Absolute perfection. Monolith Soft have perfected the Xenoblade franchise with Future Redeemed. Everything has been building to this moment, and it's one hell of a send-off for my favorite trilogy in gaming.

The combat was expertly refined from XB3; Mitsuda's music is, as always, flawless; and the story was so fucking good, I can't even begin to put it into words. Future Redeemed manages to connect all 3 games together in the perfect package with so many amazing call-backs and references to the previous games.

The high quality bar that Takahashi and the rest of the folks at Monolith Soft have kept up over the years is astounding. They keep outdoing themselves with every release, and Future Redeemed is the pinnacle of them at their craft. I can't wait to see what their next Xeno project will be (although I wouldn't mind a Xenoblade Chronicles X Switch port since I never got to play it).

I've been eyeing the Metal Gear Solid games for some time now, but have always been intimidated by the stealth action genre. I'm notoriously bad at any sort of stealth in games; when I'm given the option between stealth and combat I always go in guns blazing, and when I'm forced to use stealth I begrudgingly force my way through it to get it over with. After starting and stopping Metal Gear Solid a couple of times over the last year or two, I finally decided to sit down and play it all the way through.

The high point for me in MGS was its writing and voice performances. I had heard that Hideo Kojima was an amazing storyteller and an auteur in his field, and the story he's written here is very clear proof of that. I absolutely loved the cinematic feel here, and didn't mind the cutscene length as I'm someone who loves being immersed in a story while playing a game. For a game released in 1998, the cutscene and voice direction are incredible, and this has easily become one of my favorite narratives in recent memory.

One thing that I wish I had similar praise for was the gameplay. It's hard for me to say that the gameplay has aged poorly since this is my first time playing it, but I was pretty frustrated with it throughout most of my play-through, especially the gunfights. It felt impossible to aim, and whenever you were forced into gunfights or had to outrun groups of enemies shooting at you (looking at you Communications Tower) I felt my blood boil. I find the term "janky" reductive when it comes to gameplay and controls, but it's hard to think of another term to describe a lot of the gameplay of MGS. I'm sure it was also partly due to the fact that the game wanted you to prioritize stealth whenever possible, but I'm bad at stealth so I was forced into gunfights far more often than the game was probably expecting me to be.

I'm really glad that I finally decided to give MGS a shot. As a big fan of narrative-driven games with complex themes/plots, I had always heard great things about this series. Some less-than-stellar gameplay is very much made up for by strong writing, excellent cutscene/voice direction and a bonkers but fascinating story. I've heard even better things about MGS2 and MGS3, so I'm definitely looking forward to playing through those in the near future.

I originally played this game back when it released, got most of the way to the end, got stuck on a boss and promptly put it down. I recently decided to start over from the beginning and see it through to the end, and I'm glad I did - this game was fantastic.

I think I appreciated this play-through more this time around since I've played the original since my first attempt. The references to the original game and where they deviated/expanded on the story was really cool to see, and I really loved how more fleshed out characters like Aerith, Tifa and Jessie were. The fact that this remake only covers the first few hours of the original and is this good is a testament to the care and attention Tetsuya Nomura and the team put into it. There were a few sections that felt fairly padded out to extend the run time, but overall I'm impressed with the story that was told here and how it sets up the next game.

I was a little weary of the hybrid real-time and menu-based combat, but once I got used to it I grew to really enjoy it. I started by just mashing the attack button with Cloud and not doing much else, but after I started switching characters and utilizing abilities/spells better the combat really opened up. Most of the bosses felt challenging yet fair, and I finished the final battle with a good sense of satisfaction as it was the most difficult battle in the game for me.

This game is gorgeous, and the PS5 version that I played this time around looked even better. The facial animations were a particular standout, and I often felt my gaze drawn to the character's faces during cutscenes which is a testament to how well animated this game is.

I had been kicking myself for the last few years that I had gotten so close to the end of this game and gave up on it, and I'm really glad I managed to come back and finish it this time around. I have a deeper appreciation for the remake after playing the original, and I think both are great experiences in their own right - they stand side by side as truly exceptional games.

I don't even know where to begin with this.

This was one of the most batshit crazy gaming experiences I've ever had. Every time I thought the story couldn't possibly get any more unhinged, Hideo Kojima surprised me by making this shit even more insane. And I absolutely loved every minute of it.

