Shenmue is one of the most AAA video games I have ever played. Look at the release date, man. That's a pretty old game! Shenmue had people walking around meticulously detailed homes and picking up items to closely examine them long before modern Sony latched onto this idea and made people hate it. I always knew people loved Shenmue, but I can't help but feel the quality of it has been completely undersold to me. I was aware of the goofy English voice acting and forklift driving, but was not aware of its Yakuza (Like A Dragon)-like structure. Not to say it's exactly like a Yakuza game. There is far less combat and a bit more interactivity with the world itself. While Yakuza is a blend of JRPG and Beat em up design, Shenmue is sort of constructed around a point-and-click adventure game structure (and fighting game combat). Narratively it has a similar flow as well. A domino effect of events continue to fall throughout the experience. It starts with one goal that gets stretched out with steps added on in between A and B. It plays out like a detective mystery. Talk to this guy to learn about this other dude who wants to meet you somewhere at a certain time to tell you about a specific thing. It's a wonderful chain of events.

Shenmue does something I find unique with its 'quests'. It yearns for a realistic human experience. For example, you might be trying to find out where a character likes to hang out at night: This leads you to ask people around town for clues. Normally a game will push you along this process and tell you where to get this information from. I don't mind this streamlined narrative design in most games, but I do appreciate how Shenmue approaches the idea of gathering information. You have to discover it on your own and sometimes the people you ask will not be helpful at all. They may be completely wrong or you may discover a better idea than that which was given. An example that comes to mind is when Ryo needs to obtain a plane ticket. He gets advice on where to go. You go to a travel agency but it's far too expensive. Someone says to ask another character about cheaper flight ideas because they travel a lot. Before I even reached this character I decided to chat with a guy by the vending machine. He then tells me that traveling by boat is the way to go if I want to save money. This indeed is how the story will progress. I assume talking to the friend who's a travel expert would simply result in them telling me they don't have any ideas for me, but I loved this natural feeling of chatting with a stranger and obtaining new solutions without being strictly directed to do so. This feeling lives on for the entire game. People are people in the world of Shenmue. They aren't quest givers. You gain a sense that this town is alive and the people actually know each other. It's authentic.

There's an intended inconvenience to everything as well. You don't have a minimap, you have map posts around town. As far as I know you can't even get a map to carry around with you. This was slightly tedious to me at first, but I loved this when I started to get around based on the visuals alone. I knew Ryo's home and all the towns like my own house after a while. If I ran around with my eye fixated on a minimap all the time I would never memorize the geography. I developed a morning routine. While working on the story objective I would get a coffee from the vending machine, snag a couple toy capsules, purchase food and drink for the stray cat, and continue with my day. I made sure to talk to certain characters every day. When one of these characters tells me I'm one of their best friends by the end of the game I felt rewarded for my intrinsic desire to talk with everyone. I would probably get the same dialogue from that character near the end of the game, but because of my daily encounters with them it felt like a reward. He's my best friend too!
I didn't want to be home too late. I wanted to go play pool with the scumbags at the bar after work. I wanted to take care of the cat. I wanted to collect all the toys. I wanted to win the forklift race. I wanted to get a raise every day.
I repeat the 'want' to emphasize that I wanted to do this, I did not need to. Shenmue is not interested in forcing the potential of its experience on you. Something so many modern AAA games fail to achieve. They have an amazing experience but only if you do it their way. Shenmue's world detail and player freedom is staggering. Not just for 1999, but in general.

I've seen some criticism over the part of the game that becomes a forklift simulator as well. I can understand this not being fun for some, but Shenmue never lost my interest. I had fun working as a forklift driver. There was a simple enjoyment in doing the work well and making more money every day. However, I believe the repetitive nature is on purpose and totally intended. Ryo is about to graduate high school. He's 18. The guy is about to become an adult right as his father is killed. The first half of the game is still driven by this plot, but you have so much free time to run around the towns and have more "fun". Suddenly you're working full time. You gotta wake up earlier. You only get free time during lunch and maybe a couple hours after work. You see co workers more than your own friends and family. The feeling of not having free time anymore is crushingly real. I missed being able to check on the cat with the town locals. Most of the shops I would visit were closed after work. Life was devoured by work and the main plot. I would possibly feel nostalgia for the first half of the game if I were to replay it. This is cool thematic narrative design. Ryo is forced to grow up as fast as possible. The game provides a bite sized serving of what it feels like to...grow up and get a job. Never does Ryo lament his youth and complain about work before bed every night to hammer this idea in. You experience it and feel it for yourself.

Shenmue is a fantastic looking game as well. The changing skies. The shifting of weather. The barking dogs of the neighborhood. The bustling noise of a busy street. I love using the trigger to control running speed like a gas pedal on a car. I love how perfectly Ryo walks up stairs (people obsessed with accurate stair climbing animations will adore Shenmue). I love collecting music tapes that all have unique album art. I love collecting toy capsules. I love that there are two different versions of darts to play and an arcade with older sega games. I love that I can take pictures off the wall of my home for no reason. The amount to do is almost unnecessary. The voice acting is goofy and compressed to hell, but if you can't have fun with that, the Japanese voice acting can soften the silliness. I think the goofy old "obviously voice acting" voice acting is fun to experience, but it is not what defines this game. It's not always that bad. I was still capable of taking the story seriously.

Of course the story isn't over and Shenmue II is waiting for me. There's a lot of mystery and unanswered questions. I love that! It's an absurdly confident video game. This left a huge impact on me. Shenmue is an all timer. This was my first time playing it and I was consistently impressed by it. It's not impressive for it's time, it's impressive for right now.

