JimPickens

Danganronpa 2 is an improvement on the first game in almost every way, there are a couple of things I think Trigger Happy Havoc did better, namely the Quantity of likeable characters. In terms of Quality over Quantity DR2 takes the cake, but I find more of the DR2 cast unlikable, there's an annoying sadistic Loli, an annoying molest-prone Chef, an annoying fanservice magnet of a nurse, an annoying Chuunibyou guy, who admittedly gets a bit better by the end, but that's right at the end so it doesn't do much to salvage him in my mind, and Monomi. That being said, I find the rest of the cast extremely fun and enjoyable characters, characters who stick out in my mind are the most "main characters" of the cast, being the actual main character, Hajime Hinata, who seems like he'll be just as one note and self-inserty as Makoto from the first game but manages to subvert that by slowly showing more character and interesting depth than Makoto ever did that by the end, explodes into an insanely gratifying final Trial. Nagito Komaeda, who never stops being interesting from the first trial onwards, his entire character motivation is interesting and like Hajime, it culminates spectacularly in the finale. Now finally there's Chiaki Nanami, who, like Hajime starts quite uninteresting, she's the GamerTM character and she's quirky and Not Like Other Girls, but she gets much more interesting by the end, she even makes Monomi less hateable, which is a feat and a half by my metric. Aside from the Holy Trinity I just talked about, the rest of the cast are great, one of my personal favourites being Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, my favourite Yakuza after Kiryu himself, Ibuki Mioda, who is just loveable from the word "go" She's amazing, and finally Nekomaru Nidai, who is voiced by Patrick Seitz and therefore amazing. Everybody I haven't mentioned either leaves too soon to make a huge impact or is good but not I just don't have much to say on them. The gameplay is almost exactly the same, but worse. Somehow they made Hangman's Gambit worse which is... astonishingly impressive, Logic Dive is a sh*itty Browser Game type thing mixed with answering questions, Rebuttal Showdown which is just a 1v1 Truth Bullet section only with swords, it's fine. I played all of DR1 on Normal for both mini-games and logic, but here I slapped both down to Gentle, I just found trials infuriating and nowhere is this better exemplified in Trial 4. Chapter 4 in general ****, it's long, the Strawberry Room of which the Daily Life Chapter takes place largely inside, is an eyesore, blazing red is a real nice colour to stare at for hours, I guess both Monokuma and the devs thought it would be a nice colour to induce murder. The actual murder in this case seems pointless and like it just takes us around in a circle, and finally the actual Trial. The Trial is terrible, from Hajime not knowing what an Octagon is to the following Question that has you pointing at a place which is not hinted at in any way and seems totally luck based whether you hit it without looking it up or randomly pressing every pixel. It's just not good and was the precipice of an extended break I took from the game because the Chapter drained the fun. Luckily the following chapter is superb. It's the penultimate chapter and the catalyst of Nagito's arc, it has several great moments, the best murder case in my mind and one of the most heart-breaking conclusions in the game and maybe the series if DRv3 doesn't top it for me. The finale is also pretty good, our questions are finally answered in some world **** ways and it crosses over with the first game fantastically, getting to see Byakuya again was enough to make Chapter 4 worth it in my mind. The Mastermind feels like a bit of a copout and I think the final conversation lasts a little too long for it's own good, having extended periods of time spent on something that ends feeling very "what was even the point?" not unlike having to prove Kyoko isn't a ghost in the first game. But overall the ending felt satisfying and hopeful, it left me feeling good and like my time was spent well. Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair has some major low points and some major high points, but I think the pro's outweigh the cons here, I just wish less of the cast was as grating as they were and Chapter 4 wasn't as tedious and stupid as it was, and making the final chapter a little more tightly written and less tangent-filled would be good too. But I don't regret my time spent in DR2, and I look forward to finishing Super Despair Girls, the anime and starting Danganronpa v3.

The World Ends With You or "TWEWY" is a game that so masterfully utilizes being a DS game that I truly can't see it working on a different console, and I know that's true because they put it on other consoles and it wasn't as good. TWEWY follows a teenage boy named Neku Skakakabauab whatever his name is, a young anti-social kid who blocks the world out with his nice purple headphones, from the first moment of the game he makes it clear he doesn't want anything to do with anybody, which might be somewhat difficult as he's forcibly paired up with a girl named Shiki to fight these weird monsters called "Noise" using Pins, yes they use pins to do stuff like cast fire, electric, punch real hard, and use telekinetic powers and much more, funky concept I know. To use pins you have to use the DS Stylus in different ways on the bottom screen, all the while controlling your partner with the face buttons on the top screen, this is where the games challenge comes from, multitasking both characters on either screen, and it can take a while to get used to, but Shiki isn't too hard, just don't spam random buttons and you'll be fine. Shiki's attacks require you to put in button combos 3 times to get 3 cards so you can perform a big screen nuke together, it can be a overwhelming at first but you'll get the hang of it eventually. Making sure Neku has updated pins is also quite confusing, I handicapped myself for a few hours because I was using trash pins when I had much better ones in my inventory, keeping Neku up to date is necessary to win, as well as kitting him and Shiki out with new clothes to raise his passive stats. Shiki isn't the only party member though, the game is split up into Weeks, and each week brings a new companion, your second companion is Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu, a flamboyant kid with great hair and weird beam powers, the first day with Joshua can be quite rough as his combat isn't half as good as Shiki's, but once you get past a certain point he starts cleaning house, to the point I was neglecting Neku and nearly dying because their joined health bar was getting too low. On week 3 you pair up with Beat, a loud abrasive, beanie wearing angel who I would die for, his combat... ****, it's weird and confusing and he's the only one I ended up just button mashing through, his section is short enough and Neku's pins should be good enough that you can stumble through with brute force. As well as your three buddies you also get to meet Rhyme, an adorable small angel who I would ALSO die for, Uzaki and Kariya, your resident Jessie and James of this game and both are very fun, Sho Minamimoto, NEO fans will recognize him as a returning character in that game, Mr. Hanekoma, a man I wish was my dad, and a bunch of villains all equally as punchable, All in all a pretty great cast. The crux of TWEWY's story revolves around Neku breaking out of his anti-social shell with the help of everybody around him, being a Player in the Reapers Game allows him to hear others thoughts, this helps Neku to grow more empathetic, as he's forced to understand others in order to progress, while his new friends push him forward. It can be quite a powerful story if you relate to Neku's anti-sociable attitude, and even if you don't watching Neku go from an irritable closed off loner to somebody who genuinely cares for others and would risk everything for those people is great, a very heartwarming story. The World Ends With You is one of my favourite DS games ever and I'm so happy it got the sequel it deserved, I hope this series continues to rise in popularity, it really does deserve more than the cult following it currently has. If you have a DS I can't urge you to play this game on the original hardware enough, I think it's gameplay really does rely heavily on being a DS game and attempts to move it to other platforms simply don't match up. TWEWY is the golden standard for DS games in my eyes and a game I'll sing the praises of until the heat death of the universe.

Persona 4 Golden is the updated rerelease of the ps2 game Persona 4, and personally, I think it suffers from many of it's additions rather than benefits from them, yet still it remains a fantastic game and with the added benefit of portability and HD graphics, I really can't recommend Golden over the originally enough, not to say the original doesn't still have merit, but for your first time with this game, I think Golden is the way to go, but unlike P3 FES and P5 Royal, I think you really ought to go back and play the original too. Persona 4 tells the story of a city boy moving to the countryside to stay with his uncle and niece for the year, you can name this boy whatever you want, but canonically his name is Yu Narukami, so that's what I'll be referring to him as. Yu will meet a whole host of characters, some bright and vibrant with character and some are Yumi Ozawa, but we don't talk about her. There's the main cast, comprising of resident best friend character Yosuke Hanamura, a fellow city kid and removed gay romance option, Atlus you cowards, Chie Satonaka, spunky tomboy who isn't as obsessed with meat as the spin-off's would have you believe, Yukiko Amagi... she's fine, Kanji Tatsumi, the most relatable character I've ever met in a piece of fiction, I love him so much, Naoto Shirogane, best girl detective who people on Twitter willfully misinterpreted as transgender, Rise Kujikawa the simp, and finally Teddie, annoying mascot character. All in all it's a pretty good cast, I don't like it as much as either P3 or P5's cast, but good nonetheless. They do suffer a bit from being TOO in love with Yu. where in P3 Junpei hated Makoto for a month and you had to work to impress Yukari and Mitsuru, everybody here kinda just loves you right out the gate and never shifts opinion, you're god to them. It's especially bad with Rise, who simps harder for Yu than I simp for Naoto, which is damn hard. For the most part these are good characters, Kanji and Naoto stand out to me as having particularly great character arcs that deal a lot with personal identity and where society places you, Kanji specifically, I find his story of having traditionally feminine interests really relatable, him trying to appear more masculine on the surface as a self defense mechanism only for him to embrace those parts of him people find strange or "****" is something I find more emotionally resonant than all 6 of these games combined, and despite Kanji's sexuality never being confirmed because in his own words "it ain't about guys or chicks, I'm just scared **** of bein' rejected" My personal headcanon is that he's bisexual, but I'm just projecting at that point. As for the story in this game it focuses a lot around the "truth" and how far you'll go to pursue it, to the point of having a really dumb secret ending that I don't understand how you're supposed to get without the internet telling you how but there you go I guess. It also has themes of societal expectations and rebelling against that, something Persona 5 would later build upon. The games actual plot revolves around a murder mystery in a small town as you and your ragtag group of friends work together to route out the killer making friends and enemies along the wa- wait a minute... this isn't Persona 4, this is just... GRAND MATROPOLI- I mean, Diamond Is Unbreakable. Yeah people have discussed this games similarities to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure before, and given the nature of Persona's in general, it wouldn't shock me to find out Persona is inspired by JoJo, but as is, it's just a fun little coincidence. Golden introduces one new character in Marie, she's... fine, she has this whole tsundere thing and it's kinda rough but I like her design a lot, very cute. Her dungeon is pretty good too, if easy. The game as a whole is pretty easy actually, the easiest Neo-Persona game in my opinion, to the point I could solo Marie's dungeon no trouble whatsoever, which is a far cry from spending 2 hours fighting Nyx in P3, but I guess I'd rather this anyway. Combat is what you think it is, Turn Based combat with your standard Pokemon-like elemental attacks and weaknesses, Pokemon + Demons, a Pokemon for Doom fans. Good to see Atlus realized their mistake with P3 and gave you direct control over your party again, god knows it needed it. Persona 4 Golden is good, great even, not my favourite Persona but one I highly recommend, even with Golden taking away from what made Inaba a neat concept by adding a beach and a Ski Resort, I mean seriously Yosuke's whole character arc revolved around him being bored out of his skull and you add a Ski Resort? Well whatever, it's still good, and it's on Steam, so go play it.

Danganronpa is a certainly a difficult series to talk about, not least of all because of its rabid fanbase who doxx people over their opinions on fictional characters, but also because the games themselves rely heavily on your emotional connection to those characters, the game relies on your ability to care when they die, betray you, and to care about the ones who survive enough to keep playing. Unlike something like Ace Attorney which hardly ever kills off named characters who aren't designated Victims, DR likes to kill off the main cast after developing them, which risks the players investment if too many characters are killed off too fast. Luckily I think Trigger Happy Havoc manages to keep the player invested for the most part, it does start to drop off by the end because the games basic formula starts getting pretty tired by then, but by that point you're basically at the end anyway. Danganronpa follows a large cast of high school students all trapped inside a rundown school building and are tasked with killing each other for their freedom. An interesting premise that's largely done justice, the game is engaging, it's sad when the characters you like are killed and it can be heartbreaking when the "Blackened" The killer, is somebody you liked, though like I said the game can fall flat when somebody too many likeable characters get killed, but I think that's a much bigger issue in the second game, here most of the cast are likeable so you're never out of characters you like. This is a Visual Novel so it's gameplay is pretty limited. The game is cut up into two halves, Daily Life, where you walk around the school exploring newly accessible areas and talk to the other characters, but given their habit of dying, it's not really worth investing time into characters unless you know they're going to live because just as you're learning about them they can get killed, which you could argue helps add to the tragedy of their death, but all I see it as it wasted time I could have spent getting to know somebody else. Free Time also gets progressively worse unless you like a character who makes it to the end because all of a sudden you have to spend time with characters you're not invested in because the ones you were are dead. The other half of the gameplay is the Deadly Life, where you discover the next corpse and have to explore for clues all culminating in a Class Trial, this is what will make or break this entire series for you. Unlike Ace Attorney which has you slowly press through text boxes to find contradictions and discover the truth, here in DR, everything is constantly moving, during conversations certain key words or phrases will be highlighted, you must "shoot" these with a Truth Bullet, think of them like Evidence in Ace Attorney, the catch is you don't get time to stop and think about it, the scene is always moving and there's a timer, you can stop and read over your Truth Bullets, but you can't stop on any one persons sentence and read it over, the character will say it, and then it'll be gone, if you need to hear it again you'll have to let the conversation replay. These sections are also include mini-games, they're awful. Included is Hangman's Gambit, a mini-game in which you'll need to form words letter by letter, this is never fun but enjoy it while it lasts because it's way worse in DR2. Then there's the Closing Argument, where you make a comic to piece together the timeline of events after you've discovered what happened, these are... fine, they're not as bad as Hangman's Gambit but they're not very engaging either, it's just fine. Finally is the Bullet Time Battle, a rhythm game where you... argue... back? I guess... it doesn't really make any sense, like the Hangman's Gambit is you thinking of words and Closing Argument is you piecing the timeline together but BTB is just arguing back I guess, it's also fine. Once you clear these "fun" games the killer is outed and executed in an entertaining and uniquely animated scene before you start the next chapter and the process repeats until the very end. If these mini-games or the non-stop pace doesn't sound fun to you, you probably won't like Danganronpa because that's a good 50% of the gameplay here, but if they sound bearable or even fun to you, by all means go right ahead and play. The cast of "Ultimate Students" here are pretty good, standouts are best girl Kyoko, Sakura, Asahina, and Byakuya, they have the most character and get annoying the least. But there's also the main character, Makoto, he is unremarkable, which is the point, but nevertheless he's pretty damn boring for a Protagonist, something the next game fixes with its protag. Other characters are fairly one note and don't really stand out outside of their dedicated chapters. Danganronpa is a mixed bag but mostly pretty good, I'd still take Ace Attorney as my Hybrid VN of choice, but DR's charm and quality can't be understated at all.

