trishlist
60 reviews liked by trishlist
I think the major thing that makes this feel like a step down for me compared to Heavensward and it's patches is that it lacks a lot of fluidity (outside of the last 3 patches), there is a bunch of cool aspects to stormblood, but due to it being disjointed and very poorly paced in a lot of area's I felt my interest waning a lot. Zenos can step on me though.
Flower, Sun, and Rain is a game about a searcher who is hired at a hotel resort to put a stop to a terrorist that'll blow up a plane, but everyday ends with said plane blowing up and the day resetting to try once again. The gameplay consists of walking from one place to another solving puzzles and basically doing fetch quests on your way to the airport. That's it.
On the surface that does sound quite boring, and it kinda is! walking is most of what you do and the game will ask you to backtrack and go back and forth a lot through a bunch of doors and roads adding more of them every day. The puzzles are basic but at the same time they'll require a lot of looking through a long sometimes convoluted guidebook. A lot of days will feel aimless and the people in them will stand on your way mocking your kindness or attempts at making any kind of progress. The story itself doesn't really care about answering its questions clearly, and it'll go wherever it feels like going ranging from huge cryptic earth shattering reveals to a long tedious day of nothing full of unlikeable characters. It tests your patience to some ridiculous limits really, it would be so easy to have a miserable time, but you can laugh along with it too.
It's the way it goes about these things that make it so unique and entertaining. You walk back and forth a lot, but this is also accompanied by an unreal mix of famous tunes arranged to fit the resort's vibe, and the beautiful low poly infrastructure and backgrounds make it so your time in Losspass feels almost like a dream. The puzzles do stand in your way but going through the guidebook and slowly getting a full picture of the world and people around you really grants a different kind of reward, more internal than anything and almost naturalistic that way. I love Sumio Mondo, his slight animosity towards anything that isn't his job, his car, or the suitcase that does everything for him end up making him a very relatable point of view because of how much of an unwilling protagonist he is: he's only there to do his job and loves to complain about having to do anything else but that, yet he still feels a lot of curiosity towards other people and can't help but let his kindness dictate his actions. He just can't be the quiet perfect ideal he has set himself up to be! and most people in the island will defy this ideal as much as possible. Suda is one funny guy so every little interaction is just fun to witness, the situations so bizarre and ridiculous that one can't help but be invested in them and laugh along as silly Sumio struggles to keep any semblance of cool.
You warm up to the place quite a bit, I for one wish i had 100 hours of going around and enjoying the show, and that is ultimately the trap of Losspass island. It's a game about a lot of things, every day is essentialy a different idea than the last and it leads to some really important lore reveals for sure, but it all revolves around this idea of Paradise. This island is nothing else but a miracle, one where people can be who they want to be and enjoy an endless cycle of comfortable nothing that's as accurate to those exaggerated guidebooks make it out to be and might be too good to be true. And it is too good to be true, that sort of thing just can't really exist, the ideal conditions have presented itself for it to be in this world yet it struggles to keep itself in this beautiful stasis, the people and the island itself carry within themselves a past they'll never fully run away from, and the past is something to kill or be killed by, no inbetween. It truly is an essential piece of the series and Suda's work in general, a very long yet oddly nostalgic experience of coming to terms and coping with your own present, only finding a way forward by wiping off this fake Paradise from the face of the earth, something that doesn't need much explaining as it evokes these feelings so vividly.
The truth is very simple: a Paradise is just a place separated from the world. The rain continues to fall, the sun burns brightly, and flowers will always bloom.
On the surface that does sound quite boring, and it kinda is! walking is most of what you do and the game will ask you to backtrack and go back and forth a lot through a bunch of doors and roads adding more of them every day. The puzzles are basic but at the same time they'll require a lot of looking through a long sometimes convoluted guidebook. A lot of days will feel aimless and the people in them will stand on your way mocking your kindness or attempts at making any kind of progress. The story itself doesn't really care about answering its questions clearly, and it'll go wherever it feels like going ranging from huge cryptic earth shattering reveals to a long tedious day of nothing full of unlikeable characters. It tests your patience to some ridiculous limits really, it would be so easy to have a miserable time, but you can laugh along with it too.