This is my first Yakuza game and I have somehow convinced myself that I love this whole series already. I want to play the rest of them immediately. I recognize the “entry point” conundrum for this series. I usually argue release order for any series, as each game is always made with the previous in mind to some degree. It makes sense to play a series in a way where you see it grow mechanically as well.
However, there was a strong argument for 0 being a friendly entry point. The original couple games may be slightly dated and 0 was specifically made as a new starting point. Then the remakes of 1 and 2 released after 0. So yes, I started with 0. If this worries or upsets you, well just look at the score, man. I loved it. You don’t gotta worry about my experience with the series being soured because I played em wrong. Yakuza 0 got me to immediately dedicate myself to playing the rest of these games at any cost so it did a good job.

I loved the story. I loved the sense of humor. The drama was emotionally brutal. Amazing voice performances. Luxurious worldly detail. The busy and believably cluttered stores and streets. I don’t think we need video game graphics to improve much more than this. The hangoutitude is off the charts when JRPG-like random encounter goons aren’t up in my stuff. The beat-em-up 3D streets of rage-like combat rarely required strategic thought, but it remained fun in a very arcadey way. Clearly this is the intention! I don’t think it’s trying to be devil may cry. It’s the most video gamey video game while also having a story that is grounded in reality. I may have a sneak attack animation in which I snap a dudes neck like a twig, but it’s easily understood that the protagonists did not literally smash motorcycles over goons’ heads and kill them. Yakuza is not interested in having us kill thugs and later wag a finger at how bad video game violence is. You knock guys out, but narratively death is a very serious thing. These characters do not want to cross that line.

I love the balance of tones here. A lot of great cinema serves many flavors of tone. A story that discusses severely heavy topics (and takes them seriously) while also having moments of absurd humor tend to be some of my favorites. Yakuza is like a layered cake of tonal flavors. You have your story in which everything is taken 100% seriously. You have side quests of a sillier nature that lighten the mood but still feel based in reality (there’s a spectrum with the side quests for sure) and then you have goofier side activities like karaoke in which you see the characters appear on stage as a rock band. You have combat encounters that involve you smashing a motorcycle over a dudes’ head several times, whereafter he will simply sit on the sidewalk rubbing his head a bit. The tired conversation of ludonarrative dissonance is not necessary here because Yakuza eases us between these different layers with ease. It’s not confusing at all. It works its magic trick immediately. The tutorial of this game is essentially a tutorial for how to enjoy these games. They tell real stories, but they like to have fun too. It’s cool game/narrative design!

Yakuza is also unique in the sense that I felt more comparisons to television than movies. Most narrative focused games take after film, whether it’s cinematic structure or writing. The pacing of Yakuza has you playing a season of a television drama. After completing a chapter or two each night I would end my session as if completing an episode of a series. This made the flow of the game work flawlessly. By the end of it, I knew I had to immediately purchase Kiwami 1 and 2 (and eventually the series as a whole).

Yakuza 0 is special. I have no idea if it will be one of the bests in the series for me by the end or if this is considered a high point by fans, but I’m excited to dive in and enjoy it at my own pace. I don’t want to rush it. I want to savor my time with these games. I love video games and video game stories, but it’s wild to play a game with writing comparable to actual prime time television dramas and not just “really good for a video game”

If you as well as me have been itching to try these games but are too nervous to choose a starting point, I offer my perspective. 0 felt like a perfect introduction to me. Sure there’s an occasional moment of keeping track of all these families and characters, but I never felt I was missing key information. I understood the story from start to end. Every character felt interesting and had strong development. It won’t be confusing for you. I back up the notion that this works as your first Yakuza game. Take the leap. I’m enthralled to continue the journey.

Better than I remember. Likely because this version makes it so much more fun to actually play. The Genesis stuff is still a head scratcher to me but it’s hard to say that it gets in the way because everything that would make a good Zack focused prequel in a very direct sense is still here. I respect how much it aspires to stand on its own. Game looks so good now too. This feels like a necessary experience before Rebirth comes out.
It’s full of mega awkward dialogue and overly ambitious metaphorical prose and themes, but that’s what makes it a bit more memorable than if it were a standard prequel. I know most aren’t crazy for the compilation stuff, but I at least think that crisis core adds so much to the world and characters. It implies more stuff happens than we were originally shown, but I don’t feel like it takes away from anything established in 7. Really dope game. It’s a quick and snappy experience too.

Really solid game. My excitement for this game took a bit of a nosedive after a certain point in the story though. I went from being blown away to feeling like the story became incredibly uninteresting out of nowhere. Takes a hard left turn and it felt like the first half of the game was nearly abandoned. Idk if it’s just me but I really found the pacing odd. The concepts and handling of the characters are amazing though for the most part. Miles though? Dude felt sidelined. I liked that he was handling the smaller scale stuff for a while but he felt pushed into side character territory. It’s a mixed bag. The game is jaw dropping in presentation and gameplay, but also riddled with bugs and crashes. My game crashed three times and I encountered soft locks twice. Just like the first game I think the real meat of the game is treating it with ps2 energy. Swing around and have fun, fight crime, dive off tall buildings etc. I didn’t really enjoy the side content here. The mysterio stuff was so cool at first but quickly became repetitive and boring. Same goes for all the villain related side content. I just started ignoring the sandman stuff and the hunters after some time. I was totally enamored at first but the game felt weirdly front loaded. Not saying it’s bad though. The story here despite my problems is one of my favorite Spider-Man stories in a long time. A lot of genuine emotion here. Unfortunately the excitement of swinging around New York shined most when it felt new in the last two games. It’s our third time on this map and I lost interest in free roaming far more quickly this time.
Feels like a Tears of the Kingdom situation. It’s obviously an improvement but I couldn’t help but feel less of an impact. Doesn’t help that so many segments in this game are reminiscent of every single other PlayStation IP. Gotta walk around with an over the shoulder camera and look at things with triangle. The Mary Jane missions are pretty fun here as well but read as Junior Crew Last of Us. Idunno, I sound more cynical than I expected to. I really had fun with Spider-Man 2 and it was a delight to play. However, as soon as I rolled credits after playing for a couple days I don’t feel like going back to get a platinum trophy or anything. I can see this being a very special game to many people. The accessibility is outstanding, the sentimentality of the story and its characters, genuine representation, it’s awesome to see. I def get why people are losing their minds over it. Don’t let me ruin it for ya