Sonics first outing into 3D was good, if a little... very janky. And Sonic Adventure 2 still has a healthy amount of jank but overall I think the good far outweighs the bad here. Sonic Adventure 2 is the sequel to Sonic Adventure, who'da thunk right? Similarly to the first game we follow several characters, but here the characters are split up into two teams; the Hero team, including Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and the Dark Team, including new comers Shadow The Hedgehog and Rogue The Bat, as well as Dr. Eggman himself. There are three gameplay styles including your standard gameplay from SA1, being S P E E D shared between Sonic and Shadow, a worse version of the emerald hunting gameplay from the first game shared between Knucks and Rogue, and finally, a pretty easy if boring third person shooter section shared between Tails and Eggman. You may have realized that I don't seem to care much for a whopping 2/3rds of the gameplay styles here, but unlike Sonic Unleashed where I similarly only like a third of the gameplay, I find the non-Sonic gameplay to be fairly superfluous, they don't take 30+ minutes, they're not mind numbingly boring and they don't force a half baked combat system down your throat. The worst gameplay is undoubtedly the Emerald Hunting, it's pretty bad. Like the first game you must find Emeralds with a tracker, only now levels are way bigger and take way more time, they never lasted quite as long as the Werehog but man were not fun. Next on the chopping block is the shooting, it's pretty much the same as Gamma from SA1, if a little better, they're not quite as easy as Gamma but they're still pretty easy, a bit of platforming here and there, some mindless shooting and you're done, nothing that'll put you to sleep but nothing very engaging either, fairly middle of the road if you ask me. Finally there's the speedy go fast levels, these are predictably the best, they're great fun, especially the first Stage for the Hero Team, City Escape, which yes, is where the infamous "rolling around at the speed of sound" Song comes from... Which I love, unironically, it's a good song cowards! But yeah the gameplay is your standard Sonic affair, not quite as perfectly fluid and fast as Unleashed, not Automated to hell like Forces but not quite as janky as SA1, it's pretty great but some improvements could definitely be made, and they were in future titles. The story revolves around Shadow in his first appearance, coming to earth to kill everybody... Yup. See Shadow has amnesia and believes his dead friend Maria asked him to take revenge on humanity after G.U.N, remember G.U.N? Killed her. Why Shadow would think Maria would ask for revenge and against all of humanity at that is beyond me, but it's fine, they straighten him out eventually. He's aided by Dr. Eggman who's doing the usual Eggman things and Rouge The Bat, a secret agent for G.U.N. This game also started the trend of people mistaking Sonic for literally anybody and everybody else, despite Shadow being red and black and Sonic being blue... Maybe humanity should be wiped out by Shadow. On the Heroes side, Sonic has to clear his name and he's aided by Tails and Knuckles because friendship is dope. This game introduces Gerald Robotnik, Eggmans grandfather, he doesn't do much outside of this game but hey, it makes it all the more confusing when Forces tries to convince you the world is made up of anthro's and not humans. Adventure 2 carries a lot of flaws that the first game had, weird controls, a funky camera, bad gameplay sections and uh... interesting character animations and dialogue, but overall the game manages to be a more enjoyable time overall, be it it's slightly better gameplay or it's melodramatic story that actually lands a few of it's emotional beats, I find this game to be far more enjoyable than the first and it's the one I go back to more. ALSO THAT SOUNDTRACK OH MY GOD THE FINAL BOSS? THAT **** IS JANKY AS ALL HELL BUT DAMN THAT SONG IS A BANGER, JUST MAKES YOU WANNA BEAT SOME WEIRD SPACE SQUID IN THE FACE WITH TWO GOLDEN HEDGEHOGS

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Sonic Unleashed is a great Sonic game, and a god awful God of War clone with padding up the *ss, a terrible progression system and bosses that range from sleep inducing to aggravating. Let's get the good out of the way first shall we? Sonic Unleashed looks amazing, hell the cgi looks better than Forces, and this game came out in 2008... God I feel old. It also sounds great, overused Werehog battle music aside, the games soundtrack is great. Rooftop Run, Super Sonic vs. Perfect Dark Gaia, Chun-nan Night and Endless Possibility the credits theme immediately come to mind but pretty much every track is good. The Sonic stages in this game are some of the best I've ever played, they can be somewhat disorienting the first go around given just how insanely fast Sonic can go, a consequence of putting so many point into Speed when I'm not even good at these games in the first place I guess. Not accounting for personal skill almost every Sonic stage is great fun, some exceptions do come to mind though, mainly boss stages that I think go on too long and Arid Sands which is just 1 minute of QTE's, but generally they're great. Sonic goes extremely fast here yet never feels hard to control, the game gives you ample time to react to oncoming hazards and rarely, if ever, sikes you out. I also think this is the best Sonic had ever been up to this point, Jason Griffith, the voice actor at the time, is without a doubt far better than he was in Shadow The Hedgehog, 06 or The Secret Rings. It's a real shame Griffith was replaced after The Black Knight I really think he fit Sonic much better than Roger Craig Smith, at least in the mainline games, in Sonic Boom he was amazing. Sonic in general is quite likable here, I understand that's a point of contention for some, many prefer the more rebellious Sonic of old over the more friendly Sonic we've had since Unleashed but I think either is good, especially for Griffith, his voice really suits a more friendly Sonic, Drummond was great for a Sonic with more attitude and Roger is great in Boom where Sonic is more witty. The writing and VA work really do have to work in perfect harmony and I think it does in Unleashed. Anyway now that I've been nice, the other 2/3rds of this game f*cking ****. First there's the Werehog stages, Christ almighty the Werehog stages. The Werehog is an ill-conceived ps2-era Action Game where Sonic turns big and fluffy and starts hitting stuff real hard. Think Devil May Cry or God of War. Not only are these stages the very antithesis of Sonic, hell I spent 30 minutes in one stage and got an S-rank... 30 minutes, IN A SONIC GAME, but they also leave me with one major question; Why aren't these made for Knuckles? Ya know, the character who's meant to be "as strong as Sonic is fast"? They gave the edgy character a Third Person Shooter but didn't give the melee fighter character the God of War clone? WHY?! Now I could excuse the slow gameplay and lack of Knuckles here if the gameplay was good... It's not good. The game gives you a whole host of combos and attacks but all the way to Eggmanland, the final stage, you will never have to use anything beyond your basic 3-hit combo, my poor triangle button was jamming after all the mindless button mashing. Not helping the Werehog stages are its attempts at platforming, mainly due to the camera controls, they're downright unbearable. Sometimes it's free to move around, sometimes it's locked in place, during one half of a platforming it'll be in one direction and then it'll pan somewhere and you'll miss a jump because Right is Up now and sometimes the camera will lock itself in such an awkward position that you'll have to make leaps of faith. It all makes the stages just awful, but to make it EVEN worse, are the medals. Sun and Moon medals are required collectables and found scattered throughout the stages in the Ps3 and Xbox versions, in the older gen versions they're rewards for finishing stages and I think this method is far superior and really ought to have been what we got in this version too. What makes them so bad is that they're required to finish the story, as if 20-30 minute Werehog stages weren't bad enough, now you have to stop playing and go farm for medals, it's such bad design in for a series made to be fast and exhilarating. My final complaint is, Eggmanland. F*ck Eggmanland, all my homies hate Eggmanland. It's long, stressful, cheap and comes out of absolutely nowhere, the boss against Eggman ain't so bad, but then you have to fight Dark Gaia for like 30 minutes and if you fail you have to fight Eggman again. Just farm 99 lives in Spagonia, it makes it way more bearable. Sonic Unleashed is 1/3rd a great game and 2/3rds unbearable, I hate to say it but I don't intend to ever go back to this game and I can't recommend it to anybody, unless you played God of War and said "That was great I just wish it ****".

I don't like Classic Sonic at all, I think it's a bunch of gacha trap BS, that tells you to go fast and then punishes you for going fast with off-screen hazards and spikes that hurt you from the side, so I consider it to be some feat when Sega and Christian Whitehead can make a Classic Sonic game I actually like, hell, one I love. Sonic Mania is a joy to play from the controls to the level design to the music, it's all fantastic. Sonic Mania is about Dr. Eggma- Robotnik? is he Robotnik here? I'll just call him Eggman to be safe, anyway Dr. Eggman using the Phantom Ruby to screw with Sonic and... Do something, it's Sonic it doesn't matter. This is used as an excuse to have Sonic, Tails or Knuckles play through Sonic 1, 2, 3, CD and new levels, but mostly old levels, which is a shame because the new levels rock, Studiopolis comes to mind, god that song is so good, but old levels have been remixed and they feel great, hell this game made me like Chemical Plant Zone, I hate Chemical Plant Zone normally but here it's great especially Act 2. Gameplay wise it's great, Sonic doesn't feel to slippy nor too stiff, he feels perfect. Bonus Stages make a comeback here and THANK GOD IT'S NOT THE HALFPIPE, no instead it's the Ball collecting and Emerald Chasing bonus Stages and they're both good, I know the Balls make some people feel sick but I never got that so... ha. I know there's like a whole extra boss and ending if you get all the chaos emeralds but I don't feel like doing that and I like the normal ending better anyway, it doesn't lead into Forces so I can keep this Sonic pure and away from that garbage. Boss fights are pretty good, I didn't struggle with any except the final Eggman boss, it can be quite confusing knowing when to attack, if you're meant to hit him while the electric is on and avoid the tentacles or kill the bosses he throws at you with the hands, and even when you figure out it's just after the electric stops you have to get the timing down. It's not unbearable nor is it even really THAT difficult, but it stood out to me as being pretty irritating first time. Speaking of difficulty the game is fairly easy overall, not TOO easy, but easy enough that somebody who couldn't beat Sonic 2 (me) can beat it no problem, Oil Ocean can be... Oil Ocean, but it's the only one that gets kind of obnoxious. Now that music, goddamn Tee Lopes outdid himself, if like me you're a fan of SomeCallMeJohnny you'll be familiar with Lopes' work, and man does he bring his A-game here, I brought up Studiopolis earlier but it's far from the only one, the entire game is full of great tracks and it makes the game even more fun to play. Sonic Mania is a great game, a wonderful game, and I think Christian Whitehead should be in charge of any Classic style games going forward. Now if Frontiers can redeem Modern Sonic after Forces and Colours Ultimate we may be entering a new Sonic Golden Age, god I really hope Frontiers is good...

Sonic Forces is a... "game", I say "game" because well... you don't really play it, the game plays itself, at most you'll pushing forward and every few minutes pressing the X button, if you're lucky. Sonic Forces isn't the worst Sonic game ever, but it's hardly even a game, it's cutscenes followed by cutscenes where you press a button sometimes. In this fun adventure, Eggman wins and tortures Sonic for 6 months... No really. The game opens with Sonic getting pummeled by some of his past antagonists while Tails sits in the corner and watches his best friend get beaten up... NO REALLY. Cut to 6 months later, Sonic is believed to be dead, Tails has "lost it", Knuckles is a war general and Silver is there despite the fact he shouldn't know anybody in this timeline... no... really. Returning this game are some nostalgia bait, Classic Sonic is back and controls worse than ever, he has no momentum and will stop like he has bricks tied to his feet, his gameplay is the worst. Chaos from Adventure, who's in like 2 scenes, dies in one hit and doesn't even get a boss fight... TTTTTTTHANKS SEGA. Shadow who does nothing before the real Shadow shows up and Metal Sonic, who is Metal Sonic and does Metal Sonic things. Overall a bunch of nostalgia bait, and Shadow, that ultimately goes nowhere and just wastes your time, and as an Adventure fan p*sses me off. Why did Chaos come back? Why didn't he get a boss fight? WHY DID TAILS COWER FROM HIM WHEN HE DEFEATED CHAOS 4 IN ADVENTURE?! It's just aggravating. The story is frankly boring as sin, Sonic "dies" for 3 minutes before he shows back up, your OC is pointless but I guess kids will get a kick out of it, I know I would've as a kid, and he side characters do nothing, Knuckles is a war general... again yes really, but he doesn't actually... DO anything, he just tells you what to do and but some explanation for why HE'S the general would be nice, also isn't he meant to be guarding the Master Emerald? How does he have time for any of this? Then there's Silver who just... shouldn't know any of these people, and where is Blaze? I thought she was his guardian or something, where'd she go? And hey remember how he beat the p*ss out of Sonic in 06? Well he doesn't last 5 seconds against Infinite, which should make you think Infinite would be nigh on unkillable, but he has 3 whole boss fights and he goes down like a chump in each one, ONE IS AGAINST THE OC! ARE YOU TELLING ME MY OC IS STRONGER THAN SILVER!? WHY?! Then there's Shadow who... literally does nothing, he shows up to explain that Eggman makes clones of the 4 villains earli- wait why does he make clones of Metal? He's a robot just make more... and Shadow there are so many Shadow clones JUST MAKE MORE SHADOW CLONES. Finally is Tails, Tails finds Classic Sonic and they embark on adventures together, that's it, it feels really weird and disjointed. There's also Espio, Vector, Charmy, Rouge, Gamma and Amy but I don't care, do you care? Let's just move on. The actual PLOT is about Eggman taking over the world and rising up against him with our OC and Sonics... god I hate that there are two Sonics now. The game culminates in a big climactic showdown that is about as climactic as you'd expect from a game where Knuckles is a war general, which is to say, it's not. The game is littered with bosses that offer zero challenge and 3 of them are the main villain, he really isn't very threatening at all. The final boss against Eggman is pretty uneventful, you do a part as Classic Sonic with magical purple blocks that just kinda appear I guess, then a running section as Modern Sonic where you gotta dodge lasers and other hazards while boosting using Whisps to gain more boost... Didn't the Whisps leave in Colours? Why are they here? I could accept it in Generations because it was a celebration game but here? makes zero sense. Anyway the game ends with a big "my friends are my power" spiel, OC leaves, making you wonder why he was even here to begin with, they elude to Classonic coming back, I swear to god Sega if he's in Frontiers, and the world is back to normal, all in like 3 hours, at least it was short. You'll notice I only have 800 words to wrap up my thoughts on the gameplay, I've done that because there really isn't much to say, it's all automated, turning corners, jumping, speed boosts, most grapple points for the OC, it's all done for you, it's incredibly boring and I hardly remember any of the 30 stages because of it. To sum up, Sonic Forces is bad... REAL bad. It has an asinine story with characters who just AREN'T those characters, nostalgia bait that serves no real purpose, boring and automated gameplay, and a mostly forgettable soundtrack. There's no reason to ever play this game, just play Mania instead.

