rookdorf
2023
A game with extremely high highs and some pretty dry lows.
Content pacing is the big discussion point here, mostly with side quests. The quests themselves are generally pretty good, and showing how the world is evolving outside of the main story is done really well. The issue is when about 4 hours worth of side content is dumped on you between major story beats near the end of the game. Early on, I was actually praising the game for its restraint in only giving out 2-3 quests every few story beats, which felt a bit on the low side but totally appropriate. By the end of the game, I'd never taken back a comment as much as I had that one. I'm glad I experienced all the quests once, because now on a replay I can just play the story, which I think will greatly improve how much momentum is maintained in the back half of the game. When a game's problem is more about evenly distributing content than the quality of the content, it's not the worst sin ever, though it did put a damper on some play sessions. I ended up with the feeling that the game could have been about 10 hours shorter, but I'm not sure on how much of that was due to side quests vs the main story itself.
The quests aren't the only way the pacing is a bit lumpy though. Aside from the huge setpieces that get diluted as more and more side content spreads them out as the game goes on, there's also a gradual shift in the balance of linear stages vs what I'll call "zone traversal". After playing so many modern games with at least semi-open worlds, the somewhat "retro" feeling (at this point) linear structure of the game was kind of a breath of fresh air at first. It did get a little tiring later on, reminding me why this isn't really the norm anymore. But it's hard to differentiate between the fatigue from exploring those zones as part of the story and the inflated time spent in them from side content. The first half felt like a more directed, higher tempo story with a bit of a different tone than what it eventually settled into, which felt a little more traditional JRPG fantasy by the end.
On a more positive note though, the combat was hyped up to be "the best game ever" and while I'm not sure about that, it was pretty great. It was deep yet approachable, it had a ton of customization, it let you experiment without penalty, it had some super cool looking abilities, what more can I say. Bosses were also pretty great, and though I prefer fighting as Clive to Eikon battles, their over the top presentation was also quite the spectacle. Accept The Truth was the peak of the story for me and just one of the hypest moments I've ever experienced in a game.
(Light spoiler warning): There was a weird trend I was noticing throughout the game where concepts and characters were introduced or brought to the foreground right as they became relevant instead of being seeded and built up beforehand. Some of this is probably just the intro of the game having too much on its plate to set the stage properly (better explanations of Bearers before Clive is branded, for example). Byron and others kind of pop up out of nowhere, Cid's idea about the Mothercrystals is just something you get from a line after a fade to black instead of hearing his actual pitch, etc. This isn't a huge deal, just something that seemed to keep happening. Vivian's "state of the realm" rundowns in the 2nd half would've been nice to have earlier as well for clarity, despite how direct they are presentation wise. The hyperfocus on how badly everyone treats Bearers in the first half was also a bit overdone, though I guess it was to contrast the treatment you receive later on.
Characters were a big of a mixed bag too. Clive, of course, is Clive, but most other allies felt very side character-y even if they were major players. There were some standouts like Dion, and some slight letdowns like Jill, but at the end of the day this is Clive and Valisthea's story, so that's not that big a deal. These just aren't necessarily characters that I'll cherish forever. There's such a large cast of medium-importance characters to support the feeling of a living world, and for that I think they did a pretty good job. And active time lore was a great feature for keeping track of everything.
Despite some mixed feelings on pacing, this was a pretty great game overall that I think will feel even better on a replay. I was on the fence about it beforehand and not quite sure how I'd like it, but now it seems crazy that I might have skipped this. Now give us Leviathan DLC you cowards
Content pacing is the big discussion point here, mostly with side quests. The quests themselves are generally pretty good, and showing how the world is evolving outside of the main story is done really well. The issue is when about 4 hours worth of side content is dumped on you between major story beats near the end of the game. Early on, I was actually praising the game for its restraint in only giving out 2-3 quests every few story beats, which felt a bit on the low side but totally appropriate. By the end of the game, I'd never taken back a comment as much as I had that one. I'm glad I experienced all the quests once, because now on a replay I can just play the story, which I think will greatly improve how much momentum is maintained in the back half of the game. When a game's problem is more about evenly distributing content than the quality of the content, it's not the worst sin ever, though it did put a damper on some play sessions. I ended up with the feeling that the game could have been about 10 hours shorter, but I'm not sure on how much of that was due to side quests vs the main story itself.
The quests aren't the only way the pacing is a bit lumpy though. Aside from the huge setpieces that get diluted as more and more side content spreads them out as the game goes on, there's also a gradual shift in the balance of linear stages vs what I'll call "zone traversal". After playing so many modern games with at least semi-open worlds, the somewhat "retro" feeling (at this point) linear structure of the game was kind of a breath of fresh air at first. It did get a little tiring later on, reminding me why this isn't really the norm anymore. But it's hard to differentiate between the fatigue from exploring those zones as part of the story and the inflated time spent in them from side content. The first half felt like a more directed, higher tempo story with a bit of a different tone than what it eventually settled into, which felt a little more traditional JRPG fantasy by the end.
On a more positive note though, the combat was hyped up to be "the best game ever" and while I'm not sure about that, it was pretty great. It was deep yet approachable, it had a ton of customization, it let you experiment without penalty, it had some super cool looking abilities, what more can I say. Bosses were also pretty great, and though I prefer fighting as Clive to Eikon battles, their over the top presentation was also quite the spectacle. Accept The Truth was the peak of the story for me and just one of the hypest moments I've ever experienced in a game.
(Light spoiler warning): There was a weird trend I was noticing throughout the game where concepts and characters were introduced or brought to the foreground right as they became relevant instead of being seeded and built up beforehand. Some of this is probably just the intro of the game having too much on its plate to set the stage properly (better explanations of Bearers before Clive is branded, for example). Byron and others kind of pop up out of nowhere, Cid's idea about the Mothercrystals is just something you get from a line after a fade to black instead of hearing his actual pitch, etc. This isn't a huge deal, just something that seemed to keep happening. Vivian's "state of the realm" rundowns in the 2nd half would've been nice to have earlier as well for clarity, despite how direct they are presentation wise. The hyperfocus on how badly everyone treats Bearers in the first half was also a bit overdone, though I guess it was to contrast the treatment you receive later on.
Characters were a big of a mixed bag too. Clive, of course, is Clive, but most other allies felt very side character-y even if they were major players. There were some standouts like Dion, and some slight letdowns like Jill, but at the end of the day this is Clive and Valisthea's story, so that's not that big a deal. These just aren't necessarily characters that I'll cherish forever. There's such a large cast of medium-importance characters to support the feeling of a living world, and for that I think they did a pretty good job. And active time lore was a great feature for keeping track of everything.
Despite some mixed feelings on pacing, this was a pretty great game overall that I think will feel even better on a replay. I was on the fence about it beforehand and not quite sure how I'd like it, but now it seems crazy that I might have skipped this. Now give us Leviathan DLC you cowards
In the first half or so of the game, I got the feeling that this is where the series' classic concept of "reuse" was catching up to it. Aside from the main story and maybe Akame as a character, nothing here felt super original or fresh. The side content offerings were pretty much the standard Yakuza fare (and Pocket Circuit, which refuses to retire), and while I enjoy fanservice and referencing past games, they felt a little over relied on at times. (There's a weirdly heavy amount of referencing 2 in particular.) The Castle, which was spotlit as the cool new area to explore, is really just a shinier Purgatory, which just feels like a tired concept by now. I will say that the Coliseum is definitely one of the better ones in the series and had some fun fights and gimmicks (Hell Team Rumble was a solid new mode) without overstaying its welcome. Special shoutout to that final Platinum fight.
You can sort of let Gaiden off the hook for all of this though, as it was never meant to be a huge new game with totally original side content. So it's not unexpected that this is a short new story with whatever side content was laying around thrown in + some extras, but that doesn't really make it the most interesting Yakuza game to engage with.
