I'm playing this with my friends and it's super fun, i don't even like open world and crafting games but here it works. This is way better than any Pokemon game since they went 3D.

Also, fuck all the drama, i don't give a shit, the game is fun. It's funny how nobody gives a shit about copyright until somebody rips-off Pokemon. Two weeks ago people celebrated Mickey becoming public domain because fuck Disney and fuck copyright laws. We get tons of videogame rip-offs and clones all the time, just look at Castlevania, Sonic or Mega Man. Except we don't call those rip-offs, we say they're inspired by those games or are "tributes" (and i love them).

But as soon as it happens to pokemon? Oh god please someone call the copyright police they're stealing Pikachu!

Was wondering, during the playthrough of Fire Emblem: Awakening that I started earlier this year, “Why is this not clicking with me at all?” I was thinking that, maybe playing other titles in this series right after banging out two back-to-back playthroughs of Fire Emblem Engage was pushing it. Maybe I was feeling series fatigue. Then, after shelving my playthrough of ‘Awakening’, I boot up this game for the first time since the year it released and crank out three hours of playtime in the first session and I realize, “Oh, ‘Awakening’ is just missing a lot of how this series evolved after regaining its popularity, and is the least unique out of these modern titles, and thus is hard for me to get into.” Then my partner said, “why are you saying such long-winded sentences to yourself out loud while playing that game?”

‘Echoes’ was the first Fire Emblem game I was able to get in on the Collector’s Edition of on release. I still have the pins, the reversible cover, the soundtrack, and the wonderful art book. What really drew me to the series in the first place was the perma-death, because it raised the stakes of gameplay in a way that was lacking in a lot of media I loved, but also what I really appreciated was the story and characters of these games. Which, I’ve always been someone who valued story, since before I could remember I was obsessed with storytelling. Gameplay, level design, etc. were not things I really could consciously parse the particulars of when I was a teen, so when just looking at what was important to me back then, this game blew me away. It was only the fourth game in a series that soared to my favorites with having only played the two previous 3DS titles and what was the easiest GBA title to get secondhand at the time: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (which I got for $20!!! from GameStop back around 2015/‘16). I mean, you do not have to dig very much into my profile on here to see I appreciate story-centric, character-driven adventure RPGs still to this day.

The point of this is, since finishing ‘Engage’ I’ve been meaning to go back to this game. Despite adoring it after its release in 2017, I’ve only played this game once! So I dove in, and as I said before, this game stuck back to me so fast.

Though, most everyone really enjoys this game’s story. The real sore spot for people is the actual gameplay part of this game. It’s definitely a unique entry in this series and definitely threw a curveball towards a growing fandom after the pretty standard strategy gameplay of ‘Awakening’ and ‘Fates’. For me, though, and like I said, I can’t exactly parse the ‘why’ of it all, but I kind of really liked the gameplay. I hear a lot of stuff about ‘Gaiden’ and ‘Echoes’ map design all the time but I found it to be tricky in a fun way, even Celica’s maps along her route I found fun. It’s basic to start out besides terrain differences, and then you get to the Southern Outpost and that’s when it starts to pull the rug out. I also love the dungeons so much, and mini-battles as dungeon encounters is so interesting to me; for this playthrough I found myself regularly going back to dungeons in order to grind units that are recruited at lower levels or just to go back and complete quests and explore.

I was a little nervous to do the Hard difficulty for this game, since I struggled in both ‘Engage’ and in ‘Awakening’ to get through maps easily. Then I booted this game up and realized… I did my first playthrough on Hard! It is advertised as being for returning players familiar with the franchise, and by 2017, I very much was that. Though, on my first playthrough, I did lose a lot of characters very easily. I lost Faye really quickly, most of Celica’s mercenaries didn’t make it far, save for Saber. I lost Luthier during an ambush before I could even get to the sluice gate and then I couldn’t even get Delthea! Thankfully, I was able to remedy all of these mistakes, and characters I didn’t even get to use for more than a few battles were all-stars this time around (Faye, Jesse, Est, and Delthea, of course)!