So I just finished Halo Infinite's campaign, and I kinda loved it. There's a common sentiment going around right now regarding infinite, that it's "Not a perfect game, but a damn good one" and I have to agree. Infinite is absolutely flawed and misses the mark on a few instances, but overall I left this game feeling pretty damn optimistic for Halo's future, which I haven't felt in... a while. The story of Infinite feels less like another chapter in the series and more like a new beginning for the series, which I think is for the best. 343i haven't been the best when handling legacy characters so I think it's best they bring in there own characters, and luckily they've gotten much better than Vale, remember Vale? Of course you don't. The new characters introduced here being, Echo-216, the pilot shown off in all the trailers, and The Weapon, an AI designed after Cortana. Both characters are fun and endlessly enjoyable to watch, their writing has come under scrutiny for being "one note", which is accurate, but I don't find it to be much of an issue here, I think their fun and given the games short length they don't really have time to get annoying, at least to me. Infinite's antagonist "Escharum" has also gotten quite a bit of flack for being very "Saturday morning cartoon" feeling, and again, yes I agree, but I think the game overall has that kind of feeling. A lot of what happens feels pretty superfluous, aside from the very end nothing of note happens, it's all about Chief, Weapon and the Pilot restoring Zeta Halo and clearing out the Banished, the UNSC aren't really involved aside from a few Marine NPC's and some recordings about some Spartans and Laskey. I don't think any of this is bad by the way, it's all very entertaining and fun, just not very impactful to the overall story. Speaking of superfluous. The open world ****. Ok no it doesn't it's fine, but it's JUST fine. An open world Halo never really excited me in the first place, I like my Halo scripted, many great moments from the series ARE scripted: the Warthog run, the Scarab fights, Objective: Survive, but Infinite lacks these in favour of having you the player create your own set pieces, which is fine, just not what I come to Halo for. The open world is very Far Cry feeling, and no that's not a good thing. I have finished all the side objectives, every FOB, HVT and Outpost, none of them change, none of them are unique and none of them are very exciting save for the first of each because it's new... kinda. It's all very repetitive and not worth your time, you don't really get anything out of it, except for FOB's which unlock fast travel points and weapon drop off's, of which jarringly, do not include flying vehicles, if you want a Banshee you gotta go search for one yourself and they're not too common. Then there's the age old complaint about tediously moving from one objective to the other, it's boring, made slightly better by the grappling hook, due to more vertical movement and slightly faster traversal, but I'd still rather a linear mission-to-mission structure, and I hope 343 go back to that in the next game. Now for some small stuff: I think 343 have hit a perfect balance for Chief. Chief talks A LOT in Infinite, but it's all very to the point, typically short, few word sentences, only ever in response, not full paragraphs like in Halo 4 where he just didn't shut up. I like Chief a lot in Infinite, he feels like he's starting to open up more in his old age and I'm happy with that change. Hunters kinda ****, I found it nigh-on impossible to get behind them, I just settled for attacking their knees, never had that issue before, just here. Ammo felt frustratingly low, ran out of ammo in both guns way more than any other Halo game, which can really screw you up in a tense fight with a Sword Elite. As for MP, I love it, it feels amazing. A MP hasn't gotten me so excited since... Halo 3, I think in terms of MP 343 have hit the nail dead on the head, it's perfect. I don't really care about customization, but it seems pretty bad and apparently the Challenges have caused a lot issue with people not trying to win games but just getting challenges done, so ya know... fix that. But the actual gameplay and the structure of online games, chefs kiss. I'm just really happy to have Halo back the way I remember. I think 343 have proven with Infinite, that they can change, they can improve, and most importantly, they can listen. For the first time in forever, I'm happy about where Halo is and I'm excited and positive about its future. I don't know when Halo will end, but when it does, I'm sure 343 will send it out with a bang.

Pokémon BDSP is remarkably disappointing simply by virtue of being a remake of a heavily flawed game that was improved greatly already with Platinum, unfortunately however is not a Platinum remake. The original Diamond and Pearl were slow and agonizing to play, the Regional Dex was comically unbalanced against fire types, and just about every single aspect of the games were improved in Platinum, the games third revised version. I generally do not like Gen 4, I don't care for DP or HGSS, but I do like Platinum, I love Giratina, I love Cynthia and I love the Sinnoh region, Piplup is my favourite starter, so I feel these remakes have already shot themselves in the foot when they decide to remake the objectively inferior versions instead for no other reason than to be able to sell 2 copies of the same game to idiots who'll eat up anything GameFreak throws at them. BDSP fixes some issues with DP, namely the speed. Originally they were unbearably slow, showcased in an infamous video of a Blissy's health going from 655 to 0, taking 34 seconds. So BDSP already places it's best foot forward by having the game run at Gen 8 speed, then shoots that foot with its art style. Yes the age old complaint, BDSP looks hideous, the chibi art style looks fine from a distance but the game loves to do lose up's of characters during dialogue and it looks pretty rough, Cyrus in particular really suffers here, I just can't take him seriously when he's so gosh darn adorable and cuddly looking. While the style does look nice for cute things, that doesn't really work in a game that debuts Giratina, which I'm sorry, looks like the Gaping Dragon from Dark Souls, it just does, I'm right goddamnit. You would think the cute chibi art style would go great with Pokémon given how easily they could turn them into adorable little chibi models... they don't. For following you around, rather than making the models chibi to work with the characters, they just scaled them down, so Giratina looks like an 8 legged dog and not a giant, terrifying dragon thing. Not helping matters is the following animation, for most it's fine, but some Pokemon like Ekans suffer greatly, because Ekans does not slither, no no no, Ekans slides along the ground in his basic model as if attached by a string, it looks horrible, not least of all because the animation already exists in Let's Go, and could have easily been reused, ILCA are just incompetent, not lazy. Combat isn't slow anymore, but feels incredibly slow, it's the same old static, boring turn based combat, which is really disappointing when we exist in a post-Persona 5 world and have seen Turn Based taken to a logical extreme and how engaging it CAN be, Pokemon just refuses to, ironically enough, evolve. Story hasn't bee changed much, still fun and engaging, still would've liked it if they used Platinum over DP but oh well, can't sell two copies of Platinum I guess. Pokemon BDSP is not bad, but it's not any better than the original Diamond and Pearl, which makes it still worse than Platinum, which it really shouldn't be. The moment to moment Pokemon gameplay will always be fun to me, so I can't say I didn't have fun here, and hell, I can't say I didn't ENJOY these games, I absolutely intend to go back to these at some point and play them again, they're the definitive version of Diamond and Pearl, but not the definitive version of Gen 4, which is honestly really disappointing, and I simply can't ignore it's plethora of flaws both inherent to Diamond and Pearl, and unique to the remakes. Let's all hope Legends Arcues is good... But it probably won't be.

Yakuza 5 is a good, but by god you really have to play this game isolated from the rest, do not marathon these games like I did, because Y5 will wear you out fast. Yakuza 4 had 4 main characters you played as, so of course, Yakuza 5 has 5. Returning characters include Kiryu, who you actually get to play as right out of the gate, amazing how they thought NOT doing that was a good idea in Y4, Saejima from the last game, Akiyama also from the last game, and weirdly enough Haruka, who's sections are rhythm based rather than action, and newcomer... Shinada? I think that was his name, he does not leave a lasting impact, less so than even Tanimura did and I usually just end up referring to him as Baseball Man. So you may be wondering how Y5 manages to flesh out each characters story in just 20-30 hours, well they don't because Y5 is 50 hours... my god. Yes Yakuza 5 is very long compared to the other games and like I said, if not approached correctly can burn you out very easily, however the game tackles several combat styles, including rhythm game based, and does it frequently enough that you're not likely to get bored or burnt out unless you play it directly after 4 like I did. Kiryu is a taxi driver under a false name, Saejima goes hunting, Haruka dances, Akiyama helps Haruka with her uncover some mystery or something, and Shinada... Talks to Daigo, that's all I really remember about Shinada's story. They're all fairly interesting, save for Shinada, and the game really started strong opening with Kiryu, but it does kind of loose steam by Haruka, I found her idol nonsense really dull, I like Haruka a lot, and I'm invested in her character, but man I do not care about all these idol crap and her dumb rivals and her manager who got splatted, I do not care, it's not bad or poorly told, but just uninteresting whenever Akiyama isn't around. But it pales in comparison to Shinada, oh my god talk about boring, some 30-something washed up jock tries desperately to relive his glory days playing baseball with some guy who's name I sincerely could not be f*cked to remember, the only vaguely interesting part is with Daigo who's disappearance a major plot point in this game. I found the overall story to also be somewhat uninteresting, I only really have vague recollections of what happened, which is bad since I played it recently and remember even Yakuza 0 far more vividly, which I played in 2018. I could not give you a plot synopsis if I tried and I don't even remember who the antagonist is, and apparently neither does google because the first image result for "Yakuza 5 bad guy" is Kiryu, who I'm pretty sure is not the antagonist. As much **** as I've just given the game, Kiryu and Saejima's stories are pretty good. Kiryu hiding out from the Tojo Clan living as a taxi driver under the name Taichi Suzuki after being forcibly removed from his kids lives by Haruka's new idol manager under threat, is inevitably drawn back into the life of a Yakuza and returns to Kamurocho for the umpteenth time to punch guys real hard. It's fun and sets up the story well, lots of intrigue and mystery around the disappearance of Daigo and the waring families. It also delivers one of the best scenes ever in the conclusion in which Kiryu responds to the assumption he never kills people with "Who told you that?". Saejima goes back to prison and has some weird astral projection dream sequence where he goes to a cabarate club, he and his new buddy Baba, who's overall story and involvement with the plot is genuinely really interesting and fun. His friendship with Saejima is also great. The best part of Saejima's story however is that one part where you beat up a bear, no I will not elaborate further, go play it. Combat is fairly similar to Yakuza 4, no major changes, it feels good and satisfying and despite the length of the game, never has a chance to get boring as you swap between fighting styles enough to keep you invested even though Kiryu, Akiyama and Saejima's styles are of course repeated from the last game, they're just as fun all the same. I understand I've been pretty negative here, but Yakuza 5 is a good game, but it's a long game, I didn't do any Sub Stories and I still clocked in at around 50 hours, for a Yakuza game, that is a lot to deal with. The game's story feels less disjointed than Yakuza 4's and the way it handles it's multiple characters is far superior, starting you with the main character, what a concept I know. To wrap things up, Yakuza 5 is good, damn good, but heavily flawed, absolutely worth your time, just make sure you don't go immediately from 4 to 5, that's too much Yakuza.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Yakuza 6 disappointed me in many ways, but it also made me very happy, I'm conflicted with how I feel about the overall product, but I think it's safe to say that it is indeed a good game. Yakuza 6 is the final game in the Kiryu Kazuma saga and boy does it not feel like one AT ALL. Yakuza is known for its wide array of memorable characters such as Majima, Daigo, Date, Akiyama and Haruka, and boy it uses like none of them at all. Majima and Daigo are absent for the vast majority of the game only showing up twice at the start and end, Haruka is unconscious until the final few chapters, and while Date and Akiyama are present, they are disappointingly underutilised. Instead of wrapping up the stories of the already established cast, we get to spend most of the game developing brand new characters instead yaaaay... I miss Daigo. Our new cast is this small time Yakuza family in a small town Kiryu goes to... hang on, I'm sorry I got the scripts mixed up, this is for Yakuza 3 not 6... Oh... Yeah Y6 rehashes a lot from Y3, right down to the dumb skinny guy who calls Kiryu "Aniki" who has a fat friend and an old Patriarch, but to Y6's credit, it also gives you two extra friends, but it doesn't really matter because only Patriarch Hirose, Nagumo and Yuta are really fleshed out while the other two, who's names I do not remember, barely matter at all. New kids aside, the plot is... uh... boring as sin. It revolves around this big secret the main bad guys have been killing everybody to protect, even their closest friends, so what is it? What is this giant, massive, groundbreaking secret?! Spoiler alert, it's just a f*cking ship, it's a big Japanese battleship based on the Yamato battleship, I do not care, very underwhelming. The villains are similarly very boring, except Someya, I loved how he opposed Kiryu's very ideology of the Yakuza, even lacking a back tattoo, he also comes with one of the more interesting and engaging subplots, the ending of which, got me good. As for the rest, meh, there's a red guy you gotta beat up a few times, a purple guy who you gotta beat up a few times, an old guy you gotta beat up a few times, and his dad, nobody really stood out, a far cry from Nishiki, Ryuji and even Mine really. The moment to moment story telling, is pretty good however, when the plot really picks up, it's hard to get bored and Hiroshima, while pretty barren, has some great SubStories, particularly the one wrapping up the Pocket Circuit Fighters character and the Idol one were great, the Ghost fighting one, the weird Your Name one and the Cult from Y0 ones were also up there for me. While on the topic, Your Name was great, I recommend it, go watch it, I'll be here when you're done, go. Y6 uses the Dragon Engine from Y0 so combat is pretty good, but the game likes to place you in giant horde fights which can get very disorientating, very fast. It can be hard to see what you're hitting, what enemy is hitting you, where you should be dodging, blocking or attacking, and it's generally not worth doing anything but defaulting to the Bike strategy. Sega also seems to think Fat People = Trained MMA Champion, because they will mess you up with drop kicks. Still most combat is generally fun and ragdolls will never not be hilarious to me. I realize I've been almost nothing but negative here, yet I've given the game an 8, so what's the deal? I uh... I dunno really, the game is unmistakably flawed, it doesn't feel like a finale, and Kiryu has one of the most disappointing send off's ever... yet I don't regret my time with this game at all, I like this game a lot but I couldn't tell you why, maybe it's the ending scene with Haruka and the other characters, maybe it's the Hirose Family, maybe it's that one scene where Kiryu gives a thumbs up during Today is A Diamond, something about it, is just... great. Oh f*ck I completely forgot to mention Haruto