On to combat. This is definitely the Dragon (sorry, "Yakuza") style's best showing in the Dragon Engine, though that's not saying much. After Judgment and especially Lost Judgment, I was hoping they would take more of the lessons learned when returning to Kiryu. But the main borrowed concept there seems to be Mortal Reversals, which are pretty fun, so that's nice at least. DE Dragon was still just solid overall, nothing amazing. I did not click with Agent for a long time, using probably 90% Yakuza for over half the game. Eventually I warmed up to it some more, but its basic combos just felt out of place for Kiryu, especially in Extreme Heat. The gadgets were fun enough gimmicks, especially once I realized that a fully upgraded Spider would just annihilate small enemies while you also zoom around with Serpent, which was super goofy. Overall, the combat was pretty good by Yakuza standards, but a bit disappointing after Lost Judgment, especially if this may be the last brawler Yakuza for a while (and possibly last Kiryu brawler ever).
The main story took a little bit to capture me, but I appreciated the condensed scope overall. Without getting into spoilers, as someone who really liked the ending of 6 and really disliked the extremely quick backtracking of it in 7, I'm still conflicted about the path Kiryu takes here. Maybe Infinite Wealth will help settle this, but it feels like it's slowly tossing out the end of 6 as a silly idea and rendered the hardest hitting scenes in the series to me pretty much moot. On a more positive note, I like how this story gave them more opportunity to explore the implications around 7's huge plot development for the yakuza world as well; in hindsight this would have felt too swept under the rug without what Gaiden showed. (It's also neat to see this perspective of "before/during the storm" after seeing some of the fallout in LJ.)
The core group of new characters were all fairly interesting, though none really felt like amazing ones who'll stick with me forever. I like how pretty much no one was ever completely in the right or wrong at any given point, as the series sometimes falls prey to shallower portrayals of power hungry people who are clearly just evil by most standards. As many have already observed, [light vague spoiler warning] the final boss definitely felt like a more fleshed out version of another in the series, which is funny if you compare the lengths of those respective games. And of course, I'm a sucker for the kind of scenes that the very end of the game had, so those hit almost as hard as 6's ending to me.
Maybe I just wasn't totally in the Yakuza mood when I started, but it took a surprisingly long time for me to warm up to this game as a whole. Despite being the shortest main story in the franchise (outside of the Kaito Files), I ended up with around 25 hours spent since I did all substories, requests, coliseum fights, Amon, etc. (I passed on the Platinum just because I really don't care for Cabaret, and am also lukewarm on Pocket Circuit. Still got every Mahjong activity log item though.) The reuse of content and concepts wore down on me for a while, and the sparse new ideas didn't fully click at first, but eventually I came around. The side content took a weirdly long time to fully open up, but once it did, I cleared pretty much everything I could before moving on to each story beat. A good late game completionist session followed by a strong finale section gave this experience a sweet ending that makes me look back on it much more fondly than I felt halfway in, where I was pretty sure I would've given it a 3/5. Overall, a good little pocket of Yakuza content, even if much of it is well worn.
You can sort of let Gaiden off the hook for all of this though, as it was never meant to be a huge new game with totally original side content. So it's not unexpected that this is a short new story with whatever side content was laying around thrown in + some extras, but that doesn't really make it the most interesting Yakuza game to engage with.
On to combat. This is definitely the Dragon (sorry, "Yakuza") style's best showing in the Dragon Engine, though that's not saying much. After Judgment and especially Lost Judgment, I was hoping they would take more of the lessons learned when returning to Kiryu. But the main borrowed concept there seems to be Mortal Reversals, which are pretty fun, so that's nice at least. DE Dragon was still just solid overall, nothing amazing. I did not click with Agent for a long time, using probably 90% Yakuza for over half the game. Eventually I warmed up to it some more, but its basic combos just felt out of place for Kiryu, especially in Extreme Heat. The gadgets were fun enough gimmicks, especially once I realized that a fully upgraded Spider would just annihilate small enemies while you also zoom around with Serpent, which was super goofy. Overall, the combat was pretty good by Yakuza standards, but a bit disappointing after Lost Judgment, especially if this may be the last brawler Yakuza for a while (and possibly last Kiryu brawler ever).
The main story took a little bit to capture me, but I appreciated the condensed scope overall. Without getting into spoilers, as someone who really liked the ending of 6 and really disliked the extremely quick backtracking of it in 7, I'm still conflicted about the path Kiryu takes here. Maybe Infinite Wealth will help settle this, but it feels like it's slowly tossing out the end of 6 as a silly idea and rendered the hardest hitting scenes in the series to me pretty much moot. On a more positive note, I like how this story gave them more opportunity to explore the implications around 7's huge plot development for the yakuza world as well; in hindsight this would have felt too swept under the rug without what Gaiden showed. (It's also neat to see this perspective of "before/during the storm" after seeing some of the fallout in LJ.)
The core group of new characters were all fairly interesting, though none really felt like amazing ones who'll stick with me forever. I like how pretty much no one was ever completely in the right or wrong at any given point, as the series sometimes falls prey to shallower portrayals of power hungry people who are clearly just evil by most standards. As many have already observed, [light vague spoiler warning] the final boss definitely felt like a more fleshed out version of another in the series, which is funny if you compare the lengths of those respective games. And of course, I'm a sucker for the kind of scenes that the very end of the game had, so those hit almost as hard as 6's ending to me.
Maybe I just wasn't totally in the Yakuza mood when I started, but it took a surprisingly long time for me to warm up to this game as a whole. Despite being the shortest main story in the franchise (outside of the Kaito Files), I ended up with around 25 hours spent since I did all substories, requests, coliseum fights, Amon, etc. (I passed on the Platinum just because I really don't care for Cabaret, and am also lukewarm on Pocket Circuit. Still got every Mahjong activity log item though.) The reuse of content and concepts wore down on me for a while, and the sparse new ideas didn't fully click at first, but eventually I came around. The side content took a weirdly long time to fully open up, but once it did, I cleared pretty much everything I could before moving on to each story beat. A good late game completionist session followed by a strong finale section gave this experience a sweet ending that makes me look back on it much more fondly than I felt halfway in, where I was pretty sure I would've given it a 3/5. Overall, a good little pocket of Yakuza content, even if much of it is well worn.
A worthy sequel with both pluses and minuses when compared to Breath of the Wild. They're so intertwined that it's easier just to highlight what was changed or addressed and see how they stack up:
The biggest change in how you approach almost everything in the game is the new Right Arm Abilities, replacing Runes. I think how you feel about these will largely come down to how much you enjoy Ultrahand, the clear spotlight of the game's mechanics. To me, it was ok. I prefer the slightly more limited nature of the Runes, which didn't feel as overcentralizing. But I still definitely had fun with the abilities overall, there were just more opportunities where they felt gimmicky compared to meshing well with the world. Fuse also had this problem, I ended up missing unique weapons with cool appearances a lot more than I expected.
The world is probably the other biggest change here. The sky islands felt a little small and empty to me overall, and the depths were also probably my least favorite area of the game, so surprisingly I think the best change here was the addition of caves and fleshing out the mainland more. I liked BotW's world, which fit its atmosphere, but there's really not much downside to these additions. Side stories were also well expanded here, which was nice overall. There felt like a lot of little plot threads to find and follow as far as you please, highlights for me being Hateno Village and Gerudo Town. The depths though, I may have enjoyed the game more without. I started out not disliking them, as they were a nice pace break for a different style of gameplay, but as the game went on I found myself getting more and more bothered whenever I had to trudge down there. In a smaller capacity, they would be something cool to explore every now and then, but a zone of darkness spanning the entire overworld just made it a bit of a slog after too long. Also, I felt like enemy variety was much improved and probably the best thing they addressed, even if there's still quite a lot of Bokoblins (now with silly horns glued to their heads).
