I remember taking family trips to the beach when I was a kid and note being able to be apart from my PS2. I remember this specific trip where I knew there was going to be a TV on this small tropical beach we were visiting and I secretly took the PS2 with me. I remember playing Okami the whole week and starting to realize that games could actually be influenced by other games (I was quite mindblown as a kid by this) and I remember very excitedly pointing out all the similarities to previous Zelda games I had played over the years. A very wholesome and ultra artistic experience.

honestly feel like i should preface this with an apology but ff9 is kind of exhausting to me. it feels like going to a shift to work at a theme park; it's pretty and sweet, it's whimsical, and it has nice atmosphere and sometimes you even see your favorite characters walking around, but at the end of the day it's still a day of work to get through. going to just chalk it up as this one not being for me until a few years down the line where i yet again try to beat my head against this game until i like it

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that story is what I value most in a game, and ever since I started getting into JRPGs, Xenogears has been one of the ones that caught my attention the most. This interest only intensified after one of my friends finished it. I always heard that it was a game with an excellent narrative but severely hindered by development issues, mostly related to budget and time, and… yeah, it was true. Everything related to Xenogears’ gameplay seems poorly planned in some way, starting with the human combat, which initially seems interesting, working quite differently from the rest of the genre. Here, instead of defined turns for each participant with one action possible per turn, we have a combo system. Each character has a certain amount of Attack Points (AP) per turn, starting at 3 and ending at 7 as the characters level up, and three types of attacks: weak, medium, and strong, each requiring 1, 2, and 3 AP respectively. It’s possible to keep attacking as long as there’s AP left, and different attack combinations unlock special end-of-turn moves called Deathblows, which act as specials and deal significantly more damage. Thus, you are encouraged to always vary the combos you perform to discover new Deathblows, and of course, the combinations only increase and become more complex as more AP is gained. But quickly, the novelty of this system wears off, and all that remains is repetitive, often unfair, and very, very, VERY slow combat. Slow to the point that playing with the emulator's turbo activated feels like the normal speed the combat should happen at. Learning Deathblows requires the combinations to be repeated numerous times, resulting in the player spamming the same sequences dozens of times in a row, which obviously becomes boring quickly. As usual for games of the genre, we also have magic or skills, but all except for the healing ones are extremely useless. I can count on my fingers the times it seemed advantageous to spend a turn using them instead of just attacking normally. There’s practically no challenge; most bosses consist of just healing while building up a bar that allows you to use a sequence of consecutive Deathblows to deal massive damage at once and defeat them easily. Money is also abundant for the first 80% of the game, so having the best equipment and infinite healing items is very easy, contributing to making everything even more tedious. On the other hand, we have the combat in mechas or Gears, which visually is incredible. The attack animations are extremely well done (this also applies to the human combat), the Gear models are very well crafted, and the HUD that resembles a real command screen is quite cool, but it suffers from as many problems as the previous combat. The main issue is the fuel meter; each Gear has a limited amount that changes depending on the equipped engine (engine, frame, and armor are the three parts that can be upgraded in a Gear). Each attack or skill consumes a certain amount of fuel, and if it runs out, you can basically say goodbye to that attempt and reload the save, as until the end of the game, the only way to recover fuel is by selecting the option in the battle menu, which spends a turn and recovers ~50 each time, which is a negligible amount. To give you an idea, the engine with the least amount of fuel has 1000. Yes, recovering 50/1000 PER TURN. In the first half of the game, it’s quite difficult to run out, but as you unlock more powerful Deathblows (which, consequently, consume more fuel) and when you unlock the action to heal the Gear (which consumes at least 400 fuel), you have to severely limit the actions you take to avoid running out of reserves before halfway through the fight. Some Gear bosses are ridiculously unfair, with attacks that quickly deplete your HP bar, forcing you to heal and consume fuel. Of course, you can break the game if you know which items to equip on which characters, but playing blindly is hellish. And it doesn’t stop there; remember the parts I mentioned above that can be upgraded? So, you upgrade them in shops scattered throughout the game, and the parts are expensive. But as I mentioned in the previous section, money is abundant in the first half, but in the second, prices inflate too much, and it’s practically impossible to have enough money to equip all the Gears with the best equipment without grinding. I can’t stress enough how necessary it is to have the best parts equipped if you want the slightest chance of beating the bosses. And there’s more; it’s a JRPG, so of course, there will be dungeons. As you might have guessed, they are also terrible. Most are straight lines with a few deviations here and there for treasure chests, and the ones that try to be more complex are even worse, becoming extremely confusing, and not in a good way like Megami Tensei, just in an annoying way. And of course, with the encounter rate through the roof. One, in particular, even tries to have platforming sections, PLATFORMING. WITH. ROBOTS. ON. PLAYSTATION 1. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine how poorly this controls and how imprecise it is. To wrap up the gameplay part, the world map is pretty bland; there are no side activities to do until right before entering the last dungeon, and even when they do appear, they are mediocre. It seems more like an excuse to take the player where they need to go rather than a world that's genuinely fun to explore. But at least the interactions and dialogues with NPCs in the cities are very good. Everything exudes inexperience, which is due to the fact that the team was really inexperienced. Most of the developers were new to the market, and the director himself, Tetsuya Takahashi, despite having worked in important positions in some Final Fantasy games, was only 22 at the time, and it was the first project he was directing alone. Understanding this, it’s clear where most of the numerous gameplay flaws came from.

Leaving hell behind and talking about good stuff, more than good actually, the story is exceptional. Almost all the main concepts and characters introduced have perfect arcs and conclusions. The dialogues are masterfully written, and the way everything makes sense in the end is brilliant. “Brilliant” is what you’ll find yourself repeating when trying to find words for this game’s plot. The way the game handles the psychology mainly of the protagonist, but also of other characters, is brilliant, heavily relying on the studies of Freud, Jung, and Lacan. Having at least a basic understanding of these figures’ work is crucial to fully grasp the story. The way the game deals with human relationships on all fronts—love, rivalry, friendship, enmity, selfishness, conflict with others and with oneself—is brilliant. Kaori Tanaka is easily one of the best writers to have worked in the industry. The few criticisms that can be made are related to some party characters who fall into the background for most of the plot after their arcs end and concepts that are quickly forgotten after being introduced, which are relevant to the plot, but nothing truly hinders it. Even hating the gameplay, I never felt like dropping it. The curiosity and desire to see how the narrative unfolds keep anyone playing until the end, and almost all the characters have extremely unique and charismatic personalities. Even in dialogues that don’t add much to the story, you remain interested simply because of who the characters are. Fei, Elly, Krelian, Citan, and Grahf certainly make it into my ranking of best characters of all time. It’s really something you don’t see in any game, even those focused on story. This is on par with the best stories ever told, and maybe, it’s really my favorite.

Graphically, the game is impeccable. It abandons the static backgrounds common in Square’s RPGs of the time and adds fully 3D environments with 2D character sprites, à la Persona 2, resulting in a beautiful visual. The art direction at several moments is breathtaking, and the rare pre-rendered 3D scenes are extremely cool. In combat, instead of the horrible models of Final Fantasy VII and VIII, we also have 2D sprites, which, like the Gears, are extremely well animated and beautiful. The only downside of the environments is that sometimes the camera simply doesn’t have a good angle to stay at, but it doesn’t interfere much.