MGS2 really improved the gameplay for me in a lot of ways. The controls felt smoother compared to MGS1, and I appreciated the myriad of ways you could approach each encounter that didn't rely on strictly stealth or combat. Despite the fact that MGS2 has a limited setting(s), I really enjoyed the environmental design of the levels, and found the AI this time to be much more of a challenge.

And holy shit, this story. I love how it gradually unspools itself into this complex interwoven clusterfuck that doesn't let up until the credits roll. I've read a lot about how this game predicted a lot of the shit we deal with now in 2023, and I do have to say that it is eerily prescient. Kojima is a genius, plain and simple, and the fact that he created this story in 2001 (and more likely before that since 2001 is when it was released) is mind blowing.

MGS2 has catapulted itself into my all-time favorite games, and I can't believe I'm just now getting around to this series as a whole. This was such a masterpiece, and I'm so hyped to continue with MGS3.

What an incredible game.

It's wild to me how Kojima manages to keep raising the bar with each successive Metal Gear Solid game. While I enjoyed the overall craziness of MGS2's story a bit more, I think MGS3 is an overall better game with more polished gameplay, an amazing soundtrack and an emotionally resonant ending.

MGS3 places a lot more emphasis on survival and stealth this time around. With the addition of things like camo and replaceable suppressors, you're encouraged to use stealth whenever you can (although I still got into a lot of gunfights because I truly cannot be stealthy for some reason). The boss battles continue to be absurd spectacles with some of the the most fun mechanics of any game I've ever played. I love how each MGS game has its own colorful cast of unhinged antagonists that you get to take on.

The ending of MGS3 was a particular high point for me. Although the story here is relatively tame compared to MGS2, I think the writing is a bit stronger in MGS3, and the ending fight/cutscenes were really powerful. I genuinely felt conflicted with my feelings about how the game ended, and I always think that's a sign of a well written game to me.

These first 3 MGS games have been such a blast to play through. I value narrative above all else in video games, and I love the ambitious off-the-wall storytelling that Kojima and the team have put on display here. Can't wait to keep making my way through this series.

My rating for this game sits somewhere between a 9 and a 10 - it's an excellent game in most aspects, but it was also frustrating in a few fundamental ways as well.

Starting with my biggest gripe in the game, and a common complaint I've seen from other reviews - the pacing. I finished this game in about 45 hours, and it absolutely could've been 6-8 hours shorter if not more. It was pretty tiring to go from these huge set piece sequences that move the plot forward to the downtime segments where you're forced to fill the time with things that felt inconsequential. I know there needs to be some sort of break in the action, but these segments felt far too frequent at times and just really broke up the momentum for me a lot.

I'm also fairly disappointed in the performance of this game, especially as it was supposedly released in the best state possible by CBU3. This isn't to say the game was unplayable, but it was jarring going from the smooth 60fps of combat to 30-40 when entering a mildly crowded town. The motion blur was also killer, but I happened to finish the game today just as the patch came out so I at least was able to finish out the game without the motion blur as an issue. I don't have any expertise in game design, and so I'm not sure how difficult it actually is to ship a fully completed game that maintains 60fps, but it would've been nice to have that. I believe there are plans to patch the performance issues in the future, so that'll give me a reason to replay the game down the road.

Now, on to the good parts, starting with the story and characters. I'm a sucker for a game with a grittier, darker tone and I think FF16 nailed it. This game didn't pull any punches, and I was genuinely surprised by how dark and violent it became at times. Although I thought the first half of the story was a bit stronger than the second, the entire narrative package here is excellent. The voice performances were unbelievably good, and Ben Starr should win some sort of award for his performance as Clive. He brought so much raw emotion to his character and it left me feeling awed by him when the credits rolled. I was also a big fan of the return to a medieval setting, and appreciated the fairly obvious Game of Thrones inspiration.

The combat was also very well done. I'm not the best at action games, and I will admit that I utilized some of the rings the game gives you to make combat easier, but I still found it to be a blast. It's obviously fairly limited when you started the game, but as you gain more abilities and your confidence in the combat system grows it'll open up exponentially; I've seen some absurd YouTube clips of people doing combos I could never dream of. It did get a bit exhausting towards the end fighting so many tougher enemies that felt like damage sponges, but all in all the combat held up throughout my play time and kept me engaged right till the last battle.