Right off the bat, you get the impression that they heard feedback about how light the story was in BotW and wanted to push this more. Bizarrely, they end up just falling back to the "go collect memories" style after the introduction, which is probably what those complaints were more about. Either way, I don't have much of a problem with those, but I also didn't massively love the new story either. The extremely formulaic "regional phenomena" plots were not my favorite and felt like a very thin reskin of BotW's setup (just swap "champions" to "sages" and most of the plot is the same). The story after these was more interesting, though the gameplay tied to some of it (collecting certain parts) was a slog. Overall, this was all solid enough, but I definitely respect BotW's sense of discovery and freedom with the story more. Temples were also very short and not quite the true return to dungeons that I think many were hoping for. They did have more unique art and bosses than Divine Beasts, but honestly I think they are about equal overall. And thinking back to the intro, I think the overall experience (gameplay + story) of the Great Plateau blows the Great Sky Island out of the... sky. The complete sweeping under the rug of most of the replaced concepts from BotW also felt a little weird, like Sheikah tech being mostly missing or replaced 1:1 with Zonai stuff. This gave me the impression that BotW felt like a more cohesive game overall in its meshing of world, theme, and story.
One more thing I can't forget to mention: the controls for the sage abilities are possibly the worst thing in the game. They turn these somewhat-fun concepts for abilities into super frustrating to use, annoying, or just inaccessible tools that almost never feel like they're there when you need them. Having unique contextual activation conditions like BotW's champion abilities would have been an absolutely massive improvement here.
Overall, while this may have sounded somewhat negative, at the end of the day this is still a supreme adventure in a great world with plenty of fun mechanics and content to explore. Though I prefer BotW overall after this first playthrough, this is a great game on its own with a lot to discover and dig into, and I very much enjoyed most of my time with it.
The biggest change in how you approach almost everything in the game is the new Right Arm Abilities, replacing Runes. I think how you feel about these will largely come down to how much you enjoy Ultrahand, the clear spotlight of the game's mechanics. To me, it was ok. I prefer the slightly more limited nature of the Runes, which didn't feel as overcentralizing. But I still definitely had fun with the abilities overall, there were just more opportunities where they felt gimmicky compared to meshing well with the world. Fuse also had this problem, I ended up missing unique weapons with cool appearances a lot more than I expected.
The world is probably the other biggest change here. The sky islands felt a little small and empty to me overall, and the depths were also probably my least favorite area of the game, so surprisingly I think the best change here was the addition of caves and fleshing out the mainland more. I liked BotW's world, which fit its atmosphere, but there's really not much downside to these additions. Side stories were also well expanded here, which was nice overall. There felt like a lot of little plot threads to find and follow as far as you please, highlights for me being Hateno Village and Gerudo Town. The depths though, I may have enjoyed the game more without. I started out not disliking them, as they were a nice pace break for a different style of gameplay, but as the game went on I found myself getting more and more bothered whenever I had to trudge down there. In a smaller capacity, they would be something cool to explore every now and then, but a zone of darkness spanning the entire overworld just made it a bit of a slog after too long. Also, I felt like enemy variety was much improved and probably the best thing they addressed, even if there's still quite a lot of Bokoblins (now with silly horns glued to their heads).
Right off the bat, you get the impression that they heard feedback about how light the story was in BotW and wanted to push this more. Bizarrely, they end up just falling back to the "go collect memories" style after the introduction, which is probably what those complaints were more about. Either way, I don't have much of a problem with those, but I also didn't massively love the new story either. The extremely formulaic "regional phenomena" plots were not my favorite and felt like a very thin reskin of BotW's setup (just swap "champions" to "sages" and most of the plot is the same). The story after these was more interesting, though the gameplay tied to some of it (collecting certain parts) was a slog. Overall, this was all solid enough, but I definitely respect BotW's sense of discovery and freedom with the story more. Temples were also very short and not quite the true return to dungeons that I think many were hoping for. They did have more unique art and bosses than Divine Beasts, but honestly I think they are about equal overall. And thinking back to the intro, I think the overall experience (gameplay + story) of the Great Plateau blows the Great Sky Island out of the... sky. The complete sweeping under the rug of most of the replaced concepts from BotW also felt a little weird, like Sheikah tech being mostly missing or replaced 1:1 with Zonai stuff. This gave me the impression that BotW felt like a more cohesive game overall in its meshing of world, theme, and story.
One more thing I can't forget to mention: the controls for the sage abilities are possibly the worst thing in the game. They turn these somewhat-fun concepts for abilities into super frustrating to use, annoying, or just inaccessible tools that almost never feel like they're there when you need them. Having unique contextual activation conditions like BotW's champion abilities would have been an absolutely massive improvement here.
Overall, while this may have sounded somewhat negative, at the end of the day this is still a supreme adventure in a great world with plenty of fun mechanics and content to explore. Though I prefer BotW overall after this first playthrough, this is a great game on its own with a lot to discover and dig into, and I very much enjoyed most of my time with it.
2023
This is a fairly fun journey with some bumps in the road.
The pacing throughout felt pretty off. This is a fairly short game overall, but it somehow felt both too extended at times and too rushed in others. The first kingdom being much longer than others, the final one being more of a gauntlet, the first couple being really a slow intro compared to the rapid plot development after, etc.
The T in P5T really does stand for Toshiro. I liked the main story and its two central characters quite a bit, and it makes me wish they did something a little riskier and made this a more separate Persona side game focusing on just them + maybe one other character (could be a P5 cast member as a bridge, could be something original). I liked the generally more restrained plot focus though; it fit the size of the game. The Phantom Thieves are really pretty irrelevant to the plot aside from the main theme of rebellion. They mostly feel like they're there for brand recognition, some fun banter between them, saying "damn that's crazy" during plot moments, and occasionally "this reminds me of my character arc from the hit game Persona 5". Even during the big plot dump sections where pretty much all questions are answered, and you even get to ask some more yourself, there was never even an excuse given for why they got wrapped up in this.
The elephant in the room to me is the artstyle. Regardless of whether you personally like the aesthetics or not, I really feel like it just doesn't serve the game any favors or enhance it in any way. It doesn't match the tone of the story being told (aside from a lot of Yusuke's dialog being food jokes for whatever reason) and makes it more difficult to connect with the serious beats and character moments. Personally, I don't mind chibi looks at all, but I much prefer PQ's style to this (especially when any limbs are bent, eugh), and it never felt like I fully adjusted to the artstyle here and it kept me just a little out of the game all the time. As an extension of this, the citizens of the kingdoms were just impossible to take seriously. They're in situations that have them attempting to discuss topics like oppression, but when they sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks and look like hats with eyes, it just doesn't work.
On a more positive note, while I'm not much of an SRPG guy, I think the combat was pretty creative overall. There were tons of mechanics constantly being introduced, but it never felt too overwhelming. I didn't always have the cleanest solutions to every map, but when I did, it really did feel cool to put it all together. There was plenty going on to keep me engaged and interested throughout. I also like the return to the P1/2/honestly mostly PQish style of personas being assignable to the full party. I'm a big fusion fan, and while this was simplified overall, that felt fitting for the size of the game and I still had a couple cool powerhouses I fused along the way. It wasn't quite enough for me to want to do giant fusion sessions like I'd do in P5R or SMT V though, and I will say that the personas just being screenshots in a menu instead of visually represented in battle was kind of lame.
Overall, I enjoyed most of my time with P5T. There's definitely a lot of room for improvement here, and it never hit the highs of its cooler older brother, P5S (and neither did its music), but it was a fun experience with some neat twists throughout.
Also what was up with the audio mixing on voices
The pacing throughout felt pretty off. This is a fairly short game overall, but it somehow felt both too extended at times and too rushed in others. The first kingdom being much longer than others, the final one being more of a gauntlet, the first couple being really a slow intro compared to the rapid plot development after, etc.
The T in P5T really does stand for Toshiro. I liked the main story and its two central characters quite a bit, and it makes me wish they did something a little riskier and made this a more separate Persona side game focusing on just them + maybe one other character (could be a P5 cast member as a bridge, could be something original). I liked the generally more restrained plot focus though; it fit the size of the game. The Phantom Thieves are really pretty irrelevant to the plot aside from the main theme of rebellion. They mostly feel like they're there for brand recognition, some fun banter between them, saying "damn that's crazy" during plot moments, and occasionally "this reminds me of my character arc from the hit game Persona 5". Even during the big plot dump sections where pretty much all questions are answered, and you even get to ask some more yourself, there was never even an excuse given for why they got wrapped up in this.
