels feels pretty responsive, although the game can feel a bit imprecise sometimes, especially in the more demanding areas. The combat takes a while to fully flesh out, since you have to unlock some moves by progressing far enough to upgrade your sword, but once it does, there's a lot to enjoy here. The combat is very fundamentals-based, it's all about fast reflexes and proper positioning, which is my favorite kind of combat. Many of the items you find will help tailor the gameplay experience to your liking by providing helpful buffs, although you have to explore thoroughly to find the best ones.

I do have some complaints. While the bosses are all visually striking, most of them are pretty unsatisfying in terms of mechanics. The last two main bosses, and the two optional bosses for the hidden ending are the only ones that I find to be legitimately fun bosses. I also wish that the music wasn't so ambient most of the time, it rarely struck a chord with me.

In a sea of challenging games, Blasphemous stands out as a focused and thoughtful game that truly respects your time, and it satisfies without asking too much from you.

Replaying this 'cause the GTA VI trailer got me all hyped and shit. I haven't played this game since 2014, back on my old fat PS3 (RIP). It's still real good, especially with all the touchups in the PS5 remaster. The art direction and technical team absolutely cooked here, I'm constantly blown away by how beautiful the game's lighting looks. And I can't help but yelp everytime the dusk/dawn in the horizon presents itself, the colors are so pleasing to the eyes. So hats off to them, it's a very good remaster job.

Before I started, I admit, I was expecting to enjoy the story more now, since I actually can understand English at a higher level. But it's such a dumb mess. The fact that it's mostly an excuse to be able to do crazy ass mission scenarios is just too obvious, a lot of them barely connect. I also can't stand most of Michael's scum family drama, and many of Trevor's psychotic antics. Franklin's not perfect, but his interactions with the people in his hood are always a stand out. Lamar might be a loser but he's the funniest guy around, easily my favorite out of the side cast.

At least they didn't stumble with the missions. Of course, you have to put in the fact that Rockstar is very much still in the business of putting way too many shootouts in them. In many cases, it's either not necessary, or they go on for too long. But I can't deny that there's a lot of kick-ass missions here. If I had to pick a couple favorites, it would be:
- The Bureau Raid. It's so cool pretending to be firemen and navigating the ruined floors. And you get some AAA floor mopping action too!
- Father/Son. There's so much happening in a few minutes here. Getting Franklin to jump on the yacht, catching Jimmy while he's hanging from the pole, and listening to all the dysfunctional father-son banter in the process.
- Scouting the Port. I liked all the heist prep missions because they serve well as the bridge between the hard hitting action, and this is probably the best one to me. I guess I like handling the heavy equipment too much, haha.

A lot of these missions, especially the heists, are big, showboat-y set pieces made to amaze. At this point, bombastic action doesn't hit as hard as they did a decade ago, and the aforementioned shootout bloat only makes things worse. Still, I appreciate that Rockstar were trying to push themselves, at least on the technical side.

Now I want to talk a bit about the side activities. This is where the scope of the game gets truly massive. There's just so much to do. Races, tennis, parachuting, hunting, etc. Most of these aren't individually stellar, but you can't beat Rockstar at being the jack of ALL trades. My personal favorite is the Triathlon, it's basically a set piece, but about seeing the most beautiful environments instead of killing and blowing things up. In fact, I almost shed a tear seeing the blue-orange Los Santos city scape in the distance as I was frantically mashing X, biking from hillbilly land in the other direction. And I gotta say, I like towing vehicles a lot, haha. There's also a lot of things to spend your money on, which helps the end game even more. It feels like no matter what your interests are, there's at least one side activity that you can treat like a hobby and just focus on.

This replay was a very productive one, might be the most productive replay I ever had. It's hard to believe that since GTA V first came out, there's only one game that can challenge it on its turf (Watch Dogs 2, baby!). The open world modern city genre has not been in the spotlight for a while now, and many of the old GTA clones from back in the day has taken a down turn, or outright disappear. I really think that there's still so much to gain from this open world formula, and I hope GTA VI can prove it. There's a lot of new tricks that Rockstar can learn, and I have faith in their capability to excite us with something fresh.

Side note: there's so many cats and dogs running around the city now. I'm pretty sure they added these post PS3-360. They're so cute!