Where “Doom” feels streamlined and elegant, its sequel plays like a romhack in both the best and worst ways. Undoubtedly more creative than its predecessor, Doom 2 features levels which cement themselves firmly into the player’s memory, with the unfortunate caveat being that a handful of maps are either underwhelming or annoying.

“Citadel” left a positive impression on me when I first played, which felt like an assault on Hell’s forces on earth before plunging directly into their home turf, and “The Living End”, was an excellent final battle through Hell before facing off against the Icon of Sin. Conversely a map such as “Barrels of Fun” stuck out to me as pretty uninspired and at times frustrating, or “Downtown” which was needlessly sprawling and visually unappealing. On a more positive note, additions are for the most part incredible (with the exception of Heavy Weapons Dude/Chaingunner) and add a lot more excitement to the already riveting gameplay.

Doom 2 is great at keeping you on your toes, and forcing you to make quick decisions with your equipment. Occasionally levels drop you in a room with a vast legions of enemies, pushing the player into making split-second choices. You might want to use the BFG to clear out a large cluster of enemies, or whittle away at them with the chaingun. Even using the shotgun over the almost infinitely superior super shotgun has its benefits, prioritising ammo usage and speed over damage. Knowing how to use the weapons also counts, you can get closer to the enemies for greater accuracy and some times greater damage, at the cost of putting yourself in a more dangerous position. The slight variations in how you play and the rapid decision making is what keeps Doom 2 thrilling throughout its 7~ish hour length, even when you’re killing the same handful of enemies.

The strength of Doom 2 lies within its memorability and willingness to innovate on the Doom formula. Though it doesn’t reach the consistent quality of the first game, it certainly has higher highs and moments I will remember for years to come.

Relogging after the PVE cancellation news. Absolutely hilarious how they listened to the complaints about Overwatch 2’s abysmal monetisation system, and said “oh yeah so what if we took our pitch (the PVE story mode campaign) and completely gut it, but oh don’t worry we’re adding stuff to our battle pass you all love that’s gonna be the best thing ever guys!”

Around just over half a year since Overwatch 2’s arrival and it’s still rife with the issues it had at launch. I have no idea how this game is still afloat, and I’m incredibly sorry for those who were effectively swindled into preordering the PVE.

Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Spectres is a fun game with a lot of content that only sometimes likes to be bad. I love the sheer amount of fun stuff to do (especially in the postgame), the Saturday morning cartoon style to the games early chapters lend a lot to the pleasant and charming atmosphere but YKW2 will occasionally grind to a halt with key quests and admittedly fun bosses which come with jarring difficulty spikes (the final boss comes to mind here). The battle system despite being basically just auto attacks does a pretty good job at keeping the player engaged (bosses and enemies will usually require the player to target something in particular as well as clear any status effects).

TLDR: Very much worth the timesink because of the amount of stuff to do. Easy recommendation for anyone looking to spend anywhere between 20-100+ hours on a 3DS game.

Also [spoilers for the post-game final boss] Kat Kraydel sucks.

It’s hard to articulate my thoughts on this game. I don’t want to dismiss Persona 4 entirely because of its pretty glaring flaws, nor can I just list everything good about it without taking the problems into consideration. I have spent 2 days rewriting this log, reconsidering different aspects of this game and reading the opinions of far more talented and intelligent people and I’m still unable to leave any insightful comment of my own. I’m not really equipped to talk about some of its “inelegant” aspects, such as the way certain characters are handled, but I can talk about some issues as well as positives to the game and just write down some of my opinions.

Persona 4 itself is very slow and it takes a while for the mystery to really get interesting. The gameplay is also just serviceable. Marie and Teddie are kind of annoying, and the bonus dungeon isn’t anything special. On the other hand, the music, presentation and Inaba (the primary setting for most of the game), are all great. The laid-back and “homely” feel of this game is one that I clicked with immensely, which is aided by the setting and main cast. Persona 4’s main cast, at least in comparison to the cast of Persona 5, feels like a group of friends (for the most part), rather than just a group of people who met because the story needed them too. I know that the game gets some flak for its “filler”, and I’m certainly critical of some scenes involving the main cast (the camping trip and the swimsuit contest come to mind), but I think that for the most part filler in this game is justified as it builds a connection between the player and cast (Admittedly though, some filler sections go on for wayyyyy too long and contradict the idea that inaba is a small town). As a result of the time the player and characters spend just hanging out, I became pretty invested in the world and it’s characters (which I didn’t really get with persona 5, although this is not to detract from P5, which I enjoyed) Persona 4 is less of a game about grand ideas and more so just a game about characters and the world, both of which I’d argue are are pretty good.

In conclusion, I enjoyed Persona 4. There’s a lot I dislike, but a lot I enjoyed, and I’m sorry for not being able to supply something more perceptive or thought-provoking. On a more personal note, I’m at least grateful for Persona 4 and the online discussion surrounding it for forcing me to reconsider how I think about games and reviews. Perhaps at some point in the future I’ll come back to this review and rewrite it more coherently, but for now I’m glad that I’m able to get my thoughts down.