The elephant in the room to me is the artstyle. Regardless of whether you personally like the aesthetics or not, I really feel like it just doesn't serve the game any favors or enhance it in any way. It doesn't match the tone of the story being told (aside from a lot of Yusuke's dialog being food jokes for whatever reason) and makes it more difficult to connect with the serious beats and character moments. Personally, I don't mind chibi looks at all, but I much prefer PQ's style to this (especially when any limbs are bent, eugh), and it never felt like I fully adjusted to the artstyle here and it kept me just a little out of the game all the time. As an extension of this, the citizens of the kingdoms were just impossible to take seriously. They're in situations that have them attempting to discuss topics like oppression, but when they sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks and look like hats with eyes, it just doesn't work.
On a more positive note, while I'm not much of an SRPG guy, I think the combat was pretty creative overall. There were tons of mechanics constantly being introduced, but it never felt too overwhelming. I didn't always have the cleanest solutions to every map, but when I did, it really did feel cool to put it all together. There was plenty going on to keep me engaged and interested throughout. I also like the return to the P1/2/honestly mostly PQish style of personas being assignable to the full party. I'm a big fusion fan, and while this was simplified overall, that felt fitting for the size of the game and I still had a couple cool powerhouses I fused along the way. It wasn't quite enough for me to want to do giant fusion sessions like I'd do in P5R or SMT V though, and I will say that the personas just being screenshots in a menu instead of visually represented in battle was kind of lame.
Overall, I enjoyed most of my time with P5T. There's definitely a lot of room for improvement here, and it never hit the highs of its cooler older brother, P5S (and neither did its music), but it was a fun experience with some neat twists throughout.
Also what was up with the audio mixing on voices
2007
It's clear how innovative it was at the time, but for a first play in 2023 it only holds up OK. The first 2/3 of the puzzles are tutorials that take 30 seconds, then the last few are the actual game, which feels weird as far as pacing goes. I really disliked turrets as a mechanic (not as characters, they had cute lines), the puzzles were better without that type of pressure. Also resetting after dying takes frustratingly long. Rockets felt better as far as letting you take your time, but aiming in the final room was just awful. Feels like it barely scratched the surface of actual Portal stuff, which I guess is why 2 exists.
2022
Overall, I had a good time with Pokemon Scarlet, despite its many flaws. It had some nice steps forward, some flubs, and of course some crashing and burning as modern Pokemon games always do.
The story was generally more enjoyable than expected, but not some masterpiece like people are saying. It was still, in summary, a Pokemon game story. The Team Star stuff was more fun than expected (especially Clive), but was still basically a simple anime plot. And of course, no voice acting, which I think is fine for this kind of game generally, but it fails to work if the game just ignores that there's no voices and throws in full cutscenes and even songs... again.
Gym challenges are not very fun. Most are just throwaway 30 second minigames before a gym leader which makes gyms feel super bite sized and unimpactful. Sure, they have to coexist with 5 bases and 5 titans, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to have a little more pomp and circumstance. Bases/titans were pretty small and formulaic too, but that's more expected for what they are, I think. I wish at least one of these main activities had a little more meat on it, but I get that they're not the main draw, which is of course the open world.
The open world is generally pretty good. It's a modern open world Pokemon game, and plays out pretty much exactly as you'd expect with no real surprises. It's fun to see Pokemon just exist in the world, and try to get to areas you "shouldn't" be in yet, and all of those familiar trappings. One complaint I do have here is that the common Pokemon are way too common. It's a large world, and there's hundreds of Pokemon in the game. I don't need to see Oinkologne and Deerling everywhere I go, spread out the "cooler" Pokemon a little more to keep each area feeling unique and interesting.
Also, I'm specifically talking about the overworld, outside of the cities. The cities were super dry and also painful to explore due to performance. I checked out one or two past Megasoza, then kind of gave up to save myself the trouble.
New pokemon are overall solid, there's some nice new ones as always and some misses, and I especially liked a few cross gen evolutions like Kingambit. Please stop forcing the starters to have jobs as a theme. I did not warm up to the box legendaries too much either.
Raids are better than they were in Sword/Shield, but they still get old very quickly and while not quite as glacial, are still pretty slow. A good chunk of this friction is from how bad the online services are, though. Speaking of slowness, I saw people calling this game fast, and I mean, if you compare it to Diamond/Pearl, maybe? Otherwise, the general pace of battles is still painfully slow. Waiting for stat changes to resolve, abilities and items to proc, etc, makes battle feel as slow as ever and not something I'd ever want to endure vs using something like Showdown if given the choice.
The idea of multiplayer is cool, but again with these online services, it was not something I dipped into very much.
Performance, polish, and presentation have been talked about to death. They are, overall, a travesty. There's a moment early on where they try to really "wow" the player with a shot of the open world, saying how beautiful it is, and I laughed out loud at the mess I was looking at. I don't consider myself much of a graphics snob or anything, and I still had a lot of fun with the game, but come on. Aside from extremely low fidelity visuals, which I can mostly get used to, I ran into plenty of visual glitches in every play session. There's also the bad experience of using the box, which struggles to load the sprites for each Pokemon when switching boxes and really makes it painful to look around, which honestly probably contributed to me not quite finishing my living dex. This is all on top of more deliberate choices in presentation like the extremely bland Elite Four room and not being able to enter most shops, too. Just lackluster all around, though I'll give a little bit of credit for things like the animations around the borders of the screen when entering a battle.
-1 star for general performance/polish reasons, just unacceptable for what this game is. Would be a 4/5 otherwise.
The story was generally more enjoyable than expected, but not some masterpiece like people are saying. It was still, in summary, a Pokemon game story. The Team Star stuff was more fun than expected (especially Clive), but was still basically a simple anime plot. And of course, no voice acting, which I think is fine for this kind of game generally, but it fails to work if the game just ignores that there's no voices and throws in full cutscenes and even songs... again.
Gym challenges are not very fun. Most are just throwaway 30 second minigames before a gym leader which makes gyms feel super bite sized and unimpactful. Sure, they have to coexist with 5 bases and 5 titans, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to have a little more pomp and circumstance. Bases/titans were pretty small and formulaic too, but that's more expected for what they are, I think. I wish at least one of these main activities had a little more meat on it, but I get that they're not the main draw, which is of course the open world.
The open world is generally pretty good. It's a modern open world Pokemon game, and plays out pretty much exactly as you'd expect with no real surprises. It's fun to see Pokemon just exist in the world, and try to get to areas you "shouldn't" be in yet, and all of those familiar trappings. One complaint I do have here is that the common Pokemon are way too common. It's a large world, and there's hundreds of Pokemon in the game. I don't need to see Oinkologne and Deerling everywhere I go, spread out the "cooler" Pokemon a little more to keep each area feeling unique and interesting.
Also, I'm specifically talking about the overworld, outside of the cities. The cities were super dry and also painful to explore due to performance. I checked out one or two past Megasoza, then kind of gave up to save myself the trouble.
New pokemon are overall solid, there's some nice new ones as always and some misses, and I especially liked a few cross gen evolutions like Kingambit. Please stop forcing the starters to have jobs as a theme. I did not warm up to the box legendaries too much either.
Raids are better than they were in Sword/Shield, but they still get old very quickly and while not quite as glacial, are still pretty slow. A good chunk of this friction is from how bad the online services are, though. Speaking of slowness, I saw people calling this game fast, and I mean, if you compare it to Diamond/Pearl, maybe? Otherwise, the general pace of battles is still painfully slow. Waiting for stat changes to resolve, abilities and items to proc, etc, makes battle feel as slow as ever and not something I'd ever want to endure vs using something like Showdown if given the choice.
The idea of multiplayer is cool, but again with these online services, it was not something I dipped into very much.
Performance, polish, and presentation have been talked about to death. They are, overall, a travesty. There's a moment early on where they try to really "wow" the player with a shot of the open world, saying how beautiful it is, and I laughed out loud at the mess I was looking at. I don't consider myself much of a graphics snob or anything, and I still had a lot of fun with the game, but come on. Aside from extremely low fidelity visuals, which I can mostly get used to, I ran into plenty of visual glitches in every play session. There's also the bad experience of using the box, which struggles to load the sprites for each Pokemon when switching boxes and really makes it painful to look around, which honestly probably contributed to me not quite finishing my living dex. This is all on top of more deliberate choices in presentation like the extremely bland Elite Four room and not being able to enter most shops, too. Just lackluster all around, though I'll give a little bit of credit for things like the animations around the borders of the screen when entering a battle.