It's the way it goes about these things that make it so unique and entertaining. You walk back and forth a lot, but this is also accompanied by an unreal mix of famous tunes arranged to fit the resort's vibe, and the beautiful low poly infrastructure and backgrounds make it so your time in Losspass feels almost like a dream. The puzzles do stand in your way but going through the guidebook and slowly getting a full picture of the world and people around you really grants a different kind of reward, more internal than anything and almost naturalistic that way. I love Sumio Mondo, his slight animosity towards anything that isn't his job, his car, or the suitcase that does everything for him end up making him a very relatable point of view because of how much of an unwilling protagonist he is: he's only there to do his job and loves to complain about having to do anything else but that, yet he still feels a lot of curiosity towards other people and can't help but let his kindness dictate his actions. He just can't be the quiet perfect ideal he has set himself up to be! and most people in the island will defy this ideal as much as possible. Suda is one funny guy so every little interaction is just fun to witness, the situations so bizarre and ridiculous that one can't help but be invested in them and laugh along as silly Sumio struggles to keep any semblance of cool.
You warm up to the place quite a bit, I for one wish i had 100 hours of going around and enjoying the show, and that is ultimately the trap of Losspass island. It's a game about a lot of things, every day is essentialy a different idea than the last and it leads to some really important lore reveals for sure, but it all revolves around this idea of Paradise. This island is nothing else but a miracle, one where people can be who they want to be and enjoy an endless cycle of comfortable nothing that's as accurate to those exaggerated guidebooks make it out to be and might be too good to be true. And it is too good to be true, that sort of thing just can't really exist, the ideal conditions have presented itself for it to be in this world yet it struggles to keep itself in this beautiful stasis, the people and the island itself carry within themselves a past they'll never fully run away from, and the past is something to kill or be killed by, no inbetween. It truly is an essential piece of the series and Suda's work in general, a very long yet oddly nostalgic experience of coming to terms and coping with your own present, only finding a way forward by wiping off this fake Paradise from the face of the earth, something that doesn't need much explaining as it evokes these feelings so vividly.
The truth is very simple: a Paradise is just a place separated from the world. The rain continues to fall, the sun burns brightly, and flowers will always bloom.
An expansion that improves every aspect of ARR, introduces excellent new characters while giving good material to previously established characters and contains one of the most cathartic endings in this series
Yakuza 4 Remastered
2019
This review contains spoilers
Greatly expanded the scoped of the series by including four protagonists, three of which that were completely brand new. And I think it did a fantastic job for the most part. Akiyama and Saejima are two characters I instantly fell in love with and are immediately among my very favourites in the series. Tanimura is solid too. And Kiryu remains excellent as he's always been. I appreciate that the plot was the most relatively down to earth one since Kiwami 1 as well. Their was no dull chapter. Unfortunately I do think parts were not extremely compelling and I kinda glossed over some of the later plot beats. The finale brought me right back in though. Extremely impressive that they managed to pull that team up together and have me so hyped just from a single game's worth of build up.
The gameplay was like a dream after Blockuza 3 and each protagonist's style was very fun.
This is probably the most conflicted I've been on a Yakuza game so far. It's the most I've ever been immersed and I did so much side stuff and substories which were fun but it has also exposed me to a lot of the tropes and idiosyncrasies of the series that are getting a bit old at this point. It's undoubtedly a good game but I don't know if it's great overall despite great moments.
The gameplay was like a dream after Blockuza 3 and each protagonist's style was very fun.
This is probably the most conflicted I've been on a Yakuza game so far. It's the most I've ever been immersed and I did so much side stuff and substories which were fun but it has also exposed me to a lot of the tropes and idiosyncrasies of the series that are getting a bit old at this point. It's undoubtedly a good game but I don't know if it's great overall despite great moments.
i have so much to say about sekiro and yet none of it feels apt enough to describe how i feel for this game, but i'll try. i've played most fromsoft games and while i enjoyed them, the combination of the gameplay and the way the story were told (piecing together lore) never clicked for me in the way it has for so many others. but man, did sekiro did.
the gameplay is praised by everyone for good reason, when it clicks, there is no game that feels as smooth or as sastifying as sekiro's parrying does, but what i love most about sekiro is wolf as a character and how the entire narrative and boss designs and everything about this game is about healing from trauma (or sucmbing too it) and seeing wolf break free from the chains of his life and change is phenomenal.
sekiro from the music to the gameplay to the sound design to the characters to the narrative is a masterpiece and it's such an amazing, worthwhile game and wolf's arc hits me in such a personal, resonating way and i just love him and this game.
the gameplay is praised by everyone for good reason, when it clicks, there is no game that feels as smooth or as sastifying as sekiro's parrying does, but what i love most about sekiro is wolf as a character and how the entire narrative and boss designs and everything about this game is about healing from trauma (or sucmbing too it) and seeing wolf break free from the chains of his life and change is phenomenal.
sekiro from the music to the gameplay to the sound design to the characters to the narrative is a masterpiece and it's such an amazing, worthwhile game and wolf's arc hits me in such a personal, resonating way and i just love him and this game.