The soundtrack stands alongside the best of the era. Unfortunately, there are very few songs, so you’ll hear the same tracks over and over again, which quickly becomes boring, but when a new composition appears, it’s another masterpiece.

Now, the elephant in the room... even if you haven’t played it, there’s a chance you’ve heard about the infamous second disc. It was here that the budget and time issues worsened, causing various gameplay sections to be left out and replaced with walls of text narrating what happened. Let’s face it, not having more sections of this wonderful gameplay isn’t a big loss, but it’s still disappointing to have a dungeon narrated to you instead of playing it. The real problem is that even some story parts, which would clearly be cutscenes, receive the same treatment. Unfortunately, chances for a remake of this game are rare, so the magnificent story has to be experienced in a less than ideal state, but it’s what we have.

In the end, despite several stumbles and parts that made me tear my hair out, Xenogears is an experience I will never forget, and I will always cherish it as one of the most engaging and brilliant stories I’ve ever consumed. I’m looking forward to seeing how the spiritual successors continued the legacy that started here. 9/10.

(CLAP, CLAP!) SHIP REVIEW!
Since there's two characters in Bayonetta 3, you get two different jokes. Hallelujah. This game is what I like to call the “Seven Sirens Syndrome” (a term coined by the wonderful @yuzrnaime).

…Bayonetta 3. What. In the absolute FUCK was pre-release period for this game??? Bayonetta 3 was announced at the nigh end of 2017, and while the trailer looked intriguing (most notably with Bayonetta straight up dying in the trailer, too), we didn't see any gameplay for over 4 years, only getting held over with the “Oh, don't worry, it's not canceled frfr”. And then out of nowhere, in September of 2021, we FINALLY got the first trailer, and yeah, I was pretty hyped. Time passed, Hellena Taylor hurled accusations at Platinum Games, no more Hellena Taylor, boycott Bayonetta 3 because she was underpaid, oh wait, she lied, revenge-buy Bayonetta 3. Oh, wait, THAT WAS A MISTAKE, TOO. This game's prerelease was a disaster, and that summarizes most of my thoughts on Bayonetta 3, unfortunately. You can tell that this game went through an extremely troubled development. For a game which took 5 years, it feels very... off-putting. Not bad, of course, it's still a Platinum Games title at the end of the day, but something just doesn't click with me that Bayonetta 1 and 2 did. But, with that being said, it's time to discuss why Bayonetta 3 is easily the weakest title in the series. Frequent rant warning, folks. This one’s gonna be a bumpy ride...

Right off the bat, Bayonetta 3 starts AMAZINGLY, much like the previous games. While it’s not as action packed, it leaves a surprisingly lasting impression that’s actually somewhat emotional. In the first battle, Bayonetta is doing her stereotypical Bayonetta thing. Fighting and fighting, until the bitter end against a dark entity, but UNLIKE usual, she’s eating straight ass. It’s a great contrast between the hyper action packed intros of before, as it has that action, but it’s definitely neutered compared to before. Fitting the tone, Bayonetta straight up DIES. Like, flat-out, shattered into the red orbs of Devil May Cry. Hey, point the gun away from your head, I want to hear Platinum out first, for as much as I can in this genuine shit show. Cut to Sigurd, some random soldier who I presume is close to Viola, a Saints Row 2022 looking-ass character, where Bayonetta’s… something is absorbed into Viola. The entity kills Sigurd off too, leaving Viola alone. With that, Viola retreats into… fucking Manhattan??? Hey, my dad grew up in New York, so I appreciate the shout out, but the city, alongside a girl who looks ODDLY like Cereza, and a guy who sounds AWFULLY like Enzo, are all completely fine, and that’s when I realized, that combined with the monologe about branching paths in the intro, that Bayonetta 3 is a fucking multiverse story. A MULTIVERSE STORY in BAYONETTA. Shit, man. Bayonetta 1 and 2 never had the greatest story to begin with (hence why I barely talked about them), so I’m flabbergasted as to why they even attempted this in the third entry, no less. But hey, let’s hold our “Shit Within”. Maybe it’ll actually be good? NOPE!!! Okay, so Cereza (we’ll call her that for the time being), and… Eggman, alongside… Rodin (i don’t have a good name sorry)??? are all New Yorker-ized, just your average day. But of course, this is a Bayonetta game, so shit gets WACKY! Rodin notices a storm approaching, and Cereza activates her Spider Within to hear someone calling for help. She says something about… a destined time and date to Eggman, as they arrive at a cruise ship dock. Cereza, being Cereza, dresses up for the occasion, and god. I can’t help but notice already.

These graphics are so disappointing, man. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that even Bayonetta 1 looked better; hell, at least it had a consistent style from beginning to end. Bayonetta 2 followed suit, being extremely colorful with incredibly detailed environments, and made one of the best looking Wii U and Nintendo Switch games. 3 looks rather rough in comparison. It’s not ugly per-se, but it’s far below the quality of other Nintendo-produced (or at the very least ASSISTED) games on the Nintendo Switch. Shit, if you squint enough, it looks like Sonic Frontiers on Switch. The first 2 Bayonettas look great, and still do to this day, but 3 looks and feels a lot worse to play. The frame pacing in cutscenes is rather nauseating, the shadows look off on the characters, and overall, I’d say that the models fall far below the quality of Bayonetta 2’s. Not to mention, the really bad frame drops on Switch. I played on Yuzu as I’ve previously said, but I’ve heard horror stories about Bayonetta 3 on Switch. A shame, really. Because we have so many great looking games on Switch, some even coming from Platinum themselves. Astral Chain, Metroid Prime Remastered, Super Mario Odyssey, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Smash Ultimate, some of the best looking Switch games, with most having rock solid performance too. Hell, Bayonetta 3 is one of those Switch games that run at a sub-720p resolution in handheld mode and it looks REALLY fucking rough. I don’t understand why so many Switch games run at sub-720 in handheld mode when they support well above that in Docked Mode. That’s a leg up on Bayonetta 1 and 2 being locked to 720p Docked on Switch, but those games were also 720p on Handheld, the way it should be. You lose an incredible amount of visual clarity without it as the Switch is a decently sized display, and on Handheld, it just looks awful. And seeing Bayonetta 3 still struggle to run on real hardware with THESE kinds of visuals, noticeable pop-in in tow, is quite disappointing to me. Hell, emulators still struggle to maintain a solid FPS with it. Once again, I played on an emulator (using Ryujinx this time, Yuzu kept crashing), and while 2 maintained a solid FPS throughout, Bayonetta 3 was LAG CENTRAL. Hell, it stopped working at a certain point (I needed to enable Vulkan + Texture compression). Nintendo really needs to step up their hardware, because when it’s hurting such a high profile release, it’s very sad to see. But, gripes aside, back to the story.

Viola quite literally falls on Enzo, demanding to see Bayonetta once mor- SUDDENLY, FLOOD! How in the FUCK did nobody notice it until now? What, did Flood Watches not exist in this tim- SUDDENLY, RODIN! Comes up and smacks the ever loving fuck out of the demon who made the flood occur. Bayonetta rides the cruise ship on top of the flood, and you know the drill by now. Bayonetta dances her way through the enemies, clothes get cut, BAYONETTA COMBAT TIME!!! Oh, and Moonlight Serenade. Not as good as Fly Me To The Moon or Moon River, but I still really like it.