-1 star for general performance/polish reasons, just unacceptable for what this game is. Would be a 4/5 otherwise.
2023
A cool entry to get me into the series for the first time. It's strange to join such an established genre where everyone already seems to know the swing of of things, but it's fun to explore and discover all the trappings of a franchise I've mostly ignored.
I played this like I would any other offline single player campaign game: doing a solid helping of side content, but not all, and playing the campaign at my own pace. By the end of it here, I feel like I've still barely scratched the surface. I don't think I'll end up hitting the real endgame and maxing out a character, but I'll check back to do some more in the world and maybe see how some other classes work.
The campaign itself was also pretty captivating. I really respect how it kept a consistent, mature tone, and the characters and their performances were overall great. Looking forward to seeing where this goes in expansions, and it will probably spur me to go check out some of the previous campaigns now that I have some idea of what's going on with the game itself. I'm glad I played and I enjoyed my time here, regardless of how much more I end up playing.
I played this like I would any other offline single player campaign game: doing a solid helping of side content, but not all, and playing the campaign at my own pace. By the end of it here, I feel like I've still barely scratched the surface. I don't think I'll end up hitting the real endgame and maxing out a character, but I'll check back to do some more in the world and maybe see how some other classes work.
The campaign itself was also pretty captivating. I really respect how it kept a consistent, mature tone, and the characters and their performances were overall great. Looking forward to seeing where this goes in expansions, and it will probably spur me to go check out some of the previous campaigns now that I have some idea of what's going on with the game itself. I'm glad I played and I enjoyed my time here, regardless of how much more I end up playing.
2011
The best, most polished collection Rhythm Heaven has to offer yet. The consistency in quality is really high here; sure there's a couple games that aren't quite as standout as others, but overall, they're all a good time. Even the not-as-notable ones have a lot of charm put into them that shines through. And of course, the hits here are some very high highs, I would list my favorites but there'd be too many, so I'll just say Karate Man as usual and every other vocal song too. It feels like they got a little more time and budget for this entry as their first home console game, and it shows. There seems to be more care put into things like the difficulty curve as you go, transitions between games in remixes, bringing back some GBA games as bonuses, 2 player, etc. Having a simple, consistent, normal control scheme is also a relief. If you just want to check out what Rhythm Heaven's about, play this game. If you enjoyed the DS game, play this game. If you have a pulse, give this game a chance to win you over.
2022
I went in to this expecting "God of War 2018 but more" and I didn't know how right I'd end up being. This game has a lot going on, at times too much, both in story and gameplay.
A departure from 2018's very focused narrative, this one was a little bit all over the place at times. It worked well sometimes as an excuse to let us explore the world more and meet characters we otherwise might not, but other times it felt a little lost. This also affected the last section of the story and ending, which I felt was pretty rushed for what it was meant to be. Overall though, it had some nice twists and turns and I liked getting the chance to expand the world a bit with how many places you touch on, and even how this tied into gameplay (with controllable and companion characters).
On the gameplay side, things felt more varied than I remember 2018 being, which was nice and an attempt to address a perceived problem in 2018. People complained about the troll fight showing up a million times in that game, and here there wasn't anything so egregious. I did think a couple unique minibosses should have stayed unique here instead of being repeated 2 or 3 times though. It just takes away from that first encounter feeling like something special when there's another nearly identical fight later on. And this isn't a "there should be more unique minibosses" ask, I think there were plenty, they just could have cut some of the repeat fights instead. A couple times during the main story I felt like the pacing was a little off. There would be several combat or puzzle sections in a row instead of mixing them up more evenly, which led to some fatigue at times. I also thought the puzzles were a little much this time around, in the sense that there were 1 or 2 too many mechanics at play. This isn't a difficulty complaint, but more like "why is there a set of branches I can set on fire with R2, but also another that requires a Rune arrow setup first". Rune arrows in general had some of the slowest and most particularly precise puzzles that didn't feel like they worked as consistently as they should, especially for how long they take to setup your chain reaction solution. It didn't help when I was in the middle of executing the puzzle's solution and my companion would should out hints because I was taking too long.
Companion dialog in general was just a little too frequent, too, when it comes to suggestions or callouts during combat and exploring. One the one hand, I was impressed by how specific some of the hint lines were for every puzzle in the game which could only possibly be used one time, and on the other, you have "You're on fire! ...But you probably already knew that." Ugh. Same with Shield Strikes, the blue circles would appear and I'd already be in the middle of hitting the input, but I'd get a "Use a shield strike!" before it even got out. Some variation there or waiting more than half a second before shouting at me every time I get a status would've gone a long way (and also maybe slightly less quippy dialog for these, mostly for Atreus/Mimir/Odin's intro, though it generally wasn't too offensive).
The RPG mechanics were, like in 2018, just fine. They didn't feel super necessary but didn't get in the way too much. Following the trend, there was probably a little too much going on here too. You've got so many systems in play that you can customize and upgrade that I don't even want to list them all out. Again it feels like cutting one or two of these might have been some nice streamlining, like did we really need the amulet, and did that really need set bonuses? It didn't really feel like it added much that couldn't have been given elsewhere, like on armor or weapon hilts.
I want to commend this game for its accessibility options too, which were a good showcase of how those kinds of settings benefit everyone. I ended up using the auto pickup option for pretty much the entire game, which saved me the fatigue of spamming circle every time I defeated a pack of enemies. I could see it getting in the way during combat though, and I did get punished once or twice for picking up a health or rage stone at a bad time, but that was totally fine as a tradeoff to me. On the theme of customization, I almost recoiled when the Skyrim-style compass appeared for the first time and proclaimed itself a permanent immersion-breaking fixture in the HUD. So I was very glad that I could customize the HUD to not only disable it, but also assign a new motion (touchpad swipe right) that would make me face the direction of my current objective when I needed it instead of having to turn on the compass in case I got stuck. Also, I could turn off the annoying blurred background for subtitles. Props here for sure.
It goes without saying, but this is also a beautiful looking game with tons of polish and great presentation, just like 2018. The more varied locations really shine through here too, which are great to take in visually. Character performances were generally very good too (special shoutout to Ratatoskr), with some more unique takes on ones like Thor and Odin compared to their usual pop culture representations. The game, and 2018 for that matter, definitely fits in that "AAAA" or "AAA+" space that a handful of high budget and very visually impressive games occupy (like FF7R), which are really cool to just behold, even before you talk about actually playing through them.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game, and I got what I came for. I think I would put it ahead of 2018 if I had to rank them, though it wasn't entirely consistent in its quality for both story and gameplay. When it was at its best, it was captivating to follow and satisfying to play, but there were definitely some duller or more frustrating parts along the way. And based on my rating, you can tell that despite some of the negative points I've made, I have a very positive impression overall, and the highlights are really what I'll take away. Also, the attack plants in Vanaheim are awful.
Slight vague SPOILER: there is a new weapon in this game (what a shock!), for which the sequence of acquiring was a highlight. After getting it, I thought it was very cool and went to use it as much as possible, but I never felt like it was actually the best choice for almost any situation (compared to the other weapons which had clear spots to stand out). This could just be me not 100% clicking with it or missing some aspect, but I didn't totally get what its niche was meant to be, and I can't recall any fights or enemies (other than the obvious one) where I felt compelled to swap to this, other than maybe for long range.
ACTUAL SPOILER WARNING: I think Atreus's Ironwood sequence + its immediate follow-up was actually where I thought the game got more interesting and picked up a little, so it's interesting to see others saying that a slog or filler (though I'll concede there was one too many chores to do with Angrboda). Up til about that point, it was extremely just "more 2018" in the general structure. Swapping characters completely and getting a lot more story going on for Atreus's side kind of woke me up in a good way (though technically you do play as Atreus earlier, briefly). I also actually really liked Atreus's combat, especially later on with Ingrid, so that helped keep things fresh. The same happened with the main Asgard section (the second, I could take or leave) where it was a cool way to expand the world and pair up with different characters that you just couldn't get with Kratos. I saw someone compare Ironwood with the Cloud & Aerith section of FF7R which was interesting to me too (more like "downtime," new characters and setting that get you away from what you've been used to up til that point, etc). Angrboda was a nice character and it was cool to see Atreus get to be himself outside of his dad's watchful eye.