This one’s a doozy. Always heard Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII was the worst. Not just the worst of this specific trilogy but one of the worst final fantasy games in general.
Is it though? I really dug this game. It’s genuinely fascinating to me. It may even be my favorite of the trilogy and I liked XIII a decent amount. There’s so much I love about Lightning Returns. It has problems but from a gameplay experience I enjoyed it almost the entire time. I feel like I liked it as much as Crisis Core for example.

Lightning Returns is clearly lower budget. The hilarious Spirit Halloween-esque adornments used for NPC character designs. The awkward dialogue. Hope talking so much that he interrupts himself or doesn’t get to finish a sentence because you’re doing a quest. The horrible performance. It comes down to a lack of polish with its presentation. The core ideas, mechanics, themes, and especially the music are really great and unique for the franchise. Especially the combat system.
Customizing clothes and trying to make schemas look as stylish as possible was delightful. Schematics are a lot of fun. It feels like a pure split of action and turn based. I was never bored of fighting because even when it was easy I was still engaged by the action-like inputs and having to pull off perfect guards. It has a similar flow as the paradigm shifts but the execution in battle feels completely unique. It’s very clever. It feels like a would-be prototype for 15’s combat.
The music is amazing too. So many tracks depending on the area, time of day, multiple battle themes. It’s so varied. There’s some weird vibey ambient tracks that I adore now as well. Dark moody jazz pieces, a lot of textured percussion, brief moments of vocal melody, it’s great.

The game also exudes a weird uncanny mood in a way that I dig. Perhaps not always intentional, but a world where everyone knows they’re about to die has a somber tone to it, even if a lot of people just go about life like nothing is going to happen. I like the Snake / Otacon relationship Lightning and Hope have here, even if they’re a bit robotic. Lightning is hilarious in this game though. Despite the narrative device of her not having human emotions I loved her personality at times. She’s so stern and cold. Telling children they have meaningless existence, throwing moogels into the sky, she has a fun presence here. The writing often sucks though. She over explains everything for the player a lot and Hope will repeat things you just learned. It’s a bit much sometimes but it never made the game annoying to me. I think people are far too cynical about how boring and uninteresting lightning is.

I want to go out on a limb here and observe a potential meta element as well. There’s high chance this wasn’t the idea behind the story, but I feel like I enjoyed it decently enough because of this connection whereas most people take this story far too straight.
Final Fantasy XIII and its original big picture ideas for the future of the Final Fantasy series series obviously died out upon backlash. Seeing these characters mourn that their world is coming to an end and people will forget about them is incredibly dour. It feels like they’re reflecting on the failure of their world and lamenting that it has to come to an end. Their lives didn’t go how they expected and it’s time for a new world to be born. Then VersusXIII became XV. A new world. It’s oddly reminiscent of XIV’s reset as well. I have never seen this observation made so I’m not sure if this is me looking into it too much or if so little people cared enough about XIII to afford it this kind of emotion. On paper this story is really stupid and silly, but the context of what XIII’s world was to a lot of fans and the developers makes me feel a strange sense of mourning and investment when it all comes to an end. Their world had to end but they all get to live a calm and happy life in the end which I find a charming resolve for a band of characters that were often hated by fans and lived in constant stress and misery in the games.
Lightning Returns is a weird game. There’s such a stigma around it and I never expected the game to be as cool as it was. It deserved a second look from the fans. It’s my favorite of the trilogy and overall a cool final fantasy game. There’s a lack of polish and you can see through the cracks a lot. I just really loved the core experience, the tone of the world, the music, the depressing mood around the story, and finally my own personal observations between its story and the real world development of XIII. A remaster that cleans up the visuals would be genuinely exciting to me. I don’t adore this trilogy but I’m glad I finally played them and gave them a fair shake that I didn’t afford it in the past. I’m gonna miss the world of XIII in a weird way but I’m happy to move on.
LR > XIII > XIII-2

Final Fantasy XIII was a lot of things but it wasn’t uninteresting. XIII-2 technically does a lot of things better as a video game. It’s far less linear, the combat mechanics are available right from the start, you can explore areas without constant combat encounters, talk to NPCs, side quests etc. On paper this is a far better experience. Sometimes it is for sure a better game, but in the end I reflected on my experience and found it to stick with me far less than XIII.

XIII-2 is pretty good. It retains the amazing paradigm system, but rarely did combat encounters require me to problem solve as often as XIII. The level design is more open but the timeline system makes the levels feel completely disconnected. The story is kind of easier to grasp early on, but I miss the high concepts of XIII. XIII was interesting to dissect and learn about the story despite its low focus on world building. Somehow XIII-2 feels less like a cohesive world. The lower budget is also incredibly obvious. It feels more like a filler episode at times than a direct sequel. I do really like Noel as a character though. Despite his loose presence, Caius was a relatively cool villain as well.

Everything here would probably make for a far superior final fantasy game but it’s lower budget and polish really held it back. It’s a texture thing (a general feeling type of texture - not a literal visual textures thing). Stuff like the environments, character models, UI design etc just felt like a massive step down. That’s not a huge problem; I dig the Ps2 vibe this game has. It has the vibe of a lost ps2 gem. It’s not a hidden gem though, it’s a sequel to a massive final fantasy game. I think that association is what holds it back for many. It’s not that it’s a bad game necessarily, it has a lot of aspects that would make a fantastic game. Yet even for me it’s hard to look past what it came from and see it as something fully unique.

