within a span of two months, from september to november of 2019, i lost an old friend and former lover to bone cancer at 23 years old, and my father revealed to me that he’d been diagnosed with stage 2 lung cancer. this would indicate a nearly three year journey to where i am now - a sequence of events which tested the limits of my perseverance, willpower, camaraderie, self-love, and actualization of community. my life underwent severe changes throughout this period; essentially revising my entire outlook on my relationships to patching up and mending my relationship with my dad which had resulted in some pretty catastrophic gaps gashed out pretty equally on both sides. some outside events completely reformed how i lived, the safety and love i had to provide myself for my own wellbeing, and fostering a lot of growth and evolution out of a patch where what i’d known and what i held onto were slipping through my fingers.

during this time, my father set an example of how he would choose to live. he combatted cancer and heartbreak with rudiment, structure, dedication and iron will. i watched him break on more than a few occasions. but it was through his search for that light where he found his own branch of buddhism, practice of meditation, and a new outlook on his life. he began to teach me the lessons he’d taken away - both of us being that type of person with loud, constantly-spewing minds. he instilled and internalized the idea that meditation and serenity are not about clearing the mind of thought, but finding a means to acknowledge the thought and move on from it. it was only along the lines of that practice that we both began to unbox our trauma - both conjoined and individual. it was only then when we could cultivate growth, hope, and those first rays of light.

i had no access to therapy or professional help at the time. i was between jobs when i wasn't crammed into ones that abused and berated me and my time. my greatest resources for self-love, as they are now, were my loved ones and my then-cracked-yet-unbroken devotion to art. traumatic attachments kept me apart from those things i loved most, but in the process of recovering from a sequence in time in which i felt like i’d lost myself, figured it took recessing back to those works which had so clearly defined attics of my life to that point to regain shards of who i’d been, and define who i would choose to be moving forward. over the next year, i would play final fantasy vii six times to completion, twice with friends, four times on my own. the hanging threads of grief, trauma, self-actualization v. dissociation, lack of direction - these things culminated in a story which more and more i felt whispered answers directly to me, for my consumption alone. it’s in those moments where a bond is made between art and audience where the attachment becomes not just inseparable, but near essential.

final fantasy vii doesn’t hand you answers for the questions you come to it with. there isn’t a resolution to the trauma, there isn’t a solution to the pain or the grief. it is an embrace, and a hold of the hand, and a gentle call; “here is how you live with yourself. here is how you learn to be alive again.” the sociopolitical conflicts, the internal struggles, the budding seeds of affection and fraternity don’t reach a natural apex - they hum in anticipation of a deciding factor which never comes. perpetually trapped within the question, but offering you the means to provide your own answer in life. the final shot of the game isn’t a conclusion meant to be expanded upon. it’s simply a closing of the cover, the final page turned before the index of note paper before being passed to you with the command - “apply yourself. turn this into something that matters.” so i chose to.

and i found myself in midgar again, with new friends and a new outlook.

you come back to the slums of wall market and sector 7 with a new worldview and appreciation each time. there’s a different purpose, when your relationship with this game is as intimate as mine, for coming back here. i know the smog, the street life, the feeling of inescapable, walled-in urban destitution well. you grow up in any city poor enough and you get to know midgar intimately. it’s a familiar setting with a familiar social agency. the seventh heaven crew, they’re all faces i’ve known, fires in bellies i once shared, and now understand in a different light. they’re old friends i knew in my activism years as a teenager, they’re people i looked up to and lost through the years. i’ve lost a lot of people and a lot of faith over time. it might seem like a quick moment to many but the sector 7 tower fight reminds me of people and things that exist only in memories now.

the moment the world opens up and the main theme plays, while unscripted, is one of the most powerful in the game to me. i retain that this title track might be my favorite piece of video game music and such a perfect encapsulation of the game’s philosophy and emotional core. stinging synth strings meet acoustic woodwind and orchestral drones. playful countermelodies give way to massive, bombastic chords in a rocking interplay that rarely fails to inspire, intrigue and invoke. uematsu-sensei, unquestionably at the apex of his mastery here, provides his most timeless score. i think about, am inspired by, and draw from his work here intensely. the artistry pours out from every nook of final fantasy vii - the models, the cutscenes, the background renders, the gameplay systems, the story, the use of diegetic sound, the pacing, the designs - everything came together in a way that somehow evokes equal feelings of nostalgia, futurism, dread, fear, warmth, love, hope, and utter timelessness. streaming and voice-acting this entire game with my close friends was one of the best experiences of my year. hitting each turn with a decently blind audience provided both knowing and loving perspective and the unmitigated rush of first experience - in tandem, a passing of the torch, an unspeakable gift of an unbroken chain shared between loved ones. if final fantasy vii saved my life once before, this was the run which restored its meaning and direction.