Though, playthrough number two wasn’t without its losses. It never feels like an authentic Fire Emblem experience without sacrifices needing to be made, or mistakes leading to regretful losses. Different than my experience with ‘Engage’, the turnwheel offers a second chance, but never took away the tension. There were even times where I ran out of spins on Mila’s turnwheel and lost units I loved! In ‘Engage’, there were points where I had to artificially say to myself “I don’t get to use the time crystal for that mistake,” in order to keep the tensions high. Here, the game feels best balanced for the Turn Rewind mechanic than later entries do, funny enough. Though, the turnwheel can’t save you from every death. The world map ambushes are really clever, and I had completely forgotten how they work, so when Alm first got caught off guard, the enemy cavaliers made a bee line to my unit with the weakest defense: Silque. I love that girl, and I never made that same mistake again!

I love Celica; I love how she is not a case of a female fantasy protagonist holding herself back from violence and war because of their sensitivity or fragility that ignores their having lived in the real world. Right from the get-go, Celica is not afraid to fight, and that’s what makes her the ‘Caring Princess’. She is willing to sacrifice herself not only in the Christ-like way many ‘Fire Emblem’ protagonists find themselves doing, but also through the blood, sweat, and tears that the violence of this series’ worlds require from its leaders. Celica and Alm are the best. In fact, I love most, if not all the characters in this game. I like how, to make up for less support conversations, you can talk to characters in villages and in forts as Alm and Celica and have them confide in you, converse with you, and through that you learn enough background about them to find them all endearing. I like how Emperor Rudolf is not a psychopathic (literal) demon, and is a nuanced character with heart and humanity despite being a warlord. It is so hard to find delicately written bosses, but this game really cares to intelligently make the player come to terms with the realities of war that Fire Emblem characters routinely face. It cannot be exaggerated how special I think the writing in this game is.

I’ve always had a problem with how in newer entries in this series the protagonists were the gods, and, for lack of a better reason, I put the burden on my hate for the “chosen one” trope. Though, with experiencing this story I truly know what the problem is. Much like plenty of other JRPGs, Shadows of Valentia is a story about gods being destined to leave the world to man. Mila speaks to Alm and Celica in the final act and tells them of Naga making weapons that would allow mankind to put down the gods once they began their death throes against the fate that was sealed for dragonkind the moment they began to rule the earth. The good case of the “chosen one” trope is Alm and Celica being prophesized to kill the old gods and pave the way for man to inherit the earth. Thus, the bad cases that we see in Three Houses and Engage is that the gods are the chosen ones, and man must fight by their side to pave the way for god to continue a righteous rule over them.

It’s funny how my two favorite Fire Emblem games are the ones with split-path scenarios that follow two equal protagonists (though the series will always acknowledge the princess of the two the real protagonist), but I think, just because I adore the story and gameplay a little more, this is officially leapfrogging The Sacred Stones as my favorite Fire Emblem game.

It feels pretty rough to dislike this game cuz on paper its more interesting to me than any fighting game to come out in the last 5 years. It goes against the trend of recent fighters by keeping the movement options of Melty, speeding up the pace even further, and emphasizing a new host of defensive mechanics, a development that I would normally think is really sick if not for the fact that in practice, I dislike just about every change they made from MBAACC.

Stages are now horizontally massive and vertically shorter, compared to AACC where stages were really tight and tall. This makes forcing aerial engagements really difficult and combined with the new dash changes gives a lot of power to dashing under aerial movement. Moreover, blocking in the air is really unsafe now, as it will make you fall very quickly while causing no pushback to the attacker, allowing them to start ground pressure from most blocked air normals. If the aerial footsies and air counter hit fishing of AACC is what you like about Melty Blood, then I don’t think you will find that here.
Speaking of which, the new aerial counter hits have hitstun that heavily scales with the button that caused the counter hit which makes them really unstable compared to the old counter hits which had a consistent freeze that helped you get a full conversion everytime. Stuff like Kouma’s 22A anti air no longer nets you a full combo on successful application and aerial jabs can be really awkward to convert from. Not really sure why they decided to do this.