Ocarina of Time might just be one of the most overrated games of all time, but by god if I didn't love almost every minute I spent with this game. Ocarina of Time is the 4th entry in the long running Legend of Zelda series and if you play any Zelda game in your lifetime, it should probably be this one. I must admit this isn't my favourite Zelda game, but it's certainly up there. For what it's worth, it is my favourite N64 game, which doesn't mean much when I've only played 3 N64 games I'm aware. for 1998, OoT is remarkably impressive, it hasn't aged great visually, but for the most part it still plays flawlessly. Link feels almost entirely free of the jank that plagued Mario 64 and other N64 games I haven't played because the only other one is Banjo and that also plays great. The story is appropriately the most complex thus far, it's a three-dimensional story if you will... Sorry. You are Link, or whatever you wanna name him, I always just call him Link, and you live in the Kokiri Forest among the -you guessed it- Kokiri, one morning being told by a magical blue ball called a fairy named Navi to go to the Deku tree. Link, with sword and shield in hand, ventures forth to find the Deku tree dying, upon proving himself Link is given a mission and sets off with Navi as his new companion to find Zelda, get engaged to a fish, become bro's with some rock people and listen to an owl explain **** 3 times over because you keep accidentally pressing "yes" instead of "no" when he asks you if you want him to repeat himself. Where the "Ocarina of time" comes in to... Ocarina of Time, is about halfway through the game where Ganondorf steals Zelda and she throws you said titular instrument and you set off to the Temple of Time to take up the famous Master Sword , sending Link forward in time and also giving him gauntlets, pants and earrings thanks... Time? did Rauru do that? Did Fi? Anyway there you meet Rauru, the first of seven Sages with which you are tasked with finding throughout Hyrule, so you go to Lon Lon Ranch because f*ck traversing Hyrule on foot, you get Epona and you begin the real adventure. Ocarina is not the best Zelda, but the story, music and characters really come together in such a way that it's hard to not love this game, it really feels like an adventure you're embarking on. It pulls a bit of a Final Fantasy 6 and has the villain win halfway through, but this time you have to prevent it in the future rather than just kill the villain and live in the now ruined world. As the title would suggest, Ocarina has a heavy focus on music, you play music to call Epona, you play music to change the weather, you play music to advance the story, this game loves music, and it's all very good, I find myself humming Saria's Song to this day. This game also handles its musical instrument far better than its successors, whereas Wind Waker forces you to stop in your tracks and tediously play the song timed perfectly, Ocarina lets you play the song however fast you like as to not halt the gameplay for something relatively arbitrary. One of my few complaints and one that's shared by many is of course the Water Temple, but even that can be remedied by playing the 3D version on the 3ds, which is personally the version I recommend over the N64 version. Another complaint would have to be Navi, I don't hate her as much as many but I find her largely barren of personality, maybe I've just been spoiled by Midna in Twilight Princess but I simply can't go back to Navi anymore, even the King of Red Lions is an improvement, but I guess she isn't as bad as Fi. In closing, Ocarina of Time is a great game and absolutely worth your time, it's a fantastic game but contrary to popular belief, no it's not perfect, it has issues and the Water Temple can give you several migraines but it is a good game. Music is great, characters are fun, graphics are... play the 3D version.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Dark Souls is above all else in my mind, an experience. it's easy to start waxing poetic when talking about Soulsborne games because the concepts found within the lore are generally pretty philosophical, take the endings for example, is it better to let the flame die out and allow nature to take its natural course, ending one civilization and ushering in the next? Or to cling to the way things are and try to preserve our current age? Embrace modernism or tradition? See what I mean? Anyway now to talk about the actual game itself. Dark Souls is a game made by Hidetaka Miyazaki and FromSoftware in 2011 as a spiritual successor to the Sony owned Demon's Souls, and yes, that is an incredibly annoying name to say out loud. Dark Souls takes many of the ideas found Demon's Souls and makes them better for lack of a better word. From a linear level structure to an interconnected world that, with a few exceptions, all exist in the same place, taking the elevator from the Undead Parish back down to Firelink Shrine is an unforgettable feeling. Dark Souls also went pretty hard on the pain when it came to boss design, where Demonses Soulsies has... Phalanx... Dark Souls has the Taurus Demon, which is... ya know... a real fight. Not to say Dark Souls bosses are objectively better or anything, there is pretty much every boss in Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith which all kinda ****, but hey, there was an attempt. Story wise Dark Souls is very basic; you're an undead and you're tasked with ringing two bells, one above, one below, which eventually leads you to find that you're special, you're the Chosen Undead, now tasked with making your way to the Kiln of The First Flame and kindling the First Flame to prolong the age of fire that's fading away, or if you do some sequence breaking, you can embrace the dark and become the Dark Lord, letting the flame die out and ushering the age of dark, or "The age of man" as man is said to thrive in the dark where Gods thrive in the light. But as for what you actually DO in Dark Souls, you run around cool looking places and kill bosses, and that's kinda it for like 40 hours. It's a simple gameplay loop but a very addictive and fun one. The gameplay of Dark Souls is equally simple, you attack with R1 and R2, block and parry with L1 and L2 if you have a shield, dodge with O and drink your Sunny D with Square. In writing, Dark Souls combat is very... boring, it's basic, simple and not very flashy, compared to other action games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, what makes Dark Souls standout however, is not YOUR attacks, but your enemies. There are a variety of foes in Dark Souls, some are giant, axe wielding Bull demons, others are tiny Lizards that will inflict horrific status effects on you, and others are f*cking dogs... god I hate the dogs in Dark Souls. All these enemies have different attacks and different solutions to fighting them, some are best fought defensively, waiting for your time to strike, while others require speed and precision, kicking away an enemies shield and cutting him down before he can regain his composure. The game makes you think on your feet and doesn't let up until you make it to one of few safe spaces like Firelink, or another area with a Bonfire. The way I've described it makes Dark Souls seem like a harsh and cruel world full of big **** dogs, lizards and men, but it's not all bad. Where there's dark there's light, and you'll meet many a friend in Dark Souls, be it a friendly Blacksmith who will upgrade your gear for the coming threat, a happy man with a bucket helmet who just wants to find his own sun and partake in some jolly co-operation, or a Onion Armoured adventure, ready for anything the world throws at him, you're not alone, you never really are in Lordran, especially in Online. There'll always be a Summon Sign, always be a Phantom walking by or resting at a bonfire, always a friend to watch your back. Not all is good with Dark Souls however, like I said, with dark comes light and with light must come dark. Dark Souls is home to some of the most infuriating, BS, asinine design I have ever witnessed. From The Bed of Chaos and her horrifically unfinished design, to Ceaseless Discharge and his unreadable hitboxes, and Blighttown... ugh. A lot of the latter half of the game is pretty bad, Lost Izalith is notoriously bad and frankly I recommend joining the Chaos Covenant to skip it completely. They reuse the first boss two more goddamn times, and Sens Fortress... just don't even bother unless you have Fast Roll. The latter half falls into unfairness bit which is a shame to say for a game that otherwise encompasses "hard but fair". Stuff like falling down and losing 40% for the Gravelord Nito fight, before it can even begin comes to mind. It's hard for me to say I don't love Dark Souls, because it's brilliant but it's also heavily flawed. But nonetheless I recommend it wholeheartedly. Stay safe friend, and don't you dare go Hollow

Ok time to make some enemies. God of War 4 -because screw you titling the nth game in the series the same as the first is ridiculous and confusing and I wish to Odin people would stop doing it- is a good game, but it's not nearly as good some people like to say it is. It sacrifices the addictive, fun and cinematic gameplay for far slower, more personal gameplay, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is here. God of War 4 acts as a soft reboot of the series after God of War 3 seemingly capped off the series with Kratos killing his father Zeus, so what do you do when you've butchered the entire Greek Pantheon and left Greece in ruin? You move to Norway. Yes GoW4 moves to Norse mythology and barely takes advantage of that fact. The game gives you a whole host of worlds existing within Norse Myth but only lets you explore a handful, the game tells you about Thor and Odin and the closest you get to meeting either of them is a teaser for Ragnarok, you get to fight Baldur, a Greek god and his boss fight is great but it's the final fight and he's the only god you get to fight. This combined with the game failing to outdo the old games in many regards such as general combat, where the originals had you fight in big open spaces with a zoomed out camera and free control, GoW4 has you fight in open spaces with a clingy camera with minimal control, the fact that you can't pan the camera to watch behind you while you run for a health item results in countless hits and or deaths that should be totally avoidable, and I know SA knew this, because they had Atreus, Kratos' son, yell directions enemies are at, as well as having on screen prompts, but this doesn't really help for big AOE attacks on bosses or when Atreus is absent from the fight. Not helping matters is the lack of maneuverability, Kratos is more sluggish but also bafflingly, can't jump and therefore can't perform aerial attacks. Exploration has taken a NaughtyDog approach, in that you can't jump unless contextual, the game is riddled with sleep inducing climbing sections that have all the gameplay of a walking simulator. Where the game shines is with its characters and dialogue, Kratos and Atreus are remarkably enjoyable characters which is surprising when Kratos is pretty unlikeable, what with him murdering, slaughtering and butchering his way through Greece before, and Atreus is a child, generally unlikeable creatures, but he's wonderful, he's funny, endearing and intriguing, and it's endlessly captivating watching the two interact. Kratos going to console his son but backing away too afraid to let his guard down, even to his own child, no doubt riddled with ptsd and regret from his last family, Atreus telling a bad joke and Kratos laughing, only to deny it, Kratos believing Atreus to be injured, hearing his voice break from his general brooding demeanour into genuine worry and concern for his son, made absolutely unforgettable by Christopher Judge, Kratos' new voice actor. Speaking of voice actors, I was surprised to find Atreus voice actor, Sunny Suljic was a rare case **** fantastic child actor, which makes him a great child actor, a great child character and a great escort character... the man simply defies logic and I thought his VO work was great, especially during emotional scenes like where Kratos leaves for a few minutes but when we arrive back at Boy, we seem to have been gone several hours at least and he yells at Kratos... before going back to acting like normal like nothing happened... sorry this was meant to be the positive part of the review but that part really irked me. Overall, God of War The 4th, is like I said, a good game, a VERY good game, but it's not great, not even close. It thinks it's better than it is and has somehow convinced droves the same thing, acting as if the series only JUST got a good story when that has in fact, always been the case, whether or not you took notice because you were too busy distracted by it's complimentarily fantastic gameplay, is not the fault of the game. And unfortunately, Gears of God 4 doesn't quite match up to that level of superb dichotomy of gameplay and story, and relies solely on its story, which is great mind you, but hopefully Ragnarok can deliver both this time around rather than being a One-Trick. Nevertheless, I am very excited to see where the story goes next, and maybe actually fight more than one god and hopefully 0 Trolls with bloody rocks.