i’ve been cloud, i’ve been tifa, i’ve been barret, i’ve been nanaki. i’ve been zack, i’ve been aerith. there are lives lived in the confines of final fantasy vii which i hold as pieces of my own, countless repetitions of those stories with those resolutions my own to meet, different each time. there was something magic about the ability to, a year after that painful strike of all of that anguish, that death, that loss, that fear, sit on the end screen as the series’ endless “prelude” played amongst 32-bit starfields and openly sob for a half hour surrounded by the voices and words of my loved ones. that was the day i learned to live again. it’s more than a game when you know it this intimately. it’s more than an experience when you share these scars. it’s more than art when you hold onto so dearly. there isn’t a classifier for what final fantasy vii means to me other than, “a lot”. sometimes, less is more. i don’t have a conclusion beyond that for you. the experience recalls everyone and everything i've ever loved and lost, and all that i've come to gain and hold dear. goodbye to some, hello to all the rest. true, reading this, it may have been a waste of your time, but i’m glad i was able to share this with someone. i hope this reaches at least one of you on a level you needed today, or maybe it invokes something in you about something you love so dearly. i’m here to tell you - this is how i learned to live again. if you need someone to tell you, today, that you can too, here it is. you aren’t alone. go find those answers for yourself.

please don't step on the flowers on your way.

I think it's one of the best games I've played, and it's a massive improvement from God of War 2018 in every way. The graphics are stunning and beautiful with a fantastic art direction to make the environments of the Nine Realms pop out as vividly and colorful as possible, from lust jungles to chilly snowscapes. Honestly, it's one of the most visually appealing games I've ever played and I think I would say the same even if I played it on PS4.

The combat and gameplay are almost the same from 2018 but it helps a lot it gets going much faster since you can use the blade of chaos almost immediately when you start the game and you obtain another weapon 2/3 into the game. You get pseudo-RPG elements like crafting weapons and armor, skill trees, different runic abilities, and amulets slots to increase stats.

My only personal grip is I wish Kratos could get stronger overtime without relying on overall equipment quality, such as a level system that isn't just gear level. It's honestly the one thing that is preventing me from calling Ragnarok a full-on RPG and I wish they commit to it but overall the game is fine with its equipment system is honestly more in-depth than the average action game.

The story is easily the biggest improvement from 2018 and the strongest part of the game. Unlike 2018 when Kratos and Atreus have a clear goal at the start and it's just all about the journey rather than the destination. Ragnarok has a more focused plot and it's unpredictable since the stakes are higher and the scope is grander. The story manages to achieve this well by setting how dire the situation around Kratos and Atreus is from the very start and it slowly builds up more and more.

It just had me hooked and wanting to play more and more until the end, especially with the plot twists near the end that not even I saw coming. The dual protagonist system between Kratos and Atreus being able to showcase different perspectives of the story serves well. And it especially highlights character themes such as trust in familial relationships, wanting to protect each other even if it means lying to them, dealing with grief and forgiveness across various characters around the father and son duo. It definitely has so much emotional payoff, I almost cried twice myself during the story.
Ragonrok just masterfully explores these character themes while still keeping the overall plot intact.

Not to mention there is just so much lore and world-building beyond the main story. Every side quest adds to either the Nine Realms' lore or fleshes out the characters to some degree and it's never just busy work or filter. That is something a lot of games struggle with these days. Even random objects such as poems or artifacts or even idle chat during travel shine on a small part of the characters' interests and pasts. Ragnarok engages the player with so much story and detail in almost every possible moment beyond cutscenes.

If I do have some minor quips, my only complaints besides the gear level system are the number of puzzles and how restricted movement is. I am aware God of War always had puzzles in between combat sections and story but it just felt so abundance and cryptic, I felt like I was dealing with puzzles every 5 minutes and it just hurts the flow of the combat-to-story loop of Ragnarok. That is to say, the quality of the puzzles is overall good and clever, I just wish they were fewer of them. Maybe that will also free up how restrictive it is to move around the game because revisiting areas to clean up the game feels a bit of a chore.

