LunarD3ATH

There's no such thing as a "bad" Pokemon game, but this one still isn't great. While there are a lot of really cool improvements, none more so than the open-world gameplay expanded from PLA, this game, even after the recent patch, has HORRIBLE performance. The pop-in, the dropped framerate, the terrible slow loading of assets when switching camera perspectives (such as when throwing a Poke Ball at a wild Pokemon in combat) are all jarringly bad and constant. I'm sure things will improve somewhat over time, as they at least want to iron out most of the performance issues, but even if they actually FOR ONCE fully fixed a Pokemon game to run well instead of just being good enough (PLA still crashes the game when shiny Giratina uses its signature move, btw; every single time), it is still UNACCEPTABLE for a game to be in this state at launch. There is no reason to have pushed this game out this soon in this state instead of just taking more time to develop it. Beyond the general incompetence Game Freak has shown over the years, this game release is just proof of their laziness.

There's no such thing as a "bad" Pokemon game, but this one still isn't great. While there are a lot of really cool improvements, none more so than the open-world gameplay expanded from PLA, this game, even after the recent patch, has HORRIBLE performance. The pop-in, the dropped framerate, the terrible slow loading of assets when switching camera perspectives (such as when throwing a Poke Ball at a wild Pokemon in combat) are all jarringly bad and constant. I'm sure things will improve somewhat over time, as they at least want to iron out most of the performance issues, but even if they actually FOR ONCE fully fixed a Pokemon game to run well instead of just being good enough (PLA still crashes the game when shiny Giratina uses its signature move, btw; every single time), it is still UNACCEPTABLE for a game to be in this state at launch. There is no reason to have pushed this game out this soon in this state instead of just taking more time to develop it. Beyond the general incompetence Game Freak has shown over the years, this game release is just proof of their laziness.

Anyone who says this game is the "best" or even remotely good is lying to you. Assume they're trolls. This game is a pile of **** and is the reason EA won the licensing war for the franchise's movie adaptation rights.

Harvest Moon is, unfortunately, a shovelware series these days. The name is used by Natsume, as they own the rights, but the actual developers of the long-standing Harvest Moon series are completely uninvolved in this **** of the franchise. Harvest Moon games post-Natsume-takeover of the IP are at best mediocre mobile ports and at worst complete and total rip-offs with little to no satisfaction in them. It is amazing just how bad they are, actually, it's almost an accomplishment, but don't mistake that as a "so bad it's good" sort of praise, because it is most certainly NOT. It's just boring. If you want a good farming title, look at some of the other amazing options out there. If you don't mind 2D graphics, **** Valley is an exceptional game. It has multiplayer, if you want to share your farm with friends, family members or your significant other, and is a very satisfying game to play with many hours of gameplay to squeeze out of it, not to mention replayability. Otherwise, check out any of the Story of Seasons games (several remakes of old Harvest Moon games use the new moniker), Rune Factory for a more fantasy experience, or maybe even the Square Enix title Harvestella. Any of these will give you more bang for your buck than any modern Harvest Moon title ever will. I promise you, Natsume is ripping you off. Don't buy anything from this franchise anymore. They haven't managed even a respectfully-done farming sim in I don't know how long and I doubt they will start now.

Shills making reviews now? These are FAR from the best Pokemon games ever made. In fact, they're low-tier and average *at best* but even that feels like it's giving Game Freak too much credit. Let's ignore the lies about needing more time to spend on animation and the drama of cutting out the national Pokedex and, worse than that, going a step further and making it impossible to get those Pokemon in-game AT ALL. Let's ignore that these games can be ugly in the wild areas and that your Pokemon don't follow you anymore, because the games are actually quite beautiful on the linear routes despite some pop-in. Let's ignore the technical issues. As long-time Pokemon fans, many of us have grown to expect some level of both quality and muck. Old, cool mechanics are tossed in the bin to make each game feel "special" and new features are added to differentiate the new ones from the old. Gen 3 and 4 had their own variation on contests that were great, for example, whereas Gen 6 had things like the Battle Maison and introduced Mega Evolutions. The latter of which was scrapped almost completely (may return someday, but they are not present in Gen 8). These games are still fun, but if you've ever played a Pokemon game before you WILL notice the untapped potential. These games were rushed out for no discernible reason, cutting a large portion of content and leading to very linear, bland route designs with no opportunities to explore (all of that exploration is thrown into the wild areas, which are not that interesting to explore beyond just seeing how it changes when you go from area to area). Many new Pokemon designs are very cool and I think they did a fantastic job with the regional forms they added, like Ponyta and Zigzagoon. A few shiny designs are quite interesting now that palette swaps are mostly a thing of the past, such as shiny Galarian Zigzagoon, but many are also quite boring and don't fit that well with their base form shinies, like Gigantamax Centiskorch. But I guess those are small complaints. Really it's just the fact that you're bound to see less to praise the game for and ultimately feel disappointed. In older games there was usually enough to make up for the older content being cut, some new gimmick that at least made things interesting. Now, not so much. Unless you really like making curry in the game, which I can't imagine why you would, there's not much going on. It's a good game, it's just not a very good Pokemon game. You'll have fun with it if you really try and give it a shot, but you're going to feel ripped off for full price, especially with the cost of the DLC being a whopping $30 extra, and even after the DLC there are still many of your old favorites that won't be available in the game at all. And from now on you'll have to get used to checking compatibility lists to determine if you can build your team the way you want with your favorite Pokemon because no game will ever include all of the old Pokemon, even though the models have been ready since the start of Gen 6. Seriously, what's the point of future-proofing models if you're just not going to use them?