The Eikon battles blew my mind. I knew going into the game that CBU3 strived to make each fight unique, and that each would play like a different genre, but I wasn't prepared for just how epic these fights were. FF16 really nailed the scale of these clashes, and they were easily the highlight of the game for me next to the narrative.

I'm not one that usually specifically singles out music in the games that I play, but I have to make an exception here - this soundtrack was fucking awesome. The fact that you could also switch the music that plays at the hideout was a small thing that I really appreciated - it was fun to switch the music up to try and fit the vibe of the story at the time. There are some beautiful vocal performances here as well, especially near the end.

I was really, really excited for FF16 and have been following it since it was announced, and I'm happy to say that game lived up to my expectations and often surpassed them. Apart from some serious pacing issues and some performance struggles, this is a remarkably well made game. The dark, mature story was written and told extremely well, the voice performances were some of the best I've seen, and the combat was fun and fairly deep. FF16 ranks high in my rankings of FF games and is a contender for my Game of the Year so far (Resident Evil 4 Remake was also so damn good), but I'll have to let myself sit with this experience for a little bit before I can officially declare it as the best game of the year so far. All in all though, I loved my experience with FF16, and I already can't wait to do a NG+ play-through in the not too distant future.

I rolled credits today, although I know there's a sizable chunk of post-game that I still need to do. This review will be for what I played up to the credits.

Reverie was a great game, although I had trouble connecting to it as deeply as I did with the other Trails games. This was the first game in the series that I had to wait for, as I was previously able to binge all 9 games back to back since they had all been released already. I think the 2-3 year wait between my last game (Azure) and Reverie allowed some distance to grow between me and these characters/this world, but that isn't to say I didn't have a great time with this.

Reverie feels like the Avenger's Endgame of video games - it's a massive, sprawling conclusion to a 9 game arc that features an absurdly large cast of characters. It was so cool to see this story finally get wrapped up after so much build-up, and I do admit that seeing the Liberl, Crossbell and Erebonia crews back together did move me a bit.

I've found that Trails games can have some issues with pacing, but Reverie really nailed it's consistent pacing. Being able to switch between the 3 routes kept the story moving along at a brisk but exciting pace, and each new plot reveal only made me more eager to keep playing without too much slow down time in-between. As for the routes themselves, they were all really well done, although C's is a clear standout to me. Their character arc is really satisfying, and their route provided the most diverse gameplay in terms of playable characters and fun crafts to mess around with (without spoilers of course).

The gameplay is just how I remember it from Cold Steel 4, just with a few minor upgrades. I've always appreciated just how snappy the gameplay can be, and the speed up function is a god-send when you battle as many times as you do in these games. The huge roster of characters allowed me to experiment with different team builds which was a lot of fun, and I think Falcom really perfected the Trails turn-based gameplay here in Reverie.

I'm sorta sad to see this saga close with Reverie, but I'm also equally excited about getting the Calvard games localized (hopefully in the not too distant future). Although I softened on the Trails series a bit in the last few years since finishing the previous games, I found myself getting sucked back into this world once again with Reverie. I still find myself loving this series a lot, and hopefully in the next year or two I can do another 10 game full play-through of the series to try and reconnect with it on a deeper level with the continuity of the story between games. Until then, I'm so happy I got to finish out this arc - it was well worth the wait.

One of the greatest games I've ever played, hands down.

Everything about this game was remarkable to me. This final outing for Solid Snake is expertly written, voice acted and directed, and although the game put a lot of emphasis on its cutscenes, the quality of those cutscenes made it all worth it to me. The emotional weight of MGS4, particularly its ending, was something that hit me hard. The jump in graphical quality between MGS3 and this is absurd; I couldn't believe a game from 2008 running on a PS3 could look this good (the tears on faces when characters were crying shook me to my core, how could they look like that??). The gameplay was refined to a T - I loved that you could take a more action-oriented approach, and the wider variety of weapons to use this time around was something I personally enjoyed a lot. I did have some technical issues on the used PS3 I played this on, but that's a minor gripe compared to everything that this game did exceptionally well.

This review feels scattered; I'm writing it right after finishing and I have so many thoughts swirling around my brain. I found this game to be so so good in so many ways. I know people have their issues with it, but it was such a unique and powerful gaming experience for me. I've grown very attached to these characters and this series over the last few months, and I know I have a few more games to play before I'm finished, but this was the pinnacle of the Solid Snake story for me. It's hard to believe this game exists, but I'm damn glad it does.