A departure from 2018's very focused narrative, this one was a little bit all over the place at times. It worked well sometimes as an excuse to let us explore the world more and meet characters we otherwise might not, but other times it felt a little lost. This also affected the last section of the story and ending, which I felt was pretty rushed for what it was meant to be. Overall though, it had some nice twists and turns and I liked getting the chance to expand the world a bit with how many places you touch on, and even how this tied into gameplay (with controllable and companion characters).
On the gameplay side, things felt more varied than I remember 2018 being, which was nice and an attempt to address a perceived problem in 2018. People complained about the troll fight showing up a million times in that game, and here there wasn't anything so egregious. I did think a couple unique minibosses should have stayed unique here instead of being repeated 2 or 3 times though. It just takes away from that first encounter feeling like something special when there's another nearly identical fight later on. And this isn't a "there should be more unique minibosses" ask, I think there were plenty, they just could have cut some of the repeat fights instead. A couple times during the main story I felt like the pacing was a little off. There would be several combat or puzzle sections in a row instead of mixing them up more evenly, which led to some fatigue at times. I also thought the puzzles were a little much this time around, in the sense that there were 1 or 2 too many mechanics at play. This isn't a difficulty complaint, but more like "why is there a set of branches I can set on fire with R2, but also another that requires a Rune arrow setup first". Rune arrows in general had some of the slowest and most particularly precise puzzles that didn't feel like they worked as consistently as they should, especially for how long they take to setup your chain reaction solution. It didn't help when I was in the middle of executing the puzzle's solution and my companion would should out hints because I was taking too long.
Companion dialog in general was just a little too frequent, too, when it comes to suggestions or callouts during combat and exploring. One the one hand, I was impressed by how specific some of the hint lines were for every puzzle in the game which could only possibly be used one time, and on the other, you have "You're on fire! ...But you probably already knew that." Ugh. Same with Shield Strikes, the blue circles would appear and I'd already be in the middle of hitting the input, but I'd get a "Use a shield strike!" before it even got out. Some variation there or waiting more than half a second before shouting at me every time I get a status would've gone a long way (and also maybe slightly less quippy dialog for these, mostly for Atreus/Mimir/Odin's intro, though it generally wasn't too offensive).
The RPG mechanics were, like in 2018, just fine. They didn't feel super necessary but didn't get in the way too much. Following the trend, there was probably a little too much going on here too. You've got so many systems in play that you can customize and upgrade that I don't even want to list them all out. Again it feels like cutting one or two of these might have been some nice streamlining, like did we really need the amulet, and did that really need set bonuses? It didn't really feel like it added much that couldn't have been given elsewhere, like on armor or weapon hilts.
I want to commend this game for its accessibility options too, which were a good showcase of how those kinds of settings benefit everyone. I ended up using the auto pickup option for pretty much the entire game, which saved me the fatigue of spamming circle every time I defeated a pack of enemies. I could see it getting in the way during combat though, and I did get punished once or twice for picking up a health or rage stone at a bad time, but that was totally fine as a tradeoff to me. On the theme of customization, I almost recoiled when the Skyrim-style compass appeared for the first time and proclaimed itself a permanent immersion-breaking fixture in the HUD. So I was very glad that I could customize the HUD to not only disable it, but also assign a new motion (touchpad swipe right) that would make me face the direction of my current objective when I needed it instead of having to turn on the compass in case I got stuck. Also, I could turn off the annoying blurred background for subtitles. Props here for sure.
It goes without saying, but this is also a beautiful looking game with tons of polish and great presentation, just like 2018. The more varied locations really shine through here too, which are great to take in visually. Character performances were generally very good too (special shoutout to Ratatoskr), with some more unique takes on ones like Thor and Odin compared to their usual pop culture representations. The game, and 2018 for that matter, definitely fits in that "AAAA" or "AAA+" space that a handful of high budget and very visually impressive games occupy (like FF7R), which are really cool to just behold, even before you talk about actually playing through them.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game, and I got what I came for. I think I would put it ahead of 2018 if I had to rank them, though it wasn't entirely consistent in its quality for both story and gameplay. When it was at its best, it was captivating to follow and satisfying to play, but there were definitely some duller or more frustrating parts along the way. And based on my rating, you can tell that despite some of the negative points I've made, I have a very positive impression overall, and the highlights are really what I'll take away. Also, the attack plants in Vanaheim are awful.
Slight vague SPOILER: there is a new weapon in this game (what a shock!), for which the sequence of acquiring was a highlight. After getting it, I thought it was very cool and went to use it as much as possible, but I never felt like it was actually the best choice for almost any situation (compared to the other weapons which had clear spots to stand out). This could just be me not 100% clicking with it or missing some aspect, but I didn't totally get what its niche was meant to be, and I can't recall any fights or enemies (other than the obvious one) where I felt compelled to swap to this, other than maybe for long range.
ACTUAL SPOILER WARNING: I think Atreus's Ironwood sequence + its immediate follow-up was actually where I thought the game got more interesting and picked up a little, so it's interesting to see others saying that a slog or filler (though I'll concede there was one too many chores to do with Angrboda). Up til about that point, it was extremely just "more 2018" in the general structure. Swapping characters completely and getting a lot more story going on for Atreus's side kind of woke me up in a good way (though technically you do play as Atreus earlier, briefly). I also actually really liked Atreus's combat, especially later on with Ingrid, so that helped keep things fresh. The same happened with the main Asgard section (the second, I could take or leave) where it was a cool way to expand the world and pair up with different characters that you just couldn't get with Kratos. I saw someone compare Ironwood with the Cloud & Aerith section of FF7R which was interesting to me too (more like "downtime," new characters and setting that get you away from what you've been used to up til that point, etc). Angrboda was a nice character and it was cool to see Atreus get to be himself outside of his dad's watchful eye.
This is a full, true Yakuza/Judgment hybrid story that just happens to only be only available as DLC and 6 hours long. Knowing the length beforehand, I was really surprised how intricate and high quality the plot ended up being. The core mystery was on par with the better stories in the franchise and never really felt like it was compromised or rushed to fit into a smaller package, with plenty of twists and turns along the way.
The gameplay/story ratio was a little off at the start, but it rounded itself out nicely by the end. Pretty much all of the Lost Judgment mechanics get at least a brief time to shine, which was also cool to see. Kaito also gets a little bit of new stuff in his sleuthing skills. Even if it's a bit of a reskin, it's still nice that new features made it in and their use in finding collectibles was a good, appropriate level of "city" content for this size game.
As far as side content goes though, this is where it feels the most like a DLC and not like a full game (which it is, so I can't fault it much there), and where I'm guessing Gaiden will get to flex a little more as a separate package. Since the series is already so side content heavy and I'm about to play Ishin though, I don't mind this too much. Maybe a very small group of side cases involving the supporting cast, new and old, would have been nice, but I get that it could take away from the focus of the story here.
On that note, the story really was nice and had more going on than I would have expected. I won't get too spoilery, but the thought occurred to me that while LAD felt like a reimagining of a large chunk of Yakuza 1, this felt like it was taking some of the remaining Y1 components and putting its own spin on them (in a good way). It really ended up fitting nicely with both parent series in terms of carrying forward their themes (failure of fathers, cycles of revenge, rippling effects of past actions, etc). Kaito himself, while still not my favorite character ever, does a good job overall being the protagonist of his own story. The worldbuilding was also really nice here and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some of these characters and factions pop up in later games. There's also a plot point that felt straight out of Yakuza 4, though Y4 kind of butchered it so it was nice to see it executed better here. Also, the ending, IYKYK.