Anyone saying that this and Oblivion are properly good games is wrong, but the jank just HITS, the music is masterful, the atmosphere is great and the world is cool, so I can't help but really like TES
This review contains spoilers
Building off from Y6, the cycle of a chained life continues to be unbreakable for Kiryu. An unending fight and this time the decades of relentlessly putting others lives over his own feels just a bit more heavy, more painful. Repressing his emotions deep within, feverishly scrambling, but still hiding behind that calm, stoic act.
Kiryu's way of life and how he chooses to act for others is present once again, cementing that that side of him will never change, even after the several name and lifestyle changes, it's still him. He spent decades stubbornly fighting for the yakuza and for what he believed in, but this time it's them that have to be sacrificed, not Kiryu himself. The decades, history and blood shed will be erased and Shishido plays a perfect fit as the antagonist and vanguard for the old-school yakuza. Also, I love how we tackle and portray Kiryu's legend and what it means at this point in his life.
The presence of the kids and the orphanage is incredibly cruel and heartbreaking, all the way up to the climax of the game where it hits like a fucking truck and I swear that's the most I've cried in forever. Probably my favorite scene in the entirety of Yakuza, full of what makes Kiryu so powerful and a once in a lifetime character. Add to that the incredibly smart use of Yumi and the weight she carries, something that felt missing since her first introduction. Kiryu's journey started with the ring and it now finishes with it, leaving all of that behind but this time not selflessly.
The game's visuals, soundtrack, and overall aesthetic are seriously outstanding as well. Thank you RGG for another very special entry to the franchise.
Kiryu's way of life and how he chooses to act for others is present once again, cementing that that side of him will never change, even after the several name and lifestyle changes, it's still him. He spent decades stubbornly fighting for the yakuza and for what he believed in, but this time it's them that have to be sacrificed, not Kiryu himself. The decades, history and blood shed will be erased and Shishido plays a perfect fit as the antagonist and vanguard for the old-school yakuza. Also, I love how we tackle and portray Kiryu's legend and what it means at this point in his life.
The presence of the kids and the orphanage is incredibly cruel and heartbreaking, all the way up to the climax of the game where it hits like a fucking truck and I swear that's the most I've cried in forever. Probably my favorite scene in the entirety of Yakuza, full of what makes Kiryu so powerful and a once in a lifetime character. Add to that the incredibly smart use of Yumi and the weight she carries, something that felt missing since her first introduction. Kiryu's journey started with the ring and it now finishes with it, leaving all of that behind but this time not selflessly.
The game's visuals, soundtrack, and overall aesthetic are seriously outstanding as well. Thank you RGG for another very special entry to the franchise.
truthfully, i finished this game weeks ago, and truthfully i still find myself stunned on what to say.
the final stretch of this game is so absolutely magnificent that so much of my gut wants to rate this a 5/5. the final two chapters, and the post credits scene, are beyond stunning. they encapsulate the story beyond measure, leave me full of love and melancholy and feelings so full i don't know what to do with them.
but my brain knows this is not a 5/5. there are some biiiig flaws to this game that i just can't deny. some, if not most, of the new characters feel a little underdone, their stories rushed or cut off or just not as good as i know they could have been with a longer story. the engine's combat is just not for me, there's only so much ragdolling hilarity before i wish enemies would just sit still whilst i crush them LMAO
some bigger feelings i would have towards this game would realm too into spoilers for this review, but all in all, this and yakuza 5 are, to me, the Ultimate Kiryu Kazuma games. they are so good at dissecting him and showing him to be a man so full of flaws, and a man you just want to be happy. he is so beautiful, and after Y6 i think about him a worrying amount. he used to not be in my top5 yakuza characters and now he's battling it out for number 1. he really did it. i love him. he is the reason my heart screams for this to be 5/5 stars!!! kiryu!!!! !! aaaaaaaaaa!!! !!!! !!!
