I love this series so much. Another absolute triumph from RGG that easily cemented itself in my top 3.

As much as I will always love Kiryu, Ichiban has grown on me immensely between LAD7 and Infinite Wealth. His relentless optimism, goofiness and loyalty is the perfect foil for Kiryu's cool, tough and solemn demeanor. They complement each other perfectly, and Infinite Wealth did an amazing job at giving them both a time to shine.

The gameplay is a ton of fun and is very much an improvement from the already great turn-based combat of 7. Mixing and matching skills from different classes, utilizing combo attacks, finding the perfect team synergy for each battle - I never got bored of the combat. I felt fairly over-leveled by the end of the story, but the final boss still put up a decent fight that felt fair.

The amount of content in this game is absolutely absurd. I like to focus on the story during my first play-through of a game, although I did manage to do a good chunk of side stories and optional activities but still feel like I barely scratched the surface. I have a lot of clean-up to do, but with so much variety in the activities I know I'll never get bored trying to finish everything and get the platinum, which I absolutely want to do with how good this game is.

The story was also excellent, although I think I liked 7's just a bit more. I'm always impressed by how well RGG can connect all of these seemingly random plot points together into a cohesive whole, as well as how big they can make the stakes feel in each game. Just when I think they couldn't possibly come up with something as grandiose as their previous game, they always manage to outdo themselves in the next entry. I appreciated the globe-trotting adventure of Infinite Wealth, and being able to flip between the two locations and parties (with no spoilers) kept things fresh and allowed the game to keep moving at a good pace. Couple that with their ability to tackle complex themes like the homelessness epidemic, wealth inequality and the harmful effects of Internet virality and you have a really amazing narrative overall.

Before I had played LAD7 I first played through the previous games in the series to catch myself up. Going into 7 I felt really connected to this story and these characters and this world, and I was nervous that with the longer wait between 7 and Infinite Wealth that I would lose that sense of connection and have a hard time feeling immersed in the world. I'm happy to say that isn't the case - playing Infinite Wealth felt like coming home in a sense, and it didn't feel like I had missed a beat when I loaded it up for the first time. This is a really special series to me, and I'm already counting down the days until we hear about the next adventure for this goofy, lovable found family.

FF7 Rebirth is a behemoth of a sequel that improves on Remake's formula in almost every way. I had really high hopes for this game since Remake is one of my all-time favorites, and Rebirth managed to meet and surpass almost all of those expectations. It isn't without its faults, but its strengths are remarkable compared to its weaknesses.

This game's strongest asset is its gameplay - there's just SO much to do in this game. Although I did get a bit fatigued at the open world map marker design after a bit, I found that there was always something to do to switch things up. Between the mini-games, combat simulator missions and exploration I always felt like I had something to do and always had something to switch to whenever I was getting bored. The combat is just as good as Remake, and the addition of the synergy abilities are a great touch that makes combat feel even more fluid and cinematic.

The performances are, once again, amazing. Getting the gang back together from Remake was a joy, and the addition of new characters to the party made the experience that much better. I really love the voice cast for these games - I feel like they capture the essence of the characters perfectly and there wasn't a bad performance among them.

I think something that I have more mixed opinions on is the story, although my feelings lean more positive. I just found the plot to be needlessly complicated at times - I'm sure watching some Final Fantasy Union story videos will help clear things up, but I feel like it unnecessarily bogged down what was already an amazing story. I think the story is very strong overall with some incredibly poignant and emotional moments, but it also felt like it went off the rails after a certain point. I also wasn't super thrilled with how it ended - I know the remake trilogy is taking some liberties with the story to try and create a new experience, but I just wished the ending resonated with me a bit more. I'm hoping on a repeat play-through I'll be able to fully enjoy the narrative a bit more.

It seems like Rebirth was well worth the wait. It doubles down on all the things that made Remake great while adding its own flourishes here and there with the inclusion of an absolutely massive open world that more often than not was a blast to explore. Although I wish the narrative had done a bit more for me, the incredibly fun gameplay, stellar performances/graphics and beautiful soundtrack make Rebirth an amazing gaming experience overall. I know it'll be a while before we get the last game, but I'm already counting down the days.

The best playing of the three Max Payne games but my least favorite story as well. Rockstar absolutely nailed the gunplay here - being able to slow down time and headshot every enemy in 5 seconds never got old. The guns were fun to use and the levels were varied, although it did fall into the early 2010s shooter trap of "run here, cutscene, shootout, run here, cutscene, shootout, repeat" after a while. I feel like Max's character was a bit under-baked compared to the previous entries, although the quippy one-liners and sense of malaise in the performance was just as good if not better than Max Payne 1 + 2. As a Max Payne game, 3 felt like a bit of a step backward (which isn't surprising given that this was Rockstar's attempt at the series) but as a shooter it's an absolute blast. Glad I was able to finish out the trilogy.

This might be the one game that I own that I've started and stopped the most times over the years. I became so familiar with the first 2-3 hours of this game because I had played it so many times before switching to something else and not going back to it. I finally decided to sit down and properly play it and I'm happy to say that it was worth the experience.

As someone who values narrative over anything else and will often poke around online to find games with great narratives, it's no surprise that Bioshock came up fairly often. I've known for a while that there was some sort of "big twist" in the game that has become infamous, but I didn't know what exactly it was or when it would happen. As I played the game I sorta got the gist of what I thought it would be, but I was still fairly surprised by what happened.

The narrative here is the game's biggest strength, and I was really impressed by the quality of the writing. The fact that there are minimal in-game cutscenes and that most of the dialogue + exposition happen over radio is a cool choice that I think paid off here. It allowed the game's environmental and sound design to do the heavy lifting, particularly the environmental design.

Bioshock may have the best use of environmental storytelling that I've ever seen in a video game. Rapture is a fuckin cool setting, no doubt about it, and I learned so much about this world simply by exploring it. The audio diaries were a neat way to expand on the world, although I did find that the audio could be a bit hard to discern if there were enemies around who wouldn't stop talking. The different locations all felt unique and eerie in their own ways, and I never felt like I got bored with any of them and wanted to explore every inch of them.

The combat felt fine enough, nothing too special. Being able to swap between the powers and weapons was fun, and the sheer number of powers made for some fun combinations as my playthrough went on. The actual gun fights could feel a bit janky at times, but it's something I can forgive since I wasn't playing Bioshock for the gameplay.

I'm really glad I was able to finally cross this one off the backlog. As someone who has come to more deeply appreciate gaming as art in the last few years, Bioshock always felt like a must-play but I was never able to commit the time and energy for it. This was a blast to play, and I really did love the story that was told and count it among the best I've played. I've heard more mixed things about Bioshock 2, but I'm ready to experience it for myself firsthand.