I do want to point out the ending chunk of the game though. I loved it. Without spoiling it there’s a point where the story finally clicks with me, but it came after a long period of what felt like meandering around a bunch of levels collecting items. It comes around and wins me over a bit though. The ending is so shockingly dour and upsetting and I love that. Clearly it was that way to lead into Lightning Returns, but I respect that they went that direction. It’s great stuff!

I enjoyed my time with XIII-2. It was an attempt at a new original story with mostly new characters which is really cool. It varied gameplay far more often and strayed from becoming too repetitive. It has the Crazy Chocobo song. It’s fun! It was pretty short too which helped a lot. People always said this game was way better than XIII because it directly addressed the criticisms of XIII and designed a game around that. It was an apology of a game. Personally something about that made it less interesting to me. XIII radiates confidence in what it is even if it’s not always great. I’m not even sure if XIII is a better game overall. XIII-2 felt ashamed of XIII and just wanted to make fans happy. It succeeded in some areas and had a lot of decent original ideas of its own, but my conclusion with these 2 games is that XIII-2 may be a better game on paper, but XIII is the game I end up having more respect and admiration for despite its glaring issues.

There’s solid vindication in replaying a game you used to hate and changing your mind about it.
I first played Final Fantasy XIII about 10 years ago when I first moved out on my own. Being 19 at the time I was a bit more susceptible to wanting to mirror the opinions of people I followed online. I always heard FF13 was trash. I knew every problem with it but not any of its positive qualities. I went in expecting to hate it; I went in with a content creator’s mindset of picking it apart for humor. I got to chapter 9 back then and quit (I couldn’t beat the boss and I did not fully understand the combat system). I didn’t give it a fair chance. I wasn’t willing to be honest with a piece of media if it had a reputation that preceded all of the discussion around it. Well, I’m here almost a decade later and I’ve finally completed the game. It’s good! Some aspects of it are even brilliant. Some other aspects hold up as I thought they would, but overall I’m glad I gave this game a fair try. It deserves some praise.

Let’s get negatives out of the way. Final Fantasy XIII is pretty bad at first impressions. A lot of stuff that’s actually good about the game is not apparent until a couple chapters in. The concepts of the story seem convoluted and overly confusing and the combat seems incredibly one-note. It takes far too long for the game to unlock all of its mechanics (especially being able to customize your party order). I don’t really agree that it’s only fun halfway in though. I think that’s a slight exaggeration. That’s when it is finally at its best, but I was enjoying it earlier on as well.

The world building feels pretty non existent. It’s near impossible for me to picture what normal life on Cocoon is like. There’s a point to this as you’re meant to constantly be on the run and in danger with no time to rest, but I really felt the absence of towns and talking to NPCs. There’s only a couple of moments in the first half where you get to freely walk around an area with 0 combat encounters. It’s so hyper focused on the main party’s motives that you loose focus of what life is meant to be like in this world outside of that. It makes me not care about the world for most of the game.
I could hammer down on this point, but it provides a really unique experience for the series. At the time this was more of a problem with people because they feared this was the future of the series. We now have sequels and new numbered entries that intentionally go against the game design ideas of 13. Remaining upset at 13 for this is a bit silly. It now has its own unique identity as a final fantasy game and we have since received games that rectify its problems that most fans had with it. Replaying it with this in mind helped me enjoy most of the experience. I still believe the linearity makes certain stretches very boring. There’s a lot of run and fight and run and fight. Some levels are stretched so thin that there’s a sense of thankfulness when you finally trigger a cutscene.

Hope comes across as insufferable for a while and his drama with Snow is so strange to me as it boils down to miscommunication. It’s a shame because he’s a decent character when the melodrama settles. Melodrama is the keyword for the first half of the story. It’s a bit grating, but I loved when the characters were finally united and working together. It’s a decent main cast! Generally I think Hope ends up being the character who sees the most growth. I really like Sazh and Fang as well as soon as they’re introduced. Lightning is ragged on for being a copy of Cloud. I get that from the opening chapter, but I can’t picture cloud taking a character like Hope under his wing in a big sibling kind of way. If you know Cloud’s whole story then you would know there’s not much tie to lightning’s characterization other than what texture of “cool person” they are designed to be. I honestly think it’s because there aren’t a lot of stone cold, stoic, aggressive, more emotionally suppressed female characters. People say she shows no emotion, but she does, they just aren’t happy bubbly feminine emotions. She isn’t one of the best protagonists of the series, but her design is iconic enough to imply that she is. I’m split on some character designs here, but I love lightning, fang, and Sazh the most in this regard.
Vanille could be a cool character if not for her voice performance. Not that the voice actress did a bad job. It’s about the direction she was given. The constant moans and noises would make it awkward to play in front of most people, especially given her childish demeanor at first. It’s a pretty frustrating trope and it’s a shame it’s constant throughout most of her performance. Conceptually as a character I like her story and her pairing with Fang though.

______

Positives!

