"time to take our longest game and not change any of the bloated or poorly done pacing parts and tack an additional 20 hours onto the end" - design doc for this game

that said tho, despite the bloat and the fact that this might be the persona with the worst writing overall, i still come away from the game positive

the third semester, and the (very) lightly sprinkled new things earlier in the story, are basically all good, the two new social links are great, and the redone justice social link works very well. though p5 being the easiest of the modern persona games to complete everything in ng means that the third semester does feel sort of empty, seeing the new scenes, cute winter outfits, and the rest of the new stuff made it feel worth it still.

a lot of the original p5 issues remain, from the weird pacing to the often kind of bad writing, but the gameplay still feels perfected down to a science with how good it is to just go through each day ranking up stats and spending time with all the characters. the changes to the battles are good too, and using the new area to further develop mechanics like baton passing worked for me.

overall i had fun but if i ever end up playing this game again i need someone to stop me, its just too damn long for that

In all the ways that matter to me this is a step down from Fatal Frame 1, but despite that I still quite like this game. The new village environment is pretty good (even if I feel they could really have stood to make the house interiors feel different aesthetically), having ghosts haunting places specific to them instead of ranging throughout the game, and having separate mansions each with their own gimmicks and ghosts works, and by the end of the game each mansion stands out in your mind, even if you don't know them quite as well as you know the Himuro mansion by the end of 1. The setting also allows for gorgeous, creepy exterior locations which is one of my favorite parts of this game even if there aren't a lot of them.

One more substantial downside to me is that the camera feels a lot worse in this one, as do the ghosts. In 1 the camera feels much faster to use, and its arcade-y visuals and feel just simply feel better than the more subtle, slower camera here, despite this version of the Camera Obscura fitting the vibe of the series more. Ghosts in this game have less standout designs and are often spongier too, which is a real shame because they are so characterful in 1. That’s not to say they have no character here, but in comparison they just feel a lot weaker design-wise, and a lot of the fights last just past how long you’d want them to, making fighting feel more exhausting.

The story in this game works pretty well, tying the main characters into the story of the village well, and compelling side-stories in each of the mansions all tying back to the main plot before too long. The game lands the ending too.

I do feel it’s worth mentioning that the game maintains the great camera angles and well done atmospheric music that I liked in the first game. I said earlier that the houses look somewhat similar to each other in the end, but the layouts of the houses are still mostly distinct and there is still a lot of effort in detailing them, and in Mio and Mayu’s animations, that I really appreciate.

The voice acting in this game is better than the first game’s, but it’s not yet good really, so in the end it almost feels worse to me because I find 1’s bad VA so charming.


I feel like I come across as negative in this review, but it’s really only in direct comparison to 1 that I have issues. Overall this game is quite good, and retains plenty of what I liked about 1 and I’ve enjoyed myself each time I’ve revisited it. It’s well worth playing!

Making Generations 2 but having you make your own OC to be besties with sonic is honestly genius, I wish I could've played this game at 12 years old.

Game looks great graphically, and even though there are a few overused area types (green hill and chemical plant aren’t the only levels in genesis sonic I’m pretty sure guys), the levels are pretty well designed, with a short, (maybe too) easy, and fun to do main path, but some tricky collectible placements, and some fun aesthetic differentiations for different levels in the same area.

Stage music is fun and fitting, though mostly not that memorable, besides your OC getting vocals for each OC stage.

Also, because your OC needs to be there for the final boss, super sonic is DLC only and they don’t even play the vocal theme during the final boss………..

But overall the game being 3 hours long but being fun for basically all of it makes it satisfying enough for me.

if i were making a remake of halo i would attempt even a little to capture in fancy new graphical detail even a hint of what makes the original games aesthetic look so unique, but thats just me i guess. thankfully they let you swap between the original and remake graphics at any time with a single button press, which is a fantastic feature i wish all videogame remasters had to include

anyway cant speak for the gameplay, i was kind of carried by the friend i played with but had a good time even with my extreme lack of familiarity with the genre. all the levels were way longer than i expected, but were pretty cool, and looping back through them backwards was a fun way to reuse levels, i respect an upside down castle any day

i always expect to like these well known rpg maker games a little more than i do, and was kind of feeling that way most of my time with ib, but by the end it had grown on me somewhat

there are a lot of fun little touches with this one, and while this game dispenses with trying to be spooky fairly quickly, the light scares at the beginning are good. the theming of the game taking place in an art museum means looking at and trying to find each painting is fun, and the ability to zoom in to look in more detail is a nice touch. I also like that since ib is so young, she won’t know all of the words in the titles of paintings, so for it to be added to the main menu, you have to be with someone who can tell you, which adds a fun extra element to the painting finding.


i enjoyed solving all of the puzzles throughout too, especially the extra areas at the end.

had a fun time with this one!

the level design in this game is really creative and fun, letting you do stuff that just feels Fucking Cool, and the mech segments are neat too, letting you play around with a bunch of different loadouts and switch between them as you find them on the fly

that platforming is never that hard but it always feels fantastic and so fun, especially once you start trying to do fancy moves mid wall-kick

the story in this game is Nothing, but thats fine because its just a vehicle to have you flirt with your mech via action movie quips and do great levels which is what really matters here anyway

i played the famicom cartridge version of the game because it has an easy mode, which ive never played before and got me curious

games still super tough but this mode makes surviving the relentless second half easier, and makes the bosses Significantly easier if you get the multipliers for subweapons

anyway its still castlevania, so it looks fantastic, has very catchy music, and great (if sometimes evil) level design