I'm sure Tekken 7 is great for those who enjoy online fighting games, but for those of us who like the offline content, T7 is disappointingly bare. Tekken 7 takes a far more cinematic approach and to make some enemies real quick, I think we lose a lot with this approach to fighting games, Tekken 7 has very pretty cgi cutscenes but the gameplay is subpar at best, I think ArcSys hit the nail on the head with their Story Modes in the Guilty Gear franchise, having the story be told in one long continuous cutscene rather than breaking it up to force some kind of fight to stop the player from falling asleep, because that's how many of the gameplay sections in T7's story feels, forced. The story primarily revolves around Heihachi and Kazuya Mishima, series mainstays and original characters, but because this is a video game, the story takes several detours to focus on other characters such as... Lars from Tekken 6... interesting characters are also there, like Nina, Lee and Jin shows up for like 10 minutes, which is kind of a shame after Tekken 6 where he was a pivotal character. Akuma from Street Fighter is there too... anyway. Tekken 7 constantly distracts from Kazuya and Heihachi to focus on these side stories because you can't sustain two characters going at each other for over an hour without them fighting which logically has to be the conclusion, and the conclusory scenes are great, Kazuya devolving further into Devil as Heihachi keeps fighting despite being heavily outmatched, it's great and the way the fight ends is amazing, but that's the final 20 or so minutes to a Story Mode that's over 2 hours, the rest of it is incredibly mediocre. The attempt to humanize Heihachi certainly is interesting, but it begs the question of why Heihachi never mentioned the Devil gene if his attempt to kill Kazuya related to it and he knew it existed, it also makes Kazuya's deal with the devil less interesting as rather than being a conscious decision our initial HERO made to sacrifice his morality for power, it's just something he can't help and is quite literally in his genes. As for Akuma who is again... in this game for some reason, he doesn't really do anything, he's just here to act as some extra fights and one of the worst final boss fights the series has, and this is the series with Jinpachi Mishima. Robot girl from T6 is back too... I don't have anything to say about her, you like pink hair anime girls? There's your pink haired anime girl. Outside of Story Mode is where this game really falls apart, gone is Arcade Mode with character endings and unlockable secret characters, and in is a pointless arcade mode barren of rewards or purpose, you just fight 10 matches, then it's over, no character ending, no artwork, nothing. Though there are some character endings, but there all one fight long with zero development for anybody, and no alternating scenario, where finishing with Paul would have a different ending than finishing with Marshal Law in early endings, now you get the exact same endings for any characters together in one ending, with some variations, I think Leo and Yoshimitsu have vaguely different endings, but they're all so forgettable it's hard to be certain. Outside of Arcade and Endings there's... nothing... there's a Treasure Hunt game mode but it's no different from Arcade Mode and uh... yeah that's it, a whole 3 offline modes, one of which is pointless and the other lasts about 2 hours, it's Online or nothing here, and all the beautiful graphics and particle effects in the world can't fix that. Overall I don't think Tekken 7 is a bad game, and I'm sure if you're an online player, you likely feel I'm being too harsh, but considering the Offline offering here for the 7th main installment for a series known for its crazy offline minigames and distractions like Devil Within, Bowling, Volley Ball, and hell, in Tekken 5's case entire playable versions of the series until that point. It's just disappointing, even compared to the Ps1 games, THE PS1 GAMES! I just hope Tekken 8 offers more to those of us who don't want to spend all their time fighting online against people who're madly in love with their 1+2 combo.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I don't think I could accurately describe all my thoughts on this game with thrice the character limit, so instead of trying to condense both a review and my thoughts, this will primarily be about what I think of this game as a whole, because I don't really think I can say anything about its plot or characters that hasn't already been said. Admittedly I haven't played too many Ps1 games, but I feel absolute conviction when I say, Metal Gear Solid is one of the absolute best Ps1 games ever made. A game that perfectly meshes dumb goofy humour and a serious anti-nuclear war message, all tied neatly together with amazing characters, which the sequels would only build further upon. Though the somewhat titular character Solid Snake, has appeared twice before in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, skipping straight ahead to this game will not leave you guessing as to who exactly Snake is, his ideals, beliefs and general personality is given plainly to the player in exposition and his dialogue with other characters. He doesn't see himself as the war hero the other characters do, making unsubtle comments about himself that go against the legend of Solid Snake. Making Snakes character even better is Meryl Silverburgh, acting as the wide eyed rookie who thinks Snake is a hero, their interactions are always great, though can lean of the edgy side occasionally. Almost done with your allies now, but up next is my personal favourite character, Hal Emmerich, better known as Otacon, which he came up with himself as a portmanteau of "Otaku Convention" Hal is a weeb. He's also the scientist behind Metal Gear Rex, the titular nuclear war mech. Developing it under the pretense of creating a Nuclear Deterrent, Hal later joins up with Snake after learning he had been lied to. Finally there's your Codec Comrades, Colonel Roy Campbell, Dr. Naomi Hunter, and Mei Ling, there's also Master Miller, who fans of Peace Walker and MGS5 will recognize as Kazuhira Miller, who actually turns out to be antagonist, Liquid Snake in disguise. Finally there's Natasha Romanenko... anyway. For villains we have the terrorist cell known as Foxhound, notable members consist of Psycho Mantis, a tragic character with one of the most prolific boss fights of all time and the only member who makes an effort to redeem himself before death. Sniper Wolf, the **** likes wolves. She has a rather tragic relationship with Hal, starting the trend of everybody Hal loves dying. Revolver Ocelot, who doesn't do too much here, is a series mainstay and only gets more interesting. And finally their boss, Liquid Snake who is of course, Solid Snakes cloned brother, both of which were cloned from series antagonist/protagonist Big Boss. Liquid, later called Eli, is the leader of Foxhound and possesses Big Boss' Dominant genes, while Solid possesses his recessive genes, however believing himself to possess the recessive genes, he harbors a particular hatred for Snake believing himself to be inferior to him. Combined with his inferiority complex over believing he's inferior to both Snake and Big Boss, and manipulation by Ocelot, causes Liquid to lash out at the world, trying to create an unstoppable war machine and prove his superiority, but of course, Snake wins, proving he is in fact superior to Liquid despite his genetic inferiority. Where the game shines is with its characters and its story, and I think where the remake The Twin Snakes fails is with its attempt to make it far more bombastic than it ever was meant to be. Snake's story is one of tragedy, and this first game takes itself far more seriously than the rest, giving him more emotional scenes between characters like Gray Fox, a returning character from the MSX games, and the adoptive brother of Naomi Hunter after killing her parents. His sacrifice at the end of the game to give Snake a fighting chance against REX, the following conversation with Naomi about when Snake will die with the FOXDIE virus that killed Liquid coursing through his veins, it's all played very straight and doesn't really mesh with TTS's weird, rocket surfing nonsense. Snake is a character who only gets better as his writing progresses, who's relationships only get deeper and more complicated with both his friends and enemies, and who's story only gets longer, until he's finally allowed to stop at the tail end of his life. And all of that is thanks to this game laying the groundwork, and unlike so many games that share a similar legacy, Metal Gear Solid holds up even today as a great game.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

An amazing game on its own, and a fantastic remake, I think, I never played the original, but I've heard that. Resident Evil 2 is a remake of the ps1 classic by the same name, and with my limited knowledge of the original and therefore lack of nostalgia, I can safely say this game is downright flawless... with a few flaws. For starters regardless of your decided order, you will repeat boss fights in the B campaign, even when it breaks canon, playing Leon B was definitely soiled a bit by the fact I had to do the exact same boss fight in the exact same way with the exact same outcome earlier when I played as Claire in the "A Scenario" That, by the way is this games gimmick, its A and B scenario. If you decide to play as Claire's A Scenario first, you will then unlock Leon's B Scenario, which can be reversed by picking Leon first and then Claire, giving this game a total of 4 ways to play it if you want full completion, albeit with minor differences, but hey, whatever gives me another excuse to keep playing. The story this time around is fairly simple, it is a Resident Evil game after all, you play as either Leon S. Kennedy of RE4 fame, as a rookie cop moving to Raccoon City, and as Claire Redfield, a college student trying to find her brother, Chris from the first game, two very basic characters coming off the back of the first game where we played as a Special Forces unit, not that I'm complaining, they definitely grow into more hardened and comically badass characters by the end, spouting one liners that would even make Barry "Jill Sandwich" Burton proud. When our characters make it into the city, they find it overrun by zombies created from the G-Virus, a mutagenic evolution of the T-Virus created by Dr. William Birkin which spreads after Umbrella shoots him to near death and the Vials containing the virus breaks, mutating Birkin and spreading as a result. Later in the game we both fight Birkin and find his daughter, Sherry Birkin who, in Claire's campaign, we're tasked with protecting, we also find his wife, who's far more involved with everything than we realize at first, as for Leon's campaign, it's the first time we meet Ada Wong, she is however teased in the first game as her name is the password for a scientist known as John in the underground lab of the Spencer Mansion, to my knowledge, Ada never makes mention of John and it's largely gone forgotten, but conceptually she was looking for John in the original RE2 before she was changed to being the sexy, treacherous, Revolver Ocelot-like character we all know and love today. There's also characters such as Marvin, an infected cop we meet at the precinct, what I love about Marvin is the different way's he treats Leon and Claire, he knows Chris, and knowing Claire is his sister, he's very nice and patient with her, while with Leon, he's far more stern and authoritative, while still treating him with a manner of kindness, as Leon's higher up, he's a great character and I wish we got to see more of him. Then there's the kind of villain Chief Irons, he's comically evil and I find him pretty unimpactful, but with him out of the way we can talk about the real big bad, Mr. X, or officially, "Tyrant" sent by Umbrella to deal with anybody who could leak information about their involvement in the incident... I THINK, he's not really explained here, he just IS, I'm sure supplementary material clears this up but that's not the game is it?! Mr. X is a big hulking... well Tyrant, he'll stalk you around the police station, never giving up, and for the most part, he's an entirely natural part of the game, he reacts to your actions fluidly, and may not show up in the same place twice if you happen to die and replay a section, keeping you on your toes at all times, never sure just where he is. To make matters better, youtubers like Boundary Break have shown, he is an active entity in the game, not one that just teleports outside a door occasionally to spook you, he's always walking around, ever present, all the time. Gameplay wise, it's a standard third person shooter affair, nothing fancy, but it works very well, the camera is over the shoulder, giving us a good view of the character model and our surroundings at all times, I think it fits the series perfectly, far better than the first person camera of the non-remake games. To end it, I think RE2 excels as a game, I can't judge how it holds up as a remake, but on its own merit, it's worth your time and then some.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I've been reviewing these games backwards because I'm weird like that, and after getting through RE6 and RE5, it's nice to get to a game I love and can just talk positively about, I also have some bones to pick with the general flack Ashley Graham gets so that'll be fun. Resident Evil was the second game to focus on a sole protagonist after RE1 and RE2 had duel protagonists, and where RE3 has Jill from the first game, RE4 has Leon from the second game, and where I much preferred Claire in RE2, Leon in this game places him just above Claire in my personal rankings, he's a badass, he's quick witted, he's hot and most of all, he's blonde... why is he blonde? He was a brunette in RE2, what happened? Does he dye it? Aside from Leon, Ada Wong also makes an appearance, and she mentions Wesker, there's also a character Jack Krauser who was in some spin-off game I haven't played because they're generally bad, anyway he's kinda cool, I like the way he calls Leon "comrade" in a very American accent, it's just funny to me. As for newcomers, there's best girl and presidents daughter Ashley Graham, fight me, Leon's helpful information lady, I don't know her job title, Hunnigan who only appears on the weird Codec thing, Luis Sera, the scientist who created this games virus, Las Plagas, turned redemption seeking good guy And finally the villains, Ramon Salazar, who is just a treat every time he's on screen, also has a super breakable boss fight if you just buy the rocket launcher just outside the boss room you can kill him in one shot, it's great. And Osmund Saddler, he's not quite as fun, but he's there too. Story wise, it's about Leon travelling to a vaguely Spanish town to rescue the presidents daughter, yes Leon works for the president now, no I don't think it's ever explained, maybe it is in that Krauser game, just don't think about it. Along Leon's journey he'll be met with all manner of weird zombie BS, and saying great one liners the entire time, he really approaches this high stakes mission like an action hero, and it is what makes this game for me, I love it. There's also some hidden mission stuff going on with Ada working for Albert Wesker after Umbrella went bankrupt after Raccoon City got nuked in the last game, yeah Umbrella got torn down offscreen, figured that would've been worth showing, but I guess not. And then there's the unresolved rivalry between Leon and Jack Krauser, again I don't know why, I'll play the game soon, maybe. Gameplay is kinda funky, see we've moved on from fixed camera angles of the original trilogy and moved into a free-ish camera, I say "ish" because the Leon still moves with Tank controls, it can take a minute to get used to but once you come to grips with it, it feels fine. Leon's shooting is done by aiming the gun, manually moving it over to where you want to shoot and shooting, it sounds really bad and clunky on paper, but in practice it's done very well, enemies are slow, have large windup times and very telling animations, and rarely, if ever, gank you, it's all very slow and methodical, like a dance... with guns and roundhouse kicks, it's great. The gameplay can definitely feel strange starting out, but it won't be long till you learn how to play and then you'll be punching weird infected Spanish villagers like it's no problem at all. Before I wrap this up, I want to take a moment to talk about Ashley Graham, and no, it's not to whine about her. Ashley is a good addition to the game, y'all are just bad at video games. Ashley often comes under fire for being "hard to manage" or "annoying" or that she "keeps complaining that I keep trying to look up her skirt with the sniper ****? just me? Ok. Point is, no the f*ck she isn't. Ashley can not defend herself and in combat situations she is a liability, so you PUT HER IN THE TRASH... No really, the game has dumpsters coincidentally located just outside of large fight areas, their express purpose is for you to put Ash inside where she is invulnerable and safe, and failing that, she stays directly behind you at all times, so when she gets hit, it means you messed up and would've taken that hit anyway, she just saved your negligent ass you ungrateful swine. Ash will never take damage unless you the player make a mistake, git good. With my rant concluded, we've come to the end of this review. Resident Evil 4 is a masterclass in action game design, great characters, entertaining writing, amazing boss fights, and a cheesy 80's action movies plot, with a few, aside from some low points here and there, and Leon's weird blonde hair, the game is perfect, an easy 10 in my mind, and a game I love going back to.

I guess everybody likes RE5 now? I don't care, the game was bad when it came out now and it hasn't aged any better, it's still just a worse RE4. Resident Evil 5 is what happens when you take Resident Evil 4, take away what made that game good. and just model swap Leon for Chris. The story is as forgettable as the game is piss coloured. After S.T.A.R.S went **** up after The Spencer Manion incident, Chris co-founded the BSAA, a task force dedicated to wiping out Bio-Terrorism, he must now go to Africa with his new partner Sheva Alomar to... do a thing, I forgot, because that's exactly where the story loses any and all intrigue, something to do with the Uroboros virus which is just Las Plagas recycled, it doesn't matter. The game also acts as the conclusion to the Wesker storyline started all the way back in RE1, and his scenes are the only good part about this game. as shown in that spin off game I hate, Wesker survived the Spencer Mansion incident and got cool super powers, why? How? I don't know, I didn't finish it, because I really didn't like that game... Code Veronica, I'm talking about Code Veronica. Jill is here too, in her worst appearance ever, I do not care for blonde Jill, she looks like a generic attractive lady in a 2010's video game, I do not like her here. And that's kind of it, Josh is cool too, hope he comes back in RE9. Gameplay wise, it's Resident Evil 4 again, so it's good, but where RE4 used it's clunky and limited movement to instill fear in the player in an otherwise campy action flick ****, RE5 just feels annoying and clunky, adding to that is of course your AI partner. I'm going to write a review on RE4 so I'm kinda saving this for that, but real quick, Ashley Graham is a good addition to RE4, y'all are just bad at video games. Ashley is fine if you just take care of her, put her into the bins when going into a fight, that's all you gotta do. Your AI Partner in RE5 on the other hand, is bad, they use ammo and herbs, they aren't locked to your back like Ash is, and so can easily get in your way, and thought they do duck down if you aim in the direction, because the AI is being more proactive in gunfights, it takes them a second to do it, unlike Ashley, who hops down immediately, my point is, YOU GUYS ARE TOO MEAN TO ASHLEY... ok thank you, just needed to get that off my chest. There's a lot of co-op features and I hear they're fun, but... who's gonna play Resident Evil 5 with me in 2021? Overall, RE5 is fine, the story when taken on its own, is fun enough, the final act is pretty good, focusing on Chris and Wesker's relationship since RE1 and CV, the final boss is pretty cool, and Chris punching that boulder will never not be funny to me, so at the end of the day, I can't hate the game, and writing about it has made me rethink some things, and it's definitely not as bad as I remember it being, however I still consider it a dark spot in the series history along with RE6. Definitely a game worth playing with some friends and some beer.

