i just want to say that i really wish i spent 20h of my life on something productive or heck, something more fun and engaging but here we are.
i absolutely adore 999. vlr was kinda wonky but still interesting and i actually had a wish to play it and find out what happens, ztd on the other hand? boring, nonsensical, ugly and relies a lot on shock value which isn't really shocking, it's more like an uncomfortable and weird scene one after another.
the 1.5 star goes to team d, especially phi, because she is the only Normal character in this hell of a game.
akane and junpei are unrecognizable in this game, everything that made them likable and real - gone, now we have some puppets pretending to be a butchered up version of them. carlos is the token siscon character and i couldn't find myself caring for him as most of the people did, sigma and diana are okay, some moments were definitely weird but, well, it could be worse. team q? the most irrelevant and useless addition to the character roster. q is okay, i felt bad for him because the worst character in existence, eric, was picking on him all the time because he can't offer anything other than being obsessed with the second worst character - mira, or bitching and moaning about his family issues which weren't even explored enough.
as for the final antagonist and his motivations and the overall ending of the game? no comment, i think you just can't even make that up even if you tried, pointless, nonsensical and not satisfying at all.
i'm just sad and angry that this series didn't get the closure it deserved, instead we got this ??? really weird attempt of tying loose ends by making it even more farfetched and crazy. amazing.

most of the reviewers simply don't know how to have fun and that's okay.
shadows of the damned is a pretty fun game that doesn't take itself serious, nor it should. the main couple is hot, there's demons and of course there's that 2010s ps3 game aesthetic coupled with akira yamaoka on the soundtrack which speaks to me and of which i'm a big fan.
true, the controls felt really clunky at times and some levels were frustrating ngl but all in all it really was a fun and nobrainer experience and not all games need to have A Deep Story, sometimes you just want to play something for the lols and this game is pretty much it!!

another shadow drop i'm positively impressed with! i really adore the showa era vibe and sound along with japanese folklore and i love how detailed everything was, i absorbed the whole atmosphere and read all the files i got along the way. also another thing i really appreciate is the sprites, they're really expressive and not repetitive like it can get in most visual novels. the characters are very good, i enjoyed what i got out of them!
the only thing i didn't like was that at moments the game got a bit predictable and some plot points were a bit rushed but honestly this game got me seated and engaged for a fair bit of time so i won't be getting too critical of it. it's fun, it's got a vibe going on and it's neatly packed and wrapped up :) a recommendation for anyone who likes zero escape!

999 is a perfect game in my opinion. The story didn't overstay its welcome and everything was pretty much straight to the point and the twists were interesting and well timed if I can say so. The puzzles were easy and quick, it would be nice if they were just a little bit more challenging. Also wish we could skip escape rooms while doing other routes. The cast is amazing and honestly I think Akane is one of the best written female characters. Some characters, like Lotus for example, were a bit sidelined so I couldn't really form an opinion but other than that it truly is a 10/10 game for me.

VLR on the other hand is a bit of a mixed bag imo. I didn't really get attached to the cast like I did with the 999 one and some branches were a chore to play. The puzzles were challenging I gotta admit and the story and endgame twists were truly intriguing while some early game parts were just... boring :/ I'm a bit dissappointed in the character models and UI considering this is a remaster of sorts, I expected a more polished look, it looks poorly aged otherwise.

All in all, I'm glad I got into Zero Escape, I very much enjoy Uchikoshi's writing and it's a warm recommendation from me~

i understand this game is hit or miss, you can either absolutely adore it or you can simply hate it. personally, i enjoyed this game a LOT, i think it's even better than the first game, but that's mostly because ryuki and tama and of course mizuki made this game for me. i can't explain how much ryuki's character means to me.
the somniums were super fun and emotional, i even cried at some of the routes. i really love doing various routes and connecting the pieces no matter how absurd the story may be. sure there's some things left unsaid and incomplete but all in all it's about the friends we made along the way. it's heartwarming and good and i love the bonds between the characters. they feel genuine and not forced at all and that's what matters to me the most.

wow, this game just reminded me that games can be unapologetically fun, silly and heartwarming all at once. playing hi-fi rush is such a blast and the way how much love and care is put in it never ceases to amaze me, everything moving to the beat of the song, the soundtrack being phenomenal, seeing number girl as one of the tracks in the game, not to mention nine inch nails at the end of the game just left me speechless. the art and animation is so smooth and vibrant, the 2d to 3d change is so fluid and the character designs are very charming and unique i may say.
i had some gripes about the combat such as no lock-on option and some fights just being overwhelming but i quickly forgot my complaints, which are minor, when i was playing the ending, where i caught myself playing it with a big smile and jamming to the music, a priceless experience.

i would recommend this game to everyone, it's a sweet ride and perfect for just relaxing and soaking in the vibrant atmosphere and enjoying the banter between the characters. the evil within fans will see two fellow familiar characters making a cameo, which was very sweet :) i still have to do some post-game content but all in all i loved playing this!