The Paradigm system is one of the best combat systems in the entire Final Fantasy series. It’s not even a question. I’m honestly baffled so many people (myself included in the past) claimed this game totally plays itself because of auto-battle. Again it’s an issue of first impressions. They shouldn’t have held mechanics from you for more than a couple hours, but when the combat starts requiring actual strategy it is unbelievably gripping. It’s about all you do for most of the game and I was always having fun coming up with new party formations. Looking up what paradigms other people use online was a fun experience too. Some bosses provided genuine challenge that I haven’t felt from many of the games. Giving paradigms recognizable titles is a genius design idea too.
The auto-battle is necessary. It’s possible to ignore it, but it isn’t a lazy decision to include it. Most of your decision making is from timing your attacks and switching between paradigms. The combat has a Xenoblade-like thought process for me. Choosing paradigms felt like selecting arts. Making sure you have the right paradigms for each battle is like customizing your arts load out. Having to manually select every attack would make it tedious. Sometimes it is necessary to do this, but I never found myself mashing X outside of generic enemy encounters. There’s so much to keep track of with your party and it’s so fast paced and engaging. I never felt like I had to turn my brain off. Some of the best FF games are guilty of having Mash X to win battles. FF13 appears to be the worst one for the opening chapters and that’s a huge problem, but when it finally kicks in it kept me on my toes constantly. The Stagger system is a work of brilliance too. I’m so glad they brought that idea back for FF7 Remake.

Final Fantasy XIII screams “high budget” as well. I cannot believe this is a PlayStation 3 game. The visuals hold up shockingly well. Even more so now that I’m playing XIII-2 and can see the comparison. The artistry and design work is fantastic. I especially love the details in the UX. The pause menu is sleek. I love the short clips of the characters that play on their respective screens. The font choices, the look of the crystarium. You can tell they had time to polish this game to a ridiculous shine.
And obviously the music is perhaps some of the best in the series as well. So much jazz influence. You can tell it’s composed by a classically trained pianist. One of the best main battle themes as well. Certain boss or character themes are a bit lacking, but generally I found the music to stay in my head whenever I wasn’t playing it. Such a triumph of a soundtrack.

It caught me off guard how many CGI cutscenes there were as well. I usually expect a couple (in the beginning, middle, and end) but you get so many throughout the game that it feels like watching a high budget movie that looks far better than Advent Children. They were always a nice reward when completing chapters.

I also sense a lot of passion and care when it comes to the concepts of this story. The story telling itself is a bit questionable, but the concepts and all the terminology are so in depth that I could see something similar coming from a FromSoftware game and fans would eat it up trying to unravel the world. It’s a really solid ending too and not one that felt incredibly obvious or typical of Final Fantasy.

The people who made Final Fantasy XIII were clearly excited about it. There’s a lot of mistakes and shortcomings that came from their philosophy behind making it, but it’s a uniquely textured video game because of it. It stands on its own now. I’m glad it didn’t become the standard for the series, but I’m not glad it was ripped to shreds so much that they seemingly became ashamed of it. A remaster of these games would be amazing. I think it’s cool to see some revisionism for it. It’s not one of my favorites in the series, but I can understand why it may be for someone else. I love that I can look at this and appreciate it for what it is and respect the artists behind it instead of labeling it as trash and disregarding anything I could love about it.

Haven’t played since release. It was pretty rejuvenating and humbling to revisit it again - especially right after playing the previous games.

Undoubtedly deserved more praise than I initially gave it. I was a bit of a hater. Its level design is easily the best of the series. Its combat is great even if it’s not as tightly realized as 2’s. (Turning off keyblade animations and ignoring attraction prompts makes the combat much snappier).
It’s gorgeous - it has moments of writing that work on a pretty high level. (Remember: writing isn’t just about literal dialogue).

I still retain some of my original complaints, but was pleased to realize I enjoyed most of my time with this game upon replay. Understanding the story prior to 3 isn’t as big a chore as we all make it out to be. I still like 1 and 2 more, but 3 is exactly what a modern HD Kingdom Hearts game was always going to be.
It’s rare to see a game go out of its way for the hardcore fans instead of trying to take it easy so newcomers can understand everything. This series loves the fans that followed it unconditionally to this point - and as problematic as I find implementing vital story elements into mobile games - they made it easy to play them on one system after a while and corrected the multi platform issue.

I really dig this game now and I’m beyond excited for what’s being set up in 4. What a wild series. It’s dumb, corny, and frustrating at times, but it’s so proud of what it is, and nothing like this series exists outside of itself.

I haven’t played this since launch - the Royal edition is a huge improvement. I liked it a lot more than I remember! It’s still a huge mess and the story is so awkwardly constructed, but the main 4 guys make any redeeming quality of the narrative work. Combat is a million times better being able to switch characters, the ending chapters are more interesting, and the general pacing feels better.
I love so much about this game despite it being horribly unpolished in a lot of areas. It’s clear they had to salvage this from VersusXIII’s remains, but it’s a miracle anything tangible rose from those ashes. The story on paper is awesome, but is so awkwardly told that it’s hard to follow in the moment. It’s a cool entry, but it’s an above average one to me. Despite that, the main cast is some of the best the series has to offer and I love the hang-out nature of the game. I def get why this game would mean so much to people though. It’s overflowing with sentimentality and love, especially due to the main cast’s dynamic. Really cool game. Was wild going back to this after XVI.

Played for the first time - pixel remaster
What a wonderful experience! The design of this game is so tight and balanced - if you didn’t play the original NA release apparently. I found this to be incredibly challenging. A lot of boss fights had puzzle-like problem solving. It’s quite impossible to mash attack on every enemy and win the game. I love that I died a few times and really had to think about what I was doing wrong. The progression is relatively simple but I loved visiting each town and castle. As condensed and snappy as the pacing is, they really manage to squeeze in a ton of personality to the main cast and their respective home towns. It does just enough to feel like a legitimate story with drama and twists.
I was often letting my mind visualize a modern visual style behind events that took place. FF4 made my imagination run wild. I believe the constant twists are pointed at as goofy and stupid, but for how old this game is, I think the honest and genuine attempt at creating exciting drama is commendable. Having just complete FF16 recently, I love how much DNA of 4 is obviously in certain aspects of it. Modern games need to take their time with cinematics, voice acting, 3D traversal etc. I love modern FF, but honestly I loved spending an hour or two playing 4 every day and feeling like I progressed the story a lot. Doing that with 16 was rarely possible. Not every game needs to be fast paced, but it’s occasionally nice to complete a game within a week without dedicating hours a day. The compact and snappy nature of its story is absolutely a positive aspect here.
The difficulty of the boss encounters contrasts that, instead having you slow down to think about your party and what purpose they serve for each fight. The way party members leave or get swapped out with other characters keeps your tactics fresh too. It is the antithesis of repetitiveness.

