Wow. Yakuza 0, is the start of one of my favorite franchises of all time. It's really a shame that this is the new "starting point" of the franchise because it's that damn good. I don't want to go on too much of a tangent, but a game this good sets a lot of unreasonable expectations for the franchise as a whole, and it's important to note all the Yakuza games are some level of "good". 0, however, takes the cake as the best, for now.

The gameplay is hard-hitting and unique, as you barrel your way through Kamurocho, a city that's only about 6 blocks wide, and 5 blocks long. Yeah, you heard me. It's a tiny ass map. Yet all the fun substories, missions, minigames, collectibles that actually give you good shit, and a complete list a mile long having you do and see nearly everything in the game? It's perfection, really. Yakuza mixes a collectathon with an inspiring story, fun combat, and so much to do. It's tough to say more without you just picking the game up yourself, and considering I regularly see 0 at 4.99 on PSN, why don't you just take my advice and buy it already?

But if you're not convinced, I get it. It's an open-world game, right? So many of those have boring and bland stories that just lore dump down your throats, and make some super evil big bad taunt you the entire 30 hours. Yakuza 0 isn't like that. Yakuza 0 bosses will try running you over in the fucking sewers with a goddamn motorcycle and a katana. They will make themselves known. You will be fighting tough enemies regularly, and having yourself challenged both as Kiryu and Majima. On top of all this is a story that brought me to tears several times, and an ending that might be one of the most compelling, wonderful pieces of fiction ever. Majima (up to this point) had almost no good character background or development either, and in 0, they fixed almost every fucking thing about his character, giving him the development he needed while also highlighting Kiryu's bond with Nishiki (definitely something you'll want to know before you play Y1/Kiwami 1.)

Yakuza 0 is RGG perfection as it weaves a path through some of the greatest games in history, giving it a perfect story and satisfying combat. For the price most people get for this game as well, the value is insane as you're basically playing one of the best games of all time, and working towards completing it, which can take upwards of 130 hours.

God, I fucking love Yakuza 0.

Ah, Undertale. I never really remembered how I heard about this game, maybe through some message board or defunct app, but it was probably my first "indie" game. Something under the radar, something meant to be discovered, and boy, did this game get discovered.

Thousands still, to this day, boot up the game again to give it another try, despite it almost being 5 hours and having the graphics of a DOS game. Not like that matters, but it's important to take note of how people will still flock to this game unlike the next latest greatest looter shooter Square Enix poops out.

Enough chatter though, the game itself. The game itself is an exploration of empathy, hope, willpower, confidence, bravery, really, the game explores every little facet of emotion despite some of the characters being the most two-dimensional beings ever, something Toby Fox knew that he was doing.

As you frolic throughout each world, you're treated to a blissful soundtrack and occasional random encounters. Undertale subverts the traditional RPG by not just encouraging players to kill, but players to try using actions (where most JRPGs put magic) to send the enemy away in a peaceful manner, either by appeasing them, or just wearing out their hatred until they're too tired to continue.

The game has multiple endings, despite the "true" ending being that of a true pacifist -- sparing all bosses and enemies you encounter. The first time, I really went into this game blind and got a neutral ending despite killing nearly everything in my sight (For the true bad ending, you have to grind kills in each area).

Playing through the other two paths, listening to more amazing music, understanding what motivates and drives these characters to do what they do, and engaging in tough and challenging battles? This game really has everything a turn-based game needs. I'm not usually a fan, but Undertale won me over way too easily. The game is great, and will be a legendary RPG along with all of Toby Fox's other work.

I remember buying this game a few weeks before COD: IW, hoping to God it would get its flowers before the yearly Call of Duty installment took it over. Overall, it got rave reviews, and a decent player base, but EA's expectations were that of a COD-killer, which Titanfall would never be.

Writing that paragraph physically hurt, due to the fact that this game is undeniable as one of the greatest first-person shooters in history. Titanfall 2 is everything you want from a shooter and nothing you don't. It's nearly perfect and took almost 4 months of my life since launch as I perfected the game and nearly prestiged five times, a feat no COD game would ever get close to from me.

Titanfall 2 comes with both a campaign and multiplayer. The campaign is good, not great, but has memorable moments that show the bond between Titan and human, along with flashy visuals, a good transitory period between shooting up a level, then hopping in BT and soaring around to take down a horde of enemies. The story thing is the only thing that seems okay, there's really no ideology or reasoning for the bad guys to exist, but that's okay, maybe it was explored a bit more in Titanfall 1 lore.