And finally, the combat. It's... solid. I think coming from Yagami in LJ, everything else is going to feel kind of bad, but throwing mostly-Brawler/Beast in the same base game as the LJ styles is just not going to feel as nice. The styles are definitely touched up and have a bunch of cool new LJ-stuff going on (like the buffs for each), though quite a bit is locked behind exploration, so I only got certain skills in the final couple fights of the game that I wish I had earlier. My biggest pet peeve was not having something like Rising Tornado to not have to spam X when you get knocked down (except for one EX action in a niche situation), because this happened a lot. Maybe it's also that a ton of enemies have blades in this game, I don't know. It was serviceable and I like the effort and having 2 styles, but this is definitely one of the weaker spots of this entry.
Overall, a pleasant surprise. I expected this to be a fun little adventure, but it really drew me in and convinced me it was its own full scale entry (as far as main story goes), just in a shorter play time. A lack of side content and just "solid" combat hold it back a little, but hey, at the end of the day, it's DLC. Definitely highly recommend anyone who enjoyed the base game to pick this up.
The gameplay/story ratio was a little off at the start, but it rounded itself out nicely by the end. Pretty much all of the Lost Judgment mechanics get at least a brief time to shine, which was also cool to see. Kaito also gets a little bit of new stuff in his sleuthing skills. Even if it's a bit of a reskin, it's still nice that new features made it in and their use in finding collectibles was a good, appropriate level of "city" content for this size game.
As far as side content goes though, this is where it feels the most like a DLC and not like a full game (which it is, so I can't fault it much there), and where I'm guessing Gaiden will get to flex a little more as a separate package. Since the series is already so side content heavy and I'm about to play Ishin though, I don't mind this too much. Maybe a very small group of side cases involving the supporting cast, new and old, would have been nice, but I get that it could take away from the focus of the story here.
On that note, the story really was nice and had more going on than I would have expected. I won't get too spoilery, but the thought occurred to me that while LAD felt like a reimagining of a large chunk of Yakuza 1, this felt like it was taking some of the remaining Y1 components and putting its own spin on them (in a good way). It really ended up fitting nicely with both parent series in terms of carrying forward their themes (failure of fathers, cycles of revenge, rippling effects of past actions, etc). Kaito himself, while still not my favorite character ever, does a good job overall being the protagonist of his own story. The worldbuilding was also really nice here and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some of these characters and factions pop up in later games. There's also a plot point that felt straight out of Yakuza 4, though Y4 kind of butchered it so it was nice to see it executed better here. Also, the ending, IYKYK.
And finally, the combat. It's... solid. I think coming from Yagami in LJ, everything else is going to feel kind of bad, but throwing mostly-Brawler/Beast in the same base game as the LJ styles is just not going to feel as nice. The styles are definitely touched up and have a bunch of cool new LJ-stuff going on (like the buffs for each), though quite a bit is locked behind exploration, so I only got certain skills in the final couple fights of the game that I wish I had earlier. My biggest pet peeve was not having something like Rising Tornado to not have to spam X when you get knocked down (except for one EX action in a niche situation), because this happened a lot. Maybe it's also that a ton of enemies have blades in this game, I don't know. It was serviceable and I like the effort and having 2 styles, but this is definitely one of the weaker spots of this entry.
Overall, a pleasant surprise. I expected this to be a fun little adventure, but it really drew me in and convinced me it was its own full scale entry (as far as main story goes), just in a shorter play time. A lack of side content and just "solid" combat hold it back a little, but hey, at the end of the day, it's DLC. Definitely highly recommend anyone who enjoyed the base game to pick this up.
Starting with the positives: combat is a significant step up from 7. Leaning into positional requirements is a cool angle, and while manual movement is a great change, there's still a bit of frustration that can come from allies and enemies shifting around just enough to screw up what you were trying to do. Basic attacks being a powerful and viable option with combo attacks, back attacks, follow up, and SP regain is also fun to play with. Even though your strategies don't change a massive amount of the time (in late game, most fights had large packs, which meant I would use whatever strong skill hit as many enemies as possible, then clean up the rest), there's usually just barely enough going on to mix you up, like an enemy guarding and requiring a grapple break. If every job was as cool and in depth as Dragon of Dojima, this would be a pretty incredible game, because that's by far the most interesting and engaging one here. You can tell in the back of the RGG's heads that they still know that a brawler is just the right fit for these stories a lot of the time though, especially in that one moment in a certain boss fight. Also, a lot of the side content was pretty good, and Honolulu, while not my favorite RGG city, was a fun new environment to explore.
On a more critical note though, the story is easily one of the weaker ones in the franchise. For a lot of the runtime, it remained either frustrating or uninteresting to me. The first goal of the main plot remains the main goal for like 85% of the game (despite being achieved briefly in the middle) without really giving you quite enough of a reason to care as much as the characters seem to. This is especially true on the Hawaii side, which I was definitely into at the start, but failed to progress in a way that kept me super invested. The one big twist there was super poorly executed, especially after playing Gaiden, and the way it set back the characters' goals just kept me so checked out or annoyed. The Japan side is a little better, though honestly that's completely to do with Kiryu and almost none to do with the actual plot going on there, which has its own share of frustrating turns. Maybe I just don't like Ichiban enough for him to carry a plot in the same way Kiryu can; ironically, this game eroded my confidence in him as a protagonist who can stand on his own going forward.
A trend that I've picked up on that stands out as bizarre to me is the last few games completely lacking confidence or respect for what just happened in the previous game, walking back decisions and saying "actually that thing they did was stupid and doesn't work." Consequences and fallout that change the game's world are cool to see in general, but Lost Judgment handled a post-7 world in a much better way than 8 to me. This is especially frustrating as someone who really liked and respected 6, which it does not feel like RGG themselves do (which they already showed with 7). In some ways, this feels like a reactionary apology for some of the complaints that people had about 6, but pulled off in a way that just reinforces to me that they were correct to have 6 play out how it did. (Some vague spoilers ahead) Pulling in key characters from Kiryu's past only to have them not really do much other than get 1 more fight and then get a 5 minute spotlight feels like a "there, sorry we didn't do that before, are you happy now?" kind of gesture without much relevance or substance to me. And I get that part of the theme is letting Kiryu not have to be a stubborn solo hero, and having him push forward, but a more focused solo journey works a lot better as a sendoff to me. The Life Links and Memories of a Dragon were sort of in the same camp. Sure, it was nice to see a lot of characters and places from throughout the series acknowledged one more time and hear some brief thoughts from Kiryu on each, but the execution makes them feel all like a bit of a tease and not super vital to Kiryu's story. All of the Daidoji stuff is also done in such a weird way that sometimes feels in line with 6/some of Gaiden, sometimes feels totally irrelevant, sometimes bafflingly ignores other happenings in the story, and then eventually decides to recognize those developments without a word about doing so. It cheapens 6 and what came earlier in 8 itself in a very unsatisfying and frustrating way. I think there's a story in here, if you combine most of Gaiden and bits and pieces of 8, that would be a truly worthy follow up and sendoff for Kiryu, but it's buried under a load of other plots, fallout from 7's decisions, and incohesive twists. Where it eventually ends is a solid enough spot, but it got there in such a way that didn't deliver on almost any of its potential and has extremely little narrative or emotional payoff.
And a couple nitpicks that didn't fit elsewhere: this game made me realize how much I dislike Ichiban's suit (and most of the 7 cast's Japan outfits overall). Going to Hawaii was an instant improvement after the brief PTSD endured from (Chapter 1 spoilers) infiltrating the Seiryu base again, in the same outfits, with the same jobs, with the same underground dungeon and the same theme as in 7. I groaned when eventually the suit returned. Also, it feels like there is no good language to play this game in if you speak English. I played in Japanese, which was good overall, but major American characters speaking completely incomprehensible English really took me out of it, and one character in particular really suffered from it. This game also contained one of the best substories in the franchise (Let It Snow), perfectly showcasing their unique balance of goofy and emotional, but also a slew of just awful "romance" (literally just assault) substories. And finally, there were 1-2 standout new characters to me that I did generally enjoy overall and are probably what I'll remember fondly from this game as it ages (name spoilers): Yamai and maybe Tomizawa.