To compensate for the large stages, ground dashes now accelerate to become uncontrollably fast and pay for that speed with a hefty startup, but walk speeds haven’t been increased to accommodate the new stage size. These changes together make ground movement feel like total ass and microspacing feel like an impossibility. The new dash startup and speed forces you to hard commit to movements in neutral that interact really awkwardly with aerial movement and it makes the game feel like a total scramble at all times. Maybe I’m just really bad at this game's neutral, but I feel really unmotivated to learn it when it feels so comparatively bad to play and even watching high level I can see many of the same scrambles and gung-ho movements which doesn’t give me much faith. It feels like the game wants to kill the ability to get rewarded for cautious play and instead wants you to make big gambles to win footsies and I just haven’t experienced a good feeling of back-and-forth in this game.

Type Lumina’s stronger defensive mechanics and weaker offense compared to AACC is probably one of the more eye-catching things about it, given how oppressive offense has been in the last decade of fighting game design. Unfortunately, the way it's implemented in Type Lumina I find rather unfun, especially the new Shield mechanic.
In AACC, Shield required a different input for defending against standing and crouching normals similar to an SF3 parry, and like that game, tighter timing rewarded you for figuring out the opponent’s habits with a guaranteed punish. It’s a mechanic that saw a lot of use once players could figure out each other’s habits and it prevented the game’s defense from ever feeling stale to me as predictability can be hard-punished in most cases.
In Lumina, Shield is now a super block with 0f startup and 10f of recovery that doesn’t care about stand vs. crouch or tight timing, and the reward for shielding an attack is getting to play a looping RPS mini-game that takes away the prevalence of character kits, positioning, and the context of the situation, and instead it forces both parties into a static guessing game. It's so unrewarding yet also so prevalent and powerful because of its ability to remove the Shielding player from any unfamiliar or uncomfortable situation, making both the risk and the reward of shielding feel unsatisfying to me. The only nice thing about the new Shield is that it gives an easy way for beginners to call out and punish Heat activation, but aside from that it's honestly such a net negative for me because the more it's applied the more it replaces interesting situations with the shield RPS game.

When it comes to offense, Melty Blood has never been a series with much plus frames, but Lumina is -1 the game. Rebeats in AACC allowed you to whiff cancel in order to create true frametraps, but in Lumina that ability has been taken away and instead all characters get a universal spaced -1 in rebeat scenarios, which gives the defense some really powerful options to stop pressure and requires the aggressor to do some really hard callouts to counter them. The classic anime 2A pressure feels weaker than ever before due to the slow dash startup and the increased recovery on 2A animations, making it very easy to safely fuzzy mash and causing that type of pressure to be far too risky to be worth it. This isn’t to say that pressure in Lumina is weak, but the way it's designed it only adds to the scramebly nature of Lumina with how many characters rely on weird -2/-1 spacing traps that make the winning and losing options really unintuitive and dependent on character and frame data in a way that I dislike.

This isn’t everything but I think you get the point. I just don’t like any change they made to the gameplay. It doesn’t help that on top of that I am not a fan of the sprites and soundtrack, which aren’t bad per se, but I find the aesthetic in this one to be really plain in comparison to the lively and well animated sprites of AACC, the wacky backgrounds, and the much more experimental and unique music.

And honestly the biggest thing is that looking at all these changes from a big picture perspective, I really can’t figure out what new direction this game is trying to push. A better balance of ground and air neutral maybe? An emphasis on flashy interactions with the clashes and shield RPS? But I don’t think it really works. Contrary to what the last 1000 words would lead you to believe, I didn’t come into this game wanting it to play exactly like old Melty, and I would have liked to enjoy whatever new direction they chose as long as it's solidly implemented. The way it is now though, I just don't see it, as everything that used to be appealing about melty is still in Lumina, just done worse, and every new addition doesn’t do much but detract from those appeals.