However, here's where I get really gushy: The multiplayer is phenomenal. Ethereal, even. Most game modes involve your character going on a fucking rampage the moment they hop out of the jet carrier. You're shooting playable enemies, non-playable enemies, some non-playable enemies even are hackable to turn them against their own team, and doing all that, you're building score for your team AND getting ready to drop down your Titan.

As you finally hit that 100%, your Titan is ready, and you watch your beastly mech fall to the surface of the planet, awaiting a pilot. Taking too much time will put the mech on autopilot, as you can fight alongside it, and have that good buddy-mech feeling reminiscent of the campaign or The Iron Giant. Except, y'know, killing is fun here!

Regardless, some unlocks in the menu are a bit weird, and I kinda hate the whole "unlock token" system (COD was doing the same thing at the moment) for progression, but this game is amazing, and we need a third.

Fuck Apex, fuck the new system in which they prioritize battle-passes for progression and underdeliver day 1, this will be the last great multiplayer FPS that has no microtransactions and a hellishly good time.

Titanfall 2 is a masterpiece.

Absolutely an insane game and is rhythm game perfection. I think this game really pushes the meaning of what a rhythm game should be, and that's why I absolutely adore it.

Where most rhythm games are basically clicking a button to play a note, or strumming/pounding/drawing along on your plastic controller, Thumper says, "eff that." Thumper says, "why don't we have a game soundtrack that's industrial and grating, only sounding the best when you fully complete a track with an S rank?"

Thumper throws out all the preconceived notions you should have about a rhythm game and turns it into an aggressive assault on your eyes. You speed down a track at thousands of miles per hour, flicking your controller up and around just to time it right as your beetle grinds off a wall, screeching just the right frequency to send your dopamine sensors reeling.

Thumper is everything a rhythm game is not, and yet? It's amazing. Probably not for everyone, and difficult to 100%, but a game unlike any other, and a game that really makes anyone who does play it think about it a whole fucking lot.

I actually feel super attached to this game but will admit I didn't play Mario Maker 1. Judging from the reviews, many found that superior. I'll trust them on that, but this game still is nothing to sneeze at!

Mario Maker 2 ups the stakes by adding a new kind of level, the New Super Mario levels as a base, along with creating more innovative levels that don't even revolve around going from point A to point B, but creating fulfilling requirements like "collect this amount of coins" or "defeat x amount of this specific enemy."

These are all amplified with the wonderful levels in story mode that show the best this game can be: fun levels in which you're not allowed to jump, levels in which you hunt for coins and play something more like a Metroidvania, a level in which you don't even have to move and you'll still complete it!

This game is just perfect for creative people and for gamers alike. I think Mario Maker 2 is a Switch must-play, and really shows the creativity of the Mario community that isn't PC ROM-Hackers, even though those guys probably deserve more credit for how tough those Kaizo levels are.

Just a good, fun game!

Okay, I've composed myself from crying at the last cutscene. Whew, okay.

Yakuza 5 is a fresh taste in my mouth after two games that weren't bad but didn't reach the same highs that my favorite (Yakuza 0) did. Yakuza 5 veers back hard in that direction, but I can't help but feel like some parts of the story weren't properly developed, along with gameplay choices that are a bit tough to process.

So, in the gameplay department? Everything is great, or, most things. I think Kiryu and Saejima are amazing, developing off their past kits, and making Saejima a literal beast that can melt anything is a lot more deserving of his character. Akiyama is great too, those aerial kicks flow like butter, and create a lot more fun moves out of making him damn near inhuman when it comes to hops and flows. Haruka is playable in this game, and her rhythm games are fun and adorable, my only issue is the lack of songs will leave you dancing to "So Much More" 10-15 times in her section so, hope you like hearing it, but I did.

I think the only gameplay gripe outside what I've mentioned is just how off-kilter Shinada feels. I totally respect the new approach they went with him, but he feels really strange in not great ways. I understand that he's supposed to be a weapons master rather than a beatdown brawler like the previous three characters. That makes sense! But, it's really hard to choose between the sturdy variants of weapons that deal fuck-all damage, or his fists, which actually do damage but no great combo really exists for him, so I tried to play him like Kiryu and it went...eh. I definitely did not feel like I mastered him the way I did other characters, and I think it really ruins what is an awesome game to play all the way through.

Now, the story. By God, Yakuza 5 drifts back to a pretty great story with loveable friends and villains. I think it does take a while to get good, Yakuza fans might not love how obtuse Kiryu and Saejima's parts are, but by Part 3 and Part 4, the ball is rolling enough to make you want to see how the game ends. The cutscenes are hefty, and the dialogue is huge, which really provides a ton of tenderness and love for these characters. Almost every line in the game is voice acted, at least.