Needed to sit out and stare in the wall for an hour to finally write this review. After listening the final boss theme on loop and gathering up all my thoughts, I am certain this is my new favourite game. Yeah, I did say something similar about the previous Judgment title but this one just improved everything that I felt was lacking.

Starting up from the combat which is way smoother and more fun because of the various skills and style changes and the way you can explore the city using new gadgets and you have a cute little doggo! And you can feed and pet cats, one of my favourite city activities. Next up is the school, where I spent more hours than I want to admit because the mini games were abnormally fun, like I would spend hours and hours just playing the dancing game or the robots.

As for the story, I think both games are on equal terms in my opinion because they cover all the topics that are quite personal to me, but one thing that definitely makes this game shine more than its predecessor is, well, Kuwana.

I think that Kuwana is the best written character in the whole RGG franchise and I'm not even exaggerating. I don't want to delve into spoiler teritory because this game deserves to be played blind, but honestly Kuwana made this game. His whole character and dynamic with Yagami was brilliant, it left me speechless, you can see how much the writers tried to tie the whole plot and circumstances into their own ideologies and stances.
Not to mention this game has, once again, the best final boss fight and boss theme, I'm just blown away. Honestly, it's been a while a game left me speechless. Gonna replay it soon for all the trophies and just soaking in the atmosphere and details I missed in my first playthrough.
I'm so glad we got this game because it truly shifted something in me. All the best to the whole team who made it possible, congratulations. My warmest recommendation. :)

i really enjoyed this one! you can see the vast improvement compared to hashihime, the art and ost is brilliant as always and i think these visual novels are specially catered towards me because the plots are so oddly specific i sometimes think the writer straight up saw what's going on in my head.
the routes and pacing are definitely better than hashihime, though my only complaint is how some segments in the routes aren't very well explained, there's some plot holes that aren't ever resolved but other than that a very fun and fast experience, if you love the bl kaiju kamen rider sentai adventure, this game is for you, though there's some unsavory and triggering themes that you should be aware of

man...i have a lot of things to say about this game. i decided to actually play it after hearing a lot of praise and honestly i expected way more than it delivered. this game felt like a weird mashup of nier automata, silent hill and resident evil. the vibes were there but the storytelling is too cryptic and unclear for my taste. also the endgame is very frustrating because you don't have a map and enough inventory space so most of the time you're just backtracking and the enemies are pretty annoying so that left a bad taste in my mouth. i respect what the devs wanted to do and i love the idea and concept but i think it's not executed THAT well as everyone claims it is. would enjoy it probably more if i didn't know german and japanese but oh well. i really wish i could like it as much as everyone did :/

this game is fucking insane. and i mean it in the best way possible. it oozes with style and it's so charming and crazy and just FUN in every sense of that word. i liked the amount of colors, style changes, combat changes, the humor, ofc the miike references, but most of all? midori and kamui. they're my favourite kill the past characters and the amount of references around them was a delight to experience. speaking of references; i absolutely loved the kamen rider reference, the transformation sequence and the whole miike schtick, especially since i'm a fan of his movies.
i think most people approach this game too seriously and end up dissapointed because they expected something more of it but this game doesn't take itself seriously and it's meant to be a wild ride full of satire and pop culture references. the ost is superb and the only gripe i have about it is that some missions felt repetitive and some of the alien characters were too shallow so i couldn't really get invested.
the ending opened up a lot of opportunities so i'm excited to see what's suda51 got in stock next.
KiNo More Heroes.

the biggest mistake was playing judgment before this game.
to be frank, this is the weakest yakuza game, in my opinion. the game looks beautful, the ost is memorable and i liked haruka's little family along with the onomichi yakuza guys, i liked what i saw of joon-gi han and that's...almost everything positive i can say about yakuza 6. the ending was really emotional though and would have a much bigger impact if they didn't like, put kiryu almost everywhere after 6, but i digress.
the combat sucks so bad. it's floaty and weird, with the power-ups not helping at all, combat is usually the most fun thing about these games but in 6 it falls so flat. it's tedious and buggy and the difficulty between mobs and bosses is uneven. some mobs felt harder to fight than the final boss lol. the side stories were okay, i liked the clan battles, they were fun.
the writing is the weakest in the whole rgg series. kiryu and the hiroshima gang were a nice sight to behold, though i think they had too much of an importance while the more important characters like majima or daigo got scuffed, not to mention how haruka lost all her agency she had in 5. the antagonists are evil for the sake of being evil, they felt pretty plastic and most of their aspirations were boring me, not to mention the final boss who is pretty much random and his fight felt so underwhelming compared to other rgg boss fights. the story is full of holes and nothing really feels genuine, some moments really did it for me but 90% of the story is just a big question mark.

if nothing this game gave me akiyama in a black suit and that's enough for a girl like me.

I wanted to play this game for a long while because it checked all my boxes - plainly speaking, Yakuza meets Ace Attorney. I'm really happy the wait was worth everything because this just became my favourite game ever, which speaks volumes, not to mention that I was obsessively playing it day and night, it's that good.
While I was waiting for it to get ported to PC I heard many good things for this game, but I wanted to see it all for myself and dug in blind, without any big expectations because having played 6 Yakuza games I expected something of similar quality. Turns out, I was wrong.