Bayonetta 3’s combat mechanics are… solid. At least, in theory. As said nearly a hundred times over at this point, Bayonetta 3 returns with the delay based combos, present in Bayonetta 2, 1, and Devil May Cry. Weapons return from Bayonetta 2, but the Umbran Climax has been reworked into a “Demon Slave” mechanic, summoned by the power of the left trigger. Bayonetta 2’s Umbran Climax was fun, but incredibly overpowered. Bayonetta received a constant stream of health, with her attacks all being turned into devastating Wicked Weaves. In Bayonetta 3, the strength element remains, but leaves Bayonetta vulnerable as the demon only stays out as she dances, while the monster attacks for Bayonetta. Hence the term, Demon Slave. I appreciate the added combat strategy, as Umbran Climax was far lacking in that, but Demon Slave is a bit more skill based, akin to V from DMCV, I felt rather disconnected from combat when I used it. It’s theoretically a little better than Bayonetta 2’s Umbran Climax, but… it still doesn’t feel all that great. If anything, I kind of preferred 2’s because you always felt like the badass slaying all of the monsters. Instead, you get a demon to do the dirty work? Lame! And that also somehow makes Bayonetta 3 BY FAR the easiest in the franchise. I barely died, outside of challenges and the like. It’s SUPER fucking easy, and I played on Hard Mode on my first playthrough, too. Bayonetta 3’s enemies are woefully pathetic. Even on Hard mode, they were shockingly slow and easy to kill. No longer do they resist you like Bayonetta 2, you can wail on them to your heart’s content, and by god, these designs just flat out suck. They all blend in, all being built on the same, boring, robotic designs. Additionally, they removed the item caps from the shop, a dumb as hell move on the developer’s part. And since, like Bayonetta 2, there are no punishments for using items, you can haul absolute ASS in this game. At least Bayonetta 2 tried to limit your items, and while that didn't solve the issue with items and scoring, it still felt well balanced. But with the currency divided between upgrades, costumes, and items in Bayonetta 3 (an idea that’s not bad on paper), items are of little risk to buy since your upgrades don’t suffer from it. Item prices needed to be tuned all the way up, or the items had to be severely nerfed for this to be a good change. Bayonetta 1 and 2’s currency forced you to understand the game’s combat in order to get more skills. If you were good at the game, the Concoction Menu still let you get items for free; hell, I bet some of you never even knew Concoction existed until now. Buying items directly takes away from your currency in which you buy even better techniques from. In Bayonetta 3, this fact is of no issue. I bought 20 goddamn MEGA herbs at the end of the SECOND mission, and still had a lot more money to spare. THAT alone proves how easy Bayonetta 3 is. Want 8 Hot Shots for practically nothing? There you go, you’re practically immortal, now! Because of this, I was basically on autopilot for the entire journey, because the game is so easy to break. Big hit? Oh, just use my 9 million Herbs that I have! Hard Mode, my ass. What we need is a “Witch Must Die” mode or something, as the Bayonetta series gets disappointingly easier with each game. As it stands, Bayonetta 3 is easily a contender for my least favorite in the series for this fact alone. Sure, Bayonetta was a pretty brutal game, and Bayonetta 2 had issues with scoring, but it always put up a good fight. Bayonetta 3, once again, fails to live to the standards of 1 and 2, by being one of the easiest games ever released. You could argue that Bayonetta 3 is meant to introduce newcomers I guess, but even then, Bayonetta 2 did a better job at that. This leaves Bayonetta 3 unengaging for a large majority of it's runtime, and it unfortunately only gets worse from here on out.

Although the Demon Slave has several fatal flaws, to give Bayonetta 3 a genuine compliment, they do something kind of cool with this, where your demons are linked to the weapon you use. Neat shit. It’s a bit more limiting than Bayonetta 2, as you had hands and foot slots, but I’ll… allow it to slide. JUST this once. The weapons themselves are as solid as Bayonetta 2’s, in my eyes, although the variety isn’t as strong. My personal favorite was the yoyos, which provide an excellent balance between close-quarters and mid-ranged attacks. I usually never used the big club, which did great damage but was slow as fuck, because unless you made Devil May Cry 5, it’s usually not my favorite pick for an action game weapon. But the rest are fun, and I did like experimenting with them. And, oh yeah. Torture attacks are now gone too, now you just press 2 buttons, and bam. It's better flowing, but it still feels… so unlike Bayonetta. I don’t know how to say i- SUDDENLY, JEANS! Sporting a more hippie attire, she fights with Bayonetta against this large, tentacle monster thingy, before promptly getting eaten alive by some Penis Flytrap. Damn, is this fucking Endgame? They’re killing everyone like it’s nothing! Oh, nevermind, Jeans is saved by Madame Butterf- SUDDENLY, GIANT FISH? Before getting smacked by a massive building, never to be seen again. What was the point of that??? Anyways, after the massive flood, Cereza, Eggman, Jeans, and Rodin retreat to The Gates of Hell to watch the news, or something. Yeah, Eggman straight up LOST his entire family in that flood. Anyways, Viola introduces the entire multiverse structure, they can't manually control it but they go to Thule where all of the universes lie... IDK. I was already tuned out, man. Anyways, soon enough, Variant Bayonetta in this universe, she’s a super high tech yoyo spider wield- aaaand she dies anyways. Cool. Cut to one of the worst minigames in the entire series, then, the Monster Fighting Game. I don’t know how they made a fighting game character with slower attacks than Ganondorf, but hey, you do you. Then cut to THE worst mini game in the series... FUCKING. KHAKI. JEANS.

Yes, in Bayonetta 3, there are fucking 2D STEALTH MISSIONS. Bayonetta, you sure are one mysterious destiny. Nope, we can’t make her playable in the mainline story, eat shit, Jeanne. All you do is walk around, one shot everything, bam, move on with your life while you do... stuff. Are these supposed to be funny or something? It’s not funny enough to warrant FOUR ENTIRE CHAPTERS to this braindead nonsense. It’s SO boring and tedious, that this is where I started to lose all hope for Bayonetta 3 EVER being better than 1 and 2. And unfortunately, Bayonetta 3 never gets better from those very lofty heights.

Because eventually, you have to play as Viola... and this is. Fine. Not bad, not great, just. Okay. Okay, so unlike Bayonetta, she wields a Katana, and only has one Demon Slave, Chesire, who automatically attacks alongside Viola. Okay... not really that different than Bayonett- WHAT IN THE FUCK IS HER WITCH TIME??? She has to PARRY attacks, which REALLY fucks with my muscle memory, and her combo game is bland. Unlike Bayonetta, who actually has fun mechanics, even in 3, Viola genuinely has NO SAUCE. No fun combo game, no other abilities, nothing! She’s so lame, man. She’s not different enough to warrant a whole ass character, and her playstyle is even worse than Bayonetta’s. Because of this, Viola is easily one of the worst characters in action game history. She’s so MID. Fuck, man. Each time I played as her, I let out a giant, massive SIGH, man. And BTW, she’s so FUCKING annoying. “my name is v-i-o-l-a VIOLA!!!!” Shut UP, man.