Besides a few gameplay designs I'm not much of a fan of, I have absolutely no complaints with the story at all and that is extremely rare for me to say in any piece of fiction, not just in video games. God of War Ragnarok took the dramatic storytelling with huge stakes and epic scopes of God of War 3 while combining it with the overall game design and philosophy of God of War 2018 to create the definitive and greatest God of War experience yet.

I was skeptical of the hype and how awarded it was at first but after experiencing Ragnarok for myself, this is one of the few pieces of art that lives up to its reputation extremely well and I fully understand every piece of praise it gets. This is truly one of the greatest games of all time, it's even peak fiction as far as I am concerned and that is something I don't say lightly at all. It does require some commitment as playing God of War 2018 is the bare minimum (the recap does not do any justice at all) but in the end, it's one of the best payoffs I've experienced in a story and I can easily recommend it anyone to do the same if they just want a raw, fantastic and amazing story.

Still probably my favorite piece of DLC ever released. I don't even consider this DLC to be honest because, to me, this is an essential companion piece to The Last of Us and the story told here is insanely integral to Ellie's character, who is essentially the franchise's lead. I adore both parts of The Last of Us, but Left Behind will always be my favorite thing to come out of the series. Bias comes into play here of course, but I really do think Naughty Dog delivered an absolutely magnetic 2 hours with this, and I'm glad it's seemingly going to get the love and recognition it deserves in the HBO adaptation.

Don't go </3

I'm not a Tales expert, having only played three other games but this has to be my favorite so far.

I got invested into the romance story from the get go and it was backed up with some strong themes and great characters all around.

On the other hand, the combat was completely addicting to the point is one of the few games where I didn't avoid enemies that much. Great experience all around!

Absolutely fantastic collection. I struggle to think of another series so... complete? Everything that happens in each game is directly related to something in another. Every planet, race and character has lore and history. So many major conflicts and key details about things that may be discussed or learned about during a mission are built upon down the line, often tying into the story in ways far more significant than I would've expected. Rarely is something explained without later being shown, it's pretty amazing, and it makes every resolution to a conflict all that more fulfilling.

I could understand the complaint that Shepard serves as this Mary Sue of the universe, somehow becoming involved with just about everything and always at the forefront to correcting anything that can be, but honestly I can't agree with that being a negative. Commander Shepard is a hero, and I finally see now why the character is so beloved by so many.

It's strange to think that games with so much player-input and dialogue options could still have a protagonist that doesn't feel like a self-insert. Despite me choosing everything that she said, I still found myself looking at Shepard and respecting her as a character. I'm not sure how to really explain this but idk, I really love this series.

I've reviewed 1 and 2 already (although my review of 2 is p much just adrenaline-fuelled gushing bc I love it so much), I'm hoping to review 3 on its own page as well but as of right now I'm almost overwhelmed with the simple fact the journey is over. All I know for sure is that I loved it, this franchise has skyrocketed to my favourites of all time and while I understand why 3's ending is divisive I can't understand how anyone could call it bad.

That's all from me, this collection was free on PS+ recently, anyone that has that has no excuse not to experience it for themselves :p

Engage is one of the best anniversary projects I've ever seen and a truly beautifully passionate love letter to Fire Emblem. Engage feels like a modern take on a game I would've played on the GBA back in the day and I mean that in the best way possible.

Sure I could talk about how it is a return to form for the series with the combat system being much more of the focus instead of the social elements, but so many people have talked about that so there's no point, but don't get me wrong though, the combat is incredible (Arguably the best it has ever been thanks to the additions of the Emblems, the Break mechanic and the triumphant return of the iconic Weapons Triangle) I could also talk in depth about how much more enjoyable the map designs are compared to other recent entries. However those are not the reasons I love the game as much as I do, no that is because of the story which seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I thought the story was thoroughly incredible despite what people say.

Engage's story is best described as a Tokusatu styled 90s shounen anime all about how nothing is impossible with the power of your friends and family by your side. Yeah it's simplistic and dated and more 'childish' and nowhere near as dark or mature (Though there certainly are some dark and emotional moments), but not every story has to be a gritty war epic about the nature of morality so Redditors can have 200+ comment chain political arguments about who is 'right' just to validate their own personal beliefs to be a good story. Honestly sometimes you just want a feel good, wholesome story about the unbreakable bonds of friendship and family and that's exactly what Engage excels at and the fact the cast of characters are just a bunch of eccentric goofballs and they have fantastic chemistry with each other certainly helps as well.

