I had the story hyped up WAYYYYY too much. It failed to meet my expectations. But the days id spend mentally theory crafting- that was so much fun. It's a really interesting setup for what it ultimately ends up being about. The time jumping and point-of-view switching was really cool to piece together. A shame that not every character clicked with me, making certain parts a tad uninteresting. Overall though a really well acted and suspensive tale! (I really liked the english dub too)

The combat sequences are easy and pretty barebones. I still loved it though. What's there is pretty cute, you make a party of different mech types (some can move farther, some are close range, etc.) and spend EXP between battles to get new abilities for each character. If a character is badly damaged, you should swap them out in the next fight to let them heal. This helped avoid the issue of just using the same team every fight. I personally had no issue with the ending sequence being full of combat. The endless mode however did get pretty stale quickly.

The acting and art carried this one for me. A solid 4/5. My favorite vanillaware game.

Polished, Refreshing, Emotional.
This game is my favorite in the franchise. I was a tad hesitant on the english dub but WOW they nailed it. The game's story kept me hooked all the way through. Ichiban is a flawed character, he goes too far sometimes. THIS IS SO COOL. After playing Mr. Perfect Kiryu for six games in a row, this more emotionally sensitive protag is such a breath of fresh air. Every time he stumbles, you want to see him win and do better. (That ending, man. Fantastic drama.)

The gameplay style switching to a Turn-Based RPG was a bit of a shocker, considering the past 6 games were all action combat oriented. It works surprisingly well! I never got a feeling of "sure wish I could just go back to punching people the old fashioned way." Managing your "job" and party has just enough options to feel like you're building towards how you want to play. Leveling up jobs results in certain skills being permanent and will carry over to other jobs- It all flows so well.
Party members are fantastic, I loved watching all the optional bonding scenes between them. The game still contains all sorts of minigames and side quests as you'd expect from a Yakuza title. Some highlights for me were "Dragon Kart", Can Collecting, and Property Management.

Dragon Kart is pretty basic, a singleplayer 3D kart racer with item boxes on the field. The stages are pretty same-y and empty but I found it weirdly engaging for what it was. I feel like 3D kart racers are a rare breed these days so it just felt refreshing to try and get first place as fast as possible.
Can Collecting is funnily enough kind of a Pac-Man clone? It's riding a bike collecting pellets through a maze-like neighborhood, making deposits off at safe zones. Making deposits is important because the enemy can collectors are trying to ram you and make you lose everything you're carrying.
Property Management is CRAZY addictive. There's a certain "flash game" charm to it. You buy properties and level them up, passively gaining income. Every quarter you hold a press conference where you have to please the shareholders. The better you do, the more upgrades/buildings/staff you acquire. Really fun diversion that will take HOURS to finish. It's worth it too, considering it leads to a new party member and tons of in-game cash.

The final tower dungeon is brutal. I never completed it. The amount of grinding and playing lame you have to do is going a bit too far. You'll be one-touched by simple grunts, even after maxing out a hand full of jobs. Not fun, pass. It's completely optional post-game stuff though, so it's whatever. I appreciate there being SOMETHING for those looking for a challenge after the story is done.

This game slaps and I cannot wait for the next title.

This is the perfect multiplayer brawler. Too bad the meta resulted in doing kara-cancel TOD juggle loops.
I think a modern release with updated balance and some new content could make this game a world-wide smash hit. Too bad it will NEVER HAPPEN.

Let me set the scene and explain what this game is.
A third person action game ala Bayonetta but you're in these HUGE open city arenas. When I say huge, I mean wide and tall. The verticality on some of these maps is kinda ridiculous. The maps are so large you'll see portals or conveyor belt launchers littered throughout the map to cross major distances. The game looks very "PS3/X360" textures wise but the art team did a great job adding splashes of colors on characters. The game has style. The audio- oh my lord. The soundtrack will go down in history. The characters all sound amazing. The game is also very quotable with the characters saying some crazy corny stuff during battle. (it's hype.)

In regards to how playing the game works, you have a special meter (required to use your character's heavy weapon buttons), a comeback meter, a lock-on, an item slot, and a perk slot. Abilities included a guard, throw, an AOE I-frame attack that costed health to use, jump, sprint, etc.
Getting attacked by multiple players boosted your comeback meter.

The story mode has a "hero vs dark" setup where you can either follow the story of Jack from MadWorld or the story of Leo. Finishing both paths unlocks the final chapter. Story mode is alright, being the best way to unlock the roster of characters and the story is serviceable. You go about the open zones doing side quests and boss fights to progress the story.

Online though, up to 16 players can run around, pick up buffs/items, trying to score the most KOs before time runs out. 1 on 1 fights felt like a traditional fighting game. Throws beat blocking, you can get stunned from being shield broken, whiff punishing is very strong. Combos looked like "Light, Delayed Light, Light, Heavy (launcher) > Jump RT+Light,Light,Light" (spending meter on using your weapon to cash out at the end.)

To keep things from getting stale, random events called "Action Trigger Events" would happen like the map being carpet bombed by fighter jets or an out of control semi truck with flame throwers would start barreling down the city streets. It felt like playing street hockey when suddenly a car was driving down, everyone had to move the nets and stuff out of the way before continuing the game. Silly, but it works. It can separate you from an attacker giving you a chance to run and hide!

