Canadyan

I have no problem with the gameplay of TLOU 2 being largely unchanged from the first game, I felt like it served it's purpose in the original to help propel the story and the narrative and get the player from point to point. Where I do have a huge problem is when that gameplay leads you from awful narrative point to awful narrative point. Do not play this game if you appreciated the first game. This game somehow proves every single person right that said the first game did not need a continuation of its story. They clearly had no plans for this game until Sony dumped the money truck on the studio and said make another. Characters from the original game make decisions that they would never make based on everything we know about them and the game has more holes in the plot than a golf course. You don't owe Sony or Naughty Dog any of your money or your time just because you liked the first game (I loved it). Save your money. Send a message. Don't be a sheep to a corporation. We all should have known we were in trouble when the studio director tweeted out that The Last Jedi was an amazing movie.

Grandia Xtreme is a fun but average RPG. If you're looking for a story in the same vein as the rest of the Grandia series, you will be disappointed. The game has a very minimal storyline and is most concerned with making a dungeon-crawler with a fun combat system. The combat system is definitely where the game shines. Paired with this is the option to use any of the 7 side characters to create the party you want to use while exploring dungeons. Where this does falter though is the fact that characters who are not being used, don't gain experience, so it's not viable to switch characters when you want too and it's designed more to choose a party at the beginning and continue with that formation. The dungeon-crawling aspect of the game is actually quite fun but comes with two major drawbacks. The first is that you can never save in a dungeon, meaning you can be committing to gaming sessions of 1 hour+ at least when you sit down to play the game. The second issue with the dungeons is that at two separate points in the game, the game choose to re-use the 4 main dungeons instead of creating new ones for you to explore. This obviously leads to some repetition during a playthrough. Overall, Grandia Xtreme does have fun gameplay that is tied to a minimal story and does provide some player choice with the characters you can choose to build your party with, as well as customizing what types of magic your characters can use as you find and craft Mana Eggs. If you're a fan of the other Grandia games, you will feel at home with the combat system and likely find the gameplay fun enough to pull you through the entirety of the game, which is decent in length but can be repetitive with the re-used dungeons. Newcomers to the series may not find enough here to keep them engaged when compared to the rest of the Playstation 2's library of high-quality RPG's and well-written storylines.

X Squad is average in every sense of the word. It’s not terrible and it’s not great. It’s a third-person shooter for the Playstation 2 that puts the player in control of a squad of four operators. You can issue commands to the other three members when they are present in the missions, though it’s surprisingly rare to have all four with you at once in the game. I never found a need to even bother giving them commands, especially in the later levels where they were incapacitated within the first few gun battles and I couldn’t use them anymore. Essentially you’re playing the game by yourself and sometimes if the AI Squad is around, they may shoot a few enemies for minimal damage. The level designs are very repetitive in the missions, all of them boiling down to following some corridors, gun fight in large room, find switches to open doors, repeat until you reach the boss. The story is extremely simple, borderlining on being unfinished. The cutscenes between the missions sometimes just sound like voice actors reading lines that could have been placed anywhere in the game and have no connection to what is actually going on. It’s all just a means to connect the levels together. There is also a corner-peeking mechanic where you can lean out to shoot enemies, however, this quickly becomes useless because the more dangerous enemies carry grenade launchers and rockets which detonate when hitting the corner, resulting in damaging your character as well. I found it much easier to actually just run-and-gun and strafe into rooms holding the trigger down. All this being said, it’s not a bad game at all. It’s actually a competent shooter with some unique mechanics (for its time, it was a PS2 launch title) in place to earn points in the missions and buy new weapons and gear between them, giving you a sense of accomplishment and choice. The game isn’t terribly long, clocking in around 4-5 hours but this is actually for the better, since as mentioned above, the levels aren’t very unique from each other and the length feels right in terms of not fatiguing the player with repetition. The game can be difficult at certain points and feel a bit cheap when you turn corners to immediately get hit by rocket launchers but there is a decent Checkpoint system that doesn’t force to much backtracking and the enemies are very generous with ammo drops after being killed. All in all, X Squad is a serviceable Playstation 2 game. It will likely be hard to try and play at this point if you’ve never spent any real time with a Playstation 2 and that era of gaming but for those who are looking to explore the catalogue of games and don’t mind the dated graphics, difficulty spikes and bland story, it’s worth a nostalgic visit.

Shadow Hearts is a decent RPG in an era of excellent RPG's. The overall story is not very unique but the atmosphere and world-building within that story is what sets Shadow Hearts apart from other games. The main characters are enjoyable and have some decent dialogue but the rest of the characters that make up your team are essentially just there to fill the roles in the party, with the exception of one who helps tie the game to it's predecessor, Koudelka. The battle system is unique and requires the player to actively press the X button to connect all of their attacks (similar to The Legend of Dragoon) with the Judgement Wheel. There are various pieces of equipment and usable items that affect the wheel in different ways, which adds an interesting layer to the battles that is unique to Shadow Hearts. Where the game may turn some people off is the fact that it is 90% linear and you move from point to point on the world map when the game allows you too. There are a few side quests to be had near the end of the game but they don't offer much, if anything, to the story and characters they involve. There are also some missable quests that give you the chance to improve your main character, as well as get the 'good' ending but you have no way of knowing about these quests, or when you've gone too far to complete them, which can be frustrating. Additionally, the game clocks in between 30-40 hours. I was personally fine with this, I felt like the game was ready to end and wasn't outstaying it's welcome but some people may be looking for more length (which is where better side-quests can help). Lastly, there is a bit of an imbalance when it comes to improving your gear in the game, specifically the weapons. There is an upgrade system where you can pay to improve your weapons but it quickly becomes very costly to do this and you generally replace the weapon with a better one within a few hours of playing anyway, leading to the player either ignoring the mechanic until the end of the game or constantly being broke trying to keep the weapons upgraded, which costs a fortune and requires a lot of grinding to do. Overall, Shadow Hearts is a decent game on the Playstation 2 and worth playing if you're an RPG fan who can appreciate the older generation of games with all of their shortcomings. I recommend it primarily because the battle system is fun and keeps the player involved and the 'real world' setting with fantasy elements to it is unique and makes Shadow Hearts feel different than other RPG's of this generation.