RGG have done the impossible and made a game with not only good combat, but a story that remains compelling to the end credits. after years of being the only man on earth that wasnt that big into the yakuza games, i gambled on Lost Judgment hoping it would have what i felt those games lacked and was flabbergasted to find out that it did in spades. the combat finally has sauce to go with numerous options in how to handle one enemy or dozens, and the story is not only the best that this studio has likely written but also one of the best currently offered in the medium. rarely ever does a game grab my attention and hold it so vigorously but Lost Judgment, against all odds, did for its entire duration. the soundtrack is also one of RGG's best and thats saying something. kitakata-sensei did nothing wrong

The more of this I play, the more I realize this is an un-reviewable video game.

The emotional equivalent of the coolest, nicest, hottest people you know asking you to help them move and paying you with pizza. Rebirth has some of the most satisfying real time RPG combat with one of the best ensembles in video game history-- all shoved into a bizarrely designed approximation of a "modern" open-world game.

Reflecting on FF7's world map, the openness was more of a feeling than literal design. It wasn't until you got the Highwind near the finale of the original game that you could actually go anywhere you wanted.

Rebirth, ironically, is best when it's on the rails. There are some fun side quests here and there, but there is so much fluff that it genuinely feels like half of the world map activities were designed out of spite.

Ultimately, I am such an unabashed FF7 fan that even if part three is complete garbage, I will still be grateful that this remake trilogy exists. The characters all feel like fully realized versions of themselves, and there are moments of Rebirth that are high points for Final Fantasy overall. It's just a shame that somewhere within Square Enix they felt that a 10/10 story-driven linear action game needed to be shoved into another genre that doesn't feel built around Rebirth's strengths.

Well this is a charming little project :)

With Aggro Crab's upcoming crustacean-themed souls-like "Another Crab's Treasure," releasing this coming week, I figured I'd familiarise myself with their debut game, Going Under: Internships Are Heck, to give it its full title. Suffice it to say, I was incredibly charmed by the cut of this game's jib.

Going Under is a procedural roguelike dungeon crawler where you play as newly-employed intern Jacqueline Fiasco as she tries desperately to climb up the corporate ladder of her employer, Fizzle, a lowly subsidiary of megacorporation Cubicle. Though she was hired based on her marketing skills, Jackie finds herself instead trawling through dungeons and fighting goblins, demons, and skeletons in the vague hopes of getting a promotion.

It's a cute and humorous premise, and honestly, it gets a lot of mileage out of it, employing (pun intended) a sharp wit (with some genuinely funny dialogue) and a charming cast of co-workers to pull you into its world and keep you there with a simple yet engaging combat loop that never really gets tired, thanks to a rotating roster of skills, modifiers, and weapons that help continuously switch things up.

Needless to say, the art style is, of course, also a huge draw, seemingly drawing from corporate motivational posters as inspiration and spinning that off into its own kitschy, genuinely adoring look and feel for all of its characters and props.

Really, I'd say the only part that could bring the whole thing down a bit for many people is the difficulty spike in the second half of the game. To provide a bit of context, as spoiler-free as I can make it, the game has its own "rotating of the castle" moment at the midway point and encourages you to go through it all over again except with an extra challenge this time in order to get the true ending.

Now, usually, prospects like this (especially if they are mandatory to seek out the "true" ending) generally turn me off, but to its credit, Going Under isn't a particularly lengthy game; it has a really enjoyable gameplay loop, and there are some handy 'assist mode' settings for accessibility purposes that you can tweak on top of that, so it's really not as taxing as that might sound.

So yes, there is a difficulty spike in the second half, but it's much more manageable than it might seem.

Really, my only complaints are down to issues with RNG, but really that's more of an issue with roguelikes as a genre than this game specifically, as its kind of built-in to the whole experience of them. Besides that, the combat can perhaps get a bit repetitive, especially if you're attempting the same dungeons multiple times in a row during that tricky second half, but again, it does the job well enough.

For a first outing, though, Going Under is incredibly charming and supremely impressive in how well it is put together and presented in all facets of the game. There are some setbacks but not enough to warrant caution in recommending it to anyone at all.

In fact, if you're tired of scrolling through Indeed or LinkedIn all day, playing this will no doubt prove to be an incredibly cathartic experience.

8.5/10

Contrary to the polarizing opinions that have plagued the Internet since the game came out, the game is okay. I really like the NASA-punk aesthetic and, for all intents and purposes, it is an RPG set in space. Some quests and missions are okay, others not so much. You CAN have fun with this game. However, it falls incredibly short from the promises made by Bethesda during the promotion campaign. It is fair to hold this game to a higher standard because they sold it like a game to BE held to a high standard.

I appreciate the individual devs that have worked on this game and their efforts in listening to the community to potentially fix some of the issues players have with it. Sadly, a lot of them are past saving.

A decent if not slightly mediocre entry for Bethesda this time around.