Lovely game. Beautifully designed and paced. Some of my new favorite music in the series. I did play the version available on switch, but I avoided using cheats for my first playthrough. This feels like a perfect starting point for the series if you haven’t tried out any. A game born of simpler times with some modern ideas - ideas so modern that this in a way feels like the A Link to the Past of Final Fantasy. So many ideas were conceived within this entry.

Final Fantasy XVI is perhaps the first Final Fantasy entry in a long time to be born of complete intrinsic desire. The state of its development and inspiration wasn’t derived from a reaction to an evolution of the game industry or feedback to previous titles.
So many games after 6 felt motivated by something very specific, whether it was the first 3D game, choosing an aesthetic based on a previous entry, going back to a more classic style after too much departure etc. 13 was especially driven by the technology of the time and was so much like 7 that people just wanted a 7 remake instead - so we got a 7 remake (which rocks). 13 got sequels because it sold well, and then the later branching games within the 13 universe became original titles because it turns out people didn’t dig 13 as much as they thought. 15 is only 15 because it had to be. It felt too big to be a spin off, and it was unique enough to get away with re writing it into something new. Its open world nature might only exist because fans called 13 linear between every breath they took.

This isn’t meant as slander against these previous titles as I love almost every FF game I’ve played, but I do think this an aspect reflective of 16’s specific quality - it being its own thing and fairly unconcerned with being something that fans requested or demanded. In fact, some people were not pleased with how unique of an identity 16 had - thus was served the most flavorless and overcooked steak of conversation - “is 16 a real final fantasy game / is 16 a real RPG”.

During my playthough of Final Fantasy XVI, I kept waiting for the moment where I would understand the common complaints people had with it. This was a Final Fantasy experience to its core for me. The series is known for each entry changing something up in a radical way. XVI being an action game is a strange complaint that feels out of touch with the series. Listen friend, Final Fantasy has been veering into action adjacent territory since the ATB system. Even more so with 12. Even MORE so with 15. Yet AGAIN with 7 Remake. And I’m not even mentioning the plethora of spin off games that constantly experimented with different styles of action combat. XVI being as action focused as it is was not a leap off the cliff, it was the final step on this staircase.
I hate to break it to you, but if the video game has “Final Fantasy [Number]” as a title - it and everything about it is a Final Fantasy game at least for that entry. No single FF game is definitive of the whole series. Some people might say 7, but some people have only played 7.
7 rocks! It rocks because it was such a departure. If Final Fantasy XVI does not feel like a Final Fantasy game to you, that is because it isn’t similar enough to your favorite Final Fantasy game - or the last one you played. Final Fantasy thrives on experimenting with itself. The natural evolution after XV for another series would be to go even bigger. “Oh dude they totally gotta make a breath of the wild-like Final Fantasy, dude”. Instead we have a game with ps2 level design (compliment). Its narrative has obvious inspirations, but to say it exclusively feels like certain single inspirations reflects the regurgitated opinions of others and a lack experience with it - or having played no more than a few hours.
As soon as spiritual creatures monologued about human consciousness, will, the power of love etc I wondered how anyone was still claiming this was just Game of Thrones. I don’t recall Dragonball-esque fights taking place in GoT either. Hence the flavorless conversation buffet. You don’t even go to this restaurant, what are you leaving Yelp reviews for? You’re that bored? Everyone needs to say something about this game even if they don’t actually care. It for sure has been inspired by other works, but to call it a copy of those works is an uninspired observation.

If anything, the narrative of Final Fantasy XVI provided me with a similar satisfaction as a xenoblade campaign.
I really loved the characters in this game. The boss fights here are so good too. I thought of Azura’s Wrath a lot which is a shocking comparison to make in 2023. Combat with normal enemies rarely felt stale either. Despite the focus on action, choosing which abilities to level up and equip had the tiniest bit in common with Materia. It’s not a similar system at all, but managing my abilities for certain situations was a similar form of fun - if not the most beginner friendly version of an RPG build. Having the convenience of refunding ability points at any time is also something worthy of some type of award. Take note, developers!

The pacing in the first half is for sure better. I saw claims that the story totally falls apart halfway through but I disagree. The pacing isn’t as consistently good in the second half, but the main story itself continued to keep my attention. Calling it the MSQ feels more appropriate. Instead of a consistent narrative plane, it saw a lot of dips due to side quest overkill, but also a lot of highs because of certain boss encounters and the continuing elevation of the story. It generally evens out. The story is great! It establishes its concepts beautifully. Never is it hard to follow, and never did I need to google something out of confusion. It literally has a quick lore guide accessible at all times just in case - an idea that I hope everyone rips off for the rest of time.

