no spoilers as always
I initially was a lil turned off by the art style, but had to try for the queer rep & cause so many folks seem to love this game, & I'm so glad I did! I actually warmed up to the art style quite quickly~ the environment BGs in particular are so pretty!
I thoroughly enjoyed the extensive options for pronouns & other social terms/titles, & how such a wide variety of different kinds of queerness were woven into the characters & their relationships so naturally (whether gender, sexuality, romance, relationship style, family structures etc). I really loved the characters, they all felt real & had interesting arcs, which u really need to do multiple playthroughs to experience, it's designed really well for replayability! I really appreciated that following the kids from age 10-20 was well handled, with everything feeling v age-appropriate.
while it maintains a fairly light & sweet not-too-deep vibe, it definitely doesn't shy away from darker things like death, grief, illness, mental health, trauma, tragedy...
I loved the way relationships between the characters & ur player work!! all the characters maintain their agency & stay true to their desires & needs, even when they change- it doesn't stoop to that gamified/coercive/transactional entitlement zone that games too often do. i do have a few critiques, like how even though there are some open relationship & polyamory options (which is wonderful!), they are still based in a hierarchical relationship escalator ideal (ie: open relationship is less serious/commited than an exclusive "romantic" relationship) & most options are actually quite mononormative, but overall I was quite impressed!
the gameplay is very straightforward & simple, & I found the whole combo of everything to be quite engaging and enjoyable! I may utilize the dice rolls in place of the card game on further playthroughs (which I for sure will do!), a cool option if u wanna focus on story.
that being said, the story is alright? it's nothing groundbreaking that's for sure, it's definitely more focused on the characters, but I felt like it didn't really need to be anything more than it was.
it does touch a bit on the complications of what it means to colonize a planet, & I was sort-of satisfied by the level of critique in my playthrough, though I think it could have easily been focused on more, & I wonder how different playthroughs will affect what I think. I did appreciate that it wasn't heavy-handed & focused more on giving space for u to think on things. however, keep in mind that there is a wiiild amount of different possibilities & variations on how each playthrough might unfold, so I'll see how further playthroughs inform my perspective~
overall, a breezy & cozy game with a simple & enjoyable gameplay loop, adorable characters & a satisfyingly huge amount of choice & variation in how the story could unfold!

spoiler free as always
I loved it~ it has its issues, but they didn't stop me from having a great time! definitely recommend it

- u can tell there is a loooot of love poured into it
- so much freedom & closest to a true roleplay experience I've experienced in a video game yet
- character creation is rly fun! lots of customizability, but not so much so that it can veer out of the games art direction. we've still got a long way to go in terms of representation, but this is the best I've come across yet
- great characters that rly want to make u get to know them & care for them
- rly fun combat (played on balanced), & there's just so much there~ was still experimenting with playstyles & learning fun new things after 170 hrs, impressive feat, also just a wonderful capture of d&d
- great music, at times a bit generic yet great, & sum truly great tracks that stand out when they need to
- awesome sound design, v creative & varied
- love the cinematic aspects, the motion cap, the many great voices. the fact they have voice lines for when ppl are alive, a whole different set for Speak with the Dead, & for all animals with Speak with Animals, and for countless different scenarios based on different decision u make or what class or being u are... mind-boggling
- beautiful visuals, a world that actually feels alive & not just big to be big
- story is fun & though overall it's not super ground-breakkng or emotional, the wild & tricky dilemmas they put u through rly makes sum parts of it impactful, especially as u get to kno the main characters better. I cried several times at the ending, so that's a good game to me!
- the more intimate relationship scenes were surprisingly well done, u can tell they had an intimacy coach in the crew! bravo
- while the bar is very low in video games unfortunately, the levels of communication & consent in character relationships was much better then I anticipated, best I've seen yet! long way to go, but it's slowly happeningggg
- I just love how much Larian has managed to show up & flip the gaming industry on its head, a good solid step towards a future where all game designers can access health, wellness & creative satisfaction, gamers can enjoy games with real love poured into them, & where the creators & gamers can truly have a relationship instead of just unsustainably printing rushed products that are then consumed with no thought to the humans at it's origin