I guess the one good thing I have to say about the game is that it's nice to have autocombos that allow new players to get to mid level much quicker and it's nice that its got a somewhat functioning ranked and lobby system compared to AACC. But aside from it being easier to get my friends into, I can’t find much reason to commit to learning this game. I can’t help but finish my sessions with this game feeling rather unsatisfied everytime, something that I haven’t ever felt with a fighting game. Maybe this is just me being stuck at a mid level wall and I will eat my words later, and perhaps the later versions of the game will clean it up and make it feel a lot nicer, but I don’t really see anything I complained about changing. The reception to the game is really positive and most recognize that the game’s mechanics are total clownshoes but “loves the game for it”, whereas I’m really not vibing with the clown fiesta. Is it unfair to compare a highly polished doujin fighter with multiple revisions to a newly released modern fighter? Probably. It just sucks that I can’t really see what new gameplay style or unique flair Lumina is bringing to the table. If I could see some unifying direction behind the changes, then I would respect them even if I didn’t like them (which was the way I was with Strive), but the changes feel so unpleasant and whatever explanations I draw out for why they would design the game this way feels so wrong and worrying for the game’s future.

Until Type Lumina’s qualities aren’t just worse versions of what I like about older Melty, I don’t think I will be excited about playing this game. I wish they’d have embraced a whole new direction rather than making a game that feels almost familiar yet so off.

simply love this kinda working class industrial horror. starts off tonka souls then pulls the rug out and goes all in on daedalic technomazes, gloomy maintenance tunnels, and the kind of homogeneity that makes for the best kinda fevered n fraught navigation. very reminiscent of early 90s pc dungeon crawling, and very much a product of outsized ambitions and design choices; the kind of thing that punches well above its weight and isn't shy about bringing new ideas to the table. we should be thrilled that a developer best known for sludge like lords of the fallen was capable of this much growth in a three year span. that's fuckin sick dude, good on them

it's a shame no one seems to want to engage with it on its own terms, but the pitfall of wearing the mask of a clone is that you'll naturally be treated like one. there's a question of who's at fault here and to what extent, but the response seems especially heightened when it comes to the souls games. nearly every deviation here is done with deliberate intent, for better and worse, yet nearly all of them are treated as if deck13 misunderstands fromsoft, rather than granting even the faintest possibility that fromsoft's fanbase misunderstands deck13

iframes were reduced to bring a greater sense of dimension and purpose to spacing and positioning. limb targeting and its balance between armoured + unarmoured parts create a risk/reward situation where efficiency and economy are at odds with one another while solving the grind dilemma. guard break and overflow damage penalize poor stamina management. dial-a-combo strings provide situational offensive options and punish mashing. duck/hop reward pattern recognition with stylish defensive maneuvers. fast startups hint to get the fuck out of kissing range. and the list goes on. attempting to untangle the R1/O meta isn't easy (tanimura found that out too) but it's evident most of these choices draw directly from fighting games / 3D brawlers and try to shift the dynamic to one where the entire toolbox is equally utile and necessary. these aren't boneheaded mistakes, they're a conscious uprooting of the established verbset

now that doesn't mean you have to like any of it. you don't!! this isn't even really about whether the game's good or not but the strange refusal to consider other modes of exploring a similar foundation. browsing all the long winded steam reviews started to make me dizzy; all this time and all these words dedicated to an almost intentional misunderstanding of what was in front of them. I have infinitely more respect for the guy who says "naw this feels bad" than the guy who puts on their souls veteran uniform and postures as authority like a hall monitor

starting to wonder if any of these games will please an audience that doesn't particularly want to be pleased. it's very telling that Lies Of P's the standout fan favourite because it's the only one where if you close your eyes you could pretend it was miyazaki; a body pillow for ppl whose most formative life experience was beating the capra demon. even dark souls 2 gets berated for experimenting indulgently and drawing more from fromsoft's naotoshi zin era, so pretty much no one's safe. I don't envy anyone working in this space; you either make Demon's Souls 6 or you have to deal with immovably uncharitable weirdos with literally no interest in making adjustments outside their comfort zone