The side quests are the big problem here. A lot of them are wonderful and have great moments of writing and character development that I would deem necessary for the main story - especially near the end (please don’t skip the ones before the final mission). Plenty are also as basic as xenoblade 1 side quests but take twice as long to complete. Half of these needed to be cut. Dropping a dozen quests after each story chapter began to feel tedious. I ended up skipping the dialogue of several side quests near the end that didn’t involve a character I cared about. The dish washing-like splendor of these quests I believe are the root cause of people saying that the second half falls apart. I would bet money that skipping any boring or useless side quest would lead to a consistent narrative pace for the entire game. At the start there’s only 1 or 2 to finish every now and then. Before the final mission they rudely plop more than 10, and then when you complete some, even more pop up. It’s groan-worthy, though plenty are absolutely worth doing. Do not skip any that involve a character you like.
Seriously though, I kept predicting I would “for sure finish the game tonight” only to spend my evening after work grinding out side quests and then saying “guess I’ll beat it tomorrow then”. This happened twice. It would not let me go. The visual aesthetic is homogenized for story reasons later on as well which makes jolting around the world feel more repetitive than it should.
This is a weird half-problem though because they are optional. I could just skip them. However, the game trains you to expect important rewards from them. Some increase your potion quantity. You get a mount from one. Seemingly unimportant fetch quests sometimes contain important rewards. I was taught to do all of them just in case. I think a replay would be far better knowing which side quests are okay to skip because they mess up the pacing so much near the end. There’s an argument to be made in favor of this tedium. Perhaps we’re meant to share this overwhelming burden of responsibility with Clive - making us feel what the protagonist is feeling by obligating the weight of his responsibility onto us the player.
That or an MMORPG development team designed this game and that’s how they roll.
This complaint inadvertently acts as a compliment towards the main story too. I was so invested that I was bothered by the idea of halting story progress because I wanted to know what happens next.
It doesn’t help that almost all of them have C tier animation work, so you go hours before seeing a character move like a normal human or have proper lip sync. I don’t need the animators to crunch out better animation for everything, I would’ve been okay with less stuff to do in general.
This alone keeps XVI from feeling like a 5 star masterpiece, though perhaps on a replay I’ll feel more inclined to forgive it. It’s my one huge issue with the game.

XVI still has qualities that are top tier for the whole series. Perhaps my favorite iteration of Cid, some of the best music, the best boss fights, incredible world building, and the best voice acting by a hundred miles. The game isn’t that hard, but I did die a few times and always had a blast with the combat system. I don’t care that it’s not a FromSoftware game. Relatively average difficulty is a nice standard to have sometimes. Maybe have a hard mode available at the start next time though? Options are good.

I love Final Fantasy XVI. Clive is an amazing protagonist. His development is more subtle at a certain point, but he works brilliantly as a main character. A lot of side characters are wonderful too. Dion, Gav, and Cid being my personal favorites. Even characters like Blackthorne, Charon, and Otto have endearing side quests that make your crew feel more like a family. I wish Jill was a bit more interesting later on. It feels like her character arc happened far too early and she plateaus a bit.
I complain about the hollow side quests, but plenty of them do elevate the best qualities of the game. It’s a decently fair trade off - it just needed tightening.

Final Fantasy XVI is pretty high up on my list of favorite FF games as of right now. It could possibly make it into the top 5. It has pacing problems with the optional content, but the story itself and the combat kept me absurdly entertained and hooked the whole time. It radiates the energy of some classic titles. It kind of falls in the same park as IV, XII, and XIV. Part of me can easily picture this game in a SNES style because of the structure. It’s a wonderful game that’s so beyond confident in itself. It’s the first final fantasy game in a while (for me) to not have a huge asterisk next to it. XVI does have one, but it’s small and essentially optional. It has a side quest problem later on, but they at least provide wonderful world building and character development. The level design never took a strange departure, the mechanics felt complete, the visuals and game as a whole are very polished. I’m beyond satisfied with the state of this game as it launched. I’m sure more updates and DLC will happen, but I’m happy they will be enhancements and not patches to make it feel more complete. This series is amazing when it take chances like this. XVII might not be anything like this entry, or maybe it will continue to tighten this formula. We also have VII Rebirth to look forward to. I’m enthralled as a Final Fantasy fan lately. I have full confidence in the future of the franchise.

An update. I recently read my initial review of this game and didn’t find myself fully agreeing with it anymore. Not to a drastic degree - I still really love this game and adore my experience with it, but quicker than any other game I’ve played, I’m finding the recency bias has dissipated to an alarming degree.

I still stand by a lot of my initial thoughts, but having time away from the game has made its issues red hot. I believe it is still a big improvement over BOTW in most ways, but I think I’m seeing through the cracks a lot faster now than with BOTW.

Last week I went back to do more post-game stuff - side quests, filling out the depths map, shrine completion etc, and I found myself hitting a wall with some of the redundancy. This game is carried by its first playthrough. The Depths blew my mind when I first discovered them. What once was exciting and mysterious is now shockingly redundant and predictable. The Depths don’t offer much once you know the pattern of their design. The excitement of having an entire 2nd map lasts most of the game, but going back to it after beating the campaign made me realize I wasn’t motivated or excited to fill it out any further. I was motivated in a check list kind of way. The sky islands are a gorgeous diversion with occasional surprises - but just like the depths, they cease to offer more excitement once you discover the pattern. They’re horribly similar half the time. Getting the gliding suit was a wonderful experience, but so many islands are obsolete and lose purpose once completed. At least with Hyrule you never feel like returning to certain locations is totally pointless. Sadly the sky islands dwindled down to the point where I only went to them when prompted by a quest.

I still stand by the base Hyrule map being amazing. I replayed BOTW before TOTK and never found Hyrule to feel redundant with its main areas. Seeing the world develop is organic and wonderful. Catching up with characters from BOTW was nostalgic and charming. This is clearly where most of the development time went. That and the general narrative which I love. There are some story moments that are so brilliantly and subtly done. Nothing about the story felt lacking to me and there are several highlights that resonate as being some of the series’ best.