On a more critical note though, the story is easily one of the weaker ones in the franchise. For a lot of the runtime, it remained either frustrating or uninteresting to me. The first goal of the main plot remains the main goal for like 85% of the game (despite being achieved briefly in the middle) without really giving you quite enough of a reason to care as much as the characters seem to. This is especially true on the Hawaii side, which I was definitely into at the start, but failed to progress in a way that kept me super invested. The one big twist there was super poorly executed, especially after playing Gaiden, and the way it set back the characters' goals just kept me so checked out or annoyed. The Japan side is a little better, though honestly that's completely to do with Kiryu and almost none to do with the actual plot going on there, which has its own share of frustrating turns. Maybe I just don't like Ichiban enough for him to carry a plot in the same way Kiryu can; ironically, this game eroded my confidence in him as a protagonist who can stand on his own going forward.
A trend that I've picked up on that stands out as bizarre to me is the last few games completely lacking confidence or respect for what just happened in the previous game, walking back decisions and saying "actually that thing they did was stupid and doesn't work." Consequences and fallout that change the game's world are cool to see in general, but Lost Judgment handled a post-7 world in a much better way than 8 to me. This is especially frustrating as someone who really liked and respected 6, which it does not feel like RGG themselves do (which they already showed with 7). In some ways, this feels like a reactionary apology for some of the complaints that people had about 6, but pulled off in a way that just reinforces to me that they were correct to have 6 play out how it did. (Some vague spoilers ahead) Pulling in key characters from Kiryu's past only to have them not really do much other than get 1 more fight and then get a 5 minute spotlight feels like a "there, sorry we didn't do that before, are you happy now?" kind of gesture without much relevance or substance to me. And I get that part of the theme is letting Kiryu not have to be a stubborn solo hero, and having him push forward, but a more focused solo journey works a lot better as a sendoff to me. The Life Links and Memories of a Dragon were sort of in the same camp. Sure, it was nice to see a lot of characters and places from throughout the series acknowledged one more time and hear some brief thoughts from Kiryu on each, but the execution makes them feel all like a bit of a tease and not super vital to Kiryu's story. All of the Daidoji stuff is also done in such a weird way that sometimes feels in line with 6/some of Gaiden, sometimes feels totally irrelevant, sometimes bafflingly ignores other happenings in the story, and then eventually decides to recognize those developments without a word about doing so. It cheapens 6 and what came earlier in 8 itself in a very unsatisfying and frustrating way. I think there's a story in here, if you combine most of Gaiden and bits and pieces of 8, that would be a truly worthy follow up and sendoff for Kiryu, but it's buried under a load of other plots, fallout from 7's decisions, and incohesive twists. Where it eventually ends is a solid enough spot, but it got there in such a way that didn't deliver on almost any of its potential and has extremely little narrative or emotional payoff.
And a couple nitpicks that didn't fit elsewhere: this game made me realize how much I dislike Ichiban's suit (and most of the 7 cast's Japan outfits overall). Going to Hawaii was an instant improvement after the brief PTSD endured from (Chapter 1 spoilers) infiltrating the Seiryu base again, in the same outfits, with the same jobs, with the same underground dungeon and the same theme as in 7. I groaned when eventually the suit returned. Also, it feels like there is no good language to play this game in if you speak English. I played in Japanese, which was good overall, but major American characters speaking completely incomprehensible English really took me out of it, and one character in particular really suffered from it. This game also contained one of the best substories in the franchise (Let It Snow), perfectly showcasing their unique balance of goofy and emotional, but also a slew of just awful "romance" (literally just assault) substories. And finally, there were 1-2 standout new characters to me that I did generally enjoy overall and are probably what I'll remember fondly from this game as it ages (name spoilers): Yamai and maybe Tomizawa.
2011
A lot more narratively driven than I was expecting, and I'm on the fence on whether that was a good move or not. Of course for the time it certainly was, though I don't think the writing has aged very well (in an "xD 2011 humor" sense, nothing bad). The original's idea of breaking out of the experiment, while superseded by plenty of other games by now, had a much more interesting tone to me. The puzzles are far expanded, which is neat, though I didn't love every new mechanic. The gels/cave section felt like it went on a bit long; I definitely prefer the shorter "futuristic" chambers in general. I'm less a fan of the unstructured bits in between where it's not always clear if there's even a puzzle to be solved or you're just walking the wrong way. When the right puzzle comes along though, it definitely hits.
Difficulty curve was a little wonky, but co-op in general had some cool ideas. Not all of them were stellar, but they definitely made us think in general. The puzzles are the strongest part of Portal 2, so I don't mind blasting ~40 of them without much break for story or anything, though it's noticeably a little dryer. Teasing a boss fight and then just ending on nothing (for DLC) was kind of lame.
This game doesn't really feel like it justifies its existence. One way it tried to do so was its story, something unseen in any previous game that I wish had stayed that way. I don't need an uninteresting VN between my rhythm games that lacks the quirkiness and charm that the little bits around individual games had in previous titles (also, I hate Tibby).
The game keeps this padding up for the first thirty or so games, which are essentially extended practices played to jingles in comparison to the "real" games later on. Cut out the entire first section before the Lush Tower and this immediately becomes a better game.
Eventually, it picked up a bit, despite the majority of games being recycled from the older titles. I understand why this was done, and why we couldn't have a fully original game, and that this is a collection and celebration, but it just doesn't come through. The new games around this point actually start to improve greatly, though there's not many of them. Also, the single point I'll give to the story: it was cute how it contextualized the remixes having themes (unfortunately, limited to just this middle section).
Then we're back to the inferior format for Heaven World, and it ends with a whimper (I was fully expecting a remix with every game, and the existing larger remixes are already a not-so-cohesive mishmash, so why not at that point). A "full moveset" Karate Man was a cool idea though.
This game really feels like it was trying its hardest to get me to not like it in the entire first section, gave up for the middle, then tried again at the end. It's neat to have a collection like this and get a few new games in the process (which were hit or miss), but I would've rather just had a smaller scale "Rhythm Heaven Mini" eShop title with only the new games and no story or returning games over what we got. Sometimes less is more.
The game keeps this padding up for the first thirty or so games, which are essentially extended practices played to jingles in comparison to the "real" games later on. Cut out the entire first section before the Lush Tower and this immediately becomes a better game.
Eventually, it picked up a bit, despite the majority of games being recycled from the older titles. I understand why this was done, and why we couldn't have a fully original game, and that this is a collection and celebration, but it just doesn't come through. The new games around this point actually start to improve greatly, though there's not many of them. Also, the single point I'll give to the story: it was cute how it contextualized the remixes having themes (unfortunately, limited to just this middle section).
Then we're back to the inferior format for Heaven World, and it ends with a whimper (I was fully expecting a remix with every game, and the existing larger remixes are already a not-so-cohesive mishmash, so why not at that point). A "full moveset" Karate Man was a cool idea though.
This game really feels like it was trying its hardest to get me to not like it in the entire first section, gave up for the middle, then tried again at the end. It's neat to have a collection like this and get a few new games in the process (which were hit or miss), but I would've rather just had a smaller scale "Rhythm Heaven Mini" eShop title with only the new games and no story or returning games over what we got. Sometimes less is more.
A fun twist on Classic. The initial level cap of 25 makes this easy to jump into without a huge commitment, and progressively raising that gives a good CTA to return later. The runes are pretty great overall, both in reward and acquisition, aside from a couple misses (not a fan of the 2 "every class go grind this" ones, but hey, it fits Vanilla). I went in thinking the "abilities from later expansions" runes would be sort of dry, but I ended up liking them as much or more than the original ones; they bring a really interesting flavor to the classic toolkits. The Battle for Ashenvale concept, while a little on the light side content wise, is a solid addition as well and the team's quick response and tuning are cool to see. A very promising start to the "let's mess with Classic and see what happens" path and I look forward to more.
(I played a Warlock, got all runes except the 2 grinds, tanked a little, geared a little, got my Ashenvale mount, and cleared BFD.)
(I played a Warlock, got all runes except the 2 grinds, tanked a little, geared a little, got my Ashenvale mount, and cleared BFD.)