I guess it makes sense, souls fans always struggled with adaptability

so my "rampage" themed set bombed at the last comedy club I played at... an audience member said it made them want to ralph

laughter

I mean, the only thing those freakazoids are destroying... is my wallet

extremely laughter

the only "rampage world tour" i want to see involves millions of dead cops

Probably the most contentious game I've played so far in this series, and I can absolutely understand why. A lot of what it does undermines the original game so massively in both aesthetic and tone that I can't overlook it (seriously, the music choice during the beginning of chapter 12 and near the end of chapter 16 are honestly laughable). Kiwami 1 was a flawed remake for sure, but I can easily see why this is by far the most "you either love it or hate it" game I've seen in the series yet.
The Dragon Engine looks immaculate visually and the combat has a nice, free flow to it that I really dig, but it still feels like RGG's still in the early development phase with it. It's incredibly janky, not as mechanically rich as either 0 or Kiwami 1, and it can feel a bit too easy at times. I'm sure later Dragon Engine games (the Judgment series, essentially) will do this better, but it still feels like we've got a bit to go before it's truly ready.

That all being said, I still thoroughly loved my time with this game from start to finish. Call it brainrot, call it dickriding, call it stockholm syndrome, call it whatever the fuck you want, I can't help but love Yakuza, it's my new addiction, really.

The story of Yakuza 2 is preserved here in all (or most of) its glory. Kiryu is just as strong of a character as he's always been, and I love seeing his ideology being tested at every turn. It's great to see some pushback to his sense of honor, and watching him overcome all of that in the end and come out a stronger person will never not be heart-wrenchingly satisfying. Ryuji is the biggest contributor to this, as he's an amazing foil to Kiryu (probably the best in the series), boasting his own unique sense of honor that clashes perfectly with Kiryu's, as he's more vain and greedy, having yet to understand Kiryu's more pure and true sense of honor.

Also speaking of Ryuji, can I just say that he's honestly one of the most entertaining characters in this franchise. From his phenomenal voice performance, to his arrogant, RAW personality, every scene he showed up in had my full attention throughout. And I loved when the game blew past his arrogance and badassery and allowed me to genuinely sympathize with and understand him on a closer, more personal level, which only added to the INCREDIBLE finale this game contains (seriously, that final boss was insane).
I'm not sure if I prefer him or Yakuza 1's villain more yet, but I'm absolutely delighted that the series has failed to disappoint with its major villains so far, and I hope that continues.

Also really loved Sayama's character. Following her as she learned about her past and developed a genuinely touching, heartfelt bond with Kiryu served to be the surprising emotional core of this story, and I loved it. Her personality's got that signature Yakuza rawness with a feminine touch, but she was nuanced in her writing to where it felt like more than just flash without any substance (and fighting with her was always cool as hell), and her arc is just great.

And yeah, despite my grievances with the combat, what I said about the Dragon Engine's visuals is still totally true. The cutscenes and dynamic intros have never looked better, to be honest (final boss's dynamic intro and final QTE were especially phenomenal) and they always succeeded at getting me hype, or immersing me in the moment.

So overall, while I do absolutely understand why someone would find this remake to be vastly inferior to the original (I would probably end up agreeing with that notion myself if I ever do get to playing it), and disliking or even hating it as a result, I'm so glad that I finally played this game. It provided me with enormous joy as I experienced this story and saw these characters unravel once more. I look forward to what the rest of the series has to offer, but I can safely say that the Kiwami games, while not perfect by any means, helped continue my unwavering love for this series and I could not be more thankful for that.

Red Dead Redemption 2 took years to be made
Baldur's Gate 3 took at least 4 years to make
The Titanic Movie took over an year
YOU had 9 months to be made

Like a Dragon Gaiden took 6 months, and yet it is better than rdr2, bg3, titanic and you! Long live RGG

your dumb ass:
randy pitchford is covered in a thin slimy film! he's a greasy pervert! he's a little creep!