I found Peace Walker to be a pretty mixed bag of an experience.

I absolutely loved the story and presentation here. The comic book style of the cutscenes and dialogue was really cool, and it made for an interesting change from the use of movie-like cutscenes from the previous games. I loved getting to see Big Boss' story expanded upon, and the plot ties in really well with MGS3. Although I found the cast of antagonists to be a little underwhelming, I thought the narrative as a whole was fairly strong and entertaining.

Where I really struggled with Peace Walker, however, was in the gameplay and structure. The mission-based campaign felt like a slog a lot of the time, and I just found the pacing to be a bit wonky at times. I also was very frustrated with some of the boss battles, since I didn't do many of the extra side missions that would've given me better gear. For my first time playing through the MGS series, I wanted to experience the story and work through the games at a good pace. For most of the previous games I was able to do just that, but Peace Walker almost forces you to do the extra content; if you don't, like I did, you'll spend far too long doing minimal damage to enemies and bosses that have absurd health bars. I liked the base-building aspects, but the execution didn't feel as effective as it could've been (it probably would've been cooler if I had done more of the side content). I wish the game didn't force me to do the extra content in order to be strong enough to progress through the story at a decent pace, but now I know that I'll need to spend some more time doing the side content on my inevitable replay in the future.

All in all, MGS PW wasn't a bad game by any means, but it's easily my least favorite game in the series so far. I was a big fan of the story and the presentation, but the gameplay structure was not my cup of tea at all. Excited to head into MGSV to finish up my journey with this amazing series.

Going back through some of my favorite CoD campaigns and WaW is definitely up there. I remember playing this as a teenager and being awed by just how gritty and bleak it could get at times, and I loved being able to switch between the two different theaters of war.

Something that I didn't appreciate when I was younger was the music - this game has a kick ass soundtrack, especially towards the end as you play as the Russians. It definitely made the firefights that much more tense and exciting.

There are some parts that haven't aged super gracefully, namely the enemy AI. They seem to have fucking superpowers and can laser in on you wherever you happen to be, even if you're clearly behind cover. And don't even get me started on the grenade spam - I remember playing this on Veteran a couple years back and giving up because the number of grenades that were thrown at you behind cover was ridiculous.

I have a lot of fond memories with WaW between the campaign, multiplayer, and zombies. While the campaign isn't as incredible as I remember, it's bolstered by some good mission variety and solid set piece sequences. I enjoyed being able to experience it again after all these years.

MGSV: TPP was a mess in almost every way and I absolutely loved it.

Let's get this out of the way - this game had so much potential and it ultimately didn't end up meeting it. Whether that's due to Kojima's direction, or his friction and fallout with Konami, it doesn't matter - it feels unfinished and it will probably always remain that way.

With that being said, however, I think this game is great. This is the best open-world sandbox I've ever played in, and I was shocked when I saw that I had put almost 60 hours into this game because it definitely didn't feel like it - it's just that fun to play. There are so many ways to approach each objective, and everything just felt so satisfying; the combat, stealth, vehicles, movement - everything was polished to perfection.

While the story did leave something to be desired, I didn't think it was that bad. I thought chapter 2 was a lot stronger than chapter 1 (which was probably the most uneven/unsatisfying part of the game for me), which is a bummer because I think a lot of people who play this will think the game formally ends at the end of chapter 1 and will let that part of the story influence their opinion of the game. I wish Big Boss had some more spoken lines and was utilized within the story a bit better, but I thought the the supporting characters were all really well done. I really loved the Fox Engine too - for a game that came out in 2015, TPP is gorgeous, although I think Kojima could've lightened up on the lens flares a bit during the cutscenes.

From a cinematic standpoint, this game is remarkable. It honestly feels like you're watching a really well directed/shot movie a lot of the time, and the use of camera movement in particular is really impressive. That's something I've always admired about Kojima's work, and it's clear that he takes a lot of inspiration from film for his games.

I'm sad to see my Metal Gear Solid journey come to an end with TPP, but I'm so grateful I got to experience this incredible series. I was always hesitant about playing it because I've never been too big on stealth games, but looking back at the end of this journey, MGS has become one of my all-time favorite series. I'm already looking forward to my replay of the series, and can't wait to dive in to Death Stranding to continue experiencing that Kojima weirdness.