shironage
8 reviews liked by shironage
Yakuza 0
2015
This is how you make dual protagonists work.
Both Kiryu and Majima's stories are paid equal attention, have incredible setup and emotional payoff, and fill a real big action movie-esque hole in my heart. An incredible introduction into a series I am growing to love.
Kamurocho and Sotenbori are both full of life and chock-full of things to do, you can quite literally never get bored. There's always something to keep your attention, even if it's just getting filthy rich.
One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard, period. 90% of the tracks are straight heat. Reign, Two Dragons, With Vengeance, Pledge of Demon. All I have to say.
This game goes on sale all the damn time. You can get it for like $5 and easily get over 70 hours of content out of it. Highway robbery. I wish I could give RGG Studios more money.
Both Kiryu and Majima's stories are paid equal attention, have incredible setup and emotional payoff, and fill a real big action movie-esque hole in my heart. An incredible introduction into a series I am growing to love.
Kamurocho and Sotenbori are both full of life and chock-full of things to do, you can quite literally never get bored. There's always something to keep your attention, even if it's just getting filthy rich.
One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard, period. 90% of the tracks are straight heat. Reign, Two Dragons, With Vengeance, Pledge of Demon. All I have to say.
This game goes on sale all the damn time. You can get it for like $5 and easily get over 70 hours of content out of it. Highway robbery. I wish I could give RGG Studios more money.
This game so far has outlived:
- The King of Fighters 14
- 2 Netherrealm games
- Tekken 7
- Marvel VS Capcom Infinite
- Dragon Ball Fighterz
- Smash Ultimate
- Blazblue Cross Tag Battle
- Soul Calibur 6
- Samurai Shodown 7
- Dead or Alive 6
- Jump Force
- Dissidia NT
- Granblue Fantasy Versus
- Melty Blood Type Lumina
And many more that I don't remember
- The King of Fighters 14
- 2 Netherrealm games
- Tekken 7
- Marvel VS Capcom Infinite
- Dragon Ball Fighterz
- Smash Ultimate
- Blazblue Cross Tag Battle
- Soul Calibur 6
- Samurai Shodown 7
- Dead or Alive 6
- Jump Force
- Dissidia NT
- Granblue Fantasy Versus
- Melty Blood Type Lumina
And many more that I don't remember
Roblox
2006
other than a a few hidden gems/sleeper hits this platform is garbage
have we reached the point where its socially acceptable to say this game kind of owns
Yakuza Kiwami
2016
Save me Goro Majima. Save me.
After Zero, I would say this was a little worse, but most of my reasoning comes down to the story and thats a Yakuza 1 problem, not a Kiwami problem. What IS a Kiwami problem is Majima Everywhere:
I love Majima, I loved Majima Everywhere, until I got to about B rank. As soon as he began to have green health in the streets the tedium really crawled in. I finished the game with my rank at A. By the end of the game I was losing to him on purpose. Breaker Majima is so miserable to fight. Plus the encounter on the pier is an excuse to give him his bandages for the Shangri-La encounter, I'm told in the original they come from your fight with him at the batting cages.
Bosses in this game were either too easy or too tedious. Not helped by their ability to regenerate health which, at least in the final boss, you stood no chance of outdamaging. Outside of these moments, Kiwami's combat flourished, and I prefer it to Zero's in all honesty.
Kiwami's story had very strong moments, but suffered a tad. I did not care for Yumi. She wasn't even in 90% of the story. I also do not think the main antagonist got enough screentime, most of it was through flashbacks, which communicated his transformation well, but I would have liked more interactions with Kiryu.
Overall, still a very good game. I just happen to prefer Zero.
After Zero, I would say this was a little worse, but most of my reasoning comes down to the story and thats a Yakuza 1 problem, not a Kiwami problem. What IS a Kiwami problem is Majima Everywhere:
I love Majima, I loved Majima Everywhere, until I got to about B rank. As soon as he began to have green health in the streets the tedium really crawled in. I finished the game with my rank at A. By the end of the game I was losing to him on purpose. Breaker Majima is so miserable to fight. Plus the encounter on the pier is an excuse to give him his bandages for the Shangri-La encounter, I'm told in the original they come from your fight with him at the batting cages.
Bosses in this game were either too easy or too tedious. Not helped by their ability to regenerate health which, at least in the final boss, you stood no chance of outdamaging. Outside of these moments, Kiwami's combat flourished, and I prefer it to Zero's in all honesty.
Kiwami's story had very strong moments, but suffered a tad. I did not care for Yumi. She wasn't even in 90% of the story. I also do not think the main antagonist got enough screentime, most of it was through flashbacks, which communicated his transformation well, but I would have liked more interactions with Kiryu.
Overall, still a very good game. I just happen to prefer Zero.
Guess I originally decided not to log Birthright because I played it as DLC, but that's stupid.
Birthright is also stupid because all of Fates is stupid. As a player that is usually primarily motivated by narrative, I find it less offensive than Conquest and Revelation, but that's faint praise and so subjective as to be worthless anyway.
Birthright is also stupid because all of Fates is stupid. As a player that is usually primarily motivated by narrative, I find it less offensive than Conquest and Revelation, but that's faint praise and so subjective as to be worthless anyway.
It was pretty fun until the map quality plummeted after chapter 17. The fact that multiple enemies exist with 0 attack on the highest difficulty is just embarrassing. Did anyone playtest the later stages of the game? The world may never know.
Finished off Fire Emblem Conquest last night. Again, I'm gonna keep this short and sweet becuase there's already been a ton said about this game's mechanics and such on this forum, so I'll mainly just stick to my opinion.
This is my favorite FE game I've ever played. The virtue of working for the bad guys, the dynamic that the main character has to go through with his/her siblings is so much more explored and nuanced than in Birthright. I enjoyed the side characters far more as well, as they tended to be either more entertainingly strange/quirky, or just written from a very interesting perspective (with my personal favorite being Forrest). Though this game doesn't have the infinite grinding that you can do like Birthright and Revelations, it still felt like I had tons of time to work out character relationships, and even planning which charcters to bring to which mission to foster which relationships was a very cool element to consider.
Verdict: Highly recommended to fans of the series and strategy games. In my opinion, the best FE to date in terms of both mechanics and story. Loved it to bits!
This is my favorite FE game I've ever played. The virtue of working for the bad guys, the dynamic that the main character has to go through with his/her siblings is so much more explored and nuanced than in Birthright. I enjoyed the side characters far more as well, as they tended to be either more entertainingly strange/quirky, or just written from a very interesting perspective (with my personal favorite being Forrest). Though this game doesn't have the infinite grinding that you can do like Birthright and Revelations, it still felt like I had tons of time to work out character relationships, and even planning which charcters to bring to which mission to foster which relationships was a very cool element to consider.
Verdict: Highly recommended to fans of the series and strategy games. In my opinion, the best FE to date in terms of both mechanics and story. Loved it to bits!