critiques:
- I do agree that the pacing of act 3 is a lil sloggy, esp after the epic build in act 2, but I quite enjoyed it regardless
- the character creator rly needs a cpl more body shape options/adjustable height & weight, and sum options like prosthetic/missing limbs or rune-powered chairs, wud help soo many more folks feel like they are appreciated, invited and can relate to their character, and just enrich the experience overall to be that much more human.
- while they attempted to allow avenues for a more open approach to relationships (which I rly appreciated as a relationship anarchist), it is still obvious that the creators were operating from a very mono-normative perspective, with almost all situations not allowing u to roleplay outside of that mindset (or even a cpl times, not allowing u to engage in proper communication or consent practices unfortunately). yes we have a long way to go, but tbh after experiencing this i have faith that this team could rly do that in the future~ it's definitely the closest I've seen an rpg get to portraying & encouraging healthy relationship dynamics
- i understand that this is a game based on a game that is based around combat and violence, but it would've been nice to have non-violent options available for more situations, i didn't like how many times i just had to fight no matter what, even when it didn't really make sense that there wouldn't be a non-violent approach.
- some of the issues I have are actually with the more problematic aspects of d&d~ like it's racist+ origins & it's continued influence, calling these different beings races at all in the first place & largely putting specific beings into distinctly good/evil categories- also why is looting & hoarding still such a prominent & encouraged aspect? makes me v curious to see what Larian does going forwards with projects that don't have Wizards of the coast & their baggage involved (will definitely play divinity 2 to get a better window into that too, I'm curious)

I gave it a shot, but this simply isn't a game for me. the unfortunate structural stew of queerphobia, misogyny & toxic masculine power fantasy feels pretty icky right frum the start, & completely undermines it's attempted message of "be yourself & change the world." also the sound design feels segmented (what's with the production on the voices? v strange), & I personally don't enjoy the music. there are sum accessibility issues for me too, like the contrast being way too high, too much distracting movement in it's stylized elements & the fonts are hard to read & all that makes the UI hard for me to navigate. I attempted to ignore all of this, but even so it simply didn't grab me story or gameplay wise. I'm definitely gonna try SMT out tho, I feel that may be more my style.

no spoilers, & this is for hackers memory & thoughts after both games

these games are just really fun~ my feelings about this second installment are very similar to my feelings about the first, so I won't go on about those as u can just read my other log in here if u want.

as for hackers memory specifically, I found the lil quality of life improvements to be welcome. the music ofc still slaps! the story is alright, similar in quality to the first mb a bit better, tho it was a bit of a bummer sumtimes to have to play a guy, I missed how much queerer it felt to play as a girl in cyber sleuth. it got better towards the end, even stirring up sum emotions at sum points which I didn't expect. I didn't appreciate the ableist aspects of the narrative though (or the slight seasoning of misogyny that popped up here n there), it's cool that one of the main characters is Disabled but u can tell that whoever wrote it still has a lot of ableism to unlearn. I also really like Yu as a queer character, tho they kinda dropped him at one point that felt jarring, & ur interactions with him didn't leave u any agency to decide how u relate with him unfortunately seeing as u are playing as a more specific character in this game.

oh, there was a certain animated sequence toward the end at one point that I absolutely loved, wud love to see more experimentation like what they did there, v psychedelic!

I liked the addition of 3-person battles to shake up the approach to combat every now & then, but sum additional things like territory battles & the whole taking-friends-on-quests thing felt a lil uninspired. I liked a lot of the additional digimon designs, tho sum are just really hard to achieve without lots of grinding...

once I beat the game, it was really confusing how continuing ur game or new game + worked... & for sum reason u can only transfer digimon from your Digibank in Cyber sleuth into hackers memory, not any of the party or farm digimon... which is really frustrating as far as I can tell there is no way to go back into cyber sleuth & move digimon into your digibank, so I don't have access to most of my Digimon from the first game- bad design. there are still a few digivolutions I haven't gotten yet & am not sure if i will be able to find a fun way to keep playing to achieve them.

overall, I highly recommend this series! despite its flaws the two combined kept me engaged for longer than most games have, and it's definitely a way better monster-catching game & overall experience (better gameplay, story, characters, queer representation, evolution system etc) than pokemon main-line games, so pls check it out if u haven't yet! i picked it up for like $15 or sumthin, it goes on sale for cheap. I hope they do another game like these- better accessibility settings, difficulty settings (something other than super-easy & grindy-hard) & better story would take this to a whole nother level!