reality:
the year is 1999 — randy "anti US hegemony" pitchford directs the first expansion to half-life. you play as adrian shephard, a villain sent by the USMC to assassinate all witnesses to the black mesa incident, including gordon freeman. but before you can be briefed your helicopter is shot down and you're left stranded without heads or tails of your sinister purpose

knowing you play half-life like everyone else under the sun and that you'll gun down civilians without care, pitchford creates a ludonarratively consonant scenario that incorporates known player behaviours into narrative conceits with trademark grace; one where the participant likely fulfills much of adrian's goal before they're told what it is. pitchford provides commentary on the military's success with breeding more aggressive, violent soldiers, understanding that in WWII only 15-20% of polled soldiers reported firing their weapons, whereas this number raised to 55% in korea and 90-95% in vietnam due to manufactured contempt. blending these two ideas he bridges the gap between player and character and entwines the two in an inseparable double helix mirroring both participants; nature born of accursed nurture

you and shephard are funneled along a narrower path; shuttled from combat encounter to combat encounter, and granted "tacticool" tools to make the violence more thrilling than the previous game while puzzles and horror elements are sanded down extensively. you command other soldiers who speak in garish barks and exist solely as expendable resources, the setting is treated with a heightened parodic touch, and gordon himself is depicted as "employee of the month" despite it being his first day, lampooning his impossibly grotesque ubermench status

eventually your arsenal is overtaken by alien alternatives, more explicitly showing shephard as being more monster than man, the futility of his battle, and the lack of freedom he has by design. he's then left detained where he can do no harm nor receive it, and g man closes out the game by saying "I'm sure you can imagine worse alternatives" — an acknowledgement of the struggle many veterans experience upon returning home, and the lack of support they're given from their government once they've outworn their intended function

randy, I kneel

It's kind of the "Free Bird" of video games. It's thematically thin, but just fatalitic enough to feel poetic. It's a cornerstone of modern American AAA games the way Free Bird is a cornerstone of 70s rock. Both a very much for Your Dad. And its legacy is ultimately tied to its vastness.

Just as Free Bird goes on and on and crescendos with a long guitar solo, so does Red Dead Redemption go on and on and then crescendos spectacularly... although crescendo is the wrong word. This isn't a game that leads to a big, violent set piece, but rather leads a series of quiet domestic chores as you reacclimate to life around the family farm. But in contrast to how loud much of the preceding game is, it feels a bit like a crescendo, like an inverted guitar solo.

I do wish this game wasn't so cartoonish. It feels like a game that could easily bare more of its soul. Red Dead Redemption 2 certainly comes closer to doing that. But here, just about every mission from after you leave Bonnie's ranch until you get back to Blackwater is filled with nonsense comic characters, with a few exceptions (Marshal, Landon, Luisa). Nothing wrong with having a sense of humour but in a game that's attempting to be as sombre and "authentic" as this is, the stereotypes just feel lazy and insecure.

Anyway. Good ending. I liked riding around the old west. And when I first played this I wasn't a very big gamer and it spurred 16 year old me on. I still have a poster of Bonnie on the wall of my old room. I don't know that I'll ever be able to NOT see through all of this game's warts.

Was originally gonna give this game a 8/10 due to it being solid all around but with a quite a few things missing I felt could have improved this (most likely missing due to smaller scope of this game) but my god that last chapter...

Despite having a 1/3 of the screen time most villains in this franchise LaD Gaiden's villains stand out. Homare Nishitani representing the depravity the yakuza encourges and rewards and Kosei Shishido representing the average yakuza who has been cast out by society and members who feels the organisation is the only thing they have and their only path to success. Both of the antagonists reinforces the necessity of abolishing of the clans. Also their personalities are awesome.

The last scene in dojo might just be the best scene in the entire franchise and definitely my fav from this year. Moments like this really make the hundreds of hours I've poured into this franchise and story feel so rewarding. Kiryu getting the see the kids he gave up everything for thrive and live free of hardship is both incredibly wholesome and intensely tragic. Takaya Kuroda's performance here is perfect as Kiryu.
''I guess I needed them more than they ever needed me''

This succeeded phenomenally in it's goal of generating hype for LaD 8 because it really reminded me how lonely Kiryu is and I'm really hoping he can find that family he's been missing in Hawaii with the gang.