Engage is so ridiculously cheesy, but genuinely earnest and passionate about its message that it is just as endearing as it is cheesy. I cried multiple times and I teared up even more, not even because I was sad most of the times, but because I was just so happy and constantly smiling ear to ear while playing.

Everything about Engage from the cheesy opening anime theme song to the literal Super Sentai roll call in preparation for the final boss battle just gave me this massive nostalgic feeling like I was a kid again watching Power Rangers before school or 4Kids anime on Saturdays. As a game by itself it is still very good, but as an anniversary title and celebration of the series as a whole, it is truly a work of art.

Long story short I recently spent a few days in the hospital which has made for a pretty poor start to the year, but the timing of this release really could not of been better in that regard. I binged this game hard and it helped me through a lot of the pain (everything is okay now) and for that I'll always remember this fondly. Even typing this I'm getting ready to start a second playthrough. I was worried about this game from all the pre release information but the moment the opening started playing all that doubt washed away. The story is a bit of a misstep but it looks and plays so wonderfully and the cast is as fun and colorful as everything else. Not quite what I was hoping for, but just what I needed

"You have to get to know someone to be able to understand them." - Pascal

Almost everything has already been said about this game. So this time I'm just gonna write what it means to me:
This game marks my switch from a philosophy to cultural and social anthropology. Quite fittingly this game has numerous references to philosophers, their theories and what might be rather lacking about them. (Though some get more honest/ thorough critiques than others).
However, this game kinda poses against the mere reflection on meaning of life, what it means to be human etc. Instead it see the necessity to carve a future for oneself despite the hardships and embarrassments along the way.
Androids as well as machines (and in consequence humans) are characterized as imperfect, very divided creatures, that are full of different viewpoints, histories and the like, making a mutual understanding hard or downright impossible. Especially the final ending however makes a point of the necessity to still try. No individual can just live by themselves, people need to support each other if they want to create a better future.
And that's exactly the turn in thinking I made, when I left behind philosophies perfect theories and instead embraced to engage in real practices and histories of human culture, however imperfect they may be.

So yeah, this game means a lot to me.

P.S. other things worth mentioning:
I really love the feature of the death messages and how they evoke the idea of haikus, hastily written on the battlefield.
I don't know if they had to cut on costs on the aesthetic, but the PS3-like greys and general mudiness often hidden behind fog und made to glisten with a certain way of lighting, really gives the whole game a nice melancholy feel, that I rather enjoy.
The battle systems blend of DmC and RPG makes for something fun, but not necessarily deep as you can brute force alot of the game. Making 9S so weak in comparison to the other two makes him a bit annoying to play at times.
Why is A2 so cool?

First let me start this review by saying that while I thought God of War (2018) was a very good game and liked it a lot I was never of the opinion it was a masterpiece or one of the greatest games ever made like a lot of people claimed. However I truly believe God of War Ragnarok is a genre defining masterpiece that only comes around once in a generation and improved upon God of War (2018) in genuinely every way imaginable. Ragnarok is the kind of game that even when I wasn't playing it because of work and other things all I could do was think about how much I wanted to play it and I know it is an experience that will stay with me until the day I die.

Like all good sequels God of War Ragnarok only expands upon what its predecessor set-up making everything bigger and more grandiose and turning it up to 11. The action and set-pieces (Seriously some of this stuff is so over-the-top it could give DMC or MGR a run for its money), the cast of characters, the bosses, the references to Norse myth, the side quests and most importantly the scope and stakes of the narrative, there's just so much more of ALL of it.

Speaking of the narrative, it is just simply incredible and not an exaggeration to say this game has some of the best writing in all of video games. Picking up 3 years after the events of God of War 2018, we see Kratos and Atreus trying to survive through Fimbulwinter in Midgard when Thor and Odin give them a surprise visit asking for peace in hopes of staving off Ragnarok and from there on things spiral out of control into a massive adventure across the Nine Realms with a complex narrative about prophecy, fate and war tangled in a web of character threads that span multiple families and all their interpersonal drama which slowly unravels and at the heart of it all is a story of a father and son with a bond so strong they would do anything to protect one another even if it means pushing each other away in the process with the hope of defying prophecy and fate itself all the while inadvertently slowly causing that very same prophecy to come true with every action they take to so desperately avoid it. Honestly never thought I'd see the day that a God of War game would make me cry, but Ragnarok got me not 1, but 3 different times. One of the most emotionally charged narratives I've experienced in awhile.