no spoilers
I luv this game!! it's not perfect, but it's so unique & I rly grew to luv the wunderful quirky (tho not suuper deep tbh) characters~ so much so that I cried a few times, esp during the credit scenes at the end. the art is absolutely stunning (the lighting & warm colour palette!!), the sound design & music are incredible, the animations smooth & pleasing~ the non-linear character story hopping is expertly crafted, and tho things do get a lil heady & labrynthine at times (which turns down the emotional factor a bit), I enjoyed every second of it; it made me formulate so many theories & kept me guessing till the end. the writing is great & the Japanese voice-over is top-notch.

I thought the strategic combat parts were really fun! I looked forward to each battle & I think they managed to capture the epic scale pretty well~ it's a pretty simple system but honestly i'm glad they didn't get too complicated with it, made it easy to just jump into a battle & have a lot of fun. played on normal & it was somewhat easy, will definitely check out the intense mode.

overall a very smooth and effortlessly cool anime-ass game- if u luv sci-fi, character-driven storytelling, visual novels, point&clicks & RTS/tactical RPGs than this is truly a must-play imo!
+ performance on switch was perfect, only sum slight lag at the very end of the final battle due to the sheer ridiculous numbers of kaiju, & even then didn't effect my experience

cons: definitely sum misogyny issues, plus sum partial teen nudity, tho I didn't rly find it particularly sexualized (except with one character but she is an adult) or obnoxious, so it didn't bother me- & I'm sumone who is ace-spec & hates anime fan-service, so ya jsyk.

also there is sum queer rep:

light character spoilers

also! there is sum great (& pleasantly casual & non-tokenising) queer representation (one character in particular) in this game which made me so happy to see~ I luved his nonchalant & ambivalent relationship with gender & sexuality, very cool mix of non-binary/trans/genderqueer/crossdresser vibes. I saw sum ppl online (aside frum the usual boring homo/transphobic nonsense, cuz yawn) complaining that they shudve used they/them pronouns, but to those ppl I hope they can realize that anyone of any identity can use any pronouns! it rly doesn't matter. oh, & the other queer character's struggles figuring out his own queerness felt real & was honestly pretty cute~ that all being said, the rest of the game is very cis-hetero-mononormative jsyk

great vibe, pretty art (love the muted colours), awesum music~ as a visual novel/point & click obv gameplay is quite simple, but I luv those genres & rly enjoyed the cpl lil minigames sprinkled in there. the characters are simple & fun, the story is interesting but not v subtle & sometimes feels too heady, a lil disconnected from the body~ I do appreciate the grey areas they explore & the questions they make u ask throughout.

I notice a lot of people in reviews find the deadnaming part offensive, but it didn't bother me since it was related to medical files, & many trans folks do not want to or are not able to access/afford to change their legal name sooo it made sense to me. also, it seems like in this world, gender diversity & affirmation is more normalized, so people would probly have a very different relationship with their names. (& jsyk my preferred term is birthname, so ya my relationships with my names won't correlate with some of those who prefer deadname). I don't want sumthin like that to overshadow for someone that the character is really well done trans rep- I love how casually queer this game is. would absolutely love to see a bigger project based off of this, but I rly enjoyed being part of this world for it's whole short runtime, & even cryed a lil at the end.

no spoilers~ & this is just for the first game, cyber sleuth

i had so much fun with this game that I immediately launched into playing Hacker's Memory after 98 hrs of cyber sleuth~ it's not perfect by any means, with sum very uneven difficulty & invisible encounters for example, but the design is pretty solid, so that even grinding is fun (& u will have to grind a lil, even on normal). the story was fun & along with the character development it took sum unexpected & subtle turns that kept me engaged. as someone who was all about Pokemon growing up, this was super refreshing; actual characters, actual plot, darker & more mature themes, more challenging gameplay, & way more queer representation (the game is especially queer if u play as the girl)~ just a real one-up on the tired pokemon games (though I rly enjoyed Arceus, finally some innovation), aside from of course the classic digimon hit-or-miss quality in the monster design & naming department. I like how challenging it is to achieve some of the digivoloutions, & hard difficulty was actually hard for boss battles, which gave the game a lot more strategy elements. u cant just go in with no items & spam high-damage moves like u can in pokemon. I just wish they had spread the difficulty between easy, normal & hard instead of just normal & hard, because sumtimes hard was a lil frustrating & normal is way too easy, would've been nice to have sumthing in the middle as I found myself swapping between them (which I'm rly grateful you can do at any point!). the music is rly fun, I adored how cheesy it is from the beginning & then grew to love it~ I also thought the Japanese voice acting was good.