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Can be annoyingly difficult in certain sections, and I've never been a fan of the stealth systems in the Metro trilogy, but they are all very fun games with engaging stories. Well worth your time if you want a survival shooter that lacks the more annoying "survival features" like hunger and thirst. You'll pay attention mainly just to your gas mask in order to avoid excessive radiation on the surface and use bullets as a currency to buy other things you need while continuing along a linear, but well-designed path towards the story's conclusion.

This is a fantastic game. Let's get that nailed in right out of the gate, because while I agree with the complaints about Nintendo's handling of cloud saves, individual islands and so on, I don't think that reflects so poorly on the game that it deserves to be review-bombed. Though I do believe review-bombing has its place and if it helps, then so be it, I won't object. This is the BEST Animal Crossing game. Period. It's not only visually stunning, it has tons of improvements large and small that have made this a joy to continue to play. Usually I'm done with Animal Crossing by now. I buy a copy, I play it for a month or two, then I drop it and rarely ever come back unless really bored and only for a few minutes, even for holiday events. But with the wide depth of customization options for your villager, your home and your island, this really is the most control we've ever had in an Animal Crossing game. To counter the negativity, let's point out some of the pros: First, you can customize your character right from the start, rather than getting random hair and face options. You have limited options at the start, but you can unlock more later and it's as simple as checking your face in a mirror to change literally any aspect of your little avatar's personal appearance. Storage items are linked to your house storage. Namely your clothing. So basically not only will your wardrobe serve as a wardrobe (even if placed outdoors), but so will your fridge, your cooler, your safe, etc. It's a little silly, but honestly it's a nice way of having a way of changing your outfit wherever you go while blending the furniture in. Don't want a wardrobe outside just to change? Put a fishing cooler by the shore or something. It's great. Second, you can place furniture items outside. This, combined with the much-touted island designer tool (place paths, pools or rivers of water and cliffs), allows you to make your town look the way you want it like New Leaf could only DREAM of achieving. Gone are the public works projects for a bench that take a whole day and a ludicrous amount of funding (and weird celebrations about a piece of furniture being delivered). Gone are the days of feeling like your town would take YEARS to look the way you want it to, with cheap paths that hitting the wrong button over would get rid of (though that feature is still there for custom design paths and I HATE IT; fix this, Nintendo). Now if you want to have a bench outside Able Sisters for your villagers to rest their buns, you just find a bench (or build one yourself with the handy new crafting system) and place it. That's it. You can even move it around like it was inside of your house. Third, as mentioned, CRAFTING. Many people were worried about this when it was introduced and there are valid complaints about it that even I have, but this is 100% a change for the better, it really is. Yes, your tools now break. And that ****. Especially since all tools break now and you can't even check durability, but making them is easy enough and that's only a small part of what this system offers. There are tons of basic, unique and holiday-oriented craftable items that you can make over and over if you're dedicated enough to find the recipes, the materials and make them. And since getting recipes is a daily affair (every day there will be a bottle on the beach with a random, hopefully new, recipe in it), you're going to discover tons of cool new stuff every week, as long as you keep turning Animal Crossing on and messing about. Fourth, Nook Miles. I don't think I've heard anyone complain about this. And no one should. It's nothing but a good thing to give you incentives to do stuff like fish, catch bugs, hunt fossils, talk to villagers, etc. It's encouragement in the form of "miles" to get you to play the game, where you can then redeem those miles for special recipes and items for yourself and your town. Custom phone case, fence recipes (fences are great for customization and another perk of the new game), furniture items, nook miles tickets to go to a randomized island and hunt collectible fish/bugs and resources. You'll first start off with static, one-time-only rewards like a couple hundred miles for catching 10 bugs, then a thousand or so for 100, then catch 200+ and you get 2,000 miles (along with titles for your villager's passport, if that at all interests you, which you also get miles for editing once). Then after paying off your vacation package with those earned miles, you can build a house and start earning miles in the form of daily, renewable objectives (shoot a balloon down for some miles or assess x number of fossils) so you never run out of things to keep working towards if you want to keep yourself busy. It's great motivation to keep playing, though eventually it does become a bit bland, I won't lie. Still, I like having it. I've run out of characters, sadly. It's a fun game.