And, of course this wouldn't be a Bayonetta 3 review without mentioning the godawful story and ending. Oh my god, that fucking ending, man. It's so BAD. Okay, so after Jeanne dies (LMFAOOOOOO), Bayonetta fights Singularity, but out of fucking NOWHERE, is assisted by all of the Bayonettas from across the multiverse… before including two different Bayonettas... from BAYONETTA 1 and 2... and then Bayonetta 1 and 2 merge with 3- what the fuck??? Did Umbran Witches have this ability all along? And then Bayonetta 3 (the third incarnation of Bayonetta) dies after the fight with Singularity because she exhausted her strength (Persona 3, much?)so now all Bayonettas are dead, but then Luka... hugs Bayonetta... oh, Christ almighty... they both die... that’s it??? WHAT IN THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?!? Okay, first of all, the elephant in the room. Bayonetta’s sexuality. Folks, I know that Bayonetta was hailed as our Lesbian Queen prior to Bayonetta 3, where she flirted with Jeanne, LIVED TOGETHER with he- what the fuck??? You’re telling me after Bayonetta 2, after Bayonetta quite LITERALLY went to HELL and BACK just to save her that they’re just good FRIENDS??? Okay, I guess they never had an active relationship on screen, I guess, and I was mostly pissing around with the “lesbianism” jokes of the earlier reviews. But the same could be as equally said for LUKA, and before you say I’m bi-phobic or some shit (cough cough Gayming), hear me out, as a bisexual myself. First of all, I don’t object to Bayonetta having a heterosexual relationship, but what I DO object to is Luka’s lack of character development. WHO in the Story department put this fucking JIZZER with Bayonetta??? In Bayonetta 1 and 2, they never went past teasing, but Bayonetta did that with EVERYBODY. Luka made an ass out of himself because he WANTED that ass, but Bayonetta never felt the same way! That was the joke! Like Amy and Sonic, it was played off as a simple joke. But you're telling me that it's Knuckles and Rouge now? Bitch, please! They have borderline NO chemistry throughout the entire game. If Bayonetta and Luka were going to “Hit The Climax!”, let's say, then their relationship needed to matter a WHOLE lot more throughout the game. Better yet, why doesn't Viola chat with her Mother before she's banished to Inferno. No??? SHE JUST SITS THERE WATCHING ON??? OKAY!

Thirdly, this presents a fatal flaw in how Viola even EXISTS to begin with. Okay, so let's say, hypothetically, Bayonetta and Luka... fucked. Okay, that's one thing. But that presents a major problem. WHO'S VARIANTS ARE VIOLA’S PARENTS??? It CAN'T be the Luka we see; otherwise, why would Bayonetta 3 accept a kiss from a complete STRANGER? And, either way, if Bayonetta 3 was the mother of Viola, she would certainly recognize her own child in the prologue, no??? If in the grand scheme of things, Luka and Bayonetta were destined to be, and Luka and Bayonetta are destined to give birth to Viola (which isn’t even true based on the variant Bayonettas being seen without Luka), then where are Viola’s variants??? I’d doubt that Luka himself would be able to time travel, fucking everybody in the neighborhood, my guy just followed Bayonetta! Yeah, if you couldn't tell, THIS STORY FUCKING SUCKS. And I'm not done just yet, finally, WHERE DID THE OTHER TWO BAYONETTAS COME FROM? I can buy that variants exist in a multiverse story, believe me. Spiderverse 2 is amongst my favorite movies of all time. But isn't this the fated day where Singularity wins? You mean to tell me that Bayonetta 1 and 2 were two different timelines? THAT'S BULLSHIT. Bayonetta 2 takes place a few months after the first one. You mean to tell me that (the character) Bayonetta 1 time traveled a few months back only for Singularity to fuck shit up during that time? You mean to tell me Bayonetta 3 is a completely separate entity from the other Bayonettas? Sure, Bayonetta has done time travel before, but hasn't broken its own rules to such an extent. Maybe this has something to do with Bayonetta: Bloody Fate, but THAT’S an adaptation, NOT a different story line. Sure, in Bayonetta 1, Bayonetta did help Cereza go back to her own timeline, which was referenced in Bayonetta 2, but that was a ONE. TIME. OCCURRENCE! This is amongst the most PRETENTIOUS stories that I've ever seen in GAMING, with its head stuck up its own ass for most of the runtime. It GENUINELY pisses me off that they decide to kill off Bayonetta AND Jeanne, two INCREDIBLY PREVALENT CHARACTERS IN THE SERIES with ZERO payoff, nor EMOTION to this scene. Nobody gains ANYTHING from it, there’s no character arc completion, no shocking character revelations, NOTHING. Bayonetta dies, Viola cries, GET FUCKED. Well for one exception. Viola is Bayonetta now, hooray, and good lord, the franchise’s story is now ultimately fucked for what it's worth. This story is a crowning achievement of bullshittery that happens once in a few millennia. Bayonetta 1 and 2’s story were not impressive, yes, but Bayonetta 3 takes it to an astronomical level of pure awfulness that not even die-hard Bayonetta fans can appreciate for its absurdity. Just... WHY A MULTIVERSE STORY? It’s SO hard to get right, and when Bayonetta 1 and 2 weren’t great stories by any means, you’re only asking for the bitter disappointment of fans, and thats what fans got! We waited 8 YEARS, just for this. Bayonetta 3 is genuinely one of the worst stories that I’ve EVER SEEN. It’s ABYSMAL. They never do ANYTHING fun with fthe Multiverse setup. Outside of the first cutscene, there’s nothing interesting or intriguing about the world. Bayonetta and company just go through the motions because they’re the main characters in the Video game called Bayonetta 3 for the Nintendo Switch, released on October 28th, 2022, available for $59.99 MSRP. They don't give a fuck, clearly. Why should I? The only time I smiled at the concept was with the pseudo-rhythm game near the end of Chapter 12, but other than that, Bayonetta 3 humor rolls straight ones throughout its painfully short runtime. Who the FUCK cares about all of these different Bayonettas dying when we’ve only seen them for FIVE. SECONDS!!! There’s no payoff, no emotional impact, NOTHING AT ALL. “Ohhhhh, but they come into the final battle for like 3 seconds,” NEAT SHIT!!! And even if there was, we already KNOW what’s going to happen to all of them, because they all died ON SCREEN consistently. They NEVER do anything clever with this setup, maybe save for Bayonetta 3 nearly dying, but that’s supposed to happen. After all, the game is called Bayonetta 3! Not “Viola”, or “Rodin”! And, even then, if ANYBODY in the world cares about all these variants dying, I’ll be DAMNED if it was Bayonetta 3 (the character). She never goes, “Oh shit, with all of these other Bayonettas dying, I might be next!!!” She never runs in and tries to save the others, does she do ANYTHING of value? NO! She just carries along, lets the Bayonetta die, not even reflecting on any of the Bayonettas, when the first one she saw, got torn in TWO RIGHT, IN FRONT OF HER EYES! I don’t know how you go to HELL AND BACK to save your BEST FRIEND/LOVER (IN MY HEART), but lack ANY SORT OF EMPATHY, NOR THE BALLS TO SAVE THE OTHER UMBRAN WITCHES. Oh, what did Bayonetta do before, for the record? Defeat OTHER, stronger Umbran Witches and Lumen Sages, and beat Aesir and Jubelius’s, giant, GODDESS ASS! Is she fucking scared or something??? How did she fend for her own reality all this time??? It’s DUMB! It’s simply. DUMB. This story is fucking stupid, simple as that. Do yourself a favor, press Plus, Up, A whenever a cutscene pops up. It’s so awful and not worth subscribing to. Avoid it like the plague. It accomplishes absolutely NOTHING through it's 9 hour runtime, probably fucks up the future Bayonetta stories, too, and it just flat out fucking sucks overall. It's truly THAT BAD. Actually, back to that comment of “probably fucks up the future Bayonetta stories, too”, apparently, Hideki Kamiya, one of the founding fathers of the Umbran Witch, wanted to make nine entries in the Bayonetta series overall, but… uh oh! Kamiya left Platinum Games in September of 2023. So… yikes. Platinum Games got dealt the worst cards here. I really hope that with the release of future Bayonetta games, that they greatly improve the story. Apparently, Bayonetta Origins has a much improved narrative, but I haven't played it, so all that I can say is that we'll see. But now, it's time for the conclusion.