If two players pop the comeback mode and try to hit each other, it results in a button mashing QTE contest. It would show the button on screen to mash, before switching to another button. So not only did you have to mash, you had to switch which button you were mashing on the fly. VERY FUN.

Some modes were kinda flat, like Dog Fight where everyone fights using hijacked helicopters (This was DLC too, so good luck finding people to play this with you.) Or football/deathball. (A lot of reviews think some characters are slower than other characters making the gamemode unbalanced, this is untrue. locking on will make you speed up to catch up to your target. This is a basic game mechanic. Idk why I keep seeing complaints about this.)
Tag Battle is a cool idea, you and a friend team up against the other players. If both teammates grab someone at the same time, you'd do a cool team attack!
Co-op Survival was surprisingly challenging! A lot of fun with friends who know how to play well.

I love this game. This is Platinum and Sega premium.

I don't know what you can say about this game that hasn't already been said. It's ugly as sin. Everything about it feels CHEAP. This game at launch had some BUSTED team comps and loops. Having 3 characters on your team is almost completely useless. You have to do a hard switch to character number 2 to even call character number 3 as an assist! WHY DO THIS?? There is no reason to switch out your playable character mid match anyway! They all share 1 HP bar! The grind of leveling up your character in single player is useless padding. The story is the most boring NOTHING BURGER I've ever seen.

But as an English speaking HunterXHunter fan, this is as good as it gets.

The combat is actually kind of fun! You had specials (tied to meter), a comeback factor, and an assist button. Landing your heavy/slower starters resulted in better combos. You could use assist attacks at the end of strings to add an additional string. You could call an assist right before doing a lengthy super, time freezes. As soon as the super animation finished, your assist was already out on the field, ready to continue the combo. (I think this was patched out LOL. still, really fun to pull off while it worked.) It felt good to guess correctly on if the opponent was going to evade and punish them for doing so. Stage transitions were cool!

It's a shame then that this game will be delisted from stores and become unplayable. I don't think it deserved a fate THAT bad.

This is one of those "Is this game actually cool?"
I couldn't tell. The demo on PS4 ran poorly and it was exclusive to Epic on PC at launch. So I held off. Years later, when it came to steam, I desperately wanted to play with a friend and Co-op through the entire game. That didn't work out. (After finding out what the gameplay loop was like, I don't think it would've)

Instead what I got was a very confusing mostly single-player guide-game ARPG?

This game is TOUGH. Sadly, I don't believe it to be completely fair without doing some youtube/reddit research on how builds work. That's just the unfortunate truth. There are some synergies that you would NEVER think to try or why it works so well with the stamina/soul gauge/damage output economy.

You can equip two "jobs" at one time and each have their own EXP/Levels and skill tree. Some basic jobs require mastering before unlocking more elite jobs. This is so fun to grind out and try all the different weapon styles. By the end, you'll have completed every single one.
At first I ran with the idea of a "close range attack job and a ranged attacks job" build. Managing your soul gauge and depleting the enemy's, going for finishers, never got old. The game at it's core is fun.

However, you will not be able to beat some of these harder bosses until you exploit the system and learn how builds/lightbringer works. Instead of running two separate combat classes, it is far more optimal to run one job as just a supplement to your actual combat job. Only switching to the secondary job to re-up on buffs to make your other job perform way better. The game doesn't really make this clear AT ALL.
You can rely on the "auto equip" button at first, but as the game goes on you will NEED to understand what each stat/perk means. This also means manually managing the item menu. YEESH. That menu is a mess. The auto dismantle and filtering options that were added in an update help, but I still do not like the way storage space is handled.

It felt like Monster Hunter with the amount of grinding I did to perfect my gear. Unfortunately, with less of a community.
The game can feel a bit lonely at times. Once you reach god-hood, there's little reason to play on lower difficulties and there are SO MANY difficulties. This results in the online feeling sort've empty. During my playthrough, players who join were either way too weak to be helpful or are too strong and did all the work for me. Viewing the equipment of those strong players can help point you towards how builds work though, so it's not all bad. You'll just feel useless for that mission, lol.

By the end I was using The Gambler/Ninja jobs, with the Ninja job just there to give me buffs/max out my mana bar. I'd set up my buffs and just sit in the corner sniping dudes from afar. If I got the final blow before lightbringer runs out, it would refresh the timer on my super form. I would mow down stuff before they could even get near me. Being able to utterly destroy a high level boss in just a few clips feels so nice. You can really feel POWERFUL in this game.

The story is so mid and whatever at first but it weirdly kept me interested. I couldn't tell where the story was going. Did it know it was middling and kind of basic? Then the last third of the game happens and I'm floored. I loved the ending and its post-game so much. Jack is so cool, you guys.

This is a hard one to recommend or even "review." I left this one feeling like I just played Game of the Year- but I can't really suggest this title to other people without a lot of "HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW" and "Have a guide handy." I think it requires a certain level of "nerd" to dig deep into what makes this game special. However, I did nerd it up and find the peak within. So, to me, this game is one of my favorites and deserves top marks.