I can say with confindence that this is in my opinion the best RGG game (tied with Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 7, which in my are peak gaming, in terms of story and combat). The plot was amazingly done, it felt so fluid and smooth and everything fell together nicely when we consider the full picture of everything happening in seemingly ordinary ''yakuza serial killings''. Usually, even in a good chunk of Yakuza games the plot gets a bit too much and flies over your head or the protagonists cough Kiryu cough are above everyone and pull some asspulls to get their point across.
It was very refreshing to see a bit of a slower setting, with a more realistic protagonist. I like how Yagami has throughout his journey a lot of rising and falling and bumps along the road which remind us how he's just a normal person who can get in danger when he digs deeper than he should. Also I love how most of stuff that Yagami needed to finally get to the truth was because of his various bonds; Kaito, Higashi and the Matsugane gang, Sugiura, Hoshino, Saori and Mafuyu too. Everyone got their time to shine and I like that very much, their bonds really felt genuine, not to mention how every of the characters I mentioned are amazing, the writing in this game is excellent imo.
Now for the antagonists, Mole was soooo interesting and the whole web around them, got me thinking a lot about the plot and their identity which kept me entertained the whole duration of the game, I actually felt like a part of it. I wish I could write a bit more about it all but it's spoiler teritory so that's that.
The ost is brilliant and the atmosphere is top notch. Kamurocho is so bright and walking around making friends along the way was amazing, even though some of the friends weren't that good. The things that made such a great impression on me were, of course, the classic cozy Yagami Detective Office, but more importantly, the last segment of chapter 12 which gave me chills and the last segment of the final chapter, I unironically felt creeped out and it was so well done I was at the edge of my seat all the time.

To sum it up: Yagami as the protag is a breath of fresh air, he's charming (KimuTaku wink wink), witty, interesting and not afraid to fight for what is right, the other main characters are stunning and brimming with personality, the plot is superb - this is imo the best written rgg game, ost and setting - brilliant. Can't wait to play the sequel and see more of the story.

trails of cold steel IV is the conclusion of the cold steel saga and an ambitious attempt to tie all loose ends, including the liberl and crossbell cast. while this game has high highs and abysmally low lows at moments, the cast is just so memorable and very well written that i had to close my eyes to all the asspulls and plot holes and similar.

first of all, the good things. i admit i understand why some people are simply tired of rean and his story but you just can't hate him (talking about the in-game rean, not the rean the fandom projects on). he's just a guy put in shitty situations and tries to deal with them, obviously with the power of friendship because what is a JRPG without the magical power of bonds. but it's okay, the writing was really good there, the new class VII was amazing and brimming with character. the ost is like a warm hug, i love it so much and the battle system is very fun, the quartz system will never get old for me. another good thing, which was a deciding factor for giving this game a high rating is, well the true ending.
it filled me with genuine happiness and emotions like yeah, i followed the whole cast for 6 years and they all end up happy, good stuff. also i love the lore and worldbuilding, it was really solid, though this game went off the rails at times so even the worldbuilding was a bit janky.
the normal ending was pretty good too, no asspulls level hirohiko araki, though it was bittersweet it was pretty solid.

now the bad things. like i said, this was too ambitious of a project, cramming such a huuuuuge amount of story and lore (of three branches of this series) in one game couldn't work at all. i get this game should be played slowly and going from one corner to another soaking in the information and atmosphere but in the late game and especially going for the true ending everything just goes crazy and some oddly convenient stuff for the main party happens, which is, frankly, unrealistic especially looking at the ''war'' theme and part of the whole story.
thank god the romance options were optional, because if they were mandatory i would give this game 2* at best, the way they're written is classic weeaboo incel cringe bullshit and totally ooc 💀 thankfully, the homophobia backfired and we have crow and rean as the canon ship of cold steel because it's much more real and genuine than any of rean's social link romances
also the playable cast can be overwhelming at times, but that's on me.
overall, it's an okay game and it does its job to an extent, it could be much better, but it's not bad per se.

tales of arise is an okay game. it's not mid, it's just okay. the cast is wonderful, their dynamic is really good + everyone had just enough character development. it's genuine, we can see their struggles and symphatise with them and we can see how they grow during the game. also i'd argue shionne is the best written tales female lead, she is raw and felt real in almost every instance. using this opportunity to say that the romance in this game is, once again, the best one in the tales of series, just because it didn't feel tropey or forced, but i digress.

the combat is super fun, the ost is delightful and very memorable, the design of the dungeons and cities in general is also very good, except the last two dungeons and the cities in the beginning, they felt very bland.

moving on, why is this game just OKAY and not something wow and groundbreaking; the plot is very weak. it starts off well but in the second half of the game loses all semblance of sense and we get infodumped and left to connect the pieces, in some moments it felt rushed and lazy even. too farfetched i would say. the last 2-3 dungeons are pretty lackluster and the enemies are too tanky with low rewards, to that point that bosses were easier than mobs.
the ending was pretty emotional and satisfying though, but buy this game on sale, it's not really worth the full price.