And folks, that story simply set me over the edge. I’ve never rated a game lower for its story alone, but call me petty, because Bayonetta 3 cleared that bar of absolute TERRIBLENESS, enough for me to rate it a 5/10, when the BARE MINIMUM was shattered. I didn’t care about the stories of Bayonetta 1 and 2, but if anything should be said about Bayonetta 3’s abysmal story, it's that it’s a one of a kind, absolutely nonsensical story that actually made me give a shit about how bad it was. But hey, if you skip the cutscenes, the game is like a 6/10 dw :). But, seriously, Bayonetta 3 is the low point of the franchise. Do I even need to say anything more at this point? I’ve already bitched about the story for several Google Doc pages on end, how it’s gameplay is good on paper but any substance nor appeal surrounding it, surprisingly more so than Bayonetta 2, which had “WIN BUTTON THE GAME MECHANIC”, and how it’s just a mess overall. Yes, there are several things I liked about Bayonetta 3. The combat mechanics of the older games are still there (albeit neutered), the level design is still solid as always, and the music is still great albeit different, but when everything else that surrounds those good elements is middling at best and when it's been done so much better in Bayonetta 1 and 2, I can only give so much praise, man. It’s definitely not the worst game I’ve ever played (hello, Super Meat Boy Forever), but it’s among the most disappointing, if not, the most disappointing. It has its moments, yes, in fact, the Chapter 4 Boss was really fun! But the good heavily outweighs the bad, and leaves me thoroughly mixed on the game as a whole. I don't have any urge to replay this game at all, hell, I didn't even go for the portals since it was so easy to abuse items, so I’ll leave it at that. I don't like saying “Why would you play this when you can play (another game in series)”, because that feels weirdly disrespectful in my eyes as most games still offer different experiences, but Bayonetta 3 offers nothing of value to the Bayonetta franchise. 1 and 2 are infinitely better, and more worth your time. For now, at least. Because next up is Bayonetta Origins, the one that not even Bayonetta fans played! And it's one that I haven't even played, either. I at least played Bayonetta 1 and 2 a bit and I watched videos on Bayonetta 3, so I knew what I was getting into, but I've seen nothing about Bayonetta Origins. Apparently it's a fun game, but you'll have to wait for the review on that one. So, until next time, folks!

After years of drift towards third-person action, survival horror finally returns to its roots: dunking your entire arm into every single trashcan you can find and showing disobedient vending machines and lockers the righteous fury of your boot heel.

Thank God the indie market is so robust these days, because the increasing homogenization of the modern big budget game and shrinking genre space therein means you wouldn't get proper survival horror otherwise. Crow Country and others like Signalis have been filling that void, but despite clearly playing to the charm of PlayStation era horror with its visuals - especially with its character models, which look as though they've been unearthed from an old Net Yaroze kit - Crow Country is no tired pastiche. It's safe rooms, puzzles, and resource management might harken to a design ethos that was at one point more commonplace, but these elements feel authentic and borne from a place of appreciation and understanding.

Nowhere is this more strongly felt than in the park's layout and the way in which the player navigates it. The amusement park theme allows for neatly defined areas with their own theming and unique attractions, with hidden passages, back rooms, cast tunnels, and a subterranean network serving as the connective tissue between each "land" in a way that feels appropriate for the setting while serving to make the park feel highly interconnected. Crow Country is great at providing a sense of space while conveying where the player should go and what to do next. I never felt lost or completely stumped by a puzzle and was consistently engaged and encouraged to revisit old locations to explore - the part of my brain that starts processing how I want to route my way through a game activated pretty early, and as far as I'm concerned, that's a sign that a survival horror game is living up to the promise of its genre.

The setting is also small. Crow Country is less Disneyland, more Santa's Village, so one way developer SFB Games succeeds in making repeated loops through the park threatening is by gradually introducing more enemies and traps to familiar locations. As the time of day progresses, rain and darkness further obscure the player's vision, and boobytrapped pick-ups begin to litter the map to prey on the sense of trust they've developed with their environment. I sprinted my way through the opening two hours, juked most enemies and picked up any crap I saw laying on the ground. By hour five, I was walking everywhere, stopping frequently, side-eyeing boxes of ammo, and finding that I actually had to conserve what I had due to the increased expectation that I shoot some damn "guests."

I also appreciate Crow Country for telling a complete and coherent story, something I think a lot of horror games have pushed away from. I think the Five Nights series has poisoned the genre and led a lot of other indie horror creators to believe a complex and intentionally vague narrative is the best way to ensure franchise longevity. Keep posing questions, provide no answers. I get it, sometimes it's best to let the audience fill in gaps, you don't want over-explain horror, but in the hands of a weak writer, the "unknown" can just be a euphemism for "nothing."

That's not to say Crow Country fails to raise any questions of its own, rather that in true PSX survival horror fashion, you're given all the clues you need to form the big picture through memos, context, and dialog. How well you do that is entirely dependent on how much you're paying attention, and whether you view Crow Country as being so cliched that its horror can be explained by way of Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I was extremely satisfied by the ending, which leaves just enough unanswered that you'll still have something to think of without feeling like you'll need to consult a YouTube series or read like, seven fucking books and play a dozen more games. An indie horror game with a conclusion that is both cogent and earned, thank christ.

So make the most of your Memorial Day weekend and bring the whole family down to Crow Country. Come ride our newest attraction: The Seven Seas, and discover new types of bacteria. Remember, vets and children under 6 get in free!

This is the second part of a two-part review for Monster Hunter: world, except this one will be for Iceborne. I strongly encourage you to read the first part here. Iceborne is an equally long game as World, but I don’t have as much to cover this time, so it should be shorter. This DLC has been hyped up for me way before I got into Monster Hunter, so I went in with moderate expectations, but considering my issues with the base game, I wasn’t expecting anything mind-blowing. Needless to say, it was a fantastic experience with a few snags, let’s get right into it.

Iceborne is a substantial DLC right away because it fundamentally changes how each weapon is played and what they can do. Longswords for example, get the Iai slash and Iai spirit slash. Iai slash becomes an essential tool since landing it will allow your meter to naturally charge overtime, giving you more room to disengage from the monster without fully compromising your ability to perform your Spirit Slash combo. Iai Spirit Slash on the other hand is a higher skilled foresight slash that rewards you with tremendous damage, large part-break damage, and is visually striking. However, the issue with this particular move is the timing is far too tight at times, and it has a lot of factors that make it unreliable and random which severely hinders any sort of benefit it could provide on paper. I’m not an expert when it comes to how this move works, however, I recommend watching this video by Peppo, a former speedrunner about Iai Spirit Slash. It was incredibly informal, and was personally the decision for me to never use this move despite the theoretical potential and advantage it provides. With that said, the simple inclusion of Iai Slash makes Longsword much more forgiving to play despite already being rather easy. Other weapons I can’t comment on as much, however a lot of them usually tie into another mechanic introduced into Iceborne, which is the Clutch Claw.