A turn-based RPG that involves a lot of grinding (easily bypassed with cheats on emulators or using a Game Shark), but has a neat sprite-based overworld (compared to the 3D overworld of the first two Digimon World games) and 3D-modeled combat. Each digimon can earn numerous different digivolutions and you can store any three of those digivolutions to use, of any variety. You have to earn each digivolution, as (excluding Veemon), all of your rookie digimon only earn three forms through leveling alone and the rest must be earned by having appropriate stats and leveling your more powerful forms. In short, you can make Guilmon and Veemon into Beelzemon if he's your favorite and you want more than one for some reason, but this only shows during combat. You can equip your favorite digivolution for use at the start of combat. It's not immediately obvious how to do this, but you can access it from the status screen, then you just click over to the right and select which equipped form you want that digimon to start out as, assuming you have unlocked a new form at the time. Lastly, while the combat is fairly basic and without a walkthrough you'll probably get lost a lot in the story, it is relatively fun. I'd rate it lower, but as far as a Digimon RPG goes, it's about as good as it gets. It's not horrible, but isn't the pinnacle of gaming, either and it depends on what you want out of a Digimon game. If you want a glorified Tamagotchi simulator with combat, get the first game. If you want an RPG experience with digimon and a good mix of aesthetic, then get this one. If you want to fight with more than one digimon at one time like a Final Fantasy RPG, the second game might appeal more to you. It's not perfect, but it is enjoyable. Just don't go in expecting a flawless game. For what it is, it's fun. I won't lie, though, I liked it more as a kid because I had lower standards, but even so, I still play it and not because of nostalgia.

The gameplay is alright, but not all that enjoyable. I found myself pushing forward to see what would happen in the story, but by the time I got to the prison sequence, I started to realize this game's many flaws. First of all, there are way too many pointless minigames. They're not fun and some of them take a little longer than is necessary. Second, the hand-to-hand combat you are required to do in the prison is atrociously bad. Now, I get this isn't a modern game, but being able to counter would have made it passable. As it stands, you have to spend more time exploiting the invisible barriers that enemies stop being hostile past, tossing them into that are and then wailing on them as they walk back calmly to their patrol area. It's a mishmash of bad minigames, poor combat and frustrating fights. Like Sickle, who has too much health, does too much damage and you have to exploit him by grabbing him and punching when he breaks free, as he's vulnerable... or Tattoo, who has two invulnerable (yes you heard me, invulnerable) companions who will interrupt your fight with him. Your adrenaline recharges too slow, your hits don't do enough damage and are usually blocked or dodged and your enemies outclass you. The entire purpose of the game is to frustrate you. Screw this game, I'd rather play Retribution. I remember it being annoying, too, but at least it was fun. I'd rather toss this back in the $1 overstock room that I found it in. No wonder no one wanted it.

I wonder if anyone here, critics included, ever actually beat the game or if they just claimed to do so (IGN), because it's actually not possible. The game just loops not even a quarter of the way in. If you want to torture your gamecube by inserting literal garbage into it, why not just save some money and use what's in your trash? At least it'll be funny, whereas this game is just sad. Also I'm sorry for referring to it as a game. I know anyone who has ever played (or heard of) this game likely takes offense at that. I know I certainly do.

Absolutely one of the worst games I've ever played. Mainly because of how horribly unbalanced it is. It's a struggle to get through some of the EARLIEST levels, let alone the later ones where enemies will stomp you into the group by grouping up on you. It's highly repetitive and the only saving grace of this game was the variety of characters, which I don't even remember at this point, so it's not that great, either.

After buying this for $10 used on PS3 and replaying it, I felt like I would give a quick review. Might as well, since even morons who trash-talk David Cage/Quantic Dream games bother to do so. I'll keep it short. You will like this game if: - You like the premise **** entity being attached to a girl (Jodie) and (if you choose) running freely rampant around her. - If you enjoy a good story. Maybe not an award-winning story, but definitely an interesting one. - You enjoy Quantic Dream's other games. Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit, for example. You likely won't enjoy this game if: - You don't care for stories over gameplay. There IS gameplay and I liked it, but you're basically just an entity fiddling around with stuff and doing whatever you want around Jodie. You also help her out when she asks or even get in her way when you (Aiden) get jealous. Consider **** angel more than the actual player. You'll also control Jodie, but predominantly you are Aiden. - You like to have a lot of choices. There are choices, obviously, and you can even choose from about four different endings, but they're short and nothing special. The choices throughout the game won't leave a significant impact. The story continues regardless, but they're fun to make. Think of them as opportunities to shape Aiden's personality a little (vengeful or forgiving, caged animal or tame entity). This game isn't for everyone, but I will say definitively that it isn't bad. Those who rate it poorly just because it isn't their kind of game are wasting everyone's time. Ignore them and go for the facts, instead.