I think the only part where the story goes wrong is somewhat retreaded ground and a few unlikeable "mastermind" villains that really don't show up at all until the end of the game. Got some major Jingu vibes here, people. I'm kinda missing that Ryuji Goda or Daisaku Kuse energy, someone who really is prevalent and eventually learns their lesson, at a cost, or through Kiryu's fists. I never really felt that in Yakuza 5, nor in 3 or 4. I think some moments are perfect, like Haruka's speech at the end of the game (Yes I cried, very, very fucking hard), but developing on that front throughout the game with more likable villains would help. Especially how interwoven the themes are in this game: get ready to take a shot every time someone mentions "dreams". But I like it like that, and it provides a more coherent theme for this story, and a lens in which you can analyze the characters through.

Yakuza 5 is a magnificent game that is a few steps away from perfection. It lands behind 0 and 2, at least to me, but it is a wonderful game that everyone who's continuing their way through the series should play. It's only held back by a few issues, but I'd still play this any day of the week (And I'm gonna, because I need that platinum trophy.)

I played this on PC while it still worked, lol. As many other reviews state, it is very unlikely you'll be able to get it in working order.

That's a damn shame, because Saints Row 2 might actually be the best open-world game I've played, and it rightfully at the time gave two middle fingers to Rockstar's "ultra-serious" and cliched approach to making open-world games, with the grey, drab, GTA IV.

Saints Row 2 is different. It operates on a massive, silly scale that really shouldn't work. The first mission is a prison break. You bust someone out of court, and even the fucking judge blows down the door with a shotgun and is an enemy who's shooting at you. Everything is just next level crazy, and it's especially true whenever ANYONE dies. I don't think there's been a game to take death as seriously as Saints Row 2 most of the time.

The gameplay is pretty much a standard open-world affair like a GTA game, but better. Instead of hanging out between missions going bowling, or doing some other boring side activity, Saints Row 2 does not back down. It tells you to go in a sewage disposal machine and paint down buildings with liquid shit. It tells you to set yourself on fire and drive an ATV through gasoline cans. It's not just another open-world game, it's an open-world game in which they say "fuck you" to the realism aspects in just the right way that you're still playing a gangster game, and the story is still serious for the most part.

The missions are fun, I think two out of the three gangs have some of the best villains, writing, and twists in any game, ever, with the Ronin and The Brotherhood, both gangs that do some pretty fucked shit to get where they are, and you have to match their crazy to pull ahead as the Third Street Saints. I don't really love the Sons of Samedi, and I'm refusing to mention them because they're a lot more humorous than serious, which disrupts the flow a bit.

Regardless, I just don't know how this game hasn't gotten a remake or a better version. It's really better than most open-world games, and walks the line between humorous and serious perfectly, along with creating likable characters, fun missions, and plenty of side content to keep you on the game. Play it if you can!

I can't be the only one who thinks this is a damn near masterpiece, right?

The gameplay is pretty unique for a platformer and has a ton of tech you can really work out to extend jumps. Yeah, the first few levels are probably tedious as fuck, and you'll think this is just another platformer, but getting to later, more chaotic stages, rolling around, timing the jump just right, doing a spin, and fluttering back down? It feels just like platformer perfection. It's just nice this game has that sort of Mario Odyssey-esque feel to it, the feeling that when you really master your surroundings, you can climb larger gaps, do the time trials quicker, learn the cycles for enemies, and perfect your runs through the Knitted Knight trials.

The only frustrating parts of this gameplay really revolve around the wasted opportunity for cutscenes and the very limited in idea boss designs (there's really only 3 boss archetypes this whole game, blegh!)

The music though, is bomb as fuck. I really enjoy the fact a lot of it is sampled from EDM songs, along with each level in a world having a charting pop/rock/funk song to play around with. I won't spoil what songs they are, but they're pretty good choices that fit the popping environment of Sackboy well, and attacks and movement often sync up to songs in really fun ways that challenge your hearing as much as it does your parkour.

Playing with a friend is seamless, and a fun experience along with creating your sack-character. There's tons of gear to collect by mastering levels, along with the fact that every month or two, Playstation just adds a couple of skins from their biggest IPs like The Last of Us and even some Fall Guys collabs. It's really fun to mix and match bodies and emotes.

