DeWyntr

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I personally took a very long time to consider even making a review of this game. To figure out where I stood on principle versus the game itself is a little difficult. My original playthrough of Cyberpunk went really well, bug-free, but it was clear CDPR had lied to consumers for the sake of puffing up their investors, all in this weirdly ironic semblance of what corporate greed can do much like within the Cyberpunk setting itself. The patches has come, and the DLC is announced now, but I feel this game is a far, far cry from what was promised. Subsequent attempts at playthough feel even more buggy now, perhaps my first run was lucky, perhaps fixing bugs caused others, I'm unsure. What I do know is that Cyberpunk, beyond it's interesting and well-executed story beats is a mess **** at it's core. Overfunded, underdeveloped and missold to thousands. I only hope the DLC is everything they promise it to be. When you can get it to work, there's gold in this game. Tension, immersion and depth, but the closer you look, the more you put under a magnifying glass and the more you try to really find yourself steeped within the world that CDPR wanted to craft? The less the game will let you. Melee combat is laughable, but intended to be fixed in the DLC, so we're told. Stealth shooting is satisfying but the hacking is not anywhere close to what we expected it to be, all that and so much more making this title fall short of what could have been. It's average, the patches have made it more playable to many, and that's good but I wouldn't personally recommend anyone play this game.

Lightning didn't strike twice with the new formula, in my opinion. What Tears of the Kingdom did right, to begin with, was the story. TotK eludes to new concepts and characters that have a major impact on now only BotW but on Zelda lore as a whole, and while I don't think the delivery was necessarily the best, I do enjoy this aspect the most. Where TotK's narrative shines the most is within what it doesn't strictly say outright, the Depths and it's shrouded history, the Zonai and their curious origins, the revelation of historical significance to the founding of Hyrule and so much more. There is significant features from the main cast, charmingly, albeit sometimes cheesily, voice acted and in many ways the presence, sacrifice and meaning behind them all is very much consistent. The new areas, of which there are criminally few, are very well done. The aforementioned Depths is an amazing addition despite becoming somewhat samey after the intial exploration, there is an atmosphere and tone within that area that hasn't quite been captured in Zelda for a very long time. The Sky Islands were far too few but the ones we did receive were immensely well designed and enjoyable, though I honestly thought there would have been far more than there were. I must say the one mechanic that left the most impression on me was the item fusion for weaponry and shields, put bluntly I enjoyed that aspect very much because of the ability to make materials collected mean so much more. There are some things, that plainly haven't changed of course, combat is largely unaffected if you happen to be looking at the execution of combat, as opposed to the preparation. Timed dodges, environmental effects and parries are all largely unchanged, Link does not move much differently. The world, while receiving some major cosmetic overhauls in certain areas, is also very much the same; this fact is one you begin to feel after a while in my case, given that the game seems to encourage you to skip most of it with the devices you construct. My gripes, and yes that's the best word I could come up with to refer to these issues with TotK, is I feel there wasn't enough new game here to facilitate the new title. If you take away all that was reused content from BotW, you're ultimately left with the narrative, depths, sky islands and ultrahand. On one hand, I love the freedom and creativity that can come from the Ultrahand and it's devices. The weapons are largely ineffective and inefficient and the use of them for navigation really robs the game of that original BotW element of exploration though perhaps that's because there's not much else to explore. TotK is a good game, please don't misconstrue the score to mean otherwise, it is well above average in every respect, but it doesn't come close to hitting that infamous mark that BotW did. Neither are my personal favorites for the Zelda franchise, but the developments in TotK seem to underline the flaws that weren't as obvious with BotW. TotK seems to keep much of what BotW did right, while not really doing anything to improve what it did wrong, such as the memories, or mismatched narrative pacing. The ending itself, and the completion cutscenes of the otherwise excellently developed Temples, are monuments to this issue. Worth getting, if you're a Zelda fan but I, personally, expected more.

Perhaps one of my favorite entries into the franchise, Final Fantasy XII marks what, in my opinion, is the best middle ground to date between the turn-based entries and the new, modern action combat iterations of the games. For the relatively simple and trope-laden plot that XII holds, it is enchanting in it's execution, with break out roles by an amazing cast of voice actors and actresses, commanding presences to be found on screen, and a surprisingly grounded narrative. The game play itself was divisive at the time, and remains so to this day, a combination of turn-based and free movement combat; it really was an innovation for the first time in the series XI not withstanding. The Gambit System allowed players to not need to micromanage every viable moment of battle and instead program their allies' priorities and considerations in combat by allowing the purchase of actions and parameters for them to take given certain conditions being met. While complicated on paper, this seamlessly integrated itself as a rather intuitive and easy to understand system which provided that core, strategy element to encounters in a live combat setting. The Hunts felt meaningful, the quests interesting, the story engaging enough to keep interest while light enough so as not to bore you entirely with political discourse of lore-dumping where it wasn't needed. FFXII does show it's age now, of course. There are a few quality of life advancements the series has made in the more recent entries, such as saving the game in-menu as opposed to dedicated, physical checkpoints, these I feel are easy enough to adapt to. The Zodiac and License Board systems are perhaps the biggest point of contention for me, as it is incredibly possible to build your characters poorly despite what they may usually come equipped with as far as narrative goes. With Fran, one of the titles main cast, being by far one of the worst options for Archery/Ranged in the game, despite her being clearly cast as such by the story. This level of customization and lacking in balance truly doesn't hold too great an effect however, and only comes into play within the games optional, higher-tier content endgame of which there are only a few. This specific title formulated my love for the series of Final Fantasy into something much deeper and meaningful, I don't think it's perfect, far from it. However if I were to recommend any Final Fantasy game to anyone, it would be this one.