this collection is often on sale for really cheap, I highly recommend u pick it up if u like digimon, JRPGs, the monster-catching genre or are just in need of sumthing more fun & refreshing than main-line pokemon

oh, also, it is rly obvious the localization team had to translate the digiline texts out of context, which makes for some absolutely hilarious & often unintelligible conversations! i absolutely loved it hehe (& don't worry, the digiline texts are simply flavour & the rest of the game is translated well! tho sumtimes the cheese factor is veryy high or overly expository in the English translation)

this game is absolutely gorgeous~ the colours & visuals, sound & music, animation, character & environmental design are all just stunning & full of love & feeling. the gameplay is smooth & the puzzles range from pleasing & simple to a lil brow-furrowing with satisfying solutions. the variety of experiments that are successfully explored here is impressive, especially considering the shorter runtime. the story is abstract & emotional; it is obvious the creators of this gem really understand grief. they managed to make a beautiful, surreal, melancholic, dynamic and playfully hopeful story that reflects the experience of grief's waves, all with no text or speech whatsoever~ I played this over two sessions, & wow did I ever cry my eyes out when I reached the end~ all the while I had in my mind & heart memories of a dear friend who took their own life a cpl years ago~ they would have loved this game~
please play this!

so fun! played through the golden deer storyline + side story on normal + casual. the characters are just so loveable, the amount of character cutscenes just rly get u attached to all these weirdos. the story is fun, not amazing but decent, the best parts of the writing was more about the characters and their relationships than the plot itself. I did cry a little at the ending I got! but otherwise not much emotional depth. it would be nice if it wasn't so hetero & had more queer options... & just more queerness in general. I only got one queer option at the end & it wasn't someone I wanted to choose~
the level of customization is kinda ridiculous, but my lil autistic self soaked it all up lol. the menu diving is a little tedious (especially when equipping items) but u rly don't need to be in there as much as I was lol. the teaching & class systems are enjoyable.
the battles are fun, though I very quickly became overpowered & had to switch to using my weakest players each battle to up the challenge. will definitely play on hard next round & extra hard on my third playthrough.
overall, ya this game has its flaws but I love it regardless! the level of care put into these characters makes it shine~ definitely recommended if u wanna spend a ridiculous amount of hours hangin out with fun weirdos, talking & fighting & wandering around a monastery

i loved it! short, surreal & melodramatic stories along a dreamy & slightly unsettling exploration of the v unique Finch house. the transitions are so smooth between scenes and the simple gameplay becomes immediately obvious with each dramatic shift. the level of creativity & care in this project brought me a lot of joy, would love to see more games that are as adventurous as this team was here. it didn't rly have any emotional impact for me, I feel that would have taken it up a notch. also the footstep sound effects for going up & down stairs do not match the animation? which felt v weird especially considering the brilliant sound design otherwise. highly recommended if u want to embark on a trippy dream for a cpl hours~ definitely one I will revisit & show to others

oh & it looks & plays great on the switch lite in handheld! only one or two brief frame stutters in the beginning of scenes

curiousity pulled me to this game, & tbh I was initially very intimidated. I hadn't played a game this action-heavy for a good 15 years, so I dove in expecting a challenge. I felt pretty sure I'd like it based on the surface, but I had no idea just how much i'd fall in love with this game. it's simply incredible. it's doing something only a game can do, to an extent I have never experienced. it is an excersize in empathy, an experience of suffering, it's badass & it's stunning. its horrifyingly beautiful & hopefully bleak. it isn't a perfect game, but it is a tremendous, dark & hopeful journey that is going to stick with me for a long, long time. the music alone has permanently woven itself into my brain. please play this if u haven't yet! my favourite game so far besides citizen sleeper~

oh, & the switch version is absolutely fantastic.