Clutch Claw is a rather divisive mechanic overall. In concept, it allows you to latch onto a monster from a relatively close distance, once you are latched onto a monster you have a few options. You can “tenderize” that part of the monster, which allows for more damage to be dealt in that specific area. Tenderizing takes two strikes to tenderize with light weapons, while heavy weapons only take one. This would be a fantastic mechanic because it’d allow the hunters a much faster means of defeating monsters while also rewarding monster knowledge by tenderizing weak points to deal even more damage. The issue with this mechanic for Iceborne specifically are the monsters themselves, or rather their bloated health pools. Monsters in Iceborne require you tenderize them to deal adequate damage for them to go down at a reasonable pace, which bogs down many fights to “clutch claw and tenderize as soon as possible”. It heavily restricts the approach one can take fighting monsters in Iceborne, that’s not to mention how inaccurate The Clutch Claw also is. Aiming the clutch claw requires you to aim a reticle at the part you wish to clutch onto, if you aim successfully, then there’s no issue, but that’s the problem, the aiming is terrible. Monsters are incredibly fast and always moving, so having the time to carefully aim and clutch onto a monster is a nightmare, on top of its short range, you really need to put yourself in danger to do it. At least if you latch onto the wrong part, you can jump to other parts of the monster, but this can waste time and has incredibly odd input buffering issues from personal experience, but this may have been my own issue entirely by quickly hitting the buttons, it was annoying all the same.

Clutch Claw’s second important use is wall banging with the slinger. In World, the slinger was mostly used for environmental interaction and getting the monster’s attention while also being able to interrupt their attacks if timed right. Wall banging is not only better in every conceivable way to these options, but once again brings up a balancing issue, except in reverse to tenderizing. If you can clutch onto a monster’s face while they’re not enraged you can use up all of your slinger ammo to make them go sprinting into a wall, which will deal tremendous part break damage and have them topple over, giving you a gigantic opening. You can also adjust where the monster is facing to ensure they run into some obstacle or wall for the topple, which is useful. Wall banging pretty much trivializes any fight before Iceborne, and in Iceborne itself, it can be equally trivializing with the right coordination, guaranteeing a topple is already strong, but wall banging itself can deal immense damage to a monster as well. While I think the challenge of the monsters you fight in Iceborne can make up the difference here, wall banging at first is an incredibly satisfying and fun mechanic, but it’s far too easy and rewarding for something that only requires some slinger ammo and the monster not being enraged. Let’s not forget to mention that tenderizing the monster will drop slinger ammo for you if you use a light weapon, the game is giving you the resources to repeat this process over and over. That’s the fundamental problem with Iceborne to me, they design these monsters around both of these concepts, to tenderize, and to wall bang,, so to make up for that, they made monsters have so much health and resistance, if you decide not to use these methods, I’d argue your chances of succeeding later become vastly lower. Not to mention it can slow down certain fights to an absolute crawl, because you need to use the clutch claw, but if the monster is moving around a lot, and you’re just getting unlucky and knocked off a lot, you’re just kind of screwed. Granted you can still fight the monster normally, but with their health, and that lovely time limit adding pressure to be a bit faster, it’s a combination I did not enjoy very much initially, but you do get used to the new flow Iceborne presents, though I feel it dumbs down gameplay a lot and can be a crutch.

I think I’ve addressed some negatives, let’s get into some positives! The monster roster for Iceborne is nothing short of utterly amazing! While I definitely had my favorites from World like Nergigante, Teostra, and Odagaron to name a few, Iceborne quickly introduced me to some of my all-time favorite monsters ever in both design and fights. Nargacuga’s blinding speed yet incredibly fair openings, Brachydios being a knuckle duster with explosive AoE’s, and Barioth’s blinding speed and aggression that can be stopped cold by shattering his wings. There were very few fights in Iceborne I didn’t enjoy or at least tolerated compared to base World, it gave the game much needed variety outside of World’s roster which felt very dinosaur and dragon loaded. Iceborne certainly doesn’t shy away from adding more of these types of monsters, but was pleasantly surprised to see more diverse design inclusions like Banbaro. One thing I could have done without are all the new variants of old monsters. In concept, I think the idea is good, but in Iceborne, they didn’t feel substantial enough at all to warrant including in my eyes. There are exceptions of course like Coral Pukei-Pukei, and Frostfang Barioth to name a few, but others like Ebony Odagaron and Nightshade Paolumu felt more like padding than worthwhile variants worth being in the DLC. That’s a negligent issue in the grand scheme of things, but still an issue regardless, still an amazing roster of monsters I was very pleased with.

Iceborne also has us exploring a new region: The Hoarfrost Reach. Hoarfrost Reach is a beautiful landscape covered in snow, but wasn’t too large or difficult to navigate, on top of being rather flat compared to the likes of the Ancient Forest, I was immediately a fan of this new area. One thing I was not a fan of constantly having to consume hot drinks to ensure my stamina wasn’t lowered by the cold. Thematically speaking, it’s incredibly cohesive and makes sense, mechanically? It’s bothersome to keep up with, but considering it’s not that often you need to refresh your immunity, it’s ignorable, but something I noticed compared to Elder’s Recess where you only needed to consume Cold Drinks for specific sections, not the entire map. We also get an entire new hub for this DLC, Seliana, wow. Seliana in stark comparison to Astera, was remarkably designed, much flatter, much easier to traverse, and had an unbelievably cozy and immersive feel. I loved everything Seliana had to offer in both layout and new activities such as the generator which just made certain items an absolute breeze to get without farming expeditions anymore. Seliana also had a much better and inviting Gathering Hub, with hot springs, more convenient layout, and again just really cozy. It has much better music, you get your own room you can customize and do side quests to obtain more decoration options which is an awesome inclusion that’ll give the game far more playtime and longevity for people who enjoy that. I personally only dabbled with it, but I was thoroughly impressed with how much you could do with it. As soon as I reached, I never went back to Astera, it’s just too bothersome and badly designed to navigate. I appreciate its verticality and scope, but Seliana is just more inviting and non-intrusive, it wins by a landslide.

Progression with Iceborne also felt far better than base world. A plethora of new monsters means more gear than ever to craft, and most of them are once again useful in their own right and look good to boot, with the added bonus of not having an armor set that can essentially carry you throughout the game like the Defender Gear. With that said, the last armor set in the game one could arguably obtain is far too versatile with how it’s designed, every single weapon or playstyle can be supported by it, and it’s due to this armor set that Iceborne’s endgame grinding is always the same, which is a huge detriment. Had the game allowed for any and all armor combinations to, in theory, be viable, it would have made building and using them long-term far more satisfying and valuable, but instead, what awaits you is a far superior armor set everyone uses, with zero reason not to, no negatives, no drawbacks, nothing, the only caveat being how you obtain it, but we’ll get there. Besides that one issue, the plethora of new options is great, and I very much enjoyed the progression in Iceborne more than the base world. I personally built far more weapons and armor in this expansion than my entire time in Base World because the monsters and difficulty increase every mission warranted it enough to feel important to do.