Overall, I can’t stand by my previous statement that this could be up there for my favorite zelda game or one of my favorite games in general. I still love it and my first time with TOTK will go down as one of my favorite video game experiences, but I don’t think I could replay it and enjoy it nearly as much. The abilities are still a game design achievement though. I completely get why this would be someone’s favorite zelda game and I’m certainly taking a strange stance atm, but I’ve fallen out of love with it at an alarming rate. My time trying to return to it rattled me with how rigid and unmotivated I felt to do anything else outside of walking around and enjoying the visuals (when it’s not cloudy and grey). I really expected to dive head first into completing all the shrines, side quests, and light roots etc. Even content like the koroks and holding the signs up were blatantly tired to me halfway through my first playthrough - to the point where once I had enough inventory slots I started ignoring koroks. I did maybe 25 of the signs before I began to skip them.

The lead up to the dungeons are superb and possibly better than the dungeons themselves to a degree. There’s so much room to improve for future games. I don’t wish for Nintendo to drop this formula (I mean they confirmed they won’t), but I hope they tone it down for the next one. We don’t need each game to get bigger and have more busy work. The side quests were mostly great in TOTK, but I do think there’s more padding than good well designed content upon reflection. It’s not bad padding though, but padding shouldn’t also be compensating for something.

Also a random tangent: I love the fuse mechanic, but I can’t be the only one who HATED walking around with certain fused weapons and shields. I never fused a shield unless it was circumstantial because I didn’t want a giant rock on my back. I always wanted to walk around with the master sword when I had it because it bugged me how dumb link would look half the time with a bunch of garbage glued to his weapons.
It’s just a nitpick - I love the mechanic - but I just wanted to have normal looking gear sometimes. There’s some cool looking fused weapons for sure, but most are really goofy. I want to look cool when exploring, and despite how fun fusing is, you quickly end up only fusing the same few monster parts over and over. I likely had less than a dozen monster parts I’d rely on for arrows and weapons by the end.

TOTK blows my mind in a lot of ways, and my adoration for it hasn’t exactly gone away. I’ll always love how in love with it I was, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was released from some kind of spell upon beating it. I’d love for the next zelda game to have a smaller focused open world, and perhaps a more linear approach to progression. The do anything anywhere idea has been great for two entries, but I’m pretty confident the magic of that is totally drained after TOTK. We don’t need another shake up or brain melting revolution of game design, just a tighter version of what exists. Getting items in a certain order during the story and having an actual difficulty curve would be very welcome. I’m more excited than worried for the future of zelda. I still believe they put their all into this one. It’s not likely they’ll use this specific hyrule and its characters again, so a fresh slate with these ideas as a blueprint will undoubtedly lead to something even better.

5 stars instinctually feels excessive for a game with so many problems, but it hardly leaves my mind when thinking of this series. 2 should have never had a sequel, but 4 is such a fascinating chapter in the series when it comes to Kojima himself and the fans of the series.
Despite my issues with it, I still believe 4 contains the best highs of the series (and also the lowest lows)
The BnB unit is terribly written but make for halfway okay boss fights most of the time. The story over explains everything from the prior games and almost ruins certain story elements or character motivations. As much as I recognize the bloated writing in 4, I still find myself captivated by it. This game equates to Kojima making sure he will never have to make a sequel ever again. It doesn’t leave a single thread loose. Old Snake represents the game itself. He’s old, not as heroic as he used to be, falling apart but forced to play his role in this conflict, held to the standards of his past etc. I also find tremendous humor in the fact that this is yet another Metal Gear game that refuses to let you play as the “ideal” solid snake. 2 took that away from you, 3 was close enough but is still a completely different character, and 4 brought him back as an elderly man that’s always coughing and throwing his back out. Unless we count Twin Snakes, Kojima never let us play as Snake in his prime again. It’s very representative of the series. Kojima didn’t want to follow up 2 so he made 3 a prequel. He didn’t want to direct 4 but fell to the pressure of his fans that practically forced him to take back control. Snake feels like his self insert in this game. Not to paint kojima as a deity figure that created the series on his own, his whole development team deserves equal praise, but snake’s role in 4 feels like a mirror to how this series just won’t end even though it should.

This isn’t really a criticism. We Love Katamari is one of my favorite games and it too was a sequel that likely shouldn’t have existed because the director didn’t want to make a sequel - but instead of half assing it due to obligation, they used those expectations of a sequel to create a very specific tone and style that had a strong voice behind it.

MGS4 is a train wreck but it feels like a game made by a team that really loved its fans and wanted to go out with a memorable bang. Despite the obvious narrative problems and incomplete gameplay ideas, MGS4 succeeds in having one of the most emotionally engaging finales of any video game ever made. It kind of lands on its feet somehow despite its almost intentional desire to ignore pacing structure. It’s such a weird game. Nothing like it exists, even within the series it’s a part of. I love it even if I feel like I should hate it sometimes. Complicated feelings like this are meaningful to me. I don’t rate this 5 stars because it’s mechanically perfect and an ideal example of game design or story telling, I rate it high because it just feels monumental when I engage with it. My favorite experiences aren’t what I consider objectively perfect, they’re the ones that stick with me and refuse to let go.
I value a flawed game that feels special to me over a technically perfect game that doesn’t provide a strong personal experience (which includes being simply fun). Personal experiences are important in art and I object to the obligation of grading a game like a homework assignment based off the standards of others. It’s why I only use star ratings when it’s a 5 star. I like to highlight games I’d consider my favorites, but my time with games or movies shouldn’t be boiled down to a math equation. Some people enjoy that process which is totally fine, but this is my subjective way of engaging with media. My experience is more important than my rating.

I’m incredibly curious how the public will react to MGS4 when it inevitably is ported to modern systems. Will reevaluation be favorable? It won’t impact how I view the game, but I have a feeling it’ll be far more jarring than when it initially released. It’s going to be fun to talk about it again with a bunch people who play it for the first time, whether they love it or hate it.