I played Resident Evil 6 only recently during the wait for Village, so I feel my opinion is far more generous than people who played this at release who just wanted the series to go back to survival horror and were stuck with this. That being said, I still have very few nice things to say, it's overall a visually loud, yet shallow game with few real draws, it's like a Michael Bay movie, if you're impressed by explosions and loud noises, you'll like this game a lot, if you want some game with your game... move on. The game is split up into 4 Campaigns, so it makes sense to go over each separately. First is Leon's and... it's actually kind of good, it pays homage to Resident Evil 2 being about zombies and Resident Evil 4 with the big stupid BOW monsters, and if you play any of RE6, you should play Leon's Campaign. I say that, but it's still not without flaw, Leon is constantly aided by newcomer Helena Pierce, and she's... fine, she's just fine, she doesn't really DO anything, she's a worse Sheva, because at least Sheva was kinda cool, Helena is just there. Although if you're 14 I have good news, Helena's weird BOW sister is a boss fight and it's uncomfortably sexual, she's naked, makes... "noises" and never takes a break from flaunting her gross BOW body, I hate it, but I'm sure somebody likes it. The most interesting part of Leon's campaign is dealing with returning characters like Chris, Ada and Sherry, all of this however is grossly underutilized, especially Sherry, they interact so little it makes you question if RE2 even happened or if it was all some fever dream. Overall Leon's ends upliftingly and it's still pretty good, definitely the best of the 4. Then there's Chris... do you like CoD? You'll like Chris's campaign. It's just a big soldier romp with big guns, totally heterosexual manly character interactions, we promise Piers and Chris aren't gay, we swear, and also Chris being a terrible leader. Yeah this is really where the whole "Chris is a bad leader" shtick comes from, S.T.A.R.S is one thing, but he loses like two squads here, and though I like to believe The Hound Wolf Squad are the soldiers from the end of Chris's campaign, I'm not entirely convinced they survived that long. That aside, Piers is Chris's dedicated AI partner and he's slightly better than Helena, but not by much, his sacrifice was sad, not much else to say about Piers really. Much like Leon, Chris's campaign takes after Chris's games, but only really RE5, without the extra RE1 love, it feels hollow in a way Leon's didn't, and then there's the interactions, Chris doesn't really know Sherry or Ada, but he does know Leon, and their interactions are just kind of okay, we've also seen them already so... yeah Chris's campaign isn't very good. Almost done now. We have Jake, he's Wesker's son and thus, he is important, Sherry is his partner and I don't know why the default choice is Jake, he kinda breaks the formula by being the default player newcomer, when the other 3 are all returning characters. Anyway Jakes campaign is inspired by RE3, but only in that a big ol' Nemesis ripoff chases you, but he is neither cool nor scary, you do have a fist fight with him surrounded by lava though, and that's just about ridiculous enough for me to enjoy it. But everything else in Jake's campaign is pretty meh, there are missions that cross over with both Leon and Chris, so like half of it is recycled from the last two, which means fatigue starts kicking in HARD with Jake, and it leaves me pretty apathetic to write about him. He's fine, moving on. Finally is Ada... wow her part ****. Yeah I didn't mention it earlier but there's a fake Ada that runs around confusing everybody, but we do see real Ada once in Leon's campaign and she's wearing different clothes, so it's obviously a fake Ada. Apart from the terrible story here, the gameplay **** too, it's this weird stealth nonsense and it's not fun, you get a crossbow, so that can be kinda funny for about half an hour before it wears off. Luckily hers is the shortest campaign of everybody, but after Jake recycled several sections of the earlier campaigns it makes it feel just as long and just as tedious. In conclusion, is RE6 better than people gave it credit for? No. it was a trend chasing, boring, repetitious, Michael Bay wannabe game that really is best used to better appreciate RE7. Except Leon's campaign, play Leon's campaign and then stop, it's the only good one.

For beginners and newcomers alike, with a killer ost and stunning graphics. Guilty Gear Xrd, as in "third X" because the last game was XX pronounced X2 which came after Guilty Gear X it's very confusing, don't think about it. Anyway Xrd was the first game to come out on the PlayStation 4 and used the new hardware to its advantage and then some, sporting absolutely beautiful 3D models that look almost as good as the series old sprite animation, in a genre where making the dimensional leap often results is gross doughy models, think Street Fighter, ArcSys nailed it with its anime inspired style. Story wise, Sign picks up where Overture left off and remains the only reason you should ever play Overture. It follows Sol, Sin, Ky and newcomers Ramlethal and Elphelt Valentine, a name you'll recognise from the antagonist of Overture, see? Told you it was worth it. The story also includes the characters absent from Overture, namely Johnny and May, Venom, Millia and Zato-1, as well as Faust, Leo, Chipp and more, so the story feels notably less isolated than Overtures did. It also has absolutely zero gameplay, that's right, starting from Sign all the way till now with Strive, Guilty Gear comes with not only Daisuke's new soundtrack, but also his anime. The story is split up into chapters which all have an A and B part, which range about 25-30 minutes, so you could very much watch this like a season of anime if you wanted, and Arcade Mode is still there if you want a more traditional fighting game experience... Tekken... Looking at you... In terms of the online, I don't play fighting games online because I like being happy, so moving swiftly along. The game is unbeatable in terms of its graphics, soundtrack and performance. The game runs smooth as butter and works at 60fps, while ArcSys maintain an anime style, so characters move at around 24fps in keeping with that, and it does wonders for the games unique style. As for the soundtrack, I think the Xrd games had the best ost of the entire series up to that point, with Strive taking that mantle in my mind as of recent, but Sign is unmistakably badass, really gives the "Lets rock" tagline some extra oomph. While not my favourite in the series, Sign is up there as one of the most unique and artistically rich fighting game on the ps4, with a fun story, great fighting and superb sound design and musical tracks, and it only gets better from here.

I think RE7's graceful return to form is something worthy of the praise this titles received since its release in 2017, but while its changes are definitely something to be appreciated, especially after RE5 AND RE6 simply followed the grain of what was popular at the time, most of them fall flat in my opinion. Resident Evil 7 is the 800th entry in the long running Resident Evil franchise, and it's the first mainline game since the PlayStation 1 to focus solely on the horror, ever since Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube and PS2, the series has been going further and further into action, culminating in a visually loud yet shallow Resident Evil 6 back in 2012. The poor reception to which, made Capcom took a break from the series for 5 years getting their collective **** together for the next mainline entry, and they succeeded in bringing the series back to what made it standout in the first place. RE7 follow all around good guy, Ethan Winters, in a Blair Witch inspired first person Louisiana house looking for his wife Mia, in his search he meets such friendly faces as Jack Baker, the crazed, seemingly unkillable patriarch of the family, who is as funny in his dialogue as he is absolutely terrifying in gameplay. Marguerite Baker, the weird bug lady person who's dedicated section had my skin crawling with all the creepy buzzing sounds and bugs, Lucas Baker, who's just kind of insane, Grandma, who is Grandma, and Zoe Baker, your only friend and kind of hot partner in the Baker house... Look I'm not saying Ethan should've saved her over Mia I'm just saying I'd have liked to without getting the bad ending. This lovely Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired family will be your main adversaries in the game and the only ones worth mentioning because the Molded honestly kinda ****. While I love the game, I can't help but think I'd have liked it more if it wasn't in first person, it's not terrible but considering the REmakes we got around the same time with RE2 and RE3 which were third person, I can't help but want that for these games too. Capcom not helping matters with their weird adamant refusal to show Ethan's face so we can "project ourselves onto him" well he has a wife so already I can't do that, and besides, I don't want to project myself onto Ethan I want Ethan to be his own character, the reason Chris, Leon, Jill and Claire are so beloved is because they're all their own larger than life characters, screw Ethan's relatability, Chris is a special forces officer, turned anti Bio Organic Weapon soldier WHO PUNCHES BOULDERS AND HAS A HOT SISTER, that's what I want in my main character, not to feel like ME, I don't like ME, I like CHRIS REDFIELD. All that being said, Resident Evil 7 is a great game and though Capcom fell short of following it up in the recent Resident Evil 8, I hope RE9 goes back to a primarily horror focus and we can all bond over our mutual love of pissing ourselves terrified.

Obsidians magnum opus falls just short of pure perfection because of Bethesda's intervention. I adore this game, after playing both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, I was certainly a fan, and after hearing how much better New Vegas was, I picked it up as soon as I could and while I admit it took a little while for it to click, when it did click, boy it sure did click. Fallout New Vegas, set in the Mojave wastes is a game that both improves and builds upon what Bethesda did with Fallout 3, and while it's still held back by technical limitations and time constraints, New Vegas is nothing short of a masterpiece. Obsidians work here is amazing, there are so many moving parts all working in tandem to create a world that feels far more alive than Washington, or even the Commonwealth or Virginia in its successors. It's truly something that needs to be experienced first hand to truly understand. The main factions in the game consist of The New California Republic, Caesars Legion and Mr. House, all of which feel fleshed out and real. The NCR are the closest thing in the wasteland to an old world government, trying to bring everybody together to create a new world like the old one, however they're struggling, they're spread too thin and can't keep the peace, many people in the Mojave don't agree with their tax laws and government, but maybe you could turn that around, or if taxes aren't your thing, there's always Caesars Legion, a Neo Roman empire built off the ideals of Rome, they want to unite the wasteland under a single banner, to become one, no matter how many people they have to butcher, crucify, enslave or torture to get there. They're inarguably the most "evil" faction, but if you like 300, and crucifixion, do I have a faction for you! Thirdly is House, definitely the smartest of all the faction leaders, smart enough to make his army out of subservient robots rather than people, and smart enough that he's the only one with a real plan, but his plan only includes the New Vegas Strip, the rest of the wasteland is left to fend for itself while House builds his personal empire. Finally there's... You, the final faction is you, and a very nice Robot called Yes Man, together you can help free the Mojave of the NCR, the Legion and House, creating an independent wasteland. The reason I've spent so long describing each faction, is because this is where I feel New Vegas shines the brightest, each faction is painted in varying degrees of grey, nobody is necessarily good, it's all about who's the least bad, which is a question still generating discussion even today, nearly 11 years later. In short, this is why I think Fallout New Vegas is such a special game, the only reason I haven't scored it a straight 10, is because... well it's kinda broken beyond belief. See Obsidian weren't exactly given all the time in the world to create New Vegas, so while I still believe it's a masterpiece, it's very much an unpolished masterpiece. Enemies warping through the floor, body parts disappearing, entire questlines bugging out and becoming unfinishable, all here and accounted for, I sure hope you like spending over 20 hours one game only for your desired Faction to randomly become inaccessible because an essential NPC refuses to talk to you, because that's happened to me, and it's not fun. This is something that can be fixed on PC with mods, but unfortunately for us console peasants, these are potentially game breaking, and because of that I can only ever recommend you play Fallout New Vegas on PC, the Console experience is just too unstable. Overall, New Vegas is a masterclass of the RPG genre, it's the best Fallout post-Bethesda buyout and likely will be forever, a game I can go back to endlessly and talk about even more.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Resident Evil Village is a great 4 hours... unfortunately, Resident Evil Village is 8 hours long, not 4. I loved the first half of this game, it's scary, tense and invokes RE4 with its setting amazingly, making your way through the titular village is a bone chilling experience because you never know what kind of horrific beastman will jump out at you next, and the next two areas, being Castle Dimitrescu and House Beneviento, are phenomenal, especially the latter, with that freakish baby thing, ugh I love it. However once you finish that first half, it slowly starts degrading in quality, The Swamp and The Factory range from boring to awful, and the latter half of The Factory really just wears me out, the entire area was frustrating and lasted far too long in my opinion, with a discount Chainsaw Guy that I didn't find half as scary or intimidating as the Chainsaw Guy, it also has discount Regenerator because every bloody Resident Evil game needs one apparently. As for The Swamp... well it's a swamp level, it ****, they all do, screw Swamp levels. Where the game shines is The Four Lords, Heisenberg was my favourite, I found his voice acting so fun, his actor delivers every line with enthusiasm just too good for this game, I still find myself quoting him almost daily. Lady D was also cool in a Mr. X kind of way, she's not quite as imposing as Mr. X, but she certainly outshines Nemesis from the RE3make. Unfortunately Donna Beneviento isn't given any lines or anything to do really, but her doll thing Angie is at least interesting, if you like Chucky, you'll like her, then there's Moreau... anyway. Gameplay is what you'd expect after RE7, nothing new, except it feels generally better. Visually the game looks great, I played on a ps4 pro with Performance mode on, but even then the game was still beautiful looking, in a gory kind of way. I know it's been said a million times, but what the hell is with Chris? OK, I get it, he didn't want Ethan involved, I get it, but why not tell him what's going on at the swamp? he's already involved at that point, and he's not likely to leave now, how would he leave anyway? with the car he doesn't have? It makes no sense for Chris not to tell him after he's already gotten involved. On top of that, Chris is such an uncharacteristic jerk in this game, I get wanting to hide things from Ethan, but do you have to be such a **** about it? Even Chris' new team calls him out, Chris acts like Fake Ada does in RE6, only this is the real Chris, and it's really odd. My real issue with the game is the switch to action halfway through, this combined with the RE4make has me worried, I'm worried Capcom will slip back into "horror bad action good" when RE8 does horror, it's amazing, but when it does action, it's fine, good sometimes, but not what I want out of Resident Evil. With an RE4 remake and RE9 looking like it'll focus on Chris, I feel like we're going into another dark age with this series, I hope I'm wrong but Capcom are no strangers to letting me down.