Iceborne unfortunately retreads the same issues the base world does with cutscenes, missions, and characters. None of it mattered to me, it’s all simply, once again, a means to justify why you’re fighting specific monsters, it works, but is completely unimportant overall. I once again found myself wanting to skip these cutscenes in favor of fighting large monsters. Characters are as one-dimensional as ever, but we do get a break from the Handler in this expansion for a little while, which was nice, but nothing significant. It’s honestly a tragedy these negatives still exist, as you also need to watch the cutscene first before others can join your hunt, which was equally annoying in base World, this same issue persists here. For as much as Iceborne improved upon base world, this was not one of those areas, and it’s a shame too because this DLC truly felt like it was really trying to right every wrong, but I guess it can’t all be perfect.

Let’s get into my largest criticism for Iceborne, the endgame, or more specifically, the endgame monsters you will be fighting. Now, it’d be hard for me to talk about this since it’s riddled with spoilers. I was inspired by one of my friends and inspirations, @DetectiveFail to use pastebin to discuss spoilers. So for the last section of this review, I highly suggest reading it here if you want my thoughts on it. For those who don’t, or wish not to, I will still give a brief summary here. Essentially, a lot of the final Monsters you fight in World boil down to DPS checks that don’t necessarily cater to skill, but more so how good your build is, and forces you to grind for something good enough to overcome the challenge. Monster Hunter already made it difficult at times to win due to the time limit implemented in hunts, and here that problem is exacerbated further. If your damage isn’t good enough, then you will simply wipe, that’s all there is to it. Not to mention the difficulty spike in the last two monsters especially is far too high, and I personally struggled to defeat them for several hours, to days. It was certainly rewarding and a huge accomplishment, but also an obstacle that will ensure I will never aim to complete this DLC ever again because the entire grind was rather unpleasant and not very fun. Instead it was incredibly frustrating and felt like the odds were always against me to win, this is ironically in the same spirit as Monster Hunter aims for, to feel an insurmountable challenge against giant monsters you can and will overcome. But here it feels legitimately impossible, and many have told me from talking about the final boss in Iceborne that they never came close to beating it.

This has been a very long review in the making, I appreciate everyone’s patience and support as I got this finished. I’m happy to say it is now finished, and ready to review some other great games I’ve been playing while working on this. Overall, I did love Iceborne, it was nothing but an improvement from the base game with tons of implementations, monsters, and ideas I felt were mostly good, others I can’t necessarily say I’d be sad if they never returned. While I do take many issues with the game and its expansion, I got to say it’s still a remarkable game. I’ve always wanted to get into this series, and I’m glad I did with this one! I can easily recommend it to others for the immersive monster behavior and designs, the soundtrack, and the fun combat that hits a few snags along the way. Thank you all for reading my review of Iceborne! Next time, we’ll be mixing drinks and changing lives! Until next time.

PART 1: OK, MAYBE I HATE COMPETITIVE TEAM GAMES

Before I start this review, I want to use this Part to yap for a bit, so if you are not interested in it, just skip to Part 2! Where I’ll actually start talking about my actual experience with the game.

Around 4 years ago, when I quit playing League of Legends I kept seeking another competitive team game that would tick the same boxes for me, but every game I would try one out I would either end up disliking them or not taking them seriously enough to actually consider them my “main game”. Which would result in me dropping them, and moving on to the next shiny thing, but what they all had in common is that I disliked playing with other people, League left this mental scar on me where now I think every random player I meet online is one mistake away, whether it's from me or them, from flaming the fuck out of me. This happened with Paladins, Apex, Overwatch, Dead by Daylight, Hell, it even happened to me in the Versus mode of Left 4 Dead 2, where stakes couldn't possibly be lower.

Eventually, I started gaslighting myself into thinking that all Multiplayer games fucking sucked now, and the constant tryhard mindset was to blame for it. Of course, there are clear exceptions, like Splatoon or competitive games where it's just 1vs1 where I can blame either myself for my mistakes or my opponent for doing something I didn’t know how to play around.

During the same time I stopped playing League, I was getting deep into Final Fantasy XIV, while I have plenty of things to say about it, I’ll save them for whenever I review it in the future. The point is that when I started participating in endgame content, which is for the most part, PVE Focused, I found myself having that same fun I was looking for in multiplayer games that I had been seeking for a long time. The joy of sharing a clear with your team and cheering and being way more patient with each other, went far beyond than just being relieved of having ended a stressful match that was barely won.

This is something I also noticed while playing Souls games, Left 4 Dead 2 co-op campaigns, Phasmophobia or Lethal Company with my friends, and when I recently got into Helldivers 2, I was completely aware of this epiphany by now. Multiplayer games don’t actually suck, competitive team ones do, and it's now a new age for me, where I will use this realization to get into games I’ve never thought were for me, hell, maybe I’ll actually try getting into Monster Hunter despite my initial reluctance towards those series.

Now, let’s have a nice cup of Liber-tea over Helldivers 2.

PART 2: DEMOCRACY MANIFEST

When Helldivers 2 gameplay was first revealed I remember two key things about it, one of my friends was excited about it because it was a wild glow up from its predecessor, and it had this footage where the people playing it had one of those cringey scripted voice chat interactions. But for some reason I cannot find it on YouTube, I swear it happened at The Game Awards, but I’m starting to think it's my own case of Mandela Effect.

However, things started changing once the game actually dropped, and it seemed like its growth in popularity happened overnight. The next thing I learn, the game is having so many people trying to play it that the servers cannot keep up. This is something unprecedented, and it actually prompted me to take a look, what was going on over there that had everyone so fired up? And so I started checking out some streams, it’s a 4 player co-op third-person shooter where you can fight either Bugs or Robots. On the surface, I thought it was nothing special, then I caught a glimpse of the players using the in game Stratagems and throwing them around, making things blow up and causing as much collateral damage as possible, my interest was starting to get piqued, who doesn't like to cause a big explosion? But the biggest thing to accompany all of it, was the Galactic War system with its Major Orders, where every couple of days every player in the game is tasked with working towards a common goal to be rewarded with currencies and sometimes new purchasable weapons. Apparently, this is led by a guy called Joel over at Arrowhead that acts like a real-time DM and sends out the orders depending on what the players were doing.

But what really, REALLY convinced me that I had to buy the game, was the Malevelon Creek arc, where the community tragically lost control of this particular planet to Automatons, it was a massacre, tons of brave Helldivers and Super Citizens were slaughtered in the process, but the playerbase wouldn't stand by it, and vengeance was sworn on that day. It wasn’t until the Major Order to take it back was given where the players valiantly fought in the name of DEMOCRACY to bring it back to our side, and it was done at a speed that neither devs nor players could have even predicted.