the final stretch of this game is so absolutely magnificent that so much of my gut wants to rate this a 5/5. the final two chapters, and the post credits scene, are beyond stunning. they encapsulate the story beyond measure, leave me full of love and melancholy and feelings so full i don't know what to do with them.
but my brain knows this is not a 5/5. there are some biiiig flaws to this game that i just can't deny. some, if not most, of the new characters feel a little underdone, their stories rushed or cut off or just not as good as i know they could have been with a longer story. the engine's combat is just not for me, there's only so much ragdolling hilarity before i wish enemies would just sit still whilst i crush them LMAO
some bigger feelings i would have towards this game would realm too into spoilers for this review, but all in all, this and yakuza 5 are, to me, the Ultimate Kiryu Kazuma games. they are so good at dissecting him and showing him to be a man so full of flaws, and a man you just want to be happy. he is so beautiful, and after Y6 i think about him a worrying amount. he used to not be in my top5 yakuza characters and now he's battling it out for number 1. he really did it. i love him. he is the reason my heart screams for this to be 5/5 stars!!! kiryu!!!! !! aaaaaaaaaa!!! !!!! !!!
Now, how do you turn Yagami's already really cool sidekick into one of my favorite video game protags?
Give him an absolutely amazing storyline that gives Kaito some much-needed additional depth and backstory and a splendid cast of supportive characters and antagonists that all have great chemistry with Kaito; with Jun, Mikiko, Kenmochi, and Kyoya being the highlights, and the first two particularly being some of my RGGverse favorites, as Jun is one of the very few well-written kid characters and Mikiko is one of the very very few well-written women in the RGG series who actually has some agency, actually does something, has a personality, can kick ass, and is relevant and active in the story at hand instead of barely doing anything (Saeko and Seonhee in Yakuza 7 lmao) and is an absolute baddie to boot, and you got yourself a real winner amongst the RGG Studios pantheon.
The only caveats here are the DLC's lack of side-content like sidecases, the fact that Kaito gets a recycled Brawler and Beast, which is pretty much just a pretty basic and janky moveset port with very minimal additions to make it stand out (hopefully that gets fixed in the sequels by giving him a new moveset which by god he deserves) but again the fantastic story more than makes up for it, Higashi getting shafted AGAIN, and Mikiko and Kyoya not getting enough screentime, with a lot of it being show-don't-tell, but I'm willing to give RGG the benefit of the doubt, as this was their first character DLC (no, Majima saga does NOT count) which was pretty short, running at 6 hours, but hey, the lack of Mikiko screentime will most definitely 100% be fixed in future sequels, which I am very hyped to see. And let's not forget its pretty overexaggerated 30$ pricetag, which is still pretty fair when compared to Gaiden's absolutely ridiculous 50$ pricetag lol
Overall, please do check this one out when you're done with the base game if you haven't already; it is so worth it.
Give him an absolutely amazing storyline that gives Kaito some much-needed additional depth and backstory and a splendid cast of supportive characters and antagonists that all have great chemistry with Kaito; with Jun, Mikiko, Kenmochi, and Kyoya being the highlights, and the first two particularly being some of my RGGverse favorites, as Jun is one of the very few well-written kid characters and Mikiko is one of the very very few well-written women in the RGG series who actually has some agency, actually does something, has a personality, can kick ass, and is relevant and active in the story at hand instead of barely doing anything (Saeko and Seonhee in Yakuza 7 lmao) and is an absolute baddie to boot, and you got yourself a real winner amongst the RGG Studios pantheon.
The only caveats here are the DLC's lack of side-content like sidecases, the fact that Kaito gets a recycled Brawler and Beast, which is pretty much just a pretty basic and janky moveset port with very minimal additions to make it stand out (hopefully that gets fixed in the sequels by giving him a new moveset which by god he deserves) but again the fantastic story more than makes up for it, Higashi getting shafted AGAIN, and Mikiko and Kyoya not getting enough screentime, with a lot of it being show-don't-tell, but I'm willing to give RGG the benefit of the doubt, as this was their first character DLC (no, Majima saga does NOT count) which was pretty short, running at 6 hours, but hey, the lack of Mikiko screentime will most definitely 100% be fixed in future sequels, which I am very hyped to see. And let's not forget its pretty overexaggerated 30$ pricetag, which is still pretty fair when compared to Gaiden's absolutely ridiculous 50$ pricetag lol
Overall, please do check this one out when you're done with the base game if you haven't already; it is so worth it.