Overall, I'm pretty sad this game never got its flowers, or is being compared to the previous LBP games. It's great all the way through, and I think just a couple of minor slips prevent it from being one of my favorite platformers in years. Really awesome, and I think it's worth a try!

Bayonetta 2 is great, wonderful even! I just had a really hard time finding it to be anything more than derivative from the original, making me feel just overall okay about the game.

The gameplay is just as great as the original, if not better with additions of new weapons, and gear, but the same classic Witch Time as always. This is probably the best thing about it, and I wouldn't really want them to switch it up too much, so I'm completely fine with what this brings to the table.

The story is sort of a miss for me. I really didn't know what was going on most of the time, and I would love to replay it for whatever I did miss, but all I really gathered is that they added new characters, made Luka useful and ended up replaying the same story without anything that new.

Bayonetta 2 isn't bad, it's fine, but it really lacks any memory in my mind. There were cooler moments like her having some mech-sized battle with one of the larger demons controlled by the main villain (forgot their name), but outside of larger-than-life battles, this game really didn't do what Bayonetta 1 did. But it would be nice to replay this game sometime!

This game is so hard to recommend now, but it'll probably stay in my favorites despite its datedness in many regards.

The gunplay is unique, and in my opinion, both Borderlands 1 and Borderlands 2 have fun gunplay despite how inaccurate most guns are under level 20. You'll usually pick up a rusty piece of shit shotgun that can only fire once or twice, but has heavy damage and will explode a psycho's head off cleanly. It's really fun to tinker around and gives rare loot a serious appeal and charm when you finally land a blue or a purple gun. I think the only thing that holds it back is often no strategy other than running at enemies and if you die, winning your fight for your life mode as quickly as possible. Not a lot of skill or fun can be had in these games, and it's not rewarding just to keep throwing yourself at a boss or an enemy until you get lucky enough to win.

The story is probably the best Borderlands ever got. It really progresses well for a game's story, which I think is the main appeal to it. You go from the bottom of the barrel, nearly dying at the beginning to a train bombing and the creatures surviving in Pandora, to taking down small bandit leaders, to larger bandit leaders, to taking on a corporation and their full weight of robots at their disposal. It works a lot better than most other games's narratives where the villain just thumbs his nose at you, through side missions and the main story, you get to watch Jack sort of crumble and get progressively more pissed at the Vault Hunter for being able to survive this far. It's really charming, and it brings out the best of his villainous role, much more so than previous and current Borderlands villains.

The side quests are great, some as short as 10 seconds, others with an hour or two to really keep you invested in its storyline told between quests, and it's fun to choose sides in certain quests that affect the rewards.

Overall, I think this game is great, but I completely understand the hate. The writing hasn't aged perfectly, it still does a lot of reference humor that most people wouldn't get, single-player is much harder than playing it with a friend, and the game looks pretty ugly comparing it to even other games at the time.

But to be honest, no matter how many times I play this game, and still give it a new shot in my brain, wondering if my childhood image of this game will dissipate -- it doesn't. This game still feels fresh, new, and fun, and the DLCs are probably the best released in any game, ever. I get the hate, but I still find it hard to find terrible things that make this game hard to reccomend.

Control is a good game that has one of the most unique concepts for a map, lore-building, and interweaving narratives. It's held down by a somewhat weird gameplay formula and unnecessary crafting and building system.

For gameplay, it's a pretty standard Remedy affair, but instead of going the Max Payne route of jumping and diving behind cover while landing two brilliant headshots, it takes a bit more to the skies, giving Jesse aerial options along with finding ways to slam chunks of the environment against the possessed enemies of the Department of Control.

Storytelling is also pretty good. I think this game needed maybe a bit more of a direct, engaging main story rather than kind of doing 10 missions that feel all unrelated to each other, but involve a "main cast" so to speak, like Ahti the janitor, and the various doctors who have experimented with these abhorrent creatures from another universe. It gets better if you do a lot of note-collecting and has more things explained to you, but I believe it's a bit better for a narrative to not only stand on its own but for aid to supplement it, instead of this game leaning on its hundreds of collectibles to have certain things make sense.

The creativity and originality also blows me away with the decorative halls, and grey facade similar to a federal building's brutalist structure, yet hitting that sort of "this place probably hasn't been upgraded since 1950" architecture as well.

I think the one spot where this game falls flat, where most modern games fall flat, is the stupid, bad, no-good skill trees and crafting/builds the system. I get it, it's an easy 10/10 to IGN and shitty other journalists to have extra complexity and crafting, but holy fuck, this game did not need it. It needed anything but that, and yet they did it.