The only edition of the game that you should buy, including all the listed DLC and Additional Content bundled into one package. FFXV is one of the most troubled titles in the franchise, even more so than FFXIII, and it's largely due to it's horrific attempts at marketing. For whatever reason, Square Enix elected to make a media medley of different resources to watch, read, and play in order to understand the full story. A book, a movie and the game itself all are, technically, required to understand the premise of the game's lore in and of itself. The game even goes so far as to use some scenes cut directly from the movie, or vice versa. What's more tragic than the poor attempt to create a franchise within a franchise was the fact that, beneath the clearly unfinished mess that was the game itself, it's actually very fun to play. The character's and cast manage to hold their own, come across as charming and capable of growth; managing to do so without becoming grating even to the last moments of the game is something special. However beyond our cast of protagonists the world is strangely static and bleak, boring even. Once your hunts are done and you have concluded the story, there is little reason to continue enjoying Final Fantasy XV, and I think that's a shame. Without mentioning the amount of cut content intended to further explain the story, leaving gaps in the narrative of even our main cast, and you can see why this game has generally been forgotten over time. If you have been looking for an excuse to get into Final Fantasy for the first time, this isn't the worst place to start, but it's certainly not the best.

Despite being originalyl received with far less praise, I've come to think of Stormblood as one of the better expansions in XIV's history. Starting with a stunning cast of new characters in a segment of the world developed solely for the purposes of expanding the cultural identity of XIV's cast, Stormblood is both impressive and perhaps the expansion with which SE injected the most funding and resources to date. Stormblood heralded one of the most spanning naratives, began the threads that formulated one of the most notorious characters in the game's history, and all of that was managed while providing some of the most in depth-driven character casts I've seen in an RPG, let alone an MMO like XIV. It's worth your time, it's only drawback is that is absolutely does overstay it's welcome with the post MSQ patchquests. There are many of them, too many much the same as HW.

All the marks were hit with this expansion, XIV has had it's shares of ups and downs with content and I must say it's been a rollercoaster trying to figure out where much of my opinions lie when it comes to each featured expansion. Shadowbringers however I can't bring myself to fault, it brought us the new continent within one of the Reflections, a highly developed landmass telling it's own story with it's own unique cast. Harping on tropes without relying so heavily on them as to stifle the creativity of the story itself. Shadowbringers was perhaps the best expansion of XIV to date, only just ahead of Stormblood as my personal favorite. From sympathetic, fleshed out and well-concluded villains to satisfying, sentimental and meaningful interactions with companions, XIV Shadowbringers holds the best of all the game has to offer within it's story. The expansion doesn't overstay it's welcome, maintaining pacing and enjoyment throughout; Shadowbringers brought us Bozja, Zadnor, some of the best high end content we've seen to date all while managing to deliver some amazing casual and story content to boot. This is the definitive XIV expansion to date. My only gripe is what it comes to mean when set against the other expansions, taking place in a realm outside of our own, the story felt isolated away from our experiences and as such the world of Norvrandt doesn't evolve with the newly passing expansions as we do.

An emotional end to the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga, Endwalker marks the conclusion to a story ten years and more in the making. It wastes little time invoking the sentiment and meaning behind that within the story, the emotional beats all are hit, with the weight of time and it's passage behind every moment. The story of Endwalker itself is impressive for an MMO this old, one that I have loved since it's very beginnings despite the flaws I should add, but something about Endwalker just isn't right. While there is no doubt love, and quality in that affection when it came to development, it is plain to see that resources for the MMO are starting to thin. There is a lot of cut corners in Endwalker compared to most other expansions within the XIV, lacking features, entirely missing content, swathes of underdeveloped but highly teased landmasses and not to mention a somewhat lacking finale to a particular antagonist's story. I can't find myself blaming the game however, I think no amount of good writing would match the buildup of a decade's worth of storytelling, and now we're at the end of this particular thread I can't help but nitpick at the lesser details. All that was missed for features that weren't requested, all that is still left a mess despite so much time passing with which to fix it. I look toward the next expansion now, hoping that 7.0 will fix the glaring, aging issues that still permeat XIV. Endwalker was not the best of it's expansions, but it was a good one.