Breath of The Wild was only my second Zelda game after Ocarina of Time 3D, but even I could tell the game was a far cry from the basic Zelda formula, which both adds and subtracts from the experience in my opinion. Fist of all.. oh baby this game is stunning, given the Switch's... relatively weak power output, many games have resigned themselves to unique art style > realism, which may be why I love the little thing so much, BoTW's art style is gorgeous, I found myself stopping in the middle of playing and just admiring the way the light reflected off the grass, or how the ruins of Hyrule looked from atop a mountain, it's so picturesque and I love every moment of exploration because of it. In stark contrast to the beautiful visual design, I found myself very disappointed in the audio, it's all ambiance, except for combat and Hyrule Castle, and I didn't really notice before I got to Hyrule Castle and noticed a remix of the old Overworld theme and it was beautiful, but it made me realize how barren the rest of the world is, in a bad way. some chirpy exploration music would have been nice, I know everything is in ruins and it's meant to be sad, but come on, something would have been nice. I hate to complain but, this version of Link, may be my least favourite of the 3D games. From Wind Waker onward Link has always been so expressive, and in a world with actual voice acting, you'd think Link would either have voice acting as well, or be EVEN MORE expressive than in Skyward Sword... he is not. Link barely emotes at all, even at the very end of the true ending after recovering all of Links memories and reuniting with Zelda, he doesn't even smile, he just stands there like a cute cardboard cutout. He doesn't react to fighting Ganon, he doesn't react to seeing long dead friends, he doesn't react to getting the Master Sword. I just hope this is fixed in the sequel, I've heard Link is quite expressive in Age of Calamity but I have yet to play that, so... hopefully it's fixed in the sequel. Link aside, the rest of the characters are pretty great, I love Zelda in this, almost as much as Skyward Sword Zelda or Tetra, watching her struggle is so grounding. Zelda has always felt so far away with Tetra being the exception, even in Skyward Sword, she quickly outpaces you and in Twilight Princess she's barely even there, but here, you feel so close to her. Though less so with the Old Champions, I still felt close to them too, Mipha has funky voice acting but she's endearing nonetheless, and for some reason the second fish woman to fall for Link, not sure why, Rivali is fun in the "I hate you" kind of way, I can't help but like him, but I'd really like to know how the Rito and Zora exist at the same time when the RIto evolved from the Zora to adapt to the new world after the goddesses flooded Hyrule. I want Urbosa to step on me, that is all. Daruk is fun, I enjoy the big older brother type, and I know "brother" is a speech quirk all Gorons have, but I still like hearing it from him. Likewise I found the new Champions quite endearing, none of them stand out to me, but hey, at least they're alive. Now for some totally original complaints that haven't been echoed a millions times already. Weapon degradation to too high, I don't like feeling nervous about using big cool shiny weapons I worked for, same goes for shields, but why can the Hylian Shield break? Isn't it meant to be the best shield? So doesn't breaking kind of negate that fact? The Master Sword doesn't break, even if it needs to recharge every few uses, at least it doesn't BREAK, what does that mean for the canon? is every Hylian Shield after this a replica?? I NEED ANSWERS NINTENDO! Next the dungeons, why aren't there any? The Sacred Beasts are fine, but get stale in design very quickly, none of their gimmicks are very interesting and the most fun part about them is how you get inside them, and the Shrines don't really make up for them either. And the story, why is all of it in Age of Calamity? There's a big story bit at the start, then some 40 hours later, a big story bit at the end, the middle is so empty, too empty, especially if you don't get all the memories or do all the Sacred Beasts, it's just disappointing. Overall, I love this game, it's not personally my favourite Zelda game, nor do I think it's the best one, but it's definitely up there, it's fun and that can't be understated, the art is great, the story -when it actually bloody shows its face- is so enthralling, and the world is just breathtaking, no pun intended. I just wish it had better dungeons, a more expressive Link and some more prevalent music, those aside, one of the best games on the Switch, easily.

Little Nightmares has great visual and audio design, but it woefully held back by its controls and glitches. I fell in love with this game the moment it started, I loved the art style, I loved the contrast between you character Six and the environment, being so big and imposing, much like a nightmare where you're tiny and helpless, a minute in and I already loved it... Then I kept playing. The game is 2.5D in that everything is 3D, but you're in a 2D plain... most of the time. Because you can move vertically and horizontally, any time the game has you walk across something, you have a 60% chance of falling off and starting over, with checkpoints that just don't care about you or your fun and will sit you back entire sections. In the same vein, enemy encounters can go from tense and blood bumping, to downright infuriating. Without spoiling a game from 2017, the final section with The Janitor, Mr. Tickles himself, glitched for me, and when pulling the box, he would grab me no matter what, rather than the box like he's meant to, however I reloaded and tried again and low and behold, it worked first try. There's also an issue with warping into enemy hands, sometimes I'll be real life inches away from the hand, and Six will just warm right on back and into their hands, which of course did carry over into the DLC. The puzzles and general gameplay otherwise, is very good, never TOO easy, but never frustratingly hard either, I never felt hopelessly lost and confused, but also never felt bored either. That being said, occasionally the controls can still screw you over and despite me holding down the trigger for dear life, Six will instead hug a wall, or stare at a grabbable object, the game also liked the bug out with these as well. At one section in the second dlc, I had to climb a drawer, and couldn't, I was running up to it and jumping, jumping underneath it, jumping a little ways away, nothing... reloaded the game and did it, luckily the dlc checkpoints are a bit more forgiving. Like I said earlier, design wise the game is phenomenal, The Nightmare Before Christmas is my favourite movie ever,, so hearing the game invokes his and Tim Burtons works, made me very excited, and the inspiration is apparent, it's very similar to something like Coraline but gross and bloody, and I adore it. Sound wise the game is also great, the crunching bone noises of when The Janitor catches you and the bone chilling shrieks of the Twin Chefs when they see you fill me absolute dread, almost as much dread as knowing I'll have to sit on a loading screen for about 1 minute. Yeah that's another issue, it's probably just an issue with The Switch port, but the loading screens are so damn long, it makes failure less of a learning experience and more of an opportunity to browse Reddit. My final complaint and praise, comes from the final part of the game, lets get the negativity out of the way so we can end on a high note. The ending is incomprehensible, it takes its minimalist story telling too far and leaves you confused as opposed to intrigued, what makes this kind of story telling work, are clues and hints, little breadcrumbs to get you theorizing, but Little Nightmares doesn't do that, it just leaves you confused. Luckily the dlc goes some way to explain what the little Gnome boys are, so that's appreciated. Now for the good part, LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE. I love walking through the final section of the game, all the disgustingly obese guests eating children, and when they see you and start chasing you is perfect, some of the few chase sequences I like in the game, mainly because you know the consequences, they want to eat you and you gotta get the hell out of dodge, it's amazing. It's visually, audibly and for once, actually great to play, and culminating into a final boss that's fun, creepy and not too terribly difficult, I love it. The DLC episodes are pretty much of the same quality, but these focus more on puzzle solving than monster chasing, so I just tend to get less headaches playing it, though still not perfect, I did warp into enemy hands a couple times and again, The Drawer. Overall very good, I like the gameplay mechanic of using the gnomes, the sequence with The Janitor in the dark is genuinely scary, and the ending twist is great, I like it way more than the main game. Overall, the game is good, but JUST good, the more I played the less I liked it, I've yet to play Little Nightmares 2, but I certainly will, I just hope it controls a little better.

Borderlands 2 is a masterclass in writing and to a lesser extent gameplay, giving us fan favourite characters like Zer0 and Maya, expanding upon the stories of the first games Vault Hunters, giving us the best villain in the series and some of the best side characters to date. I'll level with you, I'm biased here, real biased. BL2 was the first Borderlands I finished, after playing BL1 and deciding I hated it because I chose Lilith and didn't how to play her at all, I picked up BL2... and decided I hated it because I chose Zer0 and didn't how to play him at all BUT then I went back when BL3 was announced and played Axton instead, a far more basic character, played through the game, and loved it to death, I thought the writing was hilarious, I loved Jack and anticipated his next ECHO call, and I loved the Crimson Raiders despite barely knowing who they were because again, I dropped BL1 in like 2 hours. The gameplay in BL2 is just a much more refined version of the gameplay in BL1, but hot damn is it refined. Guns feel unique, turning Psycho's and Bandits into a red mist is amazing, and it never gets dull, the game is noticeably longer than the first yet never feels old or tiresome like Borderlands 3 or The Pre-Sequel, it justifies its length in gameplay and story and feels worth every hour. Learning to play a more unique character like Maya or Zer0 multiplies this fact, though they had their Siren and Assassin counterparts in BL1 in Lilith and Mordecai, they still feel unique, also Zer0 has a sword... He brought a sword to a gunfight, that's gangster as f*ck. Other characters include Salvador, the shortstack "Gunzerker" who I love very much for his character alone. Axton the generic Shooty Man with a turret, who I ended up having way more fun playing than I thought I would, he also did the LGBT Soldier Bro years before Blizzard with Soldier 76, which is a small win for me personally, and a pleasant surprise because we share a sexuality. Then there's Gaige, who has a f*cking Robot, so that's pretty bloody metal. Finally there's Krieg, who is a Psycho with an Axe... what more need be said? The Writing in Borderlands 2 is definitely the peak when it comes to mainline games, personally I think Tales is the overall funniest but that's just me. Everything from Jack naming a diamond horse "Butt Stallion" in honour of you, to Jack -again- asking you to commit suicide for money, which you can do, and yes he does pay you, is all hilarious. It's not just comedy however, there are some genuinely heavy scenes that tug at the heart strings, Jack even pleads with you at one point, and despite being undoubtedly evil, it made me feel bad, in no short part due to Dameon Clarkes unforgettable performance. Overall premise isn't much to write home about, Jack bad, Hyperion bad, go kill Jack, go to Vault, you win. It's more about the character interactions and what actually happens within the story, but like the first game, your immediate motivation isn't really much beyond "GO VAULT" which works well enough for a Vault Hunter I suppose, it's just one of the very few things I think the Pre-Sequel did better... it's the only thing I think the Pre-Sequel did better. Borderlands 2 was superb when it released, and it's superb now, if you played BL3 and enjoyed it to any extent, I can't recommend Borderlands 2 enough

Borderlands 2 left me feeling complete and happy, Borderlands 3 left me frustrated and tired. BL3 is a step back in almost every regard, the writing that BL2 set and Tales perfected has gone down the drain, and in its place is an incessant cringe humour that never seems to take a break, for every good joke, there's 10 bad ones. The standout good writing comes squarely in the form of older characters like Hammerlock and Lilith, almost everybody else is just painful. Where BL2 had one of the best written antagonists in video game history, BL3 has Twitch Streamers who never seem to shut the f*ck up. Troy and Tyreen might be my most hated characters in this entire franchise, and I can't stand that little b*stard in the Pre-Sequel who calls his dad every time you go within a 5 mile radius of him on the Moon. They just make me groan with every line, they talk like 12 year olds imitating their favourite e-celebrity, though BL2 had immature humour, "butt stallion" comes to mind, what made it funny was the context. Handsome Jack is a billionaire psychopath who murders people for fun, and he calls you up and names a horse "butt stallion" just to mock you, it's funny, Troy saying "you eat butts" is not funny, it's stupid. Last on my chopping block is Ava, oh this little cretin is just the worst. Ava is a character with which the sun revolves around according to this game, getting a beloved character killed, blaming Lilith for this for almost the entire game, and finally being entrusted with Sanctuary at the end of the game, without ever being told off or reprimanded for her bratty behaviour, she's a constant source of annoyance and she's only ever rewarded for it, it's infuriating. With characters out of the way, lets talk about the Gameplay; it's good, it's fun, fast, chaotic and if you're on a PS4 Pro or PC, the game runs very smoothly, it's a fun game that sees your efforts constantly rewarded with great, unique guns and a very quick Level Up process, complete with a very diverse range of options for your Character Build, personally I'm about as skilled as a **** with hands glued to it, so I played The Operator and mainly focused on upgrading my damage resistance and my Drone and Clone abilities, which made me a very Tanky boy who almost never died, and even when I went into the Down State, my Drone or Clone would be able to kill an enemy and get me right back up. Story wise, it's nothing special, Twitch Kids are doing evil **** so go stop 'em, and for the most part, it's a fairly enjoyable ride, until around the last third, which drags on and on and on AND ON AND ON. It never ends, there's even a part where you say goodbye to everybody and you fight the twins, and the game just sorta... keeps going, it's really poorly paced and ruins the last 15 hours with boring, fetch quest BS, it leaves a horribly sour taste after a fairly enjoyable game and ruins the entire experience. And that ending... oh god that ending... Overall, BL3 while better than The Pre-Sequel, is worse than every other game in the series, the writing isn't there in quality or comedy, and not even the gameplay can save it from being a, annoying, irritating game filled to the brim with middle fingers to fans of the previous games, I never thought I'd wish for retcons, but oh boy I really hope some of this stuff gets retconned.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Finally, my favourite game in the series. Guilty Gear XX is a gift from god himself Daisuke and we don't deserve this gift of a fighting game, beautiful sprites, the best soundtrack in the series pre-Strive, a VERY lengthy story mode and of course... anime hijinks. Admittedly this game isn't perfect, it has SOME quirks that I guess I'll talk about out of obligation and my reviewing integrity for the 8 people who'll see this. GGXXAC+R which is the best acronym ever by the way, has a Story Mode, kinda, it's just a glorified Arcade Mode, but it's very good mostly, the downside is the Path mechanic. To explain, Paths determine which ending you get, only one of which is canon, if any are at all, and you lock into these paths through certain choices you make or ways you beat the AI, for instance, some require you OHKO your opponent, some require you beat your opponent in a set amount of time, others need you to win without getting KO'd and NONE OF THESE ARE TOLD TO YOU IN GAME, you need to just keep playing forever until you get lucky and do it, despite how fun the gameplay is, I've fought I-No 49 times now and I'll be honest, her side-boob win pose has lost its APPEAL... ok no it hasn't it's still really hot. Now that I've **** thoroughly, lets **** a little more, GGXXAC+R 2.5 HD Remix Birth By Sleep doesn't really accomplish anything plot wise, it's kind of like GOOD filler, it doesn't do anything important, but it's fun because you love these characters and their individual stories, but the story is put on hold until Overture, and that game **** so maybe they were onto something here. Anyway the story is as follows; After the bounty hunt for Dizzy The Sexually Active 3 Year Old, she was entrusted to side character Johnny by Ky and Sol, Johnny leads a group of cute anime girls right out of a Moe blob anime called the Jellyfish pirates, including May, another side character and my mortal enemy with that blasted dolphin. Anyway, Dizzy is throw overboard because I-no can't stop being a terrible person, and the hunt for Dizzy starts again, she's eventually taken in by Ky, who does indeed marry and have a child with her, what's the legality of banging a 3 year old Gear who has physically and mentally matured into adulthood? I try not to think about it. The story is fine, but the focal point really is the character interaction around it and something you should experience first hand, GGXXAC+R-H=GT is a great game, it's almost perfect but it has its quirks, I heavily recommend playing Story Mode, but only with a walkthrough so you know how to get the canon endings, but otherwise, it's great go play it, RIGHT NOW

Guilty Gear finally comes into its own, and it's pretty f*cking cool. While Guilty Gear OG was weird and limited and felt too ambitious for it's time, Guilty Gear X is a roaring success taking everything that made Guilty Gear charming and cranking it up to 10, the sprites actually look god in motion here, the characters finally start becoming interesting outside of the supplementary materiel, the music rocks and the gameplay is fun and addictive. Introducing one of my favourite characters, Dizzy, the games story is a fun video game romp, which is all I can really ask for from a fighting game. It revolves around the big tiddy 3 year old that is Dizzy (yes that is canon) and her being a Gear, with all our favourite maniacs hunting her for the bounty or for their own personal reasons, and of course, hijinks ensue. Unfortunately it is a fighting game so... yup that's it. Guilty Gear X is a true accomplishment and deserves more love from that masses, a brilliant sprite based game, rocking music and a fun story tied together with it's remarkably fun gameplay, but... it can be better.