There are multiple weird currencies you use to upgrade abilities, a rarity system, and a huge skill tree that's unfinishable so you'll be digging into a couple of trees just to realize you probably need to respec your build 10 times, and that costs lots of currency :/

Please, for the love of god, stop doing this devs!!! The more annoying it is, the more points I feel like taking off. It's unbearable in this game, and probably the worst implementation I've ever seen in a game, hands down.

Control can be so good if they just give in to making it a fun game, not some stupid looter-shooter mixed with narrative mixed with crafting system God of War 2018 shit. Stop making crafting systems devs, especially if they're just going to suck the fun out of the game.

Whew. This is probably the first game I ever really got to try on my own merit. I had played the first half at 20FPS thanks to my terrible integrated graphics, but with the know-how of installing a 750 TI, the game ran at nearly 100FPS at the highest settings, and I thought it was worth a restart.

I've played this game countless times, but one thing I'll never say anything bad about is the gameplay. For the time, this just felt so beyond where it should be. The guns were completely customizable, the takedowns were quick and brutal, and flying through the skies was seamless if you didn't run into a hawk. Tagging out an enemy base, being able to see them through walls as the enemies did extremely human actions, like taking a piss while you shove a blade through their back, everything about the gameplay was amazing. I think there's a good reason this series hasn't messed with that formula for nearly 10 years. It works, and to play it back in 2012, and even today, it still feels original and akin to a new game you'd buy in 2022.

The story is such a mixed bag, and it's probably the one thing that holds me back from being over the moon about this game. Vaas is great. I think he came when his character trope wasn't being overdone or replicated like every game wants to do now. He was this guy who was often sentimental, bipolar, and completely sadistic while giving Jason every chance to take his life. He was just the right amount of crazy, mixed with the right amount of profound.

Then, you realize that's the first half of the game. Oh man, who is bigger than Vaas for the second half? Hoyt. This literal weirdo human trafficking guy who is less of a pirate, and more of an FBI's Most Wanted dude. But he is much more in line with most villains in gaming, being dumb, obtuse, rarely shown, and completely lacking any coherent ideology than "I am a villain and I take what I want." He really sours the second half as there's no real good moment with him, until he kills arguably the best character in Far Cry history just to scare the player, which is...okay.

I don't even want to talk about the multiple endings or how weird the final cutscene is, on either side. I kind of hate the Act 2 and Act 3 with most of my heart, so, yeah. It really sucks that this game was so so close to probably being perfect in my eyes, but it seems like they took the great writers out after Vaas is "killed".

A great game though that's worth a try to anyone who wants to see one of the better Ubisoft open world games. This really is more profound than their new fodder with Assassin's Creed, or even Far Cry 5 and 6.

I don't think this is some sort of masterpiece or gaming perfection, but it often reminds me of an era in which we weren't afraid to have silly games and expansions that were just made to be fun.

Is the story good? No, it's basically meaningless and set as some 80s thriller movie with a whole lot of cheesy moments dumped over it. I doubt almost anyone could quote even a moment from the story that isn't the first 5 or last 5 minutes of this game.

Is the gameplay good? Some ways, yeah, others, no. I think it's an extension of the already good Far Cry 3 engine, but I think the way enemies work in this expansion is super annoying. You won't be driving much if a blood dragon gets the sight of you, and you may be walking around just to get owned by one too. You can't kill them with ease until you've maxed out everything you've done in the game, so good luck trying to avoid them or cheese them through other means.

That problem doesn't exist in FC3 and I'm happy it doesn't. 3 would be so much more irritating if some enemy could kill you anytime you ran into it, but I don't mind it that much in Blood Dragon thanks to the mobility upgrades.

Honestly, this game is probably closer to a 3 or 3.5. But I do miss this era a fuckton, and I'm not afraid to say I'm nostalgic for times when this was the quality of the average DLC, and not what we get now. It's just fun, doesn't take itself too seriously, and doesn't overstay its welcome. Just a fine game.

This was a pretty powerful expansion and was akin to a cold drink after walking through 500 miles of the desert of A Realm Reborn. Maybe that biases my opinion but it's still a wonderful expansion and I think this was the best XIV ever got to great narrative cohesion.

All characters are likable, the dungeons are sprawling, massive, and take on enemies 15 times your size through unique mechanics like defending a bridge or fighting a dragon while defending an NPC through epic boss battles. This really was the peak experience I had with XIV, and while it didn't really blow me away, it left me craving more, despite heading back to that 500 mile desert for Stormblood.