However a great narrative is meaningless without equally great characters to support it, but thankfully Ragnarok has them in spades. From the protagonists and heroes to the antagonists and even the side characters, every single one is written fantastically with realistic personalities and relatable, human goals they strive towards. Also not a single character feels underused, every one has their own arcs that give them time to shine and the sheer amount of character development and growth everyone in the game goes through is just staggering.

You simply can't talk about Ragnarok without mentioning its stellar blockbuster acting performances that are every bit as impressive as any movie. This game without a doubt has some of the greatest voice acting performances I've ever heard and they're paired up perfectly with the hyper realistic character models and animations that show just as much raw emotion as the voice performances themselves. From Christopher Judge and Sunny Suljic as Kratos and Atreus to Danielle Bisutti as Freya, Alastair Duncan as Mimir, Richard Schiff as Odin and Ryan Hurst as Thor among many others, every single performance is masterfully acted and genuinely any character on the screen at any given time has the ability to steal a scene and make it their own because they're just all that talented and captivating.

Now I could talk about how much I love the narrative themes, characters and acting performances all day long, but since I want to keep this review relatively spoiler free lets talk about the gameplay now and it is rare a big budget AAA game has gameplay as captivating and enjoyable as the story because they usually focus more on the story, but Ragnarok manages to have its cake and eat it too so to speak because the gameplay is just as amazing as everything else.

Combat feels vastly improved upon having access to two weapons that have expanded move sets and skills right from the start of the game and eventually getting a new 3rd weapon adds so much more diversity and depth to the combat system allowing for chaining together much more satisfying combos than in 2018 that during my entire 45 hour playthrough I found the combat consistently enjoyable and entertaining.

One of my biggest complaints about God of War 2018 was the unnecessary pseudo RPG elements and I figured they'd be worse in Ragnarok, but somehow they are much better thanks to being expanded upon (Including a better and more in-depth crafting system) and right from the beginning of the game you have more choices available to you since you have both your weapons from God of War 2018 immediately at the start alongside a decent size skill tree for each weapon, 3 different types of armor and a shield and new mechanics and skills that are slowly unlocked and added on top of all that. One minor nitpick for me is that your level is still determined by your gear instead of actual battle experience and stat allocation so it's still not a true RPG, but it is very close to it in every other way.

Another minor complaint about 2018 I had was the lack of enemy variety and re-skin troll mini bosses, but Ragnarok also improves on that adding so many new enemy types, various creatures from Norse myth and fun mini-bosses and of course the main bosses which are without a doubt some of the coolest spectacles I've ever seen in a game.

Finally my biggest major complaint about God of War 2018 was the boring open world segments and despite having much heavier emphasis on exploration and more open world segments in Ragnarok they were consistently more enjoyable thanks to the beautiful and stunning art direction and incredible graphical fidelity that breathes so much diverse life into all of the Nine Realms and actually incentivizes you to explore them more. Also the fact the exploration is much more linear at first and slowly opens up as you progress further through the story unlocking various things reminded me of a Metroidvania style design and encourages you to backtrack to previous areas to find new secrets and thanks to heavier emphasis on platforming via grapple points and Uncharted-like climbing and there being legitimate dungeons to explore in the overworld with valuable loot to find exploration is both fun and always feels worthwhile. I also can not express how much I love that all your weapons are utilized as tools for puzzle solving and platforming as well enough because it makes for some super creative design choices which also helps to always keep exploration fresh.

I have to mention the side quests as well because they are much better compared to 2018 since they actually add to the world-building or provide extra detail and depth to characters. Honestly some of the side quests in this game are better written than most games main story, that's just how great the writing is in Ragnarok. Even side quests that you think are probably pointless busywork usually end up revealing some small detail about the world, a character's backstory or even just give you a meaningful interaction between Kratos and Atreus or other various characters so it is always worth doing aside from the quest rewards (like new gear or crafting materials) you get which are quite valuable in their own way.

Bear McCreary's score deserves to be mentioned as well because it is simply masterfully composed and from triumphant to melancholic it and just about everything in between it adds so much more emotional weight to every single scene that I just can not imagine the game without it.

God of War Ragnarok is the big budget Sony Blockbuster formula at its best. A true masterclass in both storytelling and game design that everyone deserves to experience. Ragnarok is one of those rare games where every single thing about it is just as perfect as possible, from the narrative and characters to the acting performances, gameplay, art, visuals and score there is simply nothing about this game I would change and when it all comes together it creates something truly special that will stand the test of time for decades to come and be remembered as not only one of the best games of 2022, but one of the best games of all time as well.