The original Guilty Gear is... fine, it's fine. GG shows a commendable amount of passion however due to it being a first in a series and the hardware limitations, it falls short. While the music is good, the rest of the sound effects are compressed to hell and back for the ost, the sprites are good looking while stationary, but start looking very off when in motion and the gameplay is fine, but now that it's on the Switch, with what is ostensibly the best fighting game ever made; Guilty Gear XX, the cracks show and it becomes very unattractive Guilty Gear has a lot of charm and a lot of heart, while it's not a game I ever go back to, it is one I respect a lot and it warms my cold black heart knowing Daisuke and his team made something of this dinky little ps1 game.

Do you like Guilty Gear? Do you like fast fun action game combat? Yes? Don't play this game. Guilty Gear 2 is a weird gross amalgamation of Dynasty Warrior gameplay and RTS gameplay, and it does neither of these things well. Lets start with the Warriors side of the game, GG2 tries to translate the fighting game moves into this 3D space, and it simply does not work, sure Sol has all his cool fighty moves but none of them feel good, and that's mainly because of this input method. Unlike in the good games, moves in this game are input by either, feverishly spamming the X button and praying, or locking on to single enemies and using directional inputs combined with the X and Y buttons, you're not doing anything, you're just holding down and Y and Sols just doing his uppercut now, cool I guess. Combat also doesn't feel good in practice either, there's no feedback, everything feels like you're hitting air, and if your Dynasty Warriors rip off doesn't have satisfying weighty feedback, you've already failed. Next is the RTS gameplay, it's useless, it's a waste of time and in certain missions you can ignore it altogether and just make a mad dash to the enemy base and win. That's all I wish to say about the RTS gameplay. This games ONLY saving grace is the fact that it's a Guilty Gear game. Sol, Sin, Ky and newcomers Izuna and Dr. Paradigm are wonderful characters with tons of personality, some of the best scenes are between Sin and Ky, and Ky's final line of the game where he drops the formalities and tells Sin he can "do whatever 'the hell' you want" is heartwarming. Sols story with That Man and Valentine is just as interesting as ever, although Valentine is pretty underdeveloped, she serves her purpose well, and the end boss against her is the only even slightly challenging part of the game. This story is far more isolated than X or XX since it only focuses on a handful of characters while characters like Chipp, Millia, Zato-1, Slayer or May are completely absent, and though Dizz- I-I MEAN "the maiden of the grove" makes a cameo, she doesn't do anything because she is a statue... yup. This is also where we learn Ky and Dizzy are married, and the scene where he admits it is a perfect mix of funny, sweet and really cheesy. Overall, GG2 is a game you can, and should skip, I can only recommend watching the cutscenes on YouTube, I sincerely don't believe it's worth the 4-6 hours it takes, it has cute and feel good character interaction, a fairly interesting story and it bleeds into Xrd nicely, but its gameplay does not do its writing Justice at all. p.s apparently the Multiplayer is good, but I've not got the heart to start this game up again to see if the servers are even still active, and besides, who the hell would play this with me anyway?

Polygonal Perfection Final Fantasy 7 is one of those games we've all sort of unanimously agreed in horribly overrated, but still one of the best games we've ever played. Its usage of everything that made the previous games so special combined with an interpersonal story about identity and death make it something worthy of recognition. Much like the rest of the PS1 era, FF7 is more about its characters than anything else. Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith and everybody make this game what it is, even the disgustingly janky polygonal art style can't ruin how beautifully these characters are written, even the optional characters, Yuffie and Vincent are written in such a way you'd be mistaken for forgetting they're optional, hell Vincent got his own spin off for Seventh Heavens sake. Though everybody is written immaculately, Cloud is where this writing shines, though FF9 is my favourite, even I must yield to how amazing Clouds writing his. His story revolves around his identity and the identity crisis he goes through as a result of the story and events before it, I won't spoil it here because I think it's something you really should experience first hand, particularly through this game, since the Remake kinda spoils it early on and it's a reveal better placed later in the story. Combat is Final Fantasy combat, not much to say really, it feels good and it's as fun as turn based can be but if it doesn't please you, luckily the HD Remaster has Cheats that let you bypass the combat and just enjoy the story, though I do recommend you at least give it a go and see if you like it first. The music in FF7 is truly amazing, Uematsu really outdid himself with 7's ost, everything from Bombing Mission to One-Winged Angel is a delight, every time I go back and play this game I always find myself humming along to The Oppressed or The Turks, and no matter how many times I get into Random Encounter fights, Fight On! never gets old, and hey the entire OST is on Spotify now, so we can finally headbang to Those Who Fight Further on the train... As long as you don't mind the glaring anyway. The story is somewhat unremarkable when taken on its own, it's good, just not GREAT, however when combined with the Prequel game Crisis Core and the Sequel movie Advent Children, it really is quite special, I recommend playing FF7 proper first, then at some point going through again with Crisis Core and Advent Children on either side of the game, it really does make it much more engrossing. My only real complaint is... the graphics, good god this game is ugly, the shift from the NES to the PS1 was not kind to poor old FF7, character models look ridiculous with their stupid blocky stub hands and their dead expressions, especially when placed right between FF6 which looks stunning and is real eye candy to those of us who like Sprite based graphics, and FF8 which didn't look great when it released, but with the HD Remaster on modern hardware, really does look quite beautiful, it just exemplifies how atrocious FF7 looks. Overall, despite its shortcomings, FF7 is still an easy 10 in my mind, perhaps its my own bias because FF7 was the first proper JRPG I played, or maybe I've simply been indoctrinated by the internets love of this game, whatever the case, I truly do love Final Fantasy 7 and urge you all to play the original at least once.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Almost Perfect Being the Persona game that first introduced many of the standout features we all know and love in the modern games, Persona 3 will obviously suffer from a big of "first game syndrome" and feel pretty clunky. For example; there are no S. Links with any male party member, Akihiko, Junpei, Ken for the 3 people who like Ken, none of them have links. Your female party members however, all DO have Links, only... it's treated like a romance option, the only way to max out any female social link (with a few exceptions) is to romance them, which makes things a little awkward. Party members aside S. Links are pretty hit or miss, some like Akinari are great, others, like Kenji, are downright unbearable, it seems like an even split between great S. Links and Kenji. Social aspects aside, the story and characters are superb, some of the best in the series, and certainly the best of 'Neo-Persona'. Each party member has their own arc where they all overcome some kind of personal struggle, so far so run of the mill, but it's how these characters in particular act, their individual writing is captivating, especially when arcs intertwine, like Ken, Akihiko and Shinji, or Mitsuru and Yukari, even your gormless protagonist has a pretty interesting story, that I won't spoil here, even though we are talking about a ps2 game here. The villains are where this story falls apart, 'Strega' may be the most forgettable group of "literally who's?" I've ever seen, Revolver Jesus, who's name I'm too lazy to google, is a jarring character, or lack thereof, he doesn't really DO anything, he shows up, says some fancy nonsense, and leaves, save for one very specific scene around midway through the game, his side kick is even worse, Jin REALLY doesn't do anything, he shows up with R. Jesus, condescends to you, and sometimes serves as the easiest Boss fight in the game, rinse and repeat a couple times, the final member Chidori, would be the worst offender, if not for her connection to Junpei, otherwise, she's a bland goth girl for people who like bland goth girls I guess. I don't know how we get some of the best main characters in S.E.E.S and some of the worst villains in Strega in the same game, the big bad, Nyx is at least kind of interesting, so there's that. Combat ranges from "this is fine" to "AKI YOU HAVE ZIO! USE ZIO WHY DID YOU USE SONIC PUNCH?!" this is because your party is entirely AI controlled, you can influence their AI with a Tactics option but this functions as more of a "suggestion" and can occasionally break the game, I once had Aigis set to "Conserve SP" and no matter what I did she refused to fight AT ALL, even if I changed her to "Act Freely" she stood there like she was short circuiting or something, I had to leave Tartarus and come back the next night. Your lack of control isn't always detrimental to your success, typically the AI will do the smart thing but every now and then it'll do something incredibly dumb and there's nothing you could have done to stop it. Overall, the game is good, but not without its flaws, the AI works in mysterious ways, but will almost always work well enough, the characters are great, save for the villains, and the social aspects are very hit or miss, but when they hit, they hit HARD, sometimes emotionally, and you will cry... a lot. Persona 3 is a game I can easily recommend to any Persona fan, just be aware how far the series has come since and that you're playing a Playstation 2 game and you should be just fine.

A genuinely remarkable group of games which should be on your radar no matter who you are. Ace Attorney is a series I can recommend to almost anybody, you like a good read? Even one of these games is longer than your standard novel and will keep you enthralled for almost the entirety of its runtime. You an anime fan? Well you'll love the games anime-esque character design. You like crying your eyes out over incredibly emotional and hard hitting stories? You'll love the third game in particular, but the third game relies heavily on your knowledge of the first two, so have fun playing them. The only flaw with the games is that each game has "third case syndrome" which means the third level, or "case" as the series calls them, is often very slow, boring and feels a lot like filler because of its lack of plot significance, Roundabout Big Top, the third case of the second game is particularly bad. The original sprite work also suffers a tad, while originally they were sprites and were obviously pixilated, now that they've been given a HD redo, they can look a little empty in certain poses, like there's missing detail. Not a huge issue, certainly a nitpick, but with a series so amazing, it's hard to find gripes that aren't nitpicks In my opinion, the series positives outweigh the negatives tenfold, the story, the music, the characters, the music, the art, did I say the music already? It's all so fantastic and more than worth your time, do yourself a favour and pick this trilogy up.

First off, only you can decide the monetary worth of anything, however, to me, no Melody of Memory is not worth full price, it offers far less story development than most other games, side games included, and the game itself has a lot of issues and would have been far more appropriately priced at £30. Admittedly I'm biased because I love both KH and rhythm games, however this game has many undeniable flaws, first of all, on the Battle Stages, the most common type of stage, it can be very disorienting to play when the enemies are moving about so much, the path curves and bends, making certain obstacles hard to see, and your characters move around a lot too, these can make it incredibly hard to actually hit notes and can make playing certain stages on Hard an absolute nightmare. Another kind of Stage, a boss fight, can be just as bad if not worse, in these fights an in game recreation of a boss fight from a previous game will play out while you hit notes in the foreground, this is made very difficult by the fact the notes come from the left side of the screen and the bar to hit them is at the right leaning centre, meaning you have very little time to read and press the buttons accordingly. Another issue I've found in boss fights is how the battle can feel very random compared to your rating with the notes, for example. during one stage, I hit all the notes most with an Excellent rating, the second highest rating in the game, yet I got hit a number of times and got a "good" rating, whereas the next time, I missed quite a few notes yet didn't get hit at all and received an "excellent" rating, so it seems totally arbitrary whether you do good or bad. The final kind of stage consists of you hitting notes over an FMV, these are the most traditional kind of songs and much more closely resemble something like Guitar Hero, I have found minimal issue with this stage and think it's the best, apart from getting stars, they're the only stages I play. The story itself can be beat in less than 10 hours and about 30 minutes of that is dedicated to story development, the other 9 and a half hours is Kairi recapping the series up to this point, ReMind included. As a Kingdom Hearts fan, this is incredibly disappointing, I know the series, I don't need to be retold the series, especially after the ps4 releases, this is unnecessary, it's really one of the only games in KH worth calling a "side game" much like Coded this can be skipped and the cutscene (singular) can be viewed on youtube with nothing of value lost. I can only really recommend KHMoM at a discounted price, IF you love KH Music as much as I do, I think this game could really benefit from some DLC, because as it stands, there are very few Disney songs and no Final Fantasy songs, there's also some glaring omissions like Face My Fears and ANY Pirates of The Caribbean song. While disappointing, I still enjoy this game and have 18 hours on it, and I intend to play more, but I do wish I could have at least £20 back

FE1 is only worth going back to if you're already a fan of the series. Much like many NES games, this simply doesn't hold up today, it's slow, tedious and unfair, it's too long for its own good, the only merit I can see from playing this game, is if you're curious about the beginnings of the series and Marth, otherwise steer clear, under no circumstances should this be your entry to the series, it has much more to offer later in life, if you absolutely have to play this, only play it on the Switch with the rewind feature. If you want to start playing Fire Emblem, start with either Fire Emblem 6, the first localised title, Fire Emblem Awakening which is often heralded as the best, or Three Houses the newest entry, after you've become acquainted with the series and decided you like it, only then should you play this game