This is something I had to take part of, there was one issue, however. At the time I was busy playing other games, so despite buying it, it wasn’t until recent weeks that I started playing it a lot more, it is one of my biggest regrets to not have been part of this when player counts still soared over 500k every day, but it still warms my heart to log in and see over 100k still playing actively. One of my most common fears with live service games is that at any moment where failure starts to be shown, it's only a matter of time when the publisher says it's time to turn the lights off, and all that time invested gets flushed down the toilet (RIP Knockout City and Rumbleverse, I still think about you two now and then), but Helldivers 2 seems like its here to stay, and I’m happy to be a part of it, to be spreading justice and freedom for as much as I can. To hopefully one day participate in a Major Order as iconic as The Battle for Malevelon Creek

If there's something I had to complain about the game is how some types of enemies are extremely obnoxious to fight against (I fucking despise Chargers and Hulks), and that Arrowhead has a weird philosophy when it comes to weapon balancing, I don't consider myself an expert in game design, but at the end of the day, this is still a PvE game, one that can become really fucking tough at times, if anything I think everything should be busted, so there’s no meta to be enforced by whatever toxic players might be out there and everyone can play their own way.

To wrap things up, on top of my brief rant about Competitive Team Games, there’s another type of game I dislike a lot nowadays and that’s not a controversial opinion, we are all tired of Live Services, games that don’t respect their customers and that think we all have unlimited time, games where just playing them isn’t enough. Gone are the 7th gen days when games would drop with a weirdly, yet charmingly designed Multiplayer mode whose servers barely worked in favor of rotating shops and time-limited Season Passes that unlock only fluff most of the time. Make no mistake, Helldivers 2 also has some of these tropes, but it appears that this time it remembered it still has a box price, so what would be the point of time gating battle passes and having absurdly expensive cosmetics? None, get all of that shit by playing, go out there, kill some bugs and bots, get that rising feeling of power when your Helldiver starts maniacally laughing because you kept firing for a full mag. Drink of the cup of Liber-tea.

I make no secret of the fact that Valkyria Chronicles is my favourite video game series of all time. The wallpapers on all my computers, phones and handhelds are various images from the series. I talk about it with ceaseless emotion to anyone unfortunate enough to listen. I own a couple of artbooks, and I once got scammed trying to buy a Selvaria Bles figurine for a price that was too good to be true (I got the refund, though it took a month). Through the years, I've championed the series to the point that almost a dozen people have bought an entry simply because I would not shut the fuck up about it. Sega should hire me.

Here it is: the game that started it all. Valkyria Chronicles is a brilliant, innovative, emotional, gorgeously designed and somewhat flawed game that, sadly, has never risen to the place it deserves in the RPG pantheon. It has attracted a decent cult following which spends the greater portion of its time dunking on the game's main cheese strategy than anything else. Nobody hates Metallica more than Metallica fans, as they say.

Yet on a non-autistic run, this is an incredible game. It delivers turn-based strategy and real-time tactics in one addictive package. It's unique and open-ended: depending on your decisions, battles may feel like a walk in the park or a desperate crawl through the trenches of hell. When I first played through this game, it was surprisingly hard - enemies are extremely unforgiving with opening up interception fire on your units, aiming for your weak spots, and they're always given the high ground. I recommend playing this game blind for that reason, so you can become your own Sun Tzu and focus on bolstering your units, using them for their intended roles, and maintaining a steady advance rather than a subdued steamroll. On your first playthrough, you don't want to get fixated on the game's biggest flaw: the focus on speed.

As the game bases your rank and rewards for each battle solely on the number of turns you took to achieve your objective, it's impossible not to attempt cheese strategies once the endless bleating of 'Alicia scout rush' reaches your ears. Do not google this phrase. Go play the game now if you haven't already, and then come back. On my most recent playthrough, I'll say that this strategy only really works for three of the game's story battles, because of how long it takes to unlock the required materials, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming one of the game's more infamous aspects.

It is true that Valkyria Chronicles' ranking system is its biggest flaw. While you may receive extra materials, as well as EA's famous 'sense of pride and accomplishment,' for killing special enemies, these choices do not impact your rating - only the number of turns you took. A more weighted approach would have been better, particularly as A ranks are impossible to receive on later missions on an honest playthrough. So don't focus on rankings on your first run, and enjoy the game the way it's meant to be played: as a hybrid of turn-based and action RPG, of strategy and tactics, maneuvering and attacking your way to victory and glory and freedom of the land.

Valkyria Chronicles isn't award-worthy just for its gameplay, however. The game's beautiful watercolour aesthetic, gorgeous character design and battlefield presentation are not to be missed. From the comic-book style 'Ka-Boom!'s, 'vroom-vroom's and 'ratta-tatta-ta's of movement and attacks, to the seamless switch from 2D overhead to 3D third-person graphics as you begin a turn, this is an inspired, visually spectacular experience. It was one of the first games to present an anime art style in 3D with such success, and it laid the groundwork for how JRPGs would look for years to come. As usual, Valkyria Chronicles does not get credit for this.

The story is satisfying, with the World War II-inspired setting being the highlight. Valkyria Chronicles is not shy about its real-world parallels, but at the end of the day it's still a fantasy game. The plot has a few weak spots, which may be exacerbated by the mediocre English voice acting (the option to select Japanese voices is available.) But it's never egregious enough to alienate the player. Not when the characters are this likeable. Not when the soundtrack is so stirring it still gives me goosebumps. Valkyria Chronicles is endlessly compelling: the story makes you eager for more gameplay, during which you're enthusiastic for the next bit of story.

The PC port is superb, with not one glitch or flaw in all my time with it. It also includes a couple of DLC chapters, but they were made back when publishers were still figuring out how they could milk more money out of games, and they are fairly inessential. I should warn you, though: this game does not have autosave, and you do not want to overwrite your New Game+ data with a separate playthrough or DLC chapter's save, as you will lose that progress.

Got all that? Now go play it, because despite its imperfections, Valkyria Chronicles is fantastic. It was one of the most original, lovingly crafted games ever made when it came out in 2008, and it's still enjoyable today. The sequel was even better.

Tears of the Kingdom is an exercise in how much a game developer can get away with in recycling content. Potentially one of the most uninspired Zeldas ever made, TotK retreads everything Breath of the Wild did but worse in almost every way--save for the weapon fusion which is brilliant and I will miss in other titles. From the beginning, TotK kicks you off in a worse version of BotW's tutorial, but longer and less focused. Then it drops you in to the exact same map as the previous game with the only changes being sprinkles of copy-and-pasted content to keep you entertained. Unfortunately, several highlights from the previous game have been completely removed (such as the Guardians) to be replaced with... nothing. TotK as a game seems determined to pretend that it's a vastly more substantive experience than BotW, but fumbles the ball, especially in regards to the new ares: The Sky and The Depths.

The Sky and The Depths are emblematic of everything I dislike about this game (note that I still liked it, I'm just disappointed). The Sky, outside of the tutorial, is barely anything to write home about. A few scattered islands copied across the entire upper level of the map, so sparse as to make one think The Sky exists solely as marketing filler. And The Depths, a whole map the size of Hyrule but covered in absolutely nothing. The Depths, while very cool and frightening when you first discover them, are immediately undercut by how little there is to actually do there. And while TotK benefits from a better sidequest system than its predecessor, it completely fails on making exploration more interesting--or at all interesting.

And outside of the painfully mediocre and repetitive dungeons--all of which feature the exact same "open four locks and fight a boss" structure, lacking personality or any actual difficulty, become the most droll and dull parts of a game that cannot allow itself moderation. TotK is a good game, but not a great one; hampered by a need to reuse its ideas as much as possible, without introducing anything new or interesting, it becomes one of the most lackluster Zelda games I have ever played. I had a solid time, but I wish I had a great time instead.